Trump’s convictions prove Biden’s only route is negative

It’s too early to tell its impact, but Trump’s conviction does tell this: Biden must go negative. Hard.  

Even with historical news — Trump becoming the first convicted former president — Biden can make no headway in the polls. Biden’s only remaining hope is to drive Trump’s numbers below his. 

April 15 marked the beginning of Trump’s New York hush money trial. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polling, Trump held a slim 0.3 percentage-point lead (45.2-44.9 percent) in a two-way race, a 1.8 percentage-point lead (42-40.8 percent) in a five-way race and a 2.8 percentage-point lead (48-45.2 percent) in the all-important battleground states. 

May 30 marked Trump’s conviction. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polling, Trump held a slim 0.9 percentage-point lead (47.6-46.7 percent) in a two-way race, a 2.2 percentage-point lead (41.7-39.5 percent) in a five-way race, and a 3.1 percentage-point lead (47.7-44.6 percent) in the battleground states. 

June 14 marked two weeks — and much publicity — after Trump’s conviction. According to Real Clear Politics’ average of national polling, Trump held a slim 0.8 percentage-point lead (45.4-44.6 percent) in a two-way race, a 1.8 percentage lead (42-40.2 percent) in a five-way race, and a 3.2 percentage-point lead (47.9-44.7 percent) in the battleground states. 

The first thing that emerges from these snapshots is that Trump’s margins fell only one time: in the two-race polling from his conviction to today — and then just slightly. In all the other instances, his margins increased from opening to conviction to today — and at each juncture. 

The other thing that emerges is that not only did Biden see Trump’s margins widen, he saw his own polling numbers drop from the trial’s beginning to today. Despite his opponent receiving unprecedented bad news, Biden is not capitalizing.

Will the conviction change things?  So far, it hasn’t — at least not at the highest level. And there are strong reasons to believe it won’t — at least not with Trump’s supporters. The verdict will certainly be appealed, and the case was certainly politically motivated.

Few of Trump’s supporters — or likely anyone but his most ardent critics — appear shocked he was convicted in a case prosecuted by a Democrat, in a courtroom presided over by a Democrat and by a jury of New Yorkers. Fewer still — supporters and critics alike — could explain the charges against him or the grounds for conviction.

Usually, the aggrieved group is the more motivated one. For proof, just look at how presidents’ parties historically fare in midterm elections. And Trump’s supporters are clearly the aggrieved group here.

Trump is amazingly resilient. He’s the first candidate to win three consecutive major party nominations since FDR did so in 1940. Fast forward 80 years and despite pandemic, lockdown-induced recession, and civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death, he came within a combined 77,000 votes (spread across Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin) of winning reelection. Now, four years later, he polls extremely close to his 2020 popular vote percentage then.

In contrast, Biden is anything but resilient. He has shed substantial support in his four years in office — despite beginning under the extremely propitious circumstance of the pandemic’s ending. But Biden’s loss of support extends further than just his time in office. 

As late as October 2020, Real Clear Politics showed him holding double-digit leads. Effectively, Biden has been losing support for four full years. Now, even with Trump’s unprecedented conviction, he’s not gaining.

Biden is simply too far down on the issues that matter to voters. According to Real Clear Politics’ June 13 average of national polls, Biden’s overall approval rating is just 39.6 percent. That’s almost 12 percentage points below his 51.3 percent popular vote percentage in 2020. It’s also well below the approval rating of any predecessors since at least Truman. 

As bad as Biden is perceived overall, he fares even worse on the election’s most important issues. According to Real Clear Politics’ June 13 average of national polling on issues, Biden rates even lower on inflation, crime, immigration, foreign policy and his handling of the Hamas-Israel war — and almost as low on the economy.

The one certainty from Trump’s conviction is Biden’s negativity. Biden has a negative record in the eyes of most Americans; nothing he does seems to change it — nor did what just happened to Trump.  

Biden’s political necessity is to drive Trump’s numbers lower than his own. Increasingly, it looks like Biden’s only hope of winning is seeking to make Trump lose.

J.T. Young was a professional staffer in the House and Senate from 1987-2000, served in the Department of Treasury and Office of Management and Budget from 2001-2004, and was director of government relations for a Fortune 20 company from 2004-2023.