Joe Biden has gained an inch in the polls – and Democrats are jubilant

It is a mark of the bleakness of expectations among American Democrats that, this week, President Biden’s slight rise in the polls has been seized on as cause for giddiness. I did it myself. This was it! The beginning of the correction. Finally, the toll of various lawsuits and expensive judgments was coming home to roost in the form of a drag on Donald Trump’s popularity. New York magazine urged cautious optimism. NBC News lost its mind and used the word “behemoth” in a headline to toast Biden’s burgeoning campaign. All this based on national polling that puts Trump 0.7% ahead.

Still, it’s better than the numbers were a few months ago. In Pennsylvania, a key battleground that flipped for Trump in 2016, a recent survey put Biden up 10 points, having led by only one in February. In a national poll conducted by NPR, Biden was actually two points ahead. (The same poll found that 40% of respondents reported being “open to changing their minds”. Who are these people and what is wrong with them?) But while older voters, particularly men, seemed to be moving en masse towards Biden, voters under 45 appeared less sure. Many young people still endorse Biden, but Trump, up a net 15 points in that demographic since 2020, is seemingly gaining ground with younger Americans.

Of course, it’s possible that none of this means anything. A two-point lead is too narrow to predict an outcome. It does, however, fit with a sense that things look very different now to the way they did in 2020. In February, the Biden campaign raised $53m in donations, and has built a significant fundraising advantage over Trump. The former Republican president has seemed less visible – or more accurately, less audible – than he did at this point in the run up to