A recent poll from Marquette University Law School confirms what others have already shown: President Joe Biden's reelection effort is sputtering. And not just against the current GOP front-runner, former President Donald Trump.
The top line numbers for a Biden-Trump rematch show Trump ahead 52 percent to 48 percent. That's within the poll's 4.5 percentage point margin of error. Not much new here.
But it's in the other hypotheticals we see some interesting data that show not only Biden's troubles, but the big change underway inside the GOP presidential contest.
Against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Biden trails 51 percent to 49 percent. A squeaker that open the door to a third party or independent candidate having outsized sway over the outcome.
In a Biden-Nikki Haley match-up, however, voters the numbers show Haley trouncing Biden 56-44 percent. Just how big would such a result be? It's a bigger percentage of the vote than George H.W. Bush got on his way to winning 40 states in his 1988 victory over Michael Dukakis.
No Republican nominee has posted similar numbers since then.
And these potential numbers for Haley are approaching those Ronald Reagan got in his 1984 landslide win over Walter Mondale. Reagan earned almost 59 percent of the vote and won 49 states. No presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat, has come close to such a victory since then.
The major caveat to all this however is that Donald Trump still has a big lead over the rest of the GOP field. There is currently no indication that lead will collapse.
But what the Marquette numbers do show is DeSantis' tepid appeal to the broader electorate. They may not be overly keen on Joe. But Ron? Eh, whatever. And the rematch scenario between Trump and Biden? The Marquette pollsters wrote:
A significant share of voters are initially reluctant to choose between Biden or Trump, saying they would vote for “someone else” or wouldn't vote. The share of these reluctant voters had remained around 20-25% since the question was first posed in November 2021. In September and November, the share of reluctant voters has dipped below 20%. It was 18% in November.
That ought to be a sobering data point for the major party front-runners. But more likely, they will ignore it.
Haley however…there's something new, different and potentially electric. Or at least it's true until the voters actually hit the polls…which they do in Iowa on Jan. 15.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
