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other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. : c-span viewers are familiar with sean trende, senior election analyst with real clear politics. the place to go for polling. sean trende, as we are now 11 days since the debate with questions swirling about joe biden staying in the race, what do polls tell us about the state of the race? guest: well, we have seen a pretty consistent answer to the question. joe biden's position in the polls has deteriorated. perhaps not as severely as some people would have thought. he has lost about two points across the board. he has gone from being down a couple of points on donald trump to being down three or four points on donald trump. it's not a great place for an incumbent to be at this part of the race, but it isn't the

collapse that some people feared on the democratic side. host: is that just the general public polling or is that in the battleground states that become so important as we get closer here? guest: well, that's mostly the general public or popular vote polling. in the states there has been some deterioration, just haven't had that much state polling, frankly, partially because of the july 4 weekend, posters don't like to poll on holidays. but the consistent story we have seen has been a two week decline in the link. some of that might be democrats declining to pick up, pull wise. we see that in polling sometimes when there is bad news for one party or the other. again, two points seems to be pretty consistently the rule. host: what's your expectation moving forward this week? when can we expect more numbers on

not just the presidential race but also what it means in the all-important down ballot races? guest: that's really the big question. there's been almost no independent polling of senate and house races. we don't know if this is just joe biden thing or an across-the-board democratic slump. this week, i think towards the end of it, you will want to see a lot of people, a lot of posters putting down their markers before the republican convention because pollsters like to do before and after polling pictures. we will get a pretty rich view of where the race really stands starting wednesday, thursday, friday. host: back to the top of the ticket, is there more to be read in just two or three point of difference here that there wasn't more of a trump bump since the debate, considering all of the airtime that has been spent and handwringing on the democratic side? guest: you

know, this is a weird race and all kinds of ways. what makes it unique from the analyst perspective is you have two incumbents running against each other, which you don't see that often in presidential races. every american knows who trump is and has an opinion of him and every american knows who joe biden is and has an opinion of him. it's very difficult to change those entrenched viewpoints. realistically, there probably isn't that much variation available to the antedate. so, i think this is probably about four for joe biden and any democratic candidate, but we will have a better view by the end of the week. host: as some democrats cast about for a replacement joe biden, who are the other democrats that all americans know and have an opinion about? who fares well in a hypothetical matchup against donald trump?

guest: you know, that's really the problem that the democrats who want to replace biden run into. kamala harris is the best-known non-biden democrat, but she doesn't fare much better against trump than president biden does. there have been other names known about. governor gretchen whitmer of michigan, governor gavin newsom of california, governor schapiro out of pennsylvania, probably the most common. they are known as well as president biden, or as widely as president biden or vice president harris. they are so -- they also don't fare well against trump. part of the problem is a kind of party wide just disaffection, i think, with the way that things have gone over the last four years. somewhat surprisingly for democrats, the public seems to look back on trump years more

favorably than they did four years ago. so, i think it is a tough slog for anyone in this environment. really, the polling shows pretty consistent trailing against donald trump. maybe other democrats at work upside, so we would have to see if one of them goes in and how being the nominee might change things. host: when someone gets a bad poll, often the only one that matters, we hear, is the one of election day. throughout the election season, this general election that started a lot earlier than usual this cycle, we heard that for the longest time the polls don't matter. when do polls start actually to matter as we get within three months of an election? guest: well, the old rule is that after labor day is when you should start paying attention to

. the problem with that is that with the rise of early voting, you know, labor day is most when start cast ballots. -- casting ballot. -- ballots. certainly, after the democratic convention in august, that's go time for paying attention to the polls, people will be voting very shortly. host: with the likelihood of reminding that there is some sort of on the floor primary at the convention in august, how likely is that right now? guest: boy, a lot of this -- it's like asking who the vice president will be. a lot of it comes down to whatever is going on in the mind of one person, and in this case

that's joe biden. he keeps his own counsel very tight his family. so, he is the one person that can really answer that russian. based on what i have heard, i'd say it was 50:50 that the president stepped down, declines, steps out of the race, and if he does bow out, there might be an attempt to kind of name his successor, most likely kamala harris, but the floor fight, there will be a lot of people who want this shot at the white house and i don't think or a nation is going to go over as well as some people expect. i think that if biden does step down, some sort of floor fight is likely. host: sean trende is our guest in this segment of "washington journal," a great person to ask about the polls. real clear politics, their website is where you can check out the writing that his

