A Positive, Upbeat Close to 2023 For Joe Biden and The Democrats
Biden-Harris Campaign Releases Memo, "Why Biden Will Win in 2024"
Happy Thursday all. Sorry this is coming a little late today. Let’s get to it:
A Positive, Upbeat End to 2023 - Dow in record territory. Inflation running below the Fed target rate. Interest rates coming down next year. GDP growth 4.9% last quarter, looking close to 3% for this one. Best job market since the 1960s. The lowest uninsured rate in history. Crime has fallen across the US this year, rents are coming down too. Consumer sentiment is spiking. Wage growth, prime age worker participation rate and new business formation are all in historically elevated territory. Best recovery in the G7. US setting records for domestic oil and renewable production. $130b in student debt forgiven. The good news just keeps coming.
Democrats are also seeing improvement in national polling. A majority of the independent polls taken in recent weeks have Biden tied or ahead. The influential NYT poll, which had Biden trailing Trump two months ago, now has Biden up 47%-45% with likely voters. Dems have picked up 3 points in 538’s Congressional Generic tracker in recent months, and Navigator’s recent House battleground tracker polling found Republicans losing ground, and Democrats now with a clear advantage. The two most recent large sample Hispanic poll and youth polls found Biden running at or above his 2020 numbers - 57%-33% (+24) with 18-29 year olds in the Harvard/IOP poll, and 58%-31% (+27) in the bi-partisan Univision poll. The Economist/YouGov weekly tracker this week found Biden’s approval on the Israel-Hamas war 37%-32% (+5) approve w/18-29 year olds, the best of any age cohort, and 59%-23% (+36) w/Democrats - so no clear, sustained backlash there.
Here are the 16 recent polls showing Biden ahead or tied (via 538):
47-45 NYT/Siena (LVs)
49-48 Monmouth
49-48 NPR/Marist
47-46 Quinnipiac
42-41 YouGov/Economist 12/2
44-42 YouGov/Economist 11/25
39-37 YouGov
40-36 and 37-35 Leger
Reuters had Biden +4 in the battleground Presidential states
45-45 Clarity
44-44 Yahoo/YouGov
41-41 Cygnal
43-43 Economist/YouGov 12/6 and 12/20
43-43 Morning Consult 12/2
It can no longer be said Trump leads in the 2024 election, and in the polling which helped create the “Trump is ahead” take, Biden now leads.
2023 has been a blue wave electoral year for Democrats, a very good year. Now the economy, consumer sentiment and polling are all ending the year on an upbeat, optimistic note. Congratulations everyone. While we have a long way to go in the 2024 election, we are ending 2023 strong, with momentum, in my view in a far better place than Republicans, who are, in just about every imaginable way, an historic shitshow - full stop.
Remember our basic take on 2024 - Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong and winning elections across the US. And they have Trump.
The Biden-Harris Campaign’s New 2024 Memo - A Must Read - The campaign just released a memo, Why Biden Will Win in 2024. It begins:
As 2023 comes to a close, the choice before the American people in November 2024 is coming into sharper focus.
With less than a month before GOP primary voters begin casting ballots in Iowa, former President Donald Trump’s extreme and dangerous agenda once again looks poised to define the Republican Party in the 2024 election.
With that reality comes a stark and sobering fact: The choice for voters next year will not simply be between competing philosophies of governing. The choice for the American people in November 2024 will be about protecting American democracy and the very individual freedoms we enjoy as Americans.
Ever since white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched on Charlottesville with the support of Donald Trump in 2017, President Biden has warned of Trump’s ability to incite political violence and wage attacks on our democracy and freedom.
President Biden wrote in The Atlantic in August 2017 that “We have an American president who has emboldened white supremacists with messages of comfort.”
When he launched his campaign for president in April 2019, Joe Biden told the nation that Donald Trump and his actions posed “a threat to this nation unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.” That the soul of America itself was on the line.
