Summary and Key Points: Former President Donald Trump is currently leading in the 2024 presidential race against President Joe Biden in most major polls.

-Trump is performing well among African-American and Hispanic voters and is ahead in key swing states.

-Despite facing multiple legal issues and a recent conviction related to hush money payments, Trump's support remains strong.

-Economic challenges and foreign policy issues under Biden's administration are contributing to Trump's popularity.

-However, Trump struggles with female voters, a critical demographic that could be swayed if Biden steps down for Vice President Kamala Harris. To improve his standing with women, Trump may benefit from selecting a female vice-presidential candidate with broad appeal.

Donald Trump Leads Biden in 2024 Polls Despite Legal Troubles

Former President Donald J. Trump is clearly leading his chief adversary in the 2024 presidential election, the Democratic Party’s President Joe Biden. In almost all major polls, Trump has significant leads over his rival. 

The forty-fifth president is doing well with African-Americans – much better than any Republican in the last few decades has done. He’s also doing well with Hispanics, a group we were told hated Trump. In five out of the six key swing states (the states that will likely determine the election), Trump is leading his Democratic Party opponent.

Still, it’s not all a glamorous road ahead for Trump. 

A recent AP-NORC poll found that about half of U.S. adults approve of President Trump’s recent conviction for making illicit hush money payments in 2016 to the adult film star, Stormy Daniels. 

Trump is accused of other crimes, too. Everything ranging from inflating the value of his real estate assets to purloining classified documents from the White House to running an insurrection. Most Americans, if they are paying attention at all to the various legal dramas Trump is dealing with, appear to be in support of the legal processes, no matter what Trump’s supporters insist.

Democrats are certainly highlighting Trump’s alleged “threat to democracy” and relishing criminalizing their greatest political foe this presidential election cycle. 

Despite the polling data about the trials, or the recent poll that says Trump’s conviction for hush money payments in New York will turn off independent voters (who are never happy), when likely voters are polled to determine their views on the hot button topics of our day (the economy, foreign policy, culture), the majority of Americans consistently come down against Joe Biden.

And that’s a key metric. 

A Parade of Horribles 

The economy is miserable for anyone who lives in reality and not the one created by Biden apologists. The price of eggs in the last eight months rose 8.9 percent. In fact, the cost of most consumer goods in the country remains high. 

Even with the Biden campaign taking a victory lap with news that inflation has gotten down to around three percent, or that the price of homes was starting to decline, the Biden team could not truly enjoy it. Or use it as a measure to convince voters things were doing well under Biden. 

That’s because interest rates remain at the highest they’ve been in 20 years. There’s no sign of abatement in those high rates.

Everywhere average Americans turn, they are told one thing by the Biden administration but experience the opposite. It’s a case of “who are you going to believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” In this case, not only are the American people seeing something quite different from what the president and his aides are telling them about the economy, but it’s obvious that the economy is not as good as the Democrats say it is.

This all plays well for Trump, who has been making the case that he was going to bring America back to the way it was in 2019 – the last year stability existed in the country. 

Then there’s the matter of peace and war. 

Under Biden, it is obvious that the world is on fire, and we’ve never been closer to a world war than we are right now. Everyday it seems the news is flooded with some new piece of misery that did not exist in the Trump years. 

The border is another big topic that President Biden has placed himself on the wrong side of. Thus, despite his legal woes, Trump comes across as the best suited to lead the country back to some semblance of normalcy. 

Donald Trump and His Women Voters 

Trump’s one weak point is with women. That’s also the reason that the possibility of Joe Biden stepping down as the Democratic Party nominee at the upcoming Democratic Party convention and handing the reins over to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, is so frightening. 

Harris would likely lock up the female vote for the Democrats.

Regardless of what may happen at the Democratic Party’s convention, the Democrats are running hard toward cleaving as much as the female vote for themselves as possible. 

That’s why, on top of talking up Trump’s supposed threat to democracy, Biden and his team have been hammering the forty-fifth president on abortion rights. 

In 2022, conservative majority Supreme Court of the United States delivered a devastating blow to abortion rights in the country. Back then, the court dismantled Roe v. Wade and kicked matters of abortion rights back to the state governments to decide. 

Women voters believe this was an assault on all women and that the Republican Party, which has rarely fared well with women voters, is unfit to represent American women for another term. 

It is Trump’s poor showing with American women that should most concern Trump and his advisers heading into November. Picking the right vice-presidential candidate might do the trick. Trump should pick a woman. But he should pick a woman who has credibility with the women voters of America. That isn’t Kristi Noem or Nikki Haley. It’s Tulsi Gabbard. 

Once the women issue is better managed by Trump, the forty-fifth president is well-suited to become the next president of the United States in November. 

About the Author: 

Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline.