The Case for Biden, Bolduc and the Other Candidates in the Midterm Campaigns: How Disgruntled Are They? An Empirical Analysis

Democrats are playing defense in blue-state strongholds like New York, Washington and Oregon and are waging a longshot struggle to cling to the House of Representatives. Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to win back control. The fate of the Senate is currently split between Arizona, Nevada, Nevada, Georgia and Pennsylvania, but will be decided in a number of swing states. Republicans are also showing renewed interest in the race in New Hampshire between Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan and retired Army Brig. Democrats say that Gen. Don Bolduc is an election-denying Extremist.

Democrats will have to regroup and try again in 2 years if they lose, as they need to convince the nation that their policies will chart the way out of crises. Republicans will argue voters have given them a mandate to fix things where Biden has failed if they take control of Congress. But after repeated elections in which disgruntled voters have punished the party with the most power, the GOP could find its own performance on the ballot in two years.

These results partly reflect the sheer intractability of our modern political divisions, which leaves fewer voters open to shifting allegiance no matter how unhappy they are with current conditions. Particularly in Senate races, including the contests in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, Republicans have also been hurt by nominating Trump-aligned candidates that many voters view as unqualified, extreme or both.

Ordinarily, assessments of the president’s performance have been the single fixed point around which midterm campaigns revolve. That is an ominous precedent for the Democrats. Even though Biden has an improved approval rating, it is still below average in most national polls. His approval ratings on inflation, immigration and crime were less than those of the Republicans, in a recent national survey. An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released in September showed that nearly three-fifths of voters believed Biden’s choices had hurt the economy, while only a little over one-third believed his actions had strengthened it.

The poll also hints at one of the emerging paradoxes in the nascent 2024 race. Even though Biden and Trump are both powerful figures in their parties, they appear vulnerable at the start of the two-year campaign, and may face some issues due to age or outside factors.

“In large part that’s why this election is super weird,” says Bryan Bennett, lead pollster for Navigator, a Democratic polling consortium. People are having to choose between immediate economic concerns and the incumbent party in power. But at the same time, they know that same incumbent party is the one that is going to protect that fundamental human right” on abortion.

Assuming the current trends hold, Biden is quite unpopular this year. His approval rating was 44% in the exit polls. His favorable rating was 41%.

The latest snapshot of this difference was offered by the national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. Inflation and immigration were the top choices of Republicans, who were asked what issue was most important. A comparable share of Democrats picked preserving democracy (32%), abortion (21%) and health care (15%). The priorities of the two parties are inflation and immigration on one side, democracy, abortion and health care on the other. Voters with at least a four-year college degree leaned relatively more toward democracy and abortion; those without degrees (including Latinos) tended to stress inflation. The most concern from Republicans and non college educated voters has been caused by crime as an option, even though this survey didn’t include it.

Given these disparities, Democrats everywhere are stressing issues relating to rights and values, particularly abortion, but also warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. Democratic candidates have spent more money on abortion-themed ads than Republicans.

Exposing the Reality of Biden’s Problems with a “Red Wave” and “The Future is Coming”: A Key Address to the GOP in Phoenix

The incentives for domestic production embedded in the three central Biden legislative accomplishments will make a boom in US employment possible.

But those plant openings are mostly still in the future and only a few Democrats (such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Kelly, and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan) are emphasizing those possibilities this year.

Democrats often highlight the legislation passed by their party that offers families some relief on certain costs, especially the provisions that allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Democratic pollsterGeoff Garin believes that highlighting specific initiatives can allow candidates to overcome negative judgement on Biden’s economic management. His main concerns are that too many Democrats are focusing on abortion and sublimating the economic message.

The founder of a group that mobilizes Latino candidates says that the GOP really doesn’t have a clear answer to the economy. “The concrete is not set yet,” she said recently after a day of door-to-door canvassing in Phoenix. There is still a way to connect with people. Like Way to Win, her group stresses the idea that Democrats are committed to providing people opportunities to help them fulfill their responsibilities, while Republicans are focused on taking away rights.

