Democratic politics was plenty complicated even before Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt. Democrats still have a daunting challenge to meet in mobilizing for the 2024 elections, and they can’t back away from the task because of the tragic shooting that took two lives, injured others and almost killed the Republican nominee. But let all Democrats be united in deploring and condemning the shooting and political violence. Social media is full of unworthy comments about the shooting from people who should know better. No Democrat should respond to them in any way that encourages or tolerates such comments. Democrats must be the adult party, the one which condemns all forms of violence, especially when directed at political adversaries. Not only is violence morally wrong; to tolerate it in any way is to invite certain defeat in the elections. “Toning down” the rhetoric is not enough. Democrats should openly and consistently espouse nonviolence in all of our political strategies and tactics, and, to paraphrase the message of Martin Luther King, Jr., urge everyone to refrain from violence of “fist, tongue and heart.” It is impossible to gauge the political effects of the assassination attempt on the November elections until all ballots have been counted and subjected to a rigorous analysis. But there is no quicker way for Democrats to blow it than to allow cynical comments about the shooting. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro has provided a good  template for responding to this tragedy: “Violence targeted at any political party or political leader is absolutely unacceptable. It has no place in Pennsylvania or the United States.” In expressing his sympathy for the victims of the shooting he added “We lost a fellow Pennsylvanian last night: Corey Comperatore….Corey dove on his family to protect them last night at this rally….Corey was the very best of us. May his memory be a blessing.”

Some other Democratic leaders’ responses to the shooting noted by Associated Press, via Daily Kos include: “As one whose family has been the victim of political violence, I know firsthand that political violence of any kind has no place in our society. I thank God that former President Trump is safe,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement. “As we learn more details about this horrifying incident, let us pray that all those in attendance at the former President’s rally today are unharmed.”….Obama, Trump’s immediate predecessor in the White House, shared the views of others who have held the presidency, writing on social media: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics. Michelle and I are wishing him a quick recovery.”….President Joe Biden said in his Oval Office address last night: ““We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America,” he said, speaking in a prime time speech to the nation. “There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”….Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, blasted the violence in his home state. “I am appalled and condemn in the strongest terms this violence in Butler,” he wrote on X. “I extend my condolences to those injured and wish a speedy and full recovery for Mr. Trump.” Also at X, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez added “There is no place for political violence, including the horrific incident we just witnessed in Pennsylvania. It is absolutely unacceptable and must be denounced in the strongest terms. My heart goes out to all the victims and I wish the former President a speedy recovery.”

At The Guardian, Katrina vanden Heuval, editor and publisher of The Nation, writes, “Being the victim of a shooting is terrifying. Donald Trump and those wounded and killed deserve our sympathy and concern. We should not forget the risks that political leaders take in a society as polarized and as gunned up as this one….What should we take from this horror? We should begin by decrying all political violence as unacceptable. President Biden has condemned the shooting ardently and unequivocally. So, too, did prominent Democrats who fundamentally disagree with the former president. Hopefully, leaders from across the political and ideological spectrum will join in these condemnations. Just as, one hopes, they will condemn the growing threats of violence that public officials from the president to poll volunteers to judges and jurors now receive….But this is about more than politics and public life. This country has too much gun violence – and too many guns. Most of the victims are not famous, or powerful. With children in grade schools now forced to take part in active shooter drills, it is long past time for all of us to get serious about curbing gun violence….Trump should be assessed – as anyone who would lead this country – on his behavior, his character, and his agenda. That responsibility does not disappear because someone took a shot at him. The prospect of a Trump presidency was as deeply unsettling before Saturday’s shooting incident – and it remains so after it….No one should be fooled. Donald Trump deserves sympathy for the attack he experienced. That does not, however, make him an acceptable candidate for the presidency.”

“Ahead of the November presidential election, just 19% of Americans say democracy in the United States is a good example for other countries to follow, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in April,” Janell Fetterolf and Sofia Hernandez Ramones report at the Pew Research Center on July 10th. “The most common view – held by 72% of Americans – is that democracy in the U.S. used to be a good example, but has not been in recent years. Another 8% of Americans say U.S. democracy has never beena good example for other countries to follow….Americans are much more likely than people in other countries to say U.S. democracy used to be a good example. A median of 40% of adults across 34 other countries surveyed in 2024 take this view….Relatively few Americans overall see the nation’s democracy as a good example for other countries to follow. But adults ages 50 and older are more likely than those under 50 to hold this view. Younger adults, on the other hand, are more likely than older adults to say American democracy has never been a good example (11% vs. 4%)….Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are somewhat more likely than Republicans and Republican leaners to see U.S. democracy as a good example (22% vs. 17%). This is nearly the reverse of where things stood in February 2021, when 24% of Republicans and 16% of Democrats saw democracy in the U.S. as a good example….Opinions also differ by voter status. Among Americans who are registered to vote, 21% see U.S. democracy as a good example, compared with 13% of those who are not registered to vote. Registered voters are also somewhat more likely to answer this question.” A critical part of the challenge facing Democrats in the 2024 elections must be to improve these numbers.

In “Democrats’ Effort to Push Biden Off Ticket Hits Uncertainty,” Lindsay Wise, Natalie Andrews and Katie Stech Ferek report at the Wall St. Journal: “An effort by some Democrats to seek an alternative to President Biden as the party’s nominee faced new uncertainty Tuesday, with frustrated lawmakers struggling to find a path forward after the president said he was dead set against stepping aside….Lawmakers aired their frustrations with their predicament, but a concerted push to install a new nominee didn’t emerge, even as a seventh House Democrat publicly called for Biden to make way for a new candidate. Private meetings ended without consensus, leaving the stare-down without a clear resolution less than four months until Election Day….“Like I said before, I’m with Joe,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) repeated several times in response to questions at his weekly press conference Tuesday afternoon….Schumer’s terse comments followed a lengthy lunch meeting with Senate Democrats, most of whom refused to talk to reporters afterward. Some looked dejected. “The president said it’s in his hands,” said Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.). Asked if Biden should remain on the ticket, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said, “That still remains to be seen.”….Sen. Michael Bennet (D., Colo.) told colleagues he didn’t think Biden would prevail this fall, and Sens. Jon Tester (MT) and Sherrod Brown (OH) have also expressed doubts. Later, speaking to CNN, he said he thinks Trump is on track to “maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House.” He said the White House “has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win.” But he declined to say Biden should step aside….One person familiar with the meeting said the party seemed evenly split on Biden. “One-third of the caucus wants him gone, one-third want him to stay, and one-third are resigned he is the nominee but think he is going to lose.”….“I think the conversation is important to have right now, because people do have concerns,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), head of the progressive caucus. “I just don’t think it should be in public. And I think at the end of the day, he is our nominee right now till he’s not our nominee.”

At Politico, Jonathan Martin outlines “Biden’s Survival Plan: Decry ‘Elite’ Critics, Appeal to His Base,” and writes: “As the president fights for his political life this week, and calls grow from party leaders that he withdraw his candidacy, he’s counting on the support of African American Democrats and his union allies as his last line of defense. It’s a playbook Biden has turned to in the past, portraying his detractors as mostly elite white liberals who are out of step with the more diverse and working-class grassroots of the party. That’s what propelled his nomination after a string of setbacks in 2020….If Biden can retain his allies in labor and the Black community, he will have a chance to reframe the boiling debate about his candidacy along the lines of race and class that have animated every Democratic nomination fight for 40 years. Those clashes, of course, played out in primaries and caucuses. This battle is taking place in a more chaotic and truncated fashion, in the media and on group texts, conference calls and Zooms….“The people Joe Biden fights for — middle-class labor union members, Blacks, Latinos — they know he fights for them and they’re going to stay in the fight for him,” Anita Dunn, Biden’s longtime adviser, told me Sunday….Much as he craves the affirmation of elites, Biden is in his comfort zone donning the armor of Scranton Joe. It recalls Bill Clinton, facing impeachment and the condemnation of censorious Democratic elites, turning to the party rank and file and especially Black Americans in his hour of crisis….This is the crux of Biden’s challenge. He knows his most loyal supporters will be those blue-collar Democrats and their representatives who’ve always had more of an affinity for him than the latte set. “We’ve been through some shit in our lives and we don’t turn when times are tough,” as Richmond put it about the Black community.”

