The Week Trump Lost

The election is not over yet. In fact, it is still more than four months away. Still, I have a strong feeling that when the post-mortems of the 2020 election are written, it will be this week that marked a turning point for Donald Trump. To paraphrase the old song from “Hee Haw,” this week has been one in which “if it weren’t for bad news, the president would have no news at all.”

Even though President Trump has consistently trailed in polling, this week it got worse with Joe Biden opening up a double-digit lead in many polls. The Real Clear Politics polling average currently stands at 9.4 points and the president has not led in a poll since February. The last time he tied Biden in a poll was in April.

The damage is not limited to national polling. Biden is opening up wider leads in swing states and even red states are becoming competitive. That Trump trails in all seven swing states is not new. What is new is that Biden leads in the only recent polling in Georgia and Texas. While many are skeptical of polls, the Trump campaign is taking them seriously enough to begin buying ads in normally deep-red Georgia.

The Trumpian implosion in the polls is not out of the blue. In fact, it is amazing that it has taken this long. Rather, the decline is driven by Trump’s inadequate response to a multitude of crises. Joe Biden’s increasing lead is mirrored by Donald Trump’s rapidly dropping job approval. From a high of 47 percent in mid-March per the Real Clear Politics average, Trump’s approval has dropped to 41.6 percent. This represents a net disapproval of more than 14 points.

After more than three years in office, the president’s re-election hopes are being sunk by his incompetent handling of the Coronavirus pandemic, the resulting economic crisis, and the race riots and protests sweeping the nation. While the minds of many anti-Trump voters have been made up for months, if not years, the new factor is that Trump’s base seems to be splintering. Two key Trump demographics, seniors and evangelicals, seem to be softening in their support of the president. To make matters worse, polling shows moderates and independents are swinging away from Trump and towards Biden.

Part of the reason for the growing dissatisfaction with Trump is his response to the riots and civil unrest that has gripped the country for a month now. Some of it is also due to the worsening pandemic.

A few weeks ago, it seemed that the curve was being flattened and the worst was behind us. That was before many states tried to get back to normal and thousands of people took to the streets. Now, 48 states are reporting increasing numbers of new cases and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar is warning that the “window is closing for us to take action and get this under control.” Getting the pandemic under control has been made more difficult by the president’s insistence on getting back to normal and his supporters’ ridicule of masks and other mitigation strategies.

If all that wasn’t enough, two new scandals erupted about President Trump this week. The first may grow to be the most serious threat to his presidency since the revelations of the Ukraine quid pro quo. In this new scandal, a New York Times report revealed that the Trump Administration knew for months that Russia had offered Taliban fighters a bounty to kill US and allied soldiers in Afghanistan and did nothing.

The White House has denied that President Trump and Vice President Pence were briefed on the intelligence, but this defense, that members of the Trump Administration did not do their jobs, does not bolster the Administration’s credibility. Not responding to alleged Russian targeting of American soldiers undercuts the president’s tough-guy image and makes him seem indecisive and incompetent at best.

The bigger question is why the Adminstration is still mostly silent. NPR notes that the White House does not dispute the substance of the intelligence assessment’s claim, only that Trump and Pence were aware of it. Whether he has known about the bounties for months or merely days, Trump has yet to criticize Putin’s Russia for its actions.

The second scandal, which broke Sunday morning, was president Trump’s retweet of a video in which an elderly Trump supporter in Florida can be seen yelling, “White power.” Trump commented, “Thank you to the great people of The Villages” on the retweet, which has uncharacteristically been deleted. The original tweet with the video is linked below.

The “White Power” retweet is yet another in a long series of unforced errors by President Trump. The retweet is just one more example of Mr. Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip impulsivity coming back to bite him. Retweeting a “white power” salute would never be good for a president but today’s racial tensions make the mistake all the more devastating.

The mounting bad news is threatening to fracture the Republican Party’s support for Trump. Charles Gasparino, a Fox Business panelist, tweeted this morning that “GOP operatives” are not-quite-openly talking about the possibility that the president could drop out before the election if “his poll numbers don’t rebound.” While it would be hard for me to believe that Trump would decide to bow out, it is possible that Republicans could decide to cut their losses and concentrate on preserving their Senate majority by distancing themselves from Trump.

With the election four months away, there is still time for a shakeup in the race, but, after four years of Trump, it is increasingly clear that what you see is what you get. There are still some faithful souls who believe that Donald Trump can become presidential and rise to the occasion. That isn’t going to happen. If the election remains a referendum on Donald Trump, Republicans are in for a bad night.

