Nikki Haley has an advantage; Ramaswamy trails. Not that it really matters.
There is admittedly not a whole lot of use in polling presidential general election matchups 14 months before they take place. That’s a lot of time, perhaps best exemplified by pointing out that in September 2019, we not only didn’t know how difficult Joe Biden’s path to the Democratic nomination was, we had no idea that a global pandemic was about to erupt. Things change.
But there are ways in which such polling can offer insights. One is by comparing different sets of general election polls to suss out trends and comparisons. Of course, this is made more complicated by the fact that different pollsters ask different questions at different times; it’s tricky to know whether it’s terribly significant that, say, Donald Trump polls poorly against Biden in one poll, but Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) polls better in another.
Enter CNN. Along with its polling partner SSRS, the cable news heavyweight conducted a new national poll that considers not just the most likely 2024 matchup — Trump vs. Biden — but pits Biden against more than a half-dozen potential nominees. Suddenly, we can learn a lot about the strengths and weaknesses of the candidates, if not much about the race itself.
Addressing that latter point first: There is a very narrow band of difference between the various Republicans and Trump. Only businessman Vivek Ramaswamy trails Biden, but a one-point deficit is well within the margin of error and therefore not a statistically significant deficit at all. Former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley does the best, with a six-point lead over Biden.
