It seems you can’t swing a dead cat these days without encountering yet another disastrous polling result for President Joe Biden and the Democrats (or without having people awkwardly approach to ask why you are doing this to a dead cat). Biden’s unpopularity has engendered an enormous amount of “We can really do this!” optimism among Trump’s fans and more than a few political analysts. And make no mistake: Trump can win, and I still believe nobody’s really prepared for what happens next if he does. But I am briefly emerging from the depths of illness to warn you, like the warbling Admiral Ackbar: It’s a trap.

People have been talking about the Harvard/Harris poll from last week, which, aside from returning typical numbers about Biden’s popularity, also seemingly confirmed all the worst things I want to believe about the younger generation’s antisemitism. But that entire series of compound questions on the topic were poorly worded, and Harvard/Harris isn’t exactly the most reliable outfit in the world; as one wag pointed out, people would take it a lot less seriously if it were called the “Mark Penn poll,” which is what it is.

Andy McCarthy wrote eloquently several months ago about how Trump’s strength in the general election polls was illusory because he had been out of the headlines (Americans generally have no idea what kind of insane ranting he’s been up to on TruthSocial — but they’ll learn), and the Democrats and their media allies haven’t yet begun to spend what promises to be hundreds of millions of dollars reminding America of all his various failings. We can safely predict he will cooperate with this narrative by doubling down — it is his nature. I still think that is likely to happen, but it was then and remains a theory; maybe it doesn’t play out that way.

But now we have an actual data point that indicates otherwise, and rather alarmingly so: today’s New York Times/Siena poll. On its surface, you might be excused for thinking it another great one for Trump: he nominally leads in every swing state except Wisconsin and is up 46–44 among registered voters over Biden. Except here’s the thing: for the first time, NYT/Siena has applied a “likely voter” screen to its numbers as well (basically, if you voted in 2020, you’re a likely voter), and when that happens, the numbers perfectly invert: Biden goes from losing by 2 percent to leading by 2 percent (47–45) nationwide. As the Times’ Nate Cohn points out, this is down to the staggering polling delta between those who voted in 2020 (Biden +6) and those who didn’t (Trump +22). Those nonvoters include many of the young voters whom Biden has been so infamously hurting in recent months, who seem like quite the difficult “get” for Donald Trump given that their disaffection with Biden stems from those aspects of his policies that aren’t progressive enough. The LV number shows clearly enough that no matter how much people might support you, it doesn’t mean anything if they don’t actually vote. I am skeptical they will.

I know some of my colleagues find these polls and the media’s treatment of them to be intensely frustrating as if the media is attempting to lead the GOP down a primrose path to destruction by telling them it’s okay to nominate Trump again, but I don’t think it’s any sort of conspiracy; I just think people can’t see too far in front of their own eyes. (Look, high-powered Democrats like David Axelrod aren’t just dropping “Joe Biden should step down” panic bombs as part of some grand master plan; they’re genuinely terrified.) But by the same token, I can see where this is all likely to go in the new year, once Trump has wrapped up the nomination. (The race is effectively over unless Trump loses New Hampshire, and I doubt he will lose New Hampshire.) There will be a media pile-on, Trump will feel compelled to get out there and speak on his own behalf, and it turns into the same old circus once again. Again, maybe Joe Biden is just such a disaster that he gets the boot regardless. But don’t bet on it.