Yes, we all know what a slimy organization Fox News is, but they actually do pretty good polling.
And yes, we all know it’s extremely early, and that polls for a contest more than a year away should be taken with a massive grain of salt and tend to be very inaccurate. But having said that, this poll illustrates an interesting (if sad) phenomenon ...
Fox News Poll: Ramaswamy rising, as DeSantis loses ground in GOP primary
Lots of other results in there, but here’s the good part:
The general election matchups currently show a 2024 squeaker. Support for Biden stays between 44-42% in hypothetical head-to-heads against each Republican tested, yet he tops all of them narrowly: Haley and Scott by 6 points, DeSantis by 5, Ramaswamy by 4, and Trump by 3. Each matchup is within or at the poll’s margin of error.
Yes you read that correct: Biden is beating everybody. Tweet from Political Polls:
Some of us might be surprised at the closest race being Biden-Trump. Trump has been indicted on 91 felony counts — right? How can Biden just be barely ahead of a criminal, and way ahead of non-criminals?
As I said, it’s way early. There’s obviously a name familiarity thing going on, and a ton of people pay little attention to politics. But I think there’s more to it than that. To wit, from a few days ago:
GOP sees turnout disaster without Trump
“The Trump voters, even from our polling, have pretty much said: ‘It’s Trump or bust,’” he said. “There’s a percentage of voters who won’t even vote Republican if he doesn’t get the nomination.”
Paleologos said it’s difficult for other Republican presidential candidates to “navigate” in this environment, and “Trump knows this.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll found that 52 percent of likely GOP voters are only considering Trump. Fifty-five percent of white voters without college degrees and 56 percent of nonwhite voters without college degrees said they were only considering Trump.
This is why it's going to be next to impossible for the GOP to win next year. If they don't nominate Trump, a huge portion of erstwhile republican voters will sit out the election. But if they do nominate Trump, he's likely to be a convicted felon by then, which will cause the non-Trump portion of the GOP to either vote 3rd party, skip the presidential ballot or maybe a few will even vote for Biden. No matter what the GOP does, they're screwed.
That’s why Biden is ahead. He’s not popular, but all of the alternatives are worse. The GOP will either nominate a criminal, or nominate somebody “boring.” Sadly, we’ve gotten to the point in American politics where a good portion of the populace would rather have an “exciting” criminal than a boring but competent person.