Biden’s Weak Political Standing Helps Push Michigan and Nevada From Lean Democratic to Toss Up

Our first set of Electoral College ratings, which we released this summer, made assumptions about 2024 based on past performance.

As we end the year, however, it is time to move from looking at prior results to focusing on the present political standing of the candidates. And it’s clear that President Joe Biden’s standing has diminished, even as opinions of former President Donald Trump haven’t improved from where they were in 2020.

In July, Biden’s job approval rating was an unimpressive 41% favorable to 53% unfavorable (-12). Since then, it has fallen further, with the latest FiveThirtyEight aggregation showing Biden at -17 (39% positive to 56% negative).

As such, it is hard to justify keeping two battleground states — Nevada and Michigan — in the Lean Democrat column. We started these two states there because they have a slight Democratic advantage over the other four states we have in Toss Up : Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And, unlike those other four battleground states, Biden won a majority of the vote in Michigan and Nevada.

The last time a Republican