Much has been made of Joe Biden’s disappearance, but even though Sleepy Joe is a deeply flawed candidate himself, he is smart enough to follow the old military maxim, “Never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.” So, don’t look for Biden on the campaign trail as long as Trump keeps stepping on his own toes. And that might be a while. November, even. Donald Trump just can’t help himself and he won’t listen to people who could help him.

Originally published on The Resurgent

New Poll Shows Biden’s Lead Narrowing In South Carolina

Joe Biden has been looking forward to South Carolina but a new poll shows that the former vice president may have cause to worry in the Palmetto State. While Biden has consistently been strong in South Carolina, the new poll from the Post and Courier and Change Research indicated that Biden’s lead has been cut to five points over Bernie Sanders.

The poll showed Biden with 25 percent of likely Democratic primary voters while Sanders nips at his heels with 20 percent. Tom Steyer, who has blitzed the state with ads in an all-out attempt to stay in the race, polled third with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg followed with 11 and seven percent respectively. No other candidates polled above five percent.

Although the poll is likely to set off alarm bells at the Biden campaign, it is far from certain that the Sanders surge in South Carolina is real. The only other recent polls in the state, a GQR Research poll taken from January 9-13 and a Fox News poll taken from January 5-8, both showed Biden with a lead of more than 20 points. On the other hand, as other outlets were showing double-digit leads for Biden, another Change Research poll from December showed only a seven-point lead for the vice president.

This leaves a couple of possibilities. There could be a real Sanders surge underway that developed since mid-January. Alternatively, Change Research could be habitually overcounting Sanders supporters. The relatively small sample size and Change Research’s previous outlier poll from December suggest that Biden’s lead is larger than the poll indicates. It is very suspicious that only Change Research shows a close race.

South Carolina’s primary is set for Saturday, February 29. There will undoubtedly be several new polls as the Palmetto State’s Election Day draws near. My bet would be that they show a larger lead for Joe Biden than what Change Research found.

Originally published on the Resurgent

New Poll Shows Mayor Pete Leading In Iowa

There is a first for everything and today was a first Pete Buttigieg. In a Monmouth University poll of Iowa caucus-goers released on Tuesday, Mayor Pete has vaulted to the lead for the first time.

The new poll shows Buttigieg leading the pack with 22 percent support. This represents a shockingly fast surge for a candidate who garnered only eight percent back in August.

The poll shows Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren in a statistical tie with 19 ad 18 percent respectively. Bernie Sanders runs a distant fourth at 13 percent. No other candidate polled above five percent.

While the Monmouth poll may not be enough to establish Mayor Pete as the Iowa frontrunner, other polling does confirm his rise and Elizabeth Warren’s decline. A Quinnipiac poll from last week showed Warren and Buttigieg tied with 20 and 19 percent respectively. That poll put Sanders in third with 17 percent and Joe Biden at 15 percent.

A month ago, a New York Times poll had Warren at 22 percent. The Massachusetts senator was followed by Sanders, Buttigieg, and Biden who were all within one point of each other.

The Iowa polling seems to be following a pattern in which the top four candidates ebb and flow as voters consider their pros and cons. Warren surges for a few weeks and then Buttigieg gets a turn as Warren’s weaknesses are revealed. Biden and Sanders have been more-or-less consistent in their Iowa polling even though both men have suffered setbacks.

The Buttigieg surge comes with both good news and bad for Mayor Pete. The bad news is that there is not much depth to his ground game. While rolling in cash, the Buttigieg campaign is heavily invested in Iowa and has little in the way of infrastructure or support elsewhere. Mayor Pete’s failure to generate excitement among black voters will be particularly problematic as the race moves to the South. In New Hampshire, a recent Quinnipiac poll showed him with 15 percent, competitive with Warren and Sanders for second but behind Joe Biden.

The good news for Mayor Pete is that his surge may not be enough to attract a significant amount of attention from the other Democrats at next week’s debate. National polling still shows Biden as the frontrunner with Elizabeth Warren fading into second place. In national polling, Buttigieg does not even break into double-digits.

To have a sustainable campaign, Buttigieg must look beyond Iowa and broaden his appeal while fending off attacks from his rivals. If Mayor Pete can hold on for three months to pull off an upset victory in Iowa, then he may be able to parley his new frontrunner status into more victories. Not following the examples of Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, who both used their time in the spotlight to crash and burn, may be a bigger problem.

Pete Buttigieg and his supporters have worked hard to be competitive in Iowa. Over the next few weeks, we will see if the effort was worth it or whether he is just another flavor-of-the-month.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Swing State Polls Look Bad For Donald Trump

A new round of head-to-head polling from the swing states came in yesterday and the results are somewhat encouraging for Republicans. While Donald Trump trails the leading Democrats in national polling, many of the swing state races are too close to call.

