Private GOP Polls Show Trump Losing To Biden In Kansas And Slipping In Montana

Last updated on July 18th, 2023 at 12:04 pm

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As Donald Trump publicly whines about “fake” polls showing him far behind former Vice President Joe Biden, private Republican data shows the incumbent president is even trailing in ruby red states.

According to the New York Times, Trump isn’t just losing traditional battleground states to Biden. He’s also behind in places where Republicans shouldn’t have to spend a single dime, like Kansas (!) and Georgia. In Montana, Trump is reportedly only ahead by single digits.

The report notes, “In addition to public surveys showing him losing decisively to Joseph R. Biden Jr. in a number of battleground states, private Republican polls in recent weeks show the president struggling even in conservative states, leading Mr. Biden by less than five points in Montana and trailing him in Georgia and even Kansas, according to G.O.P. officials who have seen the data.”

More via The New York Times:

Last month’s convergence of crises, and the president’s missteps in responding to them, have been well-chronicled: his inflammatory response to racial justice protesters and his ill-considered rally in Tulsa, his refusal to acknowledge the resurgent virus or seriously address detailed reports about Russian operatives’ putting a cash bounty on American soldiers. It’s this kind of behavior, polls indicate, that has alienated swaths of swing voters.

…

Yet as demoralizing as June was for many Republicans, what was less visible were the frenetic, and often fruitless, attempts by top Republicans to soothe the president and steer him away from self-sabotage, while also manipulating him to serve their own purposes.

One Republican official who is in frequent contact with the campaign expressed incredulity at how some aides willfully distort the electoral landscape to mollify Mr. Trump, recalling one conversation in which they assured him he was faring well in Maine, a state where private polling shows he’s losing.

…

Mr. Trump continues to hope for an economic recovery he can run on in the final four months of the campaign, and on Thursday he trumpeted as a sign of progress the employment report showing 4.8 million jobs gained in June. But it is not clear that Mr. Trump will get much credit for a partial — and possibly fleeting — rebound when coronavirus cases are soaring.

Trump’s electoral map is shrinking, while Biden’s grows

It’s bad enough for Trump that places like Ohio, Iowa, Georgia and Texas have fallen into the swing state column four years after he carried each of them with relative ease.

But the idea that Kansas and Montana, as well as Arkansas, are even part of the discussion shows just how dire the president’s electoral prospects are at this moment.

That goes without mentioning other critical swing states like Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that have drifted toward Biden in recent weeks.

There are still four months until voters finally cast their ballots to decide who will occupy the Oval Office for the next four years, but there is no question that Donald Trump’s electoral map is shrinking right now.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.