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Independent US presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville, Tenn., on July 26, 2024.
RFK Jr. to endorse Trump
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. the strongest third-party US presidential candidate in a generation, has reportedly decided to leave the race and cash in his chips – with Donald Trump.
The eccentric, conspiracy-minded, anti-corporate crusader – best known for his vaccine skepticism – polls around 5% nationally and in key swing states. He has drawn outsized support from Black, Latino, and young voters.
RFK Jr. is expected to formally announce his withdrawal in a big speech in Arizona on Friday and is in talks with the Trump campaign about a formal endorsement. Trump, who is also campaigning from the Grand Canyon state that day, has said he’d be open to giving RFK a position in his administration if he wins.
How will this affect the race? RFK’s endorsement would certainly counterprogram the climax of the DNC and could deliver Trump a few extra points worth of voters that he’ll need in a tight election. Polling has consistently shown RFK drawing more Trump-leaning voters than Biden-leaning ones.
Still, bringing aboard RFK – a conspiracy-theory aficionado whose brain has been eaten by a worm and who recently admitted to a bizarre bear-killing cover-up – could also play into one of the Democrats’ main strategies, says Clayton Allen, the US director at Eurasia Group.
“If he joins the Trump campaign,” says Allen, “that may exacerbate the Democrats’ “weird” attacks.”
Attendees walk past a sign at the United Center ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 19, 2024.
Democrats are running a campaign built on vibes
In standard practice and just days ahead of the party’s Democratic National Convention, Democrats released their 2024 policy platform over the weekend. The rest of the race, however, has been anything but typical.
In the latest twist, Democrats chose not to update their party platform despite the name atop the ticket switching from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris. Instead, they opted to stick with a version approved in mid-July – from before Biden dropped out of the race. The platform frames a battle between “opportunity and optimism” versus “revenge and retribution,” laying bare a fundamental difference between the 2024 Democratic and Republican campaigns: one is about atmospherics, and the other is deeply personal.
In the month that Harris has sat atop the ticket, she has overseen a near-total change in the campaign narrative. Until July 21, 2024, Biden and former President Donald Trump had spent months locked in a protracted and bleak conversation about who was the bigger threat to democracy. Was age the more significant concern? How would the US manage a president with felony convictions? For months, US voters sat on the sidelines of a slow walk to a repeat of the 2020 election, which a meaningful proportion of those polled did not want.
With Biden’s exit from the race in July and the surprisingly seamless convergence around Harris, the storyline has shifted from a rerun to a “new way forward,” to take one of the vice president’s campaign taglines. And as the 2024 party platform reflects, for Dems, this way forward need not be connected to one politician or another.
Despite the newfound support for Harris – her campaign raised a reported $200 million during her first week as the candidate – this is not yet the Harris Democratic party. Harris is a conduit for Democrats who were searching for a lifeline out of a crisis and a path to preserve their November ambitions. If the policy platform is not updated to any specific Harris policy viewpoint, that’s not seen as a hindrance. If her vision of an “opportunity economy” is questioned by economists, it deserves only a bit of hand-wringing. While a Harris presidency would likely move policy in impactful ways, what is driving the moment for Democrats is unity behind defeating Trump.
This campaign tactic or strategy is paying dividends. Harris now leads Trump in head-to-head polling and across key swing states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. For the first time in the 2024 race, the latest monthly polling shows that more voters trust Harris to handle the economy than Trump. These poll results came in even before Harris had the opportunity to present her economic plan last Friday in North Carolina, where she homed in on tackling price gouging, housing insecurity, and rising tax bills.
In stark contrast, the Republican Party is synonymous with Trump. The party’s policy objectives are intertwined with Trump’s political agenda. The 2024 Republican platform, rife with capitalization and exclamation points, promises to seal the border, end the weaponization of government against the American people, and turn the US into a manufacturing superpower. Each is a key Trump view. As a sign of how far the campaign needle has moved, Trump’s allies are now urging him to return to the more disciplined, issue-based messaging he managed earlier in the 2024 campaign. The risk is that as Democrats go conceptual, Trump becomes too personalized and personal.
All of this will be on display at this week’s DNC in the Windy City, where a who’s who of Democratic heavyweights and orators – including both Obamas and Clintons – have assembled. Harris will take the stage on Thursday, the final night, to deliver an address under the aspirational theme “For our Future.”
