CBS News
Trump leads Biden narrowly in Georgia as general election comes into focus — CBS News Battleground poll
With President Biden and Donald Trump on the verge of clinching the presidential nomination, their rematch in Georgia in the general election looks like another close race. Trump is just ahead of Mr. Biden in likely voters’ current preferences, with a three-point lead that is within the margin of error. This edge is driven by a small group of Mr. Biden’s 2020 voters switching to Trump, boosted by favorable views of how Trump’s policies would affect Georgians’ pocketbooks.
The president’s message in his State of the Union address that democracy is under threat at home may resonate with Democrats, but voters in Georgia are likelier to say it’s Trump than Mr. Biden who would strengthen U.S. democracy. In fact, Mr. Biden’s numbers on this issue are net negative, with a third of his own voters saying his second-term policies wouldn’t make a difference.
Trump’s numbers on democracy are driven by his own voters, many of whom still believe there was widespread voter fraud in Georgia in 2020. Another reason Trump’s backers might give him the edge on democracy is the widespread feeling among them that the charges and indictments against him are politically motivated.
Democrats are also trying to raise the salience of abortion access after the Dobbs decision, keeping it on voters’ radars. A majority of Georgia voters would prefer abortions in the state to be mostly, if not entirely, legal, but they are by no means all voting Democratic. About three in 10 of them currently prefer Trump to Mr. Biden, but this is another group to watch as the campaign unfolds.
At the same time, most say that Mr. Biden is not focused enough on inflation and the U.S.-Mexico border, and these views are correlated with voting intentions. Biden 2020 voters who don’t think he’s paying enough attention to these issues are more likely to be backing Trump today than those who say Mr. Biden’s focus is about right.
Persuasion and turnout
In 2020, Georgia went blue for the first time in decades, albeit very narrowly, with Mr. Biden beating Trump by under 12,000 votes — about a quarter of a percentage point.
There is a turnout gap emerging early on, setting up a campaign not just of persuasion, but also motivation: Republicans and Trump 2020 voters are likelier than Democrats and Biden 2020 voters to say they will “definitely” vote.
And Republicans are currently thinking about the race more than Democrats.
Most voters here already report thinking about the presidential race “a lot” — perhaps partly due to the primaries occurring now. And while the vast majority of voters are planning to turn out this fall. This six-point turnout gap results in a likely 2024 electorate with a slightly higher share of Trump ’20 voters.
On top of that, more Biden ’20 voters than Trump ’20 voters are now thinking of voting for the other party. To be clear, these voters constitute small but highly consequential slivers of the electorate. And Trump’s current lead is more attributable to persuasion than differential turnout.
Trump indictments
The lion’s share of Trump’s backers would still consider him fit for the presidency if he were eventually found guilty of trying to overturn the 2020 election. (This is also the case among Trump’s primary voters in recent GOP nominating contests.) About one in five of his supporters in Georgia say they wouldn’t consider him fit if he were found guilty by a court.
Could a conviction, if it happened, change any minds? The evidence is mixed. Trump voters who say they wouldn’t consider him fit don’t have positive evaluations for Mr. Biden, and they also express concerns about Mr. Biden’s mental and physical fitness. This group may be asked to pick between two men they consider unfit for the job, albeit for different reasons.
Overall, voters across the state are more mixed on the Trump charges. There is slightly more concern that the charges are politically motivated than concern that he actually tried to overturn the election. But most say they wouldn’t consider him fit to be president if he were found guilty.
Who is switching?
One of the more noticeable shifts comes from the diverse suburbs around Atlanta. Voters in this competitive part of the state were critical to Mr. Biden’s success four years ago, but they now lean Trump’s way.
More generally, Trump’s support has improved a bit among voters of color. While the gains are modest and Mr. Biden still has a big lead among them, every potential blue-to-red switch matters in a close race.
