Donald Trump enters 2024 on cusp of unusual position: Election frontrunner
CBC
Donald Trump is on the verge of entering 2024 arguably holding a status that is unprecedented for him: Election frontrunner.
It's an unfamiliar position for a candidate now suddenly leading most 2024 general-election polls in a way he never did in races past.
This is despite his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol, and despite the 91 criminal charges against him, dismay at his pro-authoritarianism and anti-immigrant rhetoric and efforts in some states to remove his name from the ballot.
A Democratic strategist and former aide to Barack Obama lamented the state of affairs with less than a year to go before the November 2024 election.
"Very, very dark," David Axelrod said on his podcast, as he ticked through recent poll findings showing U.S. President Joe Biden behind.
"It's bad."
Several professional elections analysts are hesitant to anoint Trump with the F-word — frontrunner — this early in the race.
"Yeah, he has the lead," said Drew McCoy, president of election-data company Decision Desk HQ, in an interview with CBC News.
"Right now we see it as a tossup, with a slight advantage to Trump."
A majority of recent surveys show Trump ahead both nationally and in swing states, but there are exceptions.
"For us, it's tied," said Tim Mallow, an analyst at the Quinnipiac University Poll, which this week found Biden and Trump, the likely general-election opponents, even at 47 per cent apiece.
"It's a nailbiter, now."
The Canadian-born director of data sciences at the University of Pennsylvania's public-opinion research program holds a similar view: "It's hard to call this anything other than a pure tossup," said Marc Trussler.
If this election were in any other country, Canadians might be more inclined to wait a few months before paying attention.
