Where Millennials Are Leading the World (and Republicans Can Keep Up): CNN Politics Commentary: Why We Are Not Here to Win (In 2022)
Editor’s Note: Kristen Soltis Anderson, a CNN Political commentator, is a Republican strategist and pollster and author of “The Selfie Vote: Where Millennials Are Leading America (and How Republicans Can Keep Up.)” The views expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion articles on CNN.
For those who do not know – and my own polling suggests that is most everyone reading this – “Dark Brandon” is a meme of President Joe Biden, rendered as an all-powerful hero (or villain, depending on your perspective). It started as a right-wing catchphrase before Democrats appropriated it to praise the President.
Building Back Together, a Democratic group, released a 30-second ad with a meme of President Biden and lasers coming from his eyes, making it hallucinogenic. How about the message? Student loan debt and Biden are issues that Biden is well-known for. Or rather, “if you’re unenthused about Biden and the Democratic Party, please don’t be.”
If younger Americans are more interested in issues and wanting change, but aren’t actually voting in the polls, that leaves a huge opportunity for those who want to see greater youth participation in politics. It might cost Democrats their majority in this election.
However, my own firm’s analysis suggests that voters under the age of 30 could fall to only 10% of the electorate in 2022 –a year where we expect overall turnout to be historic for a midterm at over 125 million votes.
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So a president who has constantly defied expectations about his political vitality is unlikely to pay much attention to polls that suggest voters want someone else. Biden also recently reinforced his firewall against a primary challenge by shaking up the Democratic primary season, downgrading the Iowa caucuses – where he’s never done well – and elevating his beloved South Carolina to the first spot in the primary race. The lack of an alternative Democrat helps Biden. Vice President Harris has not been able to convince Biden to step aside in favor of her. And other Democrats with an eye on the White House will be loath to damage a sitting president of their party.
What is especially troublesome for Democrats is that this is all happening against a backdrop of young Americans being increasingly vocal about their politics. Companies are grappling with Gen Z and Millennial employees who seem keener than ever to work for employers that align with their political and cultural worldview. I regularly hear from business leaders who know that younger consumers are voting with their wallets and opting for products and services that match their values.
Voters are looking for a break even as President Biden and ex-president Donald Trump move toward a rerun of the most turbulent White House race in modern history.
A new CNN/SSRS poll shows that 6 in 10 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents want their party to nominate someone other than Trump in 2024. The other side is hoping for a nominee other than Biden.
Of course, it’s early. And the 2022 midterms offer a still fresh reminder that in a volatile, partisan age shadowed by crises at home and abroad, logic, history, polls and pre-race predictions months ahead of time often don’t count for much.
But the race is on, whether voters want it or not. The early decisions of donors and potential rivals in the early money chase are determined by the perception of the contender’s strengths. Trump is declared a candidate, but he could use a relaunch after a slow start, and Biden is giving every sign that he will run, which suggests he’ll let the country know early in the new year.
The polls findings were helped by the Democrats holding the Senate and the Republicans winning the House. Voters hoping for a return to the normality Biden had promised after generational public health and inflation challenges weren’t exactly enthused with the president, whose low approval numbers largely kept him off the campaign trail in battleground states. They didn’t trust the GOP and Trump to fix things at the same time.
One of the emerging paradoxes in the 2024 race was mentioned in the poll. Even though they are the most powerful figures in their party, Biden and Trump seem vulnerable at the start of the two-year campaign, and could face problems from outside factors or age.
Trump’s appeal seems to be fading. His brand was destroyed in consecutive national elections because voters tired of his constant whining rejected him in swing states. Trump’s talent for thwarting accountability is, meanwhile, facing its toughest test from twin special counsel probes. Some Republicans are looking elsewhere. The CNN survey shows that 45% of GOP voters have an alternative to choose from. Almost 4 in 10 people pick Florida Gov Ron. DeSantis, who is untested on a national stage but already looms as a big threat to the former president.
The president ended the year in better shape than Trump, which appears to have helped him during his slump. This summer, only 25% of Democrat-aligned voters wanted him to be their nominee. Now that figure is 40%. And among those who want someone else, 72% say they’ve got no one particular in mind, further bolstering the advantage a sitting president usually has against a primary challenger.
Republican politics may or may not be at a transition point. How things shake out in the next few months will be critical to Trump’s prospects. On the one hand, more and more Republicans – prompted by the failure of many of the ex-president’s hand-picked candidates in the midterms – are saying it’s time to move on.
The argument that Trump’s general election viability is damaged beyond repair is being strengthened by a dinner he had with extremists with a record of antisemitism. Trump’s so-far lackluster campaign, which looks like it was declared to make it easier for him to portray criminal probes into his conduct as persecution, isn’t convincing anyone so far.
And yet, the former president’s allies, like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Jim Jordan of Ohio, will be hugely influential in the new GOP House majority. The failure of Republicans to do better in November will make it more likely that extremists will manipulate the majority in order to hurt Biden and aid Trump in the future.
