Joe Biden is not very popular

Biden’s Whereabouts in the Campaign for a New Face in the Post-State of the Union: Two Things the Democrat’s Most Want in a Presidential Campaign

Democrats seem to lack anyone in the wings that can mount a compelling primary challenge but they are restive. A new Associated Press-NORC poll found the share of Democrats who want Biden to seek a second term had fallen from 52% last year to 37% now (the poll was fielded before the State of the Union.) The younger democrats want a new face and a quarter are hoping Biden would run again.

The GOP has a good chance of regaining the House of Representatives, but the fate of the Senate will be decided in a few knife-edge races. A Republican triumph in either chamber would severely curtail Biden’s domestic presidency and set up an acrimonious two years of political standoffs ahead of the 2024 White House race.

Even here, though, Biden’s got two bits of positive news. First, his numbers, unlike Trump’s, are on the upswing. Second, the vast majority of Democrats could not name a nominee other than Biden.

Where does Biden rank historically at this point in his presidency? When it comes to Biden’s predecessors standing in the final stages before the election in their first term, we can use Gallup’s presidential job approval center.

According to a Gallup analysis, the average number of seats lost by a president whose job approval is below 50% is 37. For presidents with job approvals north of 50%, the seat loss average is 14 seats.

Last week’s poll by CNN/SS showed the impossibility of the political environment for Democrats. Some 51% of likely voters said the economy was the key issue in determining their vote. Only 15% named abortion – a finding that explains how the election battleground has tilted toward the GOP. A majority of voters who are concerned about the economy will vote Republican in their House district. And 75% of voters think the economy is already in a recession, meaning that Biden’s efforts to stress undeniably strong economic areas – including the strikingly low unemployment rate – are likely to fall on deaf ears.

It is no longer possible for Democrats to use the Supreme Court’s ruling on the right to an abortion to stave off a party in control of the House in the upcoming election. Biden faces a dark political environment because of the 40-year-high in the cost of living – and his hopes of a swift rebound next year are clouded by growing fears of a recession.

“In large part that’s why this election is super weird,” says Bryan Bennett, lead pollster for Navigator, a Democratic polling consortium. “People are having to make this trade-off between the immediate economic concerns [where]…they might blame the incumbent party in power. But at the same time, they know that same incumbent party is the one that is going to protect that fundamental human right” on abortion.

Noble says Kelly is benefiting from campaign fundamentals: the Democrat has significantly outspent, and also more successfully occupied the center, than his Republican rival. Kelly is trying to overcome the fact that many voters already look past the president in regards to the two parties, according to Noble. “The [president’s] job approval, for whatever reason, is not having as much effect,” Noble says. “You can’t see the direct connection to the Senate vote because people have accepted it’s Biden, and pat him on the head and push him along.”

The results in Senate races through the 21st century underscore Abramowitz’ point. The Republican Senate candidates lost all of their races when the exit polls showed less than 50% approval of Trump. In the GOP’s 2010 sweep, Democrats lost 13 of the 15 Senate races in states where exit polls put then-President Barack Obama’s approval rating at 47% or less. During the Democratic “thumping” in 2006, Republicans lost 19 of the 20 Senate races in the states where exit polls showed George W. Bush with an approval rating of 45% or below. In each case, despite the national tide flowing against them, the president’s party won most of the Senate races in states where his approval ratings exceeded those levels.

The national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll gave a snapshot of this divergence last week. Asked what issue they considered most important in 2022, Republicans overwhelmingly chose inflation (52%) and immigration (18%). A similar percentage of Democrats picked abortion, preserving democracy and health care. inflation, immigration, democracy, abortion, and health care were priorities of the two parties, but the independents split them in half. Voters with at least a four-year college degree leaned relatively more toward democracy and abortion; those without degrees (including Latinos) tended to stress inflation. This survey did not include crime but it has provoked the most concern from both Republicans and non-college educated voters.

Given these disparities, Democrats everywhere are stressing issues relating to rights and values, particularly abortion, but also warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. Since June, as CNN recently reported, Democratic candidates have spent over $130 million on abortion-themed ads, vastly more than Republicans.

What do most Americans think about the Biden-Biden economic messages? How many Americans think that Trump is a saving grace in the GOP?

The most important of these may be the case that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the Biden legislation will lead to a boom in US employment.

But those plant openings are mostly still in the future and only a few Democrats (such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Kelly, and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan) are emphasizing those possibilities this year.

Democrats stress that the party has passed legislation that provides some relief on specific costs, such as the provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act that allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. According to Garin, highlighting specific initiatives can help individual candidates overcome negative judgement of Biden’s economic management. His main concern is that too many Democrats are sublimating any economic message while focusing preponderantly on abortion.

Republicans haven’t convinced voters they have specific answers in the economy and that’s a saving grace for the party. She said after a day of door-to- door canvass in Phoenix that the concrete wasn’t set yet. “There is still a way to move people, connect with people.” Democrats are committed to giving people opportunities to help them meet their obligation to their families, while Republicans are interested in taking away rights, according to Way to Win.

