How popular is President Joe Biden?
Better to ask how unpopular; a substitute Democrat to be named later is more popular.
Twelve points more popular.
“An unnamed ‘Democratic candidate’ shifts the race by 12 points on the margins,” Aaron Blake reports in The Washington Post, “turning a four-point Democratic deficit against Trump into an eight-point lead, 48 percent to 40 percent.”
Democrats are mulling all this over because their unpopular president, according to a recent New York Times-Siena College poll, trails former President Donald Trump “in five of the six most competitive battleground states”: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
“I am concerned,” offered U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), “by the inexplicable credibility that Donald Trump seems to have despite all of the indictments, the lies, the incredible wrongdoing.”
Or is it, instead, the lack of credibility enjoyed by establishment politicians and media?
“What many missed about the poll is that a generic Democrat isn’t the only one significantly overperforming the actual candidate likely to lead the ticket,” Blake further explains.
“The poll also tested a race without Trump,” discovering that the “GOP’s lead goes from an average of four points with Trump to an average of 16 points without him, 52–36.”
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley polls best against Biden.
Democrats, however, lack an “available alternative.” Vice-President Kamala Harris polls only a single point better than Biden, which is damning news for Biden. Would another Californian, Gov. Gavin Newsom, fare better?
Or is the only good Democrat a mythical Democrat?
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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4 replies on “Twelve-Point Play”
Biden will not want to step aside so long as doing so seems an admission of defeat, and especially of defeat by Donald Trump. I expect Biden to be removed by an induced physical collapse, made to seem unplanned.
In the case of Gavin Newsom, the corporatist left must ask themselves just how much cover they can provide. The sad condition of California (of which he is governor) and especially of San Francisco (of which he was mayor) are widely known.
Some people are predicting Michelle Obama to be the nominee, as if drafted, but she and her husband are not as fondly remembered by the political center as the mainstream narrative would have it, and I don’t know that Hillary Clinton would acquiesce.
The Democrats need a nominee who can once again persuade the voters that he-or-she will not be a doctrinaire leftist. The last four Democrats to be elected President — Carter, WJ Clinton, BH Obama, and Biden — first did so by seeming to voters in the political center to be pragmatic. Obama managed to be re-elected as a “progressive”, but those in the center are now far more alienated from “progressivism”.
Or, maybe that won’t actually matter. Not nearly enough has been done about ensuring the integrity of out voting system.
A good Democrat is like real socialism.
Both sound really good but never exist in the real world.
Dateline November 10, 2024: Despite Trump appearing to be leading by between 10 to 15 percent at midnight in the 5 key swings states, it appears to be a near unanimous Biden victory due to the 3 AM arrival of a quarter of a million absentee ballots at 3 AM, all but 10 of which were for Biden.
Jared Polis. Laura Kelly. Andy Beshear. All three are Democratic governors who’ve proven they can beat Republicans in red (or, in Polis’s case, “purple”) states and who are, in line with the electorate, “libertarianish” on issues like marijuana legalization and abortion.
Any one of those three would likely do at LEAST 5 points better than Biden will.