Biden has delivered a message that has been delivered in Washington in contrast to the Democratic candidates who were standing on stage next to each other.

But it’s also a window into a view Biden and his top aides hold that there is a path to buck decades of electoral routs for a first-term president’s party – if only a few things can break Democrats’ way.

Biden’s party expanded its majority in the Senate despite the predictions of GOP strategists about a “red wave.” House Republicans were surprised by the near draw in the chamber.

“The polls have been all over the place,” Biden said Monday in remarks at the Democratic National Committee. The Republicans are ahead. Democrats are ahead. Republicans ahead. But it’s going to close, I think, with seeing one more shift: Democrats ahead in the closing days.”

It was a candid acknowledgment of a moment that finds Democrats once again scrambling to zero in on a message to blunt GOP momentum, a reality exacerbated by divergent views inside the party of where that message should actually land.

Whether that optimism is misplaced will be clear in 14 days. Biden sees two years of unity in the Democratic Party as the basis of his view.

Whether that will hold, particularly in a home stretch in which the small universe of undecided voters historically breaks toward the party out of power, is the definitive outstanding question.

One official in the Democratic campaign said, “We have managed to suck ourselves back into our own firing squad.” “It was never as good as people seemed to think it was (at the end of the summer), and it’s not as bad as some are acting now. If we don’t make it work, it could be.

The weight of that history, not to mention the acute headwinds created by economic unease that continues to rank first among voter concerns in poll after poll, aren’t lost on Biden or his advisers.

That will start to change in the days ahead, advisers say, with continued insistence that he will hit the road for bigger campaign events after weeks of intentionally smaller scale official events designed to highlight legislative accomplishments.

Bringing Back the ‘Bang’ from the GOP: How to Beat Biden in the Corresponding Economy and State of the Recovery from the 2008 Elections

Gas prices have been falling for two weeks in a row, and analysts expect the third quarter GDP report to show strong growth after two quarters of contraction.

Officials acknowledge their deficit on the economy, despite cornerstone legislative achievements and a historically fast recovery from the pandemic-era downturn, isn’t going to flip over the course of 14 days.

But given the close correlation between gas prices and Democratic electoral prospects over the course of the last several months, they see an opportunity to at least make some gains – or fight to a draw – with undecided voters or those weighing whether to vote at all in the closing days.

But it’s one that officials say has been laid bare in a particularly acute manner by Republicans in recent weeks, whether on abortion, popular programs like Social Security and Medicare, or proposals to undo many of the individual provisions enacted by Biden that consistently poll in the favor of Democrats when taken in isolation.

Biden has also spent the last several weeks attempting to highlight individual issues officials see as key motivators to base voters they need to turn out in a big way to counter clear Republican enthusiasm, whether on abortion rights or Biden’s actions to cancel student loans for some borrowers.

The burst of optimism among Democrats after a late summer string of major legislative wins and energy driven by the Supreme Court’s decision to strike down Roe vs. Wade was viewed by many inside the West Wing as overly optimistic.

But Democratic Senate candidates in battleground races are all polling with narrow leads or within striking distance. The pathway to hold onto the Senate exists, even if a sharp break away from Democrats could imperil several of the party’s biggest new stars.

Republicans are increasingly bullish on winning big in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as they slam Democrats over raging inflation and crime while President Joe Biden seeks a late reprieve by warning that GOP election deniers could destroy democracy.

A short-term fix that takes the issue into early next year could provoke a gargantuan showdown with the White House in the first days of GOP control of the House, with members firmly committed to slashing Biden’s spending plans and domestic agenda. McCarthy might use a confrontation as a way to shore up his vote in the speakership campaign since it would be a high risk that would backfire with a national electorate.

The Campaign of Ex-President Biden and a Democratic Minority Leader: The defining time for the nation and the consequences for the judiciary

Four presidents, including Biden, Obama, Clinton and Trump, took to the campaign trail over the weekend according to a sign of the critical stakes and growing angst among Democrats.

