July 10, 2024
Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.
Biden’s Dazed Debate Performance Shook Up Young People, Midwestern Voters, and Members of his own Party the Most
By Manzanita Miller
Public opinion polls showing declining support for President Joe Biden after his alarming face off against former President Donald Trump in the last presidential debate continue to be released, adding pressure to the Democratic Party to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.
While Biden’s dazed and confused demeanor during the CNN debate caused an erosion of support among swing voters, a new poll reveals that Biden’s alarming performance also eroded support among demographics he should be polling well with, including Democrats and upper-income voters.
The data also reveals that Biden’s numbers have taken a significant hit among Midwestern voters compared to the rest of the country. Biden continues to lose ground with young voters, who have arguably been his harshest critics post-debate.
A new YouGov poll conducted July 5th through 8th reveals a wide majority of Americans – 52 percent – say Biden’s performance at the debate caused them to view him less favorably. A mere 6% of Americans say the debate improved their view of Biden, and around a quarter – 26 percent – say the debate did not sway their opinion.
The poll also reveals 11 percent of Americans are reconsidering their vote after the debate, but the debate caused 14 percent of Democrats to reconsider their vote intention. That is to say, an even larger share of Democrats compared to Independents (12 percent) say the debate caused them to rethink their vote.
Democrats appear to have taken Biden’s performance as an unexpected dose of reality. While a vast majority of Republicans (72 percent) and a plurality of Independents (47 percent) say Biden’s performance caused them to view him less favorably, a full 37 percent of Democrats also say Biden’s performance negatively impacted their view of the president.
According to the survey, the debate caused twice as many young people to rethink their vote intention compared to older voters. Seventeen percent of voters under age 30 and 18 percent of voters 30-44 are reconsidering their vote after the debate, compared to just 7 percent of voters 45-64 and 7 percent of voters over 65.
Among those reconsidering, a large share were formerly Biden supporters. Nearly a fifth (19 percent) of voters under age 30 say the debate made them less likely to support Biden. Only nine percent of voters age 30-44, 5 percent of voters 45-64 and 4 percent of voters over 65 say they are reconsidering their vote for Biden.
According to the survey, 8 percent of Democrats and 11 percent of independents say they are less likely to support Biden in November, as well as 12 percent of Hispanics and 13 percent of Midwest voters. These are the subgroups where Biden experienced the largest declines.
Black voters also showed a relatively high reaction to the debate, with 13 percent of Black Americans reconsidering their vote after the debate. Eleven percent of whites and 12 percent of Hispanics are also reconsidering.
In addition, lower-income voters were the most likely to say they would reconsider their vote in November (11 percent) compared to around 7 percent of higher-income voters.
There is also a strong regional difference, with 17 percent of Midwest voters saying they will reconsider their vote after the debate compared to only 9 percent of southern voters, 10 percent of western voters, and 11 percent of northeastern voters. The Midwest, home to important battleground states like Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio and Pennsylvania, will be an important region to watch post-debate.
One of the notable takeaways from the survey is that higher income voters – a group Biden generally polls well with – were particularly shaken by Biden’s dazed and confused performance. Fifty-nine percent of those earning over $100,000 a year said Biden’s performance made them view him less favorably, compared to 48 percent of those earning under $50,000, an eleven-point difference.
Demographically, higher-income voters were the subgroup most alarmed by Biden’s performance, according to the data. However, higher-income voters were the least likely to say they would reconsider their vote for Biden (6 percent) compared to low income (11 percent) and middle-income (7 percent) voters.
Americans were largely shaken by President Biden’s unsettling performance at the presidential debate in late June, but younger Americans, Democrats, and Midwestern voters were the most shaken according to the data. This means an uphill battle for the Biden campaign to reassure its own base, as well as sure up voters in important swing states. It also hints at a perhaps unsolvable exodus of young people away from Biden in recent months, a trajectory his debate performance only escalated.
Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/bidens-dazed-debate-performance-shook-up-young-people-midwestern-voters-and-members-of-his-own-party-the-most/
Is this Joe Biden’s last NATO summit? Trump and the fate of Ukraine loom over conference.
By Robert Romano
President Joe Biden is convening the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington, D.C. this week with a promise to continue U.S. support for Ukraine in its war with Russia that has raged since 2014, but will he be around in January to keep that promise?
Swirling around the alliance are the prospects of the 2024 election, wherein Biden trails significantly in both national and state polls his opponent former President Donald Trump, who has said that he would push for a peace settlement between Kiev and Moscow.
