Some excerpts from “Joe Biden has an electoral math problem to solve” by Zachary B. Wolf at CNN Politics: “Former President Donald Trump would need to flip three states Biden won in 2020 to complete his political resurrection and retake the White House – and a new set of CNN battleground state polls out Monday suggests that if the election were held today, Trump is most of the way there….While national polling suggests the country doesn’t much approve of either Biden or Trump, it is battleground state polls like the ones CNN released Monday from Michigan and Georgia that should raise serious questions about Biden’s ability to make the Electoral College math work….Assuming Trump secures the Republican nomination (a pretty good assumption at the moment), if he can flip Georgia and Michigan and their 31 combined Electoral College votes, he would need to flip just one more battleground state that Biden won in 2020. These include Arizona, with its 11 Electoral College votes; Pennsylvania with 19; or Wisconsin with 10….In Georgia, Trump could go on trial as soon as August for 2020 election interference – among other things, he asked local officials to “find” him enough votes to overcome Biden’s 11,779 margin of victory in that state. Although Fulton County prosecutors want the trial to begin in August, it is also possible the state trial is delayed until after the election….Most registered voters in Georgia – 52% – say they approve of the charges, and a strong minority, 47%, say Trump should be disqualified from the presidency if the charges are proven….But right now, Trump has a lead in that state among registered voters (49%) over Biden (44%) in a hypothetical matchup, according to the CNN poll conducted by SSRS. For context, when Trump won the White House in 2016, he won Georgia by less than a percentage point.”

“Today, Trump is polling at 50% in CNN’s Michigan poll compared with Biden’s 40%” Wolf continues. “It’s telling that 10% of registered Michigan voters said they won’t vote for either man, but the frustration seems to be breaking against Biden at the moment in a hypothetical race for the state’s 15 electoral votes….Georgia is part of the diversifying Sun Belt that Democrats have long seen as their future….Biden won there in 2020 with the support of 88% of Black voters, a key constituency in Georgia, according to CNN’s exit polls….In the Georgia poll released Monday, Biden gets the support of 71% of Black voters (vs. 24% for Trump), not an exact comparison since those figures are among all registered voters, not necessarily those who will turn out to vote in 2024. But it certainly suggests Biden has work to do to maintain Democrats’ diverse coalition….Interestingly, Trump’s lead in Georgia and Michigan is built on people who don’t always take part in the political process….CNN’s Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy write: Trump’s margin over Biden in the hypothetical matchup is significantly boosted by support from voters who say they did not cast a ballot in 2020, with these voters breaking in Trump’s favor by 26 points in Georgia and 40 points in Michigan….Those who report having voted in 2020 say they broke for Biden over Trump in that election, but as of now, they tilt in Trump’s favor for 2024 in both states, with Biden holding on to fewer of his 2020 backers than does Trump.” There will be many more polls to come in the months ahead, and poll-analysts will focus increasingly on the swing states more than the national polls, which mean a lot less when it comes to sussing out the likely Electoral College vote.

For example, in her article, “Biden Leads Trump In These Key Battleground States—But Is Still Losing Popular Vote, New Poll Finds,” Sara Dorn writes at Forbes: “President Joe Biden would beat former President Donald Trump in seven swing states in a general election matchup, according to a new poll that also found a potential conviction could hurt Trump significantly—the latest survey, amid a series of negative polls for Biden, showing a hotly contested race if both become their respective parties’ nominees….Biden leads Trump by four points among likely voters in the seven states with the most closely contested results in 2020: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Michigan, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll….But the survey also found Trump would beat Biden by two points nationally (38% to 36%) in a head-to-head matchup if the election were held today, though 26% of voters said they were undecided, according to the poll of 4,411 U.S. adults taken Dec. 5-11 (margin of error 2 points).” The 26 percent undecided vote certainly diminishes the value of a head-to-head horse race poll, especially considering the omission of  huge wild card of third party candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Cornell West and possibly a “No Labels” candidate. But it would be ironic if Biden wins the Electoral College but loses the popular vote, like Trump did in 2016. All of a sudden, Trump would be the loudest champion of direct popular election the cause has ever had.

Speaking of third parties, Jacob Indursky explores their prospects in his article, “The Trouble with Polling Third-Parties: Sure, third-party candidates have decided any number of contests—including presidential races—but experts are stymied by gauging how these potential spoilers will do come Election Day” at The Washington Monthly. As Indursky observes, “Eleven months before Election Day 2024, early polling suggests third-party and independent candidates will roil the presidential race. A much-discussed poll of battleground states from The New York Times found remarkable support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. in a three-way race against President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, with the scion of the famous political family scooping up votes from roughly a quarter of respondents….In the Real Clear Politics average of a possible five-way race, the combined total of Kennedy, Cornel West, the leftist intellectual, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, a perennial source of annoyance for Democrats, hit an unsettling 19 percent. Polls that test a two-way and a five-way race show Trump improving his margin in these expanded fields by about two points….And these are just the polls, including the announced candidates. We still don’t know if the moneyed centrist operation No Labels will go forward with its announced plans for a bipartisan ticket, and if so, who their candidates will be….The combined support of the two most prominent third-party candidates, Stein and Libertarian Gary Johnson, often cleared 10 percent in mid-election year polling. In one July 2016 poll, just four months before the election, the two combined for 18 percent.…But in the end, Johnson and other third-party candidates collectively came in under 6 percent of the popular vote, which is unsurprising. Third-party candidates routinely fade in the stretch. A June 2000 Gallup survey found Ralph Nader, the consumer advocate and Green Party nominee, and Reform Party nominee Pat Buchanan combining for roughly 8 percent. Still, on Election Day, they only won 3 percent of the national vote, albeit enough to tip Florida, and thus the presidency, to George W. Bush. In 1980, Republican congressman-turned-independent presidential candidate John Anderson scored around 20 percent in Gallup polling for most of the spring and summer but wound up with under 7 percent of the popular vote.” Indursky goes on too give fair credit to 3rd party candidacies that may have made a difference, but nonetheless concludes, “But if there’s a time to panic, that time is not now. As [poll analyst Stan] Greenberg says, “There’s just no predictive value of these polls whatsoever.”

Despite all of the hand-ringing about President Biden’s sagging poll numbers, the smart money currently has a rematch of the 2020 presidential contest nearly locked-in for next year. Looking a bit further ahead, however, Democrats have reason to be optimistic about their stable of potential presidential nominees in 2028. in “Delicately dancing Democrats: Looking ahead to 2028 but with half an eye on 2024, presidential hopefuls are positioning themselves for a run” Lesley Russell shares some notes at Inside Story, including: “The line-up of Democrats eager for the presidential candidacy highlights both a recognition that any one of them could have the chance to step up ahead of 2028 — an incentive to strengthen their national profiles — and the fact that there’s a wealth of well-credentialled candidates. “So many people, it’s breathtaking,” says veteran Democratic strategist James Carville. “The level of talent in the Democratic Party in 2023 — and I say this with great confidence — is as high as any political party has ever had in my lifetime.”….Three people stand out: Shapiro, Beshear and Whitmer….Having only taken office this year, Shapiro is still in the honeymoon phase of his gubernatorial stint. It remains to be seen whether the fifty-year-old moderate has staying power….Beshear became a Democratic hero in November when he won a second term as governor of Kentucky, defying the usual political leaning of his red state. The forty-five-year-old, who was first elected as governor in 2019, has emulated his father, also a two-time Kentucky governor. In his first term Beshear was credited with having responded well to a series of natural disasters — the devastating tornadoes and horrific floods that ravaged parts of Eastern Kentucky — and the pandemic….” He is the emblematic Democratic politicians who has proved he can win votes from Republicans.