Due to the large number of candidates and states to examine, for clarity, I will present each state separately and give Trump’s net poll rating with each candidate based on the Real Clear Politics average. A negative rating means that Trump is behind and a positive rating means that he is ahead. For reference, I’m also including the latest state-level Trump approval numbers from Morning Consult, which were taken as the Ukraine whistleblower scandal was breaking in late September.

National

Trump vs. Biden               -10

Trump vs. Warren            -7.3

Trump vs. Sanders           -7.9

Trump vs. Buttigieg         -4.5

Trump vs. Harris               -5.3

Trump approval                -13

Arizona

Trump vs. Biden               -1.7

Trump vs. Warren            0.7

Trump vs. Sanders           5.3

Trump approval                -4

Florida

Trump vs. Biden               -2.0       

Trump vs. Warren            0.3

Trump vs. Sanders           1.0

Trump approval                -2

Iowa

Trump vs. Biden               1.5

Trump vs. Warren            4.5

Trump vs. Sanders           1.0

Trump vs. Buttigieg         4.0

Trump approval                -14

Michigan

Trump vs. Biden               -7.7

Trump vs. Warren            -3.0

Trump vs. Sanders           -7.3

Trump approval                -10

North Carolina

Trump vs. Biden               -5.4

Trump vs. Warren            0.2

Trump vs. Sanders           -2.4       

Trump approval                -3          

Ohio (no recent polling)

Trump vs. Biden               -7.0

Trump vs. Warren            -1.5

Trump vs. Sanders           -5.0

Trump approval                -5

Pennsylvania

Trump vs. Biden               -7.3       

Trump vs. Warren            1.7

Trump vs. Sanders           5.4

Trump approval                -8

Wisconsin

Trump vs. Biden               -5.7

Trump vs. Warren            -1.0

Trump vs. Sanders           -2.7

Trump approval                -11

There are a couple of important takeaways from this polling, even though the election is still a year away. The first is that Joe Biden is a stronger candidate in the swing states than Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders. In six of the seven swing states with recent head-to-head polling, Biden leads Donald Trump. Warren fares worst of the three top-tier Democrats, but Bernie Sanders is not much better.

Second, Trump approval is a pretty good proxy for how he stacks up in a head-to-head matchup in most cases, although this is dependent on individual candidates as well and the numbers don’t match up exactly. In only one of the states examined, Iowa, does Trump have a negative approval rating but leads in polling.

Finally, as we saw in 2016, it isn’t enough for the Democrats to win the popular vote and expect that to translate into an Electoral College victory. The Democrats must give Donald Trump a 5-10 point shellacking in the popular vote to be assured of winning enough swing states to secure the White House. This is especially true due to the difficulties of state-level polling in swing states.

Based on the current polling presented above (while assuming Ohio stays red), Joe Biden would win the Electoral College by 333-205 and Bernie Sanders would eke out a 273-265 victory. Elizabeth Warren would lose by 258-280, but many states are actually too close to project in a Warren-Trump matchup. Neither side could be confident of victory at this point, although Warren does seem to represent Trump’s best chance at reelection.

The election is a long way away and a lot can happen. In the current cycle, that is even more true than most years due to the breaking Ukraine scandal, impeachment, the slowing economy, and a number of other factors. While the swing states are not looking good for Donald Trump, they are looking much better than the national average, but that’s why they call them battleground states.

While many of the state-level races are not polled frequently, it will be important to watch them for trends over the next year. Significant movement in one direction or the other could represent a changing dynamic within the election.

Originally published on The Resurgent

New Poll Shows Public Evenly Split On Impeachment

A new poll shows significant movement in voter attitudes on impeachment as the Ukraine whistleblower scandal unfolds. Despite previous polls showing heavy opposition to impeachment, the new survey shows that voters are now evenly split on whether impeachment proceedings should be initiated against President Trump.

The Politico/Morning Consult poll found that voters were split 43-43 on impeachment with another 13 percent undecided. Politico notes that this reflects an increase of seven points among those who favor impeachment and a decline of six points among opponents from the last poll. The rise in pro-impeachment sentiment was present across the political spectrum.

“As more information has emerged about whistleblower allegations against President Trump, support for impeachment proceedings has grown to its highest point since the beginning of the summer,” said Morning Consult vice president Tyler Sinclair. “This week’s news cycle had a significant impact on Republicans and independents, giving credibility to Democrats' impeachment inquiry. Up from 5 percent last week, 10 percent of Republicans now support beginning impeachment proceedings, while support among independents has reached 39 percent.”

