Good Polls in NH/PA, Trump Is A Terrible Candidate, Inflation Ticks Up A Bit, VA's First Black Speaker

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Happy Thursday all, got a few things today:

Good New Polls in NH, PA - So the two weekly tracks out this week, Morning Consult and Economist/You Gov, have Biden-Trump at 43%-42% and 43%-43%. Since Thanksgiving, the race has stablized around these kinds of results, with Biden being tied or ahead now in a majority of recent independent polls. He has clearly recovered from a dip earlier in the fall, and it is no longer accurate to say that Trump has a polling advantage or leads in the election. It’s a close, competitive race right now, with lots of undecideds and people flirting with third parties. It’s why it’s good the Biden team turned is significantly ramping up it’s campaign now - it’s time to go out and win this thing.

While there continues to be polls that aren’t great for Biden, there also continues to be encouraging polls. In a recent post I offer some guidance on how to stick with larger sample, high quality polls and be quick to discount partisan polls or those with lower sample size or analysis based on very small demographic subgroups. There’s just a lot of junk out there right now, and polling continues to be very noisy. So here’s the encouraging news in polling this week (all polls can be found on 538):

Nationally - Morning Consult has Biden up 43-42. He was down by 2 points in this poll last week, 41-43, so this is a 3 point gain. 6,367 Registered voters.

PA - A new large sample Quinnipiac poll, 1680 RVs, has Biden up 3, 49-46. He was down 2 in this poll in October, 45-47, so this is 5 point gain. Biden won PA by 1.2 pts in 2020.

NH - Biden is up 8, 42-34, in a new USA Today/Suffolk poll of 1,000 Likely voters. Biden won NH by 7.4 points in 2020.

MI - Biden is up 4, 45-41, in a new MIRS/Northern Michigan Business Alliance polls of 800 registered voters. Biden won MI by 2.8 points in 2020 (this info was added Friday, Jan 12th).

In my Tuesday night interview with Lawrence O’Donnell we discussed the significance of this NH poll - this is an electorate which is paying attention, ads are flying, candidates campaigning so these kinds of polls matter a bit more than those where folks have no reason to be paying attention. Yesterday the clip I posted was only about half of our interview. This clip below is the full 6 minute segment where I go more in depth about why I am optimistic about 2024 than the clip yesterday. Check it out. Think you will enjoy it.

My current take on the 2024 election:

• Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. The Democratic Party is strong, and winning elections across the US.

• Republicans, on the other hand, are making an enormous mistake in sticking with Trump, who is far more degraded, extreme and dangerous - and further away from the electorate - than he was in 2020 when he lost by 4 and a half points. His performance on the stump is far more erratic, and he keeps making hugely consequential political mistakes (calling for a repeal of the ACA, saying he wants the economy to crash - WTF?). Donald Trump 2024 is an historically terrible candidate.

While we have a lot of work ahead of us I feel good about where are now and am optimistic that we will win this thing together this November.

Inflation Ticks Up A Bit - After another really good jobs report on Friday, today we learned the Consumer Price Index rose 0.3% in December, and 3.4% over the past 12 months. That’s a bit higher than then last few months. The increase was driven by increases in housing and energy prices. Groceries only ticked up 0.1%, and have only risen by 1.3% over the last 12 months, well below the 4-5% wage gains we’ve seen in this time. Importantly prices for dairy and related products and meats, poultry, fish, and eggs both fell last month.

Here’s the NYT this morning:

The data underscore that while inflation remains faster than usual — and month-to-month bumps are still likely as gas prices fluctuate — the measure continues to make progress back toward a normal pace. That is likely to come as welcome news to central bankers and President Biden after nearly three years of rapid price increases that have pushed up costs for consumers and strained many household budgets.

“We’ve seen how the data can be bumpy,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at EY-Parthenon. “The important dynamic is really at the core level, and what we’re seeing at the core level on a three or even six-month basis is really encouraging.”

Lots of progress on the economy, more work to do.

Don Scott Becomes Virginia’s First Black Speaker in 400 Years - The Hopium community worked very hard last fall in Virginia to keep the state Senate and flip the Virginia Assembly. We raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for 6 critical races and many of you sent postcards, canvassed, called and texted. Here is one concrete result of our important work together, from NPR:

The Virginia General Assembly unanimously elected Democrat Don Scott as house speaker on Wednesday, making him the first Black speaker in the Virginia House of Delegates' history.

Del. Scott approached the podium to cheers and a standing ovation as he took the oath of office and began his term as the leader of the House.

"My first immediate emotion is just gratitude. I'm very grateful," said Scott, tearing up as he thanked his 88 year old mother and his wife, watching from the gallery.

"The historic nature of this moment is not lost on me," he told the House.

"I pray that it is a proud moment for all of us, as we nominate Delegate Don Scott as our next speaker of the house," said Del. Luke E. Torian in his nomination speech.

"Over 400 years ago, people who looked like Delegate Scott gave their sweat blood and tears to build this Capitol," Del. Torian elaborated. "And I would say that is probably only right and fitting and appropriate that 400 years later, a person of color, an African American, whose ancestors helped to build this capital now stands to help lead this House of Delegates."

Congratulations everyone, just wonderful, wonderful news.

Support Keen and Suozzi today - Our next two projects after our big victories in Virginia are the Florida House special election in HD-35 next week and Tom Suozzi on Feb 13th in the George Santos NY Congressional seat. Learn more how to donate and volunteer for these two critical races and watch my new interview with Tom Keen here. Tom Suozzi joins us live on the 24th - register here. Let’s keep our momentum going with some early, important 2024 wins!

Keep working hard all - Simon