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The 2024 Election Is Changing. It's Getting Better for Joe Biden and The Democrats

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Simon Rosenberg

Apr 9

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Happy Tuesday all. Got a few things today:

The Election Is Changing, Getting Better For Dems - I’ve been writing about this a lot recently, but we’ve gotten a lot of a new data in these past two weeks and it’s worth reviewing.

Yesterday I wrote about 18 polls taken in recent weeks which have Biden leading. A new one came out yesterday afternoon, TIPP, which has Biden up 43-40. So 19 polls with Biden leads now. If we look at just the polls released in the last 2 weeks, 10 have Biden ahead, 7 have Trump ahead, and 2 have the race tied. Here are the 10 with Biden ahead (all polls via 538):

43-40 TIPP
51-49 Emerson (likely voters)
48-45 McLaughlin (likely voters)
52-48 Marquette
47-46 Data For Progress
50-48 NPR/Marist
42-40 Big Village
44-42 Morning Consult
48-45 Quinnipiac
44-43 Noble Predictive

Of the 7 showing Trump leads, 4 are aligned with GOP/right wing politics - DailyMail, Echelon, Fox News, Trafalgar - and we know that in 2022 many of these GOP aligned polls showed the election 2-5 points more Republican than where the election ended up. We need to take these with a grain of salt. The CNBC poll has Trump up 1, a 3 point Biden gain since their last poll. Of the 2 polls showing the race tied, Harris X had Trump up 6 a few weeks ago. Biden has gained ground in many of these of these polls over the past several weeks. Things are clearly moving in our direction. It’s a new day in the 2024 election.

Here is today’s Economist poll aggregator which captures the movement towards Biden we are seeing:

These clear gains for Biden have come at a time when my more upbeat take on the election is getting a lot of attention due to my recent interview with Adam Nagourney in the New York Times. I was able to share these polls and this movement we are seeing last week with Nicole Wallace and Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC. Last night I was on Kaitlin Collins’ show on CNN, and I joined Jon Berman on CNN on Friday. Watch this clip from that interview. It begins a review of these polls showing Biden ahead, which is probably the first segment on a major cable new show suggesting that Biden leads since this year. Do watch, it’s an important moment:

Why have I been writing about this so much? Because it really matters. It’s my view that once it becomes understood Trump is no longer ahead we will start to get a more honest assessment of the strength and weaknesses of the two candidates; that this perception Trump is ahead and strong have masked his historic awfulness, and the clear problems with his campaign and his party. For in my view Trump is weak, not strong. He’s struggling to raise money. He’s facing an unprecedented revolt inside his party, causing a potentially fatal splintering of his coalition. MAGA lost in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023, and lost the big early 2024 bellwether, NY-3, by 8 points!!!!!!!!! The RNC is in disarray and months behind Biden organizationally without enough time to make it up. Many prominent Republicans in Congress are retiring, quitting and abandoning ship. Trump may be in the process of ousting another Speaker. His agenda is much further away from the electorate than before. His performance on the stump is significantly degraded, far more impulsive, erratic and disturbing. He wears more make up than a drag queen. He keeps losing and getting humiliated in court. He’s an adjudicated rapist. He committed one of the largest financial frauds in American history. His new company is already failing. He stole America’s secrets, lied to the FBI it all, and shared those secrets with others. He tried to end American democracy for all time in 2021 and has promised to finish the job if he gets back into the White House. He and his family have corruptly taken more money from foreign governments than any family in US history. He is singularly responsible for ending Roe, stripping the rights and freedoms away from the women of America, and yesterday endorsed the most severe abortion restrictions in the states, which are without doubt, the most extreme policy enacted in America in many generations. He’s the ugliest political thing we’ve all ever seen, and all of this ugliness and structural weakness is being largely dismissed because the perception that he leads in polling makes him “strong.”

I think the media narrative about this election is slowly changing. Not only is my far more favorable take on the election getting significant consideration right now, but look at what Axios published on Sunday - Trump protest vote warnings -

“A month after Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican race, former President Trump is still dealing with a contingent of voters showing up to cast primary ballots for candidates who aren't him.

"Why it matters: President Biden has more successfully unified his voters despite never facing a strong primary opponent and an organized protest vote over the war in Gaza.

In 10 recent primary contests, more than one-quarter of GOP primary voters cast a ballot for a non-Trump candidate.
"Joe Biden has a real golden opportunity to capture all those disaffected people who voted for Nikki Haley," said Arizona-based GOP strategist Barrett Marson.

