Genesis Brand’in the general election polling averages debuted last week, showing that the former Vice-President, Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, holds a big lead over the President, Trump-in-national surveys — about 10 percentage points as of 5:30 p. m., on Wednesday.
So how does Biden’the lead, stack up to those in the previous cycles? We are compared to his standing at this point is to use the previous presidential election by applying our polling average methodology to the polls from the past cycles. And as you can see in the chart below, both Biden”s poor support and suggestions over the Trump and are historically large, the largest of any fight since Bill Clinton in 1996.
Of course, there are still four months to go until Election Day, but the fact that He, you such a sizable lead — already bigger than the United Clinton”s largest lead over Trump, which have peaked at 7.5 points by the year 2016 is significant. Heck, even president Barack Obama has never led by more than 8 points in his 2008 national average, and that wound up being a blowout.
It’s not just Biden’the link that stands out, either; he’s also only one of three candidates to crack the 50 percent mark at this point in the cycle. (The other two were for Richard Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1984, both of whom were incumbents who went on to win landslide victories by 23 and 18 points, respectively.) It’s unlikely that He wins by that sort of margin, given our increasingly understood polarized politics, but it is a sign that there are fewer you you you you you can help, or third-party voters it is Trump to pick up to help is improve the his position. It also doesn’t bode well for Trump, if he is in the worst position of any incumbent since Jimmy Carter in 1980.
But before you declare Biden the winner, remember, his lead is not insurmountable. Polls closer to November, could very well show a race that is tightening. At this point, in the 1988 cycle, Michael Dukakis, led nationally by almost 5 points, and in 2000, George W. Bush was up by about 8 points. But Dukakis ended up losing by about 8 points in November, while Bush narrowly lost the popular vote. (I still won the Electoral College, thanks to the cable tv.)
So Trump still you have plenty of time to recover enough ground to win in the Electoral College, even if I loses the national popular vote — after all, he did it in the end of 2016. That said, if Biden”s current national lead, the hold steady, it would almost certainly neutralize Trump”s potential edge in the Electoral College. But the Dukakis and Bush, show us, a lot can change now, and between the month of November.