Just as the race approaches the post-Labor Day homestretch, the world is watching as Democrats inject something into the campaign that has been missing over the long election slog: energy. The party convention represents a key test of both how well Harris can hold the party together, including around fault-line issues like the Israel-Gaza conflict, and whether Democrats can sustain the good vibes over the final push of the campaign season.
Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
U.S. Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris waves to the crowd during a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, U.S., August 7, 2024.
Is Harris now the favorite?
In the days before President Joe Biden withdrew from November’s presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump was widely considered the favorite to win. But with the entrance of Vice President Kamala Harris into the race, most analysts now consider the race a toss-up. For now, Harris has the momentum in many polls. What would it take for her to be considered the favorite?
By some measures, Harris already has a slight advantage. Election analyst Nate Silver’s model, an aggregator of other respected polls, currently has Harris leading Trump nationally by 45.8% to 43.7%. She also holds (very) narrow leads in swing states Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, while Trump leads by equally thin margins in Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada. Other analysts and prediction sites show similar results.
For Harris to become the favorite, she’ll need a lead of three points or more nationally over a couple of weeks, because the electoral college probably provides Trump the same advantage he enjoyed in 2016 and George W. Bush held in 2000. In both those cases, the Republican won the election despite losing the national popular vote.
But Harris must also post 2-3% polling margins in either Pennsylvania or Georgia, perhaps the two most evenly split states in the country. That result would signal Harris is likely to earn the 270 electoral votes she needs to win the White House.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends the opening of a pop-up ice cream shop "Smize & Dream" owned by Tyra Banks, in Washington, US, on July 19, 2024.
November’s election is so close and yet so far
For the US election apparatus, it likely feels like an impossible challenge under urgent, abridged circumstances. For those watching from abroad, the duration of the US presidential election cycle – beginning immediately after the mid-term elections and spanning nearly two years – has always been a bit of a headscratcher. The United Kingdom completed snap elections earlier this month that lasted six weeks from start to finish. Even President Emmanuel Macron’s decision to surprise Europe with elections in France held the country in suspense for just under a month. The lengthening of the US election timeline across modern presidential history, alongside the ballooning of campaign financing, may feel foundational to democracy. But seen through a comparative lens, these dynamics are idiosyncratically American.
Amid this major test of the US political system, Vice President Kamala Harris has enjoyed a storybook start to her presidential campaign. Just over a week in, she could not have written it up better if she tried. With Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and President Barack and Michelle Obama all endorsing her this past week, Harris saw the last of the dominoes fall in her favor. She can check the first benchmark, party unity, off her to-do list.
Harris’s campaign has seen a stunning inflow of donations that have reportedly broken historical records. Her early campaign messaging of fighting for America’s future, and the imagery of Harris as prosecutor versus the perpetrator, former President Donald Trump, is resonating. Latest head-to-head polling puts Harris and Trump at a virtual statistical tie, offering an ingredient for the Democratic campaign that Biden could not seem to bring: belief. Harris has Democrats believing she can expand the umbrella of potential constituencies and deliver a wider Democratic coalition in November. Harris even conquered social media with Charli XCX labeling her “brat,” which will perhaps prove to be the 2024 version of former Obama’s 2008 one-word mantra of “Hope.”
Leaders and watchers from abroad who have been wringing their hands for months over prospects of a Trump 2.0 find themselves taking a crash course on Harris. Without absolute clarity about what a Harris presidency would look like, the safe bet is that she will represent a policy continuity story for the Democrats. Foreign policy is particularly a “black box.” Unlike Biden, Harris is not known for her foreign policy experience. Having made fewer than two dozen trips abroad during her vice presidency, Harris was never assigned a foreign policy “patch” as VP and served more as a surrogate for high-level conferences and meetings like the Munich Security Conference.
Across the aisle, Trump is also waking up to the full reality of Harris’s candidacy. His plan to run down the clock to November by appealing to his base now faces alarm bells. Where his address at the Republican National Convention and selection of Sen. JD Vance as his running mate seemed like obvious tactics in the pre-Harris world, the risk is that Trump has narrowed his pathway to victory in November. He must now decide whether and how to get out of the trap he laid for himself, a position he most certainly will reject in favor of rallying cries around election integrity, fraud, and a rigged system.
