A post-debate Emerson College poll shows former President Donald Trump beating President Biden in a head-to-head matchup. Matt Taglia, Senior Director at Emerson College Polling, joins Brittany Lewis to discuss.
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00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news. Joining me now is Matt Taglia,
00:07Senior Director of Emerson College Polling. Matt, thank you so much for coming back on.
00:12Thank you. Happy to be here.
00:14We are in a different spot for sure from when the last time you and I spoke. We are sitting
00:20here about two weeks after the first historic presidential election between former President
00:25Donald Trump and current President Joe Biden. And Emerson College has a new poll taken after
00:31the debate showing Trump leading Biden in a head-to-head matchup. So what are your takeaways
00:36from this poll? Well, my takeaway is mainly that there's been some slight movement away from Biden,
00:44but that hasn't necessarily benefited Trump in this case. So we have consistently seen that
00:50Trump hits sort of a wall at around 46, 47 percent. Now, that said, President Biden hasn't
00:58surpassed about 45 percent in polling this year. But we now see Trump winning independent voters
01:08initially. However, after we make undecided voters choose between the top two candidates,
01:17we see that they're split. So it's a bit of a mixed picture here. I think that this could be
01:26much worse for the Biden campaign, given the debate performance, given the media attention
01:32that's followed that. So if I'm the Biden campaign, I'm actually pretty happy with these results,
01:39because at the end of the day, after we have pushed all those undecided voters,
01:43we see a split race 50-50 between Biden and Trump. And that's what it was in June in our
01:50pre-debate polling. So in a sense, how much did this debate and the fallout thereafter
01:57really matter when it comes to voters? Because when it comes to pundits, when it comes to
02:01Democrats, you know, there's a lot of what's reported as panic on the Hill
02:07in different communities. But is that really seen when it comes to voters?
02:12Yeah, we really aren't seeing that yet, at least not at the national level. So, you know, again,
02:18we see a little bit of movement from the previous June polling. We see a little bit of defection
02:24away from Biden, but it's not so much as you might expect, given the media attention over
02:30the debate performance. But that's not distributed equally, right? So, you know, he, President Biden
02:38might be holding his own right now in the national vote, but that isn't necessarily true in some of
02:44these swing states. And so we've seen some polling come out from those states. And in some cases,
02:52President Biden has lost some ground there. So, you know, I think the national picture looks
02:58pretty similar to what we saw prior to the debate, a little bit of ground loss. But again,
03:04this isn't distributed evenly. And, you know, some of these states are a little bit less
03:08important when it comes to the Electoral College. When you're saying that there's a bit of a
03:13defection from Biden, and it's not completely contributed to the debate, what is it attributed
03:19to? Is it because of different issues? Is it because of a more fondness to Donald Trump?
03:25What does that look like? Well, and I think that the debate
03:30certainly influenced some of that defection. There's nothing necessarily tangible that we can
03:37see in the top lines. But we know that folks are concerned about the economy. That's been
03:45a consistent issue for voters of both parties. Folks are concerned about immigration. That has
03:52been the second top concern for voters, more or less throughout the year. So I think that
04:00the debate performance certainly influenced this, you know, move away from Biden, not necessarily
04:05towards Trump, but folks saying, hey, you know, let's see what happens. I'm not necessarily
04:12willing to commit to voting for President Biden. And these issues, they certainly aren't necessarily
04:19helping the president right now. And this poll ran other prominent
04:25Democrats against Trump to see where they landed in a head-to-head matchup.
04:30What are some of your takeaways there? Well, I think the major takeaway is that
04:36no other candidate currently is able to match President Biden's vote share against former
04:44President Trump. So the closest that any of these hypothetical Democratic candidates get
04:50is Vice President Kamala Harris. But even then, she's six points away from Donald Trump in those
04:58top lines. We see that further down as well. So Governor Newsom, he trails Trump by eight points.
05:08Governor Shapiro also trails by eight points. And then Governor Whitmer, whose name has been
05:14floated as well, she trails by 10 points. So, you know, I think that at least on the face of it,
05:23right now, if folks are going to the polls and they were voting on one of these candidates,
05:27then President Trump would be at an extreme advantage against these candidates. However,
05:34these candidates have not necessarily benefited from the same media coverage,
05:39from the fact that they are a sitting president, or from any of the ad spending that the Biden
05:46campaign and President Biden himself enjoys right now. So that's all to say, you know,
05:52some of the support might be muted. If something were to change, if one of these candidates did,
05:58in fact, become the Democratic nominee for president, I think that this would tighten
06:02some. And I think that there's probably more upside to certain candidates than there are others.
06:08And we can see that in this poll. But if you're the Biden campaign or President Biden himself,
06:14you're looking at these numbers and saying, hey, Democrats, listen, I know you're upset right now,
06:21you want us to win the White House, but I'm your best option compared to every other prominent
06:26Democrat, past and present that has been mentioned so far and floated as a possible replacement.
06:33Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think just taking the poll at face value and looking at just those
06:39top line numbers. Yes, you can. The Biden campaign could use this as a tool to say,
06:46hey, you know, I'm your guy. But when you consider some of these other candidates who don't have the
06:52same name exposure, who aren't necessarily known outside of their state or region,
06:58and you start to look at some of that undecided vote. So Governor Shapiro, for instance,
07:04he has the he has the highest undecided vote of all of these candidates. But that's a vote that
07:10isn't going to Donald Trump. So, you know, the same cannot be said for candidates in this poll,
07:15like former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Folks know who she is, by and large. There are
07:23new voters out there who don't necessarily have a formed opinion of her. But she obviously moved
07:28some folks towards the Trump camp. But that can't be said for some of these other more blank slate
07:34candidates, if we want to call them that. So, yeah, I think that that is one way to spin the
07:41results and the Biden campaign would be correct in in, you know, reporting it that way, I suppose.
