In the two plus weeks since Joe Biden fell in the Orchestra Pit on national television at the Atlanta Presidential debate, all hell has broken loose in the Democrat Party.
Post-debate, a large and growing number of Democrat public officials have decided that it is time for Joe to go, (so far) totaling 19 House Members, 1 (New York) Lt. Governor, and 1 U.S. Senator. The left-wing MSM has written numerous editorials and op-ed pieces calling for Biden’s ouster as the nominee and/or resignation as President. The Democrat leadership has remained increasingly vague about whom they want to lead to the Democrat ticket. And former President Barack Obama’s advisors have increasingly talked down Biden’s chances, and Obama himself may have had a hand in actor/director George Clooney’s column in which Clooney begged Joe to go.
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado, who has not asked Biden to step down, has, in particular, been clanging the electoral alarm:
I'm sure President Biden has a different view of his prospects in this election than I do, but we should be having a discussion about that…The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think, has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election, that they have a convincing plan to win in the battleground states where we have to win in order to win the election. And they need to do that.
Meanwhile, the few strong Democrat Biden backers, including his family and personal hangers-on, are still making excuses or trying to explain away Biden’s horrible performance during the debate.
None of this is good news for Joe Biden or the Democrat Party.
So, let’s again look at the 2024 Presidential election fundamentals, and what they portend for the future:
The RealClearPolitics national average now gives a 2.9% edge to Donald Trump. Trump is also leading by 4.1% in the average of the battleground state polls. Both of these averages are slightly down from Trump’s high point of a few days ago (as a result of two polls that are slightly suspicious). New states, including Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Virginia, that are usually safe Democrat, are now becoming battleground states. Heavily Democrat New York is also closer than expected.
Donald Trump has had an edge in the national polling average since September of 2023. In 2016 and 2020, Trump was consistently down in the polling average, often by a lot, to both Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. And in those prior races, his support in the polls was consistently underestimated. So far, Trump has even polled better against Joe Biden than Ronald Reagan did against Jimmy Carter in the 1980 cycle.
Biden’s RealClearPolitics national job approval rating is still averaging roughly 40%, which is unchanged from what it was before the debate. This number is similar, or even lower, to the approval ratings of former Presidents George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Gerald Ford in the last year of their presidencies. All three men lost their re-election campaigns. It is also lower than was Donald Trump’s in 2020.
Donald Trump’s retrospective job approval ratings as President are far higher than are Joe Biden’s:
More registered voters believe former President Donald Trump would do a better job than President Joe Biden tackling two of the top issues of the 2024 campaign, the economy and immigration, according to an exclusive poll by USA TODAY/Suffolk University taken after Biden's disastrous debate with Trump. The poll also found voters view Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, more capable of handling national security issues and dealing with China.
Biden received higher marks than Trump on just two of six key issues surveyed: handling race relations and health care. Perhaps most troubling for Biden: 51% of respondents said they now approve of Trump's job performance when he was president from 2017 to 2021, compared to 41% who said they approve of Biden's current job performance.
Joe Biden’s five major problems continue to follow him and drag him down, especially his obvious advancing senility (which can only get worse) that has driven so many prominent members of his own party to call for him to step down. Also, the economy is slowing down; a new criminal attack from illegal aliens seems to happen every other week; the war in Gaza continues and may spread to Lebanon, with anti-Semite Democrats continuing to riot in the U.S.; and Biden’s corruption continues to be exposed.
Joe Biden is foolishly duplicating Jimmy Carter’s strategy of running for re-election largely by demonizing his opponent, which famously did not work in 1980. That year, Carter attracted severe criticism for the vehemence of his attacks on Reagan, which led even the MSM, and Barbara Walters, to criticize his “meanness issue.” Carter was not satisfied to criticize Reagan’s record; he also began suggesting that Reagan was both a “racist” and a “warmonger” and that if he took office “Americans might be separated, black from white, Jew from Christian...” Carter insisted that the 1980 election “will help to decide what kind of world we live in” and “whether we have war or peace.” (Presidential Campaigns, Paul F. Boller, Jr., Revised Edition)
There have been three significant public events for Joe Biden since the debate – his interview with pretend-journalist-and-Democrat partisan hack George Stephanopoulos; his speech at a NATO event; and his press conference after the NATO event. The main takeaways from these are that Joe Biden cannot act in a non-senile manner, and that he continues to say things that are particularly embarrassing.
To be continued…