Former President Donald Trump is already performing well in polls against President Joe Biden; however, he may be stronger than realized. This is a conclusion that could be drawn from a recent poll showing independents to be a much larger share of the electorate than commonly recognized. The reason this could benefit Trump — and make polls that are underweighting independents also be underestimating Trump’s support — is because, right now, independents are breaking decidedly for Trump.
Currently, there’s no shortage of evidence that Trump is beating Biden. According to RealClearPolitics’ Jan. 26 average of national polling, Trump leads 47.3 percent to 43 percent. Among the eight polls used for RCP’s average, Biden trails in them all; Trump’s current 4.3 percent margin is the largest since RCP began its averaging on Nov. 1, 2022; and Biden hasn’t had a lead since Sept. 11, 2023, when it was by 0.2 percentage points.
As bad as this news seems for Biden, the real news may be even worse. The reason is revealed by a recent Gallup poll (released on Jan. 12, 2024) that found that “[p]olitical independents continue to constitute the largest political bloc in the U.S., with an average of 43% of U.S. adults identifying this way.” That level ties the historic high recorded by Gallup in 2014. In contrast, both Democrats and Republicans came in much lower — both at 27 percent apiece.
Findings that Americans are not terribly enthusiastic about a rematch add additional credence for Gallup’s high level of independents: More respondents could be registering their displeasure by revising their party preference to independent.
If Gallup’s recent findings are correct, they are dramatically different from 2020 exit polling. Four years ago, independents made up just 26 percent of the electorate, while Democrats were 37 percent and Republicans 36.
Such a shift from 2020 is interesting on face value, but it could also be very important to the state of today’s race. To understand why, look at another recent poll.
A Messenger/Harris poll (conducted Jan. 17–21) found Trump leading Biden 48 percent to 41 percent. The two candidates’ partisan split was as follows: Trump received 90 percent of Republican support, 11 percent of Democrat, and 43 percent of independent; Biden received 4 percent of Republican support, 82 percent of Democrat, and 36 percent of independent.
Trump’s 7-percentage-point advantage among independents is important in its own right. However, it is even more so when you look at the Messenger/Harris poll’s weighting of its partisan breakdown: 37 percent Democrat, 36 percent Republican, and 25 percent independent.
This latest partisan breakdown is almost exactly that from the 2020 exit polling results. It is a logical assumption: weight the partisan breakdown of a rematch the same as the first contest.
But what if Gallup’s recent results are right for today’s partisan breakdown? Then the Messenger/Harris poll — and every poll that is underweighting independents — is also underestimating Trump support.
How much an effect this has can be seen by simply reweighting the Messenger/Harris poll’s partisan breakdown to Gallup’s latest findings (and keeping the Messenger/Harris poll’s same candidate preferences within the three partisan groups). The result is that Trump’s margin is 0.7 percentage points higher — giving Trump an almost 8-percentage-point lead.
If you think that additional bump doesn’t matter, then think back again to the 2020 race. Biden already had an overlooked liability in his 2020 national polling results. In 2020, he won the popular vote by 4.4 percentage points. Despite this, he still barely eked out an electoral vote win. The reason? Biden ran up huge but meaningless vote margins in California and New York (almost 7 million in just these two states, while Biden’s total popular vote margin was 7,060,347), yet the race in the Electoral College was decided by miniscule margins in six others: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In other words, Biden needs to be roughly plus-4.4 percentage points in national polls to be running even with Trump.
If national polls are underweighting independents (as the Gallup results say), and independents are breaking decidedly for Trump (as the Messenger/Harris results say), then even averaging them still leaves Trump effectively with almost a double-digit margin over 2020’s race.
One upshot of all this is that the 2024 rematch may not really be as close as the general polling is making it look. Another is that Democrats should be even more worried about Biden’s chances than they already are.