Vanity Fair On Biden Re-Elect, The GOP's "Bad Candidate" Problem, Former GA Lt. Gov. Endorses Biden
Important New Polling on College Students and The Protests
Happy Tuesday all. This is the second version of today’s post, as the first one had a major error. I referred to Geoff Duncan as the current Lt. Governor of Georgia. He is the former Lt. Governor. Thanks to John David Cofield for catching this one. Onward !
New Deep Dive On The Biden-Harris Re-Election Campaign - I found this new in-depth article in Vanity Fair on the Biden-Harris campaign just before posting today, and it looks really interesting. Enjoy:
The leaders of his reelection team aren’t in denial; they understand they’re facing daunting challenges. The coalition that elected Biden in 2020 has splintered. “We believe that Joe Biden has an important story to sell and has been a historic president,” a senior campaign strategist says. “But that doesn’t mean to say that everyone is going to love him perfectly.” Which may not make for the most stirring political rallying cry. But it underlies the campaign’s methodical drive to raise tens of millions of dollars to assemble a sophisticated operation that will press the fight in both conventional and innovative ways. The plan stretches from boosting Latino turnout in Arizona to winning Michigan—despite the state’s much-hyped “uncommitted” Democratic primary voters—to flipping North Carolina to wooing a meaningful number of Nikki Haley-Republican-primary voters to aggressively educating potential Robert F. Kennedy Jr. voters about his beliefs. For months the campaign has quietly built infrastructure in key states—a foundation that is now allowing it to capitalize on Republican gifts, like the Arizona supreme court’s approval of a near-total ban on abortion. “We know exactly the voters we need to turn out,” a senior campaign operative says, “and we’ve got a plan to do it.”
The GOP’s “Bad Candidate” Problem Is Becoming A Big 2024 Story - From the AP this morning:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Frustrated by the seemingly endless cash flowing to Democrats, Republicans aiming to retake the Senate have rallied around candidates with plenty of their own money.
The goal is to neutralize Democrats’ roughly 2-to-1 financial advantage, among the few bright spots for a party defending twice as many Senate seats as Republicans this year. But it also risks elevating untested candidates who might not be prepared for the scrutiny often associated with fiercely contested Senate campaigns.
In Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, GOP Senate candidates are being pressed on whether they live in the state. In Montana, the party’s Senate candidate recently admitted lying about the circumstances of a gunshot wound he sustained. And in Ohio, the Republican contender pitched himself as financially independent but now may be turning to donors for help repaying loans he made to his campaign…..
But for Republicans, the dynamic is sensitive because they’ve been here before.
Since the rise of the tea party movement more than a decade ago, Republicans have lost what were seen as winnable Senate seats by elevating candidates out of sync with mainstream voters who are often critical in statewide contests. The GOP shifted tactics this year, taking a more active role in the primary process and identifying candidates who could help fund their own campaigns. Such contenders, the party hoped, would have the benefit of both presenting themselves as political outsiders and being less reliant on an exhausted donor class.
While that has largely helped Republicans avoid bruising primary fights and go into the general election with well-funded candidates, other complications are surfacing.
The story then goes on to discuss problems GOP candidates are having in Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. As Hopium readers know I also believe the extremism of Kari Lake and Mark Robinson is creating big problems for Rs in Arizona and North Carolina too.
The story touches on two big emerging 2024 stories - the GOP’s hard dollar fundraising crisis, which is something all their candidates are experiencing up and down the ticket; and the clear struggle Republican top of the ticket candidates are having in the Presidential and Senate battlegrounds. Here’s a selection of recent polling from 538 (only listing states with recent polling):
WI Baldwin 48% Hovde 41% CBS News/YouGov
PA Casey 46% McCormick 39% CBS News/YouGov
NV Rosen 47% Gunter 33% The Hill/Emerson
Rosen 45% Brown 37% The Hill/Emerson
AZ Gallego 45% Lake 43% The Hill/Emerson (other recent polls have Gallego further ahead)
NC Stein 48% Robinson 41% Quinnipiac (Governor)
The underperformance of these Republicans candidates is a big problem for Trump and the entire GOP ticket in these critical states. It is likely to be a drag on the GOP brand, helping reinforce what has been the central driver of American politics in recent years - the ugliness, the lack of seriousness, the extremism and danger of MAGA.
A new poll released mid-day Tuesday (and added here after original posting) by a highly-ranked conservative pollster based in Arizona has Gallego up 4 and Biden with his first lead in Arizona since June of last year:
We can find more evidence of this emerging down-ballot GOP “bad candidate” struggle in Navigator’s recent polling of the House battleground. Dem candidates are in much better shape along a variety of measures.
For more on my current thinking about 2024 see this post about 2 new polls showing Biden with meaningful leads with likely voters, and this post and presentation which go much deeper into why what I’m seeing makes me optimistic about winning this year.
Republican Geoff Duncan, Former Lt. Gov. Of Georgia, Endorses Biden, Encourages Other Rs To Join Him - In a new op-ed in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Why I am voting for Biden and other Republicans should too, former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan writes:
It’s disappointing to watch an increasing number of Republicans fall in line behind former president Donald Trump. This includes some of his fiercest detractors, such as U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu and former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, who raised eyebrows during a recent interview by vowing to support the “Republican ticket.”
