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Joe Biden

State Of The Union Boosted Public View Of Biden

President Joe Biden's very good State of the Union showing wasn't just a hit among Democrats. Despite criticism that Biden's address was specifically aimed at rallying Democratic voters, the speech not only tested well with viewers beyond the base, it also significantly improved Biden's standing among those viewers.

As Daily Kos' Mark Sumner pointed out, a CNN quick poll found that 64 percent of respondents viewed the speech positively, with 62 percent saying his policies would move the country in the right direction—a 17-percentage-point bump from before the speech.

Navigator Research posted similar findings from its live-reaction dial group of 33 Phoenix-area soft partisans and independents: 76% had positive reactions, with 64 percent saying Biden's policies would move the country in the right direction.

Biden's favorability rating among the dial group jumped 37 points from before and after the speech, ending at 58 percent favorable to 42 percent unfavorable.

The change in Biden's job approval rating—a tougher sell—was far smaller but still improved six points, to 33 percent approve versus 67 percent disapprove. There's still plenty of work to do in that arena.

According Navigator testing among the 33 speech-watchers, Biden's biggest improvements from pre- to post-speech came in these five areas:

1. Stands up to corporations: net change of +83 points

2. Is a strong leader: net change of +63 points

3. Is up for the job of president: net change of +60 points

4. Represents the U.S. well abroad: net change of +46 points

5. Brings people together: net change of +40 points

Early numbers from Nielsen suggested Biden's State of the Union address attracted nearly 28 million viewers—a slight uptick from last year, despite appearing on fewer networks then. But the final Nielsen numbers were even better: 32.3 million viewers tuned in, a significant 18 percent increase over 2023.

Among those viewers, Biden did himself a world of good not just from a policy standpoint but also from the perspective of: Is this guy up for the job, and are his priorities in the right place?

The Biden campaign has a lot more work to do, but the overwhelmingly positive responses to the president's speech suggest his message is also one that he and his team can sell on the campaign trail.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Nikki Haley

Poll Shows GOP Is Running On Nothing But Immigration Fears

Immigration shot to the top of Gallup's February polling on what Americans say are the country's most vexing problems, finishing at 28 percent, an eight-percentage-point uptick in a single month.

Here were February's top five issues, compared with January's:

1. Immigration: 28 percent (+8 points from January)

2. Government: 20 percent (-1 point)

3. Economy in general: 12 percent (unchanged)

4. Inflation: 11percent (-2 points)

5. Poverty/Hunger/Homelessness: 6 percent (+1 point)

The main driver of immigration’s rise to the top of voter concerns was Republicans, 57 percent of whom name immigration as the country’s top problem—a 20-point surge since January.

Gallup notes that survey, taken from February 1 to February 20, encompassed a timeframe when the bipartisan border deal was announced but ultimately failed to pass the Senate after Donald Trump urged congressional Republicans to kill it.

But Republicans have also recently been hammering the issue with hard ad dollars, according to Zachary Mueller, senior research director at the immigration advocacy group America's Voice. Mueller told Daily Kos that in just the first two months of 2024, Republican-aligned campaigns have already run 445 unique immigration ads totaling $62.6 million, according to AdImpact data.

"What those Gallup numbers tell me is that there is a core of the GOP base that has bought into the bigoted fiction that immigration is an existential threat to the nation," Mueller said, calling the Republican advertising a "xenophobic feedback loop."

Gallup's list of 15 items national priorities was notable for several other reasons, including the fact that concerns about inflation (No. 4) and the economy (No. 3) continue to recede in relation to other issues. In October 2022, just before midterm Election Day, 46 oercent of Americans mentioned various economic issues as the nation's most important problems. In February 2024, just 30 percent of respondents cited economic issues as their chief concern, so voters’ urgency around economic issues have receded considerably over the last year and a half.

In addition, the latest Gallup survey shows that just three percent of respondents named the federal budget deficit as a problem—so that GOP talking point is effectively dead, even among Republican voters.

At this point in the cycle, immigration is effectively all Republicans have left to run on. And due to their heavy spending, the issue of immigration and the influx of migrants crossing the border is now tops among Americans for the first time since July 2019, when it hit 27 percent

That's exactly why both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump went to Texas on Thursday to stage dueling press conferences.

During the visit, Biden sought to play offense on the issue, saying congressional Republicans had tanked the border deal for "rank partisan politics" and challenging them to "show a little spine."

While it's true that voters typically trust Republicans more on the issue of immigration, being a solutions-oriented pragmatist on the matter recently helped secure New York Democrat Tom Suozzi an 8-point win over his Republican rival in the special election for New York’s Third Congressional District. Suozzi called for a border shutdown while also emphasizing providing law-abiding immigrants with a pathway to citizenship.

And if Biden hopes to broaden his coalition by appealing to Nikki Haley supporters on the matter, South Carolina exit polls showed her winning 70 percent of Republican primary voters who say most undocumented immigrants should be given the opportunity to apply for legal status.

The split-screen Biden-Trump events at the border were just the opening salvo on an issue that Republicans will surely drive home through November. In 2022, Mueller said Republican-aligned campaigns ran 733 unique immigration ads totaling $233.4 million, according to AdImpact.

This year, Mueller expects Republicans to make another "massive investment" in stoking the issue.

"Despite nativist attacks failing to deliver at the ballot box in cycle after cycle, Republicans, with Trump still leading their party, are not going to switch tactics," he said.

And even if Republicans wanted to switch tactics, what would they switch to?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

After Crushing Defeat In Her Home State, What's Next For Nikki Haley?

After Crushing Defeat In Her Home State, What's Next For Nikki Haley?

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley got clobbered by Donald Trump Saturday in her home state of South Carolina, just as everyone predicted.

Haley's candidacy has already lasted longer than most election analysts predicted and certainly longer than Trump would like. Here's a look at what comes next.

