I think that if it’s Trump vs. Biden, age and personality will be a wash with persuadable voters. So it will come down to each side trying to convince voters that the other side is too extreme on issues they care about. As for the idea that the only way the GOP can possibly succeed is to lie about Democratic views, that’s not correct, as explained here:
Now, you could write the same kind of article about how the Republicans are pushing unpopular extreme policies. This is true on abortion. I don’t know how many persuadable voters care about Ukraine, but that’s another issue where Biden’s policy polls well.
As indicated in my link, respecting the wishes of trans kids polls poorly. I’m not saying Biden should throw them all under the bus. But it’s a good issue for demagogues that’s making me nervous about Biden’s chances.
If I were President Biden, I’d want to frame last week and put it in a museum. Both abroad and at home, he made a powerful case for reelection.
…
Back when inflation was out of control, Republicans railed against the purported failure of “Bidenomics,” a sobriquet they coined as a pejorative. But recently, Biden has stolen the term and begun touting “Bidenomics” as an unqualified success: falling inflation, rising wages and jobs for all who want to work. And while what Americans feel about the economy often lags behind what the numbers say, last week there was a sign that perception is catching up with reality: The University of Michigan’s benchmark measure of consumer sentiment jumped to 72.6 percent in July from 64.4 percent in June — the biggest single-month jump since 2005.
Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, were engaged in performative antics designed to appeal to the MAGA base. House Republicans made a show of festooning the Defense Department’s budget bill with culture-war nonsense that will never make it through the Senate; and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) is holding up military promotions, and damaging the readiness of our armed forces, to make a point about abortion.
To cap off the week, the reelection campaign of Biden and Vice President Harris announced Friday that it had raised $72 million in the second quarter — more than twice the amount raised by Trump, and more than three times the haul of Trump’s leading opponent for the GOP nomination, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
…
…
“Our Administration is working to ensure the American people know how the President’s agenda is delivering for them,” [White House spokesman Michael] Kikukawa said. “Americans are choosing economic policies that grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up over congressional Republicans’ trickle-down economics.”
…
“Wages have been outpacing inflation for a year now. As they start to make up for the huge amount of ground that was lost, I would expect people to be more optimistic about the economy,” [Jason] Furman [top economic aide to President Barack Obama] said. “If this holds up, it would be helpful to the president politically.”
My bold.
Not working hard enough! Blow that horn and blow it loudly-- make it heard above the negatives being trumpeted by Republicans.
That’s the thing that really gets me - she’s not even trying to spin it to look bad by using selective wording and dog whistles (other than ‘urban’). She just legitimately thinks funding education, infrastructure, medical care, and reducing the impact of poverty in both rural and urban areas is so obviously bad, that just hearing this list will immediately convince people to vote against Biden. She really, truly, believes that.
I don’t really know what that poll means if anything other than Republicans aren’t going to vote for Biden. They didn’t try to separate out partisans. They didn’t define “fit”. The poll broke down along party lines for the most part.
I’m not a member of either party. If I answered that poll I would also probably say neither are fit to be president, for different reasons. That doesn’t mean I would ever vote for Trump or I wouldn’t vote for Biden if it was between the two of them.
The problem is that most Americans are “sour on the economy” because “the economy” is not about them. A “good” economy benefits a very small fraction of the people. Most Americans are getting by or struggling, and the activities of financiers and tycoons have negligible effect on everyone else. Biden can make the economy look like glorious Brigadorado, but most Americans will remain unimpressed because most of America is still in the real world.
My mother recently died after a three year battle with cancer. She was 89 years old. Until the last two weeks of her life she looked healthier and sounded more on the ball than Joe Biden. I find it unlikely that he will survive until 2028. It’s a problem that most democrats seem to be whistling in the dark about but it’s foolish to think it’s not an issue. A vote for him would have to be a vote for the next two presidents and for mid-term upheaval.
I know Trump is only a few years younger and the same may be true of him but for being a tub of goo he certainly seems robust.
OK, I can see where age concerns could put Biden in the “unfit” category. I’m really only concerned that he remain healthy until Jan. 21, 2025. The Dems’ worst-case scenario is that death or disability take him out of the running in this election cycle, because I just can’t see Kamala Harris beating Trump or another GOP candidate.
If Biden wins but can’t finish his second term, that’s a problem, but not as big a problem IMHO as a Republican in the White House.
True, but that was voting for Harris as a contingency – very different from voting for her to be the actual POTUS.
To be clear, I’m not saying Harris couldn’t be an effective president – certainly better than Trump. I just fear that her gender, race and relative lack of experience could all be leveraged effectively by the GOP to undermine her electability. But that’s probably a topic for a different thread.
