The latest New York Times poll showing former President Donald Trump leading Joe Biden in five of the six swing states sent Democrats into paroxysms.
But there are troublesome facts about both candidates buried in the crosstabs of that poll that Peter Schweizer drills down on in his most recent podcast episode, and they don’t even touch on the abortion issue that seemed to dominate this week’s elections in Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere.
The Times poll found Trump leading in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada by between five and ten points over President Joe Biden, while closely trailing Biden in Wisconsin. All six states were key to the 2020 election and will be again next year.
The poll’s findings scared Democrats and Sunday morning talk show bloviators, but the real news is, per usual, buried deep in the crosstabs of the poll’s results – and offers a blueprint of Democrats’ 2024 strategy.
Among Trump’s supporters, a critical number of them told the pollsters they would switch to support Joe Biden if Trump were convicted of offenses like the one being tried in Georgia now, which alleges he tried to interfere with the state’s elections in 2020.
“The Democrats see this” – prosecuting Trump – “as a winning strategy for 2024,” Schweizer said. Eggers explained that when the poll asked Georgia voters: “If Trump were convicted, would you still vote for him?” Trump’s current 6-point lead there among likely Georgia voters flipped to a 12-point advantage for Joe Biden.
But there’s more. The poll also showed a second key issue — that wide majorities of voters, even including Democrats, believe that Joe Biden profited personally from his son Hunter’s business dealings in China, Ukraine, and elsewhere while Joe was Vice President, and afterward.
Schweizer, who broke many of the details of this story back in 2018 in the book, Secret Empires, says this proves that “corruption still matters” to American voters. “It proves what we at GAI have always believed, that people still care about this stuff,” he said. “And this problem will not go away.”
And therein may lie the blueprint to the Republicans’ 2024 strategy.
It will get worse for Biden, Schweizer tells co-host Eric Eggers, because of continuing revelations from the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden money trail.
Through subpoenas, the committee has already established that at least $250,000 flowed in a straight line of wire transfers from Hunter Biden to his uncle James Biden and then ending in two checks written by James to Joe Biden. Through the search of bank records already in the possession of the committee’s investigators, the committee has exposed these transactions and promises many more.
Schweizer believes that is merely the tip of the iceberg, and that the inquiries will reveal a torrent of money that flowed to Joe Biden during those years. And the poll seems to suggest that voters in the swing states sense it, too.
Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R-KY) has said he plans to subpoena a dozen people, including Hunter Biden, James Biden, and possibly even the president himself to answer questions stemming from two bank transfers and checks totaling $250,000 that ended up in Joe Biden’s account.
The poll has upset the Democrats but will also motivate them to seek a conviction of Trump on at least some of the charges as quickly as possible. The Trump campaign, ironically, is pursuing much the same goal with a different intention. The Trump campaign wants to appeal any guilty verdict and tie it up in the courts. Yet, the poll shows that 51% believe that Trump was actively threatening American democracy.
“The Trump team is not being honest with themselves about this,” Schweizer said. “They’re trying to rush these cases. But, if they get a conviction with the intent to appeal it, they will lose,” he added.
“I think the reason Trump is leading is mostly due to voters’ frustration about inflation, and also that the world is on fire right now in places like Israel, Ukraine, and China, and the Biden administration is not doing anything about it. But I also think Americans are wondering whether, if Trump is convicted, he could actually do the job.”
To hear more of the Drill Down podcast – click here.