Seventy-nine percent of Democrats were in favor of impeachment.

The new was conducted between September 24-September 26. This was a week after the Washington Post initially broke the story of the whistleblower complaint on September 18 and two days after House Democrats began an impeachment inquiry on September 24. The previous poll was completed on Sunday, September 22, meaning that the large shift in public opinion took place in less than a week. A 13-point shift in four days is a seismic event in polling terms.

Among the voters who favored impeachment, 59 percent cited their main reason for doing so as the belief that “President Trump committed an impeachable offense, such as treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” Another 37 percent agreed with the statement, “President Trump has proven he is unfit to serve and should be removed from office, regardless of whether he committed an impeachable offense or not.” The belief that President Trump had committed an impeachable offense increased to 66 percent when the scandal was described.

There is also evidence that the news may get worse for Republicans. Only 32 percent of respondents said that they had heard “a lot” about the unfolding scandal. As more voters become aware of the incident, the public sentiment for impeachment could well continue to rise.

Although the poll surveyed 1,640 registered voters, giving it a margin of error of only two percentage points, it should be viewed cautiously. Polls that show large changes in public opinion over a short time span should be treated skeptically until other polls confirm their results. It is too early to tell whether the new survey is an outlier or a true reflection of a rapid change in public sentiment, but it is extremely likely that the news of the president’s phone call with the Ukrainian president and subsequent alleged attempts to conceal his actions have changed some minds on impeachment.

If public opinion is swinging rapidly based on the new revelations then it drastically changes the political calculus of impeachment. Where many Republicans assumed that impeachment would help the president politically, the opposite may be true given the widespread opinion that Trump’s actions were wrong. Events are still unfolding rapidly, however, and no one can say where they will lead.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Beto Stagnant In Polls After ‘Hell Yeah’ Moment

It has been a week since Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke vowed, “Hell, yes, we're going to take your AR-15, your AK-47” in the Democratic primary debate in Houston. There has now been enough time for several polls to show trends from debate performances and it isn’t looking good for Beto.

Looking at the Real Clear Politics average, Beto was sitting at 2.8 percent on September 12, the day of the debate. The most recent average shows him at 2.7 percent, statistically unchanged from before his big moment.

In polling the week before the debate, O’Rourke had ranged as high as five percent and as low as one percent. In the week since the debate, he has surged to four percent and sank as low as one percent.

For all the hoopla and angst over his plan to confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans, Beto sits almost exactly at the same spot in the polls. There are a couple of things that we can take from this. The most important is that it takes more than a swearing and taking a hard line on guns to get Democratic votes. Even though most Democrats support the gun “buyback” idea, they aren’t flocking to Beto because of it. Democratic voters seem to think that there are more important factors than “wokeness” on guns.

Beto’s failure to launch also underscores the divide within the Democratic Party. The majority of the Democratic Party is made up of far-left progressives, but there is a sizable contingent of moderates. I estimate that moderates make up about a third of the party. The 25 percent of the party that opposes Beto’s “buyback” is roughly equivalent to the roughly 30 percent that support moderate candidates like Biden, Klobuchar, and Yang.

The Democrats would be much better off focusing on issues like background checks and red flag laws than controversial issues like gun confiscations. Multiple polls show that background checks and red flag laws are supported by more than 70 percent of Americans while opinion is split on “assault weapons” bans and mandatory “buybacks.”

Beto’s carefully staged moment of passion was his last-gasp attempt to pull himself out of the polling cellar, but it failed. O’Rourke’s campaign is going nowhere and has little hope of catching on. With a large campaign war chest, he can stay in the race for the foreseeable future but you can stick a fork in him. He’s done.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trump’s Re-election Chances Are Slim But Not None

I’ve long been skeptical about Donald Trump’s chances for re-election. The mere fact that the president started with a popular vote loss and then proceeded to become even more unpopular due to his behavior and policies while in office is an obvious sign that his battle for re-election will be fought in an uphill fashion. Now, as more and more polling comes in about potential matchups with Democrats, the data confirms that Trump is in for a hard fight.

I have noted in the past how President Trump’s approval has fallen almost everywhere since the 2016 election. The president’s popularity has sagged to the point where even many red states now look like battleground states. This is particularly true in those states where farmers have suffered from the trade wars.

Josh Kraushaar recently wrote in National Journal that Trump is “in the weakest political shape of any sitting president (Republican or Democrat) since George H.W Bush.” He continues, “Trump hits 50 percent disapproval... in North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Iowa — all states he carried in 2016.”