Margaret Sullivan has some pointed comments in her article, “The media has been breathlessly attacking Biden. What about Trump?” at The Guardian. Among her observations: “That bigger story, of course, is the former president’s appalling unfitness for office, not only because he tried to overturn a legitimate election and is a felon, out on bail and awaiting sentencing, but because of things he has said and done in very recent weeks. As just one example, he claimed that he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025, the radical rightwing plan hatched by some of his closest allies to begin dismantling our democracy if he wins another term….Trump’s disavowal is a ridiculous lie, but I doubt most members of the public know anything about it, nor do they likely know much – if anything – about Project 2025….Meanwhile, what of Trump’s obvious cognitive decline, his endless lies, his shocking plans to imprison his political enemies and to deport millions of people he calls “animals”, his relationship with the late accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein?….There really is no comparison in the amount or intensity of coverage. One journalist, Jennifer Schulze, counted New York Times stories related to Biden’s age in the week following the debate; she counted a staggering 192 news and opinion pieces, compared to 92 stories on Trump – and that was in a week when the US supreme court had ruled he has immunity for official acts….On Monday, the Times sent out as “breaking news” a story whose headline announced that an expert in Parkinson’s disease had visited the White House eight times in a recent eight-month period; much further down in the story we learn that the same doctor also had made 10 visits to the White House in 2012, and that he has supported the White House medical team for more than a dozen years. But many people never get past the headline….Of course, the problem certainly is not just the New York Times, despite its agenda-setting influence. It’s also TV news, both network and cable. And, to a lesser extent, it’s other major US publications….Where does that leave us?….All of these disturbing elements – the Democrats’ dilemma, the media’s failures, and the cult-like, unquestioning support of Trump – could add up to one likelihood in November….A win for Trump, and a terrible loss for democracy.”

Christian Paz mulls over the polling data in “Do other Democrats actually poll better against Trump than Biden?” at Vox and writes: “If the goal of national Democrats is to keep Donald Trump out of the White House to protect democracy — and they’ve largely framed the 2024 election in just those existential terms — who is best equipped to do it? And after a dismal debate performance by President Joe Biden last week, is it possible that there is another Democrat better equipped to beat Trump than the sitting president?….Polling gives us one way to answer that question. But it’s not as simple as looking at the topline numbers and deciding that it’s time to dump Biden. The only timeline for which we know anything, solidly, is the one we’re living in: anything else is purely hypothetical, and requires some suspension of belief, some scrutiny in looking at numbers, and some skepticism in how we might expect the public to react….Still, it’s too soon to tell just what the American people are thinking about replacing Biden with an alternative….we are dealing in hypotheticals. Any talk about how a Biden alternative would fare against Trump is purely imaginary at this point: we don’t really know how well any of these candidates would do among specific kinds of voters or in different states or regions. How would Whitmer do in the Sun Belt? How would Newsom do in the Midwest? Those questions are crucial to winning the Electoral College, and the polls we have don’t come close to answering them….the polls show hypothetical Biden alternatives would do no better than Biden (generally what Biden defenders say). The second is that they are doing just as well as Biden without even running as actual presidential candidates — and could do better still (what Biden critics say)….Harris, post-debate, still has a better favorability score than Biden, and is doing better than the president with women, Latino voters, and young voters — groups that Biden has struggled with overall. Philip Bump at the Washington Post did some digging on this question last week as well, comparing Harris and Biden’s favorability ratings among subgroups before the debate, and found Harris seems to be viewed more favorably by younger voters, women, and non-white voters….In short, we don’t know much. These are all hypotheticals we’re trying to game out from a very limited set of data. And we’re likely to get a bunch more data as we move further from the debate. “

It’s getting to the point where you need a playbook to sort out the supporters and opponents of President Biden continuing his re-election campaign.

If you thought it would be a matter of prominent moderates and centrists supporting Biden and left Democrats wanting to replace him, you would be mostly wrong. Thus, centrist Democrats like Sen. Mark Warner (VA) and Rep. Mikie Sherrill (NJ- 11) are leaning toward or calling on President Biden to step down and lefty Dems, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT) and Rep. AOC (NY-14 ) are affirming their strong support for the President’s re-election, alongside leaders of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus and former Speaker Pelosi.

As you can see from some of the aforementioned examples, the ages of the President’s re-election supporters and opponents don’t provide much insight into their positions, either. Support for the President’s re-election is all over the place in terms of age. Ditto for those who want him to step down.

“On Monday, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters that she was sticking with Biden after speaking to him over the weekend. “Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race. He is in this race and I support him,” Nia Prater writes at New York magazine’s Intelligencer.

“I know that President Biden and his team have been true public servants and have put the country and the best interests of democracy first and foremost in their considerations,” [Rep. Mikie] Sherrill said. “And because I know President Biden cares deeply about the future of our country, I am asking that he declare that he won’t run for reelection and will help lead us through a process toward a new nominee,” Miranda Nazzaro reports at The Hill.

Lauren Sforza quotes Sen. Sanders, also at The Hill: “….I think what he has got to do is get out there, interact with people, turn off the teleprompter, and people can make a judgment for themselves how well he’s doing…So what we’ve got to do is inject policy, the contrast between what Biden stands for and what Trump stands for. And then if you do that, I think Biden’s gonna do just fine,” he added.”

Although it appears the Democrats are divided at present, when the Democratic Convention is concluded, the smart bet is that all Democratic members of the House and Senate will support the same nominee, along with every Democratic governor. Regardless of who is on the ticket, the “Democrats in Disarray” meme will be long-dead by Election Day.

As Ed Kilgore has written at New York magazine and TDS, whether or not President Biden is replaced as his party’s nominee is “A Decision Biden Alone Can Make.” There is no credible mechanism for replacing him as the Democratic nominee that doesn’t begin with his voluntary withdrawal. That doesn’t mean he couldn’t be persuaded to withdraw by family, friends or Democratic leaders. It just means only he can set the process in  motion. Even an attempt at an end run around the rules would be a bad, potentially disastrous, look for Democrats. So far, nine House Democrats have called on President Biden to step aside. But other influential elected officials, including Rep. James Clymer and Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) are hanging very tough for President Biden. To paraphrase Sen. Fetterman, hosting a recent rally for Biden in PA and pointing at the President, “Only one person in this room, state and nation has kicked Trump’s ass,” referring to Biden’s widely-certified 2020 victory over Trump. Fetterman may be the President’s most influential supporter in the largest swing state, since his PA colleague Sen. Bob Casey is busy running for re-election. “Here’s just one data point to keep in mind,” David From writes in The Atlantic, making the case for keeping Biden. “Joe Biden beat Donald Trump in 2020 in great part because he ran much better among white men than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. In 2016, Trump won white men by a margin of 30 points; in 2020, Trump won white men by a margin of only 17 points. Frum adds, “The great operational question before us is not “Is Joe Biden too old?” The question is “Do you trust the delegates to the Democratic convention in Chicago to replace the present ticket with a supposedly more winning ticket without ripping their party apart in catastrophic ways?” Further, Frum writes, “If Biden gets dumped and Democrats plunge into a civil war of who should replace him, Trump won’t even need that self-discipline: The story will be all Democratic disaster, all the time. The story told about the Democrats post–Biden dump would not be about their superb record on job creation since 2021, or about faster-than-inflation wage growth for middle-income and low-income workers, or about the funds for infrastructure and a greener economy, or about their success in reducing crime; it wouldn’t be about the Republican veto of immigration enforcement, or about Biden’s rebuilding of relationships with democratic allies, or about Democrats’ tireless work to defend women’s freedom, or about the party’s support for Ukraine and Israel in each nation’s war of self-defense. The story would be one of chaos and fratricide and splits, along lines of race and sex and ideology.”

