Trump on track to beat Biden in Electoral College, in-depth survey finds
Former President Donald Trump is well and truly on track to reclaim the White House in 2024, a granular nationwide study has found.
Trump topples President Biden 292-246 in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote 49.0% to 47.8%, according to analysis from Stack Data Strategy released Monday.
In the 2020 election, Biden defeated Trump 306-232 in the Electoral College while winning 51.3% of the popular vote. Trump received just 46.8% support.
Under current trends, according to the survey, the 77-year-old Trump would narrowly flip four key states that went against him last time: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
However, all four of those states would go into the Republican column by narrow margins, with Trump ahead in Arizona by 1.4%, Georgia by 3.3%, Pennsylvania by 2.3% and Wisconsin by 0.9%.
A trove of recent polling has similarly pegged Trump as leading in a handful of battleground states, sending tremors of fear rippling through the Democratic Party.
“Our research is the largest exercise of its kind so far this cycle and we can confidently say that as things currently stand, if Donald Trump is selected as the Republican candidate, he is likely to win,” Joe Bedell, North American head of Stack Data Strategy, said in a statement.
“Despite recent calls for change, our polling also shows that neither party would benefit from a change in candidate,” he added. “President Trump would beat both of Biden’s possible replacements by an even greater margin.”
Biden is projected to win re-election in a landslide if he faces off against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis next year, per the study. In that hypothetical, Biden would win 359 electoral votes to 179 for DeSantis — the most since Bill Clinton won a second term with 379 electoral votes in 1996.
Meanwhile, should Biden be forced to bow out, Trump would prevail over both Vice President Kamala Harris (311-227) and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (319-219).
Both Newsom and Harris have shot down buzz about potentially jumping into the fray and have steadfastly backed Biden’s candidacy.
The survey also shows that Trump would defeat Biden by an even larger electoral margin, 298-240, when independent candidates are included.
In that scenario, Stack Data Strategy finds, lesser contenders like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and the eventual Green and Libertarian Party nominees would draw enough support away from the Democrat to flip Nevada into the Republican column.
Much could still change between now and Election Day on Nov. 5, 2024. Trump is facing 91 criminal counts across four indictments — two of them federal cases.
The 45th president is set to stand trial for the first time on March 4 of next year on charges that he illegally attempted to remain in office despite his loss to Biden.
Biden’s campaign has bristled at media coverage of his bleak polling numbers and expressed confidence about his position.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations. Happened in 2020, happened in 2022, happened on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler said during a press call last week.
“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden followed by an election day with historic victories,” he went on.
The White House had taken a victory lap following Democratic wins in Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Virginia and elsewhere in off-year elections last Tuesday.
The Stack Data Strategy survey was conducted among 15,000 people across the US from Oct. 12 to Nov. 3. Those results were extrapolated using census data to construct a state- and county-level map of current voting intentions.