He made the same case when he accepted his party’s nomination in August 2020, and again in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, shortly before more Americans voted for him than for any candidate in history, and again last year at Independence Hall before the 2022 midterms – which yielded the best results for a sitting president since FDR. And, when he announced his reelection bid in April, his message was the same.
Make no mistake: The stakes next year are higher than they ever have been. But voters have been clear. They will not accept the existential threat to democracy that Donald Trump represents. They will not vote for his extreme policies and “dictator on day one” approach to control their daily lives.
They’ll be clear again next November.
Reading the whole memo is our Hopium homework tonight.
Our 2024 Campaigns So Far - Please Volunteer, Donate, Promote!
Tom Keen FL HD-35 - Jan 16th Special Election - thanks to you everyone who joined Florida House Minority Leader Fentrice Driskell and Tom Keen last night for a pre-holiday pep rally!!!!!
Tom Suozzi NY-3 - Feb 13th Special Election for Santos Congressional seat
North Carolina Democratic Party - Ongoing, top 2024 battleground Presidential pickup opportunity. Watch our interview with dynamic NC Chair Anderson Clayton - well worth your time
Recent, Still Relevant, Hopium Commentary and Analysis
NYT Has Biden Up (47-45), More Polls Show Biden Tied/Leading Than Behind
2023 Was A Very Good Year for Democrats. Let’s Make 2024 Even Better (Video)
Keep working hard all. 2023 has been a good year. Let’s make 2024 an even better one - Simon
"The influential NYT poll, which had Biden trailing Trump two months ago, now has Biden up 47%-45% with likely voters."
Yes, and as I've been trying to repeat and remind folks -- numbers don't get through, narratives/frames/stories are what resonate, not just with us (the base), but also with surge and swing voters who don't identify politically as Dems.
While the poll 'data' is good for Biden, consider how the NYTimes covered the "story" of the polling data on these two separate occasions:
Tom Bonier tweets about it here, and as they say "a picture is worth a thousand words"
https://twitter.com/tbonier/status/1737179997528371679
As you know Simon, I am a big supporter. I'm both one of your earliest paid subscribers, and someone who actively reshares your content on a regular basis. But on today's call, I heard the frustration in one attendee's voice as he pointed out that people's 'vibes' don't match up with the data. While the answer is not to run away from pushing back on that 'vibe,' it is not simply by repeating data/statistics and numbers as the counter argument; it is recognizing that people want to hear, and we must tell, stories where we center the good work of Dems and also give the listener agency.
Centering the economy as the hero rather than working Americans who share the values of Biden and the Dem party writ large, won't work. We all need to know and understand the data you're sharing, but how it's framed/messaged really, really makes a difference because we have to draw a contrast against the MAGA Repubs, given that the 'economy' is THEIR brand.
We have to be for the people, not for the abstraction that is an economy -- where given inequality -- benefits too often get concentrated at the top. Again, I know that household wealth, uninsured rates, business starts for communities of color are all up -- but it's not simply reporting on the metrics, it telling a story.
In a nutshell, narrative trumps data -- pun intended.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2020/10/28/why-storytelling-beats-statistics-but-only-100-of-the-time
Below is an example of how to wrap our great data in a story with heroes, villains and happy endings...
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No matter where live, what our background, or the color of our skin, Americans want the freedom to make a good living so we can care for our families and retire in dignity.
But MAGA Republicans want to take away our freedoms—not only to vote, but to decide if or when we start or grow our families, who we should love or who we can be, and even what books we can read! They stoke fear and hatred to distract and divide us, while voting so their wealthy, well-connected donors don't have to pay what they owe, but voting against policies by Dems that have created record jobs (14 million in less than three years!), cut health care and prescription drug costs, lifted education debt, all while investing in the roads, bridges and renewable energy we and our children need for a better life.
In 2024, we must come together again—as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022—to defeat Trump and the MAGA Republicans who enable his ongoing attacks on our freedom to prosper and thrive.
Question: There are 3 Republican held seats in Congress that have been vacated: McCarthy, Santos, and the Republican who resigned to head a university. What is happening with that third vacant seat?