The campaign of ex- President Trump will come to a close in Ohio on Monday, with a rally for J.D. Vance. In his speech, Trump predicted voters wouldelect an incredible slate of true MagA warriors to Congress.

Biden said that the nation’s core values are in danger from Republicans who denied the truth about the Capitol insurrection and following the brutal attack on Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.

It’s on the ballot. This is a defining time for the nation. And we all must speak with one voice regardless of our party. There’s no place in America for political violence,” Biden said.

The president will not try to stave off a rebuke from voters at a Democratic event. The fact that he will be in a liberal bastion and not trying to boost an endangered lawmaker in a key race on the final night reflects his compromised standing in an election that has reverted to a referendum on his tattered credibility and low approval ratings.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/07/politics/election-eve-campaigning/index.html

Biden and the Real Issues of the Midterms: How Donald Trump and the Democratic Campaign are confronting the 2020 State of the Union

RNC chair Ronna McDaniel predicted that Republicans would win both the House and the Senate on “State of the Union” and accused Biden of being oblivious to economic anxiety among Americans with his warnings about democracy.

But the president warned in a speech in Pittsburgh on Saturday night alongside Obama that Republican concern over the economy was a ruse and claimed that the GOP would cut Social Security and Medicare if they won majorities.

They are all about the wealthier getting wealthy. The wealthier are not leaving behind their wealth. The middle class gets stiffed. Biden said that the poor get poorer as a result of their policy.

The midterms are the first national vote since the chaos and violence triggered by Trump’s refusal to accept the result of the last presidential election and there are already fears that some Republican candidates may follow his example and try to defy the will of voters if they don’t win. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has raised concerns about the integrity of the vote.

A staffer at the headquarters of the pro- Trump nominee for Arizona’s governorship opened a suspicious white powder letter. Lake’s opponent, current Arizona Secretary of State, stated that the incident was “incredibly concerning.”

Trump’s appeal seems to be fading. A disastrous midterm election for many of his candidates in swing states, which reflected the fatigue over his incessant whining about 2020, meant voters rejected his brand in consecutive national elections. Trump’s talent for thwarting accountability is, meanwhile, facing its toughest test from twin special counsel probes. Some Republicans are looking to other places. The CNN poll shows that when GOP voters are asked who they’d prefer, 47% have an alternative in mind. Almost half of the people picked Florida Gov Ron. DeSantis, who is untested on a national stage but already looms as a big threat to the former president.

But the Florida governor chose not to engage, turning his ire instead on Biden and calling his Democratic opponent, Charlie Crist, “a donkey” while taking credit for defying Washington officials and experts during the pandemic.

Trump did not repeat his mockery of DeSantis on Sunday but did tease that he will run for president. Another sign that the next presidential race is heating up is that Tom Cotton, an Arkansas senator, has decided not to run in the Republican primary.

On Saturday Bill Clinton was in Brooklyn to support New York Gov. Kathy Hochul. The Empire state should be safe for the Democrats despite Hochul’s close race against Zeldin.

I know that the average election rally is just “whoop dee doo do vote for me,” but your life is on the line. Clinton told the young people that their life was on the line.

Biden has not been as effective in speaking to the Americans who want a return to normal after the swine flue or to get across the pain of rising prices in a 40-year-high inflation explosion that his White House once branded “transitory.”

Trump is an unparalleled escape artist, and his continued sway with primary voters will hold some Republican politicians in place. They may keep cooperating with Biden as long as he insists that cooperation is treason. The fear of Trump must now be taken into account in order for more Republicans to work with Biden on some issues. While I’m not betting on it, that would be a blessing for the country.

A GOP majority would contain scores of candidates in Trump’s extreme image and would be weaponized to damage the president as much as possible ahead of a potential rematch with Trump in 2024. After four years of Trump appointing conservative judges, a Republican Senate would make it difficult to balance out the judiciary.

The End of the Midterm Campaign: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly: What Did We Learn about the American Economy and How Did We Fix It?

