Dem
51
GOP
49
A lot of Democrats are crying in their wine because Joe Biden's approval rating is dreadful. But they forget that Donald Trump's is as bad if not worse and for a lot of voters, it will be a matter of choosing the lesser of two evils. It is possible for the lesser of two evils to get 270 electoral votes, though. A new quality national poll from Quinnipiac University has Biden ahead of Trump 48-45 in a head-to-head poll.
However, when the question is changed to include third-party candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jill Stein, and Cornel West, Trump pulls ahead of Biden 39-38. Nevertheless, we believe there is a lot of signaling going on here. Biden loses 10 points when the third-party candidates are included and Trump loses only 6 points. We suspect that many of the voters threatening to vote third party are just sending Biden a message that they are unhappy about something and want attention. Stein is at 4% and West is at 3%. These voters are definitely Democrats and we suspect when push comes to shove in November, they will not want Trump to win and most will hold their noses and grudgingly vote for Biden, then leave the polling place and throw up. When Jill Stein ran in 2016, she got 1.07% of the vote. She's not going to get 4% this time. The Kennedy voters are trickier to pin down, though. He may pull off some Democrats who like his views on the environment and also some Republican anti-vaxxers. We will have to wait for polls where the Kennedy voters were asked about why they like him and who their second choice is. Or maybe Sarah Longwell will hold a focus group with Kennedy voters. C'mon Sarah, you can do it. (V)