How does Donald J. Biden Rank in the First Two-Term Terms of His Presidency? The Case of the Double Negative Election

The dynamics in each party are slightly different – Democrats are restive but appear to lack anyone in the wings capable of mounting a compelling primary challenge. A new Associated Press-NORC poll found the share of Democrats who want Biden to seek a second term had fallen from 52% last year to 37% now (the poll was fielded before the State of the Union.) A quarter of younger Democrats would like to see Biden run again.

The odds of the Senate not being retained look better than they were earlier in the year, and there are some pundits who think that Democrats may be able to regain control of the House.

But in the 2018 exit polls, no Republican Senate candidate ultimately won more than 8% of voters who disapproved of Trump, and many of them captured only 4-5%. That history raises the question of whether Democratic Senate candidates can sustain the elevated levels of support polls now record for them among voters who disapprove of Biden. They also face the very real risk that even if they can run unusually well among Biden disapprovers, it might still not be enough to survive if there are simply too many of those disapproving voters in the final electorate.

Where does he rank at this point in his presidency? We can see where Biden’s predecessors were in the final stretch before the election using Gallup’s presidential job approval center.

Both parties were surprised by the outcome. Since World War II, the party of the president has typically performed poorly in the first midterm of an administration, with an average loss of 26 seats in the House and four seats in the Senate. Under former President Donald Trump, Republicans lost 40 seats in the House in 2018. In 2010 and 1994 Democrats lost the majority of their seats in the House.

This tension is an example of how the double negative election is affecting voter’s minds. Its impact is evident in the contrasting ad strategies of the two sides. While Republicans have spent heavily tying Democratic candidates to Biden, particularly around inflation, crime and the border, Democrats have devoted much of their messaging to raising doubts about their Republican rivals, particularly on abortion and in many cases their personal ethics. Republicans are working to nationalize the Senate races, while Democrats are trying to localize and personalize them.

Moreover, defending reproductive rights and democracy were a not-so-subtle reminder to voters about the threat that a radicalized Republican Party posed to the nation. Biden, by focusing on these issues, found a way to make the midterms about something other than himself. In his zeal to draw attention to himself, Trump did a thing that backfired.

In a strategy memo to be released this week and shared with CNN, the Way to Win group argues that Democrats should rebut the Republican attacks by painting the broader GOP agenda as an extension of the assault on individual freedom and autonomy evident in the drive to restrict abortion. Democrats need to use the salience of abortion being overturned to point out that Republicans have no plan to lower prices but have a plan to end Social Security and raise taxes on millions of lower income people.

The push and pull between competing priorities have been displayed over the past week in the first flurry of general election Senate debates. During last week’s televised Arizona encounter, for instance, Republican challenger Blake Masters came out of the gate very strong and kept Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly on the defensive by relentlessly linking him to Biden while the conversation initially focused on inflation and border security. Kelly regained the initiative as the discussion turned toward abortion and election integrity, but Masters struggled to explain his support for a near total ban on abortion during the GOP primary and his embrace of false claims of fraud in 2020.

The 2018 precedent testifies both to the opportunity that doubts about individual GOP Senate nominees create for Democrats – and also to its limits. In the exit polls, a majority of voters held negative feelings for their Republican opponent, one of the reasons Manchin and Tester were able to survive. Exit polls did not measure personal favorability of the candidates in Ohio and Arizona that year, but pre-election polls also showed the GOP nominees in those states facing broadly negative assessments as well.

According to detailed results provided by Marist, voters who focused primarily on inflation gave Republicans about two-thirds of their votes for Congress, as did almost three-fifths of those who prioritized immigration. Democrats attracted a large proportion of people who were interested in abortion or health care, and those who focused on preserving democracy.

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. Since June, as CNN recently reported, Democratic candidates have spent over $130 million on abortion-themed ads, vastly more than Republicans.

Implications of Biden’s Economic Legacy and Legislating Experiences for Jobs, Infrastructure, and Higher Degrees in the Manufacturing Sector

In the long run, the most important of these may be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the trio of central Biden legislative accomplishments – the bills to rebuild infrastructure, promote semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy – will produce a boom in US employment, particularly in manufacturing jobs that don’t require a college degree.

Some Democrats are trying to spread the word about the plant openings in the future, such as Michigan’s Gov. Tim Ryan and Arizona Sen. Kelly.

Democrats stress the legislation they passed that gives families relief on certain costs, in particular the provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act which allows Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Democratic pollster Geoff Garin says that highlighting such specific initiatives can allow individual candidates to overcome the negative overall judgment on Biden’s economic management. His main worry is that too many Democrats are focused on abortion and not on the economy.

Democrats are trying to build a sea wall against the currents of economic discontent by using the coming manufacturing boom and cost-saving provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act. The final weeks of the campaign will measure whether the current crosses a level of the party’s defenses.