“Whitmer, fifty-two, has been governor of Michigan, an important swing state that voted Trump in 2016 and 2020, since 2019,” Russell continues. “She was re-elected in 2022, winning by nearly eleven points over her Republican opponent. Her signature causes are infrastructure, healthcare and abortion access. With Democrats in control of the governor’s office and both the state’s legislative chambers following last year’s election, Whitmer has pushed through tax cuts, gun control measures and protections for abortion and gay rights. She has served as one of the vice-chairs of the Democratic National Committee since January 2021….Whitmer was recently described in the Atlantic as having a “foul-mouthed irreverence, goofy humour, and ability to pound beers and disarm adversaries.” That may not play in Peoria or Washington, DC, but one thing is clear: she knows how to deal with Trump and his ilk. As a target of his nasty rhetoric, she has accused Trump of helping to incite, and later condoning, an October 2020 plot to abduct her. The planned kidnap by a group of men associated with the Wolverine Watchmen, a Michigan-based militia group furious over tough Covid-19 rules and perceived threats to gun ownership, was thwarted by the FBI and undercover agents — something for which Trump took credit, while simultaneously downplaying the threat to Whitmer….Whitmer might be the best of the three, but she faces one clear obstacle — she’s a woman. On that basis alone she would be ruled out of consideration as Harris’ vice-presidential nominee if one were needed.” Of course it would be a mistake to rule out Vice President Harris this soon, especially if the Biden-Harris ticket is re-elected. She could shine brightly in the next four years. And GA Sen. Raphael Warnock has unique political gifts, including an ability to reach out across party lines, that could make him a lock on the 2028 ticket in the veep slot, if not the top of the ticket. And there are others, including Newsom, Pritzker and Buttigieg, to name a few who have the skill-set to move up into front-runner status in 2028.

To paraphrase a recent social media one-liner, “Would you rather vote for a presidential candidate with 81 years behind him or 91 felony charges in front of him?” It’s a sharp dig because it makes a couple of good points in very few words. Trump is not going to be found innocent of all 91 felony charges, and the importance of Biden’s age shrinks in comparison to Trump’s mental health/moral laxity, which the meme flags. And lest we forget, Trump is no spring chicken at 77  (78 on the next election day). Trump supporters and undecided voters alike are being urged to ignore all of the charges against him and to believe that every single one of them is politicized, even though they come from different legal jurisdictions. Yes, many Trump supporters are quite prepared to do exactly that, and his hard-core personality cult followers don’t really care if he is guilty of criminal charges. But millions of Republicans who are sincerely concerned about crime in their communities and states are being told, in effect, to ignore Trump’s example, even as they are prioritizing ‘tough on crime’ policies for other candidates. That’s a very tough sell and a crapload of cognitive dissonance, which may prove too much for most thoughtful conservatives to swallow. It can only get worse as Trump’s legal problems mount and his reactions become increasingly unhinged. The gullibility required to ignore all of Trump’s coming convictions demands an awful lot of denial from self-respecting or democracy-valuing swing voters. Of course, all of this pro-Biden optimism assumes that a lot of people expressing preference for Trump in recent polls are blowing off steam and will vote differently in the sober light of 2024, when they realize they have to vote for or against democracy.

From “New Civiqs poll: Americans say inflation won’t be solved until prices drop” by Daniel Donner at Daily Kos: “Americans have a very different understanding from economists of what inflation is and how the economy works….The latest Daily Kos/Civiqs survey finds that pluralities of Americans—across party lines—think the problem of inflation won’t be solved until prices drop back down to where they were a few years ago; that in a good economy, prices will naturally drift downward; and that when inflation goes down, prices either go down or stay the same….The latest reading of inflation for groceries stands at 2.1% on an annual basis. That means that, on average, Americans paid $102 for groceries this October that would have cost them $100 a year ago. This is a small difference, and most people would be hard-pressed to notice this change….However, when asked what has happened to grocery prices in their area in the past year, almost everybody—88% of those surveyed—said prices had gone up. Only 5% said prices had “remained about the same.” Either nearly everybody is keeping very careful track of grocery prices, or people are inadvertently comparing current prices to what they were used to more than a year ago….A full 50% of Americans agree that “solving the inflation problem means that prices should go back to where they were a few years ago.”….If inflation continues to go down (economists call this “disinflation”), it could go down to the level we’ve been used to in recent decades—around 2% per year—where prices are still increasing but not as quickly…. 67% responded that they would expect prices to go down or stay the same if inflation goes down.” Prices rarely drop without increased competition, and even then it’s not a safe bet. What Democrats can do is help the public understand that current price hikes are connected to record corporate profits and are modest compared to what other countries are experiencing.

My big takeaway from the GOP “presidential” debate is that Dems should start preparing for the Trump-Haley ticket, if they haven’t already done so. Three of the four remaining candidates, despite their claims to the contrary, are really auditioning for the veep slot. Former SC Governor Haley may still be harboring some grand delusions that she could top the ticket, with all of her current buzz and cash infusion. But in her gut, she knows that the most realistic scenario is for her to run as Trump’s second. Trump needs her badly, and they both know it. The bad news for Dems is that she is a formidable debater, who has a sharp sense of when to attack and when to pull back, and she might give some swing voters just enough gender cover to vote for the GOP ticket, despite their unpopular war on abortion rights. Even former Gov. Christie – the only Republican candidate with enough integrity to reject election denial – is criticizing her very delicately. He no doubt sees her as a good running mate in the highly unlikely event that he wins the GOP presidential nomination. And she would help to rebalance his bellowing persona. Hence Christie’s slashing attack on Ramaswamy for the latter’s broadside blasts against Haley. Florida Governor DeSantis would also love to run with Haley, with visions of sunbelt solidarity dancing in his unsmiling head. Yes, Kamala Harris could slice, dice and shred her in an extended debate. But few voters will cast their ballots based on the outcome of that confrontation. Haley is nonetheless highly vulnerable because of her positions on abortion, all of which impinge on women’s personal freedom and reinforce Trump’s bragging about how he got rid of Roe v. Wade, and will try to do the same for the Affordable Care Act. Haley’s policies may cancel out whatever benefit she brings to the GOP ticket.