At the June 27 debate between Biden and Trump, Trump declared he would have the war “settled”: “I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as president-elect before I take office on January 20th. I’ll have that war settled. People being killed so needlessly, so stupidly, and I will get it settled and I’ll get it settled fast, before I take office.”
Trump also said that the war was becoming increasingly dangerous, warning that it could result in the use of nuclear weapons if something is not done: “His policies are so bad. His military policies are insane. They’re insane. These are wars that will never end with him. He will drive us into World War Three and we’re closer to World War Three than anybody can imagine. We are very, very close to World War Three, and he’s driving us there.”
This is nothing new for Trump. In 2016, he explicitly campaigned on his opposition to U.S. intervention in Ukraine and with similar warnings of what it might lead to. It’s what prompted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants against his campaign and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which ultimately found no criminal conspiracy by the campaign to coordinate with Moscow to interfere with the 2016 elections.
And in 2019, when Trump acted on his 2016 campaign promise, and sought to withhold weapons from Ukraine, the Democratic House at the time impeached him over it.
Meaning, even if Trump does win the election, there could be significant internal obstacles and certainly opposition to his proposed peace plan, which most likely will not be considered at the current NATO conference this year.
And yet, if the odds are to be considered, Trump would be favored to win the election in November based on the current polls, and so Trump’s proposal should not be dismissed out of hand.
In response to the proposal, after the debate, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that he took Trump’s idea “very seriously”: “The fact that Mr. Trump, as a presidential candidate, declares that he is ready and wants to stop the war in Ukraine, we take this completely seriously… I am not, of course, familiar with possible proposals for how he plans to do this. This is the key question. But I have no doubt that he means it sincerely, and we support it.”
Could it be done? Key questions would obviously be Ukraine’s inclusion in NATO, which Russia opposes, and then Russia’s occupation of territories that once belonged to Ukraine, including Crimea. These are why the war is being fought, and so if those questions would not be settled on the battlefield — risking a wider war — then they could be settled at a table.
And it might just come down to the election. Will it be Trump, or Biden (or Kamala Harris, should Biden be replaced)? Which direction do the American people support: More war, or an attempt at peace that might fail? We’ll find out in November.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2024/07/is-this-joe-bidens-last-nato-summit-trump-and-the-fate-of-ukraine-loom-over-conference/
Garland must release audio tapes of Biden’s Special Counsel interview
July 10, 2024, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland release the audio tapes of President Joe Biden’s interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur:
“The Democrats are roiled in controversy over President Joe Biden’s fitness to continue to be their nominee and in truth to continue to serve out his current term. While much is couched in political terms, the glaring question is whether the President is able to perform his duties. While Biden has repeatedly refused to take a cognitive test and release the results saying that he has one every day, Democrats should take him at his word. On October 6 & 7 of 2023 more than nine months ago, Special Counsel Robert Hur interviewed Biden related to the classified documents case. Hur described an enfeebled Biden in his report. While the report has been released, the Biden administration has attacked Hur for his characterization. If Democrats are actually concerned about our country and not just their November election chances, they will join House GOP members in publicly demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland release the audio files of the Hur/Biden interview.
“If Biden is correct and he demonstrates his cognitive capacity to the public’s satisfaction in the Hur interview and the special counsel was wrong in his judgment, the rightful concern caused by his glitch debate performance can be set aside. However, the Biden administration’s insistence that the interview audio file not be publicly released even as they continue to attack Hur’s assessment leads any reasonable person to believe that the Biden America saw in the debate is exactly who is sitting in the Oval Office.
“The bottom line is that if Democrats are truly concerned by Biden’s apparent mental deterioration, they should demand Garland release the tape. If it is all just political maneuvering because Biden is going to get his clock cleaned by Donald Trump, then they should continue their silence on the tape issue. The sad fact is that none of these pearl clutchers were at all surprised that the President is not functioning on all cylinders. What they are upset about is that the American public now knows it.
“It is time that the Attorney General release the audio file, and if Biden is the confused old man described by Hur, he should resign from office without any shame. In this increasingly dangerous world, it is time for the truth about the mental competency of this president.”
To view online: https://getliberty.org/2024/07/garland-must-release-audio-tapes-of-bidens-special-counsel-interview/
Urge Congress to Support SAVE Act! Only Citizens Can Constitutionally Vote!
To view online: https://limitgov.salsalabs.org/support-save-act/index.html