Biden Weakness In Sun Belt Tips Presidential Race Towards Trump

Split Ticket has published a useful analysisof the current state of the presidential race with rating changes reflecting polling giving former president Donald Trump a slight advantage over President Biden.

• Split Ticket: “Polls are now more relevant, given increasing proximity to the election. While the fundamentals of the race, which include the issue landscape, campaign cash levels, and candidate vulnerabilities, continue to favor Joe Biden, polling now gives Donald Trump a slight edge.”
• Split Ticket notes: “…our new ratings reflect current data, which points to a more Republican environment than the one we got in 2020.”
• The analysis identifies several dynamics contributing to the shift towards Trump including a fraying progressive coalition in Sun Belt states – in particular a weakness for Biden amongst Black voters in Georgia and Hispanic voters in Nevada and Arizona.
• Axios notes that top Democrats, including President Biden, are sceptical of the polling shift – adding that, “After Trump's 2016 expectation-defying win, pollsters and strategists made adjustments aimed at better capturing Trump supporters,” an adjustment which some Democrats believe may have led to a bias on the other side of the ledger.
• Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) said: "The polls showed that I was down when I entered my race. And polls didn't look that great for Angela Alsobrooks [in the Maryland Democratic Primary] a couple weeks ago."

Figure 1: Presidential Rating Changes, May 2024