Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. I'm Stephen Carol and
Speaker 1: this is Here's Why, where we take one news story
Speaker 1: and explain it in just a few minutes with our
Speaker 1: experts here at Bloomberg. The Trump Biden debate on June
Speaker 1: twenty seventh was supposed to be a warm up match
Speaker 1: before either candidate officially secured their party's nomination. Instead, it
Speaker 1: turned into a watershed moment for Joe Biden, sparking a
Speaker 1: firestorm of speculation over his ability to serve another term
Speaker 1: as president. I don't walk as easy as I used to.
Speaker 2: I don't speak as.
Speaker 1: Smooth as I used to. I don't debate as well.
Speaker 2: As I used to. Well, I know how to do
Speaker 2: this job. I know how to get things done.
Speaker 1: I don't like millions of Americas now, when you get
Speaker 1: knocked down, you get back up. Heading into the debate,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden was try railing Donald Trump slightly in the
Speaker 1: polls and in the two weeks following it. That hasn't
Speaker 1: changed dramatically. In fact, the Bloomberg News Morning Consult poll
Speaker 1: of battleground states conducted after the debate saw Biden's best
Speaker 1: showing yet, despite voters rating his TV performance poorly. So
Speaker 1: here's why Biden's woes aren't having more impact on polls
Speaker 1: our money in politics are. Laura Davison joins us from
Speaker 1: Washington for more. First of all, what have polls told
Speaker 1: us about views of Joe Biden since the debate?
Speaker 2: So we have several different data points that have come out.
Speaker 2: One is the Bloomberg News Morning Console poll that you referenced,
Speaker 2: and this is actually the best reading in the poll
Speaker 2: since we've started conducting it last October. This is a
Speaker 2: poll of seven different swing states. We're pulling a bunch
Speaker 2: of different issues. But one of the things we'd look
Speaker 2: at is that top horse race number. Biden is registering
Speaker 2: at forty five percent and Trump at forty seven percent.
Speaker 2: That is outside the margin of air, but it shows
Speaker 2: a very close reading, and given that we're still four
Speaker 2: months out from the election, indicates that this is a
Speaker 2: very close race. There's several other points that we've seen,
Speaker 2: some that sort of support this race tightening and some
Speaker 2: that are divergent. There's been several national polls that have
Speaker 2: been conducted that have shown Biden falling further behind. I'll
Speaker 2: note the difference there is that is looking nationwide, whereas
Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Pole is just looking at those battleground states
Speaker 2: that are going to be the ones that really decide
Speaker 2: the election. There's also a new poll out from ABC
Speaker 2: that is also a national poll, but shows it neck
Speaker 2: and neck for Biden and Trump Biden at forty six percent,
Speaker 2: Trump at forty seven percent. Another thing that has come
Speaker 2: out since the debate that has also been closely watched
Speaker 2: by both Republicans and Democrats is this report from a
Speaker 2: group called the Cook Political Report, and they basically look
Speaker 2: at different states and rate them as how likely they
Speaker 2: are to be for Republicans, for Democrats, or if they're
Speaker 2: a toss up. They earlier this week re rated six
Speaker 2: different states and basically moved them all in the direction
Speaker 2: of Trump. That's been one of the signs that's been
Speaker 2: really worrying for Democrats in particular, and is actually some
Speaker 2: Democrats who have come out and called for Biden to
Speaker 2: step down. They've cited this specifically, saying, look, the map
Speaker 2: in general is moving more in Trump's favor and we
Speaker 2: need to do something to stop the bleeding here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because certainly what we've been hearing from stoners and
Speaker 1: this sort of chorus or increasing chorus of Democrats talking
Speaker 1: about asking questions about Joe Biden's health. It doesn't yet
Speaker 1: seem to quite match up with what we're seeing from Poles.
Speaker 1: Is there any way that we can understand why that is?
Speaker 2: Both can be true? Is one that the race can
Speaker 2: be tightening as well as you know that Democrats and
Speaker 2: Republicans are expressing concerns about Biden's age, health, mental acuity.
Speaker 2: In our Bloomberg poll, you know, we found that the
Speaker 2: race is tightening, but also three in ten Democrats think
Speaker 2: that Biden should bow out with the race. We ask
Speaker 2: a bunch of different questions about mental, fitness, acuity, age health,
Speaker 2: and none of those were particularly positive for Biden. A
Speaker 2: majority of people think that he's too old to run again.
