Biden in Israel, Good New National and OH Polls, Encouraging FBI Crime Data

With Democrats, Things Get Better - Thursday at 1pm EST

Friends, a few things today:

Encouraging Biden and Ohio Polls - A new large sample, high quality NPR/NewsHour/Marist poll has Biden up over Trump 49-47 (+2), and Biden leading Trump in a three way ballot with RFK 44-37-16 (+7). This Kennedy data is a reminder that the Republican coalition has already splintered (think Liz Cheney/NeverTrumpers and the current fiasco in the House) and may be more likely to break apart than Biden’s coalition. We are strong and united, they are weak and divided. It’s also instructive that RFK is desperately trying to reposition himself to the left, as this ridiculous gambit has in its early days appeared to have backfired on the MAGAs backing his campaign.

The first statewide general election poll in Ohio has vote intent high for an off year (that’s good for us), Issue 1 (reproductive freedom) leading 58-34 and the cannibus legalization Issue 2 leading 57-35. This is a very encouraging poll but you know what comes next - heads down, keep doing the work to have the election we want to have in November.

With Dems Thursday at 1pm ET - Tomorrow at 1pm EST I’ll be booting up a newly updated, already fresh With Democrats, Things Get Better. The arguments and data in this presentation are the foundation of our work here at Hopium so really encourage folks to join me tomorrow live, or catch a recording later this month. Many of the economic and demographic graphs you find here came from this presentation, and it makes a big argument - that when Democrats are in power, things get better. With Republicans, they don’t, again and again.

You can learn more about With Dems here, and RSVP here.

Love This Wall Street Journal Story -

New FBI Crime Report Shows Murder and Violent Crime Down in 2022 - Fellow Substacker Jeff Archer has a good writeup of the new FBI annual crime report which shows that violent crime and murder rates fell across the US last year. Here’s a graph from his post, which shows murder rates down last year, and down substantially from the 70s, 80s and early 90s. There is little question that we saw a spike in crime during COVID and that things are coming back down now.

Violent crime rates show similar declines last year, and from the highs we saw decades ago. Note here that violent crime is now running at about half the rate we saw in the early 1990s. It’s a remarkable societal achievement.

The Gazan Hospital, Biden in Israel - As the sun rose this morning, and independent analysts had time to review the data and images available to them, there is now a significant body of evidence suggesting the Gazan hospital was struck by a failed rocket fired from inside Gaza and was not an Israeli strike. I will admit this is an area I know little about, but for those who want to dive in a bit deeper here I’ve done a Twitter thread this morning with reports from three independent analysts who believe this was a failed rocket launch. Sorry it’s on Twitter but right now it’s the only place this information can be found. I always was skeptical that Israel had struck the hospital - why blow up Biden’s trip? While Israel had nothing to gain from the hospital attack, many other regional actors did. We will see how this all plays out in the days ahead.

Today, Israel remains under attack. Missiles targeting Israel’s main population centers are fired daily. Over 200 hostages remain in Gaza. Hamas and their partners continue to use the innocent people of Gaza as human shields. 30-40 percent of these home made rockets fail, often falling in Gaza itself (as may have happened last night). What is Israel to do? Hamas understands that Israel could not allow these ongoing attacks to continue, and would have to move into Gaza. But how to do that when the combatants are hiding among the civilian population? Has any Arab government called on Hamas to surrender? How can Israel be expected to live next door to a militant, extremist group intent on wiping all Jews from the face of the Earth, who have committed unspeakable atrocities, and who continue to attack Israel daily? Think about it. What possible solution is there here if those who slaughtered innocent Israelis - and dozens of Americans - remain in power in Gaza? There is no easy path here.

My biggest concern as a supporter of Israel is that the US is putting its global reputation in the hands of Netanyahu, whose political and strategic failures led us to this challenging moment. He simply cannot be trusted to act responsibly in the coming days, and yet here we are. There is no easy path there, and yes it is reassuring that we have such an experienced leader as our President right now.

Here’s President Biden from Israel today:

There are challenging times here in the US and around the world. As we discussed yesterday the stakes now are very high, and we have to keep doing our part by helping pro-democracy forces win across the US this year and next.

Keep working hard all - Simon