1. Does Haley have a path to winning the nomination?

No. There's no world in which Haley manages to match, much less surpass, Trump's delegate count given the makeup of today's Republican Party.

Even in the event of Trump choking on the proverbial cheeseburger, Haley would face incredibly steep odds in brokering a convention deal among a bunch of delegates whose worship of Trump is complete and total. Such a convention showdown would be an awesome spectacle, but those delegates would almost surely vote for someone in Trump's mold, or maybe even anointed by him. That person will not be Haley.

2. Why is Haley still running?

It seems increasingly clear, based on the sharpness of her attacks on Trump, that Haley is trying to build a brand for the future, perhaps including a 2028 presidential bid. If Trump loses, Haley can say, “I told you so.” And at a spry 52 years of age, she can start laying the groundwork for her next political act, whether it's as part of the Republican Party or some other party that arises out of the GOP's wreckage.

3. Does Haley have a better shot on Super Tuesday than she did in South Carolina?

Yes. In spite of Haley's experience serving as governor of South Carolina, it remains a deeply conservative state with a relatively low level of college-educated voters. Haley's advisers have noted that 11 of the 16 contests taking place on Super Tuesday will be open or semi-open primaries that will inevitably include more voters receptive to Haley's insurgent pitch. The electorate in several of those states also boasts a greater concentration of the college-educated voters who have fueled Haley's campaign thus far. States that include some type of open primary coupled with a highly educated electorate, such as Massachusetts and Virginia, will be Haley’s sweet spot. She may not win them, but she will likely fare better there than in the Palmetto State.

4. Any chance Haley will be Trump's running mate?

Highly doubtful. Trump wants a running mate who will lie like a rug for him and trample the Constitution if that's what it takes to keep him in power. He doesn't want another Mike Pence fiasco. Plenty of malleable candidates have already stepped forward to demonstrate their bootlicking cred, including House Republicans' number three, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, and former 2024 hopeful-turned-Trump backer Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina.

5. Will Haley eventually fall in line on Trump?

Perhaps. But with each passing day, Haley's attacks on Trump get more pointed and trenchant, making it harder for her to walk that plank when she calls it quits.

During this week’s press conference on the state of the race, Haley said of Trump, "I feel no need to kiss the ring. I have no fear of Trump’s retribution. I’m not looking for anything from him."

If Haley is really building a brand for the future, she might think twice before endorsing a man she has repeatedly called "unstable and unhinged." In fact, Haley has finally hit her messaging stride because she sounds authentic, as if she is being true to herself and her own beliefs rather than hedging her bets in a party where she no longer belongs.

So it's just possible, if not exactly probable, that Haley declines to endorse Trump when she inevitably ends her bid.

If Trump wins the general election, however, Haley could very likely come crawling back in search of an administration position. There's nothing Trump relishes more than a contrite convert.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Donald Trump

Trump Contradictions Exposed In IVF Debate As Biden Trolls Republicans

Republicans are scrambling for a response to the Alabama Supreme Court ruling upending access to in vitro fertilization treatments in the state, and one very important person has gone silent: Donald Trump.

On Thursday, NBC News' Jonathan Allen reported that a Trump campaign spokesperson failed to reply to an inquiry about when Trump might weigh in. It wasn’t until Friday afternoon that Trump finally addressed the matter, saying that he would “strongly support the availability of IVF.” But by then, the Biden campaign and Democrats had pounced.

The right-wing ruling in a red state has put Republicans in a bind, forcing them to choose between their evangelical voters and the well-heeled donors who are increasingly turned off by the Republican Party's extremism. In Pew Research Center polling from last year, nearly 6 in 10 upper-income Americans said they or someone they know have used fertility treatments, such as IVF.

Even Trump's campaign surrogates dodged when asked whether embryos are children. “Well, I haven’t studied the issue,” Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina said after casting his vote in the state's Republican primary.

In Trump's absence, however, the Biden campaign stepped in to fill the void. "Make no mistake: this is because Donald Trump overturned Roe v. Wade," President Biden tweeted Thursday, over a graphic of an Associated Press headline about an Alabama hospital pausing IVF treatments. The graphic included a picture of Trump alongside a quote of him taking credit for destroying the country's abortion rights: "I'm the one that got rid of Roe v. Wade."

But that wasn't Biden's only tweet about IVF on Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Biden also connected the end of Roe to the IVF ruling, writing, "The Vice President and I won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law for all women in every state."

The Biden-Harris campaign's rapid-response account tweeted out several damning tweets related to Trump's attack on reproductive freedom—including on IVF treatments—while he was president. One tweet included Trump's tortured 2019 announcement of nominating anti-IVF, anti-surrogacy judge Sarah Pitlyk to a lifetime appointment as a federal judge.

"She was confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the federal bench and Trump even considered her for the Supreme Court," stated the Biden-Harris HQ account.

Another Trump appointee, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, refused to rule out criminalizing IVF treatments. During her 2020 confirmation, she said this:

In case there was any confusion about Trump's role in inserting the federal government into America's bedrooms, the Biden campaign wants to clear it up.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

How A Dank Meme Turned Into 'Dark Brandon' (And Muted MAGA)

How A Dank Meme Turned Into 'Dark Brandon' (And Muted MAGA)

When MAGA Republicans first stumbled into the meme "Let's Go Brandon!"—a euphemism for "Fuck Joe Biden!"—it was electric.

The meme’s origin stems from a misunderstanding. During an October 2021 NASCAR race, an on-air NBC News reporter suggested the crowd was chanting "Let's go, Brandon" for Brandon Brown, who had just won the day’s race. It quickly became clear that was not the case.