writing. for my -- phone lines as usual. democrats, (202) 748-8000. republicans, (202) 748-8001. independents, (202) 748-8002. sean trende is with us for the next 35 minutes or so this morning. eight, republican line, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. i have a polling question. i have voted republican all my life. i cannot vote for donald trump because of his character. and other national defense issues. it has been obvious in the primaries that there are quite a few republicans that cannot vote for donald trump. also those who have worked for donald trump. people that cannot suppose -- cannot support revoke four. i have always wondered, how does the polling capture the people

that will not to sue paid that normally do? i would like to hear the answer to that question. thank you. host: sean trende? guest: yeah, so there are two different variants on that. there are republicans who will dissipate at all, then there are republicans who would vote for the democrat. what we see in the public polling, what you will see in the cross tabulations, you will see detailed answers of how different groups would vote. you will see consistent, about 8% of republicans, people who identify as republicans in the poll, they say they will vote for democrats. there is that other option but though, people not participating. getting closer to election day, the polls will start to reveal what they call likely voters. they will ask people how likely they are to this in the election

and will say not likely, they will just kind of drop out of the poll. when you see the likely voter polls, those are the ones that most heavily account for what the caller describes, people who just aren't going to participate in this election because they cannot bring themselves to vote for a democrat but cannot bring themselves to vote for donald trump. host: albany, new york, line for democrats. caller: i'm a person who pays close attention to the polling and from what i can surmise, all the polling shows, far back as it goes, that biden is pretty much flat. he's kind of stuck in that 45 to 46% range, far less than he got in the last election. when you look at trump's numbers, trump's numbers have continued to rise over the course of the primaries and is

consistently ahead of biden by about 1.5%, according to real clear. after the debate, they expanded to about 3.5%. sometimes even more, if you add third parties in there. also, looking at your website, i have seen most of the swing state polls, he's losing almost all of them. i think this really comes down to -- it's not a question of age with biden. it's do you want to put someone in there who has shown no upward movement and only downward movement against trump, who always has a ceiling, worse, but he is -- trump seems to be getting back all this he has lost among republicans and independents, but biden seems to not be able to gain the support he once had up to that 51% that he had when he was the winner of

the election, so to me it's not really a question of age, it's a question of can he win swing states and the election? and he'll need to make a decision to step down and take a good, hard look at these polls and realize that things are not going to change, he needs to step down and get someone like kamala harris and there, who is very wise, very articulate, funny and goofy. i think she is a lot more relatable to people like me or younger. i wanted to say about the age gap, we have bill clinton, w bush, trump, and biden, the same people have been running this country since the night 90's, -- since the late 90's, except for barack obama, and it helps to have a younger candidate who understands us better. host: we will take the point.

sean trende? guest: there's a lot in there. i think the main point is a solid one. in a lot of ways it has been fascinating to watch this post debate debate on full. it was almost like eyes open on where the state of the race was, regardless of what the polling was doing post debate. a lot of us watching the polls said look -- biden is in a precarious position right now, as the caller absolutely correctly points out. he was trailing in the national link. he was trailing in the swing state polls. you could say -- yeah, michigan, pennsylvania, wisconsin are the key states where he was doing ok but was still behind. it's like scales fell from the eyes people were watching the race after the debate. a lot of that debate that's going on now is not so much that

he will fall into a hole, it's -- does he has what it takes to overcome? a lot of people really started lessening other he could do it based on that debate performance. the caller is 100% correct, even pre-debate, the president was in a precarious position. the debate now is about -- does he have what it takes to close the lead? or is this as good as it gets? host: on their screen, we are showing the general election trump biden matchup, and this is polling over time from real clear politics. that chart showing that the last time joe biden was ahead in the matchup was september of last year. guest: that's right, that's right. and i think there has been a lot of i don't know call it putting your fingers in your ears so you don't have to hear it, but it's been refrain among people who

follow elections closely. this president has been consistently trailing in the popular vote. remember, trump lost the popular vote but won the election in 2016. so for him to be ahead in the popular vote polling outage -- average is really unusual and i think it exposes a reality that has been around for a long time. if you are a democrat. good news, it's late in the game but there is still at least theoretically something that can be done about it. whether or not there is practically is another question altogether. host: conley spring, john, independent mind, good morning. caller: it's amazing how these democrats is calling in and is putting biden before the country, you know? trump done some very, very good things and they hate something good. i don't understand that.