Given all that is at play, it is hard to know which election narrative ultimately rings truest on Nov. 5. Will the anti-incumbency, anti-establishment sentiment circling the globe prove decisive? Does age – first Biden’s but potentially now Trump’s – matter? Is the existential threat to US democracy the single and most animating force for voters? Did Harris’s entrance come too late for a political system used to knock-down-drag-out campaign fights? And will there be blood? Whichever trend proves most salient, the summer of 2024 reset the race. The election countdown starts now.
Dr. Lindsay Newman is a geopolitical risk expert and columnist for GZERO.
Step up to the mic: What would you ask Biden and Trump?
In the run-up to Thursday night’s presidential debate, we asked GZERO readers to play moderator and draft questions for the two main contenders, Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Some even took up the challenge of posing the toughest questions either candidate could face.
Our inbox was soon overflowing with thoughtful responses like these:
Andrew Vickery, Lenox, MA
“It seems that America is on the path to become its own worst enemy. Lack of trust in democratic institutions. Declining public education. Vulnerable critical infrastructure (in terms of security). Identity politics. What will you do to strengthen the US domestically and decrease polarization? How will you remind Americans how lucky we are to be born here?”
_____
Ward Greer, Bernardsville, NJ
“For me, policy issues are not as important in the debate as the ability of the candidates to coherently and presidentially respond to the questions being posed.”
_____
Anonymous
For both: “What moral values or principles guide you when you have to make a difficult decision?”
For Biden: “Did you ask your son not to accept a position with Burisma when you were engaged in questioning the Ukrainian investigation of Burisma in order to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest?”
For Trump: “Do you think the states have done a good job legislating around the issue of abortion since the end of Roe?”
_____
John W. Allen, NY, NY
“What is your definition of a con man?”
_____
David Boling, Arlington, VA
“Please tell us a characteristic that you admire in your opponent.”
_____
JK, Waterloo, ON
“Why didn't you step aside for a younger leader? Do you believe a younger leader couldn't do the job as well as you?”
“Any tough questions will be dismissed as both are experienced at not answering the question asked. It depends on whether the opponent can capitalize on the dismissal answer and turn it into a talking point that becomes part of the highlight reel of the debate.”
_____
John Morey, Woods Hole, MA
“If you could have dinner with a past or present political figure of the opposing party, living or dead, who would that be and why?”
_____
Steve from The Bronx, NYC
“Name the top 5 functions of the federal government in Washington:
Exs:
1 defense
2 currency/debt
3 border control
4 population safety
5 national infrastructure”
_____
Hanna Bärlund, Finland
Which of the current American politicians do you think is smarter or more intelligent than you and would you hire him/her to your staff in the White House?
_____
Brad Michaelson, Scottsdale, AZ
“If you lose, will you accept the results of the election? If either refuses, I would end the debate or as a participant, walk away. If you can’t/won’t accept the results of an American election, you can’t be expected to uphold the fundamental element of this government.”
Hardest question for Biden: “Who does America support in Gaza?” Follow up: “How would you handle Iraq involvement?”
For Trump: “What exactly is the Deep State?” Follow up: “How does it work?”
_____
Tom Quinn, Easthampton, Massachusetts
“Describe what being an American means to you. What traits, qualities, responsibilities, and expectations are there for the American citizen? Please answer the question from your heart and not some prescripted response.”
_____
Laurie Miller, Raleigh, NC
“What will you enact over the next 6-12 months that will make life better for the average American on the street?”
For Biden: “Why was this election not the time for someone younger to step forward for the Democratic nomination?”
For Trump: “Should a convicted felon be allowed to hold the office of President?”
_____
Emily Vondrak, Sioux City, IA
“We have a number of national crises impacting the US today – the border, high interest rates, national debt, drug overdoses, crime spikes, international conflict to name a few. If you could choose one to fully solve during your second term, which would it be and why?”
Tough question for Biden: “It will be hardest for him to defend his strategy at the Southern border. There is really no good answer. A close second is making any definitive statement about Israel. It will need to be somewhat vague or he will further alienate a portion of his own party.”
