A CNN host and network correspondent presented a nightmare reelection scenario to President Joe Biden on Wednesday, just days after former President Donald Trump narrowly escaped a would-be assassin’s bullet during a rally in Butler, Pa.
During a show segment on Wednesday, correspondent John King broke down the latest polling data with host Wolf Blitzer, which currently shows a blowout electoral victory for Trump of around 330. “Well, the latest polls show Trump is slightly ahead of Biden in all these key battleground states,” Blitzer said as he brought in King to assess. In response, King began: “The state of the race on night two of the Republican convention is Donald Trump is leading in this race. Significantly, if you look deep into the polling, he has a chance to build on it.”
“New numbers out today. More bad news for the president. Well, let’s look through it. And let’s start with the then this is back in 2020 when Joe Biden won a pretty convincing win, 306 to 232,” King said. “This is the map as it fills in. Remember the then when you look at the now because the striking the difference is striking. This is how our CNN political unit, led by David Chalian, projects the race right now.
“And right now: deep red, solid Republican, light red, lean Republican. If this map played out and the election were today and the map played out like this, even if the tossups went blue, Donald Trump would win the election,” he said.
“Donald Trump would win the election, but the map is even more favorable to Donald Trump. If you look through this new polling today, it’s a small lead. But Donald Trump is leading in Pennsylvania right now. Donald Trump is leading in Wisconsin right now. Donald Trump is leading in Arizona right now. And Donald Trump, most believe, right now has the lead in Nebraska two. Nebraska, like Maine, rewards electoral votes by congressional district,” King added.
“So look at the map right now that gets Donald Trump to 303. And there’s new polling today that shows the president’s approval rating in these battleground states is below 40. The president’s ballot number right now is below 40 in most of those states. And it’s a 42 in Nevada. It’s very hard. In 16 weeks, we count the votes, 16 weeks from tonight to turn that around,” the CNN correspondent went on, adding:
Plus, Democrats are now worried, they think — I’m not saying this is going to happen — but what they’re saying is the president’s going to have to spend more time and more resources on places like Virginia because it’s competitive; in places like New Hampshire, because it’s competitive. You look at this map as it plays out and there are Democrats making the case, and we have Wisconsin blue here. Let’s move Wisconsin over here. There are Democrats making the case that Donald Trump is on a viable path, as of today, to get to 330 electoral votes, Wolf, or even higher because they see other states in here. The Trump campaign says Minnesota. The Trump campaign says maybe New Mexico. Let’s be cautious. Those are blue states traditionally.
But the president’s standing, his approval rating, his ballot number, people’s views about how old he is, and people who view the state of the economy are very bad for the president right now. And so even if you just go back to where we started, Donald Trump is in command. The numbers are getting worse for the president, Wolf. And Donald Trump has an opportunity with this convention to build it even more.