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In summary, both Joe Biden and Donald Trump basically say they are running for president in 2024.
If you were going just by polling, you would say that both men face serious headwinds from voters (both in their respective parties and overall) but/and that both men are the prohibitive favorites to be the major party nominees.
Since Trump is likely to announce his campaign sooner than the incumbent (the current CW being September, 2022 versus spring, 2023), and since some Biden associates say he is more likely to seek another term if Trump is running, we could see the Democrats and Republicans potentially picking their de facto nominees by summer of 2023.
Trump will not fully clear the field even if he announces, but Biden might – I would say more like “probably would.”
Don’t misread the polls suggesting Biden would of course beat Trump, with the incumbent well below 50%; the inclusion of lots of Californians in national surveys; the Republican advantage in the Electoral College making popular vote polls not fully meaningful; a potential Biden-Harris record (on the economy, immigration, and more) that could be a heavy burden for a ticket defending its 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue turf; and the various other vulnerabilities of the current president.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has a ceiling on his support that will never rise; legal peril that could impact his electability even more; the intense 1/6 hearings to come; and the fact that there are even more intense secret negotiations within the Republican Party’s establishment wing to eventually produce the right combination of intra-party challengers to deny Trump the nomination in a contested titanic battle.
All of this is playing out at both Technicolor lightning speed and, paradoxically, in painful black-and-white slow motion.
So, for instance, today, the Washington Post looks at Joe Biden’s record-setting, epic, decades-long consideration of White House runs and says
Biden may seek reelection in any case, people in his inner circle say, but if Trump runs, Biden is far more likely to do so. And if Trump holds off, it will be far easier for other Democrats to approach Biden about letting someone else take on a younger Republican nominee….
When it comes to opposing Trump, “he does feel like he’s the best option,” said Ted Kaufman, a longtime Biden adviser and confidant. “But the primary thing is, how will he feel if he doesn’t do it and if Trump gets elected president? … ‘This would be very, very bad for the country, and did I do all I could to stop this from happening?’”
The dynamic creates an odd codependency between the two septuagenarians. For Trump, a rematch would give him an opportunity to underline his false claims that he was the real winner in 2020. For Biden, it would be a chance to put an exclamation point on his unseating of Trump and show that his win was no fluke.
The latest polling to confirm the political infirmity of Team Biden comes from painful CNN data:
The summer of 2022 is a season of deepening and widespread discontent, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS. The survey finds the public's outlook on the state of the country the worst it's been since 2009, while its view on the economy is the worst since 2011. And nearly 7 in 10 say President Joe Biden hasn't paid enough attention to the nation's most pressing problems.
Biden's approval rating in the poll stands at 38%, with 62% disapproving. His approval ratings for handling the economy (30%) and inflation (25%) are notably lower. Rising costs are a primary economic pressure for most Americans: 75% call inflation and the cost of living the most important economic problem facing their family. Last summer, that figure stood at 43%.
With midterm elections approaching, the poll finds no indication that Biden's standing with the public is improving -- and among some critical constituencies, it is worsening….
While the public's attention has shifted sharply to inflation, few think the President's focus has followed. In the poll, 68% say Biden has not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems, up from 58% who said so last November. That outpaces the previous high in CNN polling saying a President's attention has been misplaced (59% saying Donald Trump hadn't paid attention to the most important problems in late summer 2017).
On this question too, Biden is losing ground among his core support groups. Among Democrats, 57% say he has the right priorities, down nearly 20 points from 75% last fall. Among people of color, just 35% say he has the right priorities, and among those younger than 35, only 23% say the President has the right focus….
The survey also suggests both the President's and vice president's personal favorability has taken a hit. A year and a half ago, just before their inauguration, 59% held a favorable opinion of Biden and 51% had a favorable view of Kamala Harris. Now, those figures stand at 36% and 32% respectively. Meanwhile, the public's view of first lady Jill Biden is mixed: 34% have a favorable opinion, 29% unfavorable and 37% are unsure how they feel about her.
Those are very unusual vice presidential numbers but I don’t recall ever seeing first lady data like that either.
On the current trajectory we could be headed for the third straight election in which the major party nominee matchups are of a now-familiar variety:
2016: The only Democrat who could have lost to Donald Trump was Hillary Clinton (but barely).
2020: The only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump was Joe Biden (but barely).
2024: Joe Biden is either the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump or the only Democrat who would lose to Donald Trump and only time will tell which it is but a lot of Democrats don’t want to take that risk.
Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch, speaking for some part of the Establishment, has no use for Donald Trump but, in the moment, even less use for Joe Biden, with Gerard Baker (“Mr. Biden hasn’t lost his capacities. He never had them.”); Karen Elliott House (Biden’s Middle East trip was “worse than an embarrassment”), and Andrew McCarthy part of the pile on.
Thus, in conclusion, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, on this day, remain colossally strong 2024 frontrunners, colossally weak candidates, and men whose presidencies have been judged by a colossally large majority of the American people to be failures.
Something has got to give.
But barring intervention by a prosecutor (in DC, Georgia, or Delaware) or the Lord, nothing is likely to give on either side until after the midterms.
So we wait.
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KEYSTONE KORNER
The two most interesting and bellwethery races this November are the Senate and gubernatorial contests in battleground Pennsylvania.
Dr. Oz and Doug Mastriano should be well ahead of their Democratic rivals, given the state’s balance and the national climate, but neither is.
Both men have to grapple with the Trump Factor, with Mastriano in full embrace and Oz, utterly lacking in Youngkinian finesse, trying to have it both ways.
This Oz thing could be the subject of a doctoral dissertation:
While Politico looks essentially at what should be a Democratic freakout over public and private polling over how close the gubernatorial contest is.
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OTHER ESSENTIAL READING
* The Wall Street Journal on Putin’s trip to meet with Iran and THE LEADER OF A NATO COUNTRY:
Russian President Vladimir Putin is meeting the leaders of Iran and Turkey in Tehran on Tuesday in a trip intended to demonstrate his continued international influence during the invasion of Ukraine.
The summit with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi is nominally intended to focus on peace talks in the war in Syria, but officials expect that the conversation among the three leaders will be dominated by the crisis surrounding the crisis in Ukraine. Mr. Putin is expected to use the trip to shore up relations with both Iran and Turkey, who have maintained friendly relations with Russia despite the West’s efforts to isolate the Kremlin.
The leaders are expected to discuss security, Turkish and possible Iranian involvement in the war in Ukraine, and a United Nations-backed proposal to resume exports of vital Ukrainian grain supplies via the Black Sea.
* The Journal also sums up the state of play on the competitiveness bill talks in the Senate (SPOILER ALERT: oh, there are lobbyists involved).
* The mystery remains: Why is Speaker Pelosi planning to go to Taiwan when Beijing and the White House are very opposed?