Among likely Hispanic voters, a narrow 48 percent plurality disapproved of Mr. Biden even as 60 percent said they would vote for congressional Democrats this fall — one of a few groups, including younger voters, who appeared to separate their frustration with the White House from their voting plans.

The college was a strong dividing line. Democrats held a thirteen point advantage over those with a bachelor’s degree. Republicans had a 15-point advantage among those without one.

The winning Democratic coalition relied on a significant gender gap and on winning women by a wide margin when it took over the House, Senate and White House.

The poll showed the Republicans had completely reversed the 11-point edge Democrats had for women in congressional races last month.

But it’s not just that fewer Republicans now think that Trump is their best bet in a general election. They’re also less inclined to say they like him. In a October 2021 poll, his favorable rating among Republicans stood at 81%. The poll this month had Trump with a positive rating among Republicans.

In a hypothetical 2024 rematch, Mr. Trump led Mr. Biden in the poll by one percentage point. Among women, Mr. Biden was ahead of Mr. Trump by only four points, compared with the margin of more than 10 points that Mr. Biden had in the 2020 election, according to studies of the national electorate for that election.

Today, the mood of the nation is decidedly sour. A majority of likely voters think the country is in the wrong direction, compared to only a small number who believe the country is going in the right direction. Only a small percentage of likely Democrats believe the country is going in the right direction, which is above the low point of the summer.

David stated that everyone is hurting right now. Everything has gone up so high it’s going to collapse and that’s why I’m against it.

A survey of democrats young voters during midterm elections: the CNN reaction to the meme of Joe Biden, a dreary president, and the lack of student loan debt

The survey of almost 800 likely voters was conducted by phone from October 9 to December 12. The sampling error is calculated using a margin of sampling error. Methodologies and cross-tabs are available here.

The CNN political commentator is a Republican strategist and pollster with a book on how Republicans can keep up with the younger generation. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has a lot of opinion articles.

It is believed that most people reading this will be reading a meme of President Joe Biden, rendered as an all-powerful hero or villain. It started as a right-wing catchphrase before Democrats appropriated it to praise the President.

The meme reached the height of its powers, whatever those may be, when the Democratic group Building Back Together released a hallucinogenic 30-second ad earlier this month featuring the meme of President Biden, lasers coming out of his eyes and all. The message? Biden is very popular on issues of student loan debt. Or rather, “if you’re unenthused about Biden and the Democratic Party, please don’t be.”

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/29/opinions/democrats-young-voters-midterms-anderson/index.html

The Story of How Millennials Vote: Why Republicans and Gen Z Voters Agree Against Inflation in the Blue Wave

Young voters voted against the GOP in the red wave. Despite a great year for Republicans, voters under the age of 30 still broke for Democrats by a 16 point margin. By the time of the blue wave, we were seeing blockbuster turnout among young voters in elections that they previously sat out. The voters broke for the Democrats by a 35-point margin.

According to my firm’s analysis, voters under the age of 30 might make up only 10% of the electorate in the year that we expect over 125 million votes to be cast.

What is especially troublesome for Democrats is that this is all happening against a backdrop of young Americans being increasingly vocal about their politics. Companies are grappling with Gen Z and Millennial employees who seem keener than ever to work for employers that align with their political and cultural worldview. I regularly hear from business leaders who know that younger consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for products and services that match their values.

On a frenetic final weekend of campaigning, Biden and Obama tried to push Democratic nominee John Fetterman over the line in a Pennsylvania Senate race that represents the party’s best chance to pick up a GOP-held Senate seat. Some states like Arizona and Nevada could flip the chamber to the GOP. Republicans need a net gain of one seat in order to win the majority.

“The real question comes down to that group of independents in the middle, and who votes at the end,” says Paul Maslin, a long-time Democratic pollster. “Is it people saying, ‘I hate inflation, crime is wrecking this big city I live in,’ or people saying, ‘I’m sorry but Herschel Walker is a clown, Mehmet Oz is a clown. They go back to the Democrats and call him a joke. I don’t know. I do not know.

The highest inflation in 40 years has dashed the hopes of Democratic candidates that the approval rating of Biden would go up through Election Day.

Democrats have not improved things in people’s eyes because they have not focused on what will happen in the future, according to a political scientist. “If inflation had come down from where it has been, they would be in better shape. But you can’t convince people that things are going better when their own experience tells them that it’s not.”

There has been a nationalization of congressional races over the last twenty or thirty years where the opinions of many people regarding national issues are connected to how they vote in House and Senate elections. It used to be easier for an incumbent to be in a position to win the race if they had more name recognition, reputation and constituency service than the president. Over time that value has declined.

All of them had to win in states that the president’s supporters were more likely to back the other party. In 2018, that meant they were running upstream against a majority that approved of a Republican president; today it means that Democratic candidates are facing a majority that disapproves of a Democratic president.