Now, The New York Times reports that even Mr. Trump’s own internal polling shows him to be trailing Joe Biden in the states that he needs to carry in order to win the election and the president seems to be in denial of that fact. “After being briefed on a devastating 17-state poll conducted by his campaign pollster, Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Trump told aides to deny that his internal polling showed him trailing Mr. Biden in many of the states he needs to win,” the Times said this week. “Trump instructed aides to say publicly that other data showed him doing well.”

If you’re a Trump supporter, you’re probably thinking that you’ve heard all this before. The polling up to Election Day showed Mr. Trump being soundly defeated by Hillary Clinton and he won. The pundits gave Hillary a 99 percent chance of winning and she lost. The polls were wrong then so they are garbage now.

Not exactly.

If we look back at archived national polls of the 2016 election on Real Clear Politics, the average of polls gave Hillary a three-point lead. That is almost exactly identical to the national popular vote result. The split between the popular vote and the Electoral College came down to about 53,000 votes spread over five key states. Most of the polling in these states also showed a close race. Polling was substantially off in only one state, Wisconsin, where Hillary’s eight-point lead in the polls turned into a one-point loss.

Some analysts realized that the race was closing in the final days of the election. The wonks at FiveThirtyEight gave Trump an almost one-in-three chance of winning in a forecast that is still archived. While they still figured Trump to be an underdog, a 30 percent chance of winning is a far cry from a 99 percent chance of losing.

Even with stolen Democratic emails dribbling forth throughout 2016 campaign, it took yet another October surprise to put Donald Trump over the top. Polling showed that James Comey’s memo to Congress was the deciding factor in pushing voters toward Trump. The president cannot depend on a similar fortunate circumstance to save him next year, however.

An unnamed “ally” of the Trump campaign made Trump’s case to Axios, saying, “Trump has always under-polled. Until it's actually a binary contest, though, these polls really don't matter.”

“When Trump gets a shot at defining someone one-on-one,” the Trump surrogate said, “They're no longer going to be what they are now, which is, for the most part, a 'generic Democrat,’” He added that the Trump campaign hopes to define the eventual Democratic opponent by support for such policies as the Green New Deal and Medicaid-for-all, policies that he hopes will frighten away most Americans. Finally, the solid economy is what the Trump campaign hopes will be its ace-in-the-hole.

“Historical data says that with the economy roaring like it is, the incumbent always wins,” the Trump ally says.

The problem with this strategy is that Trump previously faced the candidate widely panned as the worst in modern American history, a candidate who also had a radical agenda that included a public health insurance option, and he still failed to win a majority of the popular vote and came within a whisker of losing the Electoral College. Likewise, voters twice refused to be put off by Barack Obama’s radically leftist ideas. Portraying the Democratic candidate as a radical will motivate the Republican base but won’t necessarily win swing voters.

Likewise, depending on the economy is not a sure thing. Just ask Hillary Clinton who was running on the promise of “four more years” in an economy that was not so different from the current one. Unemployment has been trending down since the Great Recession ended in 2009 while the stock market has continued a ten-year climb. Economic growth under Trump is only marginally better than it was under Obama.   

Another problem with relying on the economy is that the trade war is taking a toll. I recently reported how the tariffs were offsetting the benefits of tax reform for both individuals and businesses. With the Chamber of Commerce and agriculture groups signaling opposition to the tariff war, President Trump may be about to lose core Republican constituencies such as businesses and farmers despite the good economy.

Worse, there are signs that economic growth may be slowing due to the trade war. One leading indicator is the transportation industry. Forbes recently reported that rail shipments were down almost every month of 2019. There are other indicators as well, such as last week’s disappointing jobs report and slowing transaction volume for businesses, which may be partly due to trade uncertainty. A recession is not a foregone conclusion, but if one occurs President Trump will own it.

The 2018 midterm elections should have been a wakeup call for Republicans. Despite the good economy and Trump’s control of messaging in the final weeks of the election, the GOP took a beating in the House and only maintained control of the Senate through a very favorable map that allowed red state Republicans to eke out victories. Swing voters who supported Trump in 2016 swung back toward the Democrats in 2018.

The wild card is Russia. In 2016, Trump benefitted from Russian interference even if the Trump campaign did not actively work in concert with the Russian government. Few steps have been taken to protect the election infrastructure from similar interference next year. If the Russian government does launch new attacks on the 2020 elections, there is no guarantee that they will benefit Mr. Trump this time.