Tough question for Trump: “He will use his conviction as further evidence of what he considers a political agenda, but it will be hard to talk about that being political and not admit the case against Hunter Biden was also politically motivated – it would be drenched with hypocrisy.”
_____
Richard Willerton, Vancouver WA
“Draw a map of the world with the names of all the countries you have time for. The lower gets his ass kicked by the winner.”
_____
Robert Clark, New York, NY
“The excess of births over deaths has fallen by about 2/3rds in the last 15 years and is projected to head to zero. Population growth directly impacts our capacity to control inflation, address the national debt, and compete economically in a competitive global economy. As a policy goal, do you believe that the United States should target a significant net legal immigration – immigration on our terms according to our laws – as a desirable outcome, and if so, how would you propose we rewrite our failed immigration laws to achieve that national goal?”
Toughest question for Biden: “Mr. President, polls in the key battleground states show you trailing the Democrat's candidate for Senate by 4 to 13 points. Other polling suggests this is less about your performance as President than concerns about your capacity to serve another 4-year term due to age. Given this reality, the reality of voters' concerns here, why not "show them how to say goodbye" to quote the song from Hamilton, and retire to Delaware as a revered statesman who devoted his life to public service? Why not go out on top and hand the mantle of leadership to the next generation?”
Toughest question for Trump: “President Trump, your playful prediction that you could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn't lose any supporters has proven prescient, as your criminal indictments, losses at trial, and recent felony conviction really haven't materially reduced support from your base. But outside of your base, Americans express concern that you are a liar, a serial adulterer, undermine relations with our allies, have no interest in safeguarding American institutions at the core of our democracy, attempted to subvert the peaceful transition of power in the last election, act entirely out of self-interest often in full disregard of the rule of law, and in short are wholly unfit to hold any position of trust in society, much less the Presidency. Do you think you need to attract voters outside your base and if so, how would you answer those concerns?
(Robert Clark, Robert Clark, New York, NY – permission granted)
_____
Bruce Beck, Salt Lake City, Utah
“What is your definition of 'poison blood'?”
_____
Michael Tanchek, Carson City, Nevada
Out of more than 210 million Americans over the age of 35, what makes you think you are the most qualified to be President?
_____
David Taylor, Bourne End, UK
“Given that the mental acuity of both candidates is declining rapidly and the majority of the electorate would prefer other candidates, why have you not stepped aside in favour of a younger candidate?”
_____
Sharon Weight, Half Moon Bay, CA
“What systemic, specific changes would you make to any Federal programs to reduce the deficit? “
An "Aqui Vote Here" sign at the Guerra branch library in San Antonio, Texas, USA.
Biden and Trump fight over a changing “Latino Vote”
Just days ago, President Joe Biden announced a sweeping executive measure that would legalize the status of undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens. The move, which primarily benefits hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Latin America, was the latest salvo in the contest between Biden and Donald Trump to win over Latino voters.
Both sides have been honing their pitches to Latino communities.
Trump, who recently rebranded his outreach as “Latino Americans for Trump,” has begun visiting Democratic strongholds to find “persuadable Black and Latino voters.” Last month he went to the heavily blue South Bronx, where GZERO was on the scene.
The Biden campaign, for its part, has spent tens of millions on ads targeting Latino voters, including some in Spanglish. “For our abuelos,” one says, “insulin that costs treinta y cinco dólares or cientos de dólares, that is la diferencia between Joe Biden y Donald Trump.”
The campaign even has a new ad called “Goalll!” as part of its pitch to Latinos during the month-long Copa América soccer tournament.
The main audience for all of this? More than 36 million registered Latino or Hispanic voters who trace their heritage to the Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America.
At nearly 15% of the electorate, that’s America’s largest group of minority voters, and it’s growing fast. This fall, there will be four million more eligible Latino voters than in 2020. Latinos alone account for half of the total growth in registered voters during this electoral cycle.
They are also more than 20% of the registered voters in battlegrounds like Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, and they could have a big impact even in swing states where their numbers are smaller.
There are more than 600,000 registered Latino voters in Pennsylvania, which Biden won by barely 80,000 votes in 2020. In Wisconsin, which Biden won by a mere 25,000 votes, there are 180,000 registered Latinos.
Hispanic voters have historically leaned left-ish. Between 50-60% of Latinos identify as Democrats while only a quarter say they are Republicans. But they are hardly a one-dimensional group.