GOP hopefuls will see that 38% – the lowest point of three CNN polls on the topic this year – as an opening for an anti-Trump candidate. But another big field could splinter opposition to the ex-president among untested potential foes.
And they say these doubts are just the latest way of underestimating the president, pointing out that age concerns also dogged his 2020 campaign – even though some of those same advisers confided to others at the time that they believed his age was his biggest liability when he was four years younger.
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Absent from the chamber was Marty Walsh, who had been chosen to stay away as a designated survivor in the event of a catastrophe at the Capitol, but is said to be stepping down soon.
The speaker of the house called on Congress to put in place a minimum tax on billionaires, to extend the price cap on Insulin for Medicare beneficiaries, and to make premium savings on health plans permanent.
The latest elements of Mr. Biden’s “unity agenda” were not applauded by Republicans, but they were at least put forward in hopes of winning bipartisan support. Enhancement of cancer research and treatment, expanding access to mental health services, and improving benefits for veterans were some of the initiatives.
The White House timed the mention of Bidens age in the media to focus attention on those who are not like Biden and others who are older.
Mr. Biden still did not shy from the fight. He was a big fan of jabbing Republicans. At a point, he said that many Republicans voted against the infrastructure package yet still needed money for their districts.
A handful of ambitious Democrats have already quietly prepared rudimentary contingency plans in case Biden has a change of heart and decides against running for reelection, people familiar with the efforts told CNN. Should Biden change his mind about serving another four years or have an unexpected health problem, those plans include everything from thinking through top donors to eyeing potential core campaign staff.
That is leading to a focus on events that try to play up the president’s vitality, while trying to strike a balance in the schedule of a man who tends to make more blunders when tired.
It also underscored the importance of a State of the Union address advisers viewed as Biden at his best, from cadence and delivery to his off-script sparring with Republicans in the House chamber. The speech served as a prime-time moment, in front of tens of millions of viewers, to lay out for the country the scale of his accomplishments and vision for the path ahead.
It also showed why his age shouldn’t be seen as a problem to his efforts to lead the country down that path.
At least one group was watching the effect: quietly anxious Democratic officials. More than a dozen of them acknowledged that it was a night that they could not ignore their concerns about the leader.
One Democrats said that it was not subtle that Biden went back to the phrase “finish the job” roughly a dozen times.
Advisers say Biden would keep to the standard of not campaigning for a long time, but they are looking for ways to keep him in the public eye. The formula used in the run up to the midterms would track and build on it, but Biden used tailored and smaller crowds instead of a road warrior.
One adviser said that they didn’t hear much from the critics about the Democrats’ strategy after November 8.
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They hope that having him keep up the kind of news-making appearances he has been doing in and around Washington, and preparing for what they plan to be the most extensive digital campaign of a presidential campaign, will be the best ways to keep him alert and active in this campaign.
Top surrogates deployed at a regular clip would include a roster populated by a younger generation of politicians, people familiar with the matter say, even as one pointed out that given Biden’s age, that’s to some degree an inevitability.
Joe Biden was able to point out that he had years of experience in government up to this point, but more immediately his last two years in the White House he was able to get things, because people feel like it was a turbulent world. “And what we’re seeing from Republicans in the House in terms of chaos and extremism is an incredibly powerful contrast too, that underscores the idea that his experience – and yes, age – is a benefit.”
The adviser went on to spell out a theory of the case Biden’s team believes will outweigh any concerns, no matter how persistent they appear in public polling.
People will at the end of the day ask who is on their side. The adviser spoke. Who is fighting for me? Who is doing things that make a difference in my life?
In the month of January,Mitch Landrieu made the case to the mayors he had joined for a political meeting at a hotel a few blocks from the White House.
“Do I wish he was 10 years younger? Yeah. So does he, that’s what one Biden donor said. I don’t think there is any reason that he should not seek reelection at his chronological age.
“But,” Landrieu said, as he started to tick through stats around Covid-19 shots, jobs created, unemployment rates, “there are a whole lot more important numbers out there.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/joe-biden-age-question/index.html
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Still, voters bring Biden’s age up constantly in focus groups. Many veer toward assuming he must be ineffective or being puppeteered: “‘brain dead,’ ‘mush’ – ‘dementia’ is a word that comes up all the time,” said one person who observed multiple focus group sessions during campaigns last year.
A group of Democratic operatives and officials tell CNN they are concerned that Donald Trump is facing calls for a younger leadership in his party, or another younger Republican could emerge as the nominee and make a show of seeming more energetic. The president’s ability to keep up with an active travel schedule is being questioned by a number of prominent figures.
A few people in the building quietly worry that this may be underplaying the concern that they are hearing from their friends and family about the president’s age.
Other Democratic operatives preparing for a campaign worry about letting suspicions fester, comparing them to the conspiracies about hidden conditions that trailed Hillary Clinton throughout 2016.
The president’s opponents are talking about it. Right-wing media coverage of the classified documents found in Biden’s former office and garage made him out to be either senile – to explain why he hadn’t remembered what happened to the documents – or at the center of a conspiracy theory about a controversy manufactured by Democrats to ease him into retirement.
