Few things are more likely to rattle the Washington establishment than a set of shocking poll results from The New York Times.
One of those shocks is roiling Democratic grandees this week, as The Times published polling data showing former President Donald Trump leading President Joe Biden in five of the six critical states Biden won in 2020.
While the usual caveats apply to this this poll as they do to every other (it's a snap shot in time, many things can change, we're a year out from the general election, etc.), what makes this one interesting is the tenor of the coverage, and how it plays into every doubt, fear and neurosis Democrats have nursed publicly and privately about Biden's reelection effort.
Consider just a snippet of the language from the Times coverage:
Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.
Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden's policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying.
It's a rare day when “discontent pulses” in any coverage of the Biden administration. But for a moment, the coverage looks and sounds like a rave.
But it's the most bizarre rave ever held, because the issue that thrums and throbs over all others is Mr. Biden's age. As Politico noted:
It's perhaps the central question of the 2024 election: Are voters prepared to elect a man who will be 86 years old when his term would end in January 2029?
A year before the voting ends, the answer is no. Seven in 10 likely voters in the battleground states agreed that Biden “is just too old to be an effective president.” Only 28 percent disagreed.
And even though Trump is only three years younger than Biden, voters see him as a spring chicken by comparison. Only 39 percent said the Republican frontrunner “is just too old to be an effective president,” while a 58-percent majority disagreed.
The reflex response to this is “ageism!” or “it's not important!” or some other sort of distraction. But one cannot escape the hard fact that regardless of the polling outfit, the audience questioned, or when they were asked, Biden's age is a major overhang for his campaign that no amount of diversion, distraction, or dispute can dispel.
And while we're at it, let's not forget the big issue in the campaign. Hint: it's not war, climate change, abortion, “wokeness,” or any of the other headline grabbers.
It's the economy. And on that score, Trump wins going away. As The Times writes:
Voters, by a 59 percent to 37 percent margin, said they better trusted Mr. Trump over Mr. Biden on the economy, the largest gap of any issue. The preference for Mr. Trump on economic matters spanned the electorate, among both men and women, those with college degrees and those without them, every age range and every income level.
That result is especially problematic for Mr. Biden because nearly twice as many voters said economic issues would determine their 2024 vote compared with social issues, such as abortion or guns. And those economic voters favored Mr. Trump by a landslide 60 percent to 32 percent.
The data make for fascinating reading. And they will surely spark fresh new murmurings that Biden should drop out now, and let someone – (almost) anyone – seek the Democratic nomination, instead.
Which means that wherever the California Gov. Gavin Newsom is right now, the polling isn't just being discussed, it's putting flesh on the bones of his quasi-candidacy for the nomination. He's not the only one of course – the phones and inboxes of a score of other would-be nominees are lit up right now, too.
Let the jockeying begin!
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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