At Common Dreams, Peter Dreier advocates a strategy for President Biden’s campaign “If he chooses to stay in the race, Biden and his team can’t simply put this dismal debate performance behind them. The Trump campaign will use clips of his many terrible moments on stage in TV and social media ads. Those clips will follow Biden from now until November….It might also be useful to recall that voters have been known to distinguish between the appearance of disability and the capacity to do the job. In the fall of 2022, John Fetterman, in recovery from a stroke, performed far worse in his debate against Trump-endorsed Dr. Amos Oz for the Senate seat from Pennsylvania. All the pundits said that Fetterman’s campaign in this swing state was over….Fetterman won the election….Those who want Biden to stay in the race believe he can recover if he can replicate that campaign style in his many personal appearances, and if the Democrats can amplify his deep engagement with national issues via surrogates. Ads that broadcast Biden at his best, including the North Carolina speech, broadcast on local TV and narrowcast on social media in the seven battleground states, will also be key….If the Democrats have any chance to defeat Trump, they must keep stressing that Trump lies about everything.” Dreier also gives the media a proper thrashing: “Whomever the Democrats’ presidential candidate is, the election will be decided by between 5,000 to 50,000 people in each of the following seven battleground states: Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania….These are the voters any Democratic candidate must persuade and turnout at this point….In the coming days, Biden and his close advisors must ask some key questions: Can they persuade and turnout these battleground state voters by practicing micro, retail politics? Did Biden’s debate debacle make a difference to these key voters? And if so, are they more likely to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris, or another candidate, than Biden?….One thing hasn’t changed: Our democracy is at stake so anyone who cares about thwarting fascism needs to stop whining and do whatever they can to keep Donald Trump from winning the White House, regardless who is at the top of the Democratic ticket.”

But Dreier also provides links to many of the strongest arguments urging President Biden to withdraw. These include:

From the New York Times:

• Thomas Friedman, “Joe Biden is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race.”
• Paul Krugman, “The Best President of My Life Needs to Withdraw.”
• Nicholas Kristof, “President Biden, I’ve Seen Enough.”

From the Washington Post:

• Ramesh Ponnuru, ”Trump is too dangerous for Democrats to stick with Biden.”
• Karen Tumulty, “The Great Democratic Freakout is upon us.”

From The New Republic:

• Alex Shepard: “Ditch Biden. That Debate Performance Was a Disaster.”

From The New Yorker:

• Susan B. Glasser, “Was the Debate the Beginning of the End of Joe Biden’s Presidency? Notes on a Disastrous Night for the Democrats.”

From The American Prospect:

• Robert Kuttner, “A Tarnished Silver Lining: Biden was so inept that the case for replacing him is now overwhelming.”
• Harold Meyerson, “The Democrats Must Dump Trump. Here’s How.”

From The Atlantic:

• David A. Graham, “A Disaster for Joe Biden.”
• Franklin Foer, “Someone Needs to Take Biden’s Keys.”
• Mark Leibovich, “Time to Go, Joe.”
• Jerusalem Demsas, “Dropping Out is Biden’s Most Patriotic Option.”
• David Frum, “Trump Should Never Have Had This Platform.”

From The Bulwark:

• William Kristol and Andrew Egger, “It’s Not Too Late. Biden Should Step Aside.”
• Tim Miller, “The Bidens Need to Have a Talk.”

From The Nation:

• Jeet Heer, “Trump Was Terrible. Biden Was Worse”

Some nuggets from “RFK Jr. fails to gain traction despite Biden’s disastrous week” by Hanna Trudo at The Hill: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has failed to gain noticeable traction in the wake of President Biden’s catastrophic debate fallout against former President Trump….“If RFK Jr. was a truly viable candidate, he’d be making a credible push to supplant Biden as the main alternative to Trump,” said Kyle Kondik, an elections analyst and managing editor at the forecasting outfit Sabato’s Crystal Ball. “Clearly that is not happening in the slightest and to the extent he’s making news, it’s bad news.”….A New York Times/Siena College poll released in the days after the Atlanta debate showed Kennedy at 8 percent support in the race, which is also where he is in an aggregate of surveys from The Hill and Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ)….“Think about what a horrible week Biden has had,” Kondik said. “But RFK [Jr.] does not seem to be benefiting at all, and certainly no bona fide Democrat is thinking of backing RFK Jr. as an alternative to the Democratic nominee.”….Some prominent voices in the party faithful have become particularly fearful that Kennedy — a member of their team as recently as October — could spoil the election, which many fear will result in a second Trump win. But as demonstrated this week, Kennedy has his own potential liabilities….Kennedy’s standing with the public has not been where it should be for a serious contender about four months from Election Day, experts say. He did not get to 15 percent in the four polls CNN set as a threshold for the debate, meaning he wasn’t able to appear on stage with Biden and Trump. And it’s not clear he will even appear on most ballots in November….According to his campaign website’s ballot tracker, Kennedy still needs some two dozen states before he reaches his goal of 50 states, and most secretaries of state have yet to certify his submissions. The Hill/DDHQ confirmed he has made the ballot in six states.” There are lots of arguments being bandied about as to whether Kennedy hurts Trump or Biden the most. But no source has provided conclusive aggregate data showing a clear, consistent benefit from RFK, Jr.’s candidacy to either candidate, although even a small margin can be decisive in a close election.

In the wake of  the the first presidential debate, I put together a list of 20 reasons why President Biden might and might not end his bid for re-election:

Reasons why Biden should stay on:

It’s only one debate. A good candidate can have an off night.

“You dance with the one who brought you,” as one CNN commentator put it. Biden won all of his primaries, fair and square.

Biden’s answers to the questions were substantial, certainly no worse than Trump’s responses. Don’t get so freaked out by appearances.

Replacing Biden after he won all the primaries would be a bad look for a party that extolls democracy.

The how and when of picking a “replacement” are highly problematic. If the party goes with someone other than Vice President Harris, it risks a critical mass of Black voters and women not voting.

It’s the track records that really counts. Biden’s is good and Trump is still vulnerable, especially on his abortion policy and Supreme Court choices.

Even if voters believe Biden is showing some signs of cognitive decline, Trump is showing signs of mental illness (google “batteries, undersea and sharks,” for example), as well as moral depravity.

There are growing numbers of high-turnout senior voters who have switched to favoring Biden over Trump. Biden quitting under pressure might piss off a significant number of them.

The President’s advisors have a pivotal influence on decision-making. President Biden has excellent advisors, certainly compared to Trump’s band of extremists, loonies and corrupt lapdogs.

Keeping Biden would prevent a bruising fight over his successor.

Reasons Why Biden Should End His Re-Election Bid

There is still time for a new Democratic presidential  candidate to look like a good choice.

Vice President Harris is highly-capable, despite experiencing the usual disparagement that attends her office. Allowing her to head the ticket would show consistency and respect for the democratic process. She could generate excitement in choosing her running mate.

Democrats have an impressive bench of younger alternatives, if Harris doesn’t replace Biden at the top of the ticket. A partial list: Govs. Beshear (KY); Whitmer (MI); Shapiro (PA);  Newsom (CA); Sens. Warnock (GA) Casey (PA) and Klobuchar (MN);  Reps. Sherrill (NJ); Swalwell (CA); ; Khanna (CA); Minority Leader Jeffries (NY) Sec’y Buttigieg and many others.

Damaging images of the first debate will be relentlessly replayed in Republican campaign video clips from now until Election Day if Biden stays on.

The first debate debacle would be largely forgotten by November, with a new leader making the headlines.

Republicans would squawk, but a “that was then, this is now” argument by Dems could win the day.

A new presidential candidate could be the “fresh face” many voters long for.

All of a sudden, Trump would be the too-old guy. It would flip the age issue in a way that helps Dems.

Democrats could build a compelling case for winning back alienated young voters. Dems could be re-branded as the party that has an inspiring vision for a better future.

A young presidential replacement candidate could run for two terms, the second time with an incumbent’s advantage.