Suddenly, the MAGA movement had a G-rated code for relaying how they really felt. “Let's Go Brandon” showed up on bumper stickers, at campaign rallies, even in chants at some events featuring President Biden. Republican Rep. Bill Posey of Florida used it to punctuate a speech he delivered on the House floor—an easy way to score political points.

MAGA’s demented delight in the phrase might have peaked on Christmas Eve 2021, when Biden and his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, were fielding caller questions on NORAD's Santa tracker hotline. After a perfectly pleasant interaction with the president and the first lady, one caller, a 35-year-old father, ended the conversation with "Merry Christmas and Let's Go Brandon."

Jill Biden gave an uncomfortable chuckle as President Biden sought to further engage the caller, who either hung up or had been disconnected.

But Let's Go Brandon has ultimately suffered an unusual fate. By the second half of 2022, the meme had been largely co-opted by the left, becoming a new meme known as “Dark Brandon,” which centers on a grinning, laser-eyed portrayal of the president. As Don Caldwell, general manager of the meme-tracking site Know Your Meme, explained to The Daily Beast in an August 2022 article, the “Dark Brandon” meme suggests that Biden only seems like a hapless elderly man.

“It’s revealed that he’s pulling the strings behind the scenes and that everything’s going to plan,” Caldwell said.

In many ways, it's a new take on a Saturday Night Live sketch from the 1980s in which comedian Phil Hartman portrayed then-President Ronald Reagan as a doddering old man in public who shifted into a ball-busting mastermind behind closed doors. Only today, the president is on the joke.

And as “Dark Brandon” has risen, Republicans' own “Brandon” chants have practically gone mute. In other words, Democrats stole Republicans' thunder—and they did it with a gamely assist from the White House.

According to The Daily Beast's reporting:

The Biden press shop had noticed the rise in Dark Brandon content online and decided to lean into the meme as the president capped off a successful stretch, a White House official told The Daily Beast. Dealing with Trump and Republicans during and after the 2020 campaign convinced the Biden team that mockingly embracing the other side’s online attacks could have a strategic advantage.

But the more fun the Democrats have had with Dark Brandon, the more the meme has evolved and the richer it has become.

After Senate Democrats finally passed Biden's signature Inflation Reduction Act on Aug. 7, 2022, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted out, "Dark Brandon is crushing it."

Fun, yes, but nothing compared to the Dark Brandon troll to end all trolls following the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl win this past Sunday. In the lead-up to the game, some right-wing fever dream had birthed the idea that President Biden was conspiring with Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, the Chiefs' star tight end Travis Kelce, to rig the Super Bowl and eventually leverage a Swift endorsement of Biden to win reelection.

After the Chiefs' come-from-behind victory over the San Francisco 49ers, President Biden tweeted out a picture of old laser-eyes himself accompanied by the message, "Just like we drew it up."

Who’s laughing now?

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

James Comer

Trump Allies Mock (And Bully) Comer Over His Impeachment Flop

As he closes in on the Republican nomination, Donald Trump needs House Republicans to deliver an equalizer for him in the general election: an impeachment of President Joe Biden.

But after a yearlong investigation led by the House oversight committee chair, Rep. James Comer, Republicans seem no closer to digging up any actionable dirt on Biden. That leads to two conclusions:

  1. If the pro-Trump House GOP conference hasn't found anything on Biden, it's unlikely anything legally actionable exists.
  2. It becomes even more imperative for House Republicans to scrape together something Trump can work with.

After all, when pundits call him the twice-impeached, four-time indictee, Trump has to be able to point at Biden and say he's the one who's really corrupt. Just look at what Congress found on him. It's very reminiscent of Trump attempting to extort Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into opening a bogus investigation into Biden. Only now, Trump has so many legal liabilities, he needs more than just the specter of wrongdoing—he needs the goods. And according to some fascinating reporting from The Messenger's Stephen Neukam, Trump has taken note of the fact that he's currently got nothing on which to spin a corruption narrative.

“Comer has cast a wide net and caught very little fish. That is a big problem for him,” one ally of Trump told The Messenger.

The reporting is informed by more than a dozen anonymous interviews, including a House Republican colleague who calls Comer's inquiry a "parade of embarrassments."

“One would be hard pressed to find the best moment for James Comer in the Oversight Committee,” the GOP lawmaker said.

But in many ways, the leaks seem specifically designed to put Comer on notice that he not only needs to produce, but he'll be singularly on the hook if he doesn't.

“James Comer continues to embarrass himself and House Republicans. He screws up over and over and over," said a source identified as "close" to House GOP leadership, who appeared to be playing CYA for the leadership team. The source's big fear was that Comer would ultimately fail to provide the foundation necessary (i.e. evidence) to follow through with impeaching Biden.

“I don’t know how Republicans actually impeach the president based on [Comer's] clueless investigation and lack of leadership,” said the source.

The quotes had the feel of a failed campaign staff pointing fingers at each other as the ship goes down, only the campaign in this case is the Republican effort to impeach Biden.

Publicly, of course, House leaders are expressing full confidence in Comer.

"I am grateful for the superb efforts of Chairman Comer," Speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement, while House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Comer had "worked tirelessly" on the investigation.

But Comer's misfires have become legendary: providing nothing substantive, just a series of accusations and innuendo that don't amount to a hill of beans. In fact, Comer's investigation has become a punch line in the media. As Daily Kos' Mark Sumner wrote in November, Comer had uncovered another "smoking water pistol."

In fact, just last month, CNN's Jake Tapper mocked Comer during a live interview.

And when the oversight committee met earlier this month to debate holding Hunter Biden in contempt for refusing to give closed-door testimony, the younger Biden made a laughingstock of House Republicans by staging a surprise press conference in which he volunteered to provide public testimony.

“It seems like they got played by Hunter Biden,” a senior House GOP aide told The Messenger. “It was a disaster. They looked like buffoons.”