Most Black voters feel Trump is trying to earn Black support. Black voters make up nearly a third of Georgia’s electorate, and 17% of them today are picking Trump over Mr. Biden — that’s a modest improvement from Trump’s 2020 showing in the state. Mr. Biden’s path to victory in the state relies on maintaining dominant margins among this key group. This is a key group to watch, because it would be much harder for the president to replicate his 2020 performance if more of them switch their support, or if a substantial segment of Black voters aren’t motivated to turn out this year.
Aside from voters of color, voters under 50 and men who voted for Mr. Biden four years ago are the likelier groups to be considering switching to Trump. Switching to Trump is also more prevalent among self-described moderates and independents, as well as voters who say Mr. Biden winning wouldn’t make a difference to the strength of U.S. democracy.
Our data also shows some of the challenges ahead for the Biden campaign: mobilize more voters in these key segments of their 2020 coalition to turn out and back the president again, or at least, cast a vote against Trump. These challenges become more difficult if swing voters are more focused on inflation and pocketbook issues than on larger themes of democracy and rights.
Unlike national economic sentiment, views of Georgia’s economy are net positive among voters in the state. And Gov. Brian Kemp enjoys very positive evaluations from voters, with about two thirds approving of the job he is doing. That includes roughly half of Democratic voters.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a statewide representative sample of 1,133 registered voters in Georgia interviewed between March 4-11, 2024. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education and geographic region, based on U.S. Census data and voter files, as well as to past vote. The margin of error is ±3.9 points.
The Democratic National Committee is projecting digital messages on Madison Square Garden’s exterior during former President Donald Trump’s campaign rally on Sunday about recent reports that he once praised Adolf Hitler and his generals and that cast him as unhinged.
“Trump praised Hitler,” one of five planned projections from the DNC says, referring to Trump’s longest-serving chief-of-staff, four-star Marine Corps. Gen. John Kelly, telling The Atlantic this week that Trump had admirable things to say about the German dictator.
Trump says he “never said it,” and campaign aides have denied Kelly’s accounts.
Sunday marks the first time the DNC is projecting counterprogramming onto a building while Trump will be inside it, but it’s far from the first time Democrats have deployed the technique. The DNC put projections on Trump Tower in New York City on the night of the vice presidential debate and on Chicago’s Trump International Hotel and Tower during the Democratic National Convention in August.
Democratic National Committee
This time, the stunt comes as some Democrats make comparisons to a 1939 rally supporting Hitler and the Nazi party at a previous reiteration of Madison Square Garden ahead of World War II. Billed as a “Pro American Rally,” the February 1939 event was organized by German American Bund, an pro-Hitler organization, attended by more than 20,000 people and saw an even larger number of counter-protesters outside.
Democratic vice presidential candidate Gov. Tim Walz on Sunday also compared Trump’s rally there to the 1939 rally.
“Donald Trump’s got this big rally going at Madison Square Garden,” Walz said, speaking to voters in Nevada. “There’s a direct parallel to a big rally that happened in the mid 1930s at Madison Square Garden. And don’t think that he doesn’t know for one second exactly what they’re doing there.”
Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris have recently increased their criticisms of the former president as they push their final message to voters in the final stretch ahead of the election. In a CNN town hall, Harris agreed that Trump was a fascist and Walz has called comments from the former president “so damn racist.”
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Hillary Clinton said Trump’s choice of venue for his closing message was no coincidence and that he was “actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939,” following similar comparisons from others including New York state Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal.
Trump campaign national press secretary Karoline Leavitt fired back to say Clinton herself has held events there while her husband, former President Bill Clinton, accepted the Democratic nomination there in 1992.
“Putting aside her hypocrisy, Hillary’s rhetoric about half of the country is disgusting,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Sunday’s rally comes just days after Kelly also told The New York Times Trump has little appreciation of history, saying, “I think he’s lacking in that.”
Trump also personally rebuffed the criticism at a rally later on Friday in Michigan, distancing himself and his base from the comparison.