Margaret Carlson takes another view in “Haley’s Comet,” written before the debate, and observes at The Washington Monthly: “Haley is also helped by the fears of Republican partisans alarmed that an increasingly unhinged madman could win the nomination, sending the party to a cataclysmic defeat next year. She’s also helped by the fears of Republicans and independents, alarmed that an increasingly unhinged madman could win the nomination and the presidency, sending the country into a cataclysm. These Planet Earth Republicans will go with whoever has the best chance to topple Trump, braying that he will act out his dreams of a dictatorship….At a briefing by a super PAC aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Republicans got a “wake-up call” that more people, including Republicans, had moved into the “pro-choice camp” and to adapt accordingly. Frank Luntz, the consultant known for Newt Gingrich’s Contract with America and changing the lexicon of swapping levies on estates for ominous “death taxes,” was impressed by Haley’s abortion rhetoric. He deemed hers “the best Republican answer on abortion” and urged others to follow. “The GOP would be stronger if they used her language.”….The Carolina Contortionist is not just comfortable in her five-inch heels; she’s comfortable in her heels perched on a fence. She’s for a six-week ban. She’s for a 20-week ban. She’s for no national ban! She loves Trump. She hates Trump. She often says he was the right president at the right time, the man who appointed her ambassador to the United Nations and who sincerely believed he had won the 2020 election….But on the other hand, he’s an unelectable criminal defendant. She swore she wouldn’t run against Mar-a-Lago Mussolini—until she announced she would. She said she wouldn’t support him for president should he be the party’s nominee—until she raised her hand in the affirmative at the first debate, even if, by next summer’s convention, he’s a convicted felon. Later, she allowed that she might pardon him.” Carlson ends her rant with a quote from Woody Allen, ““One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction.” Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

Check out “Democratic decline in the United States: Strategic manipulation of elections,” in which Vanessa Williamson writes at Brookings: “Last week, the Supreme Court heard another case about whether a state’s new maps constitute racially discriminatory gerrymandering, and a federal judge barred former president Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court staff involved with his federal trial for election subversion. It is a good time to reflect on how the states and the courts are ensuring (or failing to ensure) free and fair elections in the United States. Unfortunately, strategic manipulation has become a recurring feature of U.S. elections, and there are good reasons to doubt whether the courts will adequately protect voting rights as we head into the 2024 election season….Distinct from “voter fraud,” which is almost non-existent in the United States, election manipulation includes election procedures that make it harder to vote (like inadequate polling facilities) or that reduce the opposing party’s representation (like gerrymandering). These kinds of maneuvers have become increasingly common and increasingly extreme in recent years — but only in some states….Political scientist Jake Grumbach has developed the most comprehensive and rigorous measure of state-level electoral democracy, the State Democracy Index (SDI), which takes account of factors like polling place wait times, red tape voter registration procedures, and gerrymandering. The SDI quantifies the divergence occurring between U.S. states. In 2018, 17 states had a higher SDI than they did during the period from 2000 to 2010, indicating a stronger democracy in those states. The other states, however, have seen their SDI decline — some by a very substantial margin….Though there have been legal consequences for many of those who participated in the 2020 election subversion efforts,” Williamson concludes, “and though the 2022 elections occurred without major incident, Americans should remain vigilant in the face of ongoing threats to election integrity.”

Democrats should hope it is true that “Issues, not candidates, are motivating young voters: Abortion is at the center of young people’s political engagement,” as Monica Potts writes at 538. Potts explains, “For young voters, key issues like abortion may matter more to their vote than who’s at the top of the ticket in 2024. While Democrats worry that President Joe Biden might be losing support with millennials and Gen Z, policy questions, rather than candidates, have taken center stage for young political activists and could be one of the biggest factors driving young people to the polls….The November election offered a preview of how the issue of abortion could motivate voters, as Ohio saw unusually high turnout following grassroots organizing around Issue 1, the ballot initiative to enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution….Young voters strongly favored the Ohio abortion rights initiative, with 77 percent voting to pass it, according to exit polling. That wasn’t such a surprise: Polls have shown consistently higher support for abortion rights among young voters, especially young women. This support made a difference in 2022 as well, when many credited concern over abortion rights with boosting Democrats to better-than-expected midterm results despite Biden’s low approval ratings. When asked about which issues influenced their vote, abortion was the top choice for voters under 30, according to an analysis of Edison Research National Election Pool exit poll data by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, at Tufts University. Those who supported access to abortion strongly preferred Democratic candidates….Another interesting finding from the CIRCLE analysis was that 59 percent of voters under 30 said President Biden was “not a factor” in their vote in 2022, more than any other age group. They were also most likely to say his policies “made no difference on the country.” While Biden wasn’t on the ballot in the midterms, it’s possible that even in a presidential election year, approval or disapproval of the job he’s doing may not matter as much to young voters as the issues they care about….Young voters are also likely to be motivated by issues like gun control and climate change, two issues that have also inspired high-profile youth activism in recent years.” Potts does not address the opinions of young voters regarding foreign policy issues, perhaps because they will focus increasingly on domestic policies that directly affect their lives as we approach the 2024 election.

In “Putting Biden’s Troubles with Young Voters in Perspective: Youngest voters have been strongly Democratic in recent elections, but the president also has clear weaknesses with that group,” Kyle Kondik writes at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “According to the available exit polls from the 2020 primary season, Biden generally won paltry shares of the 18-29 bloc, finishing well behind his top rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), even in states that he won handily, like South Carolina. There were 15 states with Democratic primary exit polls in 2020 that had results for the 18-29 group, as compiled by CNN; Biden won the 18-29 group only in Mississippi, a state where Biden won 81%-15% overall against Sanders (that primary was held a week after Super Tuesday, when Biden had grabbed the reins of the nominating contest following a slow start in the kickoff states). Biden won 61%-35% among the 18-29 group in Mississippi; he did not surpass 30% among that group in any other state that had an exit poll, and his support from the youngest voters was minuscule in many places, like in Super Tuesday megastates California (just 6%) and Texas (12%). Biden still won many of these states (including Texas), but it’s clear that the youngest voters would have preferred a different nominee. To the extent Biden shows weakness in his renomination bid, we would expect protest votes to disproportionately come from younger voters (this is something to monitor during the primary season). This primary weakness didn’t prevent Biden from doing well with young voters in the 2020 general election, but it is an indicator that Biden’s softness with young voters is not new….Biden’s approval with young Americans has also been weak. Back in the spring, one of the top sources of information on young voters — the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School — found Biden’s approval rating at only 36% with 18-29 year olds. A possible contributor to Biden’s weak standing with these voters may include the economy and inflation — the aforementioned New York Times polls of swing states found that among 18-29 year olds who supported Biden in 2020 in these states, just 11% thought the economy was “excellent” or “good,” compared to 89% who said the economy was “poor” or “only fair.” This was a more pessimistic economic view than older cohorts of 2020 Biden supporters. Other potential contributors could be Biden’s unsuccessful effort to forgive some student debt for tens of millions of Americans and, more recently, how Biden has handled the aftermath of the Hamas strike on Israel in early October (young people are likelier than the broader public to sympathize with the Palestinians instead of Israel)….Our own two cents is that we really doubt Trump would beat Biden with young voters, or even come that close to doing so, in an actual November 2024 election. But we also think Biden clearly has weaknesses with young voters — weaknesses that could be electorally fatal if they endure, given the highly competitive nature of modern presidential elections. Young voters could end up defecting to third party candidates at higher rates than older cohorts, and it’s also possible that some of these voters from what is already a lower-turnout group could just decide not to vote, which could have the effect of reducing whatever Biden’s margin with the group would be.”