J.B. Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, the leading Democratic super PAC, argues that personal contrasts largely explain that unusually high Democratic support among voters dissatisfied with Biden. “I agree with Mitch McConnell on one thing: candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome in Senate races,” Poersch said. While Republicans are offering up a group of extremists who are out of step, our Democrats have a proven ability to create their own environment and deliver for their states.

Even in such an environment, Ulm acknowledges, weak personal images may sink some GOP Senate (and governor) nominees. “I think that is the only hope and it may save them against the weakest candidates,” he says, “but not anybody other than that.” He predicts that discontent with Biden and the desire for a change in direction will allow multiple Republican candidates to win who are viewed unfavorably by more voters than view them favorably.

Modern US politics does not allow for such exceptions. Democrats will probably need a lot more of them because Biden is weak in so many places.

The Birth of the American Dream: The Last Seven Years of the Oz-President Campaign in Pennsylvania, and What he’s learned from his time in office

Three presidents – one sitting and two former – descend on Pennsylvania Saturday for a final-stretch midterm push that underscores the stakes of one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.

President Joe Biden will hold a rare joint appearance with Barack Obama in Philadelphia to bolster their campaign for lieutenant governor in Pennsylvania.

For former President Donald Trump, who rallies outside of Pittsburgh in the city of Latrobe, a win by his hand-selected candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz could prove his own enduring viability in a commonwealth he lost by a narrow margin in 2020.

The consequences go beyond the election. Biden aides are taking their first steps to mount a reelection campaign as Trump prepares to announce a third presidential bid. The dynamics of a potential 2020 rematch will be laid bare for several hours on Saturday.

There is a historic anomalies at the moment. A lot of the time, former presidents have shied away from criticism of the office they once held. Since 1893, a defeated one-term president has failed to win the White House a second time.

The altered norms Trump created when he took office reflect the convergence of Presidents in Pennsylvania, each warning of dire consequences should the opposing party prevail.

Still, his events haven’t generated the same electricity as Obama’s. The former president has laid into Trump and his acolytes who are running for office during his string of rallies across the country over the past weeks, using stinging humor and an air of bemusement to ridicule Republicans.

Many of the candidates backed by Trump deny the election results and have modeled themselves after the 45th president, according to Obama.

It doesn’t work out like that because somebody has been on TV. Turns out, being president or governor is about more than snappy lines and good lighting,” Obama said in Arizona last week of the Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, a former local news anchor.

Biden has traveled mostly to blue states he won but where the Democrats are running closer-than- expected races. He stopped in New Mexico, California and Illinois before stumping in Pennsylvania on Saturday, and will campaign with the embattled New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Sunday. He’ll spend Election Eve in Maryland.

If the Democrats win this year’s elections they will have one of the four best Midterms for the White House in the last century.

Still, their joint appearance Saturday will only serve to underscore their divergent styles and political abilities – a comparison even some Democrats say ultimately favors Obama.

Biden’s Campaign for Re-election: Is It Worth It? Some Dem Demographers say that Biden is not afraid to run again

I know you always ask me how we are doing. I think that we will win this time around. I feel really good about our chances,” Biden told reporters Friday in California.

But he has grown frustrated at coverage suggesting he is political albatross, according to people familiar with the conversations, arguing his policies – when properly explained – are widely popular with voters.

Democracy is on the ballot. This is a pivotal time for the nation. And we all must speak with one voice regardless of our party. There is not a place in America for political violence.

Obama and Biden last appeared together at the White House in September, when Obama’s official portrait was unveiled in the White House East Room. There was a show of friendship between the Obamas and Trumps, but neither of them wanted to put it on.

As he campaigns for his endorsed candidates this fall, Trump has made little attempt to conceal his larger intentions: to buttress his own likely presidential campaign he hopes will return him to the White House.

According to sources, top aides to Trump discussed the third week of November as an ideal launch point for his campaign if Republicans do well in the elections.

KEITH: Well, he has said that he doesn’t feel any hurry one way or another, regardless of what Trump does. If not by his own standards, Trump’s announcement is very early. The Biden advisers have said that one factor is that there are a lot of polls that show Democrats aren’t that excited about him running again. The voters that I spoke with last month were not Prompted to raise concerns about Biden’s age. They believe that he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. Do you want him to run again? There would be lots of pauses and a lot of ums.

The End of Joe Biden’s Dream: The Democrats Who Are Defending Democracy are Preserving Our Lives, Our Future, and Our Future

Democrats close their midterm election campaign Monday facing the nightmare scenario they always feared – with Republicans staging a gleeful referendum on Joe Biden’s struggling presidency and failure to tame inflation.

Yet the red wave so many anticipated didn’t happen. Even if the Republicans end up with a majority in one of the chambers, they won’t have much of an advantage. It’s safe to say Democrats will not face the “shellacking” they experienced in 2010.

But the way each side is talking on election eve, and the swathe of blue territory – from New York to Washington state – that Democrats are defending offer a clear picture of GOP momentum.