A nation that is tired of crises and economic uncertainty will vote on Tuesday, an election that is more likely to cement its divides than promote unity.

The country is often set on a fresh path when people freely choose their leaders in elections.

Above all, the midterm campaign turned on the cost of living crisis, with polls showing the economy by far the most important issue for voters, who are still waiting for the restoration of normality after a once-in-a-century pandemic that Biden had promised in 2020.

A gusher of news on job losses just before polls opened, including in the tech industry, worsened jitters about a slowdown that could destroy one of the bright spots of the Biden economy – historically low unemployment. The Federal Reserve’s rate hikes will make it harder for Americans to take on debt and cause a recession if they don’t deal with them.

The economic situation threatens to set up a classic midterm election rebuke for a first-term president – and in some ways, this would be a sign that democracy is working. Elections have for generations been a safety valve for the public to express dissent with the country’s direction.

While that continuum is the essence of democracy, the run-up to these midterms has also highlighted the depth of the nation’s self-estrangement in a political era in which both sides seem to think victory for the other is tantamount to losing their country.

Tuesday looks set to be a tough day for Biden. The president did not spend the final hours of the campaign battling to get vulnerable Democrats over the line in a critical swing state. Instead, he was in the liberal bastion of Maryland – a safe haven where his low approval ratings likely won’t hurt Democrats running for office. He was stumping for John Fetterman over the weekend, but the venue of his final event underscored his drained political juice as he contemplated a reelection campaign.

As I have throughout my career, I will continue to work with the other side to make a difference for the American people. “It’s not easy, but we did it first term,” Biden said at his post-midterm election news conference. I am willing to work with my Republican colleagues. The Americans have made sure that they expect Republicans to be willing to work with me as well.

Trump made it all about himself even though he claimed he didn’t want to overshadow Republican candidates. At a rally ostensibly for GOP Senate nominee J.D. Vance in Ohio, Trump unleashed a dystopian, self-indulgent dirge of a speech laced with demagoguery, exaggerated claims that America was in terminal decline, and outright falsehoods about the 2020 election. And he laid the groundwork to proclaim he is the victim of totalitarian state-style persecution if he is indicted in several criminal probes into his conduct.

Trump also vowed to make “a very big announcement” at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on November 15, which appears to be the worst kept secret in politics – that he will seek another term in the White House. The fact that a twice-impeached president, who left office in disgrace after legitimizing violence as a form of political expression, has a good chance of winning underscores the turbulence of our time.

The shadow of violence that has hung over American policies since Trump inciting the Capitol insurrection was heightened as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recalled a moment of trauma when she was told her husband had been attacked with a hammer. She criticized certain Republicans in an interview with Anderson Cooper.

The only party that does not think the election will go well is laughing at any violence that happens. That has to stop,” Pelosi said.

McCarthy told CNN that impeachment will not be used for political purposes. “That doesn’t mean if something rises to the occasion, it would not be used at any other time.”

If the Republicans take the Senate in a close election, Ron Johnson says he would use the power he was given to create a subcommittee on investigations.

The First Midterm Results of the US Senate and the House: The Case for Two Presidents who Won’t Win: B.D. Clinton and B.R. Obama

There’s something magical about democratic elections, when differences are exposed in debates and fierce campaigns. There has been a expectation that both sides would abide by the verdict of the people.

Democrats will continue to control the agenda on the Senate floor and in committees, which is no small thing — particularly if Republicans take the House.

Midterms are supposed to be the time for the opposition party to shine. That should also happen when the vast majority of Americans think the country is on the wrong track and when once in a generation inflation has been occurring.

The Democrats lost at least 51 House seats, five Senate seats and five governorships in the first midterm under two presidents with the same approval ratings: Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

What happened? It’s pretty clear that general election voters punished Republican candidates they saw as too extreme – on issues such as abortion and/or for being too closely tied to former President Donald Trump.

The election results were out of the ordinary. I went back and read the record books again. The president’s party has gained or lost Senate seats in 3 previous instances, while losing at least 10 House seats in the first midterm.