“They attacked him over age before he beat them in 2020. They attacked him over age as he built the best legislative record in modern history,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates. They did the same thing before he beat them. I don’t know what they’re doing. The trend is not good for them. Maybe they forgot?”
The advisers to Biden think that most of those making those kind of comments are partisan Republicans and that they are just another example of hyperpolarization in politics. They point to Biden’s previous physicals and assessments by outside experts who say that he has no physical or mental competence issues at all.
Biden’s limp walk since he’s been in office has made his White House physician bring in a team to assess it during his last physical in 2021, aides say. They determined that it was the result of wear and tear on his spine.
He can appear less vigorous at public events when his energy levels are low. But they are unequivocal about their view that Biden wouldn’t green light another run if he didn’t think he could do it – and they wouldn’t support one either.
Those words, and an overall emphasis on Biden as an embodiment of reassuring routine and normalcy, pop up repeatedly among aides who are starting to look ahead.
They are also quietly reframing a key moment at the end of the 2020 primary campaign, when Biden was endorsed in March 2020 by the much younger Harris, Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and described himself “as a bridge” to the next generation.
Many at the time took that to mean a four-year bridge, an implicit one-term promise that acknowledged his age. Advisers said he had previously rejected a one-term pledge.
Biden advisers think the president’s reputation as an elder statesman could help Democrats hold onto voters who see their party changing too quickly and deviating too far left.
There are clear moments when Biden is slower physically than he was, but many aides, administration officials and members of Congress who have spent time with him have told CNN that he is in meeting after meeting.
Ted Kaufman, Biden’s closest friend and adviser since his first campaign, told CNN late last year: “confidence comes from knowing what you’re doing.”
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/joe-biden-age-question/index.html
When did Biden walk the Bali beach? The story of a Florida congressman with a soccer-like nickname, R.E.C. Biden
He gets stuck on or mispronounces, but that’s more due to a convergence of wanting to get the name correct while not encountered a block tied to the childhood stutter he worked intensely to overcome, but still surfaces in certain moments
They say he’s the one constantly adding to his schedule, pushing for photo lines with local politicians and extra time to greet crowds after his events, or making meetings run over by peppering policy aides with questions.
“The energy is higher now than maybe when I first met him, and I really believe that that’s inspired by the work,” said Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, who as a Delaware Democrat has known and worked with Biden much of her life.
There is perhaps no better window into the public perception versus private reality advisers try to convey than a 15-hour stretch in Bali, Indonesia, at the Group of 20 meeting last November.
Biden did not skip the event because he was tired, according to aides. The truth is that he wanted some time to concentrate on preparing for his granddaughter’s wedding that weekend at the White House, not having generic conversations with counterparts over another meal. They said that he was prepared when a crisis arrived. He drove the response.
He was sitting across from the national security adviser and the Secretary of State trying to find a solution to the crisis.
Biden wore khakis and a gray shirt while talking to the president of Poland about the missile attack that left two people dead, raising the possibility that Russia had finally spilled over into Ukraine.
There were calls with NATO’s secretary general. An emergency call was made with G7 and NATO leaders. Biden said that wasn’t enough.
An hour later, Biden himself walked the 10 leaders who came to the Grand Hyatt through early intelligence that the missile likely was not of Russian origin. Fears of dramatic escalation quickly dissipated. Thirty minutes later, Biden was walking through mangrove trees telling French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders stories from his Senate days.
They quickly shoot down what they see as sneering insinuations, like when reporters ask why the president has a light public schedule on the days back from overseas trips – though that has been standard practice for multiple recent presidents, including Obama. Even though Biden rarely appeared more than a few times during the fall, they maintain that his travel schedule shows how strong he is.
It’s a laugh if aides tell you that his reaction is to do a little jog in or out of his next public event. Even as he speaks with pride about his accomplishments, friends say he makes sarcastic references to his age.
Or there was his move three weeks ago in the State Dining Room, when he pretended to wobble as he got back up from taking a knee for a photo with the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, taking a moment to make fun of the crowd’s shock.
Draymond Green told CNN afterwards that he wanted to help him up, but didn’t know if he would get in trouble. It was amazing to see him in that great physical condition at his age.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/politics/joe-biden-age-question/index.html
On the First Day of Mayor’s Visit to Cincinnati, the First Mayor, and an Interjection he made about the Brent Spence Bridge
Aftab Pureval, the Cincinnati mayor who just turned 40 in September, said a visit from the president last month left him with the impression that Biden has more than enough left in the tank.
Pureval saw a man who laughed hard when the mayor deliberately used a famous Biden interjection – one that contains a four-letter word that starts with F – to describe what a big deal the bipartisan infrastructure money was in helping rebuild the local Brent Spence Bridge.
At a barbecue spot in town there were fist bumps between the crowd and they went afterwards. There was the way the president immediately flashed the fraternity hand sign when a young black man mentioned that he was a member of Phi Beta Sigma.
I never thought about age when you were with him. Pureval said that the biggest grant in our nation’s history was provided by the president.