POLLS

Polls released over the weekend and this morning, have bad news that cannot be ignored. They start with the one over the weekend from the Wall Street Journal that showed President Biden’s approval rating at 37 percent, and Trump winning election over the president by 4 points, while Trump leads Biden on inflation, crime, border security, and the war in Gaza—and Trump outruns the president on the economy by a devastating 18 points with only 30 holding positive view of “Bidenomics.” This morning, two polls from CNN showed Biden losing to Trump by four points in Georgia and 10 points in Michigan (Note: not even the Trump campaign thinks Biden would ever lose Michigan by that much). The poll from Emerson College has Biden losing to Trump by four—and by even more with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the mix. Worst of is this: A Monmouth poll showed Trump’s 2020 supporters are more motivated to stick with him next year than Biden’s supporters are.

When Simon Rosenberg of all people tweets the following in response to all this, it is time to get worried:

“Dear Bidenworld, please turn on the campaign, 100 percent, everywhere. Thank you.”

Rosenberg spoke with Peter Hamby of Puck after that tweet, and said:

“The polls are a warning sign that we are not where we want to be. We have enough polling to know at this point that whether Biden is up by a point or down by three points, the full campaign just has to start. State directors, comms people - it has to be built out, they have to get going. It’s just time. Democrats have this issue, which is that Democrats read polls. And given the gravity of the election, there is a lot of worry and fear out there. The levels of fear that exist are justified. The Biden campaign has to channel that into action. Millions of people out there are ready to get going. They need the campaign to give them something to do.”

The trend lines over the last two months are clear—and dire for Biden. He’s losing in battleground states to a criminally indicted opponent - Trump’s numbers seem to go up with Republicans with each piece of what would in normal circumstances be bad news for any other candidate; Americans blame Boden for high prices; core Democratic constituencies are deeply unenthusiastic about the election and want someone else to run; he is shedding support among young Black and Hispanic voters.

Harold Meyerson, who has been supporting Biden because of the threat posed by Trump wrote in The American Prospect this morning that “other Democrats need to enter the race.”

The fact that Trump is coasting to victory in what passes for the Republican presidential primary campaign - he now tops 50% in Iowa and is ahead of Haley and DeSantis COMBINED by 30 points - and leads by 25 points over the two combined in New Hampshire means that likely those still hanging in will drop out of the race by the South Carolina primary.

Yes, it is a fact that the majority of Americans are not following presidential politics and the campaign now. It’s a fact that the majority will not be following the campaigns before this spring at the earliest, and that will only be if the Supreme Court that said today they will take Jack Smith’s expedited appeal made to them directly regarding Trump’s claim of absolute presidential immunity for crimes committed while in office actually rule against Trump and allow the J6 trial in Washington to proceed in March.

Yes, the reporting does not inform people that the campaign RIGHT NOW is a choice between Biden and Trump. Apparently all the news of what a second Trump White House would be like and what would happen to the country hasn’t gotten through to anyone who wasn’t already convinced that we face the choice of maintaining democracy or devolving into a theocraftic-fascist goverment if not an outright dictatorship.

Unlike 2020, Joe Biden is the incumbent this time around, and right now, because he is, he’s on the receiving end of public blame and negative press attention for everything going hayw

In normal politics, next year, voters are supposed to eventually wake up not only to Trump’s legal challenges and toxic personality, but also to the unpopular positions on issues that favor Democrats, like healthcare and abortion that he is pushing. The election simply won’t be as abstract as it is today.

By next spring, we will know which of the third-party candidates being named as choices in polls today will actually be on the ballot. As of now, RFK Jr. has not gotten on any state ballot and has only now begun to plan a campaign over the next several months to get on the eight swing-state ballots, let alone onto the ballot in difficult-to-accomplish states like California.

Biden seems to get it that this may not be “normal politics.” Today in Philadelphia, he highlighted Trump’s call to repeal Obamacare and his recent statement on Fox News last week and to the New York city Young Republicans on Saturday night about being a “Day One” dictator if elected.

A sample of Biden’s remarks:

“Trump and the MAGA Republicans want to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. This will be their 51st attempt…”

“Let me be clear, Donald Trump poses many threats in this country, from the right to choose, to civil rights, to voting rights, America’s standing in the world. The greatest threat he poses is for our democracy, because if we lose that, we lose everything…”

“The other day he said he wants to be a dictator only on one day, to wipe out the civil servants and a whole range of other things.”

“He embraces political violence instead of rejecting it. We can’t let that happen.”

The stakes next year are clear. Will voters even hear these points in the fractured media environment that exists now?

The bright side is that young voters of all backgrounds voted in large numbers for Democrats in 2020 and 2022 despite not being Biden superfans. There is a lot of data that Gen Z considers voting an almost-existential duty. And they vote Democratic by a wide margin because of the issues on the ballot, even if they aren’t thrilled about the candidates.

Sarah Longwell did a Focus Group on Gen Z, both Biden and Trump supporters. The Biden supporters criticized Biden on the economy, on his support for Israel, on his age. But at the same time, every single one raised their hands who they they planned to vote in 2024 and said they would vote for Biden and against Trump, no matter what. None of them said they were considering sitting out the election—and none said they were interested in a third party.

A young woman from Texas named Madison summed up the group’s thinking. “There are issues with every candidate. I always feel motivated to vote because I need to exercise my right and make my voice heard. I am going to be voting for Biden again because Donald Trump scares me. Biden was honestly not very great, but I think it is the lesser of two evils. I will mainly be voting for the other things on the ballot.”

Hopefully, there are a lot of Madison’s out there.

Robert Hubbell is always saying not to pay attention to polls this far out. But the guy he has been pointing to for information about how good things are going is the one who said this today:

“Dear Bidenworld, please turn on the campaign, 100 percent, everywhere. Thank you.”

I know from experience that the decision about when is the time to turn on a political campaign is fraught - too early and people will turn off to it in the weeks before the election when it’s most important they be listening and engaged, because they have “heard it all.” Too late and there is no time to reverse things if the opponent has been successful to any degree in already defining the campaign.

Nobody reading this has any influence with the Biden campaign as to when they do what.

We only have influence by what we do. I personally think Robert’s advice not to pay attention to polls needs to be modified. We need to pay attention to them now. Not to get paralyzed by fear and doubt that they are predicting a future none of us can stand to live in. We need to pay attention as a way to get motivated to do even more than anyone has been doing.

Every night in his Substack posts, Robert lists opportunities to become involved with the grassroots campaign. The thing we can all do now is take those opportunities, contact those organizations, and do what is there to be done.

I worked on the Obama campaign from September 2007 to the election. That was a much easier campaign to stay involved with over the long term like that, since the news kept getting better as time went on.

That’s not going to be the situation this time. Rather than promoting optimism as was done then, we need to convince people not to give in to bad news, to keep their committment.

That’s a harder job but in this situation it is far more important.

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