Donald Trump is bucking an eight-year trend ahead of the presidential election in November, according to the polls.
Trump is set to face off against President Joe Biden later this year in a rematch of the 2020 election, as each candidate has won enough delegates to secure their party's presidential nomination. Over the next seven months on the campaign trail, the two candidates are expected to spar over crucial issues for voters, including immigration, the economy and abortion—with polls suggesting a close race.
The polls also show the former president doing something he did not during his 2016 or 2020 presidential campaigns: leading against his opponent.
After having polling deficits in his prior presidential campaigns, Trump is now leading against Biden in most polls. In 2016 and 2020, polls suggested former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Biden, respectively, held a major lead over Trump.
In a statement to Newsweek, Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign's press secretary, said Trump making inroads with "key Democrat constituencies such as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and women" contributed to the polling shift from past elections.
"There are more than 100 polls showing President Trump crushing Joe Biden, including recent polling that has him leading in every key battleground state and winning independents by double digits," she wrote.
Newsweek has contacted Biden's campaign for comment via email.
In 2016, the polls got it wrong, as Trump eked out a narrow victory over Clinton in crucial swing states, carrying him to the White House. Biden, in 2020, beat Trump as polls predicted, though many had suggested an even larger victory for Biden than he won.
On March 22, 2020, Biden held a lead of 6.2 percentage points in polls, according to an aggregate created by FiveThirtyEight. This was slightly larger than Biden's eventual margin of victory in the popular vote, which was about 4.5 percentage points.
Meanwhile, Clinton led Trump in every survey conducted in March 2016, according to FiveThirtyEight. While Trump led a few polls throughout the year, Clinton won most.
Some polls were more accurate, showing Clinton leading the popular vote by only a narrow margin, as she did in November while losing the Electoral College. But others showed her with a lead of up to 18 points.
This time around, many polls show Trump leading Biden, having narrowed in recent weeks, though Biden still has an advantage in some surveys.
The key difference between prior elections and the 2024 election is that Biden is now an incumbent president with low approval ratings, said Robert Y. Shapiro, a professor of political science at Columbia University.
"There is no difference from 2016 in the observation that voters collectively have low favorability ratings of both Trump and Biden—Trump and Clinton in 2016. Biden did better in 2020, where Trump as the incumbent was highly vulnerable due to his mishandling of the pandemic and with the failing economy. Now, Biden is the incumbent vulnerable to criticism on some major issues," he told Newsweek.
Polls at this point are "noteworthy," Shapiro said, but become "more important as the election nears."
Political experts have said that as the race is still months away and millions of Americans have not yet tuned into the election, the polls could change drastically before November. A popular-vote victory also may not translate to an Electoral College win, meaning candidates need to score victories in a handful of battleground states.
An Emerson College poll conducted between March 5 and 6 found Trump with a single-point lead over Biden, with 43 percent of respondents saying they planned to vote for the former president and 42 percent saying they were supporting Biden. Nine percent said they were voting for other candidates.
The poll surveyed 1,350 registered voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
A Selzer & Company poll conducted among 1,005 U.S. adults, including 715 likely voters, between March 11 and 17 found Trump leading by 7 points, with 45 percent of respondents backing the former president, while 38 percent said they planned to support Biden. That poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Update 3/22/24 12:23 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more
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