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Former President Donald Trump has remained characteristically defiant following his federal indictment over alleged classified documents violations, calling the matter a "hoax" and saying that he holds a major lead over President Joe Biden in polling for the presidential race.
In a Truth Social post by Donald Trump, posted on June 12, 2023, the former president said that in spite of the indictment he was leading Joe Biden "by a lot."
Trump said: "Joe Biden just stated he never spoke to Attorney General [Merrick] Garland about Indicting his POLITICAL OPPONENT, who just happens to be leading him, by a lot, in the polls."
The reliability of any kind of presidential polling this far ahead in the race invites a degree of skepticism.
Jon Herbert, a senior politics lecturer at Keele University, in England, with expertise in the U.S. presidency, told Newsweek of a number of flaws in polling this far ahead of the 2024 election.
"Even the more successful models that predict election results based on economic performance tend to deploy data from only a few months (as much as six) before the election, not a year or more earlier," Herbert said.
"Those models have been overtaken by approaches based on partisanship, and we can expect that all to head in the obvious direction in each party if we're confronted by two established party leaders in battle."
Has Trump's Indictment Harmed His Figures?
As is clear from Trump's Truth Social post, his indictment and subsequent arraignment in Florida this week appear to have galvanized him further.
According to the latest polling conducted by CBS, it appears his supporters may feel the same way, with 76 percent of the respondents—likely GOP primary voters—saying they are more concerned that the indictment is politically motivated.
Recent results by YouGov also suggest the indictment may have had a limited effect, with Trump clinching a percentage-point lead in a head-to-head poll against Biden in its survey of 1,500 adults (although the pair came out evenly split among 1,303 registered voters).
Even if Trump might win some support among those who have questioned the indictment, Iwan Morgan, professor emeritus of United States studies at University College London, told Newsweek that it was important to consider the case among the many other challenges and legal woes the former president faces.
"Trump carries several disadvantages into the 2024 race that may hurt his prospect of winning Independent votes—his indictments (and the prospect of more to come), the unpopularity of the abortion decision effected via his Supreme Court nominees, and memories of what happened on January 6, 2021," Morgan said.
"Trump may also be hurt by a bruising 2024 primary contest for the nomination. I think he faces a tougher opponent in [Florida Governor Ron] DeSantis than anybody in 2016. And a divided party rarely wins the presidency, as Jimmy Carter found in 1980."
The picture is not a great deal rosier for Biden, with recent data showing his favorability ratings are now lower than Trump's at the same time during his presidency.
"Biden has several very weak spots himself—his age and the inflation-hit economy in particular," Morgan told Newsweek. "I think the Democrats are being wholly complacent in rubbing their hands at another match-up against Trump. They will have baggage to carry in 2024 in contrast to 2020."
What Are the Latest Polling Numbers?
Results from multiple polls aggregated by political analysts FiveThirtyEight suggest that Trump may either have a small lead over Biden or is behind him by roughly the same margins.
According to the most recent polls it analyzed, the most promising for Trump was a survey by Premise which found that he had an 8-percentage-point lead over Biden, among 1,911 adults surveyed between June 9 and12.
That lead slimmed, however, when the numbers were defined by registered voters, giving Trump a 2-percentage-point lead.
Furthermore, Biden has also picked up strong results from other pollsters. For example, according to Morning Consult Biden had a four-point lead over Trump in their survey of 6,000 registered voters from June 9 to 11.
YouGov also recorded a seven-point lead for Biden from a survey of 1,015 registered voters polled between May 25-30, 2023.
To look at the broader picture, Newsweek assessed the average point lead of 29 polls that FiveThirtyEight analyzed where participants were asked who they would vote for: Biden or Trump.
This included surveys from multiple pollsters, each with varying FiveThirtyEight reliability ratings, across different time frames, conducted between May 8, 2023, to June 13, 2023.
The data showed that the candidates led on an even number of occasions. Trump, however, did have a slightly larger average percentage point lead (3.6 vs. Biden's 3.25).
The pair also split the results five times.
This may suggest that Trump has been able to galvanize his base of support more successfully compared to Biden (even if it's not the runaway success that he professed on Truth Social).
What Can the Numbers Tell Us About 2024?
Thomas Gift, the founding director of the University College London Centre on U.S. Politics (CUSP), told Newsweek even these closely called margins indicate that Trump has at the least a greater prospect of reaching the White House than some thought he might.
"The main take-away from polls is that Trump isn't just within striking distance of Biden in 2024, he can plausibly make the case that he's running in an almost statistical dead heat," Gift said.
"It's premature to make any predictions more than a year before the general election, not least before Trump has even earned the GOP nomination. But for political soothsayers who thought Trump had no shot at the White House because he's so alienating to a large fraction of Americans, these figures should douse a bucket of cold water on that claim."
The results for both arguably do not spell a resounding victory for either candidate in this theoretical contest, conducted far ahead of the actual race.
National polls also may not reasonably assess the outcome where it matters most, the swing states, as Julie Norman, CUSP co-director, told Newsweek.
"With the U.S. electoral vote system, overall poll numbers matter somewhat less than polls in specific swing states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.—as that's really where the election will turn," she said.
Furthermore, these results may merely indicate a continuation of a trend among GOP presidential candidates who have since 2000 not enjoyed landslide wins, as professor Iwan Morgan told Newsweek.
"Only once has the GOP candidate won more than 50 percent of the popular vote (George W. Bush in 2004)," Morgan said. "Indeed, on the two other occasions (in 2000 and 2016) that the Republican candidate won office, he ran behind his Democratic opponent in popular-vote terms."
Voters 'Seem to Not Really Like Their Options Right Now'
It seems that based on analyses of current polling Trump can say that he has a lead in some surveys, but not the majority and none by a particularly staggering lead.
Moreover, the full effect of the indictment is yet to be seen, as is how he fairs in the Republican primaries.
American political expert David Andersen of Durham University told Newsweek the dead heat between Biden and Trump may more be indicative of voter disinterest in both candidates.
"Trump isn't wrong that he is ahead in early polling over Joe Biden. He also isn't right that he has a big lead. The most accurate thing that could be said about the early polling is that voters largely seem to not really like their options right now," Andersen said.
"Many Republicans remain loyal to Trump. The only question is whether that base of support will be enough to win him the nomination.
"It seems that somewhere around 40-45 percent of Republicans prefer Trump, with 55 percent preferring someone, anyone else. That is probably enough to win him the nomination but it is difficult to see him expanding on his base of support.
"Democrats seem to be willing to unite around Biden again but not many of them seem excited about it. If they are forced to choose between Biden and Trump, they will vote for Biden. They won't be very happy about it and mainly just don't want to think or talk about it right now."
"What we are seeing in the early polling right now is likely that the Trump Republicans are willing to answer the question of who they would vote for in an election, whereas many likely Biden voters are probably just not answering the questions."
Newsweek has emailed a Donald Trump representative for comment.
About the writer
Tom Norton is Newsweek's Fact Check reporter, based in London. His focus is reporting on misinformation and misleading information in ... Read more