Morning Joe took a look at some new polling, and chewed it endlessly to see what it means.
"We have some new NBC polling to get to. Vaughn Hillyard, let's first talk about your reporting on Democrats really concerned about 2024 and Trump," Jonathan Lemire said.
"This reporting stemmed from a lot of private conversations of Democrats who are concerned heading into November of 2024," Hillyard said.
"Not with necessarily their side of the ticket, to be clear, but also an understanding of what Donald Trump and what kind of referring to the potent minority brings here. That is where this new NBC polling makes it very clear just what that support for Donald Trump could look like in a general election.
"I had conversations with Mandela Barnes, who narrowly lost his Wisconsin senate race last year to Ron Johnson, a close ally to Donald Trump. I talked to Tim Ryan, who lost by a decent margin in the Ohio senate race to trump ally J.D. Vance. There are realities in these battleground states that in 2020, Donald Trump turned out a record number of votes on behalf of the Republican nominee. In each of the battleground states, more than any Republican nominee ever. That's where these conversations are heading. If you look at the new numbers from NBC polling, this is where that begins to open up that conversation."
"Despite facing federal charges, the new polling shows that Donald Trump is expanding his lead in the 2024 Republican primary. In the latest NBC News survey, Trump is the top choice of 51% of GOP voters. That's up from 46% in April. In second place with 22% is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whose support has fallen by nine points since the last poll, which was taken before he officially entered the race," Jonathan Lemire said.
"Although Trump remains popular among Republicans, just 34% of all registered voters view him positively, while 56% view him negatively. 55% also say the recent charges against Trump give them major or moderate concerns about the former president. As for his most likely 2024 general election opponent, incumbent President Joe Biden, 43% approve the job he is doing in office while 53% disapprove. That's essentially unchanged from April, and in a hypothetical 2024 matchup between Biden and Trump, the current president leads the former president 49% to 45%. That's within the poll's margin of error.
"There you go, Vaughn. It's bad headline after bad headline for Trump, yet general election is Biden up just barely. I think there's always for any incumbent president, the economy looms as an issue. They've been getting good news on that lately, and we have a week's worth of events of Biden talking about the economy this week. The poll really crystallizes the dynamic, right? Trump is only increasing his grip on the Republican party. For them, a lot of warning signs for next year."
"Exactly. That is where the number, 49% for Joe Biden, 45% for Donald Trump, this is a national poll. You know what NBC News poll the final week before the 2020 election was? Joe Biden over Donald Trump by 10 percentage points," Hillyard said.