Leah Askarinam, Holly Fuong, and Mary Radcliffe write in “Why is Biden losing support from people of color His numbers among Black, Hispanic and Asian Americans have reached a new low” at 538: “According to a basic polling average,* Biden’s approval rating is currently at one of the lowest points of his presidency. But he wasn’t always this unpopular. When he was sworn into office, Biden’s approval rating started in the high 50s, but it dropped below 50 percent in summer 2021. That overlapped with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the delta variant of COVID-19, which seemed to put an end to Biden’s honeymoon period….Biden’s approval rating continued to decline for nearly a year, bottoming out near 40 percent in summer 2022 as inflation reached 40-year highs. But it rebounded that fall, not long after the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned federal abortion rights. Still, the president’s approval rating hovered in the low 40s through the rest of 2022 and through the first few months of 2023, and by this summer, it had started to sag again….But with which demographic groups is Biden losing the most support? We looked at the crosstabs of his approval polls to find out. Biden’s approval rating has consistently been highest among Black Americans and lowest among white Americans. But while white Americans have been lukewarm about Biden for a majority of his administration, the president is losing support at a faster clip among people of color. That’s consistent with what other sources have found: The latest New York Times/Siena College polling found signs that Biden was losing ground among Black voters. And Democrats have been warning about signs of Latino voters turning toward the GOP for years….Biden started his presidency with an 86 percent average approval rating among Black Americans, higher than any other racial group. But by July 2022, that number was down 23 percentage points, to 63 percent. That said, his approval rating among Black Americans — unlike the other three racial groups we looked at — did mildly increase ahead of the midterm elections. But since early 2023, it has dropped again to 60 percent, the lowest his approval rating has ever been among Black Americans during his presidency….Democrats need to make it clear that the 2024 election is a choice between two opposing visions, not a referendum on the Biden presidency.”

From “‘Time to Be Bold’: Advice for Democrats from a Quietly Powerful Governor: As the new chair of the Democratic Governors Association, Gov. Tim Walz has some tips for the party” by Elena Schneider at Politico: “Like many Democrats, Walz doesn’t think President Joe Biden is getting the credit he deserves on a relatively strong economy, but the campaign can still retool their message as needed….“They may — I think — rework, refine, this message, but it doesn’t change the fact that Joe Biden invested in the middle class, just like Democratic governors did, and made life more affordable,” Walz said Saturday on the sidelines of the DGA’s winter meeting in Phoenix….Regardless of what happens in 2024, the party boasts a deep bench going forward, and Walz believes the 2028 Democratic nominee could indeed be a sitting governor….“I’m biased towards governors,” he said. “But they’re proven.”….Schneider: What are the most important governors’ races next year? Walz: I think holding those races we have. I tried my hardest to get [Washington Gov.] Jay Inslee to stay again. He could be my governor forever. There, of course, and in North Carolina and Delaware, where we’re term limited with [North Carolina Gov.] Roy Cooper and [Delaware Gov.] John Carney. I think there’s a golden opportunity in New Hampshire [where GOP incumbent Chris Sununu is retiring]. I can tell you those four states are a priority, especially with our incumbent governors being term-limited….We’re not naive. This is going to be nationalized in some of these races. But governors have a much better way, and especially good ones, of bringing it back down. Andy Beshear did that and he won because of that. He stayed focused on disaster relief, about recovering, caring for people, delivering on that, so they’re going to have to explain why they’re supportive of President Trump, but I think our candidates will be out there saying, “This is the difference it makes. We’re functional, not dysfunctional. We get things done,” and I think that’ll be the message.”

Schneider continues, “Schneider: Governors like Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania have job approval ratings that are 10, 15, 20 points better than Joe Biden. Can you explain that gap?….Walz: I think it’s not surprising to see governors do that, because we’re delivering every day. I think the constant drumbeat of dysfunction in D.C. gets attached to the president. But we all run into this. When we’re running against the generic Republican, our races are always really close, but there’s no such thing [as a generic Republican]. These guys are weird. Once they start running, their weirdness shows up, and especially with the nominee on the other side. I don’t think it’s that surprising….This is going to be a binary choice. Democracy, or what we saw with the former president. Projects, like roads getting built, or dysfunction. Pre-existing conditions being covered by health care, or having that ripped out. Those binary choices will start to become clear. They saw us act, how we acted during Covid, they saw us act on the recovery. It’ll work itself out….It’s one of our jobs to get out there and talk about it. I’ve talked to [White House infrastructure czar] Mitch Landrieu and the White House on infrastructure. Look, this is a golden age of infrastructure because of the president. Governors are the ones that are managing that — broadband expansion, removal of lead pipes. Put the signs up. Say where it came from….I wouldn’t be so bullish on Joe Biden or be so excited about it, if I saw that he wasn’t delivering. I’ve watched him deliver. We, as governors, who lived through what President Trump did not do during Covid, I’m not going back there again. Tell the story. Put some signs up for building bridges. Let us know where the money came from.”

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, politics editor of The Liberal Patriot newsletter and co-author with John B. Judis of the new Book “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?,” is cross-posted from The Liberal Patriot:

As we head into the 2024 election, Biden’s chief liability is clearly voter dissatisfaction with the economy, which triumphalist talk about “Bidenomics” has done little to allay. However, there are other serious weaknesses he will have to overcome. One obvious one is immigration and the border where voters’ assessment of his administration’s performance is particularly dire. But we shouldn’t forget about crime and public safety, where Democrats’ image is scarcely better.

Gallup has just released a tranche of data on the crime issue which highlight the potential salience of the issue in 2024. Key findings include the following:

1. Sixty-three percent of the public now say the crime problem in the nation is extremely or very serious. This is the highest reading on this question since Gallup starting tracking it in 2000.
2. Over three-quarters (77 percent) say there’s more crime in the country today than there was a year ago. Along with similar results from their 2022 and 2020 surveys, these views on rising crime are the highest since 1993 in the Gallup’s series.
3. In terms of crime in respondents’ local areas, 55 percent say there’s more crime today than a year ago. Along with a similar reading from last year, these are the highest levels every measured by Gallup on this question going back to the beginning of their time series in 1972.
4. Over a quarter (28 percent) say their household has been victimized by at least one of these crimes in the past year: having a home broken into, having property vandalized, having money or property stolen, having money or property stolen by force, having a car stolen, being physically assaulted or being sexually assaulted. Except for 2016, this is the highest level reported by the public since Gallup initiated this time series in 2000.
5. Forty percent now say within a mile of their home there is an area where they would be afraid to walk alone at night. This is the highest level Gallup has measured since the crime-ridden early 1990’s.
6. Along with levels measured last year, Americans are more worried about the crimes of having their car stolen or broken into, being attacked while driving your car, getting mugged, and getting murdered than they have been since 2000 when Gallup started measuring these fears.
7. As for illegal drugs, for the first time since 1972, when Gallup first asked about this question, more than half (52 percent) think the U.S. is losing ground on the illegal drug problem. Just 24 percent believe the U.S. is making progress, 28 points less than those who feel we’re losing ground—the largest gap ever measured.
8. In light of the trends above, it is not surprising that negative views of the criminal justice system have gone up. Views that the justice system is “not tough enough” have spiked, rising 17 points since 2020 to 58 percent of the public, the highest level since the early 2000’s.

Consistent with these pessimistic views, voters are not happy with the job the Democrats have been doing on crime. In a September NBC poll, voters favored Republican over Democrats by 26 points on dealing with crime. Biden is consistently way underwater on his job approval in the crime area, averaging 21 points more disapproval than approval on the issue.

Even more pertinent to the coming election, Democracy Corps has a new surveyout of 2500 voters in next year’s battleground states and congressional districts. In this survey, inflation and the cost of living is tabbed by voters as the most pressing issue for the country by a considerable margin. But the second most cited is “crime, homelessness, and violence”. This pattern holds for black, Hispanic, and Asian voters and for moderate Democrats and political independents.

