White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday dismissed recent polls that show President Joe Biden losing to former President Donald Trump in key 2024 states.
“We have to really take these polls with a grain of salt,” Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters at a White House briefing. “We should really be very mindful here and one of the reasons why is just a year ago, back in 2022 there was the red wave that never materialized.”
But the press secretary pushed back on the polls, saying that there were several stories that suggested Republicans would make significant gains during the 2022 midterms, but Democrats performed better than expected during that election. The GOP still won the House of Representatives by a slim margin, and President Trump wasn’t on the ballot then.
Officials at the White House have seen the New York Times poll as well as a CBS News poll that also suggested President Trump could win during next year’s election, Ms. Jean-Pierre said. The CBS poll found that the former president was leading in a hypothetical contest, 51 to 48 percent.
She also made reference to 2011 when polls suggested that former President Barack Obama was trailing then-Republican candidate Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election before the former president ultimately prevailed.
“Our focus obviously is going to be doing what the president was elected to do, which is focusing on delivering for the American people,” Ms. Jean-Pierre stated. “There’s going to be a lot of polls out there. Now until the next couple of months there’s going to be ... dozens and dozens of polls.”
The NY Times poll shows President Trump winning in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. In Nevada, he was up by 11 percentage points in the survey, while he was up 6 percent in Georgia, 5 percent in Arizona, 5 percent in Michigan, and 4 percent in Pennsylvania.
The only state where President Biden had a lead was Wisconsin, according to the poll. There, he was up by 2 percentage points.
The survey showed that there are growing concerns about the president’s age. If President Biden, 80, is elected in 2024, he would be 86 years old upon leaving office.
Drop Out?
After the survey was released, former Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on social media over the weekend to suggest that President Biden drop out of the race.”It’s very late to change horses; a lot will happen in the next year that no one can predict & Biden’s team says his resolve to run is firm,” Mr. Axelrod wrote on X, the social media website formerly known as Twitter.
However, he said that “only [President Biden] can make this decision,” adding: “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
“He’s the only one to make the decision. And if his decision is ‘no, I’m the best person to take this on,’ then he will,” he added.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates responded to his social media post by saying: “We appreciate his thoughts.”
Republican Primary
As for the Republican primary race, the former president is continuing to dominate the field. An aggregate of polls shows that he has about 57.9 percent, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has 13.4 percent and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has 8.9 percent.The favorable poll results come despite the former president having been indicted in four separate cases in Washington, Georgia, New York, and Florida. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, saying that they’re tantamount to election interference.
Despite President Trump’s significant leads, the third GOP primary debate will be held on Wednesday in Miami. While the former president won’t attend, Ms. Haley, Mr. DeSantis, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will be there.