“Hispanic voters are diverse in many ways, including in their political identities,” says Jens Manuel Krogstad, an expert on Latino communities at the Pew Research Center. “Factors like origin country, immigrant generation, religion, and geography all intersect in complex ways to shape Hispanic political attitudes.”
Miami Cubans, marked by their flight from Fidel Castro’s revolution, are famously much more conservative than, say, Mexican-Americans in California, traditionally a Democratic bastion, or Puerto Ricans just a few hundred miles north, in the Orlando area.
Those differences sometimes play out under one roof.
“We’ve got four Latinos living just in this house,” says Joe Pabón, 47, a Harlem-raised paralegal of mixed Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican descent who lives in Baltimore with his Puerto Rican-Dominican wife and two kids, “and I don’t know that the four of us would even vote the same. So I really couldn’t tell you what, say, a 25-year-old Latino in New Mexico or LA thinks about things.”
But in recent years, Trump and the GOP have made inroads into the Democrats’ azul wall of Latino support. Trump took 29% of the Latino vote in 2016 and 32% in 2020. In the 2022 midterms, 33% of Latinos reported voting Republican.
Experts caution that the rightward lurch didn’t occur in all Latino communities.
“It was not a uniform shift toward Trump,” says Rodrigo Dominguez-Villegas, director of UCLA’s Latino Politics and Policy Institute. “There were particular places in the country where that shift happened more than in others.”
In the 2020 election, for example, the GOP won over South Florida Colombians and Venezuelans by raising the specter of Democratic Party “socialism,” and they gained the support of Mexican-Americans in energy-rich districts of South Texas, who worried that Biden’s environmental agenda would eliminate their oil and gas industry jobs.
And perhaps this undeniably catchy Cuban timba-style anthem also helped: “¡Yo voy a votar, por Donald Trump! (No matter what your politics are, it hits.)
But there was also a “reversion to the mean,” says Dominguez-Villegas. Republican-leaning Latinos or independents appalled by Trump’s openly anti-immigrant rhetoric in 2016 were more receptive to his economic, deregulatory, and anti-lockdown messages four years later.
The picture has gotten even dimmer for Democrats since then.
Recent polls show as many as 46% of Latinos now support Trump. If that holds on Election Day, it would set a new record of Latino support for a GOP presidential candidate. Until now, none has gotten more than George W. Bush, who campaigned on comprehensive immigration reform, spoke passable Spanish, and was reelected with 40% of the Latino vote in 2004.
Part of the reason Trump is doing better among Latinos? Es la economía, estúpido.The top issues for Latinos right now are, overwhelmingly, economic: inflation, jobs, and housing costs, with health care and gun violence rounding out the top five.
While large numbers of Latinos still see Democrats as stronger on many of these issues, the broader sense of economic malaise has taken a toll on Biden’s support in Latino communities. Two-thirds of Hispanics think the economy is going badly, according to a recent CBS poll. That’s two points higher than the national average.
But there’s something else at work too, according to Dominguez-Villegas.
“Although a lot of Latinos fled places that were dictatorships, there is still a sense that strong leadership is good and that Trump had things under control and that Biden has not,” he says.
That sense is one reason Mauricio Hernández, 30, a Colombian-American entrepreneur who runs an aircraft repair business in Miami, supports Trump.
Under the last president, he says, “I remember gas being cheaper, companies prospering more.” And while he thinks both candidates are flawed, Trump seems to take a “harder stance” on key issues like national security and, of course, immigration.
Ah, immigration. Over the past half-century, the majority of US immigrants, both legal and undocumented, have come from Latin America. As a result, immigration policy touches Latinos more directly and more broadly than other groups.
Latino views on immigration are nuanced, but recent polls of the Latino community broadly show hardening opinions. A narrow majority of Latinos now say they would support Trump’s proposal to deport all undocumented immigrants.
“I’m an immigrant, but I came here from the Dominican Republic through the front door,” said Ana Peréz, a woman who spoke to us at Trump’s Bronx rally last month. “Sorry if I don’t think we should let just anyone sneak in to take jobs, to commit crimes. As a woman, I’d like to feel safe walking down the street at night again.”
