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--:-- John Bickley: President Trump and President Biden are poised for a rematch in 2024, but the political landscape has changed dramatically over the past four years. And some key polling data says it's helping Trump. In this episode, we talk to a polling expert about why he thinks Democrats should be very nervous at this stage and how a strong third-party candidate might impact November.
--:-- John Bickley: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's February 4th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Joining us now to discuss the state of the 2024 race is Brent Buchanan, a pollster with the Signal Group.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Yeah, so Signal is a center-right polling firm based in Washington, D.C., but we actually got started in Montgomery, Alabama. And back in the day, we actually did all things related to a campaign. So I ran campaigns, including governor's campaigns. I did the TV, did the mail, kind of did it all.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And one of the benefits of having been involved in each aspect of what goes into a political campaign is that you realize what role polling plays in supporting each of those. So by 2018, once we decided, okay, we're just going to do polling, we're going to get rid of everything else, it was a big help to be able to understand how to communicate with each of the different vendors and teams within a campaign of what they needed to get out of the polling.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Because I think one of the biggest misnomers about polling in general is that folks tend to just see what the public polls are. And that is such a small fraction of what polling actually is and how many polls are conducted, because the bulk of survey research is to achieve an outcome, not just to know what a number is.
--:-- John Bickley: Right. And look, this is a big question. What does the behind the scenes polling say right now? What does the polling show in terms of the Republican versus Democratic chances to win the presidency in November?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Yeah, great question. So, I mean, looking at where we are today, what, less than 11 months out now at this point, is that the Democrats are in a hole. The group that tends to really help out Democrats, especially in presidential election years, are younger voters, and they are incredibly dissatisfied with Biden, a lot of that being driven by his stance on what's going on in Gaza.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And Republicans really have on their side a strong dissatisfaction across the board of the direction the country is headed. Even though we have a Republican House barely it depends on what day it is, do we have a Republican House or not? They still view the presidency as who controls the country.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: So when they're going to say, okay, how do we make a change about where we headed as a country, there's one place that they look which is why we have such higher turnout in presidential years versus these midterm years. And so being where we are today looking ahead to November, I much rather be a Republican than a Democrat at least where the environment currently stands.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, I'm assuming you're referencing mostly national level polling here. What about the specific battleground states that will determine in the end the Electoral College victory? How are those shaping up for the frontrunners, Biden and Trump?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Yeah, it's really interesting because that map has changed a good bit going back even 2012 to now of what are those states. And so I don't think if we were sitting at the Romney-Obama campaign 12 years ago, we would ever think that Georgia and Arizona is where things would come down to.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: But that's basically what 2020 came down to is those two states by just a couple dozen thousand votes. And now you've got a scenario where Trump is very strong in Georgia, stronger than I ever saw him when we were doing his polling in 2020 from Labor Day through Election Day.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: We did all the campaigns polling for Donald Trump. He's stronger than I've ever seen him there. A lot of that's driven by Biden's weakness, not necessarily Trump's strength. And Arizona is doing much better for Republicans than going back to 20 or even 22 at this point.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And then that brings us to Pennsylvania, where I saw a poll came out today that had Biden up by seven or eight, which is just completely laughable because if Pennsylvania is at Biden plus seven or eight, the election is already over. And we know that's not the case.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And states like Ohio and Florida don't matter because they're going to be so strongly Republican, so strong for Trump, this go around. And then you get to places like Michigan and Wisconsin, where Trump has to win one or both of those two states.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And I would say at this point, Michigan is a better chance for him. There's a lot more working class folks there. There's a lot more dissatisfaction with Biden. And, you know, you don't have this area like in Wisconsin, specifically Dane County, which is where Madison is located, has really gotten away from Republicans.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: So one thing we look at when we're looking at these elections, because you're right, I mean, the national doesn't really matter. It's what's happening within the key states and key races. And so as we look at that piece, we're always looking at where the net margins coming from, where Republicans driving net positive vote, where Democrats driving net positive vote, what are the trends looking like within those areas.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And Dane County used to be a battleground and now it's producing six-figure margins for Democrats because it's a highly educated area. And as we've learned over the last 10 years, especially in the Trump era, is that educational attainment and political preference or partisanship are more inextricably linked than they ever have been.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, a potential curveball in this election, a factor a lot of people are wrestling with how to assess, is the role of third-party candidates, particularly Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And we've also got the no labels group in the mix. What kind of impact do you think third-party candidates will have on this election?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: I think it's gonna be bigger than it's ever been before because normally a third party candidate's problem is nobody knows who the heck that they are. And so therefore they get protest vote. So very few people walk in as, you know, toe the line Green Party voters. They walk in thinking not Trump not Biden but I gotta vote I here and there other things to vote on. So I going to vote for Jill Stein.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And what I think is really lost in all the conversation where we find ourselves today is that in 2016, Donald Trump became president because Jill Stein was on the ballot as Green Party. And at that time, I would say that Clinton was more defined than Trump was, even though both of them were viewed net unfavorably.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: They may not like who Trump was or how he presented himself, but they knew exactly what they would get with Hillary Clinton. And in 2020, kind of flipped that on its head in that you knew exactly what you got with Donald Trump, tone, tenor, policy, everything.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And you didn't necessarily know what you got with Joe Biden. So you were much more willing to take a risk and vote for Joe Biden and maybe hope you didn't think about your president every morning when you woke up. And now in 2024, we're in this place where you have two incredibly defined candidates in Biden and Trump, where everybody knows exactly what they get with both of those candidates.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And decently probably the biased name ID since Ross Perot of this third-party candidate. But what I would say is that almost nobody's walking into the ballot box or at least answering a poll at this point because they are hardcore Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voters.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: A lot of what we're seeing right now in polling is the protest vote. So I'm Republican and I can't vote for Trump. I'm Democratic, can't vote for Biden. I got to say something. So I'm going to pick Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I think at the end of the day, he does not get anywhere near 10 percent ballot share, which is what you see in some states him getting currently.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: But I definitely think he has a significant impact and other third-party candidates. And what's really interesting is when you do a survey of Biden-Trump-Kennedy, it kind of evens up the race at the top of the ticket with the two main candidates. But when you throw in Manchin and West and Stein and these other folks and you give people eight ballot options instead of three, it actually helps Trump more than anything else.