To sum up, the boss needs production, Comer has become a national joke, and the House leadership is happily hanging him out to dry.

In response, Comer issued a statement through a spokesperson saying that House Oversight, along with the Judiciary and Ways and Means committees, are coordinating to "determine whether President Biden's conduct warrants articles of impeachment."

Yeah, that's not gonna cut it.

"You have to start producing," one Trump ally said. "The base is starting to get more and more frustrated with him because they see all this smoke but they don’t see the movement.”

If that sounds like a mob-boss threat, that’s because it is.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary, But It's Not The Victory He Thinks

Trump Wins New Hampshire Primary, But It's Not The Victory He Thinks

Congratulations, Republicans, you got your guy. Donald Trump has won the Republican primary in New Hampshire. And his victory there is in large part due to the 70 percent of likely GOP primary voters who believe that Trump will “definitely” beat incumbent President Joe Biden, according to a CBS/YouGov poll from early this month.

Such certainty is the product of the right-wing echo chamber. Around this time last year, non-MAGA Republicans were expressing skepticism about Trump's chances of being reelected, along with a heavy dose of Trump fatigue. In fact, Republican voters at the time favored Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a head-to-head matchup against Trump. Mostly, Republican voters wanted to field a candidate who could win the general election and, as much as they still liked Trump, they thought he had too much baggage.

But that was before DeSantis announced his candidacy and voters actually got a good look at him. Despite his enormous war chest, DeSantis was nothing short of a tragic campaigner.

In the meantime, right-wing media painted a caricature of President Biden that suggested even the hapless Charlie Brown could clean his clock. And if that were true, why go for an exceedingly whiny Trump-lite candidate when you can have the real thing? Now, one year later, Republican voters, donning the blinders provided to them by the right-wing disinformation machine, believe Trump's a shoo-in against Biden in the general election.

Looking at high-quality national head-to-head polls conducted in January, we see that Trump holds a consistent lead over Biden. However, on closer inspection, Trump's lead is very narrow. While he may lead most polls, he leads by little more than 1 or 2 percentage points in many cases. And at this point, such polls represent little more than a partisan ink-blot test since many Americans are only now waking up to the fact that this year’s election will surely be a Biden-Trump rematch.

In truth, Trump has likely benefited from not being a part of many people’s daily lives. Outside of the white noise of Trump’s legal battles, voters have largely not tuned in enough yet to be privy his rally rants, his increasing cognitive challenges, and his social media meltdowns.

But that grace period is now ending. Team Biden is already feasting on Trump's barrage of embarrassing—not to mention deeply worrisome—statements. On Tuesday, Biden's rapid-response team circulated a nonsensical Trump quote in which he told rally attendees Monday, “We are an institute in a powerful death penalty.”

Subtweeting the quote, Team Biden quipped, "Yeah, we don't know what he's saying either."

On Monday, the account circulated video of Trump in 2020 promising a "stock market collapse" if Biden became president, splicing the footage together with Fox News’ coverage of the stock market's record-high close earlier this week.

While none of this will pierce the MAGA bubble, it does stand a chance of reaching both reality-based Republicans (who have typically supported former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the primaries) and independents who will be forced to cast a ballot for what they consider to be the lesser of two evils.

The November election will not be a popularity contest; rather, it will be a race defined by which candidate a majority of voters most fear being in charge of the country. And reality-based Americans will now be force-fed a daily diet of utterances from a man who is arguably the most dangerous presidential candidate the country has seen since the country's founding.

Democrats would much rather not roll the dice on democracy once again, but here we are. Republican voters have landed us here, largely because they are delusional enough to believe Trump’s a slam dunk in the general election.

They got their guy. Now they’re stuck with him as the Biden campaign gets to work.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Joe Biden

Surprise! Americans Are Feeling 'Good Vibes' About Their Finances

If we've learned anything from Trump-era post-fact politics, it's that old polling metrics don't exactly translate at the ballot box the way they used to.

A major part of the 2022 “red wave” narrative was informed by the fact that President Joe Biden's approval rating was hovering around a dismal 40 percent and the right track/wrong track numbers were abysmal—net -40s for the final few months of the midterm campaign. In days of old, Democrats, who controlled the White House and both chambers of Congress, would have been toast. Instead, they barely lost the House and miraculously managed to pick up one Senate seat.

The point isn't that old metrics aren't meaningful: It's that we have to view them through a new-era lens. At the same time, pollsters need to find new ways to measure the views of the electorate—particularly ones in which responses aren't as driven by partisan bias.

The Axios Vibes surveys seem to be an attempt at that. Yes, the name and concept seem almost laughable—except that, well, maybe they're onto something here.

One of their latest Vibes surveys conducted by Harris Polls finds that, contrary to popular belief, Americans are feeling pretty bullish about their personal finances. Indeed, 63 percent rated their current financial outlook as good, with 19 percent calling it "very good."

Additionally, they feel optimistic about their future finances, with 66 percent saying 2024 will be better than 2023 and 85 percent betting they can improve their personal financial situation this year.

These results may seem impossibly rosy to anyone who has been following voters' views of the economy over the past couple of years. But for one thing, consumer sentiment is actually a lagging indicator as an economy starts to hum again.

As veteran Democratic campaign strategist Joe Trippi tweeted out regarding the poll, "The Lag means this will start to show up in polling long before November….Americans are actually pretty happy with their finances."

That would be most welcome from a Democratic perspective.

Axios also notes that "political affiliation influences the responses that Republicans, in particular, give when they're asked about the economy." So asking instead about personal finances can elicit different and, in this case, more positive responses.

Views on the economy more broadly have been improving, but they're not exactly the stuff of legend.

In Civiqs tracking on the "current condition" of the economy, for example, voters currently say the economy is 29 points underwater, with 34 percent calling it good and 62 percent calling it bad.

