MSNBC analyst Kornacki reveals it is Biden, and not Trump, who is struggling to consolidate his voter base

By 
 March 7, 2024

Given the rough primary battle that former President Donald Trump has faced thus far, first against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and then against former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, there has been a lot of speculative chatter among media pundits about Trump's potential struggles to fully consolidate the Republican voter base.

Yet, according to MSNBC analyst Steve Kornacki, President Joe Biden and his team should be more worried about an inability to fully consolidate the Democratic voter base ahead of November's general election, Mediaite reported.

Republican voter base fairly solid for Trump

On Wednesday, Kornacki appeared on MSNBC's "Chris Jansing Reports" to help explain the Super Tuesday primary election results, and he had some bad news for Democrats and President Biden's supporters.

The analyst first addressed the punditry's suppositions about former President Trump not being able to win over Haley's supporters now that she has finally ended her futile challenge for the Republican presidential nomination and pointed to polling which showed that Trump should ultimately win over most of those GOP voters with relative ease.

"Look, over the last few days we’ve had four national polls come out showing small, small leads for Donald Trump. But what’s interesting in those polls is you ask Republicans, in a Trump-Biden match-up, who are you supporting? And in these polls, here it is, 91-6, 92-5, 96-4 for Trump," Kornacki explained.

"This is Trump’s share with Republicans in general election polling. What did he get among Republicans in 2020? He got 94%. What did he get among Republicans when he won in 2016? He got 92%," he added and further noted that Trump’s "support in the general election polls among Republicans really isn’t showing any slack."

Biden struggling to consolidate his base of voters

"So again, I think there is -- I’m sure there is an issue here with some chunk of Haley’s voters who are gettable for Trump, and in a close election, close general election, that can matter a lot," Kornacki said. "But in the context of what we’re seeing in the general election, the one who has the issue right now with the base is more Biden than Trump."

"This is from the New York Times poll. They asked folks, 'Hey, you voted for Trump in 2020. Are you still with Donald Trump?' 97% of his 2020 voters say they’re still with him," he continued. "Ask Biden’s 2020 voters ‘Are you still with Biden?' The number’s 85% there. So at least right now in the general election polling, it’s Trump who’s taking more from Biden’s voters than Biden who’s taking from Trump’s voters."

"So I think there’s a bigger context to any of that slack Trump might have from the pro-Haley side of the Republican base. There are gains right now, at least in the polling, that he’s making elsewhere that are offsetting whatever is there," Kornacki added.

More bad news for Biden

That recent New York Times/Siena College poll referenced by MSNBC's Kornacki was full of bad news for President Biden, not the least of which was its topline number showing the incumbent losing 48-43% among registered voters in a likely rematch against 2020 opponent former President Trump.

The polling also revealed that only about a quarter of voters believed the nation was headed in the right direction, nearly half of voters "strongly" disapprove of Biden's job performance, more than half rate the economy in "poor" condition, and roughly twice as many voters say Biden's policies have hurt them than say they've been helped.

The pollsters further found that Biden's support has slipped among key Democratic constituencies, including women and working-class minorities, while Trump has made gains among those same cohorts, as well as among Biden's 2020 voters, where only around 83% say they'll vote for him again while 10% plan to cast their vote in support of Trump this time around.

One final bit of bad news for the incumbent was that just 23% of Democratic voters were "enthusiastic" about voting for Biden, compared to 48% of Republicans who felt that way for Trump, while a combined 32% of Democrats were either "dissatisfied" (26%) or "angry" (6%) with Biden being the likely nominee in comparison to a combined 18% of Republicans who were "dissatisfied" (9%) or "angry" (9%) with Trump being the likely GOP nominee.

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