The 2024 presidential election will be decided by swing voters and every campaign is vying to win over this crucial group. So where does sentiment among swing voters currently stand in regards to the top candidates? In a social media analysis conducted from May 12 to June 12th, Impact Social collected data from a group of 40,000 online swing voters. The company used social media discussion to gage this groups sentiment towards the three top presidential candidates; Joe Biden, Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis. The results give a fascinating look at where each candidate currently stands with swing voters.
Donald Trump
According to Impact Social:
As mentioned, such is the current state of American politics that news of the former president being charged with a federal offence did not come as a surprise. Discussions
among our 40K swing voters does not consist of people reeling at the news. Instead they speak in sober and subdued terms about its political impact, where this leaves America
and technicalities surrounding the case. In essence, so baked-in is their jaundiced view of Trump that even the realization that he is to be arrested failed to have a major impact.
As with the MAGA base, the development served merely to reinforce their previously held view – that Trump is unfit for the Oval Office and should never again be trusted with
power.Ominously for Trump, many of these swing voters are also acutely aware that should he win office, Trump could stop the indictment and potentially pardon himself of any
wrong-doing. As they see it, voting against Trump not only prevents him gaining power, it also allows justice to be served – thereby giving them an additional incentive to vote.
Ron DeSantis
It would be tempting to suggest that DeSantis’ drop in net sentiment (down 22pts to -22) is due to his catastrophic launch. Yet in reality this only partly responsible for an increasing poor perception of DeSantis through the eyes of these voters. Driving this downward trend is his lean to the right over gun control, abortion and an unseemly fight with Disney in an attempt to appeal to the MAGA crowd. Right leaning independents liked the old DeSantis, the guy who won the FL governorship at a canter by being himself and majoring on GOP values, success and winning.
Joe Biden
The president meanwhile joins DeSantis in failing to impress (down 7pts to -22) .While he largely avoids accusations of weaponizing the DOJ against Trump his policies on border
control, crime and Ukraine all come in for attack. The row over the debt celling also shone a light on the nations’ finances forcing many question
Biden’s huge spending commitments and his legacy of debt.
According to the data Donald Trump has struggled with swing voters for years and his federal indictments will do nothing but make those struggles worse. Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis, on the other hand, have only started to see a dip in sentiment among swing voters in the past month. So who will swing voters throw their support behind when the election comes around? Right now, this group seems to be stubborn, not content with any of the top candidates. In the end, both DeSantis and Biden are in better spots to scoop up swing voters when they are finally forced to make a choice.