you know how it is. they don't care about what the country is. they just care about joe biden. the people then running south carolina, they go down there and threw them trial down there with our republican judges, lawyers and juries. what they think he end up coming out being? that's what trump is in new york . he's going to be that case, no doubt about it. they ought to put country before the man. i don't care if it's who it was. they got to read their bible. people, good, that's what they doing. thank you. host: any thoughts on that, sean trende? guest: well, i think there are a lot of people who in good faith see the democratic policy

platform and agree with it and a lot of people who see the republican party platform in every. one of the great's about this job is i get to travel all over the country and you shows like this where i hear people call in and i think in this country are basically decent, even if we don't always agree on politics. i have to disagree with the premise about democrats. i would do the same for republican. host: one column from "usa today," talking about polling in a hypothetical situation. imagine how well nikki haley or any other republican with water would be doing right now at the peak of the gop primary, where she was shown doing better against joe biden long for the entire democratic machine turned on the president. candidates like haley would have

had the added benefit of capturing the turncoat democrats most put off by the tragic biden debate performance while some republicans say they don't want those voters to capture them at a boats from diehard trump supporters. guest: yeah, the polling definitely showed former governor nikki haley doing much better against president biden then former president trump was doing. you know, i think she was viewed as a more moderate persona, someone who could reach across the aisle more effectively. once she becomes the republican nominee, the democrats start attacking her and start fleshing out her quite conservative positions on some issues, whether she is able to hold onto that. but she was an engaging personality -- not as polarizing as former president trump has become. there's a good chance that she

would be doing better in the polls right now, but there are caveats to that. you cannot just blindly rely on what the polling was showing, that she was the trump alternative and not the biden alternative. host: jane, louisiana. it would be easier if you just turned down your television and we could hear you better. caller: sorry, i should've known. go ahead with your -- host: go ahead with your question or comment. caller: ok, i really did have a question. yeah, i do have a western. -- question. did joe biden have a cold? i watched the whole debate. i did not see him sneeze, have a runny nose, use a kleenex. it looked like he didn't have a cold. which would have been another

lie. of course, i don't think he started that lie. it was his lady that talks to the press. she started that. anyway, i wanted to also say that i'm 81 years old right now. i don't think it is age. i don't have any problem with carrying on conversations. i watch television. i get a lot of information. that is why i wanted to let people know about that cold business. host: sean trende, on trust in the administration in the wake of what was seen over the last 11 days, i think it was maureen dowd or a different columnist,

saying that democrats are losing the moral high ground because it looks like they are lying to the public about the president's health and ability. is there a way to measure that trust? guest: you know, trust in government in america has been on the decline for 50 years, ever since watergate and the vietnam war. we have asked these questions and it's gone from an era where the majority of americans said they trusted the government to where that is down in the 20's. so, i think you start with a baseline of people being skeptical of the government and when something like this happens, you know, it's not just about the allegations in a poll. i don't want to diagnose president biden from a debate and maybe he had some really strong sudafed to keep the runny nose from happening. but there has been this kind of six-month drumbeat from within the administration, from

democratic supporters that there is nothing at all going on with the president, everything is fine. i think what made the debate so shocking for a lot of people is that it just became barry's hard to support that. i agree with the caller on one thing. it's not just age. there are people who are at fairly advanced ages that are still sharp as a tack. i think the question with biden after this debate is -- is he that person that reaches that age and is still sharp as a tack ? or is there really some genuine decline going on? course, this is not happening in a back. there have been clips and you can see snippets of him at the top of his game. we will see. he will do more campaign appearances. he will have to do more interviews. if the old joe biden comes back, some of that concern will be

alleviated. if not, he is going to face a mounting chorus of people who say look, we don't trust what you have said about your health and that this and we think maybe it is time to go in a different direction. host: on trust, kevin from x says that americans have zero confidence in polling and that the industry has done that to themselves. what is the intent? why do you do it? can you talk a little bit about the real clear politics polling, poll averages, and how you do that? guest: well, i think that one thing we try to do, but it doesn't always get through, is emphasize that these are samples . we are only talking to 500, 1000 people, and there is good math that you can show a good sense of where people come from with a sample but they do have error margin.