Latinos in swing states, meanwhile, now view Democrats as worse on immigration than Republicans, according to Equis, a prominent Latino-focused pollster.
But part of the reason for that, the study showed, was the feeling that Democrats “fail to deliver” on immigration policy promises.
A separate study of swing-state Latino voters conducted by UnidosUS, a major Latino advocacy organization, showed strong support both for creating a path to citizenship for long-term undocumented immigrants, while also supporting stronger border measures and cracking down on human trafficking.
“Latino voters want immigration policies that are firm, fair, and free of cruelty,” says Janet Murguía, president and CEO of UnidosUS.
That may be why Biden chose to legalize the status of undocumented spouses last week. The Equis poll showed that this policy, in particular, had a huge net upside for Biden among Latino swing voters.
Biden’s move also helped to repair some of the rift with immigration advocacy organizations that were infuriated by Biden’s decision earlier this month to limit asylum applications at the Southern border.
He will need their support to get out a Latino vote that has historically shown low turnout, in part because Hispanic voters are younger than those of other ethnic groups.
Biden’s narrow victories in Nevada and Arizona in 2020, for example, depended a lot on grassroots organizers who favor less restrictive border policies.
If he is going to carry those states again in 2024, he will need them on his side.
“Those are the boots on the ground,” says Dominguez-Villegas, “and if you don't have them, it's going to be really difficult to win.”
This piece contains additional reporting by GZERO’s Riley Callanan.
Hey, progressives, it’s time to look in the mirror
He has the look of an aging but determined Rafael Nadal trying to make one last comeback. He heaves his body back and looks poised to crush a forehand, as he has a thousand times before. This time, however, it doesn’t go as expected. To his utter shock, the ball hits the net and limply falls to the ground. “Why?” his look implies. “Why are we losing here?” He resets to try for another point, but he nets it again.
Only this isn’t Nadal.
It’s Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans and current co-chair of Joe Biden’s reelection campaign. Landrieu, like so many progressives looking for another Obama moment, cannot understand why so many people are choosing Trump over Biden. It’s like there is an invisible, Don DeLillo-esque cloud hanging overhead with the words, “How are we losing to him?”
Make no mistake, Landrieu is very good at his job and not only deeply understands Biden’s policies — after all, he helped oversee the trillion-plus-dollar infrastructure bill — he’s also a Biden believer. That means he can’t stand Donald Trump. Or, more precisely, he cannot understand why so many people like the former president.
So here he was, playing the anti-Trump hits on stage in Toronto at our US-Canada Summit to a room that just kept shrugging: 34 felony convictions; sexual assault charge; Jan. 6 insurrection; can’t keep staff; Trump’s own attorney general, Bill Barr, called his claims of a stolen election "bogus.” Periodically, Landrieu would look at the crowd, seemingly exasperated by the lack of emotion, and ask, “Why are we normalizing Donald Trump?” But he never asked the more painful question: “Why are our policies so unpopular?” He was like the aging athlete, baffled as to why he is still not winning.
The Dems’ case against Trump has been made countless times, but it simply is not working. At Eurasia Group, we have the odds of Trump winning at 60%. David Axelrod, the former Obama campaign guru and current CNN political commentator, was with us watching Landrieu. As I wrote last week, I asked Axelrod whether Democrats need to spend more time reflecting on why their policies are not connecting with voters and less time trying to convince people that Trump is a big baddy.
“Absolutely,” he responded, going on to describe how Democrats have lost touch with large swaths of the American public, content with lecturing them in condescending tones about how to be better citizens and “more like us” — meaning the folks who run around Washington telling people what to say and what not to say. Democrats are like the kid in the front of the class with his hand up all the time. He may have the right answers, but no one likes him.
“Strong and wrong beats weak and right,” Axelrod said, repeating a Bill Clinton line. And Biden looks weak. Not only that, Axelrod made the point that Democrats focus too heavily on what they have done in the past, not what they will do in the future.
What’s next beats what was, and progressives are losing on that score. Anew poll from the American Survey Center found that “Nearly six in 10 (58 percent) say America’s best days are behind it. Forty percent say America’s best days are yet to come.” This marks a huge change since 2020 when most Americans were optimistic about the future.