In the same survey, battleground voters favor Trump and the Republicans over Biden and the Democrats by 12 points on “feeling safe” and by 17 points on “handling crime”. The survey also asked these voters what they would worry about the most if Biden wins the election. Topping the list was “the border being wide open to millions of impoverished immigrants, many are criminals and drug dealers who are overwhelming America’s cities.” But a very close second—just a point behind—was “crime and homelessness being out of control in cities and the violence killing small businesses and the police”. Among black, Hispanic and Asian voters as well as among white Millennials, moderate Democrats and political independents, crime and homelessness worries actually topped the list.

It is not hard to think of reasons voters feel this way. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the nationwide movement sparked by it, the climate for police reform was highly favorable. But Democrats blew the opportunity by allowing the party to be associated with unpopular movement slogans like “defund the police” that did not appear to take public safety concerns very seriously.

At the same time, Democrats became associated with a wave of progressive public prosecutors who seemed quite hesitant about keeping criminals off the street, even as a spike in violent crimes like murders and carjacking swept the nation. This was twinned to a climate of tolerance and non-prosecution for lesser crimes that degraded the quality of life in many cities under Democratic control. San Francisco became practically a poster child for the latter problem under DA Chesa Boudin’s “leadership.”

So the voters kicked him out in a recall election. Based on the neighborhood pattern of voting and pre-election polling data, it seems clear that Asian voter support for the recall was particularly strong.

Nonwhite support for cashiering Boudin shouldn’t be surprising. The most enthusiastic supporters of a Boudin-style approach to policing tend to be white college-educated liberals. Nonwhite and working-class voters approach the issue of crime quite differently. Think of Eric Adams’ support in his successful run for the New York mayoralty, or of Cherelle Parker’s support in her recent successful run to be Philadelphia’s mayor.

Adams wasn’t afraid to put public safety front and center in his political appeals and called out affluent professionals who think nonwhite and working class communities can do with less policing. He believed that this was what his constituencies wanted.

Read more…

At Maddowblog Steve Benen reports: “One need not be a political expert to know what issues Republicans see as their strengths. If it were up to GOP leaders, the public conversation would focus entirely on inflation, border security and crime — not because the party has solutions to any of these challenges, but because polls tend to show that voters favor Republicans more than Democrats on these issues….That said, there are plenty of issues that favor Democrats, most notably health care. A recent national survey from NBC News found the party with a 23-point advantage over the GOP on health care, which is one of the reasons Republicans generally avoid the subject….It was against that backdrop that Donald Trump apparently thought it’d be a good idea to publish this message to his social media platform on Saturday morning, telling Americans that he’s “seriously looking at alternatives” to “Obamacare.” The former president went on to complain about Republican senators who failed to “terminate” the Affordable Care Act in 2017, concluding, “[B]ut we should never give up!”….The public comments coincided with a written statement from the president’s re-election campaign. “Forty million people — more than 1 in 10 Americans — have health insurance today because of the Affordable Care Act and Donald Trump just said he would try to rip it away if he returns to power,” spokesperson Ammar Moussa said. “He was one vote away from getting it done when he was president — and we should take him at his word that he’ll try to do it again….“That means letting insurance companies deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions like diabetes, cancer, or asthma; kicking college kids off their parents’ coverage the moment they graduate; leaving a job once again resulting in a loss of coverage; premiums skyrocketing; and middle class families suffering. Donald Trump’s America is one where millions of people lose their health insurance and seniors and families across the country face exorbitant costs just to stay healthy. Those are the stakes next November….If Democrats were to have literally written a script for Trump to follow, they probably would’ve had the Republican pick a fight over the future of the ACA. It was awfully generous of him to play along for no apparent reason.”

“The problem for Biden is that Republicans have shown themselves over time to be brilliant at setting campaign narratives,” Colorado Sun columnist Mike Litton writes. “And the narratives that Biden is too old, that the economy sucks, that the border situation is in crisis make the job fairly easy….Trump may be slightly ahead in the polls, but no one is really running against him yet. The Republican pretenders, other than Chris Christie, have to be provoked to even mention him. It took Nikki Haley days — and only after she was asked — to note that Trump’s use of  “vermin” may not have been the best choice of words. I don’t think Ron DeSantis ever commented on it…. Even Biden has been trying to make the campaign about his own successes, which is the usual strategy for an incumbent. But there are two incumbents in this race. And what we know is that whenever Trump is on the ballot, voters inevitably choose between the candidate who is Trump and the candidate who’s not Trump….The candidate who is Trump is campaigning as a would-be strong man, as a democracy-defying defendant facing 91 charges in multiple courtrooms, as an immigrant basher who promises to round up undocumented immigrants by the millions, as the president who appointed the Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade….That should be enough, but we learned in 2016 how these things can go….The way to beat Trump is to remind voters that he is Trump, as Biden did four years ago. A younger, more vibrant Democrat could probably have done that better. But at this point the question is not whether it’s time for Democrats to panic, but what they do to make sure Biden can pull off that trick, and beat Trump, one more time.”

“Has No Labels Become a Stalking Horse for Trump?,’ NYT columnist Thomas B. Edsall asks, and writes, “After its founding in 2010, the group was praised by moderates in both parties as a force for cooperation and consensus. Now, however, No Labels is a target of criticism because of its plan to place presidential and vice-presidential nominees of its choosing on the 2024 ballot — a step that could tip the outcome in favor of Donald Trump if he once again wins the Republican nomination….No Labels officials contend that their polling suggests that their ticket could win….Numerous factors exacerbate the suspicion that whatever its intentions are (or were), the organization has functionally become an asset to the Trump campaign and a threat to the re-election of Joe Biden….Leaks to the media that prominent Republican donors, including Harlan Crow, Justice Clarence Thomas’s benefactor, are contributing to No Labels — which is well on its way to raising $70 million — suggest that some major donors to No Labels see the organization as a means to promote Republican goals….No Labels, in turn, has declined to disclose its donors, and the secrecy has served to intensify the concern that some of its contributors are using the organization’s plan to run a third-party ticket to weaken the Biden campaign….“No Labels,” Representative Abigail Spanberger, Democrat of Virginia, declared, “is wasting time, energy and money on a bizarre effort that confuses and divides voters and has one obvious outcome — re-electing Donald Trump as president.”….An NBC survey in September found that the presence of third-party candidates on the ballot would shift the outcome from a 46-to-46 tie to a 39-to-36 Trump advantage over Biden.”

“Equally important,’ Edsall adds,  “NBC also found that the strongest appeal of third-party candidates is among constituencies Biden must carry, including voters pollsters call persuadable; low-income, working-class and middle-class voters of color; and voters who said they “somewhat” disapproved of Biden….In the media, the potential No Labels candidates most commonly mentioned are Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia, who is 76 and recently announced his retirement from the Senate, and Larry Hogan, who is 67 and a former Republican governor of Maryland. The organization could also pick someone outside politics, including a military or corporate leader….Many Democratic leaders and organizations — including Nancy Pelosi, a former House speaker; state Democratic chairs; Third Way, a Democratic think tank; and advisers to President Biden — contend that a No Labels candidate in the race would probably doom Biden’s chances of re-election….No Labels is gearing up to pick a third-party presidential ticket without the constraints and safeguards of primary elections and caucus contests….William Galston, a Brookings Institution senior fellow and one of the 2010 founders of No Labels, resigned from the group this year in protest over the group’s plan to run presidential candidates….Over Galston’s objections, No Labels began “in 2022 to explore the possibility of an independent bipartisan ticket,” he wrote in an email to me. He objected, he said, “not only because I thought this plan had no chance of succeeding but also because I believed that anything that could divide the anti-Trump coalition was too risky to undertake.”….Ultimately, Galston continued, he decided he “did not want to be associated with a venture that I believed (and continue to believe) will increase Donald Trump’s chances of re-entering the Oval Office.”….I asked Fred Wertheimer, the founder and president of Democracy 21, a campaign-finance-reform organization, for his assessment. “In my view,” he replied, “when No Labels started qualifying in various states to be on the ballot to run a presidential candidate, they were functioning as a political organization under I.R.S. law and should have registered as such under section 527 of the I.R.S. code and disclosed their donors.”

