Do The Polls Really Show Trump Ahead?

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I really am beginning to lose it mentally. Maybe I don’t understand what I read or what I’m told.

I’m referring to the story on one of the news aggregators today about the latest Presidential poll done by YouGov and Yahoo where the headline reads: “Trump Vs. DeSantis: New Poll Points to Runaway Winner in Republican Primary,” and the winner is Donald Trump.

So, I go to the details of the poll and Trump is running away with 45% of the votes. DeSantis, Haley, Youngkin and five others divvy up another 40%, and 15% of the respondents haven’t yet figured it out.

That’s a runaway? Trump doesn’t even score 50% and the headline reads as if the primaries are over and done.

Meanwhile, the same survey asked respondents if they wanted Joe to run again in 2024, and 47% said ‘yes.’ For all the media chatter about how everyone hates Joe and thinks he’ doing a lousy job, in fact right now his numbers are better than the numbers for Trump.

And I noticed one other interesting thing about the alleged lack of support for Joe. In fact, when the poll breaks out his popularity among age groups, Joe gets positives from 61% of the 18–29 group and 52% from respondents between the ages of 30 and 44. He dips down to 41% for the 45–64 group and 39% positive for the old farts (65 and up.)