As Biden launches reelection bid, a look at how Wisconsin voters feel about 2024
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- Wisconsin played a crucial role in the 2016 and 2020 elections and polling and political experts point to 2024 being the same as President Joe Biden launched his reelection bid Tuesday, April 25.
Biden announced he's running for reelection in a video announcement.
No matter who wins the presidency in 2024, Wisconsin will play a major role in reaching 270 electoral votes.
In 2020, Biden won the state by fewer than 21,000 votes and former President Donald Trump won the Badger state in 2016 by just over 27,000 votes.
According to a recent poll of Wisconsin voters conducted between April 17 and 20 by Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, Biden leads former Trump 47 percent to 43%. In the same poll, Biden is tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at 45%.
"Here in Wisconsin where party identification is about evenly split about 30% Republican, 29% Democrat and the rest independent we're back in our usual position of expecting a really close race that could go either way," Marquette University Law School Poll Director Charles Franklin told CBS 58.
Currently, voters across the country only have a 39% approval rating of Biden, the second lowest of his presidency.
Franklin said the approval ratings for both Biden and Trump were deeply impacted by partisans sticking to their side, leaving independents the likely deciders of election outcomes.
"I'd say the most critical group to watch is certainly independents because with partisans so anchored in their partisan camps, movement by independents is really about the only thing that's changing in the way we see presidents in the last 8 or 10 years," Franklin said.
No matter what the matchups end up being, Franklin believes Wisconsin is firmly in the handful of states that will ultimately decide the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
"There are a lot of groups out there that handicap elections around the country none of them fail to have Wisconsin as one of the four most critical states for the 2024 presidential race," Franklin said.