Here's something a little odd. According to YouGov, Trump and Biden have been essentially tied in trial heat polling since the beginning of the year. With only a couple of exceptions in 25 weeks of polling, they've been within 1% of each other the entire time. However, the number of undecided voters suddenly jumped at the end of April:
Unfortunately, two things happened at the same time in late April. First, testimony began in Trump's hush money trial. Second, YouGov changed its question wording slightly, from "who would you vote for?" to "who do you plan to vote for?"
There's no way to tell for sure which of these caused the spike, but the upshot is that about 8-10% of the electorate is now up for grabs. My take is that this is probably good for Biden, because Trump (uniquely for a challenger) is the better known candidate. If you haven't decided to vote for him by now, you probably just aren't going to vote for him.
But who knows? This election is likely to break a bunch of old rules of thumb.
Folks may be getting leery of the Convicted Felon because, well, he's a convicted felon. Similarly, folks may be expressing their discomfort/rage with Joe Biden due to his unwavering support and enabling of Israel's ongoing genocide.
So the "undecided" increases can easily be coming from both sides. And it's not uniquely good for Biden. Maybe it's even worse for Biden.
Unwavering support for genocide? I'm sure you have a reason for a lie this big?
I resent calling this a lie. It is entirely believable that Israel's actions amount to genocide. It is entirely believable that Biden has supported them, despite his verbal "red lines" which he always finds reasons to ignore.
Despite these, I want Biden to win because he is quite clearly the lesser of two evils. That doesn't mean that I should give him a pass for his atrocious Israeli policy. And it is entirely believable that a significant number of voters will also not.
No lie, when it's totally within the power of the United States, under our own laws, if not international law, to start denying arms to Israel. And yet President Biden has even gone around the usual procurement regs to send extra shipments, knowing what Israel is doing with them.
President Biden kind of "talks the talk", but look at how he walks. He will arm and re-arm Israel in its turkey shoot in Gaza every time. And this is just wrong. It has nothing to do with Israel "defending itself." The "self defense" rationale has been a bad joke for a long, long time.
Why is it "Genocide Joe," but never "Genocide Congress" or "Genocide Senate," "Genocide Chuck" or "Genocide Mike?" We live in a democracy with the separation of powers. The normal way you end appropriations for a foreign country is for Congress to do it.
My understanding. And I'm not expert so if anyone knows better please correct me.
We send the money to Israel. They then use 1/4 of the money for internal production. The other 3/4 they use to buy from US companies.
The purchases from the US companies go through approval process. If they exceeed a certain $ threshold, then they go through approval in Congress which includes the top 4 members of the foreign affairs committees (two House, two Senate, 2 R's, 2 D's). In at least one recent case the House Dem (Gregory Meeks) was hesitating to sign-off. He only did so after intense pressure from Biden.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/06/the-shift-under-pressure-from-biden-meeks-backs-major-arms-sale-to-israel/
If the sales are below the $ threshold, then Cogress is out of the picture and it's 100% up to the Executive branch to say yes or no. So far Biden has approved humdreds of sales since October 7th. He could easily use his authority to direct Isreal to spend the money on defensive uses. But has chosen not to. These sales don't even have to be disclosed to Congress:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/06/israel-weapons-sales-loophole
There are also laws such as the Foreign Assistance Act or the Leahy Law that he could invoke to stop or slow sales. He chooses not to.
It's the economy, stupid. Not Gaza.
The majority of people in this country support Israel. It’s only the fringe left that thinks they are engaging in genocide and are apologists for Hamas.
The majority of people really don't give a rat's rosy rear about the middle east. But they, mostly the older folks, been brought up on the "plucky little Israel" and "making the desert bloom" myths. Then there's the "crazy Ayrab terrorists" thing, which, ironically, was motivated by what Israelis were actually doing, unbeknownst to Americans.
So maybe the majority just wants to wash their hands of the whole Arab/Israel thing. Don't know; don't care. I wouldn't call that "support."
Hamas, who started this war, definitely qualify as “crazy Ayrab terrorists”. But you prove my point with being apologists for them and denigrating Israel.
Okay, I'm "fringey." Meanwhile, as folks go out of their way to condemn Hamas for an attack which included hitting a number of military bases and military personnel, and may have killed as many as 1,200, they then stand up and insist that it's totally Israel's right to kill the 38,000 and counting civilians, largely women and children and newborns -- and to keep on doing it.
Has Hamas's killings of Israeli civilians continued? I haven't heard that they have, and you know that would be front page, top of website news had it occurred.
Israel could stop the resistance in Gaza, stop the Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon, stop the Houthi attacks on shipping -- by declaring a cease fire. Heck, they'd even get back their hostages that were still alive after all the indiscriminate shelilng and bombing and machine gunning they've done and keep on doing in Gaza.
But they won't, and they've still got "apologists" who back them 100%. Who are the real "terrorists" here?
There are no undecided voters. The people who claim to be "undecided" have (a) decided who they'll vote for and (b) decided not to tell the pollster.
Second that. For this election the label "undecided" should be changed to "Wants a pollster interview, especially one on tv"
There are no undecided voters. The people who claim to be "undecided" have (a) decided who they'll vote for and (b) decided not to tell the pollster.
The evidence suggests this is wrong. While persuadable voters undoubtedly are a smaller percentage of the electorate than 40 or 50 years ago (we see very little ticket-splitting, for example), most political scientists suggest 10-15% of the electorate in fact consists of swing voters. Needless to say, there is likely substantial overlap between this small cohort of persuadable voters, and those who are genuinely undecided at present.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/17/deciders-2024-election-poll/
Not true. I think there are many lifetime republicans who are deciding if they will vote for Trump again, leave it blank, or vote for Biden.
Polls have often swung greatly in the last few months before a Presidential election. Many people just don't pay attention until the last advertising blasts. Most people do not read the national papers. The economic news can change minds.
There are probably fewer undecided voters than in the past, but there are more of them than the margins in recent polls.
They all want to vote for Joe but don't want their rabid repulsive neighbours to know. Revenge ya know.
Vote blue folks. Save democracy.
Methodology.
The Economist/YouGov is still surveying registered voters and it's also the longest poll to get through with a half-million questions.
The last CBS/YouGov from two weeks ago shows 0% undecided among likely voters.
In that same period, the Yahoo/YouGov poll of registered voters shows this varies: 6% whether the question includes the top-2 but no choice to vote for someone else; 4% if the question includes the choice to vote for another candidate; 1% if the question includes the names of other candidates.
So, which YouGov poll do you want to track, or are YouGov polls just bad all around?
It's such a long poll that the position of the question is also likely to skew the response. I wonder what percentage of respondents actually make it through to all the questions.
JFK Jr will be on the ballot in November (and a 50% that Biden will be). When JFK Jr is in the poll, Trump has led by 2 points since March at the end of April when up by 1 point.
I'd vote for poor dead JFK Jr before I'd vote for his brain-worm-infested cousin, RFK Jr. But I'm set on voting for Joe Biden.