I realize that people only want to talk about what a terrible loser Joe Biden is, and I hate to burst their bubble, but it’s not actually true:
New PPP polls in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin- where wins for Joe Biden next year would be enough to get him to 270 electoral votes- find him leading Donald Trump by 3 or 4 points in each of them.
Biden is up 48-44 in both Michigan and Wisconsin, and 48-45 in Pennsylvania.
Most recent coverage of the race has focused on Biden’s struggles, and it’s true that he’s not terribly popular with favorability ratings of 42/51, 40/49, and 41/51 in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin respectively.
But elections are a choice and not a referendum. And Biden is popular in these key swing states compared to his likely opponent of Donald Trump and his likely foil of Kevin McCarthy and House Republicans.
Trump’s net favorability rating is -23 in Michigan at 35/58, 14 points worse than Biden’s. It’s -20 at 35/55 in Wisconsin, 10 points worse than Biden’s. And it’s -16 at 38/54 in Pennsylvania, 7 points worse than Biden’s.
And as House Republicans move toward shutting down the government this weekend, Biden looks positively popular compared to their brand. In Michigan House Republicans have a 22/60 favorability spread and Kevin McCarthy has a 19/53 approval rating. In Pennsylvania House Republicans have a 22/57 favorability spread and Kevin McCarthy has a 20/54 approval rating. And in Wisconsin House Republicans have a 25/57 favorability spread and Kevin McCarthy has a 22/54 approval rating.
Democrats did very well in this key trio of states last year, winning Gubernatorial races by an average of 10 points in them and flipping legislative chambers in the two of the states that have fair district maps. It’s not surprising against that backdrop to see Biden with leads in them now that exceed his 2020 margins of victory.
It will be close because almost half of America’s voters are in a cult and there’s no obvious way to deprogram them. He’s the world’s greatest sore loser and won’t admit it if he loses again but we’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. (It won’t be pretty)
I don’t want to blow smoke and suggest that it will be easy. We are in a dogfight. But it’s not at all predestined that the voters will choose the crazy, criminal sore loser over the old guy who’s done a good job. Are we really that far gone?