07:49But there are other ways to report this as well.
07:52I want to talk about the motivations behind voters, because we've reported on the past,
07:57many voters aren't that enthusiastic about a 2020 rematch now in 2024 with older candidates,
08:04and we've seen their presidencies play out. Based on your polling here,
08:09who is the most motivated demographic? What are you seeing when it comes to those numbers?
08:14Well, the most motivated voters are more or less in Trump camp or Republicans. That's what we're
08:23seeing. We're consistently seeing that younger voters, minority voters, and Democrats generally
08:33are less motivated to vote. I think it's about 65% among Democrats versus nearly 80% among
08:43Republicans. So that's a bit of a tough pill for Democrats and the Biden campaign to swallow.
08:49It's going to be tough, frankly, to bring that number up without something in the race
08:56substantially changing, especially on the Democratic side. Folks know who President Trump is,
09:02especially Democrats. If they're going to rally that base, then something needs to change.
09:09It's no secret that it's been a bad two weeks for President Biden. He's been flooded with questions
09:15about his mental fitness, his mental acuity. Can he serve for four more years? But there is a little
09:21bit of good news, a glimmer of hope for him in your polling. You found that his job approval
09:26rating increased by 2% over the past month from 37% to 39%. Is there any indication of why that is?
09:34That's right. It did increase. I would caveat that with that it's a slight increase,
09:40but an increase nonetheless. And we see that that's coming mostly from voters over the age of 60,
09:47from Black voters and minority voters overall, as well as independents. So those are three groups
09:58that are certainly must-wins for the Biden campaign. I think that he should be happy with
10:04that. But that said, a majority still disapprove. Roughly 18% of Democrats even disapprove of
10:16President Biden's job performance. So again, it's not necessarily the best news, but it's
10:23not the worst news. And I think some of this could come down to the fact that folks did watch the
10:32debate between President Biden and former President Trump. And I think maybe some of them
10:38liked what President Biden has done or what he stands for, but at the same time don't necessarily
10:45want to commit to voting for him right now. So I think that's a good thing.
10:51A slight uptick is good, but 39% isn't that high. So right now he's sitting here less than four
10:57months away from November, from Election Day. He's the incumbent facing increasingly bad news.
11:05Historically, it's 39% right now where he's sitting. So I think that's a good thing.
11:10And I think that's a good thing. I think that's a good thing. And I think that's a good thing.
11:15Increasingly bad news. Historically, it's 39% right now where he's sitting,
11:21running for re-election. Is that good news for a president?
11:27No, that's not good news. And we can see that his overall vote share is higher than that. So
11:34it's not as if one is going to predict the other. But we do see historically that severely unpopular
11:42presidents like President Biden don't tend to win elections. So I would be, as the Biden campaign,
11:52working to do everything I can to get that approval number up. It is an indicator of several
11:58of how he might expect the vote to turn out on Election Day. And frankly, I don't see
12:08how he will necessarily capture enough of the vote share to win on Election Day without
12:15roughly 40% approval. Obviously, the debate really shook up the race and continues to do so.
12:23There's still a lot of unanswered questions. I mean, President Biden saying he answered them.
12:28It appears that Democrats don't like the answer that he's giving.
12:32So as a pollster, what are you looking for between now and Election Day?
12:38Well, you know, as a pollster, I'm going to be looking for changes among key demographics.
12:48For the Democrats, especially, that's going to be minority voters. I'm going to be looking at that
12:52enthusiasm number as well, because they frankly need to get those numbers up, especially among
12:58minority voters, especially among voters under roughly the age of 40. And that's going to be
13:05tough. That is really a tough hill to climb. Taking the pollster hat off for a second,
13:14I'm also going to be looking at the party politics, what happens at the conventions.
13:20That's going to influence how we poll this race. That's going to influence almost immediately what
13:24that top line number is. So there's a lot at play here. This is probably one of the most dramatic
13:31election cycles I've seen just in the past two weeks. So, you know, there are key constituencies
13:39out there. A lot of them are really not excited about the election and something probably will
13:47happen. Whether or not that makes a significant difference with those groups remains to be seen.
13:55We have really seen a dramatic shift from what seemed to be a sleepy primary season
14:01to this really now chaotic general. Do you think anything's missing when it comes to these numbers
14:08in the national conversation when it comes to the presidential race?
14:15Well, you know, I think that by and large, the at least prior to the past two weeks,
14:23the media and the campaign's been focusing on the things that do matter to folks. So
14:28the economy, you know, that's number one. I think we saw from this poll that people are
14:34concerned about U.S. foreign policy right now. Overall, they think voters believe that
14:43we had a better foreign policy four years ago under former President Trump than we do now.
14:49So we will eventually have to turn back the issues and away from the drama. So, you know,
14:56I think that that's probably missing right now. The campaigns have been pretty good about
15:02sticking to, you know, ensuring that they're talking about those top issues, both campaigns,
15:09frankly, talking about the economy, inflation, jobs, and to some degree, immigration, foreign
15:16policy. So, again, yeah, they need to talk about those. We need to get over the drama humps first
15:23and then they can get back to those issues, I think. And, you know, this might be an opportunity
15:29with President Biden and the conclusion of the NATO summit.
15:34Matt Taglia, I appreciate you coming back on and I hope you continue to do so
15:38as Emerson releases more polls. Thank you so much for joining me.
15:42Thank you.
15:52Thank you.