The bottom line is that neither President Trump’s personality nor his policy has endeared him to swing state voters as they have to his base. While Trump cannot be counted out for re-election, he faces a difficult campaign. If he can stay off Twitter and not act crazy for the next 18 months, his odds would improve greatly, but both are unlikely. On the other hand, if the economy softens in the months leading up to the election, Trump’s goose is likely to be cooked.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Focus Group Shows Pennsylvania Swing Voters Standing By Trump

President Trump’s 2016 Electoral College victory ran through Pennsylvania and the Rust Belt states of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. While several polls have shown that Trump’s support in these states where he won narrow victories has eroded, a new focus group of Pennsylvania voters suggests that many Trump swing voters have not abandoned the president.

A recent focus group of Pennsylvania voters gives hope to Trump supporters that the president can pull off another upset victory in 2020. The Engagious/FPG focus group, which is discussed in an Axios article, contained several Obama/Trump voters who were unanimous in their continued support for Donald Trump.

Although they were not happy with Trump’s behavior, the focus group voters did like his performance on the economy. One of the voters, Tara Biddle, a 37-year-old kindergarten teacher, said, “I would be willing to vote for someone other than Trump who would continue the initiatives he's started” on the economy, trade, and immigration.

“The only thing I would say, I'd like someone to get his Twitter account away,” commented Tim G., 52.

When it comes to the Mueller report, the focus group’s swing voters were not impressed. “You could investigate every president; they’re all shady," said Jessica G. "Let’s just move on and let him do his job.”

The swing voters described their ideal leader as “assertive,” a “negotiator,” “powerful,” and “Christian.” Many of them agreed that these words also described President Trump.

The Pennsylvania voters stand in contrast to similar focus groups in Ohio and Wisconsin. Ohio voters yearned for Barack Obama while the Wisconsin voters liked much of Trump’s policy but were put off by his personality and temperament. Both groups seemed ready to abandon Trump for a Democrat.

The downside for Trump supporters is that the Pennsylvania focus group contained only eight swing voters, which is far too small to constitute a statistically viable sample. While the focus group’s voters solidly stand by their man, polling tells a different story.

One of the few polling firms that does regular state-level polling of President Trump’s approval rating is Morning Consult. The earliest poll in the series is January 2017, just a few months after the election. At that point, Trump had a net approval rating of 10 points. The most recent survey found the president underwater with a net approval rating of negative seven points. Another poll of Pennsylvania voters back in March yielded similar results with 61 percent of voters saying that Trump should not get a second term.

In 2016, Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania was a slim one. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 1.2 percent of votes cast, just over 68,000 votes. A swing of 17 points in his approval over the past two years could indicate that Trump’s support in the state has cratered despite the backing of the eight members of the focus group. It would take relatively few Trump voters going back to the Democrats to turn the state blue again.

While Pennsylvania with its 20 electoral votes is not a must-win state for Trump next year, his path to victory becomes much more difficult without it. Assuming all other state outcomes remain the same as 2016, if Trump loses Pennsylvania, he would lose the election if he also lost either Florida or Ohio.

With its mills benefitting from the president’s protective tariffs on steel and aluminum, Pennsylvania is one of the states most positioned to benefit from the trade war. If President Trump cannot win there, it is unlikely that he can carry the other Rust Belt states that he needs. Meanwhile, red states such as Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Texas are becoming battleground states, largely due to the impact of the trade war on farmers.

In the end, the picture of Pennsylvania is mixed. Neither Democrats nor Republicans can be certain of the holding the state at this point. President Trump’s re-election cannot be written off either is it assured.

“I’m not saying [Trump] will win the state,” pollster Terry Madonna told Philadelphia website Billy Penn in March. “I’m merely pointing out we better be careful about saying he can’t win the state.

Originally published on The Resurgent

What Georgia And Alabama Voters Think Of Their New Abortion Laws

The new laws restricting abortion in Alabama and Georgia made a big splash in the news over the past few weeks. Since the laws were passed there have been numerous polls showing that voters nationally oppose the measures. Of course, the new laws won’t affect most Americans so I wondered what the citizens of Alabama and Georgia who will actually live under the laws, assuming they are allowed by the courts to take effect, thought of them.

When you look for polls of Georgia and Alabama voters about the new laws, it’s quickly apparent that few have thought to check the opinion of local voters. In March and April, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution surveyed Georgia voters about the fetal heartbeat bill that was pending in the legislature at the time. The poll found that Georgia voters were closely split on the bill, with 43 percent in favor and 48 percent opposed. In addition to the plurality of total voters, opponents of the bill also felt more strongly about it. Thirty-nine percent were strongly opposed while 25 percent strongly supported the legislation.

On the larger question of abortion, 70 percent of Georgia voters opposed overturning Roe v. Wade, however, only 22 percent said that abortion should be legal in all cases. Voters who oppose all abortions were also a minority at 10 percent. The majority of voters supported legal abortion with restrictions. Thirty-five percent said it should be legal in most cases and 25 percent said it should be illegal in most cases.