A nation split down the middle politically, which is united only by a sense of dissatisfaction with its trajectory, is getting into a habit of repeatedly using elections to punish the party with the most power.

The Republican National Committee chair said on CNN that the Democrats are deniers of inflation, crime and education.

I am not happy, and I am a loyal Democrat. I just think that we are – we did not listen to voters in this election. And I think we’re going to have a bad night,” Rosen told CNN’s Dana Bash.

This is not going to have a noticeable effect on Tuesday, but I believe that this conversation will have an impact going forward, because when voters tell you they care mostly about the economy, listen to them. Stop talking about democracy being at stake.”

It’s a message that resonates strongly in Washington, DC, where the scars of the US Capitol insurrection are keenly felt. And it is undeniably important because the survival of the world’s most important democracy is at stake. After all, Trump incited an insurrection that tried to thwart the unbroken tradition of peaceful transfers of power between presidents.

Outside the Beltway bubble of politicians and journalists, democracy feels far more distant and out of reach than it does when you are trying to feed your family and pay your commute. From Pennsylvania to Arizona, the return to normality after the Covid-19 nightmare that Biden promised remains elusive to many as the economic after effects of the once-in-a century health emergency linger.

The cornerstone of his political career is that of restoring the balance of the economy and a measure of security to working and middle class Americans. His legislative successes could bring down the cost of health care for seniors and create a diversified green economy that shields Americans from future high energy prices amid global turmoil. But the benefits from such measures will take years to arrive. And millions of voters are hurting now and haven’t heard a viable plan from the president to quickly ease prices in the short-term.

This is a question that will affect how voters feel about the state of the union. Over the past year, rising prices have led to the economy being the central emerged as the central problem facing the Biden administration, with concerns about grocery bills and gas prices fueling anxiety in the electorate and causing turbulence in the stock market. As the Federal Reserve ramped up interest rates, the chances of recession increased. The Fed might be able to pull back due to signs of inflation cooling down, which could lead to more pocketbook stability in family budgets. But should inflation continue to dog the economy – or should a recession set in – the administration will certainly struggle at the ballot box in 2024.

Republicans claim that Mr. Biden lied about their intentions. Many, including House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, say they are not willing to consider any proposals to cut funding for Medicare and Social Security to pay for desired reductions in the nation’s debt and deficit. Republicans reacted in boos when Mr. Biden suggested the opposite.

And in practice, there is not much a president can do to quickly lower inflation on their own. The Federal Reserve is at the forefront of monetary policy, and the central bank could cause a recession if it increases interest rates.

Inflation and high gas prices are also a global issue and have been worsened by factors beyond Biden’s control, including the war in Ukraine and supply chain issues brought on by the pandemic. The wisdom of the Biden bills that sent billions of dollars into an overheated economy is being debated by economists. And the White House’s repeated downplaying of the soaring cost of living as “transitory” badly misjudged the situation and was another thing that battered Biden’s credibility – on top of the confidence some voters lost in him during the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year.

The next year, came the midterms. Although Republicans will probably gain control of at least one chamber of Congress, they’ll be frustrated because it’s not going to be by large margins. By getting into the race and endorsing a bunch of candidates, Trump made the midterms a mandate about him, rather than the sitting president. Many of his hand-selected candidates, moreover, lost, such as Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.

The GOP majority would be able to damage the president by putting up scores of candidates who were against him, as well as make sure they got the chance to re-elect Trump in four years. Biden had hoped for a balance in the judiciary after four years of Trump nominating conservative judges.

Joe Biden, the MAGA warriors of the GOP, and his role in the primaries he predicts will win the 2024 White House

High inflation has also always been a toxic force that brews political extremism and tempts some voters to be drawn to demagogues and radicals whose political creed is based on stoking resentment and stigmatizing outsiders.

President Joe Biden warns that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy, as Republicans are growing more bullish on winning large in Tuesday’s elections.

Kevin McCarthy talked to CNN about plans for power, including tackling inflation, border security and rising crime. He promised an investigation into the Afghanistan withdrawal, the origins of the Covid-19 vaccine, and how the administration dealt with parents and school board meetings. And he didn’t rule out an eventual push to impeach Biden.

The four presidents took to the campaign trail over the weekend in a sign of critical stakes and the growing angst among Democrats.

Ex-President Trump, edging ever closer to announcing a 2024 White House bid, will wrap up a campaign he used to show his enduring magnetism among grassroots Republicans, in Ohio, with a rally for Senate nominee J.D. Vance on Monday. In a speech that concluded in pouring rain for Florida Sen. Marco Rubio on Sunday, Trump predicted voters would “elect an incredible slate of true MAGA warriors to Congress.”

Biden, who spent Saturday getting out the vote in the critical Pennsylvania Senate race with Obama, warned that the nation’s core values are in peril from Republicans who denied the truth about the US Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.