But for perspective, the economy's current condition hasn't been in positive territory since the COVID-19 pandemic hit in the spring of 2020. And net -29 on the question is voters' best measure of the economy since October 2021. So overall sentiment is not great, but also consistently moving in a positive direction.

Consumer views about the economy will be taking shape over the next handful of months and helping to inform the overall mood of voters as they begin to size up a likely Joe Biden vs. Donald Trump rematch.

And while those views may not be quite as predictive about 2024 outcomes as they have proven to be in the past, it's possible that consumer sentiment will start to undercut the economic doomsday message that Republicans will be trying to sell the American people on.

That's exactly why Trump is predicting an economic "crash" is on the horizon while rooting for it to happen sooner rather than later.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Blasting Trump And GOP Rivals As 'Unfit,' Bitter Christie Quits Race

Blasting Trump And GOP Rivals As 'Unfit,' Bitter Christie Quits Race

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie announced during a Wednesday town hall that he is ending his presidential bid.

"It's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I'm suspending my campaign tonight for president of the United States," Christie told the town hall, saying it was "the right thing" to do.

Christie’s exit chiefly stands to benefit former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who has steadily gained ground in New Hampshire polls over the last several months while Donald Trump has slipped. Haley has taken second in the three most recent independent polls cited on 538, all taken since Dec. 15.

The latest, a CNN/University of New Hampshire survey of likely Republican primary voters, found the following:

  • Trump: 39%
  • Haley: 32%
  • Christie: 12%
  • Vivek Ramaswamy: 8%
  • Ron DeSantis: 5%

Christie, who has run as the field’s most vocal Trump critic, has concentrated his entire race in the Granite State, amassing what is a presumably solid block of anti-Trump GOP voters. Based on his campaign, his supporters are most likely to accrue to Haley rather than DeSantis, who has chiefly run as a Trump mini-me. Some quick back of the napkin math suggests such a boost from Christie voters looking for a new home could make Haley competitive with Trump.

Ahead of Christie’s town hall event, the candidate was caught in a hot-mic moment lamenting that voters didn’t seem open to his message.

“People don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to hear it. We know we’re right. But they don’t want to hear it,” Christie said. “We couldn’t have been any clearer. We couldn’t have been any more direct or worked any harder. So. You know.”

Later, before the mic was cut, Christie also suggested Haley didn’t have a chance of winning.

”She’s gonna get smoked. And you and I both know it. She’s not up to this,” he said.

It’s unclear from the recording exactly who Christie was speaking with, but the Biden campaign was happy to help disseminate Christie’s sentiments.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Failed Coup Plotter Trump Refuses To Sign Anti-Coup Pledge In Illinois

Failed Coup Plotter Trump Refuses To Sign Anti-Coup Pledge In Illinois

When Donald Trump and his campaign registered for the Illinois state primary this year, they refused to sign a voluntary loyalty oath stating that Trump wouldn't advocate for overthrowing the government.

The Biden campaign pounced on the news, which was broken by WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday, the anniversary of January 6.

“For the entirety of our nation’s history, presidents have put their hand on the Bible and sworn to protect and uphold the constitution of the United States – and Donald Trump can’t bring himself to sign a piece of paper saying he won’t attempt a coup to overthrow our government," said Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler. "We know he’s deadly serious because three years ago today he tried and failed to do exactly that.”

The news played right into President Joe Biden's speech last Friday emphasizing the existential threat Trump poses to American democracy.

Trump reportedly signed the Illinois pledge in 2016 and 2020. But instead of opting to rectify the situation by agreeing to sign it following the news, the Trump campaign chose to focus on the oath of office Trump would take after a potential win in November.

“President Trump will once again take the oath of office on January 20th, 2025, and will swear ‘to faithfully execute the office of president of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,’” said Trump spokesman Steven Cheung.

It's worth noting, however, that oath of office didn't stop Trump from inciting the riot at the Capitol, nor did it compel him to take swift action to rein in the violence once it had begun. Not only did he wait more than three hours to ask the insurrectionists to leave the Capitol, Trump actually shrugged off the fact that his vice president had to be evacuated, responding, "So what?" according to newly released information.

Trump's refusal to sign the anti-insurrection pledge underscores the fact that he continues to foreshadow an abrupt break from democracy as we know it if he prevails in November. Trump recently suggested on Fox News that he would be a dictator "on Day One" of a second Trump term.

We should take him both seriously and literally. Several months before the January 6 coup attempt he hosted at the Capitol, Trump similarly refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he lost the 2020 election.

“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump responded in September 2020 after being asked whether he’d commit to a peaceful transition.

Now, as then, Trump is telling Americans exactly what he plans to do. The only difference this time is that Trump will never look back if he seizes power. He will not worry about protocols or tradition or that outdated scrap of paper known as the U.S. Constitution. Trump and his allies will get straight to work on dismantling the foundations of the republic so they can reshape it in Trump's image.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Three Years Later, Republicans Keep Gaslighting Themselves

Three Years Later, Republicans Keep Gaslighting Themselves

Three years after the spectacle of rioters storming the Capitol played out on television screens across America, the events of January 6 are now highly open to interpretation depending on one's partisan lean.

For Democrats, it's generally clear that a mass of MAGA supporters, provoked by Donald Trump's lies about a stolen election, launched a violent attack on the Capitol in an effort to interrupt certification of the 2020 election and the peaceful transfer of power. That, of course, is what happened, as has been proven by the sweeping January 6 congressional investigation and hundreds of convictions.

Republicans, who have had to gaslight their way to an acceptable narrative, appear to believe some combination of the following fabrications: 1) the Jan. 6 violence was justified because Joe Biden's victory was illegitimate (i.e. Democrats stole the election); 2) Jan. 6 was mostly a peaceful protest (a narrative driven by right-wing talker Tucker Carlson, among others); and 3) the Jan. 6 violence was organized and instigated by FBI plants.