Democrats have had a good year this year, and they have moved down to the state level. We already know that this will be the first time since 1934 that the president’s party had a net gain of governorships. (1986 is the only other post-1934 midterm, regardless of when it fell in a presidency, when the president’s party had a net gain of governorships, though Ronald Reagan’s GOP had massive losses in the Senate that year.)

Franklin Roosevelt was popular in 1934 because he won two landslide victories on either side of the election.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the GOP didn’t do well in the election given that most voters think Biden was elected.

We see this in gubernatorial elections, as well. Republicans nominated 2020 election deniers for governor in a number of blue or swing states. None of them have a chance of winning, and only the Republican would have a chance of winning.

There are two presidents in the eye of the beholder; the current one and the former one. Both men sported negative net favorable ratings, per the exit polls.

The fact that you have a current president and a former president who are both unpopular isn’t unusual. Both Obama and George W. Bush were unpopular before the 2010 midterm.

40% of the people who viewed neither Biden nor Trump in the exit polls voted for Democrats, which is unusual. This may have been the reason for the backlash against the other president.

The reasons for the difference between 2010 and 2022 are obvious. I had pointed out before the election that Trump was getting more Google search traffic than Biden (i.e. the former president was in the minds of voters). Bush wasn’t receiving anywhere near the search traffic as Obama in 2010, though.

What Makes Midterm Elections Unique: The Case for Appropriate Voting on the Axe Files: Joe Biden in 2012, after Roe v. Wade

Arguably, what truly made this midterm unique was abortion. Only one third of voters in an exit poll said it was the most important issue to vote on. Some voters were just as likely to say abortion as they were to say Democratic candidates for Congress.

This matches the dynamic we saw in the special House elections following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June. Democrats started doing considerably better than before the Supreme Court ruling.

And while Republicans somewhat recovered their standing in national House polls in the closing weeks of the campaign, they never made it back to where they were during the spring.

The author is a senior CNN commentator and host of the show “The Axe Files.” he was a senior adviser to President Barack Obama in the 2008 and 2012 campaigns. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. Look at more opinions on CNN.

That politician was Joe Biden, who whispered that salty line (in fuller form) to then-President Barack Obama a dozen years ago at the signing of the Affordable Care Act, only to have it captured on a hot mic.

Biden would be forgiven if he had shouted it again from the rooftops of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he’s attending an Asian summit, when he learned that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto was projected to win reelection in the Silver State, guaranteeing Democrats’ continued control of the US Senate.

It was the latest turn in an astonishing midterm election week during which Democrats defied history and a raft of downbeat metrics to score unexpected victories across the country.

The Senate Republicans were confident going into Election Day that they would break the deadlock that gave Democrats control of the Senate because of Vice President Harris’ tiebreaking vote. If Herschel Walker and the Democrats win the Georgia race, Harris may not have to vote for them.

Even if a Republican House blocks any of the Biden initiatives, the Senate still has the power to confirm key executive appointments and judicial nominations.

Anyone who doubts this should consider how GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell and the Republican majority blocked Merrick Garland, Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, for eight months in 2016, denying Garland a hearing, much less a vote. In weeks before the 2020 election, McConnell and the same majority pushed through Trump’s nomination of Amy ConeyBarrett.

Barrett and the two other conservative justices Trump named have profoundly reshaped the high court and opened the door to radical decisions such as the ruling that upended abortion rights, a half-century after the Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed them. (Ironically, the court decision overturning Roe caused a backlash that may have had much to do with Democratic victories in Nevada and elsewhere this year.)

The 1945 British Prime Minister’s Referendum on the Future of America: The Case of Winston Churchill and the Post-Prime Minister, Mehmet Oz

According to reports, after losing his majority in the 1945 parliamentary elections in Britain, Prime MinisterWinston Churchill was promised by his wife that he would be ok.