Above all, Democrats should not panic. As President John F. Kennedy said, “Every crisis has both danger and opportunity.” One opportunity is to show Democrats are competent at crisis management, a desirable quality for a governing party. Another is to switch the media focus to the interesting, positive changes in the Democratic Party. A third is to showcase the Democrats’ impressive bench of young, upcoming leaders. If Biden decides to stay, Democrats can unite around defeating Trump, who remains vulnerable, no matter who he runs against.

In “How Biden Can Win the Debate,” Brian Goldsmith writes at The Atlantic: “This is a gamble for Biden—but absolutely the right choice. He must try to redefine the race and encourage voters to take a second look. His age isn’t changing, but he can change some of the arguments he makes. And to influence voters who are still persuadable, he will have no better platform….Biden is now the incumbent who’s behind. And to turn things around onstage, he has to address the economy as voters experience it. Barely more than one-fifth of those surveyed in a recent New York Times poll rated the economy as excellent or good; a majority said it is poor. In a Guardian/Harris poll, more than half (56 percent) believed we are in a recession, and nearly three in five (58 percent) said Biden is responsible. The economic data may show that they’re mistaken—but good luck winning votes by telling Americans that they’re wrong….Biden’s first move at the debate podium should be to deliver his economic message with empathy—and a frank admission that inflation is still too high and prices on everyday goods are hurting millions of Americans. He should talk about his own family’s past hard times. That would give him more credibility to offer a narrative about the economic mess he inherited from Trump, the millions of good jobs he’s helped create, and the programs he’s put in place—such as the CHIPS Act and the bipartisan infrastructure law—to create an even better economy in the years ahead….He needs to talk about the future more than the past. As Gore has said, elections are “not an award for past performance.” This campaign has to be about the next four years. Currently, only one of dozens of Biden campaign ads outlines a second-term agenda. The platform it laid out is popular and compelling—making child care and elder care affordable, protecting Social Security and Medicare, passing a “minimum tax for billionaires,” establishing Roe v. Wade as the law of the land, banning assault weapons, and preserving the right to vote—but that ad is more than a year old, and I haven’t seen anything comparable since….Much of the president’s first-term accomplishments, and second-term agenda, should be framed as a fight to lower costs against Republicans who oppose both what he’s done and what he hopes to do….he third piece of Biden’s message that must change is his attack on Trump. Sounding the alarm against authoritarian threats to be a “dictator on day one,”cancel the Constitution, and take revenge on his “deep state” enemies is a vital, valid mission. Those hits are one reason Biden’s support among college-educated white voters is still about where it was four years ago. But the democracy agenda is either insufficient or ineffective to stanch Biden’s bleeding among working-class voters, including Latinos and Blacks….To win working-class Americans back to his coalition, Biden cannot simply tout his administration’s achievements in reducing crime and bringing down prices. That will just make him seem out of touch, as the longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg has argued. The metaphorical sign behind Biden should say a good beginning, not mission accomplished. He should explicitly acknowledge that he isn’t satisfied and has more work to do—but then Biden should go on the offensive against Trump….In attack mode, Biden will look more vigorous. And he can win arguments about the way Trump’s budgets defund the police as well as environmental protection; how Trump’s policies undo gun-safety laws, caps on insulin prices, and protections for preexisting conditions; and why a Trump presidency would reward big companies and billionaires at the expense of working families….Biden should remind the debate audience that the only major legislation Trump passed was a huge tax cut for corporations and the wealthy—a measure that remains highly unpopular. And Biden can warn viewers that Trump is proposing more of those benefits for his buddies—tax cuts that will raise prices still higher. The threat isn’t just Trump’s vindictive personality or his antidemocratic instincts; it is his actual policies….Biden should use this extraordinary platform to make new arguments to voters: that he gets what they’re going through, that his plans will produce a better future, and that Trump isn’t just a risk for American institutions—he’s a threat to American families.”

At The New Yorker, John Cassidy writes that “it’s tricky for a politician to persuade voters that things are better than they think they are. Even as many people tell pollsters that they are satisfied with their own economic circumstances, they also say that the economy as a whole is still in poor shape. But, if Biden would be wise to frame his comments carefully in this area, he shouldn’t hesitate to ballyhoo, once again, the steps his Administration has taken to address some of the exploitative and monopolistic practices that big corporations have long subjected ordinary American customers and workers to….Many of these actions haven’t received the attention that they deserve, and they contrast sharply with the record, between 2017 and 2020, of Donald Trump, whose populist rhetoric from the campaign trail quickly yielded, once he was in office, to appointing former corporate lobbyists to regulatory agencies and showering corporations and the one per cent with huge tax cuts. Biden is promising to reverse those giveaways, and he has proposed new taxes on the very wealthy. Moreover, his Administration’s measures to eliminate hidden fees and reduce prescription-drug prices are part of a larger effort to boost competition and rein in corporate power, the likes of which arguably hasn’t been seen in the United States since the days of Teddy Roosevelt and Standard Oil….A longtime moderate Democrat, he has repeatedly referred to himself as a capitalist, and since he became President there have been times when he could have been tougher on major corporations. During the pandemic, for example, some major governments, including a center-right one in Britain, imposed a windfall tax on energy companies that were making out like bandits after a global surge in oil prices. Biden restricted himself to moral suasion. Taken as a whole, however, his Administration’s record belies the trope, common on the left and the right, that both major parties are in the pockets of big business, and it doesn’t matter who wins elections. If that were the case, why would there be so much pushback against Biden’s competition policies? Right now, lawyers for Big Pharma are suing to block the new prescription-drug rules. Big banks are suing to overturn an edict from the C.F.P.B. that capped credit-card late fees at eight dollars. And a number of plaintiffs, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and individual firms, are suing to block the F.T.C.’s ban on noncompete agreements….it’s up to Biden to make the contrast visible, and to point out that he, rather than the bluster merchant standing across from him, is the real economic populist. The record is clear: Biden will never get a better chance to explain it to voters.”

Not many of those who have been watching American politics for a few election cycles would be surprised by reports that “Trump’s massive fundraising haul” is catching up with the Biden campaign’s earlier lead in election fund-raising. Republicans rarely hurt for economic resources in the closing months of a national campaign – all the rarer in a time of record corporate profits. But Adam Wren reports at Politico that “new polling from Fox News shows an 11-point swing in President Joe Biden’s favorability among independents: They prefer Biden by 9 points, a reversal from May, when they favored Trump by 2 points. For the first time this year, the poll has Biden leading Trump by two points, 50-48, within the margin of error.” Wren also cites “a special election in Ohio’s 6th Congressional District this month, “in which “massively outspent Democrat Michael Kripchak erased 19 points from Trump’s 2020 margin of victory — still losing, but becoming the first Democratic candidate to carry the blue-collar Mahoning County since Trump painted it red in 2020….Incumbent Democratic senators in battleground states like Wisconsin, Nevada and Pennsylvania are polling ahead of their Republican challengers. In Arizona’s open Senate race, Republican Kari Lake, a star of the MAGA movement, is underperforming in the polls….after Republicans over the weekend nominated a far-right candidate for lieutenant governor in Indiana, a top national GOP lawyer predicted a “serious” threat to the top of the ticket even in the heart of MAGA country.” Also, “Trump may be raking in donations. But across the country, the mood of Republicans has dimmed, according to nearly a dozen Republican operatives, county chairs and current and former GOP officials. It comes amid ongoing concerns about the effect of abortion on Republican candidates….A Gallup poll released this month found record levels of voters saying that, in major races, they would only vote for candidates who share their views on abortion — with the intensity surrounding the issue likely to benefit abortion rights candidates more….And it follows defections from Trump in the primaries and, most recently, polling that has found Trump’s conviction in his New York hush-money trial hurting him with independents….Financially, the conviction was a boon to Trump’s small-dollar donor operation. But electorally, the reality of Trump’s conviction has begun to set in, they said.” In addition, three Trump-endorsed candidates lost their primary bids on Tuesday. But there is no guarantee that disgust with Trump’s convictions will have enough shelf life to last through Election Day.