There does not seem to be any recent public polling of Alabama voters available about the abortion law. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood released details of a 2018 poll by ALG Research, a Democratic polling firm, that showed results similar to the AJC poll of Georgia voters.

In the poll, slightly less than a third of Alabamans supported positions that were consistent with the state’s new law. Sixteen percent said that abortion should only be permitted when the mother’s life is in danger and 15 percent said that it should be banned outright.

Again, most voters took a moderate position with 49 percent favoring restricted abortion. Twenty percent said that abortion should be legal in most cases while 29 percent said that it should be allowed only in limited cases, “such as rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is endangered.” Only 16 percent favored unrestricted abortion.

The lion’s share of support for the laws is from Republicans, who Morning Consult recently found support the measures by a 57-31 percent margin. Even among Republicans, however, there is widespread support (45 percent) for exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. These exceptions are notably lacking from the Alabama law.

The bottom line is that passage of the laws was a principled stand for pro-life principles by state Republicans, but it wasn’t a popular stand. Even at home, the new restrictions are outside of the mainstream. This is particularly true of the Alabama law.  

When a party goes against public opinion to force through legislation that is popular with the base, but unpopular with voters at large, it often leads to a backlash. This raises the possibility that Republican legislators will pay a political price for their votes next year, even if courts strike down the new laws before they even take effect.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Trade War Gets Real As Walmart Increases Prices

In the latest sign that the trade is starting to affect the greater economy, Walmart has announced that President Trump’s tariffs on Chinese goods will lead to increased prices at the giant retail chain.

“We're going to continue to do everything we can to keep prices low. That's who we are. However, increased tariffs will lead to increased prices, we believe, for our customers,” CNN reported that Walmart Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs told reporters on a conference call discussing earnings for the first quarter of 2019.

Biggs did not say which products would be subject to the price increases, but President Trump’s most recent round of tariffs, which applied a 25 percent import tax to $200 billion of Chinese goods, affects a wide range of products that are purchased by a large number of Americans. Per CNN, Walmart imports about 26 percent of its merchandise from China and with a Walmart store within 10 miles of 90 percent of Americans, the vast majority of the country will be paying more for consumer goods.

Walmart’s announcement undercuts the president’s claim that China is paying the tariff taxes. Instead, Chinese manufacturers have largely kept their old pricing structure and American importers have paid the tax. Importers pass the tax along to retailers like Walmart, who are now passing it along to their customers.

The Walmart price increases will hit a core segment of the Trump coalition. Walmart is known for its blue-collar clientele and the fact that its stores are often the only option for many items in rural areas. It is these blue-collar, rural voters who have formed the most stable part of Trump’s base as support for Republicans among most other demographics has declined since 2014.

Depending on the length of the trade war and whether more tariffs are applied in coming months, Trump may find that his rural base fracturing. Already farmers, who are among the hardest hit from the trade war, are showing their discontent with the policies that have closed off Chinese markets for American agricultural products.

“We’re in a free fall out here in agriculture. We've seen a 30 percent decrease in prices of soybeans, and this isn't all about soybeans,” Christopher Gibbs, an Ohio farmer said on CNN. “With the geopolitical turmoil that the president has thrown into the mix over the last year, the markets just don't have anywhere to go.”

Now, with Walmart and other retailers raising prices to pass along Trump’s tariff tax to their customers, farmers and other exporters are being squeezed from both sides. They are earning less as foreign markets find cheaper, untaxed alternatives to American goods and they are paying more due to price increases.

As we’ve reported previously, Morning Consult tracks presidential approval across the 50 states. Polling this year shows Trump underwater across the Rust Belt and with a net approval of fewer than five points in many typically Republican farm states such as Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, and Texas. Unless the president gets a deal to resolve the trade war with China soon, we may find out how low he can go.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Biden Solidifies Lead As Sanders Fades

Many conservative observers predicted that Joe Biden would be a flash in the pan. Several prominent pundits said that Biden’s first day on the campaign trail would be his best, followed by a quick downhill slide as the radical leftist Democrats tossed the old white moderate aside for younger, more progressive candidates without 50 years of baggage. Those predictions were wrong. Not one but two new polls show Biden surging ahead of his closest competitors.

On Saturday, a Harvard-Harris poll found that Biden had the support of the 34 percent of Democrats while another poll released on Monday by Hill-HarrisX gave Biden 46 percent support. While there is a considerable difference in Biden’s support in the two polls, both are well above his pre-announcement support levels which were typically in the high 20s to low 30s.

