White House urges caution on polls showing Biden in trouble

The White House urged caution on Tuesday regarding opinion polls showing Democratic President Joe Biden lagging behind leading Republican candidate Donald Trump.

A New York Times/Siena poll on Sunday showed Biden trailing Trump in five of six battleground states, with a year to go until the November 2024 presidential election.

“There’s going to be a lot of polls out there,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters when asked about them.

She said they should be taken with a grain of salt and harked back to polls showing Republican Mitt Romney leading Democratic then-President Barack Obama ahead of the 2012 election, which Obama won handily.

She also recalled how Republicans were expecting to win big in 2022 midterm congressional elections, only to register a more modest showing, with Democrats holding on to power in the Senate and Republicans gaining only a small majority in the House of Representatives.

The Times poll showed Biden behind Trump in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania and Biden ahead of Trump in Wisconsin. The outcome in all six states will help determine who wins the presidential election.