Compared with January, there’s been a steeper increase in support for nominating someone other than Biden among Democratic-aligned voters of color (from 43% to 53%) than among White voters (from 57% to 63%) and among independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (from 60% to 77%) than self-identified Democrats (from 48% to 53%). While older voters would prefer to see someone else at the top of the ticket than younger voters are less inclined to back a Biden-led ticket.

College was a particularly strong dividing line. Democrats held a 13-point advantage among those with a bachelor’s degree. Among those without one, Republicans held a 15-point edge.

During the Trump presidency, the winning Democratic coalition relied on a large gender gap and on winning women by large margins in order to take over the House and Senate.

The results of the poll showed that Republicans had erased an 11 point advantage for Democrats among women last month in congressional races to a draw in October.

Less Republicans now believe that Trump is the best candidate to win the election. They are less likely to say they like him. His favorable rating among Republicans in a Quinnipiac University poll in October 2021 stood at 86%. The same poll this month had Trump’s favorable rating at 71% among Republicans.

After defeating a slate of younger and more exciting candidates in the Democratic primaries, Biden went on to defeat Donald Trump. This was not a trivial accomplishment. The majority of presidents have won reelection. Despite Trump increasing his votes and gaining more support, he was unable to keep Biden from winning, despite the fact he was able to promise to return government to normal, based on science and protecting American values.

The mood of the nation is not good. 64 percent of likely voters think that the country is moving in the wrong direction, compared with just 24 percent who think that the nation is on the right track. Even the share of Democratic likely voters who believe the nation is headed in the right direction fell by six percentage points since September, though it is above the low point of the summer.

A 48 year old insurance salesman from Indianapolis said, “Everyone is hurting right now.” It is going to collapse because of inflation, interest rates, the cost of gas, food, and property taxes.

The Times/Siena Survey: An Ambivalent View of Biden, Kelly and the Establishment of a New Republican Presidential Candidate

The Times/Siena survey of 792 likely voters nationwide was conducted by telephone. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. Methodologies and cross-tabs can be found here.

Control of the US Senate will be decided next week in cross-pressured states where most voters disapprove of President Joe Biden’s performance but also express unfavorable views about their state’s Republican Senate nominee.

Mike Noble, an independent pollster in Phoenix, sees more opportunity for Democrats to separate from the president, at least in Arizona. A clear majority of likely voters in Arizona expressed a negative view of Biden and Kelly narrowly leads Masters, according to a poll released by OH Predictive Insights. One reason for Kelly’s lead, Noble said, is that the poll found almost one-fifth of voters who were unfavorable toward Biden also expressed negative views about Masters. Those ambivalent voters, Noble said, were backing Kelly over Masters by more than eight-to-one.

The highest inflation of the past 40 years has dashed the hopes of the Democrats that Bidens approval rating would rise through Election Day, lifting their candidates in the process.

The problem for Democrats is that even though they have gotten things better in the eyes of the public, they do not think that will help them in the future. “If inflation had come down from where it has been, they would be in better shape. You can’t tell people things are going better if they know that it’s not.

“Over the past twenty or thirty years, what we’ve seen is a growing nationalization of these congressional races where there is a closer connection between opinions about national issues and national political leaders and how people vote in these House and Senate elections,” says Abramowitz. “It used to be easier for incumbents to run pretty far ahead of a president from their own party’s approval rating based on their reputation in their state or district, their constituency service, name recognition, things that you gain from being an incumbent. Over time that value has gone down.

Democrats did extremely well in states such as Michigan and Pennsylvania. The election deniers ran for secretary of state and governor but didn’t win. Even in states where Democrats were walloped, such as in New York, there were bright spots, including Gov. Kathy Hochul’s victory over the Trump-endorsed Republican Lee Zeldin.

J.B. Poersch, president of Senate Majority PAC, the leading Democratic super PAC, argues that personal contrasts largely explain that unusually high Democratic support among voters dissatisfied with Biden. According to Poersch, candidate quality has a lot to do with the outcome in Senate races. The Democrats have a history of delivering for their states and demonstrated ability to create their own environment, while the Republicans have extremists who are out of step.

Ulm acknowledges that weak personal images may ruin some GOP Senate (and governor) nominees. He thinks the only hope is for it to save them against the weakest candidates. He predicts that Republican candidates will win if they discontent with Biden and want a change of direction and are viewed unfavorably by more voters.

Such exceptions have become rare in modern US politics. Because Biden’s standing is so weak in so many places, to hold the Senate, Democrats will almost certainly need a lot more of them.

What Did President Biden Win in the 2020 Midterm Elections? A Realistic View of Biden, His Legacy, and How He He Stole It

Editor’s Note: Julian Zelizer, a CNN political analyst, is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author and editor of a number of books. You can follow him on social media. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. There is a lot of opinion on CNN.

