Please join me on 2WAY for a special live event with the singular Jessica Reed Kraus tonight at 6pm ET.
You can sign up and buy your ticket here.
This is a unique opportunity to meet Kraus in a relaxed 2WAY setting, and to get to know the members of her community, some of the most interesting and informative folks in our society right now.
You can read about the impact Kraus has had on the 2024 cycle already in profiles of her in the Wall Street Journal and Semafor.
If you want to understand what is actually happening in America today, I suggest you join us tonight.
To modify the Rosanne Cash line and apply it to Jessica and this 2WAY:
Girls say, "I can’t wait to hear what she’ll say."
The boys say, "God, that seems like a small price to pay."
See you this evening.
Mark
*****
Joe Biden’s candidacy needs a positive jolt. Where he gets it has become difficult to see.
-- Dan Henninger in his Wall Street Journal column, speaking simultaneously for both the Conventional Wisdom and the Gang of 500
Or, alternative universe/scenario: Is the prospect of a series of game-changing positive jolts for the incumbent sitting right before our eyes?
Look beyond the deep fakes, the cheap fakes, the fake outs, and the outtakes.
What if Donald Trump’s small-but-persistent lead dissolves in the space of a few months?
Leaving aside the narrative boost the beginning of such a shift would give Wilmington, taking the heat off from donors, electeds, columnists, and Nate Silver, a Biden polling switcheroo would suggest that “In Mike (Donilon) We Trust” is worthy of the full faith and credit of the Democratic Party.
Start with the new FOX News poll, which Concierge Coverage stalwart Liam Donovan called on X “easily the best polling news Biden has had in a 9 months.”
The write-up begins thusly:
President Biden is the frontrunner in a hypothetical matchup against former President Trump for the first time since October, as positive views of the economy inch up — hitting their highest level thus far in the Biden presidency, according to a new Fox News national survey.
Since May, there was a 3-point change in the presidential race. Trump was ahead by 1 point last month, while Biden is up by 2 points today: 50%-48%. That’s well within the margin of error.
In addition to the Biden-encouraging horserace numbers, check out the way-better-than-usual head-to-heads on key issues:
Attentive, regular readers will recall that I have seen Trump’s large-and-persistent leads on issues such as the economy and immigration as the main reason I have been quite bearish on Biden’s chances. Let’s see if other surveys start to show gaps along these much closer lines on the “who do you trust more” category of poll questions.
Of course, this is ONE national poll, and national polls don’t matter, and public and private battleground state polls still show Trump ahead, and Biden still has only one current path (MI, WI, PA, NE) to 270, and the recent Iowa Poll represented a deceased canary in the coal mine for the incumbent, and the four I’s (infirmity, inflation, immigration, and Israel) still bedevil Biden, and all the other elements persist that have made Trump the longstanding frontrunner, even in the (private) eyes of many Democrats, both grassroots and elite.
And, for example, there is this new story from the New York Times:
Almost every path to victory for President Biden relies on strong support from women. But his current standing among women is the weakest lead a Democrat has had since 2004, a key factor in how tight the race is.
Mr. Biden’s lead among women has slid to about eight percentage points since the 2020 election, according to an average of more than 30 polls conducted over the last six months and compiled by The New York Times. That’s down from a lead among women of about 13 percentage points four years ago.
And since the 2020 election, former President Donald J. Trump’s support among men has recovered and is back to the double-digit lead he had in 2016….
The surveys show that even as abortion and democracy are key issues for a small but meaningful segment of women, concerns about inflation continue to play a more central role in the race and to benefit Mr. Trump.
But/so: What if the wispy indications that Trump’s criminal conviction could be hurting him with the voters that matter in the states that matter were just the start of a comeback for the ages, with the following elements tumbling into Biden’s hands in succession between now and November (none of which are the least bit farfetched):
* The incumbent is his best rested and confident self in the debate, well prepped by Karen Dunn (and Ron Klain), goading Trump into huffily claiming the 2020 election was stolen, January 6 was a beautiful day, and the “patriots” convicted of crimes stemming from that attack are all deserving of pardons. Maybe Trump also again unhumbly brags about overturning Roe. And what if it is Trump who seems old and out of it?
* Judge Merchan gives Trump a stiff prison sentence, which turns out to be a bridge too far for the voters who will decide the election more decisively than it is a motivator for pro-Trumpers.
