Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:30 PM | April 14, 2024
meme

Yesterday the New York Times released part of a poll that showed Trump and Biden essentially tied in the national popular vote, which of course implies that Biden is in terrible trouble, given that he was barely elected despite a substantial lead in the popular vote. 

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The spin on the poll, of course, is that a statistically insignificant shift to Biden shows that he is closing the gap. Fine, take that as you will. 

Today's poll results--they are wisely releasing the results in chunks to get more reads and to allow people to consider the resutls in isolation--are even worse news for Joe Biden. As people are focusing on the election they are deciding not just that Biden kinda sucks, but beginning to think Trump was kinda good for America. 

While the memories of Mr. Trump’s tumultuous and chaotic administration have not significantly faded, many voters now have a rosier picture of his handling of the economy, immigration and maintaining law and order. Ahead of the 2020 election, only 39 percent of voters said that the country was better off after Mr. Trump took office. Now, looking back, nearly half say that he improved things during his time as president.

The poll’s findings underscore the way in which a segment of voters have changed their minds about the Trump era, recalling those years as a time of economic prosperity and strong national security. 

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This shift in opinion is much more significant, I think, than voters merely realizing that Biden has sucked as president. If people are actually reconsidering their opinion about Trump--in this case his negatives improving--that means people are no longer making a choice between two bad options. 

They are seeing this election as a choice between a bad president and a good one. That is a vastly different election than one between two bad choices. 

Trump is remembered fondly by 17% more people than Biden, and 13% more people think Biden has been "mostly bad for America."

Devastating. No wonder the Biden administration is trying to destroy Trump in the courts. They can't do it in the ballot box. 

Trump has been in the public eye as a presidential candidate or president for nearly a decade, and despite a massive campaign to destroy his reputation people think better of him now than when he was first elected. 

That is extraordinary. Hardly a positive word has been spoken of Trump since 2016, and the campaign of slander has been constant. It has backfired. 

Many of Mr. Trump’s key constituencies, such as white voters without a college degree, are particularly likely to have a fond view of his time in office. But a broad swath of the country — including Hispanic voters, voters over 30 and most lower- and middle-income voters — now see Mr. Trump’s years in office as more good than bad.

Maya Garcia, 23, described herself as a former “Trump hater.” But now, she says, she has come to believe that Mr. Trump’s contentious style helped control crime and maintain order in the country.

“When he was first running, I was, like, what is this guy even yapping about? Like, what is he even saying? Like, he’s saying all the wrong things,” said Ms. Garcia, a restaurant worker from Canoga Park, Calif. “But to be honest, if you look deep into his personality, he actually cares about the country.” She added: “You know at first I didn’t like it. But sometimes we need that type of person in our lives.”

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I think a huge part of this shift, aside from the obvious fact that Trump's presidency went far better than Biden's, is the huge drop in trust people have in the establishment. When given the opportunity to do unto the country, the establishment did horribly while crowing about how great they are doing. 

Is it a surprise people have concluded that Biden and company hate them? 

People haven't forgotten why they disliked Trump--many of them still do--but they also believe they were better off when he was president. 


But other voters said that while they disapproved of Mr. Trump’s inflammatory style, they wondered whether they had placed too much emphasis on his personality in past elections.

And despite being told that they are supposed to hate him, hispanics keep moving toward Trump. Open borders have turned into a significant liability for Biden not just with Whites and Blacks, but also hispanics. 

Angie Leon, a 23-year-old Mexican American, said she never liked how Mr. Trump talked about Latinos. But looking back, she wonders whether Mr. Trump’s incendiary remarks about immigrants and building a border wall were just a political tactic to bolster his campaign. After backing Mr. Biden in 2020, she plans to switch her vote to Mr. Trump in November.

“I felt like it was just his marketing, in the way that he would get the attention of people,” said Ms. Leon, a human resources recruiter from Gilroy, Calif. “The country was better when he was running it, despite his comments toward the community.”

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The needle that Biden has to thread in order to win is getting smaller as his vision is getting fuzzier. In light of this expect the Democrats to work hard to change the rules so they don't have to thread the needle at all. Whether it is Trump being thrown into jail, Disease X, or some other crisis will surely pop up to change the conditions on the ground. 

Also expect a lot of ballot harvesting. 



















































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