Since the outset of his 2024 campaign, Trump has openly embraced the MAGA rioters, launching his latest presidential bid in Waco, Texas, a city synonymous with extremist lore. The event kicked off with a variation of the national anthem sung by Jan. 6 convicts—or "hostages," as Trump prefers to call them. Trump has pledged to pardon some or possibly even all of those involved in the January 6 insurrection if he is elected president in November.

"Trump heading into the 2024 election has decided to go all in as being the pro-January 6 candidate," counterterrorism expert and January 6 investigator Tom Joscelyn told NPR. "He's gone full steam ahead in praising and in his own way endorsing the January 6 rioters and extremists who attacked the Capitol."

Yet outside of Democrats and pro-Trump Republicans, many Americans aren't as settled about what took place on January 6 and why. A sizable swath, in fact, would simply rather move past the Capitol attack as a bygone unpleasantry.

But as President Biden wages his reelection campaign on the threat that Trump and MAGA Republicans pose to American democracy, it's incumbent on Democrats and pro-democracy voters to relay a clear and direct narrative about what unfolded on Jan. 6 and who was responsible for the worst homegrown attack ever launched on the U.S. seat of government.

To that end, the progressive consortium Navigator Research has assembled a road map for how to discuss the Jan. 6 riot in ways that resonate broadly with voters.

Here are the nonpartisan explanations of the day that resonated with broad segments of the electorate as being most true and most concerning, according to Navigator:

  • More than 2,000 rioters ultimately broke into the Capitol, many of whom vandalized and looted parts of the building (69 percent true, 72 percent concerning).
  • Approximately 140 police officers were assaulted by rioters (64 percent true, 71 percent concerning).
  • Five people died as a result of the events on January 6, including Capitol police officers (60 percent true, 75 percent concerning).
  • More than 1,000 people have been arrested for their actions on January 6 (62 percent true, 66 percent concerning).

Navigator polling shows the Republican Party is currently viewed as more prone to political violence than the Democratic Party, but only by 11 points (47 percent to 36 percent). And nearly one in five voters remains unsure about which party is more prone to political violence.

With that in mind, Navigator fleshed out how to extend culpability for the January 6 assault to congressional Republicans by raising concerns about their ongoing efforts to promote political violence. The group found that Americans' top concerns with GOP conduct include that:

  • Congressional Republicans continue to allow the white supremacist factions present at the January 6th attack to play a dominant role in deciding the direction of the Republican Party (71% concerning, including 71% of independents).
  • Congressional Republicans voted against investigating basic facts about what happened at the attack at the Capitol building on January 6th (71% concerning, including 70% of independents).
  • Some Republican members assisted or encouraged the organizers of the attack on January 6th (70% concerning, including 73% of independents).

The 2024 presidential election is shaping up to be a rematch between the pro-democracy forces who elected Biden in 2020 and the pro-Trump forces who sought to overturn the will of the people.

Trump has left no doubt about his allegiance to the people who sought to stage an insurrection on Jan. 6 at his behest and congressional Republicans have left no doubt about their allegiance and submission to Trump as the party’s standard-bearer.

That puts the preservation of democracy, January 6, and the broader matter of right-wing violence directly on the ballot this November. So it's worth all of us making an effort to have one or two fast facts at the ready when our independent-minded friends and neighbors question the severity of the deadly January 6 riot. Because if Trump wins, he and his allies will rewrite history—and alter the course of American democracy.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Joe Biden

With January 6 Campaign Kickoff, Biden Will Deliver A Stark Warning​

Aside from an early ad buy and some behind-the-scenes quips, President Joe Biden kept his reelection powder dry in 2023. All that changes this month, beginning with Biden's speech this Saturday at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, marking the anniversary of the Trump-inspired January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Team Biden is promising a reelection bid infused with existential themes of the fight for democracy, freedom, and combating violent extremism—far more ominous than any reality-based incumbent president in recent memory.

On a campaign call with reporters covered by NPR, Biden's campaign chiefs hammered the dire warnings that the president and Vice President Kamala Harris will carry forward to voters this month as they kick off this year’s campaign.

"The choice for the American people in November 2024 will be about protecting our democracy and every American's fundamental freedoms," said Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.

Biden centered his 2020 campaign launch around the extremist threats to the republic, using footage of the 2017 neo-Nazi tiki torch marchers in Charlottesville, Virginia, whom Trump later dubbed "very fine people."

But as Biden deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks noted on the call, the political environment is even worse four years later.

"The threat that Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has grown even more dangerous than it was when President Biden ran last time," Fulks said.

Biden communications director Michael Tyler added, "The leading candidate of a major party in the United States is running for president so that he can systematically dismantle and destroy our democracy."

After Biden's inaugural 2024 campaign speech on January 6, he will travel to Charleston, South Carolina, on Monday to address congregants at Mother Emanuel AME Church, where a white supremacist opened fire on about two dozen Black worshippers in 2015, killing nine of them. In that speech, Biden reportedly plans to highlight the violent extremism that undergirded the overtly antisemitic Charlottesville march as well as the Mother Emanuel massacre.

Later in the month, Vice Price Kamala Harris will launch a multistate tour dedicated to protecting reproductive freedom, beginning with a speech in Wisconsin on Jan. 22, the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade. It's an unmistakable effort to remind voters of what's on the line this November in a key swing state where last year, pro-democracy and reproductive rights advocates successfully secured a liberal majority on the state's high court with a stunning 11-point victory for liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz.

Team Biden's tenor is a far cry from the 2012 reelection bid waged by President Barack Obama, who turned the presidential contest into a choice between who would fight harder for average Americans: him or Republican nominee Mitt Romney, the former CEO of a private equity firm.

