‘Something Historic’: CNN Data Guru Says ‘Age Reversal’ Helping Biden As He Now Leads Trump With Key Demographic

CNN data guru Harry Enten reported this week that based on recent polls the 2024 election is seeing a “historic” trend in terms of an “age reversal” between the two parties. Enten explained that while Democrats usually lead among the youngest voters and Republicans hold an edge with the oldest voters, the current polls show that trend inverting in the case of Joe Biden versus Donald Trump in 2024.

“Right now we’re looking at polls of registered voters. But of course you have likely voters. And those will actually turn out and vote. And if you look at the registered voters, Donald Trump is ahead by an average of two points. But look at likely voters right now, what we see in those polls, those same exact polls, but among likely voters is a tie,” Enten began, adding:

And this is a very unusual pattern, because normally what happens is the broader universe of all registered voters is more favorable to Democrats than those folks who actually vote. So back in 2020, Joe Biden won registered voters or less amongst them in the post-election polls by five points. He, of course, only won by four. Go back to 2012. What do we see among all registered voters? We saw Barack Obama would have won that group by six points, but of course, he only won by four. So this is a very different thing that we see going on here. When you look at all registered voters, you get actually a more favorable environment for Donald Trump than if you look at those folks who are actually likely to turn out.

“Again, this is a flip from what we’ve seen historically. Are there any states this matters more than others?” asked anchor John Berman.

“Yeah. So, you know, we’re looking nationally, but of course, things are determined in the Electoral College and one state where the polls have consistently shown the New York Times/Siena College Poll. And I’ve also seen a little bit in our CNN poll, when I dug into the crosstabs a little bit, where we see this massive jump from registered voters. Look at this, Donald Trump at 49%, Joe Biden at 42%. Though the likely voters look at this a well within the margin of error contest in which Joe Biden actually scores 47% to Donald Trump’s 46%. He is doing significantly better among likely voters in Michigan than among registered voters. And part of the belief for that reason, John, is because Michigan has very lenient voter registration laws, a lot of automatic voter registration in the state of Michigan,” Enten explained.

“That explains Michigan, overall what might be contributing to this trend?” Berman followed up.

“Yeah. So, you know, we’ve spoken a ton about Joe Biden’s problem with young voters, right. Look at the 2020 results. We see Joe Biden in those exit polls. And in the post-election survey from the Pew Research Center, winning young voters, those under the age of 30 by 25 points. Right now in the polls, look at that, Joe Biden is up by just a single percentage point. My goodness gracious, what a decline for Joe Biden,” Enten explained, adding:

But there is, of course, an age reversal going on here that I don’t think gets spoken about nearly enough, which is in those exit polls in that Pew Research Center post-election survey, Donald Trump by five. Now we have Joe Biden by six points. And of course, older Americans are much more likely to vote. So this is an age reversal. I think Joe Biden will take, you know, you want these are the voters who show up, generally speaking.

Berman agreed, “These are the voters that usually show up.”

“It’s something historic, John,” Enten replied.

Watch the clip above via CNN.