As Daniel Cox writes, while most candidates run on optimism, Trump runs on pessimism because it’s connecting with his large constituency — primarily white male voters. “Forty-three percent of Americans who believe people are not to be trusted have a favorable view of Trump compared to 28 percent of those who say people are generally trustworthy,” he writes. It’s not morning again in America, like under Ronald Reagan; this is Trump’s American carnage, reflecting how many people actually think.
Incumbents around the world are facing “Thelma & Louise” moments right now: If they keep doing what they are doing, they will drive off a cliff. So it’s not just progressives. In the UK, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is already airborne and plummeting toward the ground. Narendra Modi got punished in India. Emmanuel Macron is floundering in France, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in even worse political shape.
A new Ipsos poll done for Global News found that 68% of Canadians want Trudeau to step down. Snowstorms poll higher than that in Canada. “This is as bad as we’ve seen it for Trudeau,”Ipsos CEO Darrell Brickertold Global. “It’s close to rock bottom.”
On June 24, Trudeau will face a major test with a byelection in what has long been one of the safest Liberal ridings in the country, St. Paul’s, in downtown Toronto. The Liberals should win easily, but it’s going to be close, and if they somehow lose, Trudeau will feel more heat than from today’s weather bomb to step down. (Conservatives don’t want him to go, preferring to run against a weakened Trudeau in the next election.)
Still, the point remains: Progressive ideas are not connecting. If the policies were actually working — a case both Biden and Trudeau are trying to make — poll results would look rosier. But they don’t.
Trudeau’s signature tax on carbon to deal with climate change is now a shield — not a sword — issue. His attempt to change the narrative by igniting a class war with his new capital gains tax on the rich has done little to reframe the narrative, but the poorly explained policy has alienated lots of centrist voters. In politics, the old saw “Explaining is losing” has always seemed trite to me — policy often takes time to be understood — but if the explanation is bad, then, yeah, you are losing.
Biden is trying to boost his image by offering undocumented spouses a pathway to permanent US residency and his student loan forgiveness. Both may be popular, but neither has really improved his polling. Why?
Trudeau is facing a change wave, and Biden an age wave, but the issues are deeper than that. The fundamental premise that progressives pitch — that their social and economic policies work to improve people’s quality of life — is losing its plausibility, weakened by inflation, a world in crisis, and a long-term, low-growth environment. Trump may not have solid answers — his self-absorbed victimization narrative lacks facts, optimism, and generosity — but his dark view of the world reflects a mood, and people mistake that for truth. Trump reflects how many people feel; Biden is promising things many no longer believe are possible.
Populism always has an angry protest strain to it, but the response to it is usually clear: Show growth. Build things that work: roads, hospitals, opportunities. Don’t go broke. And finally, get stuff done, and be seen to be getting it done. People have to feel better about their lives. And they are not.
Progressives keep looking in the mirror, and they only see opponents they believe are unfit for office. They have to start seeing themselves and figure out why their promises and policies are not connecting more widely. Self-reflection is hard, but tearing down the other guy only works for so long, especially for an incumbent. They need to reinvent themselves as credible leaders promising something better in the future, not just recycled defenders of their past glory days. They must prove their big new promises are doable in short periods of time. Otherwise, they risk looking like those aging athletes who criticize the skills of the new generation of competitors but keep losing. In politics, the past ain't prologue. It just doesn’t work that way. Just ask Rafa Nadal.
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Pullman Yards in Atlanta, Georgia, on March 9, 2024.
Biden vs. Trump redux is official
They did it again. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have mustered enough delegates in the primaries to secure their respective party nominations heading into this November’s presidential election — not that anyone expected otherwise.
For Biden, it was his win in Georgia last night that clinched it for the Democrats, while for Trump it was the GOP tally in Washington state. The rematch of 2020 comes despite both men’s unpopularity: Recent polling has Biden’s disapproval rating at 56.5%, while Trump’s unfavorable rating is nearly as high at 52.5%.
What’s next: The matchup that has looked inevitable for months is officially underway, but it’s unclear when, or whether, Biden will face off with his predecessor in debates. Trump has said, “I’m ready to go, ANY TIME, ANY PLACE!” Biden has appeared open to the idea, noting that it “depends on his behavior.”
In the meantime, expect plenty of campaign events and advertisements focused on both men’s ages, abortion, the economy, illegal immigration, and entitlements (more on that below).