they won't be perfectly precise. they will be within a few points of the out come, but a few points in a close race can make a big difference. one thing that we do, but our philosophy is, we average polls. so, if you get one pole that is kind of skewed and an outlier, as we call it, the other polls will pull the outlier back and you get the average of the polls, which over time is more accurate than any particular single pole. so, i would advise people that when you hear there's a poll that shows president biden is here or a poll that shows senator brown is here, don't just listen to the pole. don't think like real clear politics, see what other polls are showing. it will give you a complete view of the state of the race and help to minimize any error that is just inherent in polling. host: delving a little deeper,

the real tics paul -- pollster scorecard, if you hear someone ran a poll and you wonder if it's skewed one way or the other, how can they use the pollster scorecard? host: we have a scorecard -- guest: we have a scorecard on our site showing the major pollsters going back and we have the averages across wing cycles. -- across polling cycles. as well as whether it is going to favor republicans or democrats. we have some pollsters who favor republicans, generally. for an individual poster, the scorecards are an invaluable way to evaluate the pole. when you put it all on the average, the republican and democratic biases tend to cancel out. host: new york state, ann,

democratic line. caller: good morning, c-span. i'm terrified about trump getting back and implementing project 2025, which she claims to know nothing about, but we know it's a way -- another one of his lies, taking away the rights of people in the light of the supreme court ruling making him immune. i hear people talking about changing or switching out joe biden. this is not a football game. you can't just put someone in a player is having a problem. my concern is i have heard republicans, if this happens, plan to pick out a bunch of swing states and then sue in those states, many of which have republican legislatures, to say they cannot change the ballot

to, say, kamala harris, though she's on the ticket. could your guest please address those mechanics? the mechanics of changing biden to some other democrat? host: something you looked into? guest: yeah, we have looked into it and boy that could be an entire 30 minute segment on its own. not as easy as some are making it out to be. the caller rightly intimates that our federal elections are ultimately governed by state law. they have their own quirks regarding ballot access. you can imagine the republicans are not going to just quietly accept democrats swapping out biden for some other candidate. they will revel in the chaos.

it's a difficult process and in every day that goes by, it becomes more difficult. states like pennsylvania, we are coming up on eight weeks before they start voting. there's a lot that goes into that. it's not easy to redo the printing of millions of ballots. it's not too late in most places, now, for that type of swap to go on. time is joe biden's friend on this metric. the longer he sticks it out, the more difficult that process, which is a 50 state process, not a single i'm not the nominee anymore process, the more difficult it becomes for the process to work itself out. host: down tocaller: yes, i woue to say harry truman, he was a

good christian man, a democrat. he was a good man. and jfk. i know jfk had a few false here and there he was a good man, a good democrat. but since then, especially what we got now, it is pretty pathetic. i mean, biden, he is just kind of a joke. i mean, he is letting these murdering killers come across the border down here and has not done nothing about it until his poll numbers started to get bad. that is pretty pathetic. and kamala harris is even worse than him. i would rather have marco rubio running, you know, being in the white house. but it is what it is. i mean, at least donald trump will get these killers and drug dealers out of this country and seal this border up.

host: sean trende on the immigration issue this cycle. guest: immigration is such a hard issue because i think there are valid concerns about not knowing who has come into the country. there is a reason we have an orderly immigration process set up. i think you can make the case it is too restrictive, and that is part of what drives illegal immigration. look, i also think it is very hard to seal up that border. the fact of the matter is we have a multi thousand plus mile border with mexico. it is very difficult to control. i know what president trump has promised he would do, but the reality is that working that out is going to be tough. maybe you say at least he is maybe you say at least he is >> we're going to break away for live coverage of the u.s. house. you can