Yet the red wave so many anticipated didn’t happen. Even if Republicans get control of one or both chambers, their majority will be very narrow. It’s safe to say Democrats will not face the “shellacking” they experienced in 2010.

The midterms mark the culmination of two difficult years, during which Biden has repeatedly defied expectations. Many party members thought Biden was impossible at each stage of his tenure.

It was not an easy time for Biden when he entered the White House. Covid continued to wreak havoc on the country and the economy. Despite a 50-50 split in the Senate and Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema pitting themselves against the administration at various points, Biden was still able to move a formidable legislative agenda through Congress, overcoming fierce Republican opposition and even winning a few GOP votes along the way. The American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act stand up as a historic trifecta – a legislative track record arguably more significant than any that we have seen since President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. The number of federal judges appointed by August by Biden was more than any US president since John F. Kennedy, according to the research center. Biden has also used his executive power to make progress on issues like fighting climate change, bolstering the US’ economic competitiveness, and forgiving student debt.

Then came the 2022 midterms. Although Republicans will likely gain control of at least one chamber of Congress, if not both by narrow margins, the GOP will be frustrated. By throwing his support behind various candidates, Trump was able to make the upcoming election a referendum on him instead of on the sitting president. Many of his hand-selected candidates, such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, lost.

Trump’s appeal seems to be fading. Voters abandoned his brand in consecutive national elections due to his fatigue, as a result of a disastrous midterm election for many of his candidates in swing states. The most challenging test for Trump is the twin special counsel probes. Some Republicans are looking somewhere else. 45% of Republicans have an alternative to think about when asked who they would prefer, according to the CNN poll. There were nearly 4% of them who picked Florida Gov Ron. DeSantis, who is untested on a national stage but already looms as a big threat to the former president.

There are surveys that show a majority of Democrats do not want another person besides Biden to be their nominee.

But “watch me” alone isn’t going to assuage voters’ doubts, which primarily center on Biden’s age. After all, after spending nearly two years watching Biden in office, two-thirds of voters don’t think he should run again. So there’s that.

If Biden faces Trump, the question of his age is not as important. But the current commander in chief might be vulnerable to a youthful Republican challenger like DeSantis, for instance, who is in his 40s.

Doubts about Biden and his ability to serve a second term are a persistent problem, not a one-off from the exit polling. Biden has to figure out how to address this one, beyond just telling voters to watch him.

There’s little appetite for a 2020 rematch in the coming presidential election, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, as majorities of registered voters within each party say they’d rather see someone new nominated in 2024.

Among those who want someone other than Trump to be the nominee, 47% have a specific alternate candidate in mind, including 38% who singled out Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. No other potential nominee was named in greater than 1%. The survey also finds DeSantis’ favorability among Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters overall outpacing the former president’s ratings: 74% view DeSantis favorably and 7% unfavorably, while 63% have a favorable view of Trump and 28% an unfavorable one.

About half of Republican-aligned voters say that Trump has had a good effect on the Republican Party, down from 70% who said that in March. A third (33%) say he’s had a bad effect, and 15% that he hasn’t made much difference.

What Do Electoral Candidates Want to Know About Political Aspects of the 2020 White House Race? An Analysis from a Large Sample of CNN Polls

There are no similarly prominent rivals to Biden: according to a CNN poll in December, only 72% of Democratic-aligned voters wanted the party to choose someone other than Biden.

This CNN Poll was conducted by SSRS on December 1 through 7 among a random national sample of 1,208 adults drawn from a probability-based panel. Surveys were either conducted online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points; it is larger for subgroups.

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.

Of course, it’s early. The lessons of the 2022, midterms are still fresh, even though polls and predictions months ahead of time often aren’t worth much.

The vague idea of someone else isn’t an eligible challenger for the presidency, but many Republicans and Democrats prefer to see someone else nominated. And when it comes to specific, viable rivals, Trump and Biden currently face very different situations.

There is a chance Republican politics may be at a time of transition. 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.

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 of Donald Trump seems to make it more 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. Paradoxically, the failure of Republicans to do better in November means that a thinner majority will be easier for extremists to manipulate as they seek to turn Republican control of half of the Capitol into a weapon to damage Biden and help Trump in 2024.

Another campaign will test whether there’s been any erosion in Trump’s base. But even if his mythical connection to those voters might not be enough to win him the presidency, it could still carry him to his third straight nomination. Republican lawmakers were unwilling to repudiate Trump for his recent call to end the Constitution in part due to the influence of the ex-president’s supporters at home. Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House Republican party, has found ways to not condemn Trump in spite of his associations with extremists.