Driving the news: In the key battleground state of Wisconsin on Tuesday, 20.8% of Republican primary voters cast a ballot for a candidate other than Trump.

Haley, the former UN ambassador who suspended her campaign a month ago, drew more than 12%, or 76,000 votes, in Wisconsin, which Biden won by just over 20,000 votes against Trump in 2020.
"Those are significant numbers," longtime Wisconsin Republican strategist Bill McCoshen told Axios.
"Will those voters come home in November? I think it's possible they will, history suggests that most of them will, but I think it's also a signal to the Trump campaign that his pick for a VP could be very critical to bringing these voters back."
Trump saw a larger share of protest votes in Wisconsin than Biden in the Democratic primary, where 8.3% of voters, or about 48,000, supported the "uninstructed" vote in protest of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war.

The big picture: In another key presidential swing state, Arizona, Haley won about 18% of the vote in the GOP primary last month, despite having suspended her campaign about halfway through early voting.

The "uncommitted" vote was not an option on the Democratic side in Arizona, but opponents of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war encouraged voters to cast a ballot for Marianne Williamson as a protest.
Williamson won 3.8% of the Democratic vote in Arizona.
"That doesn't necessarily mean that 18% is filling in the bubble for Joe Biden in November, it's going to be up to Biden to message to those either moderate Republicans or right-leaning independents," Marson said.

In Michigan, another swing state, 13% of Democratic primary voters cast a ballot for the "uncommitted" movement last month.

The Biden campaign said in a statement before the Tuesday primaries that "the president believes making your voice heard and participating in our democracy is fundamental to who we are as Americans."

"He shares the goal for an end to the violence and a just, lasting peace in the Middle East. He's working tirelessly to that end."

What to watch: It's possible that some of the non-Trump votes in recent contests were from voters who cast a ballot while Haley was still in the race — and are planning to back Trump in November.

But the sizable shares of protest votes could also be a sign of Trump's vulnerabilities ahead of an election that's likely to be decided by the margins in a few key swing states.
"Donald Trump has made it clear he's not remotely interested in reaching out to independents, moderates or Nikki Haley supporters, who he's driven away with his extreme, unpopular agenda and his pledge to be a dictator on Day One," Biden campaign senior spokesperson Sarafina Chitika said in a statement.
"President Biden, meanwhile, is meeting voters where they are and making it clear that all are welcome in his coalition to protect our freedoms and our democracy this November."

The Trump campaign did not respond to Axios' request for comment.”

Brutal stuff.

Then, yesterday, in his abortion announcement Trump looked weak, scared and cowardly. The Biden campaign responded with this powerful ad, a reminder of just how rough these next few months are going to be for the orange one:

I want to be very clear that we are seeing now with Biden’s improving poll numbers is what I, the campaign and many Democrats believed would happen. That once the general election began, the Biden campaign turned on and people started paying attention Biden’s numbers would improve. And they have. We should expect something similar to happen in battleground state polling over the next 3-6 weeks as these kinds of shifts can take a while to work through polling models and polls themselves.

We have a long way to go in this election. Much will happen, and things will change. We have an incredible amount of work to do. But we are in the midst of a good stretch right now - raising lots of money, rising poll numbers, continued roaring economy, superior agenda, a growing organizational advantage and ongoing, historic Trumpian awfulness - and here at Hopium we take the wins when they come.

Remember folks:

Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. We have a very strong case for re-election.
The Democratic Party is strong, unified, raising lots of money and winning elections all across the country.
And the Republicans have Trump - the ugliest political thing any of us have ever seen.

Which is why, in every way imaginable, 7 months out, I would much rather be us than them.

Upcoming Events - Register Today! - Got two events on tap this week, and you can see our full event schedule here. If you want to join our paid subscriber events and aren’t yet a paid subscriber you can sign up here. Looking forward to seeing folks soon!

Wed, April 10th, 7pm ET - Monthly Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together - Register here
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Let’s Do More, Worry Less - Here are Hopium we channel all the worry we have about the election into purposeful action. Hopium is a hope with a plan. We don’t just hope we will win this November we do the work to make it so. Right now we are in the final push for three must-win projects - the Biden-Harris campaign, Anderson Clayton/NC Dems and Ruben Gallego. Learn more, donate and volunteer here. Thanks to all of you who’ve stepped up so far! More to do!