Biden Up In New WI Poll, "Great American Comeback Story," Careful W/Polling Averages

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Happy Thursday all. Sorry I’m a little late today. I am traveling and my plane’s WiFi was out for a while. Let’s get to it:

Biden Announces Huge New Tech Investment in Wisconsin, New Poll Has Him Up 6 In This Critical Battleground - Here’s Heather Cox Richardson on Biden’s visit to Wisconsin yesterday:

In Racine, Wisconsin, President Joe Biden announced that Microsoft is investing $3.3 billion dollars to build a new data center that will help operate one of the most powerful artificial intelligence systems in the world. It is expected to create 2,300 union construction jobs and employ 2,000 permanent workers. 

Microsoft has also partnered with Gateway Technical College to train and certify 200 students a year to fill new jobs in data and information technology. In addition, Microsoft is working with nearby high schools to train students for future jobs. 

Speaking at Gateway Technical College’s Racine campus, Biden contrasted today’s investment with that made by Trump about the same site in 2018. In that year, Trump went to Wisconsin for the “groundbreaking” of a high-tech campus he claimed would be the “eighth wonder of the world.” 

Under Republican governor Scott Walker, Wisconsin legislators approved a $3 billion subsidy and tax incentive package—ten times larger than any similar previous package in the state—to lure the Taiwan-based Foxconn electronics company. Once built, a new $10 billion campus that would focus on building large liquid-crystal display screens would bring 13,000 jobs to the area, they promised. 

Foxconn built a number of buildings, but the larger plan never materialized, even after taxpayers had been locked into contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars for upgrading roads, sewer system, electricity, and so on. When voters elected Democrat Tony Evers as governor in 2022, he dropped the tax incentives from $3 billion to $80 million, which depended on the hiring of only 1,454 workers, reflecting the corporation’s current plans. Foxconn dropped its capital investment from $10 billion to $672.8 million.  

In November 2023, Microsoft announced it was buying some of the Foxconn properties in Wisconsin.

Today, Biden noted that rather than bringing jobs to Racine, Trump’s policies meant the city lost 1,000 manufacturing jobs during his term. Wisconsin as a whole lost 83,500. “Racine was once a manufacturing boomtown,” Biden recalled, “all the way through the 1960s, powering companies—invented and manufacturing Windex…portable vacuum cleaners, and so much more, and powered by middle-class jobs.

Here’s how one local paper played it:

Even Fox News had to acknowledge the virtue of what they were seeing:

While on the ground in Wisconsin the President was greeted with an encouraging new, large-sample Quinnipiac poll of the state that has him up 6 points, 50-44, and Senator Tammy Baldwin up 12, 54-42.

Note that in the last 10 days we’ve had polls with Biden leads in AZ, MI, WI:

• Biden 50-44 Wisconsin Quinnipaic

• Biden 51-49 Michigan CBS News

• Biden 39-38 Arizona Data Orbital

We also got some good new polling in Maryland:

In something that feels very Get to 55ish, on Tuesday Democrats won a county commission race in the most Republican county in Michigan:

Republican county commissioner has been unseated in Michigan after losing to her Democratic challenger by 20 percentage points in a recall vote.

Chris Kleinjans won an Ottawa County election on Tuesday with 60 percent of the vote share, while the Republican incumbent Lucy Ebel lost, having gained 40 percent.

The county election comes as Michigan is a key battleground state in November's presidential election. Former President Donald Trump won the county with 61 percent of the vote in 2020. He also narrowly won the state in 2016 before losing it to President Joe Biden in 2020.

Our friends Morley Winograd and Mike Hais shared this remarkable data with me:

Ottawa County is, by far, the most Republican county in MI. A few data points:

1. The last Democratic presidential nominee to carry Ottawa County was George McClellen in 1864.

2. FDR never carried the county in any of his 4 races. His best showing was 44% in 1936.

3. In 1964, Ottawa County was one of only three counties in Michigan to vote for Goldwater over LBJ (55% to 45%).

4. In 1986 Ottawa County was the only county in Michigan that did not vote to reelect Jim Blanchard.

Here’s my take on where things are - Joe Biden is a good President. The economy is historically strong and the country is better off. National polling is close and competitive, within margin of error. We’ve gained a few points in recent weeks in the national vote and in the Congressional generic. The two sets of battleground state polls out last week - Emerson and CBS - had every single state within margin of error. We’ve had encouraging polls in AZ and WI this week and yes Trump got a good PA poll, one which was, for the record, conducted by the lead pollster for the Trump campaign. As I wrote Tuesday Senate and House polling is good, and the GOP’s “bad candidate” in the battlegrounds problem has returned. Due to Biden’s successful Presidency Trump’s central attacks against the President are evaporating. We have enormous financial and organizational advantages right now. Trump has the most disqualifying “negatives” we’ve ever seen, and a deeply consequential rebellion inside his party is becoming an existential threat to his candidacy.

Former House Speaker and Republican VP Nominee (Romney, 2012) became the latest prominent Republican to say publicly they will not be voting for Trump:

Former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday that he does not plan to vote for former President Trump in November, suggesting he would write in another candidate instead.

“Character is too important to me,” Ryan, who left Congress in 2019, told Yahoo Finance at the Milken Global Institute Conference. “And it’s a job that requires the kind of character that he just doesn’t have.”

Finally, as I wrote on Sunday, we have a lot of evidence, including Tuesday’s strong Nikki Haley vote in Indiana, that as Americans get closer to voting - moving from registered voter to likely voter to voters - Trump and Republicans lose ground, and we gain. And the problem for Trump and the Rs is the whole country has begun going through that process now and will continue to do so as we go deeper into 2024.

I am not worried. I am determined. Join me there, and let’s go out and win this thing, together, this year.

Upcoming Events - Got a few things coming up:

• Wed, May 22nd, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Community Wide Get Together w/Simon - Register

• Thur, June 20th Evening - Simon speaks in person at a Wisconsin Democratic Party Event (Madison) - more details soon

• Fri/Sat, June 28-29 - Simon speaks in person at Network NOVA’s 8th Annual Women’s Summit, Tyson’s Corner, VA - More info, register

I will also note that I’ve been a little slow at getting back to those who’ve requested me for events for this summer. Between my daughter’s lacrosse play offs and graduation festivities this spring and some critical travel dates that are still getting ironed out I’ve been unable to commit to as many events as I hoped. Will try to get back to everyone this week - appreciate the patience all!

What We’ve Done, and What MAGA and Russia, Iran, Hamas and Hizbollah want to Take Away:

Be Careful of Real Clear Politics and Polling Averages - In the coming days I’m going to write about what I think is questionable utility of polling averages. To whet your appetite a bit, let’s revisit Real Clear Politics last Senate map from 2022 (below). These predicted results were based on RCP’s polling averages in each state. As we all know Republicans didn’t get to 54 seats in the Senate. They got to 49. What went wrong? More soon.

Keep working hard all. It’s how we win - Simon