American University professor Allan Lichtman, who's correctly picked the winner in nine of the past 10 presidential elections, said "a lot would have to go wrong" for President Joe Biden "to lose" to former President Donald Trump in November during an interview with the Guardian published last Friday (April 26).
Licthman, 77, who accurately predicted every presidential election excluding 2000 since 1984, still hasn't made his official pick, but acknowledged his 13 keys to the White House method, which considers whether "the incumbent party candidate is the sitting president" and "there is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination," after Biden easily won in the Democratic primaries.
“That’s two keys off the top,” Lichtman said. “That means six more keys would have to fall to predict his defeat. A lot would have to go wrong for Biden to lose.”
Biden was recently reported to be gaining momentum on Trump with the two tied in a Quinnipiac poll released last Wednesday (April 24). The current president is also reported to hold a 51% to 48% edge in a head-to-head poll among registered voters, as well as a 53 to 47% lead when only counting respondents who said they definitely plan to vote in the 2024 presidential election in November, in the latest Marist/PBS Newshour poll published on Monday (April 22).
The poll was released one day after the latest NBC News poll revealed that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was actually hindering Trump's support more than Biden's. Trump leads Biden by a 46% to 44% margin in a head-to-head matchup, however, Biden (39%) leads Trump (37%), Kennedy (13%), Jill Stein (3%) and Cornel West (2%) when all candidates are considered to be options, according to NBC News.
Additionally, 15% of respondents who picked Trump in the initial head-to-head poll instead chose Kennedy in the five-way ballot, while 7% who initially picked Biden instead chose Kennedy in the expanded poll.
Earlier this month, a FOX News poll reported that both candidates were in a tight race in four key battleground states. The poll, which surveyed 1,100 registered voters between April 11-16, showed that the two candidates were tied in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, while Trump had a slight advantage in Georgia and Michigan, though both were within the margin of sampling error.
The surveys also reported that Trump was "meeting or exceeding his 2020 vote percentages in the two-way race, while Biden trails his number," and that "more voters disapprove than approve of Biden's job performance by at least 10 points." Biden, however, still overperformed his approval rating as 10% of the respondents who claimed to have disapproved his job performance still preferred him in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, who holds a significant advantage over the current president in the poll on the topics of immigration and the economy.
A New York Times and Siena College poll released in November 2023 reported that Trump led Biden by a 52% to 41% margin in Nevada, a 49% to 44% margin in Georgia, a 49% to 44% margin in Arizona, a 48% to 43% margin in Michigan and a 48% to 44% margin in Pennsylvania. Biden reportedly had a 47% to 45% edge over Trump in Wisconsin at the time.
The latest New York Times/Sienna College poll released last Saturday (April 13) also showed that Trump had an early polling advantage by a 47% to 46% margin.