Republicans were saddled with a series of losing candidates, chosen for their fealty to Trump and the election denial canard, instead of a wider appeal because ofTrump’s intervention. Democrat John Fetterman captured an open Senate seat in Pennsylvania the Republicans now hold partly because of the weakness of his carpetbagging, Trump-anointed opponent, Mehmet Oz. And that was just one of many examples.

The typical referendum on the ruling party and President became ajudgment of the opposition and its leader, Trump. It was a repudiation of election denialism, extremism and coarseness.

That verdict was not lost on some Republican politicians who, out of fear and opportunism, have stuck with Trump despite knowing better. Watching their quick post-primary exodus from his camp, led by Rupert Murdoch and his right-wing media empire, has been something to behold. For them, trespasses against democracy and decency may be tolerated, but losing cannot.

While Biden was abroad, he was meeting with peers from all around the world and was going to have a sidebar meeting with China’s president.

The President might have been hobbled going into these discussions by a thumping in the midterms. It would have intensified growing doubts among our allies and adversaries about the durability of American democracy and about Biden’s political viability.

The people had their say, thumbed their nose at the purveyors of conventional wisdom and dealt a blow to Trump and extremists and election-denying Republicans.

McCarthy might have a Speakership if he does it but it might be a weak one because there is a question of whether his words reflect his diminished authority, and if they do it with more currency.

But it also reflected Greene’s growing personal power, after she broke with some radical GOP members and lined up to support McCarthy’s speakership. After coming to Congress as a fringe figure, and quickly losing her committee assignments over her past retweets of violent rhetoric against Democrats, Greene now promises to be one of the most prominent faces of the new GOP majority. Her position is strengthened by the fact that she has the freedom to make offensive and insurrectionist comments without fear of being reprimanded by her party’s leader. It also demonstrates that his influence over his followers in the House is strong, even after a lackluster campaign launch by Trump.

McCarthy has taken some of the combative defiance of the “Make America Great Again” movement and has sought out soundbite clashes with the press as badges of honor.

Why is the year-end tussle over whether to fund the government? The case of Joe Biden, Donald Trump and the Future of the White House

This is one reason why the current year-end tussle over whether to fund the government for a full year – a bipartisan framework agreement for which was announced Tuesday night – or for just a few months is so critical since it could dump a fiscal crisis on the lap of a weak and easily manipulated new speaker next month.

McCarthy shrugged them off when asked about her comments, saying that she thought she was being facetious. His attitude was not a surprise; it was consistent with his attempts to rewrite the history of the worst attack on US democracy in modern times, for which he briefly said Trump bore responsibility.

The same dynamic was at play when McCarthy declined to directly criticize the ex-president for meeting with white supremacist Nick Fuentes at a dinner also featuring Kanye West, the rapper now known as Ye, who has recently made a string of antisemitic remarks. In a histrionic performance at the White House after meeting Biden and other congressional leaders last month, the House Republican leader falsely claimed that Trump had condemned Fuentes four times, when he hadn’t done so once.

Still, given that Democrats should be able to pass a broader funding deal in the final days of their majority, McCarthy’s opposition could win him points with no long-term consequence – a potentially useful political situation. This became more likely after the framework agreement for an omnibus appropriations bill was announced by Senate Republicans and Democrats.

The split raises the possibility of future tensions between Republicans in the House and McConnell, which is why conservative media has taken up McCarthy’s line.

One thing the California Republican does have going for his dreams of the top job is the fact that there so far is not a strong alternative to his candidacy. The former head of the Freedom Caucus has launched a long-shot bid.

Even as President Joe Biden and ex-President Donald Trump move toward a rerun of the most turbulent White House race in modern history, many voters are pining for a break from the past – and the present.

Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents would like someone else besides Biden to be their party’s candidate in the years to come. Just 35% said they wanted it to be Biden, but there isn’t a clamoring for anyone else in particular to run either.

Whether voters want it or not, the race is on. It is important to have a good picture of the contender’s strengths early on in the money chase. Trump is already a declared candidate, although he could use a relaunch after a tepid start, and Biden is giving every sign he plans on running, suggesting he’ll let the country know for sure early in the new year.

