Now, both nationally and in swing states, there are a lot of pollsters in business. Indisputably, some are better than others. And you can definitely find outliers that have Biden in better shape here and there.

But every pollster has Biden’s job-approval rating in lousy shape. This morning, the new national Reuters-Ipsos poll “showed just 36 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance as president, down from 38 percent in April. It was a return to the lowest approval rating of his presidency, last seen in July 2022.”

If only a bit more than a third of Americans think Biden is doing a good job, would you expect him to have a lot of momentum in the presidential race? Yes, Trump is a deeply flawed candidate, but he’s also the most likely alternative.

Ezra Klein is among those on the left side of the aisle trying to sound the alarm for the Biden campaign: “To the extent polls have been wrong in recent presidential elections, they’ve been wrong because they’ve been biased toward Democrats. Trump ran stronger in 2016 and 2020 than polls predicted.”