The president will end his effort to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event in Maryland. He will be in a liberal bastion on the last night of the election, and not try to boost an expendable lawmaker in a race that has turned on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html

Biden’s warning on the midterm elections and his stance toward the mismanagement of the early 2016 midterm election campaign by the Republican Party

The RNC chair predicted on CNN that the Republican party would win both houses of congress, and accused Biden of being oblivious to the economic angst among Americans with his warnings about democracy.

“Look, they’re all about the wealthier getting wealthy. The higher ups are staying wealthy. The middle class is stiffed. The poor get poorer under their policy,” Biden said.

The midterms are the first national vote since the chaos and violence triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last presidential election and there are already fears that some Republican candidates may follow his example and try to defy the will of voters if they don’t win. Some, like Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, have already raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.

A staffer at the headquarters of the pro-Trump nominee for Arizona governor opened a letter on Sunday that contained suspicious white powder. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, condemned the incident as “incredibly concerning.”

The Donald Trump/Denisantis Dilemma: What Happens When a Donald Trump Wins the White House in 2036

The first major fights of the GOP nomination contest in 2036 broke out in Florida with both Trump and Ron DeSantis in attendance. The ex-president, who is expected to launch a third White House bid within days, coined a new nickname Saturday for the man who could prove to be his toughest primary opponent: “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

The Florida governor turned his ire on Biden and his rival Charlie Crist, calling the latter a donkey, while taking credit for defiance of Washington officials and experts during the swine flu epidemic.

As he rallied for Rubio, who is seeking reelection, Trump didn’t repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but again teased the likelihood of a presidential run. The next presidential race is heating up as Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton decided not to join the Republican primary.

Former President Bill Clinton was also called into action on Saturday, stumping for New York Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in Brooklyn. The Empire state is a safe place for the Democratic party, but Hochul is running a close race against Zeldin.

“I know the average election rally is just ‘whoop dee doo do vote for me,’ but your life is on the line. Clinton warned young people in the audience their life was on the line.

If Republicans win back the House, they can set up a series of political fights over spending and the debt-ceiling, which could derail Biden’s legislative program. They are promising hearings into the surge of migrants across the southern border and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, all in order to bring Biden’s son to justice.

The First Two Years: How Did I Get What You Wanted to Learn About America? CNN Myth America: A Political Analyst

The professor of history and public affairs at the University is a CNN political analyst. He’s the author and editor of 24 books, including a forthcoming co-edited work titled, “Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest lies and legends about our past”. He can be followed on social media by writing on his account:julianzelizer. His opinions are his own in this commentary. View more opinion on CNN.

Things were not easier for Biden when he was in the White House. Covid wreaked havoc on the country and economy. Despite the Senate’s split on the issue, Biden was able to push through his legislative agenda despite stiff Republican opposition and some GOP votes. The American Rescue Plan, Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act are all historic because of their legislative track record. Besides the three major pieces of legislation, Biden also appointed more federal judges by August than any president at that point in the term since John F. Kennedy, according to the Pew Research Center. Biden has used his power to fight climate change, bolster the US economic competitiveness, and forgive student debt.

And unlike 2016, when he was the outsider, voters now have vivid memories of the turbulence and instability of his first term. Perhaps most importantly, Republicans have seen the losses he brought to the party in 2020 and 2022. He now faces a field of potential Republican opponents, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who can do Trumpism in a way that is more politically effective and doesn’t carry the same kind of risks.

Even those Democrats who are not fully on board with a Biden run for a second term still largely say they would back him if he did become the party’s nominee. Half of Democratic-aligned voters would definitely vote for Biden if he becomes the nominee, and another 28% would probably get behind him, according to the findings of a survey. All told, 86% of Democrats either support Biden for the nomination or say they would likely vote for him in the general election if he were the nominee.

Voters are concerned about Biden’s age, and so they will not accept “watch me” alone. After watching Biden in office for nearly two years, two-thirds of voters don’t think he should run again. That is what there is.

When Biden turns 80 in 9 days, he will be 83 years old. In a second term, that would make him 86 years old. By comparison, Ronald Reagan was 77 years old when he left office in 1989.

Doubts about Biden and his ability to serve a second term are a persistent problem, not a one-off from the exit polling. And one that Biden’s team needs to figure out how to address, beyond just telling voters to watch him.

It remains uncertain which party will control the Senate or the House of Representatives next year, with votes still being counted and key races too early to call. It is clear that the “red wave” that Republicans hoped for did not come to pass.

Abortion rights: The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade brought abortion to center stage, with about 27% of voters calling it their top issue. About six in 10 voters felt a negative reaction to the decision, and 4 in 10 felt anger. Democrats had a roughly 11-point edge over the GOP when it came to which party voters trusted to handle issues related to abortion.

One-quarter of Pennsylvania voters disapproved of Biden, according to the projected Democratic winner in the governor race. In a number of races, Democratic candidates won outright among voters who somewhat disapproved of Biden.

CNN Exit Polls are a combination of in-person interviews with Election Day voters and in-person interviews, telephone and online polls measuring the views of early and absentee by-mail voters. They were done for the National Election Pool. Go here to read more.

