The polls sound harmonious, but only when the survey commissioned by the New York Times sang, “Joe Biden is loo-ooo–ooo-zing,” did some progressives begin to admit reality.
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This acknowledgment of the dire situation, rather than the situation itself, strikes many Democrats as the discordant note. At best the bad news seems bad form to arrive unaccompanied by a trigger warning; at worst, an invasion of the sacred safe space, a popping of the bubble.
“I’m concerned,” The View’s Sunny Hostin admitted. Fareed Zakaria on CNN said Sunday, “As someone worried about the prospects of a second [Donald] Trump term, I think it’s best to be honest about reality.”
The New York Times/Sienna poll shows Trump ahead in Arizona (+6), Georgia (+9), Nevada (+13), Pennsylvania (+3), and Wisconsin (+1) among likely voters. Biden edges Trump in Michigan (+1) in a head-to-head race.
Left unspoken? Red states gained, and blue states lost, three Electoral College votes in reapportionment, so Republicans enjoy an advantage in the 2024 map over the 2020 map, and the dynamics of the Electoral College, because Democrats tend to run-up wide margins in populous deep-blue states such as California and New York, means a tie or even a loss by a percentage point or two in the popular vote means a Trump victory.
“Everything that we’re throwing is spaghetti at a wall, and none of it is sticking,” an exasperated James Carville explained in online video, adding: “We’ve got to try to think of something different because what we’re doing is really, really not working.”
They say loudest what they do not say at all. Alex Shephard of the New Republic dares shout it from the rooftops.
The data that jumps out at Shephard shows how down-ballot Democrats poll better than the president. For instance, though Biden loses in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada, Democrat U.S. Senate candidates lead there.
“Why these voters, who are open to voting for a Democrat, are not also rejecting the GOP’s extremist leader is perhaps puzzling to many on the left,” he writes. “But there’s one unmistakable conclusion: They really don’t like Biden. And that, in turn, ought to make the party think very seriously about whether he ought to remain atop the 2024 ticket.”
Did you read that?
A writer at a 110-year-old magazine founded by a trio of progressive-era heavyweights, and so left-wing that an agent of the Soviet Union once served as its publisher, wants Democrats to jettison Joe Biden. Presumably, he does not want to do this to give Republicans a cathartic victory but instead to give Democrats a fighting chance.
Shephard writes that “not seriously considering this option would be a huge mistake for Democratic officials. The polling has been telling the same story about Biden for months now. Voters do not like him. They do not trust him. They think he is not fit to be president.”
Shephard says what Zakaria and Carville think. Do they soon say what Shepherd says and they think?
Mounting pressure, buttressed by data instilling the ominous effect on other Democrats of the president’s reverse coattails, seems the only way within the control of worried progressives to avoid the “iceberg ahead!” embodied by the candidate closest in age to the Titanic.
Incumbent presidents occasionally face notable challenges, such as George H.W. Bush in 1992, Jimmy Carter in 1980, and Gerald Ford in 1976. But, other than Lyndon Johnson, no president in the last century has entered the primary season running only to see another man nominated by his party.
One guesses that cowardice, and delusions of the kind that experience a reality check only on Election Day, prevents Democrats from ditching the president. The ensuing free-for-all should they convince Biden to step-aside offers no guarantees.
Does Kamala Harris offer a better shot of victory? Would embracing Gavin Newsom provoke cries of racism and sexism from the party’s minority base not interested in perpetually waiting their turn? Could relatively unknown and untested Gretchen Whitmer appear anything but small on a national stage next to as big a personality as Donald Trump?
Clearly, a few Democrats favor the unknown unknowns to the known unknowns.
