Former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in most of the 2024 election polls, a grim reality for the incumbent's re-election bid that few Democrats -- and most certainly not the Biden campaign -- are willing to admit publicly.

One notable exception is a former senior adviser to failed 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines, who acknowledged on Monday that Trump would defeat Biden, as he did Clinton previously, if the election were held now instead of in November, Fox News reported.

That surprising admission from Reines came as part of his surprise reaction to a recent poll that showed Trump with solid leads over Biden in five out of six crucial battleground states that so often decide close elections.

Poll shows Trump leading in five of six swing states

It was on Monday that The New York Times reported on the results of polls it conducted alongside Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer of more than 4,000 registered voters spread across six swing states, in which former President Trump held comfortable leads over Biden in all but one of them.

Per the surveys, Trump was up +7 in Arizona, +10 in Georgia, +7 in Michigan, +12 in Nevada, and +3 in Pennsylvania, while Biden was up +2 in Wisconsin. Biden reportedly won all six of those states in the 2020 election.

The Times attributed Biden's poor showing to evidence of "a yearning for change and discontent over the economy and the war in Gaza among young, Black, and Hispanic voters" that threatened to "unravel the president’s Democratic coalition."

It was also noted that the results were not substantially different from a similar poll in November, even though "Since then, the stock market has gained 25 percent, Mr. Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan has started, and the Biden campaign has unleashed tens of millions of dollars in advertisements across the battleground states."

"The polls offer little indication that any of these developments have helped Mr. Biden, hurt Mr. Trump, or quelled the electorate’s discontent. Instead, the surveys show that the cost of living, immigration, Israel’s war in Gaza, and a desire for change continue to be a drag on the president’s standing," The Times added.

"If the election were tomorrow, Joe Biden would probably not win"

Later on Monday, during an appearance on Fox News' "The Story," former top Clinton adviser Reines was asked for his reaction to the poll numbers and admitted in response, "I have to be honest with you, I don't know what's going on here."

"I’m not going to pretend these numbers are good, but … I agree … if the election were tomorrow, Joe Biden would probably not win," he continued.

"Thankfully though, there are 176 days between now and November 5th. Also, thankfully, the president and his team are not sitting there in a bubble thinking things are great," Reines claimed. "They know they have problems, and they know where they have problems. I think they know their best hope is to bring these folks home."

Later, after fellow Fox News contributor Karl Rove suggested the polls showed more of a decline for Biden than gains for Trump, Reines added, "If it was anyone other than Donald Trump in this situation, they would probably beat Joe Biden hands-down. The truth of the matter here, is the reason it is so tight and the reason neither of them are going anywhere even when Joe Biden goes down, Donald Trump doesn’t go up, is because Trump has really permanent problems there."

Report: Biden camp in denial about polls showing Trump ahead

Yet, while Reines' acknowledgment that Trump would likely defeat Biden if the election were held now instead of in November, his assertion on Monday that the Biden campaign "know they have problems" in the polls appears to directly contradict a Tuesday report from Axios about how Biden and his campaign team are essentially denying the accuracy and validity of the polls that show him losing to Trump.

That report revealed how Biden has repeatedly falsely claimed that he is the one leading most of the polls, how he and his campaign have questioned the methodology employed by pollsters and asserted that his true level of support remains unmeasured, and how the campaign has refused to make any significant changes despite desperate pleas from other Democrats who are legitimately concerned that Trump will ultimately prevail.