“Abortion rights initiatives are already on the ballot in four states—Colorado, South Dakota, Maryland, and Florida—and pending signature approval in seven more,” Joan McCartyer writes in her article, “Anti-choicers in 11 states should be worried about November” at Daily Kos. “That includes more red states—Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Missouri. In addition, advocates in the battleground states of Nevada and Arizona are still gathering signatures and likely to succeed. That puts the issue front and center in states key to President Joe Biden’s reelection and the Democrats’ hold on the Senate….Showing just how salient the issue is for voters, Montanans Securing Reproductive Rights announced last Friday that it had the most successful petition drive ever in the state for its constitutional amendment initiative guaranteeing that abortion access remain free in the state. It has gathered 117,000 signatures, nearly twice as many needed to get on the ballot—and from every county and all 100 House districts….The anti-abortion side has reason to panic. Voters have spoken in the past two years, from Kansas, Kentucky, and Ohio to all putting the issue on ballots in these states. They’re telling pollsters how important it is, too….The most recent Gallup poll showed a record number saying they’ll vote on this issue alone—32% of them. That breaks down to 23% of pro-choice voters and just 8% of anti-abortion voters….Civiqs polling highlights just how strong the pro-choice sentiment is in the electorate, with a plurality of 31% saying that abortion should be legal in all cases and another 30% saying it should be legal in most cases….This is a pro-choice country. Biden and Democrats get this, and it’s why they are centering the issue ahead of this election—they just need to make sure they tap into the citizens’ groundswell in every race, but particularly in the Senate and presidential campaigns.”

“Key takeaways” from “Measuring the Swing: Evaluating the Key Voters of 2024,” a study by the leftish Data for Progress think tank, published near the end of last month: ”

• The swing voters of the 2024 election are younger and more diverse than the composition of the overall 2024 likely voter population. Forty-three percent of swing voters are under 45 (compared with 33% of likely voters overall), and only 62% are white (compared with 71% of likely voters overall).

• Swing voters reject ideological and partisan labels. They are especially likely to describe themselves as “moderates” and to not identify with or lean toward either major political party. However, some take clear left or right ideological positions on economic or social issues, aligning with existing data showing that voters who self-describe as “moderate” are not always coherently moderate on the issues.

• Swing voters broadly lean left on government spending, taxes on the wealthy, and social equity. A majority of swing voters (60%) think the U.S. should increase spending on social programs and raise taxes on businesses and wealthy Americans, and a majority (52%) say they favor accepting non-traditional values and embracing diversity and inclusion efforts.

• Swing voters are politically disengaged. They broadly dislike Biden and Trump and do not pay much attention to politics. Many are not sure which candidate they trust more on major political issues. They also demonstrate low interest in national politics and less enthusiasm for the 2024 election than likely voters overall.

• Swing voters slightly prefer Trump over Biden in a race between the two candidates, but many are unsure and defect to third-party candidates. In a two-way race between Biden and Trump, Trump (32%) holds a slight advantage over Biden (29%) with swing voters, while a plurality (39%) are not sure. In a six-way race, with third-party candidates included, only 4% of swing voters back Biden, while 7% back Trump. A majority say they would back either Independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (46%) or one of the other third-party candidates (12%). Thirty percent say they’d still be unsure.

• Their focus is on the economy. To the extent they do care about politics, it is focused heavily on the economy, with a plurality (33%) ranking it as their top issue in the 2024 election.

More “key takeaways” from the study:

• Swing voters say they want Biden to take more action — not less. Sixty-one percent say that “Biden needs to take more action to solve our country’s problems” (compared with 49% of likely voters overall), while 22% say that “Biden has taken too much action that has made our country’s problems worse.”

• Swing voters’ main concern is Biden’s age and ability to handle the job — not his ideology. Swing voters select Biden being too old (55%) and being incompetent (40%) as reasons they might not vote for him. Ideological concerns do not rise to the top: Only 16% select “Biden is too liberal” and only 5% select “Biden is too conservative.”

• That said, swing voters are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges and threats to democracy (48%) than Biden’s age and mental and physical health (41%).

• Swing voters trust Trump more than Biden on the economy, immigration, and foreign policy. Biden holds an edge on other key issues including abortion, health care, and climate change. However, swing voters say they’re not sure whom they trust more on these issues at a higher rate than likely voters overall.

• There is no evidence that a rightward ideological pivot would solve Biden’s problems with swing voters. The top two policies that swing voters say would make them vote for Biden are left-leaning economic policies — raising taxes on the wealthy (23%) and raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour (18%) — while the third-most cited is increasing border security (17%). Lower-ranked policies are a mix of left- and right-coded issues, including extending the Child Tax Credit, increasing oil drilling, conditioning military aid to Israel, adding work requirements to SNAP, legalizing marijuana, and increasing funding for police officers.

Data for Progress has a problematic track record in terms of its predictions about votes for Republican candidates in 2020 and 2022, and their “comprehensive scoring method” is debatable. But given the alternatives, their data-driven ‘takeaway’ insights about popular – and unpopular – policies with swing voters merit a thoughtful read by Democratic campaigns.

If you were wondering “Why RFK Jr. didn’t qualify for the first presidential debate” Geoffrey Skelley has the skinny at 538: “The clock struck midnight on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s window to qualify for CNN’s June 27 general election debate, and the network formally announced that he won’t make the stage. That hour on Thursday marked the deadline to meet CNN’s qualification requirements, which included being constitutionally eligible to become president, having at least four qualifying national polls with at least 15 percent support that meet CNN’s guidelines and having confirmed ballot access in enough states to potentially win a majority in the Electoral College (270 electoral votes). Kennedy ultimately came up short on both polls and ballot access in his bid to get a spot on the debate stage alongside President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.” Skelley adds, “But even though Kennedy didn’t qualify, his legal challenge to the debate is still ongoing. In late May, Kennedy’s campaign filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that the CNN debate violates campaign finance law because the network “colluded” with the Biden and Trump campaigns in planning the debate and is using different ballot access rules for the two major-party contenders compared with Kennedy. CNN has said that Kennedy’s complaint is unfounded. All in all, it seems unlikely — although not impossible — that the FEC will intervene on Kennedy’s behalf….On the polling front, Kennedy’s situation was pretty cut and dried: He had three national polls at 15 percent or better that qualify under CNN’s rules, which means he needed one more at that level of support. However, Kennedy likely missed his final shot at a fourth poll when Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research/Fox News released a national survey on Wednesday evening that found him at 10 percent.” Further, “Although he’s polled at around 9 to 10 percent in 538’s national polling averagesince mid-March, Kennedy’s support level from survey to survey has varied enough that getting to 15 percent in four qualifying polls seemed plausible for him when CNN released its debate criteria in May. However, Kennedy has hit that mark in just three of the 14 eligible national surveys of registered or likely voters that included him as an option. Still, a small bit of variation in the result of just one other survey would have allowed him to meet CNN’s polling criteria — after all, he hit 14 percent in two qualifying surveys.” Skelley concludes, “Kennedy is trying to become the first third-party or independent presidential candidate to make a general election debate since Ross Perot in 1992, but barring unexpected and swift action by the FEC, it looks like he’ll have to hope for success in September instead.”