Still, any president is deeply vulnerable to unexpected outside events that could splinter his approval ratings and chances of reelection. The age issue will be a constant for the oldest president in US history. Republicans will use any slackening of the campaign trail pace as proof that he is not fit for a second term. Biden appears to be healthy, but there is an increased risk of adverse events for people in their 80s.

But the president ends the year in better political shape than Trump, and appears to have stabilized his slump. In the summer, 25% of Democrat-aligned voters wanted him to be their nominee. The figure is 40% now. 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 moment of transition. Things will be crucial to Trumps prospects in the next few months. The failure of many of the ex-president’s hand-chosen candidates in the midterm elections prompted Republicans to say it’s time to move on.

And Trump’s dinner with extremists with a record of antisemitism like White supremacist Nick Fuentes and rapper Kanye West at Mar-a-Lago is bolstering their arguments that his general election viability is damaged beyond repair. The lackluster campaign that Donald Trump has been running seems to make it easy for him to portray criminal probes into his conduct as persecution.

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 the Republicans to do well in November will make it more likely that extremists will use a thinner majority to hurt Biden and help 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.

Seventy-four percent said Congress should compromise. But Americans have gotten more pessimistic that their leaders will try to reach across the aisle. Just 23% of people said they had no confidence that Congress would do so.

Many Americans say they are simply tired of the bickering, name-calling and faux outrage that have become all-too-common among members on either side of the aisle in Congress.

Jeff Daye is a Republican and he said you can’t have two people talking about each other in the same room and not get anything done. “They remind me of a bunch of children.”

“You have to understand where everybody is coming from,” said Boushelle, who said she considered herself a Republican and voted that way up until the 2016 election, but hasn’t since former President Trump ran. You are a product of your environment. You have to meet them where they are. Otherwise, you just alienate them, and its a hard division, as opposed to trying to reach some and trying to bring them back.”

What voted against President Biden and the GOP during the 2016 midterms: Why the U.S. had no confidence whatsoever in its presidential campaign

“I believe he’s doing a good job,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do about his hair or his quickness, but when you’re older, we make better decisions, more informed decisions.”

The other two named candidates polled saw less than half of that support with 17% saying they preferred the Democratic nominee to be Vice President Kamala Harris and 16% saying Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation secretary. More than a quarter of people said they are looking for someone else.

Of course, when Republicans and Democrats say they want preserving democracy to be a priority, they don’t always mean the same thing. Some Republicans are focused on baseless claims of voter fraud pushed by the former president.

The Democrats are more focused on the illegitimate attempts to try and overturn the presidential election in 2020 than on the current attempts to cause doubts about US elections.

Eighty-three percent — and there were similar numbers across the political spectrum — believed that there is a serious threat to democracy. That’s the highest recorded in the poll, even after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.

The positive views are — not surprisingly — driven by Democrats, 48% of whom said they think this Congress has accomplished more than recent Congresses. Despite a 50% Senate, it is still productive with a string of legislative victories for President Biden and his party.

White evangelical Christians, far and away, viewed the GOP most favorably of the demographic subgroups. Members of the Silent/Greatest generation, whites without a college degree, and people who live in small towns and rural areas are most likely to have favorable views of the Republican Party.

Alarmingly for Democrats, only 41% of GenZ/Millennials had a favorable opinion of the party despite being the generation that voted for Democrats in the midterms by the widest margin. Almost one-in-5 GenZ/Millennials said they were not sure.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/15/1142751143/poll-americans-want-compromise-but-have-no-confidence-congress-will-work-togethe

The White House’s legislative affairs team: What motivates Biden and how they’re going to solve the problems that America has in Commons

7-in-10 think it’s not a good time to buy a large item like a car or household appliance as the economy is unstable.

The White House is going to have a harder time getting legislation passed next year because Republicans may create four seats in the House.

Officials acknowledged the sweeping legislative wins of President Joe Biden’s first two years, several of which were clinched with bipartisan support and significant work with a small number of Senate Republicans, will be near impossible to replicate given the control and ideological makeup of the Republican-led House.