Biden previewed the shift into high gear last month when he called it "self-evident" that Trump, his rival, is an insurrectionist.

"I think it's self-evident. You saw it all," Biden said of the January 6 attack, responding to a reporter’s question. "He certainly supported an insurrection. There's no question about it. None. Zero."

Gone are the days when we had the luxury of arguing over tax rates and the size of government.

This year, Team Biden is laying it all on the line right out of the gate: You either cast a vote in November for representative democracy and the freedoms protected therein, or you vote for an autocratic regime where campaigns, if they even exist, will be little more than window dressing for the world.

In other words, we will be living in a Putinesque regime overseen by Donald Trump.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Liz Cheney

Liz Cheney: House Republicans Can't Be Trusted To Defend The Constitution

Former Rep. Liz Cheney once again used her national platform over the weekend to remind voters that House Republicans cannot be trusted to be responsible stewards of the U.S. Constitution.

In a discussion on ABC's This Week, reporter Jonathan Karl noted that fielding so many third-party candidacies next year could produce a situation where no single presidential candidate reaches 270 electoral votes to claim a decisive win. In that situation, Karl pointed out, the question of who becomes president goes to the House of Representatives.

Cheney responded, "I expressed my view that having Mike Johnson as speaker, and having this Republican majority in charge, you can't count on them to defend the Constitution at this moment."

While promoting her new book, Oath and Honor, Cheney has been explicit about the threat that House Republicans and Speaker Mike Johnson pose to the republic.

Last week on CBS, Cheney said, “We are facing a situation with respect to the 2024 election where it’s an existential crisis, and we have to ensure that we don’t have a situation where an election that might be thrown into the House of Representatives is overseen by a Republican majority.”

The theme came up again in Cheney’s This Week interview because she has said she is weighing a third-party bid for president next year.

"I haven't ruled anything out," she told Karl Sunday. "I really am going to take the next couple months and look at what is going to be the most effective path to ensure the defeat of Donald Trump."

But Cheney also added, "Certainly, I'm not going to do something that has the impact of helping Donald Trump."

Although it is likely useful for Cheney to suggest she is weighing a third-party run, nothing at the moment suggests she is interested in making a vanity run. She has no campaign staffers, no visible ground game, and has made no serious effort toward getting on the ballot, as New York Times reporter Robert Draper has noted.

All signs continue to suggest Cheney is deeply invested in stopping Trump and his Republican allies from shredding the Constitution, and that the whole of her energies will be dedicated to that cause.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Donald Trump

Trump Camp Suddenly Realizes 'Dictator' Platform Is A Political Fail (VIDEO)

As mainstream reporters hone in on Donald Trump's fascist fantasies for a second term, his campaign and allies are discovering that a dictatorship platform might not be a winning message next year.

The Trump campaign itself is responsible for this message they are beginning to see as problematic. As Trump kicked off his 2024 bid, the signature line he pushed at every rally was, "I am your retribution," stoking the image of a mighty strongman who would mete out justice on his own terms

The journey from that to Trump's admission this week of being a dictator "on day one" of a second term has been filled with rhetoric plucked out of the playbook of the Nazis and other fascist regimes. But Trump's cheeky “dictator” dodge, implying that he wouldn't be a dictator "except for on day one" has drawn renewed scrutiny from reporters and opposing candidates alike.

The Biden campaign's rapid response X (formerly Twitter) account has been feasting on the topic, tweeting out clips like this one from Axios co-founder and CEO Jim VandeHei.

Trump's wife, Melania, VandeHei says, is pushing for former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be Trump's vice president. Stephen Miller, architect of Trump's Muslim ban, could be attorney general and has talked about implementing "detainment camps" and "mass deportation[s]." And Kash Patel, who has talked about using the "machinery of government" to target Trump's political enemies, could end up as CIA director, for instance, says VandeHei.

The Trump campaign and some of its allies are starting to pick up on the fact that the broad and pervasive push toward an authoritarian-style government might not be the best campaign theme. While "Fascism for All" has a ring to it, it's likely not a winner in a country where people can still cast meaningful votes for their leadership. The Washington Post writes:

[I]n recent days, the former president and his allies have been pushing back more forcefully on comments from historians, policy experts and political opponents that a second Trump term would be more extreme and autocratic than his first. Two Trump advisers, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk more candidly, said recent stories about his plans for a second term are not viewed as helpful for the general election.

Fox News' media reporter Howard Kurtz, for instance, suggested the coverage was a smear campaign, saying, "It's not that [Trump] shouldn't be held accountable for his own rhetoric and social-media posts, but I have never seen anything like this in my professional lifetime."

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Kari Lake

In Arizona Senate Race, Kari Lake Is A Big GOP Problem

Senate Republicans already have an Arizona problem they are trying to fix.

Their top GOP candidate, 2022 gubernatorial loser Kari Lake, isn't polling well against the top Democratic candidate, Rep. Ruben Gallego, and independent incumbent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. In fact, one recent survey found Sinema, who is polling third in the contest, pulling more votes away from Lake than Gallego.

Noble Predictive Insights’ late October polling of the hypothetical three-way contest showed Gallego at 39 percent, Lake at 33 percent, and Sinema at 29 percent. Notably, Gallego inspired far more party loyalty than Lake, with Sinema drawing support from nearly twice as many Republican voters (23 percent) as Democrats (12 percent).

In early October, a Public Policy Polling survey commissioned by the Gallego campaign similarly showed him winning a 41 percent plurality of the vote to Lake's 36 percent, with Sinema garnering just 15 percent. The same poll found a head-to-head favoring Gallego at 48 percent over Lake at 43 percent.

What makes the polling particularly ominous for Republicans is the fact that Lake is extremely well known by voters across the state after her high-profile but ultimately unsuccessful bid for governor last cycle. In other words, most voters have made up their mind about her.