Some election-related  observations from former Republican Mike Madrid, author of “The Latino Century: How America’s Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy,” interviewed at The Washington Monthly by Steve Kettmann: “Trump consistently lost 18 to 21 percent of Republicans from New Hampshire through New Mexico on June 4. That’s a shockingly high number for any nominee. Remember four years ago, Trump lost reelection as an incumbent with 8 percent of Republicans defecting. He’s consistently polling three times that number. The real question was: What was likely to happen with the differential between 8 percent and 18 percent? Who are these new 10 to 12 percent of Republicans who’ve had it? What do they do after the convictions?….If you have to choose between either, you’d rather be Biden….To be in the middle of June with 20 percent of your base saying they’re not with you is a five-alarm problem.” Regarding Biden’s latest move on Border security, Madrid says “I think it was really good and necessary politics. Biden needed to do it earlier….When you talk about the diversity within the Latino community, the most significant political diversity is generational, not country of origin. Very typically, immigrants vote overwhelmingly with the Democratic Party, more than 70 percent.” Regarding Arizona, Madrid says “I think Ruben wins, in large part because he’s got such a weak opponent. But Ruben is also doing something quite extraordinary. He’s a much more progressive member in the House than he is positioning as a candidate. One of the most fascinating developments is Ruben’s stamp of approval on Biden’s executive actions.” Nevada: “My guess is that Nevada goes for Trump, but (Senate candidate) Jacky Rosen wins down ticket. I think both will be very close.” NC: “if you can get the Latino share of the electorate up to 3 and a half, maybe 4 percent with registration efforts, North Carolina should be a blue state….But no polling shows enough of a subsample of Hispanic voters to gauge that community….There are 250,000 Latinos in a state that’s going to be won or lost by 70,000. Those people are not polled and tend to break 65 to 70 percent Democrat. You’ve got to like those odds if you’re a Democrat, even though Democrats haven’t invested nearly enough in voter registration.” Asked “What advice do you have for the Biden team these last few months before November?,” Madrid replies: “They need to immediately hold a press conference and announce a Marshall plan for housing. One in five Hispanic men works in the residential construction space or a related field. That’s extraordinary. Interest rates have tripled—not Biden’s fault—on his watch, as has the devaluation of our currency by 20 percent. That has a very significant impact on real people’s lives. If they can get new housing starts going immediately, you start to bring a lot of these Latino workers….Latino realtors and Latino mortgage brokers—you put them back to work. You go a long way toward rectifying the economic concerns of at least 20 percent of Latino households probably a lot more. The beauty of that kind of plan is that it speaks not just to workers in immediate jobs but to their aspirations of middle-class homeownership, which is increasingly out of reach.“ Asked “How will the presidential election go?” Madrid answers “The fundamentals still strongly favor a Biden reelection. But I do not see Democrats making the adjustments to stop the leakage of working-class Latino voters….if they can’t figure it out, then you will see Donald Trump elected by a historic number of Latino voters. If that happens, it is completely a failure of the Democrats’ messaging and policy strategy with Latinos. It has nothing to do with what Trump and the Republicans are doing. The fault will be on their plate.”

At The New Republic’s “The Daily Blast,” Greg Sargent shares a podcast in “Shocker Poll: Trump Verdict Actually Does Matter to Voters—Big-Time” and writes: “This week, Politico released a new poll with some pretty big surprises: A larger than expected percentage of Americans say Donald Trump’s criminal conviction in Manhattan makes them less likely to vote for him. The finding is even more striking among independents. The poll also took the innovative step of trying to gauge how important Trump’s conviction is to voters. And the answer is: pretty important! We talked to Ankush Khardori, a senior writer for Politico Magazine who oversaw this poll, who walked us through its findings, what they mean, and whether Trump’s pressure on Republicans to protect him from the law will backfire on the GOP in November. Listen to this episode here.” At The Hill, Max Burns writes in “Polls prove: Even ‘Teflon Don’ can’t brush off ‘convicted felon’” that “A slew of new polls have come out in the two weeks since a New York jury declared Trump guilty of falsifying business documents, and none of them are good news for the MAGA faithful. From his cratering popularity with independent voters to weakness in key swing states, the Trump campaign is wrestling with the tough reality that normal people just aren’t interested in being represented by a convicted criminal. …With a tough debate in just nine days and the possibility of jail time looming next month, Trump is facing the first of several crucial moments in his 2024 campaign. As expected, he’s handling them all like a guy without a strategy. That’s a huge blessing for Joe Biden….Trumpworld is still reeling from brutal Morning Consult and Yahoo! Newspolls, both conducted in the days after Trump’s criminal conviction. Those polls are the first in weeks to show President Biden ahead among likely voters, and they also reveal a Trump campaign plummeting in popularity with the independent and Republican-leaning voters he’ll need to convince in order to walk back into the White House.” What Democrats must keep in mind, however, is there is no guarantee that Trump’s felony convictions will still motivate voters four and a half months from now.

Democrats should pay attention to Ewan Palmer’s disturbing report at Newsweek, in which he writes: “Veteran Republican political consultant Roger Stone has been widely criticized over an audio clip that’s emerged of him discussing potential measures the party could take to ensure Donald Trumpwins the next election….The clip, secretly recorded by progressive filmmaker Laura Windsor while posing as a fan, reveals that Stone and other Trump allies are prepared to use “lawyers, judges, technology” to challenge the results of November’s race if need be. During a “Catholics for Catholics” event held at Mar-a-Lago on March 19, Stone was heard saying that steps need to be taken to stop President Joe Biden beating Trump as the “election can be stolen again” from the Republican….It isn’t the first time Stone has been recorded discussing plans to help Trump win a presidential election. In August 2023, footage obtained by MSNBC showed Stone dictating to an associate a plan to install a group of fake electors who could “accurately reflect” that Trump had beaten Biden in 2020 in states where the results had been “illegally” denied to him “through fraud.”. Those who shrug the story off as an idle threat should consider, as Palmer writes, “Stone was also a key part of the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot,” which shut down a recount of Florida’s 2000 election ballots. Republican George W. Bush was eventually declared the winner in Florida over Al Gore, thus clinching the presidential race overall, by a margin of just over 500 votes.” We don’t  hear a lot about what Democrats are doing to address GOP election deniers and fraudsters, but let’s hope it is substantial enough to challenge what appears to be an all-out Republican effort to discredit the duly certified results of the 2024 presidential election.

In “Reporting on violence and threats against US election workers: 6 things to know” Clark Merrefield writes at The Journalists Resource: “Threats against poll workers made national news following false claims from former President Donald Trump and supporters that Joe Biden had fraudulently won the 2020 presidential election….For example, in Georgia “two local election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss were pressured to make false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election,” write the authors of a 2022 essay on local political violence, published in the State and Local Government Review. “After refusing to lie, a far-right media outlet spread conspiracies about the two women that resulted in a mob surrounding their house.”….In April 2024, a federal judge upheld a $148 million judgment for Freeman and Moss from a civil case against former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who admitted to making false claims about the poll workers….More than one-third of election officials — 38% — have experienced “threats, harassment, or abuse” specifically because of their job, finds a 2024 survey of 928 local election officials conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University….That’s up from 30% who reported the same the year prior. More than half of the officials surveyed in 2024 by the Brennan Center said they are worried about the safety of their staff in future elections and 92% have enacted measures to protect voters and poll workers since 2020….Some 28% indicated they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about harassment or threats aimed at their family or loved ones while 27% were “very” or “somewhat” concerned about being assaulted at home or work….The ongoing potential for threats to poll workers and election officials is real enough that the U.S. Department of Justice has launched a task force to address those threats….But some election officials don’t think the task force is doing enough. National Association of State Election Directors Executive Director Amy Cohen in June told reporter Zachary Roth with the nonprofit Oregon Capital Chronicle that it is “very clear that we are not seeing a deterrent effect.”

Merrefield provides a six-point “tipsheet” for journalists, exploring some ways they can report better about political violence and threats, including:

1. Understand the social forces that tend to lead to political violence.

2. Know that a small but notable segment of the U.S. population thinks political violence is sometimes justified.

3. Remind audiences of the long history of electoral violence in the U.S.

4. Interview poll workers about what motivates them.

5. Understand how election officials try to manage the emotional burden of intimidation, for themselves and their staff.

6. Note the difference between poll watchers and poll workers.

Regarding number 2, Merrefield writes, “To capture a snapshot of Americans’ views of political violence, nine scholars affiliated with the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, conducted a nationally representative survey with 8,620 participants during the summer of 2022. Results were published in September 2023 in the journal Injury Epidemiology….  Nearly 20% of those surveyed strongly or very strongly agreed that having a “strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.”….When they asked participants to imagine a scenario in which they believed political violence was justified “to advance an important political objective,” nearly 22% responded that political violence is never justified. Democrats should read Merrefield’s article to get a clear sense of the challenges journalists and they will  face in order to insure clean, certified and peaceful elections actress the U.S.