William A. Galston explains “What Today’s Working Class Wants from Political Leaders” at Brookings: “A second PPI report, a public opinion survey conducted in partnership with YouGov, investigates working-class sentiments and beliefs.¹ While these voters harbor reservations about both political parties, they align more with Republicans than with Democrats on most of the matters that concern them….On the face of it, working-class voters would appear to be evenly divided in their view of the political parties. Thirty-eight percent trust the Democrats more to put the interests of working-class voters first, while 37% trust the Republicans more. Thirty-six percent see the Democratic Party is more committed to governing and problem-solving than in waging partisan warfare, while 34% see the Republican Party in this light….But this apparent even division is inconsistent with the voting behavior of America’s working class. In 2020, Joe Biden outpaced Donald Trump by 24 percentage points among voters with a college degree or more while losing to Trump by 8 points among those with less than a bachelor’s degree.  Among white voters with less than a bachelor’s, Trump prevailed by 32 points, and Trump also did 25 points better among Hispanic voters with less than a college degree than he did among college-educated Hispanics….The PPI poll helps us understand why this is so. Forty-five percent of working-class voters, it found, believe that the Democratic Party has moved “too far to the left,” and 40% see it as heavily influenced by “special interests like public sector unions, environmental activists, and academics.” They trust Republicans over Democrats to manage a growing economy, promote entrepreneurship and keep America ahead in new technologies, control public debt and deficits, handle immigration, reduce crime and protect public safety, and make public schools more responsive to parents. Democrats lead in only three areas: combatting climate change, managing America’s clean air transition, and respecting our democratic institutions and elections (the last by a narrow margin of 39% to 34%).”

Galston notes, “Moving from specific issues to broader themes, working-class voters think Republicans do better in protecting personal freedom, strengthening private enterprise, respecting hard work and individual initiative, and creating economic opportunities for working Americans. On what many Democrats believe is the center economic and social issue—making America fairer—their party only ties the Republicans in the eyes of these voters….To be sure, Republicans still have an affluence problem. By a margin of 41% to 31%, working-class voters believe that the Republican Party represents the interests of the wealthy more than the Democratic Party does, and 38% believe that the Republicans are too influenced by wealthy donors. But to judge from the results at polling booths, these reservations about Republicans are not as weighty for working-class voters as is their long litany of complaints about Democrats….Progressive Democrats may be surprised to learn that working-class voters do not share their understanding of the proper role of government in the economy. Although 65% of working-class voters believe that the economy is controlled by the rich for their own benefit, just 19% of them want a large federal government focused on issues such as inequality and the distribution of wealth, compared to 34% who want a smaller federal government that spends and taxes less. A plurality of these voters—47%—opt for a middle course: a federal government that actively steers the economy, but mainly by promoting and protecting free markets….Twenty-one percent strongly support what Biden has done on the economy, but 35% strongly oppose it. Overall, 46% support the president’s agenda with varying degrees of enthusiasm while 47% oppose it….Asked to name the most significant challenge facing the economy today, 36% said “the high cost of living” while an additional 33% said “inflation is outpacing the economy.” Asked to explain these negative developments, 55% said that “government went overboard with stimulus spending, overheating the economy,” compared to 29% who pointed to the aftereffects of the pandemic and 16% who blamed bottlenecks in the supply chain.”

Galston adds, “Although Democrats have scored solid gains among college-educated Americans in recent electoral cycles, policies to support them find little favor with the working class. Fifty-six percent of these voters oppose debt relief for college student borrowers on the grounds that such action is unfair to the majority of Americans who don’t get college degrees and will increase costs for both students and taxpayers over the long term. Asked about the policies most likely to help working people get ahead, 10% named student loan forgiveness and 15% backed a federal government push for stronger labor unions while 74% opted for public investment in apprenticeships and career pathways to help non-college workers upgrade their skills. When asked for their views about policies that would help them personally to get ahead, their responses formed a similar pattern. Six percent mentioned joining a union and nine percent, getting a four-year college degree. By contrast, 69% mentioned apprenticeships with companies or other forms of short-term training programs that combine learning with work….Overall, the PPI survey documents a pervasive sense of decline among working-class Americans. By a margin of 66% to 21%, they believe that people like them are worse off today than they were 40 years ago. Interestingly, they do not identify a single dominant cause for this decline: roughly equal numbers blame immigration, trade, automation, de-unionization, bad government programs, and cultural change. While they do not express great confidence in either political party to turn around this decline, they lean toward an “America First” stance on issues such as immigration and trade. But they do not accept Republicans’ hardline views on criminal justice and policing, and they are deeply concerned about social conservatives’ efforts to ban books from school libraries and restrict access to reproductive health services for women. Still, when asked which president in recent decades had done the most for average working families, 44% named Donald Trump, compared to just 12% for Joe Biden.”

From “Pollster sees hope for Biden: “Republicans are in far greater trouble than is generally understood: Trump needs 95% of Republicans to have a chance of winning. Simon Rosenberg explains “he’s very far away from that” by Chauncey Devega’s interview of Rosenberg at Salon: “Democratic Party strategist and commentator Simon Rosenberg rejects the consensus view that President Biden is already done for. Rosenberg’s insights merit very careful consideration: He was one of the few experts who predicted that the so-called Republican “red wave” was actually a chimera….In this conversation, Rosenberg explains why President Biden and the Democrats are in a much stronger position than Donald Trump and the Republicans heading into the 2024 election and why he thinks so many of the early 2024 election polls are incorrect….How are you feeling given Trump and the Republican fascists’ escalating threats to democracy?  I’m tired. But I’m also exhilarated by our continued strong electoral performances all across the country going back to 2017. In particular, the Democrats have been winning elections since the [Supreme Court’s] Dobbs decision in Spring 2022. We are winning across the country, in every kind of race — mayoral races, school board races, in governor’s races in red states, and on ballot initiatives. It leaves me deeply optimistic about 2024. In rte4sponse to other questions, Rosenberg notes, “As shown by how the Democrats have been winning in every type of race across the country now for a year and a half, that is a sign of institutional and organizational strength. The Democratic Party is very strong right now. By comparison, the Republican Party is very weak institutionally….there is no way to scrub Trump, to put lipstick on the Trump pig, or to dress him up and make him something other than the most dangerous candidate in the history of American politics. And it just gives me hope that people have been voting against MAGA and the Republicans repeatedly, especially, in the battleground states. If we have a normal election the Democrats should win next year — even with Joe Biden and all of his limitations. But at the end of the day, he’s been a good president. And he’s got a strong case for reelection….This idea that as the electorate gets bigger, it gets more Republican is false. The Democrats have won more votes in the last seven out of eight elections than the Republicans. No political party has done that in American history….Trump is only at 60%. 40% of Republican primary voters are not with him. That’s a huge problem. Trump can’t lose any Republicans. He’s the weak candidate. Trump is struggling to pull his coalition back together….I think the issues around abortion, as we’ve seen, are creating openings with Republican and independent women that are unprecedented. The Republicans have no way now to mitigate the political damage that abortion has done to them or will do to them again in 2024.”