That leaves Republicans with one chief tactic at this point: trying to drive down support for the other two candidates. Thus, the National Republican Senatorial Committee's latest ad blasting Gallego's personal life and tying Sinema's voting record to President Joe Biden. The ad frames the choice facing voters as one between "Rotten Rubin," who "abandoned" his pregnant wife when he filed for divorce, and Sinema, who "voted for Biden's agenda 100% of the time." The ad accuses Gallego of being a "deadbeat dad" without providing any evidence and slams Sinema as a "liberal Democrat." Yikes, what could be worse?

But the main takeaway here is that Senate Republicans are already grasping at straws in order to prop up a Trump-aligned election denier who enters the race with high name ID and a boatload of baggage.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Pete Aguilar

'Political Malpractice': Democrats Giddy Over House Republicans' Massive Cuts

House majorities are famous for taking what's known as "messaging votes" on bills that stand no chance of becoming law because they either can't clear the Senate or will ultimately get vetoed—or both.

The idea for the majority party is to use the votes as a way of signaling to voters all the important and popular policies they would prioritize if they had greater control of the government. Importantly, those votes are also designed to work to the advantage of the most vulnerable members of their caucus. In other words, the majority’s messaging bills boost its members’ reelection chances and, therefore, the prospect of maintaining the majority.

Unless, of course, the majority is held by an anti-democratic party living in a fantasy bubble where its members believe their deeply unpopular beliefs should rule the masses regardless of what the masses want. In other words, those messaging bills help the majority’s incumbents unless you're in the Republican Party—then your leaders schedule a bunch of messaging votes that Democrats can weaponize against you.

That's exactly the bind that more than a dozen vulnerable Republicans in Democratic-leaning swing districts find themselves in as whiz-bang Speaker Mike Johnson pushes through a series of spending measures that include everything from slashing critical programs to banning mail-order abortion pills.

The political malpractice is so glaring that Democrats can hardly believe their good fortune.

“It’s just very puzzling to us that they continue to put their members in positions to support these terrible cuts that are not going to become law,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California told Politico.

House Majority Forward, the nonprofit arm of House Democrats' super PAC, is already packaging up the GOP presents and deploying them in the home districts of Republicans they hope to unseat.

One of those GOP members, Rep. Mike Garcia of California, who sits in a district that favored Joe Biden by 12.4 percentage points in 2020, may come to regret voting in favor of Johnson's funding cuts. Democrats have already sent mailers out claiming that “no family is safe from" the cuts Garcia approved.

“These mailers are going out — and these hit ads are going out — based on a first negotiation position,” Garcia told Politico, “which is probably more conservative than what we’re going to end up with.”

Garcia is correct. Republicans' extreme funding cuts, which are dead on arrival in the Democrat-led Senate, will surely be rolled back over the course of negotiations. But House Republicans wanted to send out a message highlighting their wildly unpopular agenda and Democrats are simply helping them do it.

Here are the issues where Democrats are looking to gain an advantage:

  • Schools: House Majority Forward suggests GOP spending reductions at the Department of Education could cut loose some 108,000 teachers and aides across the country.
  • Abortion: A Republican spending bill for the FDA and Department of Agriculture includes a rider banning mail-order abortion pills nationwide. The rider, which is still a work in progress, is highly contentious within the Republican caucus, so just imagine how much damage it could do with everyday voters.
  • Defunding the police, Republican style: Current GOP spending levels would slash the FBI budget by more than 9% (roughly $1 billion) and the Justice Department budget by more than 6%. President Joe Biden claims the cuts, left unchecked, would result in a net loss of some 30,000 law enforcement officers at the FBI, DEA, and elsewhere.
  • Amtrak cuts: Even House Republicans who hail from the Northeast are freaked out over their party proposing to cut upward of $1 billion in federal subsidies to Amtrak—a staple mode of transportation in the region.

"Without question" is what Democratic Rep. Rose DeLauro of Connecticut, ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, answered when asked whether her party planned to use the massive railroad cuts against Republicans.

“Because how do you deal with a 67 percent cut to Amtrak?” said DeLauro. “Our votes are public, as they should be. And the public needs to know what harm these bills are doing to them.”

Republicans are sending a message all right—one that Democrats are happy to spread.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Mike Johnson

In Battleground House Districts, Republicans Are Sinking Fast

Fresh off congressional Republicans' new job approval rating of 12 percent comes a poll showing Republican incumbents in battleground districts are in dire shape.

Overall, Republicans in Congress now have a net -22 favorability rating among voters in some 60 battleground districts, 10 points worse than their -12 rating in July, according to the new survey from the progressive consortium Navigator Research.

Congressional Democrats, by comparison, held steady at a -10 favorability rating in both surveys.

An interesting side note from the Navigator bar graph pictured above: "MAGA Republicans," specifically, have a higher "very favorable" rating at 24 percent than either Republicans (11 percent) or Democrats (18 percent). But MAGA Republicans also score the highest "very unfavorable" rating at 50 percent, compared to Republicans (-40 percent) and Democrats (-42 percent). In essence, MAGA Republicans are equally as polarizing as their standard-bearer Donald Trump.

Perhaps the most telling part of the survey related to named incumbents in the competitive congressional districts. Democratic incumbents who were identified by name held a job approval rating of +8, at 40 percent approve -- 32 percent disapprove (relatively unchanged since their +7 approval in July).

Named Republican incumbents, by comparison, held a -10 job approval rating at 33 percent approve -- 43 percent disapprove — 8 points worse than their net -2 approval rating in July.

The bottom line here: In the battleground districts that will decide control of the House next year, voters are relatively pleased with the performance of their Democratic members, and relatively displeased with their Republican members. And not by a small margin—by a double-digit margin.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.