Some salient points from Kyle Kondik’s “Electoral College Rating Changes: Half-Dozen Moves Toward Republicans in What Remains a Toss-up Race” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Today we’re making a half-dozen changes to our Electoral College ratings, all of them benefiting the Republicans. These moves don’t significantly change our overall outlook, which is that we don’t really see a clear favorite in the presidential race, but they do better align our ratings with that overall outlook….Map 1 shows the updated ratings, which now show 251 electoral votes at least leaning toward the Republicans and 241 at least leaning toward the Democrats. Four states are Toss-ups: Arizona and Nevada in the west and Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in the Industrial North.

Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings

….Our general assumption is that Biden is going to perform at least a little better in November than polls are showing now, much like Donald Trump generally performed better in November of both of his election years than what late spring polling suggested. Biden probably has a little bit more base consolidation to do than Trump—we may actually be seeing some of that in the wake of Trump’s conviction on business record falsification charges in New York a couple of weeks ago. To be clear, that doesn’t make Biden a favorite in our eyes—again, we just don’t see a favorite….Pennsylvania, the native state of President Biden and one of the states that helped nudge Donald Trump over the finish line in 2016 before flipping back blue in 2020, goes from Leans Democratic to Toss-up. This reduces, from 260 to 241, the number of electoral votes at least leaning to Democrats in our ratings. We also are making a concurrent move in the Senate race there, moving Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) from Likely Democratic to Leans Democratic. We think Casey will likely do better than Biden, but not overwhelmingly better, so it makes sense to make these moves in tandem (we’ll say more about this race and the overall Senate picture in a future issue). Pennsylvania moves to Toss-up but we are keeping Michigan as Leans Democratic; Michigan is generally more Democratic than Pennsylvania in presidential elections (that has been the case in each of the last seven elections)….Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which together basically decided both the 2016 and 2020 elections, seem likeliest to be the deciders in 2024 as well.”

In “An unexpected generational realignment is scrambling the 2024 election,” Zachary B. Wolf writes at CNN Politics, in 2020, “Biden’s margin among younger voters — he got 65% of voters ages 18-24 — helped him overcome the fact that Trump got 52% of older voters, who accounted for more than half the electorate….Voters under 30 haven’t preferred the Republican since 1988, when George H.W. Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis in a landslide. Voters over the age of 65 haven’t preferred the Democrat since 2000, when Al Gore lost the election despite getting more votes than Republican George W. Bush….But the old rules don’t seem to apply in this year’s presidential election, where both candidates are old men and their fitness to serve is a top issue. Older voters are gravitating to Biden, and younger voters are taking a look at Trump….A new Marist poll in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, for instance, showed a tight race overall with Trump at 47% and Biden at 45%, a within-the-margin-of-error difference….Trump is making inroads with voters of color and is nearly even with Biden among voters under 45 in that poll. But older voters have gone in the opposite direction, and instead of favoring Trump, are nearly split in the Marist poll….It’s a trend that extends to other states. In a nationwide Quinnipiac University poll released in May, Biden and Trump split younger voters, but Biden has an edge among voters 65 and older….They also write that “in 2024, baby boomers now make up a wide majority of the senior vote for the first time — an enticing demographic shift the Biden campaign is seizing upon in Michigan and across the country.”….CNN’s Ronald Brownstein noted last year that older voters were more likely to approve of Biden’s job performance and argued that some of his policy wins, like pushing for lowering drug costs in Medicare, appeal directly to seniors….Whatever the reason, if Biden is to overcome questions about his age to keep his job, it will be with help from people his own age.”

“In another close Biden vs. Trump race, Black and Latino voters could make the difference,” David Lauter writes at The Los Angeles Times. “Two weeks after Donald Trump’s conviction on multiple feloniesrelated to the payment of hush money to a porn actress, we have a pretty good sense of the political impact: It has hurt him, but not much….In the average of public polls maintained by the FiveThirtyEight website, for example, Trump’s edge over President Biden has dropped by 0.8 percentage pointssince the jury verdict was announced….That’s a very small shift, but it comes in a very tight race: The polling average now finds the two candidates almost tied — 41% for Trump, 40% for Biden….Pollsters have to guess which voters will actually cast ballots this fall; we can’t know for sure. All polls also come with a degree of uncertainty, reflected in their stated margin of error. In statewide races, it’s normal for polls to miss the final results by 4-5 points. There’s no way to know in advance which side the error will help….Polls are also a snapshot, and lots of events could have an impact between now and November. The list starts with the scheduled June 27 Biden-Trump debate and continues through Trump’s sentencing on July 11, his pick of a running mate, the two party conventions, a second debate in September and undoubtedly other developments that can’t be known in advance….In 2020, Biden carried 25 states, the District of Columbia and one Nebraska congressional district, which splits its electoral votes. He ended up with 306 electoral votes to Trump’s 232….Biden currently can count on 19 of those states plus D.C., with a total of 226 electoral votes….Georgia, which Biden carried last time, currently leans toward Trump. Five other Biden-carried states — Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — are competitive. Together, they have 61 electoral votes….”

Lauter continues, “Of the 25 states Trump carried, all but one remain solidly in his favor. The exception, North Carolina, leans in his direction. Democrats have hopes of making it competitive, but that’s not the case now….To get to the 270 needed for victory, Biden needs to nail down 44 electoral votes beyond what he can currently count on….His best shot, current polls suggest, would be to carry the three competitive northern industrial states. Together, they would give him precisely what he needs. In all three, recent polls show a very tight race….All that sounds very familiar: The election will likely be settled by small margins in Wisconsin, Michigan and, especially, Pennsylvania — exactly as it was in both 2016 and 2020….But there’s a twist this time. Trump won in 2016 by appealing to the grievances of conservative white Americans. This time, his advantage over Biden comes by virtue of support from Black and Latino voters….Biden still wins both groups, but his margins have shrunk significantly from four years ago….A new poll from Marist College of voters in Pennsylvania illustrates the point. The poll finds Trump ahead, barely, in a state that Biden carried in 2020 and that both candidates need this year….What’s changed is that Trump gets 23% of Black voters, compared with only 7% whom he won in 2020, according to exit polls….As in Pennsylvania, white voters in Arizona haven’t moved — Trump wins among them by about 9 points, the poll found. What has changed since Biden narrowly won the state is that he’s only winning Latino voters by eight points — less than half his margin from four years ago….the key question, as political analyst Ron Brownstein has written, may be “whether Trump can sustain his support among non-Whites while offering … a bristling message and agenda on race-related issues” that energizes his white, conservative core supporters….Trump repeatedly has called for mass deportations of immigrants in the country without legal documentation — a group that’s heavily Latino — as well as reinstitution of stop-and-frisk police tactics that many cities have abandoned because they led to civil rights violations….Those policies are not popular — except with Trump’s base. A lot of voters, especially younger ones, who are just now starting to tune in to the campaign, haven’t heard much about them. Democrats will be working overtime during the next several months to make sure that changes.”