Still, any president is deeply vulnerable to unexpected outside events that could splinter his approval ratings and chances of reelection. And the oldest president in US history will have to confront the age issue every day. Republicans will seize on any slackening of the campaign trail pace, or even a cold, as proof that he is unsuited for a second term. And while Biden appears healthy, the chances of an adverse event increase for people in their 80s.

Much of the conversation in the leadup to the midterms revolved around how Republicans were clamoring for former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, while Democrats wanted President Joe Biden to stay away. Over a month after the election, the picture looks very different.

Instead, the opposite has happened. Major potential foes such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom have said explicitly that they will not run against Biden. Almost every power player in the Democratic Party has said they will back Biden, if he decides to run again.

The same can not be said for Trump. He declared his candidacy for the presidency last month, but only one senator has endorsed him for a second term. Potential Republican challengers are not bowing out of the 2024 primary.

Trump’s poll numbers look weak, which is a big reason for this. I am talking about his polling against other Republicans. I’m talking about how Republican voters see him.

According to polls, the findings may understate Trump’s weakness. There isn’t a single poll of a two-way matchup between Trump and DeSantis (that meets CNN’s standards for publication) that has Trump ahead. Marquette University Law School’s poll had Trump down 20 points to the Florida governor a few weeks ago.

This indicates that Trump’s biggest strength at this point among Republicans is name recognition – something other Republicans will get a lot more of as the primary season heats up.

The State of the Union: Why Age Matters to the Future, Not to the Age of the Modern-Day War and the Rise and Fall of the Cold War

Editor’s Note: Patrick T. Brown is a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative think tank and advocacy group based in Washington, DC. He was a policy adviser to the Joint Economic Committee. Follow him on social media. His views are not shared in this piece. On CNN, you can view more opinions.

The 1918 influenza outbreak left millions dead in its wake and impacted daily life in ways similar to our own recent coronavirus pandemic. But in popular culture, it vanished largely without a trace nearly as soon it was over. Americans were ready to turn the page on war and pestilence and let loose in the roaring ’20s.

One senses a similar dynamic today. With the pandemic almost officially behind us, January 6 a fading memory and the economy beginning to return to normal, many Americans appear ready for a politics that focuses on new challenges rather than rehashing old battles over mask mandates and election integrity.

The vision presented in the State of the Union speech by President Joe Biden was that of a future that is spurring innovation and rebuilding America’s supply chain. No amount of rhetoric could disguise the fact that our political system is about to give up on what people want and go in a different direction.

Republicans who want to take the battle to “woke” institutions and push back against the left’s excesses know that the DeSantis model can produce results at the state level.

The path to the nomination is uncertain for potential challengers, and they also offer a different set of priorities. And many party operatives will admit that a Trump campaign that looks backward – at the indignities of the pandemic or his false claims about the 2020 election – will risk coming across as detached from the challenges facing working-class Americans.

An explicit age-based argument can backfire if a younger candidate tries to push a more experienced candidate aside. The way that attack lines focus on an older candidates memory or hearing does not play well and it was learned by the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Julin Castro. Any politician trying to campaign against a more senior opponent would have to be careful about not sounding dismissive toward older Americans’ ability to contribute – after all, senior citizens are reliable voters.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/09/opinions/biden-trump-america-deserves-more-brown/index.html

The Landscape of the 21st Century: Viewing Donald Trump and Robert Biden through the Lens of a Politically Embolded Generation

In fact, most Americans only know about the creation of NATO, the People’s Republic of China, and the state of Israel, but the incumbent President and his predecessor were alive for many other historic events, like the first color TV broadcast and the state of Israel.

Having witnessed the long sweep of history is a valuable perspective. But both the President and the former President should have the foresight to recognize the desire for a change is not ageism, but a recognition of the demands of the job and the need for new voices and ideas.

Both Trump and Biden fulfilled their stated primary objectives as President –Trump, to draw attention to the plight of the “forgotten men and women of our country” and to raise questions about the logic of globalization that turned a blind eye to the rise of China, and Biden, to seek a return to something closer to normalcy after the four chaotic years that preceded him.

But the latent dissatisfaction with either option suggests political rewards for the party willing to take the gamble on a younger nominee. The Democrats had a sole focus on picking the best candidate who could beat Trump. Perhaps Biden may still be the right man for the job. A debate stage with a younger, more energetic politician that was focused on issues of the moment would be stark contrast with one that was formed during the Cold War.

A generation passing the torch will allow a younger Democratic nominee to tap into the discontent over the Dobbs decision that affects abortion rights, or a Republican candidate to talk about the need to protect kids online.

That topic, though, is more complicated than it seems, reflecting voters’ complex attitudes toward the two men, which in both cases fall far short of either an enthusiastic endorsement or a definitive rejection.

The findings of the recent survey don’t show how the presidential primary landscape might evolve, or how public opinion might evolve in response. But taken together, they help to paint a fuller picture of where things stand now.