2024 Elections: Biden Trails Trump in Most Swing States With Large Latino Communities

U.S. President Joe Biden has most of his attention set in the international front, specifically in working to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from escalating into a regional conflict while helping one of its staunchest allies.

But he also seems to have his work cut out for him at home, especially when it comes to next year's presidential elections, in which he's likely to again face former president Donald Trump.

A new poll released this Thursday by Bloomberg and Morning Consult showed the current president trailing the former one in five of seven swing states: Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They are tied in Michigan and Biden only holds a lead in Nevada.

Most of the results show a rather slim lead for Trump, the largest one being in Georgia, where he leads by 48% to Biden's 43%. However, should the former President hold them all, they could place him in a clear path to the White House.

The scenario gets more dire for Biden when considering he won six of the seven states included in the poll, North Carolina being the only exception.

Many of these states have significant Latino populations, which could play a key role to tip the scale next year. In 2020, according to the Census, Latinos comprised over 30% of Arizona's population, 28.7% of Nevada's and over 10% of Georgia's and North Carolina's. A recent series of polls have shown that even though Biden still holds a majority of the Latino support, his numbers have gone down with the demographic, which could help explain the overall figures in the latest general poll.

According to Bloomberg's analysis of the poll, a key reason for Biden's woes is a "trust deficit on economic issues." "Voters in those states favor Trump over Biden on the economy by a 14-point margin. Inflation was the most important economic issue for voters, especially women, blue-collar workers and retirees".

The label "Bidenomics" to describe the president's platform is not helping him either. Almost twice as many of the people surveyed said the plan is bad for the economy, and independents were more likely to view it negatively.

However, individual aspects that make the plan are in fact popular: reducing drug costs, making child care more affordable and building infrastructure among them.

Foreign policy is another weak spot for Biden, according to voters. They favored Trump by 11 percentage points on U.S.-China relations and by seven on the Russia-Ukraine war. The poll doesn't address the Israel-Hamas war, which began on October 7th.

Voters also showed more concern about Biden's age than Trump's. 30% of Biden voters in the surveyed states said that the vice presidential candidate is much more important than in other elections. Out of those who vote for Trump, the number was 24%. Biden will be 81 next year and Trump will be 78. Regardless of who wins, the victor will be the oldest person to be elected.