From “Democrats Should Run Against the Supreme Court:  And they should take on more than the overturning of Roe v. Wade. They ought to campaign against the whole Trump-enabled, rights-stealing, gift-taking conservative supermajority” by David Atkins at The Washington Monthly: “Shortly after a Manhattan jury convicted Donald Trump of 34 felonies, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson made a curious plea on Fox News. He begged the Supreme Court to intervene on Trump’s behalf. Johnson didn’t claim that Trump was innocent. He didn’t claim that Trump did nothing wrong or did not commit crimes. Instead, the Louisiana Republican simply gestured at vague “abuses of the system” and said he expected the highest court in the land to step in because he “knew some of the justices personally.”….If this feels wrong, that’s because it is. Johnson’s Hail Mary suggestion to his personal friends on the Supreme Court to help Trump evade accountability for his crimes is yet another illustration of the damage that the far-right Supreme Court is doing to the fabric of American democracy. After all, even if the justices ignore the speaker’s plea, they have already dawdled so long on presidential immunity that they have ended any possibility that Trump could be tried for the January 6, 2021, insurrection before election day….Especially after the Court issued its Dobbs decision overturning a half-century of abortion rights, a majority of Americans are incensed about the justices’ behavior. Fixing the Court ought to be a centerpiece of the fight against the far right’s assault on democracy.” In addition to the scandals around Justices Alito and Thomas, “there is the court’s extremist political lurch. The majority of the Court’s conservative jurists were appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote. One was installed by an unprecedented refusal to allow Congress to vote on a Democratic president’s nominee until a Republican was in the Oval Office. The result is a 6-3 hyper-conservative majority that is rapidly tilting the country’s legal framework in favor of corporate power and Christian dominionism….As a result, the Court has become deeply unpopular, with over 60 percent of Americans disapproving of its job. This comes at a time when the judiciary arguably has more power over Americans’ lives than at any other time. Research shows that most voters believe the Court is conspiring to protect Trump on his immunity claims and that opportunities exist for candidates to run on opposition and reforms to the Court….the more the presidential election is a referendum on Joe Biden, the less likely Democrats will prevail. The more it is a referendum on Donald Trump and the Court, the likelier it is that the MAGA Christian nationalist movement will be stopped at the ballot box….The battle for the White House will likely be won or lost among lower-information and less engaged voters whose understanding of the mechanisms of political outcomes can be tenuous at best—and most of whom currently support Trump. An astonishing 17 percent of voters blame Joe Biden for the loss of abortion rights in Dobbs….There is a significant opportunity to educate voters on what Trump has done to them by putting extremists on the court where they are unaccountable, free to take back long-held rights and enrich themselves as well.”

Some insights from Thomas B. Edsall’s NYT essay, “Trump Would Be Long Gone if Only We Could ….” “A central predicament of President Biden’s campaign is how to persuade voters to abandon Donald Trump. “In 2012 the Obama campaign turned a nice guy, Mitt Romney, into a piece of crap,” Steve Murphy, a co-founder of the Democratic media firm MVAR Media, told me. “You can’t do that to Trump because everybody already knows he’s a piece of crap.”….Not only do voters know that Trump is a liar and corrupt, narcissistic and venal; his supporters have repeatedly found ways to slide past his liabilities….Kabir Khanna, the deputy director of elections and data analytics for CBS News, emailed me in response to my inquiries concerning the problems facing Democrats who seek to attack Trump….“Part of the issue for Democrats,” he wrote, “is that views of Trump are pretty well established for most of the electorate. Most people know what they think of him. Perhaps the best an opposition campaign can hope to do is raise the salience of certain issues, policies or aspects of his leadership style.” Edsall quotes TDS managing editor Ed Kilgore, who warned at New York magazine “No one should expect Trump to self-destruct or persuadable voters to wake up some morning and realize what a terrible man he is.” ….In April, before the verdict, Republicans were decisively against a felon becoming president, with 17 percent in favor and 58 percent opposed (and the remaining 25 percent not sure)….After the conviction, Republicans flipped, with 58 percent in favor of a felon becoming president and 23 percent opposed (and 19 percent unsure)….John Ganz, a political analyst and the author of the new book “When the Clock Broke: Con Men, Conspiracists and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s,” captured this aspect of Trump in “The Shadow of the Mob: Trump’s Gangster Gemeinschaft,” an essay posted last week on Ganz’s Substack, Unpopular Front….For Ganz, one comment in particular from an African American operations manager who participated in a Times focus group session conducted hours after the New York jury found Trump guilty provided an instructive case study: “Trump represents a shock to the system. His supporters don’t hold him to the same ethical standards. He’s the antihero, the Soprano, the “Breaking Bad,” the guy who does bad things, who is a bad guy but does them on behalf of the people he represents.”

“In 2020, Wisconsin was one of Joe Biden’s most important electoral victories, as he successfully clawed back the Midwestern swing state that was narrowly won by Donald Trump in 2016,” John L. Dorman writes in “Biden is lagging in key swing states. But white non-college voters are keeping him afloat in Wisconsin” at Insider. Dorman continues, “While Democrats need to perform strongly in the liberal population centers of Milwaukee and Madison in order to win statewide elections, the party still retains a significant level of support in many rural communities. And it’s Biden’s support among white voters without a college degree — a huge voting bloc in these areas — that’s currently keeping him afloat in Wisconsin….Among the seven major swing states, Biden currently trails Trump by at least three points in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, according to Real Clear Polling averages….In Michigan and Pennsylvania, Biden has smaller deficits against Trump in the polling averages….But in Wisconsin, Biden is often tied with Trump in polling, or has a slim lead. And it’s the backing of many white working-class voters that has been critical for the president….The most recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Biden leading Trump by six points (50% to 44%) among registered voters, while a recent Cook Political Report survey had Biden and Trump tied at 45% among Wisconsin voters….In the Quinnipiac poll, Wisconsin voters gave Biden positive marks on issues like abortion rights and the preservation of democracy. But even on the question of who would better handle international conflicts — where Trump has opened up a lead in many recent polls — the former president only led Biden by one point (48% to 47%)….When it came to economic issues, Trump had an eight-point lead over Biden (52% to 44%) in Wisconsin, per Quinnipiac, a relatively stable number for the incumbent on an issue where he has struggled in national polling. For Biden, the Wisconsin number represents a much more positive outlook from voters compared to his standing in states like Arizona and Nevada…,Among white voters in Wisconsin, Biden actually led Trump by four points (50% to 46%) in the Quinnipiac poll. And college-educated white voters in Wisconsin backed Biden by 27 points (61% to 34%)….But among white voters without college degrees, Biden only trailed Trump by eight points (44% to 52%), a deficit that is much narrower than in virtually every other swing state….That Biden has been able to hold on to a sizable level of support from this voting bloc — despite their overall migration to the GOP — shows the uniqueness of the president’s electoral coalition in Wisconsin.”

Don’t pay too much attention to all of the hoo-ha about the Democrats’ big financial advantage in the 2024 elections. As Michael Mechanic writes in “America’s Top 100 Donors Heavily Favor Trump and the Republicans” at Mother Jones: “Donald Trump may have lost in the Manhattan court where a jury recently convicted him of 34 felonies, but there’s one place he and his party appear to be winning: in the race to snag major cash from the richest families in America….For all of Trump’s supposed grassroots appeal, as of May 1, less than one-third of contributions to his campaign committee for the 2024 election cycle had come from grassroots donors—people giving less than $200. (Campaign finance disclosures tend to lag a month or two behind.)….According to OpenSecrets, large contributors accounted for 69 percent of Trump’s $121 million total. President Joe Biden’s campaign committee, which took in $195 million, got 54 percent from large donors….More broadly, the lion’s share of confirmed contributions from the biggest political givers—the top 100 families—have flowed to Republican candidates and groups….In the “hard money” category—direct donations to candidates, which federal law caps at modest sums—Republicans took in 27 percent more from the Top 100 families than Democrats did ($85.9 million vs. $67.9 million)….But looking at all federal contributions, including “soft money,” a category that tallies the generous donations allowed to party committees and the unrestricted contributions to SuperPACs, Republicans raked in a whopping $508 million from the Top 100—triple the Democrats’ $169 million take….And this was all before Trump got convicted….Trump has vowed to go further: “We’re gonna give you tax cuts,” he told a gathering of “rich as hell” prospective donors at a December Mar-a-Lago fundraiser. Since then, he has been openly transactional in his efforts to raise cash, warning rich donors that supporting Biden will cost them, whereas the policies of a second Trump administration would further enrich them, along with corporate shareholders. (He has also solicited oil and gas executives for generous contributions, promising his administration would pursue policies in their favor.)….A river of cash has poured into Trump’s coffers since his conviction—the campaign claims it received $53 million in the first 24 hours. Which is kind of surreal, but I suppose it adds up. After all, when Trump holds a post-conviction press conference that starts with him saying, “This is a case where, if they can do this to me, they can do this to anyone,” at least some of those rich-as-hell donors no doubt imagine he’s talking directly to them.”