As Donald Trump shows up to a Manhattan court this week for his latest lawfare flogging from Democrats, Biden boosters are doing their best to trumpet a poll turnaround for the president, after what they claim was his electrifying performance at the State of the Union.
“Is Joe Biden the Favorite Now?” begged Newsweek.
It’s true that the latest New York Times-Siena poll over the weekend showed Biden has closed the gap with Trump nationally, producing a statistical tie of 45% to 46%.
But that’s where the good news ends for Democrats.
It’s not just in the battleground states that Biden consistently lags behind his nemesis, including in a recent Wall Street Journal poll showing Trump ahead by up to eight percentage points in six of seven crucial states.
On the economy and foreign relations, two areas Biden claims are his forte, he was smashed by Trump in the NYT-Siena poll.
On whether his presidency was good or bad for America, Trump wins hands down: 42% of registered voters say the Trump years were “mostly good for America,” while just 25% say the same for Biden’s time in office.
In fact, 46% think the Biden presidency has been “mostly bad for America,” compared to 33% for Trump.
Poor marks
Even on his pet topic of defending “democracy,” Biden ties with Trump. Turns out voters don’t think trying to lock up your opponent and censoring free speech are terribly democratic.
Both Trump and Biden scored 31% on whether they are “good” for democracy, which must just kill the Biden team, since Trump’s “unique threat” to freedom and democracy is the centerpiece of the president’s campaign.
Apart from January 6 blah blah blah, he never explains exactly why. We are supposed to just feel the vibe.
Maybe it’s the jokes. Trump trickily uses laughter to “normalize his behavior,” a weirdo at Politico wailed recently.
But jokes are less a threat to democracy than to Biden’s stature because he’s the butt of them all around the world.
He’s “too old to be an effective president,” agreed 69% of registered voters.
For Trump, just four years younger at 77, that figure dropped to 42%.
Immigration is a big drag on Biden, with an estimated 13 million illegal migrants having strolled across the border on his watch, giving him a 64% disapproval rating from voters on how he’s handled the issue.
Bad news for Biden as well on his handling of foreign conflicts, with 61% of voters giving him thumbs down, compared to 45% for Trump.
That has to cut deep for the president, since he fancies himself a foreign affairs maven after 34 years on the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including a decade in which he was chairman or ranking member.
What’s left? Dead fetuses are Biden’s last hope. The Siena poll is silent on abortion, but Trump has blunted the Democrat attack by insisting the issue is a matter for the states now that the Supreme Court he shaped has overturned Roe v. Wade, so he doesn’t plan to impose his view with federal meddling.
Considering he won evangelicals in Iowa after slamming Ron DeSantis’ six-week abortion ban as a “terrible mistake,” sitting on the fence won’t hurt him.
Voters have wised up to the economic gaslighting coming from the White House, too.
Almost 80% of voters rate economic conditions as poor (52%) or fair (27%), including a majority of Democrats. Biden has 63% of voters disapproving of his handling of the economy, with 34% approving. That’s the MSNBC or ultrawealthy cohort.
For months, Biden and his economic henchmen have insisted he’s brought down inflation, even while we can see from our own shrinking bank balances that prices at the grocery store and gas pump keep rising.
Inflation has not gone away. It’s gone up every month for the past six, as the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show, for an annual rate of 3.5%.
That’s less than the 9% peak in 2022, but it’s cumulative — an increase on top of past increases.
Biden has no answer other than lying and throwing more taxpayer billions on the inflation bonfire to win over young voters with student debt bribes.
Voters speak
But there are signs his self-delusion is running out of steam.
The reality of life under Biden intruded last week into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Biden’s favorite TV show. (Does he think it’s named after him?)
A panel of eight undecided voters from Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, were asked to rate Biden and Trump in a focus group conducted by 2WAY platform. The answers caused an outbreak of severe cognitive dissonance among the hosts and guest analysts, who looked either stricken or aghast as their bubbles burst.
Asked if Trump’s policies on the economy “would be better for your family personally,” every single voter raised their hand.
Biden “has been absolutely disastrous on the economy,” said one man.
“We have areas in Pennsylvania which are just at a standstill,” said Virginia. “Interest rates are way too high.”
The panelists laughed when the moderator said, “President Biden argues that his record on the economy has been very good.”
Gigi from Pennsylvania: “I feel like he doesn’t even take accountability at all with what’s going on in the economy … like he’s in denial that it’s happening.”
Omar from Michigan, who voted for Biden in 2020: “The point is he needs to hear the people because when he’s talking about the economy, he’s talking about the stock market. He’s not looking at homelessness or joblessness. He’s not thinking how much it costs to go to the grocery store. He’s gaslighting literally everyone in the process.”
You could almost smell the panic at MSNBC.
Bragg’s farce of law vs. Don
It’s hard to believe the best chance the Democrats have to score a criminal conviction against Donald Trump is the dog’s breakfast being served up by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg this week: a “hush money” case involving a porn star named Stormy Daniels with a convicted felon and serial perjurer as the star witness.
Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy has the best line on this farce: Bragg “turns an uncharged misdemeanor into 34 felonies [but] when dealing with violent crime in Manhattan, he turns felonies into misdemeanors.”