In “This may be Biden’s best hope of reversing his slide with Black and brown voters,” Ronald Browntein writes at CNN Politics: “A wide array of recent polls shows Biden with an unusually small lead for a Democrat among both Black and Latino voters in a potential 2024 rematch with Trump. But many analysts say it’s less clear that Democrats are facing a lasting structural realignment among those voters – much less a change rooted in a long-term cultural alienation from the party – rather than immediate dissatisfaction with the economy under Biden….“I keep looking for it as well, but you are not seeing as much evidence for a culture war driving any kind of change at this moment,” said Carlos Odio, senior vice president for research at Equis Research, a Democratic polling firm that specializes in Latino voters. “What’s driving Trump and the Republicans is the economy. At the end of the day, ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ over and over again.”….If anything, rather than cultural alienation driving working-class non-White voters toward the GOP, continuing resistance in those communities to Republican priorities on many culturally and racially tinged issues may be Democrats’ best hope in 2024 of recapturing non-White voters disenchanted with Biden’s performance and the economy. Despite all the discontent over Biden, almost three-fifths of non-White voters without a college degree agreed that the “Republican Party has been taken over by racists,” in a recent national survey by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, according to previously unpublished results provided to CNN….The stakes in this struggle are enormous. White voters without a college degree, now the electorate’s most Republican-leaning group, have been steadily shrinking as a share of the total vote at a rate of about 2 to 3 percentage points in each presidential election for decades. To offset that decline, Republicans need to find votes elsewhere. The party is facing resistance among college-educated White voters, many of whom have recoiled from the hard-edged cultural and racial views the party has embraced under Trump.”

Brownstein continues, “The exit polls conducted by Edison Research for a consortium of media organizations including CNN found that Trump’s vote among non-White voters without a college degree increased from just 20% in 2016 to 26% in 2020. Research by Catalist, a Democratic voter targeting firm whose analyses are respected in both parties, found that Trump’s vote among Latino voters without a college degree spiked from 61% in 2016 to 72% in 2020; Trump also enjoyed a modest 3 percentage point gain among Black voters without a college degree over that period, Catalist found….Exactly why Trump made those gains, though, remains a matter of dispute – with important implications for 2024 and beyond. Advocates of the realignment theory argue that Trump’s gains represented an ideological rejection of Democrats among centrist and right-leaning minority voters, prompted partly by their opposition to the calls to “defund the police” in the racial justice protests that erupted after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. They pointed to evidence in exit polls that a much higher percentage of minority voters who identified as conservative voted for Trump in 2020 than in 2016….Somewhat to the surprise of both parties, the movement of non-college-educated minority voters toward the GOP stalled in the 2022 midterm election, even though those voters expressed widespread disenchantment with the economy and Biden’s performance. In Catalist’s analysis, Democrats won a slightly higher percentage of Latinos without a college degree in the 2022 House races than they did in the 2020 presidential contest. Most important for Democrats, Senate incumbents Mark Kelly in Arizona and Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada – probably the two states where Latino voters are most important for the party – also ran slightly better among non-college-educated Latinos than Biden did in their states, according to previously unpublished Catalist results provided to CNN. (The exit polls, differing slightly, showed a small further national gain in 2022 for the GOP among non-White voters without a college degree.)”

Brownstein adds, “Daron Shaw, a Republican pollster and University of Texas political scientist who co-conducted a recent large national survey of Latino voters for Univision, says that those attitudes mean “there is absolutely an opening” for Trump or another GOP nominee to advance further with non-White voters in 2024. Just as many White working-class voters “felt like the financial crisis of ’08-‘09 left them rudderless [and] eroded their position in American society … both on economic grounds and on cultural grounds, there are voters within the Latino community as well, who feel no one is representing them,” Shaw said during a press call about the Univision poll….Sergio Garcia-Rios, a University of Texas political scientist who partnered with Shaw on the Univision poll, said the Latinos supporting Trump are drawn to him mostly on economic grounds. “To those who are voting for Trump, they remember that in 2016-’17-‘18 the economy worked better,” he said. “You and I can disagree with them on whether or not that is true. But that’s what they remember.”….Ruy Teixeira, a longtime Democratic electoral analyst who has become an unflinching critic of the party’s policies on social issues, has noted, for instance, that most Latinos agree with statements asserting the US is the greatest country in the world and reject the idea that racism is embedded in American institutions. “It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Democrats’ emphasis on social and democracy issues, while catnip to some socially liberal, educated voters, leaves many working-class and Hispanic voters cold,” writes Teixeira, co-author of the recent book, “Where Have All The Democrats Gone?,” which makes similar arguments as Ruffini.

“Yet as polling by the Public Religion Research Institute, Univision and other groups show,” Brownstein notes,  “on many of the actual cultural policies dominating political debate, most minority voters – including most of those without a college degree – align with Democrats, not Republicans. Among non-White voters without a college degree, 57% support legal abortion, 55% back same sex-marriage, and 64% oppose placing barriers at the US border to deter migrants, according to unpublished results from the PRRI’s latest national American Values Survey provided to CNN. (Support for Democratic positions is even greater among non-White voters with a college degree, PRRI found.) Other surveys have found preponderant support among minorities for banning assault weapons and lopsided opposition to ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented immigrants, as Trump and other GOP candidates have proposed….Maybe most significantly, in PRRI polling, about three-fifths of non-White voters without a college degree agree the GOP has been “taken over by racists,” as do nearly two-thirds of non-White voters with a degree. By contrast, three-fifths of White voters without a college degree reject that idea….Latinos in the key states may not yet be aware of Trump’s immigration plans. But Robert P. Jones, president and founder of PRRI, said the group’s polling convinces him that Trump’s agenda on immigration and other cultural issues will ultimately repel some Latino voters otherwise disenchanted with Biden on the economy. “I think we will not know the truth about how much they [Republicans] are overplaying their hand until next summer” if Trump becomes the GOP nominee, Jones said….Some expressions of cultural liberalism – such as the fleeting calls in 2020 to “defund the police” – have clearly rankled working-class minority voters. But Biden never endorsed that idea. And his clearest path to recovering with those voters may be to convince them that the Republican agenda on immigration and other cultural issues threatens their interests and values. Rather than driving further movement toward the GOP among minority voters, in other words, issues such as abortion or immigration may be Biden’s best hope of preventing slippage with those voters.”

In his CNN Politics article, “Polling shows a huge age gap divides the Democratic Party on Israel,” Harry Enten writes: ”

Take a look at a recent Quinnipiac University poll on the topic. Biden’s approval rating for his handling of the Israel-Hamas War among Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters is just 56%. Compare that to his 76% approval rating among Democratic voters for his overall job performance.

A significant minority of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters (36%) disapprove of his handling of the war. Those voters tend to be young….The lion’s share (69%) of Democrats and Democratic-leaning younger than 35 disapprove of how Biden is responding to the war. Just 24% approve. It’s the inverse among older Democrats. Most Democrats 65 and older (77%) approve of Biden on this issue. Few (16%) disapprove.