Another three polls released on April 30, five days after Biden’s formal campaign announcement, also showed that Biden received a boost after rolling out his official presidential campaign. CNN found Biden with 39 percent support, Quinnipiac had him at 38 percent, and Morning Consult showed 36 percent.

While the exact amount of support that Joe Biden commands is uncertain, it is a certainty that he has gained since announcing his candidacy despite accusations of improper touching and complaints from Democratic activists that he is not progressive enough. Biden seems to have tapped into a heretofore ignored moderate demographic within the Democratic Party.

Equally certain is that Biden’s gains have been at the expense of Bernie Sanders. The two most recent polls show Sanders at 14 percent, down from an average of about 20 percent in pre-announcement polling.

The polling indicating that Biden’s lead is solidifying has several possible explanations. The most obvious is that there are more moderate Democrats than has been generally assumed. Biden’s core support has typically been among blue-collar union Democrats, a niche to which no other Democratic candidate has appealed. This moderate Democrat demographic may be bolstered by Trump Democrats returning after crossing the aisle in 2016 and disaffected Republican moderates who are planning to vote against Trump Republicans as they did in 2018. A second possibility is that Democrats are choosing to forgo ideological purity for the candidate best positioned to defeat Donald Trump. Finally, as I have suggested in the past, the large number of leftist candidates may be splitting the radical Democrat vote and leaving Biden with a plurality. This scenario is similar to how Donald Trump won the 2016 Republican primary.

Being the frontrunner more than six months before the first primary doesn’t guarantee that Joe Biden will be Democratic nominee, but the former vice president remains the candidate to beat, just as he has since the earliest Democratic primary polling. With Sanders already fading and no other serious challengers in sight, the Democratic primary may be a foregone conclusion before the first votes are cast.

Originally published on The Resurgent

Poll: More Democrats Are Pro-Life

One of the few cultural battles on which conservatives have steadily gained ground is abortion. Even though the Supreme Court has yet to overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-life conservatives have been winning the battle of ideas as more Americans favor restrictions on abortion and identify with the pro-life viewpoint. Now a shocking poll shows that pro-lifers have even made significant inroads into the Democratic Party.

The Marist poll conducted in February 2019 shows that respondents are split evenly on the question of whether abortion should be legal, but the most surprising part of the poll is that a third of Democrats, 34 percent, identify as pro-life. Further, 15 percent of Democrats said that abortion should never be allowed under any circumstances and a total of 35 percent said that it should only be allowed in cases of rape or incest or to save the life of the mother.

Sixty-one percent of Democrats identified as pro-choice, but a majority favored restrictions on abortion. Only 22 percent said that abortion should be available at any time while 13 percent said it should be legal within the first six months of the pregnancy.

On the Republican side, the numbers were almost exactly reversed. Sixty-seven percent of Republicans identified as pro-life while 29 percent said that they were pro-choice.

There are some cautions about the poll, however. First, the poll showed a 14-point jump in the share of pro-life Democrats in a one-month span. Any sudden large shift in poll numbers should be regarded with skepticism. Additionally, the poll’s sample size of 1,008 adults is too small to make its findings conclusive. Subsequent polling will need to verify the shift in Democratic attitudes before I am convinced.

Nevertheless, the poll’s findings do offer hope that the pro-life segment of the Democratic Party is growing. While the poll doesn’t offer explanations for the sharp increase in Democratic pro-lifers, there are a couple of interesting possibilities.

First, the poll was conducted between Feb. 12 and 17. This was in the middle of the controversy over New York’s law allowing full-term abortion and the debate over a similar law proposed by Democrats in Virginia. It may be that the publicity generated by the lax New York law has persuaded some Democrats that more restrictions on abortion are needed.

Another possibility is that some pro-life voters may be leaving the Republican Party and identifying as Democrats. In particular, younger voters tend to be more pro-life, but the young are also deserting the GOP in droves. In 2018, young voters went Democrat by a 35-point margin compared to about 20 points for the previous two elections.

A shift in moderate voters toward the Democrats would also have implications for the presidential race. If more moderate voters take part in Democratic primaries next year, it will likely temper the chances of radical leftist candidates.

Whatever the reason, if Democrats are becoming more pro-life, it is a good thing. However, since there is still a litmus test on abortion for Democratic officeholders, any shift in views on abortion by the party’s base is unlikely to be felt in policy changes anytime soon. As President Trump alienates more moderate and independent voters, Democrats would be wise to soften their stance on abortion to make it easier for the millions of pro-life voters who are disenchanted with Trump Republicans to cross over.

Originally published on The Resurgent