‘It’s clear that President Joe Biden’s standing has diminished, even as opinions of former President Donald Trump haven’t improved,’ the report says.
The states of Michigan and Nevada have shifted support toward Republicans as President Joe Biden’s polling numbers continue to slide, according to a new analysis from the Cook Political Report (CPR).
“It’s clear that President Joe Biden’s standing has diminished, even as opinions of former President Donald Trump haven’t improved from where they were in 2020,” says the report, which was published on Dec. 19.
In July, President Biden’s job approval rating was an “unimpressive” 41 percent favorable to 53 percent unfavorable, the report notes.
Since then, however, his approval rating among Americans has slid further to just 39 percent according to the latest FiveThirtyEight polling averages.
“As such, it is hard to justify keeping two battleground states—Nevada and Michigan—in the Lean Democrat column,” CPR’s Editor-in-Chief Amy Walter writes.
“We started these two states there because they have a slight Democratic advantage over the other four states we have in a toss-up: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin,” Ms. Walter notes.
Unlike those other four battleground states, President Biden won a majority of the vote in Michigan and Nevada in 2020.
“At this point, however, Biden isn’t performing any better either in job approval or in head-to-head matchups with Trump in those states than in the other battleground contests,” the CPR analysis continued.
Key Issues Plaguing Biden’s Campaign
As a result, Nevada and Michigan have moved to join Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as so-called toss-up states for the presidential elections scheduled for Nov. 5 next year, according to CPR.
The report goes on to note a number of key issues currently hampering President Biden’s reelection hopes, including the ongoing Israel–Hamas conflict, which has been an especially divisive issue in Michigan, which is home to the largest share of Arab Americans in the United States.
“These voters make up something like 2-3 percent of the vote in the state and have been voting Democratic,” CPR notes.
Meanwhile in Nevada—where there is a higher share of Latino voters than the national average—President Biden’s “weak standing with Latino and younger voters has outsized repercussions,” Ms. Walter said.
