Why Democrats should worry about Biden’s polling

The political eyes of the world are on Nevada this week for the state’s Democratic and Republican nominating contests.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley suffered an embarrassing defeat in the state’s nonbinding GOP primary Tuesday. But in the contests that award delegates, President Joe Biden easily won the Democratic primary while former President Donald Trump is expected to coast Thursday in the GOP caucuses.

That lack of competitiveness belies the fact that Nevada has seen some of the closest general election outcomes in the past two presidential contests. Perhaps that’s why Democrats should be concerned that Trump has led Biden in recent polling from the Silver State.

And Nevada is emblematic of a nationwide trend. Biden finds himself in a place no likely Democratic presidential nominee has been since 2004: clearly trailing for months on end.

Much was made this past weekend of an NBC News poll that put Trump at 47% to Biden’s 42% in a hypothetical general election. What stood out to me is that it was merely one of three polls (including CNN/SSRS and Reuters/Ipsos) released in the past week that gave Trump a 4- or 5-point advantage among registered voters.

Even when those findings are averaged with a Quinnipiac University poll from last week that had Biden ahead by 6 points, Trump is up by about 2 points. This is a lead that has been fairly steady over the past six months. The occasional poll, like Quinnipiac’s, will find Biden up, but the lion’s share of the data points to Trump in the lead.

(In fact, the states where Biden is currently trailing across the country would account for more than 270 Electoral College votes – enough for him to lose in a general election.)

This is a far different situation for Democrats compared…