The basic tasks of a functioning government will become high-stakes standoffs. Spending battles will shift from arduous tight-rope walks to outright warfare. And the looming debt ceiling deadline next year and the potential for catastrophic debt default drew enough concern from White House officials that they weighed a push to address it in the current Congress to take it off the table entirely.

The official did not say whether Biden would engage directly with Republicans, but noted that he has a track record of engaging with Republicans when he’s been in office.

The preparations for the months to come are still in the early stages. The central focus remains on closing out the final days of unified power in Washington, DC, by securing the passage of the annual defense policy bill and a sweeping bipartisan spending agreement that includes significant new funding to assist Ukraine’s war effort, as well as a bipartisan measure to close loopholes in the Electoral Count Act that brought the country to the brink on January 6, 2021.

McCarthy told reporters he could work with anyone and the new Republican majority meant America like a check and balance.

But the continued uncertainty across Washington about McCarthy’s pathway to the speakership has tacitly created another reason for what serves as somewhat of a wait-and-see posture in terms of engaging House Republicans.

Still, behind the scenes and driven by Biden’s mantra that all politics is personal, the White House’s legislative affairs team has begun doing deep dives on newly elected Republican lawmakers, compiling comprehensive profiles of their districts and the issues at the heart of their winning campaigns, according to a senior White House official. The White House’s goal: to better understand those lawmakers and what makes them tick as they seek out pressure points and areas of potential compromise.

After two years of seeking out ways to connect Biden, a 36-year Senate veteran with a keen awareness of the importance of even the smallest of priorities back home for elected officials, to rank-and-file members from both parties, the effort will to some degree track and expand on what officials leaned on in their first two years.

But as officials confront a landscape that has closed the door on the Democrat-only legislative pathway that led to two of Biden’s most consequential legislative wins – the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and his cornerstone $700 billion economic and climate law – those efforts take on a new level of salience.

“The option is get absolutely nothing done or find a way to make this work,” a House Democrat told CNN. Separating the inevitable and at times crazy partisan warfare from the areas we can get stuff done isn’t easy, but I can’t see two years of nothing appeal to someone like Biden.

Outreach from the White House to the newly elected members is sure to follow the preparation currently under way. A White House official said that each of the legislative affairs team members is charged with coordinating with a list of individual members and one committee.

“We’re content to let them shoot at one another at the moment,” a senior administration official said. “We have a record and, driven by the president, very clear way in which we approach the importance of these relationships. That will certainly be reflected in the next Congress.”

The incoming lawmakers from New York, four of whom are Republicans, are seen by Democrats as the top targets of their effort to take the House back in 2024, and the White House expects the new lawmakers to be under more pressure to get bipartisan deals than other Republicans.

A pair of incoming New York Republicans, Reps.-elect Anthony D’Esposito and Michael Lawler, both believe that they have an opportunity to work with the White House to pass legislation.

“We have been, you know, sort of named majority makers here in New York,” D’Esposito told CNN. If we want to keep that majority, and if we want to keep the seats that we flipped, then we have to work in a bipartisan way to deliver.

“When you have a small majority, everybody is empowered to a degree,” said Lawler, who defeated House Democrats’ campaign chief in suburban New York. “The objective should be to make sure that we are working as a conference to pass legislation that the conference can get behind and that has the best chance of passing the Senate and being signed by the White House.”

“I get the Trump focus and I get the Freedom Caucus focus,” one House Republican told CNN of the former president and the hard right group of House Republicans who hold significant sway inside the conference. “But we go nowhere without our freshmen – and while I’m not sure they’ll use it, that creates very real leverage.”

The stark reality for White House officials is despite a fractured incoming majority, which to this point still doesn’t include a member with enough support to lock up the speakership, there are major limitations on legislative efforts ahead in the House.

A senior White House official declined to say if the White House would try to strike bipartisan agreements with Republicans or if they would peel off moderate Republicans through the use of discharge petitions.