Speaker 2: But where we see that what sort of explains the
Speaker 2: difference here is just the deep partisanship in the US
Speaker 2: and that people when they're faced with a binary choice
Speaker 2: of either Trump or Biden, people really go into their
Speaker 2: camps and say, look, even if I have some concerns
Speaker 2: about my candidate, I'm still ultimately going to vote for
Speaker 2: them if that's the choice I have.
Speaker 1: So ultimately, can we attribute then some of that support
Speaker 1: to Joe Biden to just people voting against Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: Yes, And you know, even if you talk with the
Speaker 2: Biden campaign, they are happy to have a vote. If
Speaker 2: it's someone who is firmly, solidly enthusiastically for Biden, or
Speaker 2: if it's someone who is maybe lukewarm on Biden but
Speaker 2: very much opposed to Trump, both those votes count the same.
Speaker 2: They'll tell you.
Speaker 1: What could shift this further in the polls. What should
Speaker 1: we be watching out for is things that might actually
Speaker 1: change some of those voters' minds.
Speaker 2: So there's a long way from now until the election.
Speaker 2: There are certain things that could happen with either candidate.
Speaker 2: So we have seen that Trump has earned this name
Speaker 2: Teflon Trump that you know, bad things can happen. He
Speaker 2: can be convicted, you know, I'm thirty four of felon accounts.
Speaker 2: He can go out and say that are very controversial.
Speaker 2: But none of those things seem to really register for
Speaker 2: him and in some cases actually help his pole standing
Speaker 2: versus hurt him or help him in other ways such
Speaker 2: as fundraising. Biden is a little bit more susceptible to
Speaker 2: things that are happening dragging on his polling. Anything that
Speaker 2: would be a downturn in the economy, or at least
Speaker 2: perceptions of the economy, have been a key issue for him.
Speaker 2: There's also we saw this in twenty twenty. There is
Speaker 2: a big national event of course, the pandemic is what
Speaker 2: I'm referred to here, that really changed a lot of
Speaker 2: the dynamics of the race. Some sort of tragedy, a
Speaker 2: terrorist attack, some sort of new war, some sort of
Speaker 2: major natural disaster, all of these things could throw a
Speaker 2: wrench into the race. That's completely unexpected. But the things
Speaker 2: that we do know going forward is that people are
Speaker 2: going to be closely watching Biden's performance out in public.
Speaker 2: He has several public appearances scheduled for this week and next,
Speaker 2: and Democrats themselves have said, look, we are waiting to see,
Speaker 2: you know, how he does when he is out unscripted
Speaker 2: in front of voters, and even Nancy Pelosi, the former
Speaker 2: House Speaker who's still a very trust to voice within
Speaker 2: the party, has said to hold off saying anything publicly
Speaker 2: about what you think Biden should do going forward, you know,
Speaker 2: until after voters and Democrats and everyone gets to see
Speaker 2: a chance of how he performs this week.
Speaker 1: So I suppose what we're learning is is the stickiness
Speaker 1: of the votes that are chabusted both to Trump and
Speaker 1: to Biden at this point in the campaign. Is that
Speaker 1: normal in presidential races or is this unusual? This factor
Speaker 1: this is the new normal.
Speaker 2: You know, going back forty or fifty years ago, this
Speaker 2: would not have necessarily been the case. But in the
Speaker 2: modern era of US politics, going back several cycles, what
Speaker 2: we have come to expect is that each candidate is
Speaker 2: not going to dip down but low. There's sort of
Speaker 2: a floor and a ceiling for each of them, and
Speaker 2: there's only really in these battleground states five ten, twenty
Speaker 2: thousand votes that really make a difference, and those are
Speaker 2: the key voters that both campaigns are trying to persuade,
Speaker 2: versus trying to make a big national case, because that's
Speaker 2: just not how races in the US are won.
Speaker 1: Okay, our money and politics are Laura Davison, thank you
Speaker 1: for helping us understand and where we are in this
Speaker 1: fast moving story. For more explanations like this from our
Speaker 1: team of twenty seven hundred journalists and analysts around the world,
Speaker 1: search for Quick Take on the Bloomberg website or the
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business app. I'm Stephen Carol. This is here's why
Speaker 1: I'll be back next week with more thanks for listening.