Donald Trump is outrunning other Republicans. What does it mean for November?

In Arizona, Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by 4.6% — but Republican Kari Lake is down by seven in her Senate race. A similar trend can be seen across other key states, according to the Real Clear Politics averages: Trump is up on Biden in Pennsylvania by roughly 2%, but Republican David McCormick is down by almost 5%, and in Wisconsin, where Trump is in a statistical tie against Biden in the averages, Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin is up by almost 7% against Republican Eric Hovde.

Trump’s superior polling is starting to attract more attention, especially after two prior elections where he was often portrayed as a drag on down-ballot candidates. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn noted that some of Biden’s biggest weak spots — his losses with Black, Latino, and younger voters — do not show up with Democratic Senate candidates in their surveys.

But the implications are also unclear: Does it suggest that Trump is breaking through with even core Democratic voters, setting himself up for a victory? Or that Biden has an opportunity to win back voters whose political instincts favor his party as they tune in more closely?

The explanation we heard most often from strategists on the left, right, and center: Biden is unpopular in ways that are largely unique to him, regularly hitting sub-40 marks in approval ratings. And while Trump is still viewed unfavorably, polling also shows voters increasingly rating his presidency better by comparison.

“I think this just speaks to the degree that Biden is a weak general election candidate when relatively uninspiring Democratic candidates are outperforming him so consistently across the board,” Patrick Ruffini, a Republican pollster and founding partner of Echelon Insights, told Semafor. “All former presidents get better retrospective evaluations when they leave office. We just haven’t had a chance to test how this would play out when one was a current candidate — until now.”

One of Biden’s biggest weaknesses, according to polling, is the economy. Alyssa Cass, a partner at Slingshot Strategies working on Democratic messaging, told Semafor that voters across the spectrum say their No. 1 issue is costs — cost of living, food, housing, and more. The disparity between Trump’s polling and Senate Republican candidates, she believes, is because voters associate this key issue with Biden.

“They’re holding Joe Biden responsible for the price pressure they feel every time they go to the grocery store, but aren’t assigning that same responsibility to their Senate candidate,” Cass said. “That further makes sense when you have these Senate candidates who are, for the most part, riding on a MAGA platform and putting culture issues front and center. I don’t think this is a culture war election. I think this is a ‘how expensive are my groceries’ election.”

Recent polling from Blueprint, overseen by Cass, backs up that theory: Data released on May 16 found young voters are “prioritizing kitchen table issues” — and 52% of those polled trust Trump more than Biden when it comes to lowering prices.

Cook Political Report’s recent swing state polling found that not only is Biden seen as inferior to Trump on fighting inflation, but 59% of voters think the president has at least some ability to control prices — an expectation that could separate him from down-ballot Democrats who survived a worse economy in the midterms.

Then there are other Biden-specific problems, namely his age — 66% of voters said they did not think Biden would finish another term in the same Cook Political Report survey. By a 53%-47% margin, voters also reported being more concerned about Biden’s age than Trump’s temperament and legal issues, two weaknesses that are more unique to him.

In conversations with Republicans, some also say the race between the two candidates looks different than other partisan contests. Trump has largely focused on playing up his record as president and denigrating Biden’s in broad terms, rather than trying to make the race a referendum on policy specifics or ideological purity.

“As has been the case for many years, President Trump leads the party and the ticket, and has expanded the Republican coalition to include voters that don’t typically vote Republican or vote at all,” Danielle Alvarez, an RNC spokeswoman, said.

And finally, some of it may just be simple name recognition. Republican Senate candidates are largely going up against incumbent Democrats this cycle, meaning they may need more time to consolidate right-leaning voters who are still not familiar with their campaign, and may face more resistance from voters who dislike Biden but have voted for their opponents before.

“One generalization is that Trump is a much better known entity — there’s going to be a lot more certainty that people are voting for Trump right now,” Natalie Jackson, vice president of GQR Insights & Action and a pollster for Democrats, told Semafor.

Ben WIkler, chair of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, made the case that strong Senate candidates will help boost Biden, a shift from the usual expectation that the top of the ticket drives turnout and persuasion below it. Democrats in other states have made similar arguments.

“2024 is the Year of Reverse Coattails,” Wikler said. “Running as a Democrat in Wisconsin on the same ballot as Tammy Baldwin is like sprinting while wearing a jetpack. Running with Eric Hovde is like sprinting while wearing snow shoes.”

Biden’s team is betting on the same issues that worked for them and the party in prior races will pay off by November. “After Joe Biden and Democrats beat Trump and MAGA Republicans in 2020, 2022, and in off-year and special elections, you’d think folks would realize by now that Trump and his MAGA agenda of banning abortion, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and tax breaks for the rich are political losers that will cost them again in November,” Seth Schuster, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement.

Reviewing a mix of recent polls at Split Ticket, Adam Carlson writes that “Biden has slipped among most subgroups relative to 2020, but he’s losing more support than Trump is gaining, meaning many are not (yet) eagerly embracing Trump and might still be persuadable.”

The Nevada Independent’s Gabby Birenbaum reports another sign of Trump’s lack of coattails so far: Congressional Leadership Fund, the House GOP’s top Super PAC, has not reserved ad time against three Democratic incumbents even as some recent polls have shown Trump leading Biden by significant margins.