….When asked which side they sympathize with, Israelis or Palestinians, more, Democrats younger than 35 are far more likely to sympathize with Palestinians (74%) than Israelis (16%). Democrats 65 and older are somewhat more likely to side with Israelis (45%) than Palestinians (25%).

Enten notes further, “The large divide by age causes Democrats and Democratic leaning voters overall to split basically evenly, with 39% sympathizing with Palestinians and 35% with Israelis….This is a massive shift from the beginning of the Israel-Hamas War, when Democrats were more likely to sympathize with Israel by a 48% to 22% margin. That poll was taken in the immediate aftermath of a surprise terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7 that killed about 1,200 people. Since that time, Israel has mounted an offensive in Gaza, and the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health says more than 10,000 Palestinians have died.”

Enten adds,

Most Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters (70%) believe that supporting Israel is in the national interest. This includes 87% of those 65 and older….Democrats younger than 35 see things entirely differently. Just 40% think backing Israel is in the national interest of this country. The majority (52%) disagree.

Perhaps not surprisingly, these younger Democrats don’t think we should be supplying military aid to Israel in its war with Hamas. A mere 21% agree that we should, while 77% are against it. Older Democrats are for it by a 53% to 32% margin….In total, Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters were 49% in opposition to 44% in support….Voters overall, on the other hand, are 53% in support to 39% opposed for more military aid for Israel.

Also,

All voters by a 54% to 24% margin sympathized more with Israelis than Palestinians. Voters, including Democrats, Republicans and independents, by a 73% to 19% margin said backing Israel was in the national interest of America.

Biden’s problem is that he likely needs more support from younger voters heading into the 2024 election. He won voters younger than 35 by more than 20 points in 2020. Today, his lead over former President Donald Trump is in the low single digits in an average of recent polling ahead of a potential rematch.

It’s not clear that Biden’s handling of the war is causing his decreased backing from younger voters, but it can’t be helping him.

And there is no way of knowing how important this issue will be to American voters a year from now. In our highly-polarized electorate, the biggest issue in November 2024 could be inflation or democracy or Trump’s legal disasters or his mental health, or gun control. As large as the issue looms now, it may be a fading memory late next year.

Check out “The Fight for Working-Classs Voters,” featuring Ruy Teixeira, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and co-founder and politics editor of the Substack newsletter, The Liberal Patriot and Patrick Ruffini, Republican pollster and founding partner of Echelon Insights, being interviewed by Galen Druke, at 538:

Also at 538, Nathaniel Rakich explains “What the 2023 elections can — and can’t — tell us about 2024” at abcnews.go.com: “In the end, the most predictive of 2023’s elections may be some of the lowest-profile. Nov. 7 saw special elections take place in Rhode Island’s 1st Congressional District as well as seven state-legislative districts (although one of those was uncontested). And as we’ve written many times, a party’s overperformance in special elections (using the same methodology as I used for New Jersey and Virginia) has historically been pretty predictive of the House popular vote in the subsequent general election….And those special election results were mixed, though overall they were better for Democrats than for Republicans. Democrats did better than base partisanship in four of the seven races, and the average overperformance on Nov. 7 was D+3….it is special elections all cycle long that have historically proved predictive, not just special elections on odd-year Election Days, and with Nov. 7’s special elections factored in, Democrats are still overperforming base partisanship by an average of 9 points on the year….Instead, take the 2023 elections for what they were: a series of Democratic and liberal victories that were important in their own right. More than 25 million people live in Kentucky, Mississippi, New Jersey and Virginia and will be directly impacted by the results there. Ohio guaranteed abortion rights to 2.6 million reproductive-age women and legalized marijuana for 8.7 million adults. In Pennsylvania, Democrats notched key wins in judicial and county-level races that will matter for the 2024 presidential race not because of what they portend, but because they will affect how that election is administered logistically and how ballots are counted. These things are the true legacies of the 2023 election.”

You should read “Can Biden and the Democrats Survive Their Divisions on Israel-Palestine? Herewith, some suggestions” by Harold Meyerson at The American Prospect. A Teaser: “Absent the Vietnam War, Hubert Humphrey would probably not have lost the 1968 presidential election to Richard Nixon. In a Biden-Trump contest next year, Israel-Palestine could be one more nail in the Democrats’ coffin. And for all of his depredations and paranoia, Richard Nixon posed a petty threat to American democracy, while Trump poses a massive one….What, then, are Democrats to do? As Michelle Goldberg has outlined in The New York Times, the efforts by Democratic Majority for Israel to recruit candidates to run in primary elections against members of the Squad, and to fund their campaigns with many millions of dollars (a good deal of which comes from Republicans and corporate interests seeking to squash economic progressives) would only widen those rifts and guarantee that many young voters and voters of color—key elements in the Democratic base—would either stay home or vote for protest candidates in next November’s elections….Is there anything that the Biden administration and the Democrats—two groups that, of necessity, we need to consider separately—can do to narrow this yawning chasm?….As to the administration, it needs to get much more serious about prompting a two-state solution than any previous administration has ever been. It needs to condition all aid to Israel on that nation’s agreement to permit the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within a brief period of time. That begins with having the Palestinian Authority govern Gaza and continues with the withdrawal of most, if not all, Israeli settlements from the West Bank. Keep in mind that the current Netanyahu government is in place only because it’s propped up by settler extremists and the ultra-Orthodox, against whose rule most Israelis have been passionately demonstrating throughout much of this year.”

In “The Real Reason Why Biden Shouldn’t Drop Out: A contested Democratic primary with less than a year before the 2024 election would be a mess” Walter Shapiro writes at The New Republic: “….Even if Biden were to accept the truth embedded in the polls, as Harry Truman did when he bowed out in 1952, the subsequent multicandidate scramble for the Democratic nomination would create as many (if not more) political problems as it would solve….It is easy to get caught up in questions of logistics since the filing deadlines have already passed for the Democratic Party’s first two authorized primaries: South Carolina (February 3) and Nevada (February 6). By the end of November, California (March 5) will have closed the books on its primary, and the deadline for Michigan (February 27) is in early December. But barring a divisive contested Democratic convention in Chicago, any Biden delegates chosen in these early states would presumably rally behind the leading candidate in the name of party unity….What about money, which a deep-pocketed presidential candidate once described as “the most reliable friend you can have in American politics”?….a truncated primary season would make it impossible for an out-of-nowhere candidate to have enough time to catch fire in the early states like Pete Buttigieg in 2020 or a former Georgia governor named Jimmy Carter in 1976….If Biden announced on the Monday after Thanksgiving that he would be retiring, it would give 2024 presidential contenders fewer than 100 days to declare their candidacies and define their image before 14 states pick delegates on Super Tuesday, March 5. And 11 other states will be holding Democratic primaries later in March….By my reckoning, Biden made a heedless mistake by not bowing out of the 2024 presidential race last spring, knowing that his age would be a political liability. Such a springtime 2023 decision would have given his Democratic successor ample time to run a winning and hopefully inspiring primary campaign….Instead, Biden chose to defy Father Time. And at this point, Biden—despite his obvious flaws as a candidate—is probably the Democrats’ best option for president against Trump. For in politics, it gets late early. And it is, sadly, too late for a compelling Biden replacement.”