* The Supreme Court rules Trump has no presidential immunity (could happen today!), leading to Judge Chutkan and Jack Smith working in balletic synchronicity to get the DC criminal trial going in time to yield a conviction by Election Day (or, even, the start of early voting in the battleground states), a conviction that reinforces voter disgust with the prospect of a Trump return to the Oval Office.
* Trump’s VP selection blows up on the tarmac (something that could happen to literally anyone on the list), marring the convention beyond all recognition.
* The convention itself is surprisingly messy, with contretemps over Nikki Haley and various other party divides.
* The Democratic convention, on the other hand, is a Spielbergian triumph, with star turns by Michelle Obama, General Kelly, Biden grandkids, and myriad other legends, featuring boffo perfs by the nominees, and well controlled or minimal protests inside and outside the hall.
* Cornel West and Jill Stein completely crap out, and Bobby Kennedy, raising almost no money now, gets very limited ballot access and truly runs in only a handful of states, in which, because of his messaging, he hurts Trump more than Biden.
* Gaza resolves in a way that gives liberals a permission structure to vote for Biden.
* Massive, unprecedented amounts of progressive dark money, funding secret creative GOTV efforts of various stripes, hues, and dimensions, prove way more effective, teamed with superior campaign and state party ground games, than anything Chris LaCivita puts together on the fly.
* Despite Trump’s belated about-face and the RNC’s efforts, Mar-a-Lago is not able to change MAGA’s cultural belief that early voting and vote-by-mail are the handiwork of the devil – and the Democratic Party’s advantage on banking ballots before Election Day is insurmountably massive.
* Abortion rights proves to be an even greater motivator than currently understood or appreciated.
* The Ghost of Harry Reid, the Poltergeist of Kari Lake, and the prospect of Mark Robinson being this cycle’s Doug Mastriano power Biden to surprise wins in Nevada, Arizona, and North Carolina.
* Taylor Swift endorses Biden-Harris and goes all in, with voter registration drives, early-voting concerts, robocalls, and a battleground state fly around.
* Democratic Senate candidates in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania produce that most unicorny of political dynamics: reverse coattails.
* Women, young people, and Black and Hispanic voters in massive numbers in the end just can’t stomach the return of Donald Trump.
* Seniors, the most reliable voting group, give Biden a huge margin from their cohort.
* Double haters break hard for Biden.
* Suburban voters revolt against Trump over some dumb/random/Comey-like development at the very end.
* Vice President Harris gets her groove back, showing the panache and determination that created so much positive buzz during and in the immediate aftermath of her 2020 presidential announcement.
* Trump, having fallen behind and imprisoned, turns into a grievance monster, angry, sullen, distracted, and off message.
* Jill Biden outpaces Melania Trump on the campaign trail by a country mile.
Note that there is nothing on this list like, say, Joe Biden saves an orphan’s cat from a burning tree, or pulls plane crash victims out of the Potomac River, or repels a Martian invasion with his bare hands, or assassinates Putin with an ice bullet.
This is all real-world stuff that could happen.
Now for a mirror-image version of my regular caveat: I’m not predicting Biden will win or rooting for him.
Trump remains the prohibitive favorite and continues to hold the far better hand in this contest.
But we shouldn’t call the match over in (what would this be?) the 70th minute of regular time.
Not everything on the list above would have to happen for Biden to pull this out.
In the immortal words of the political strategist Jim Carrey: So you’re telling me there’s a chance?
To be continued….
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ESSENTIAL READING
* Potentially the biggest story on this earth, via the Wall Street Journal:
Russia’s military cooperation with Iran, North Korea and China has expanded into the sharing of sensitive technologies that could threaten the U.S. and its allies long after the Ukraine war ends, according to U.S. defense and intelligence officials.
The speed and depth of the expanding security ties involving the U.S. adversaries has at times surprised American intelligence analysts. Russia and the other nations have set aside historic frictions to collectively counter what they regard as a U.S.-dominated global system, they said.
In a sign of the closer military relations, Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un said Wednesday in Pyongyang that they had struck a deal to provide mutual aid if either country was attacked, describing the relationship as an alliance between the two authoritarian nations.
* Even as the Dominant Media continues to promote the notion that Joe Biden’s recent moves on immigration and the southern border are a potential masterstroke of policy and politics, Red media sustains its coverage of what tens of millions of Americans can see with their own eyes:
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