Veteran Political Scientist Predicts How Trump-Biden Polling Will Evolve

A longtime political scientist predicted that voters will feel differently about Donald Trump when it comes down to two clear choices on the ballot.

Norman Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the American Enterprise Institute conservative think tank, reacted on MSNBC on Sunday to a new poll showing Trump ahead of President Joe Biden in five key swing states in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

“One of the things that I think is clear here is that most voters have paid no or little attention to Donald Trump’s legal problems,” Ornstein told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi. “That will change when we get criminal trials. And especially if and when we get convictions.”

Ornstein said that a lot will change over the course of the next year.

“When we get down to two choices, and we have one presidential candidate who is for a complete Muslim ban, who has supported and lunched with Nazis or neo-Nazis and who has criminal convictions,” he said, noting that combined with the issue of abortion, voters may end up seeing things differently.

“And when we see clear choices, I think we’ll find a different dynamic,” he said.

However, Ornstein said about Biden, “That’s not to sugar-coat a series of polls that show that for reasons that we will have to explore for many years, a president who’s had astonishing success in many areas” has “such low standing with the public.”

Polls so far out from an election have proven to be unreliable in the past. However, multiple Democrats have expressed concern about the results.

Biden’s campaign shrugged off the poll.

“We’ll win in 2024 by putting our heads down and doing the work, not by fretting about a poll,” spokesperson Kevin Muñoz said in a statement.

Watch Ornstein’s analysis below on MSNBC.

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