“I guess in the 1930s or something, some guy who was inclined toward the Nazis had something, and she said it’s just like the 1930s. No, no, this is called Make America Great Again,” Trump told a crowd in Traverse City.
DNC Chair Jaime Harrison didn’t go as far as to make the same comparison as Clinton but told CBS News in a statement he sees Trump as having “grown increasingly unhinged in the final weeks heading into Election Day; so much so that those who know Trump best are warning voters that he is dangerously unfit to lead.”
To that end, the DNC is also projecting messages onto Madison Square Garden questioning Trump’s competency including, “Trump = Unhinged” and “Trump = Unwell.”
David Schwartz, a trial attorney in New York City, has previously told CBS News it’s illegal to project digital signs in New York City for longer than 60 seconds without a permit. A spokesperson with the DNC, however, said they are aware of the law and complying with it by rotating through individual messages.
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contributed to this report.
NEW YORK — Timothée Chalamet made a surprise appearance Sunday at his own look-alike contest in Manhattan.
At least one person was arrested after a large crowd formed and police broke up the event in Washington Square Park.
Chalamet posed for photos with his doppelgängers, some of whom came dressed as his characters from the movies “Wonka” and “Dune.”
The look-alike contest was one of several such competitions hosted by the YouTube personality Anthony Po, and it promised $50 for the winner. As word spread on social media, thousands of people RSVP’d.
From “a silly joke” to “pandemonium”
Stefan Jeremiah / AP
Minutes after the competition started — and before Chalamet arrived — police ordered the group to disperse from the park. Organizers were hit with a $500 fine for an “unpermitted costume contest,” and police said one person was issued a summons for disorderly conduct.
“It started off as a silly joke and now it’s turned pandemonium,” Paige Nguyen, a producer for the YouTube creator, told The Associated Press.
The group relocated to another park, and the audience eventually crowned Miles Mitchell, a Staten Island college senior, as the winner.
“I’m excited and I’m also overwhelmed,” Mitchell said. “There were so many good look-alikes. It was really a toss-up.”
The contestants were asked to demonstrate their French skills, about their romantic plans with Kylie Jenner, and what they would do to make the world a better place.
WESTON – A small group of loyal customers gathered in Weston Saturday morning to thank a pharmacist who is relocating as Walgreens closes the location where he served the community for almost three decades.
The celebration was led by an 11-year-old boy who shocked the pharmacist by presenting him with thousands of dollars that he raised as a thank you gift.
Weston Walgreens closing
In the midst of corporate cutbacks at Walgreens, the location on Boston Post Road is closing permanently. So a small group came out to thank the pharmacist at the store.
“It’s humbling. I can’t believe it. It’s amazing,” said veteran pharmacist Bob Hesselberg, who has worked at the store for nearly 30 years. “I don’t want to retire, even though I am 75. I don’t want to retire. I’m not ready for it.”
Hesselberg is moving on to a store in Waltham. The sendoff was led by 11-year-old Aarav Khanna, whose school bus routinely drops him off right across from the Walgreens location.
“I’ve seen the amount of kindness and hard work he puts into his job,” Khanna said.
CBS Boston
Money raised for pharmacist
Khanna got the idea to raise money for Hesselberg as a going away present. And the total grew quickly. Thanks to the community, Kanna was able to present Hesselberg with a check for $6,000 on Saturday, leaving the pharmacist in shock.
During the Saturday celebration, a young girl gave a handmade card to Hesselberg, who people in the community call “Pharmacist Bob.”
“You walk in, he not only greets you by name, but he wants to know how your family is, and how is that medication you had last time, and how are you doing? And he means it,” customer Carol Ott said.
The Weston Walgreens closes in the middle of November. Hesselberg hopes some customers will follow him to Waltham, but he worries about some of the older residents driving that distance, especially since the chain won’t be doing home delivery anymore.
“I’m gonna miss everybody. And I’m very grateful for all of this. And thank you so much,” Hesselberg told the crowd.