What Happened When the United States Moved Faster than It Does Today: An Update on the 2016 Midterm Results in the Light of the 2010/2020 Presidential Campaign

Midterms are supposed to be the time for the opposition party to shine. When there is once-in-a- generation inflation, and when most Americans think the country is on the wrong track, that should be the case.

So just what happened? It’s pretty clear that general election voters punished Republican candidates they saw as too extreme – on issues such as abortion and/or for being too closely tied to former President Donald Trump.

Still, the election results were extremely unusual. I went back to the books to check them out. The president’s party gained or lost Senate seats in three previous instances, and lost no House seats in the first year of his term.

We don’t have any polling from 1934, though considering Franklin Roosevelt won two landslide victories on either end of that midterm, he was likely quite popular.

Many Republicans who were endorsed by Trump said they believed he would win the election. (This, of course, is false, as Biden won the election.)

We see this in gubernatorial elections, as well. Republicans nominated 2020 election deniers for governor in many blue or swing states. None of them has been projected a winner, and only Republican Kari Lake of Arizona has any chance of winning.

The fact that you have a current president and a former president who are both unpopular isn’t unusual. The unpopularity of both Obama and Bush went into the 2010 election.

The difference between 2010 and 2022, is obvious. I had pointed out before the election that Trump was getting more Google search traffic than Biden (i.e. the former president was in the minds of voters). Search traffic didn’t correlate with Bush receiving anywhere near the same as Obama.

This is consistent with the dynamics we saw during the House elections after the Wade decision. The Democrats started doing better after the Supreme Court ruling.

And while Republicans somewhat recovered their standing in national House polls in the closing weeks of the campaign, they never made it back to where they were during the spring.

The Plan of Vice President Biden for 2020: An Insider’s Analysis of the Dinner with Families at the Nantucket Thanksgiving Dinner

President Biden is spending Thanksgiving with family in Nantucket. He is planning to speak with his family during the holidays about his intentions of running again in four years.

Lots of families had some big conversations over the dinner table at Thanksgiving last night – some easy, some hard, some involving major life decisions, such as whether to run for a second term as president. NPR White House correspondent has covered the deliberations of Vice President Biden about going for reelection in 2024.

A scrimmage between the president and House Republicans on Tuesday night should show Americans a more in depth understanding of what the president has been saying, according to an adviser to Mr. Biden.

ANITA DUNN: He decided to run in 2020 after posing for his Grandchildren as a family meeting. Pop has to have a conversation. He is who he is, so the family is going to be involved in whatever decision he makes.

DUNN: We should be in the political malpractice hall of fame because we are engaged in planning in November of this year.

MARTÍNEZ: When Donald Trump announced that he was going to run in 2024, I think everyone did a collective look toward D.C. to see exactly what President Biden was planning on doing.

What Would You Like If Trump Were Not the First Republican Candidate In 2020? The NPR Survey Reveals A Mixed Response from a Crowdsourced 2020 Election

The NPR contractor creates the transcripts in a hurry. This text can be changed in the future and may not be its final form. Availability and accuracy may be different. NPR has an audio record that is the authoritative record.

The majority of registered voters within each party would rather see a new person nominated for president in 2024, according to a new CNN Poll.

There has been a decline in support for a Trump bid among Republican voters this year. When the poll was last done, there was a near even split between those who wanted someone other than Trump and those who wanted him to be the nominee. By July, 44% wanted Trump to be the party’s nominee, and now, 38% say the same.

Trump has convinced many of his supporters that he is a winner. The majority of Republicans believed he was their best chance to beat the Democratic nominee for president three years ago. As recently as late 2021, a plurality of Republicans did so.

Among Democrats who say they’d like someone else as the party’s nominee, nearly three-quarters (72%) say they have no one specific in mind. Among those who do name another candidate, 5% mention Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, 4% California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 4% Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, 3% Vice President Kamala Harris and 2% Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

The CNN Poll: The Rise and Fall of the Donald Trump Presidential Candidate in the Pre-Mean-Ram Race, and Implications for the Campaign

A random national sample of 1,250 adults were drawn from a probability-based panel to conduct the CNN Poll. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. The sample results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points, which is larger for subgroup results.

Even as President Joe Biden and ex-president Donald Trump move towards a repeat of the most turbulent White House race in modern history, many voters are pining for a break from the past.

The race is on, regardless of whether voters want it or not. It is important that rivals and donors perceive the contender’s strengths early in the money chase. Trump is already a declared candidate, although he could use a relaunch after a tepid start, and Biden is giving every sign he plans on running, suggesting he’ll let the country know for sure early in the new year.

Republican politics may, or may not, be at a moment of transition. How things shake out in the next few months will be critical to Trump’s prospects. On the one hand, more and more Republicans – prompted by the failure of many of the ex-president’s hand-picked candidates in the midterms – are saying it’s time to move on.

