The most interesting aspect of The Times' reporting on its latest Siena College poll (3 out of 3 stars; 538) is the list of other polls provided, conducted since President Biden's SOTU speech. I wrote at the time that I'd be surprised if he failed to get a 10-point bump. Since only two polls came even close, count me surprised.
As for Siena's polling, the race among registered, though not likely, voters β a survey disappointment β has Biden creeping up to a tie. In February, Siena had Trump leading by 5 points, 48-43. [Whoa, my mistake, and apologies to the pollster. Siena did include likely voters; the result was about the same: Trump by 47 to 46.]
Democrat Biden's improvement comes from Democrats, a perhaps odd but nonetheless welcome development. He picked up a greater number of his 2020 supporters in this survey than from last month's. Otherwise, little has changed within the electorate: nearly two-thirds of voters see the country headed in the wrong direction, almost four in five rate the robust economy as "fair or poor," and Biden is still too old (except, increasingly, to old voters).
To gain some insight on just how egregiously out-of-touch many voters remain, 63% disapprove of Biden's handling of said robust economy, while 64% approve of Trump's β you remember, the economy he blew up by bungling the pandemic response, and killing hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Awareness' abandonment didn't stop there. Who's "good for democracy"? Biden or Trump? Nearly one-third of voters say ... both! Trump is seen by 45% as "bad for democracy" β let's do rub it in, that's less than half β while almost as many say the same about Biden (38%).
The Times reports that "voters gave Mr. Trump significantly higher marks on his handling of foreign conflicts," which shows how much Gaza is hurting Biden. But Trump's biggest advantage is on immigration. Congressional Republicans made sure of that. On that issue they played hardball not with a pearl but with a fist-size rock.
The second most interesting aspect of the Siena poll is yet another item that has nothing to do with it: Trump's criminal trial, starting today. Siena's current polling will provide a baseline, but it's Siena's polling next month that will fascinate. Did the trial, or is the trial, hurting him? Do American voters care that the nominee of a major political party shelled out hush money to a porn actress in a criminal fashion?
For now, all we know is that "only one in four voters said they were yet paying very close attention to the former presidentβs legal travails." They're likely likely voters, so that's good, and the 37% who said "they were paying little to no attention at all" are probably Trumpers whose habit it is to turn away from any news they dislike. And God bless women, who "were twice as likely as men, 40 percent to 20 percent, to see the charges related to the porn star as very serious."
The wrap-up: Biden is gaining, and beginning today he might gain a lot more. Stay tuned.