--:-- John Bickley: How does RFK particularly impact each of the two frontrunners, Trump and Biden?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: You know, that's actually a tough question to answer because it has not been consistent. It helped Biden more by hurting Trump pre-October 7th with Gaza and Hamas and Israel. But since then, it's actually helped Trump more by hurting Biden because there are more folks who had been with Biden or at least wanted to vote Democrat.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: The younger folks specifically who have lost their desire to support the ticket because of what they see Democrats doing and more support of Israel than of Hamas and Palestine, however you want to define it. And my guess is that we continue to see this ebb and flow over the next 10 months or so.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And, you know, Trump's going to do something that's going to tick off folks who would come back to the camp, but barely. Biden's going to do something else to tick off some other voter group. And those disaffected folks will say Kennedy.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: But there was a race for governor in 2022 in Oregon that probably had the strongest independent candidate I've ever seen. To a point where, you know, the Democrat and Republican candidates were like in the 30s on ballot share. But as the election got closer Betsy Johnson the independent lost ballot share because I think people still realize at the end of the day it going to be Biden or Trump.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: So do I really want to waste my vote And so a lot of what we see between now and then is just going to be machinations.
--:-- John Bickley: Now, a big question on a lot of people's mind is Trump's VP pick. From what you've seen, who would be the good choice based on the data and the trends for VP for Trump? And would that person actually make much of a difference in the end of November?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: That's a really good question and a very complex answer in that usually a VP pick is thought through the lens of do no harm. So don't take away from the ticket. You know, somebody like a Ben Carson fits that mold.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: But these elections, because turnout has continually increased comparative election over comparative election, like presidential or presidential, it becomes more about who can actually turn out their base. So who is in the Trump base that needs additional communication with so that's another that's a secondary line of thought.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Another for Trump is who carries on the legacy for him or is this it if he wins in 2028 he just hangs it up and then it's a free-for-all and that's why I say this is such a complex answer because there is no just pick this person and helps Trump you know it's a woman put a woman on the ticket, it'll help Trump.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Because there are such strong feelings around Donald Trump. You know, people aren't thinking, hmm, I wonder if I like Trump, do I not like Trump? That question is settled in everybody's mind. The question is, do I show up or not to vote? And do I show up to vote for him or against him?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Because it's not really for Biden at all. This election is all about, are you for or against Trump? And that's what I think complicates the VP pick, but at the same time, probably means it doesn't matter that much.
--:-- John Bickley: Final question, a pretty open one. As someone with a lot of experience looking at the data, what advice do you have for folks trying to make sense of the polling and project forward at this stage?
--:-- Brent Buchanan: You know, don't get hung up on where this race is today. And I don't mean that to you, but to the audience, like especially for folks who really enjoy following politics is there are going to be lots of ebbs and flows.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: We have been doing monthly national surveys for the last two and a half years, and there is a natural ebb and flow to even just the time of year that benefits one party hurts the other. For example, in December, the right direction wrong track of the country was the least bad. We've seen it in eight months.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: So I was wondering, you know, is this the Christmas the spirit or what's driving this? Well, I went back and looked at the prior December and the exact same thing happened. And then come January, everybody gets back to life and goes, man, life sucks here.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: And you see all of a sudden the wrong track number skyrocket. And it happened this January and the last two Januaries. And so I think sometimes we read too much into the small things that are happening and we forget the big picture of there are trends that just occur naturally that impacts the race beyond what did Donald Trump say today or where did Biden fall tomorrow.
--:-- John Bickley: Very good advice. Brent, thanks so much for coming on.
--:-- Brent Buchanan: Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you.
--:-- John Bickley: That was The Signal Group's Brent Buchanan, and this has been an extra edition of Morning Wire.
