Poll: Biden Leads Trump for First Time in a Month

Facts

• According to the latest Morning Consult poll, US Pres. Joe Biden has a one-point lead over his presumptive Republican challenger, former Pres. Donald Trump, in the 2024 presidential race at 44% to 43%.¹
• This is the first such result since early May in the weekly-updated tracker, as Trump's net favorability rating has been lower than Biden's for the sixth week in a row — and hit its worst level since late January.¹
• This comes as three other major surveys, namely I&I/TIPP, HarrisX, and Reuters/Ipsos, have all found different results after Trump was criminally convicted in Manhattan last month, including a tie in the first one.²
• Meanwhile, recent polls in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin have shown Trump leading over Biden in all seven battleground states.³
• A presidential candidate needs to secure at least 270 electoral votes — which are allocated among the US states based on population — to win the White House, regardless of the national popular vote tally.⁴
• As of Tuesday, FiveThirtyEight's combined polls-plus-fundamentals forecast indicates that Biden has a slightly higher chance of winning the presidential election than Trump at 53% to 47%.⁵

Sources: ¹Morning Consult Pro, ²Forbes, ³The Times, ⁴Newsweek and ⁵ABC News.

Narratives

• Democratic narrative, as provided by New York Times. The guilty verdict in the Manhattan hush money trial has already taken its political toll on Donald Trump as some voters were quick to reconsider their support for the criminally convicted former president. With both candidates locked in a tight race for the White House, this modest shift toward Biden may prove pivotal for his victory.
• Republican narrative, as provided by PJ Media. The Democratic lawfare campaign against Trump in a bid to prevent his return to the White House has backfired. First, the indictments bolstered support for the former president in GOP primaries. Now, hopes that a guilty verdict in the New York trial would help Biden in the race waned as support for Trump has grown stronger even in deep blue Virginia.

Predictions