Biden Leading in 4 New Polls, More Good Inflation News, Winning North Carolina

Hopium Community Gathers on Wednesday, December 13th at 7pm EST

Friends, a few things today:

Biden Leading in 4 New Polls - Since posting yesterday there is now a 4th national poll out this week showing Biden leading Trump. All polls via 538:

• 44-42 Economist/You Gov - 3 pt gain since mid-Nov

• 43-42 Morning Consult - 4 pt gain since last week

• 39-37 YouGov

• 37-35 Leger/The Canadian Press

A few notes on these new polls: 1) polls cannot tell you what is going to happen tomorrow, or next year. They can only tell you where things are now, and where things are now can and will change. National polling has clearly changed from a few weeks ago, with Biden gaining ground in 2 important weekly tracks, and leading in other polls too. 2) It can no longer be said that Trump leads, or is favored next year. That may have been true a month ago. It is no longer true. Joe Biden has a slight lead now in national polling. Period. 3) Why has this happened? Don’t know yet. Will it sustain? Don’t know. We will see. 4) Still think the most important electoral data out there is our very strong performances in the elections across the US throughout 2022 and 2023. Polling is only one piece of the data available to us to understand what is happening in our politics. It’s an important piece, but only a piece. 5) Been getting a lot of chatter that the only polls that matter next year are state not national polls. This is not true, as these polls often move together and data is data. We look at what’s available to us, and national polling matters of course. It is also not a given that Biden needs to win by 3-4 points to win the Electoral College in 2024. It’s just too early to know that, particularly given our strong performance in the battlegrounds in 2022 and possible third party disruptions. 6) While we have a long way to go in both the Israel-Hamas conflict and the 2024 election these polls are just good news, with no qualifiers - no ifs, buts, commas or semicolons. They are just good news and we take the wins here at Hopium when they come.

You can hear me talking about why I would much rather be us than them as head into 2024 in a new Matt Lewis podcast - Biden Is Winning - I recorded on Tuesday. I will also be sitting down this afternoon for a Deep State Radio pod interview with David Rothkopf which should be released later today or tomorrow morning. These conversations with David are always terrific and worth your time.

Remember folks - Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong and winning elections all aross the US. And they have Trump. Who would you rather be?

More Good Inflation News - From the NYT just now:

A closely watched measure of inflation showed continued signs of fading in October, encouraging news for the Federal Reserve as officials try to gauge whether they need to take further action in order to fully stamp out rapid price increases.

The Personal Consumption Expenditures inflation measure, which the Fed cites when it says it aims for 2 percent inflation on average over time, climbed by 3 percent in the year through October. That was down from 3.4 percent the previous month, and was in line with economist forecasts. Compared to the previous month, prices were flat.

Europe also had encouraging inflation news today:

Annual inflation in the euro zone cooled to 2.4% in November from 2.9% in October, flash figures showed Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters expected a reading of 2.7%.

Core inflation — a measure closely watched by the European Central Bank that excludes the volatile effects of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco — also came in lower than expected, dropping to 3.6% from 4.2% in October.

Winning North Carolina/Interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton - This week we launched our first Hopium-wide project geared to the 2024 elections, something I am calling “Winning North Carolina. You can learn more about why North Carolina matters so much and catch our interview with NC Dem Chair Anderson Clayton on our new dedicated Winning North Carolina page. We’ve also launched a fundraising effort for the party, and so far have raised almost $10,000 towards our $50,000 goal. It’s amazing stuff. Thanks everyone!

Two followups from Chair Clayton’s talk:

• The latest statewide poll in North Carolina she mentioned showing Biden leading Trump 40-39, and the likely Dem gubernatorial candidate, Josh Stein ahead of the likely Republican, Mark Robinson, 38-36. We got a shot here peeps. Winning here is not pie in the sky stuff next year.

• Here’s a link to the site Chair Clayton mentioned which allows you to get to know Mark Robinson a bit better. To be clear - Mark Robinson is one of the most extreme politicians to emerge in the MAGA era, and simply cannot be allowed to win next year.

Wednesday, December 13th, 7pm EST - The Next Hopium Community Wide Get Together - Friends, our entire community will gather again on Wed the 13th to do one last check in on what was a very blue 2023, and to start talking in earnest about what we are going to do together in 2024. Register for the event here and if you can’t make it live a recording will be available immediately afterwards. Will be great to see everyone - we have a lot to celebrate, and a whole lot to do next year.

Further Notes on Polling This Week

Democrats Approve of Biden’s Handling Of the Economy 75%-18% - Biden’s approval of his handling of jobs and the economy, from this week’s Economist/YouGov poll:

• Democrats 75%-17%

• Republicans 15%-82%

This data debunks the “lived experience” argument about why people are down on the economy and Biden. As Paul Waldman recently wrote, people aren’t down on the economy - Republicans are. As I’ve been writing, its why we have to look at data beyond these facile and deeply polarized questions to get to a true understanding of where Americans are on the economy; and I write there is an awful lot of data out there suggesting Americans are remarkably satisified with their lives, work and incomes and not angry and disapointed. If folks were so angry about the economy why did Democrats do so well in all these elections since the spring of 2022?

For a reminder of how ridicilous our discourse is around the economy is right now, new Navigator polling this week finds a majority of Americans believe we are in recession. This comes when GDP growth is 5.2%, job growth remains robust and the US is experiencing one of its strongest periods of sustained growth in the past 40 years. It’s why we have to keep being loud and proud about all the progress we’ve made on the economy - Americans deserve to know how successful we are as a nation, how well we are doing. That they don’t is a tragedy for all of us, and will also be material in next year’s election.

Congressional Rs Are In Trouble - One of the reasons I was always a bit skeptical about the recent Biden dip in polling (no longer true), was that other measures of Democratic Party health actually improved in recent months. The Congressional Generic, the question of who you are going to vote for in Congress next year, saw Dems gaining 2 points over the past few months in the 538 tracker and are on par or even slightly ahead now. Additionally, during this period Navigator found the ratings of Congressional Republicans declining, and are now in what has to be considered dangerous territory for them (below). It was just unlikely that Biden would dip when other measures saw Republicans dropping relative to Democrats. So I am not suprised to see Biden back up over Trump. It’s where a lot of the other data is now too - Dems with a slight advantage as we head into 2024.

Keep working hard all. We had a great year in 2023, and I am deeply optimistic about 2024 - Simon