And Trump’s dinner with extremists with a record of antisemitism like White supremacist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago is bolstering their arguments that his general election viability is damaged beyond repair. It looks like Donald Trump’s lackluster campaign is being used to make it easier for him to portray criminal probes into his conduct as persecution.

The Births of the American Dream: How Donald Trump Looks from the Inside: How his Votes Are Judged by the Congressional Demographers

In 2023, anything goes with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia becoming a significant voice in the House Republican caucus. But Democrats who lived through the partisan wars of the 1990s will remember how Republicans ultimately helped bolster embattled former President Bill Clinton’s standing, as his approval ratings skyrocketed. The House GOP, under the direction of Speaker Newt Gingrich, was too radical and extreme to govern according to Americans. The current House Republican caucus makes the Gingrich era GOP leaders look like statesmen.

There will be a campaign to see if there’s erosion in Trump’s base. But even if his mythical connection to those voters might not be enough to win him the presidency, it could still carry him to his third straight nomination. Most Republican lawmakers don’t repudiate Trump over his comments about the Constitution, suggesting he is still supported by his supporters at home. Kevin McCarthy, who is vying to become House speaker, has found a way not to condemn Trump’s associations with extremists.

Still, any president is deeply vulnerable to unexpected outside events that could splinter his approval ratings and chances of reelection. Every day, the oldest president in US history will have to think about how old he is. Republicans will seize on any slackening of the campaign trail pace, or even a cold, as proof he’s unfit for a second term. And while Biden appears healthy, the chances of an adverse event increase for people in their 80s.

Instead, the opposite has happened. Major potential foes such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom have said explicitly that they will not run against Biden. The power players in the Democratic Party will back Biden if he decides to run again.

The same cannot be said for Trump. Even after he declared his run for the presidency last month, just one senator has endorsed his bid for another term. Potential Republican challengers are not giving up on the primary.

The weak Trump poll numbers are a big reason for this. I’m not just talking about his polling against other Republicans. I’m talking about how he’s viewed by Republican voters.

Other polling suggests that these findings may understate Trump’s weakness. There is not a single poll of the two-way contest between Trump and DeSantis that has Trump ahead. Marquette University Law School’s poll had Trump down 20 points to the Florida governor a few weeks ago.

This indicates that Trump’s biggest strength at this point among Republicans is name recognition – something other Republicans will get a lot more of as the primary season heats up.

The Problem of 2023: The State of the Art in Washington, D.C. (and Beyond), and the Challenges of the United States

Off-cycle years in American politics are very important in shaping the future of the country. As we head into 2023, there are 10 major political questions that will be critical to determining what comes next in Washington, DC – and beyond.

The United States was impacted by the war between Russia and Ukraine. The cost of losing Russia’s oil supplies has been significant, despite the many roots of inflation. The US Department of Defense keeps an eye on Russia to see if desperation will push it to attack a NATO country if it gets too much support for Ukraine. And there may be more than Ukraine to consider. We never know what the future holds in international policy. A major crisis can flare up at any time to fundamentally reshape our national conversation.

Politics can be ruined by public health crises within a few days. Covid-19 forced new issues to the top of the agenda, defining the litmus test by which our elected officials would be measured. Currently, because of the successful vaccine program, the recent impact of Covid-19 largely has been curtailed even though the virus continues to cause sickness and death. We will be in the danger zone for a long time because of the triple combination of Covid-19, the flu andRSV. Political challenges can be brought about by another Pandemic.

election denialism is a strong force in the GOP even though most election deniers were not successful in the midyear elections. And in certain states, there are individuals still ready to challenge results that don’t go their way. Red states are also continuing to insist on voting restrictions. The January 6 committee report exposed just how vulnerable our democracy remains. Even with the passage of the Electoral Count Reform Act, there are many ways in which anti-democratic forces can exert influence in 2024. The ability of the democratic system to withstand these attacks will influence the results.

The State of the Union and the 2023 Election: When President Biden and the Republican Caucus Will Look Like They Did Before The First Galaxies

And of course, there are always the unexpected questions that await us. Things that aren’t even being imagined right now should be taken into account when creating a list of what is to come. Few predictive pieces in December 2019, after all, would have included a global pandemic.

But we can know this for certain: 2023 will be a big one, a political rollercoaster which will clarify the terms that will help determine the next president of the United States.

In his secondState of the Union address, President Biden called for Republicans to unite in order to continue his agenda, but he pledged not to back away from the economic agenda that has made him a household name.

“Clearly, having the House Republican caucus behaving the way they are, and are signaling strongly they will continue to behave, is going to give the president an easy contrast,” she said. The House Republican caucus wants to give him a way to draw a contrast between what he is for and what the Republicans are trying to get done.

Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. Times staff are not allowed to campaign for candidates or support political causes. This includes supporting a movement and giving money to or raising money for a candidate in an election.

Reply to the The Great Debate Debate Challenge of the Twenty-Year End of the Republican Budget Responsibility” by P.T. Brown

Republicans have yet to say how they would reduce spending in a way that would meet their debt reduction goals. The idea of making all laws expired after five years has been proposed by a number of Republicans.

Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, DC. He was a senior policy adviser to the Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on Twitter. His views are not shared in this piece. CNN has more opinion on it.

The 1918 influenza outbreak left millions dead in its wake and impacted daily life in ways similar to our own recent coronavirus pandemic. But in popular culture, it vanished largely without a trace nearly as soon it was over. The ­20s were the time when Americans were ready to move on from war and pestilence.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/opinions/biden-trump-america-deserves-more-brown/index.html

How Well Did President Donald Trump Win? The Case for a New Republican Candidate to Preside over the 2020 Presidential State of the Union

The President’s State of the Union speech highlighted the administration’s commitment to rebuilding the supply chain and spurring innovation. But no amount of rhetoric could disguise the fact that our political system could be on a collision course to offer up the rematch no one is asking for.

Republicans who want to take the battle to “woke” institutions and push back against the left’s excesses know that the DeSantis model can produce results at the state level.

Potential challengers like Haley have an uncertain path to the nomination but also have a different set of priorities. Party operatives admit that a Trump campaign that looks back at the indignities of the epidemic or false claims about the election will be seen as disconnected from the challenges facing working-class Americans.

And even if a younger candidate tried to push aside a more seasoned candidate, an explicit age-based argument can backfire. The way that attack lines are used to attack a candidate’s memory is hard for them to play well. Any politician trying to campaign against a more senior opponent would have to be careful about not sounding dismissive toward older Americans’ ability to contribute – after all, senior citizens are reliable voters.

The creation of NATO, the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and the state of Israel were all important to the President and his predecessor, as were the first color TV broadcast and other events.

Having seen the long sweep of history is a piece of wisdom that is used in age. The President and the former President should know when to change in order to adapt to the demands of the job.

Both Trump and Biden were able to fulfill their goals as President, by drawing attention to the plight of the forgotten men and women of our country, and by questioning the logic of globalization that turned a blind eye to the rise of China.

Political rewards for the party willing to take the gamble on a younger nominee are suggested by the unhappiness with either option. The 2020 primary election for Democrats was singularly focused on choosing the best candidate who could beat Trump. Perhaps Biden may still be the right man for the job. It would be interesting to see a presidential debate stage featuring a younger politician focused on issues of the moment, compared with one who had developed their habits during the Cold War.

Whether that’s a younger Democratic nominee more effectively tapping into discontent over the Dobbs decision’s impact on abortion rights, or a Republican candidate speaking, as a parent of young children, about the need to better protect kids online, a passing of the generational torch will allow for a much-needed shift of focus to fresh challenges.

Why Does Biden Look Like the King of Political Illusion? The Case for a New Breed of Attention-seeking House Republicans: Paul Ryan and the Battle for the Soul of the Nation

Editor’s Note: Bill McGowan is the founder and CEO of Clarity Media Group, a global communications coaching firm based in New York. He is the author of “Pitch Perfect: How to Say It Right the First Time, Every Time.” Juliana Silva is a strategic communications adviser at Clarity. The views expressed in this commentary are those of the authors. CNN has more opinion articles.

Biden has a high-beam smile that makes him seem like the king of political eviscerating. Ask Paul Ryan, who experienced that firsthand in the 2012 vice presidential debate.

That disarming tactic was again on full display during his State of the Union address when he sarcastically told Republicans who voted against the infrastructure bill he signed into law in 2021, yet claimed credit for the jobs it’s bringing to their home districts, “see you at the groundbreaking.”

The question heading into the State of the Union address was: Would Biden’s empathy and decency stand out as much without his chaotic and mean-spirited adversary there to accentuate the stark contrast?

The answer, it seemed, was yes – in part thanks to a new breed of House Republicans more than willing to create chaos in the absence of former President Donald Trump himself.

Members of the GOP just can’t help themselves. Perhaps they thought that insulting Biden from the House floor, as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia did in repeatedly shouting “liar,” would represent some kind of destabilizing surprise ambush.

The President swatted the attacks away and even managed to turn the tables on his critics. Of course, if those GOP rabblerousers had carefully watched videos of his 2020 presidential debates, they would have known that ruffling Biden’s feathers is pretty tough to do. You don’t spend decades in Washington, DC, and still sport a thin skin.

By keeping the hostility factor high, the GOP is also paving the way for Biden to reuse in 2024 one of his stickiest and most effective campaign messages from 2020: that the election is nothing short of a battle for the “soul of the nation.” Biden gets to go back to the old days thanks to the new breed of attention-seeking Republicans. Regardless of whether or not he is his opponent.

Biden brought a lot of energy to his delivery, perhaps in an effort to prove that there is still enough fuel left in the old tank. The campaign trail is a tiring experience for candidates half Bidens age.

Biden made a career out of being underestimated. The political skill with which the State of the Union was delivered made one loud statement as the 2024 election season approaches: Underestimate me at your own peril.