This mentality is dead wrong.
Yes, elections are a binary choice. Yes, serious questions linger about President Biden’s ability to serve until the age of 86. His progressive policies aren’t to conservatives’ liking.
But the GOP will never rebuild until we move on from the Trump era, leaving conservative (but not angry) Republicans like me no choice but to pull the lever for Biden. At the same time, we should work to elect GOP congressional majorities to block his second-term legislative agenda and provide a check and balance.
The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star.
Most important, Trump fanned the flames of unfounded conspiracy theories that led to the horrific events of Jan. 6, 2021. He refuses to admit he lost the last election and has hinted he might do so again after the next one….
The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country). A forthcoming Time magazine cover story lays out in stark terms “the outlines of an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world.”
Unlike Trump, I’ve belonged to the GOP my entire life. This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.
As we’ve been discussing here for many months now, the extraordinary rebellion Trump faces now in the Republican Party is a very serious threat to his candidacy, a far more serious threat than anything Joe Biden faces now. Here’s more from me on the GOP’s ugliness and dysfunction this year:
Trump Is The Ugliest Political Thing We’ve Ever Seen - A detailed look at the historic awfulness of Trump, and the very real world struggles MAGA is having in mounting serious political campaigns across the US.
Six Things Voters Are Going To Learn About Trump That Will Make It Very Hard For Him To Win - In the coming months voters are going to learn six new things about Trump they didn’t know before, and any of one of these six things will make it very hard for him to win. Overcoming all six I think is not something this deeply diminished and dangerous man will be able to do.
Let Us Hope A Cease Fire Can Be Achieved In Coming Days - That Hamas is not guaranteeing to return live hostages in the initial exchange is unfathomable, and a reminder that every day Hamas keeps its hostages it commits new war crimes:
New Axios poll: “most college students shrug at nationwide protests” - Axios has a new poll of college students out this morning which has very similar findings to polls I shared with you last week in my two posts about politics of the protests (here, here):
…….“College protests against Israel's war in Gaza are dominating headlines. But only a sliver of students are participating or view it as a top issue, according to a new Generation Lab survey shared exclusively with Axios.
Why it matters: The poll hints that the war — and the accompanying protests — might not hurt President Biden's election prospects among young voters as much as previously thought.
By the numbers: Only a small minority (8%) of college students have participated in either side of the protests, the survey of 1,250 college students found.
Students ranked the conflict in the Middle East as the least important issue facing them out of nine options.
It landed behind health care reform, racial justice and civil rights, economic fairness and opportunity, education funding and access, and climate change.
What they found: The survey found that three times as many college students blame Hamas for the current situation in Gaza than they do President Biden.
Some 34% blame Hamas, while 19% blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 12% blame the Israeli people and 12% blame Biden.
Zoom in: A large majority (81%) of students support holding protesters accountable, agreeing with the notion that those who destroyed property or vandalized or illegally occupied buildings should be held responsible by their university, per the survey.
A majority also said they oppose the protest tactics: 67% say occupying campus buildings is unacceptable and 58% say it's not acceptable to refuse a university's order to disperse.
Another 90% said blocking pro-Israel students from parts of campus is unacceptable.
The other side: Students were still more likely to say they support the pro-Palestininan encampments than oppose them.
45% said they support them either strongly or a little bit. 30% were neutral, and 24% were strongly or a bit opposed.”
Do More, Worry Less - We are still raising money for and supporting three critical projects:
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
I just received another shipment of blank voter postcards that I purchased from a vendor on Etsy. Along with the blank postcards, the vendor included a preprinted insert that lists online political orgs where one can find postcarding opportunities. All of the orgs (grassrootsdems.org, mobilize.us, etc) happened to be Dem-aligned. I find that interesting, and noteable. When I ordered the blank voter postcards, the vendor didn’t ask me my political leanings. And the postcards themselves (“Be a voter!”) aren’t particularly partisan. Yet the baseline assumption for this vendor is that anyone doing the work of grassroots mobilization of fellow voters must obviously be a Democrat. And honestly, I think that assumption is well founded.
To me, this is our secret weapon. Our superpower. This grassroots pro-democracy movement that we’re a part of has no countervailing equivalent on the right. Sure, there are some super-MAGA folks who go to Trump rallies, as dark entertainment. And there are right wingers who spend the day mainlining Fox News, the way you or I might have light jazz music playing in the background as we go about our day. But there’s relatively little organizing power to that stuff. It mobilizes few swing voters. It reaches few uncommitteds. It solidifies the far-right bubble that our conservative friends are in, but it doesn’t win them elections. The work that we’re doing… that stuff wins elections.
So let’s keep doing it, everyone. Each day until November.
I agree with the polls on our youth. First of all, college students are great critical thinkers. They see the bigger picture. They lived through Covid and saw first hand the disaster DT created with that. Saw healthcare was top issue (thinking repro. health lumped in) They also care about gun violence and their economic future. PS Have you met a single younger person who is actually voting for DT or RFK Jr because I have not.