By Matthew Continetti
Saturday, March 02, 2024
On February 29, Bloomberg News released another set of swing-state polls showing Donald Trump
in the lead. The polls had Trump narrowly ahead of President Joe Biden nationwide, with Trump’s margins in swing states ranging
from plus two points in Michigan to plus nine points in North Carolina.
This is now routine. According to the RealClearPolitics average
of polls, Trump has held a national lead over Biden since last September. At this writing, he leads in every
swing state except Pennsylvania — where he is a single point
behind the incumbent. Yes, the polls in GOP primary contests have slightly
overestimated Trump’s support. But Trump still won those contests. And his edge
in battleground states such as Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada is not slight.
The two impeachments, the 91 counts across four
indictments, the huge civil penalties, the almost-a-decade-long trail of
controversy and scandal, the warnings from former senior officials, the shadow
of January 6, 2021 — none of it has sidelined Trump. None of it has changed the
dynamic of the 2024 presidential race. Biden is losing.
Here’s how you can tell. As the president’s campaign says
it isn’t worried about the polls, Biden is traveling across the country playing
catch-up to Trump. While Biden’s words, when decipherable, suggest confidence,
his actions betray weakness. He’s trying to recover lost ground by addressing
past mistakes. He won’t admit to error, but he is trying to fix his mess.
Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama, famously went on an apology tour. Biden’s on a regrets tour.
It opened on February 16 with his jaunt to East Palestine, Ohio. Biden’s yearlong
refusal to visit the site of the Norfolk Southern train wreck was a reminder of
general aloofness and weakness with working-class voters. Biden handed his
opponents an easy and effective talking point. He obviously came to regret his
decision — else he wouldn’t have ever made the trip to a county where Trump
won more than 70 percent of the vote in 2020.
The next steps on the tour were meant to address public
concern over Biden’s age. On February 26, Biden taped an appearance on Late
Night with Seth Meyers. He grinned and gabbed, ate ice cream, donned
aviator glasses, and told viewers that Trump is also old and forgetful. His
choice of a safe venue made for forgettable television. Biden won’t live down
his error in passing up a pre-Super Bowl interview on CBS. About one-third of the United States of America tuned into
Super Bowl LVIII, the highest-rated NFL championship game in history. Fewer than 700,000 people watch Meyers’s program on a
given night.
On February 28, Biden made a surprise visit to Walter
Reed National Military Medical Center for his annual physical. The president’s
doctor says Biden is “an active 81-year-old white male” who is “fit for duty.” His stiff gait is a consequence of
“significant spinal arthritis, post-fracture foot arthritis and a sensory
peripheral neuropathy of the feet.” Interesting. Also noteworthy: Biden was not
given a cognitive test. Asked about this omission, White House press secretary
Karine Jean-Pierre said, “He passes a cognitive test every day.”
She must be grading on a curve.
On February 29, Biden returned to the site of another
regret: the southern border. Biden unleashed a crisis by reversing Trump
policies on his first day in office. Millions of people have entered America
through the southern border and have been allowed to stay. Millions more have entered unnoticed. The political
cost is enormous. Voters consider immigration the most important problem facing the country. Just 28 percent of voters approve of the way that Biden has
handled it.
The migrant crisis has spilled over into blue cities
short of housing. Poisonous narcotics trafficked across the border have
affected close to half of the population. Terrible crimes such as
the murder of Laken Riley intensify voter outrage at the White
House’s failure. And the national-security implications of an overwhelmed
immigration system are dire.
Biden could have addressed all this years ago by reinstating Remain in Mexico, safe-third-country agreements, and Title 42. He hasn’t. Instead, he delivered remarks on law and enforcement and crime from the
White House a day before traveling to Brownsville, Texas. Photo ops won’t
improve the situation. Only policies will.
Even if Biden were to do the right thing, voters
are unlikely to repay him with support. The Bloomberg poll this
week revealed an electorate sour on both major-party candidates. The majority
said Biden is old and Trump is dangerous. Voters rate Biden and Trump equally
poorly on attributes such as honesty and empathy. A lot of voters are undecided
or looking for an alternative. Many people have given up on Biden.
The president spent most of his life in a media
environment where highly massaged official statements and coordinated public
events shaped coverage and hence campaigns. That is not the world we live in.
Voters form impressions of leaders through a kaleidoscope of memes, reels,
clips, DMs, and posts. They distrust the press and have little affection for
politicians. Biden’s travels and comments will be short-lived and little
remembered.
Biden can’t persuade voters that he is fit for office.
But he and his allies can spend hundreds of millions of dollars telling voters
that Trump is too extreme to be president again. This unpredictable election
rides on whether Democrats succeed in convincing Americans that Trump is a risk
they cannot afford.
As of now, the Democrats have failed at their task. The
polls show it. And Biden knows it.
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