Denial is a river in Egypt, because the saying goes. Properly, it’s additionally making itself fairly at house at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
President Joe Biden is trailing former President Donald Trump in 5 swing states, all of which Biden gained in 2020, based on a brand new set of polls.
Whereas these polls are however a snapshot, they aren’t the one ones indicating Biden is struggling. They’re simply the newest ones.
There was the Bloomberg Information/Morning Seek the advice of ballot in April displaying Biden trailing Trump in six of seven swing states.
And an Emerson Faculty Polling/The Hill ballot in April displaying Trump was forward in all seven swing states.
And a Harvard CAPS/Harris ballot in April displaying Trump forward nationally by 4 factors.
Naturally, this needs to be worrisome to Biden.
And but …
“Whereas the press doesn’t write about it, the momentum is clearly in our favor,” he informed donors throughout a West Coast journey final week, “with the polls transferring towards us and away from Trump.”
Seemingly undercutting that argument, and once more slamming the media, he additionally informed CNN’s Erin Burnett final week, “The polling information has been incorrect all alongside. What number of of you guys do a ballot at CNN? What number of people do you need to name to get one response?”
As CNN’s information guru Harry Enten identified, “[Biden] liked the polls 4 years in the past after they confirmed him forward. These are the identical polls now.”
Blaming the media for underreporting his achievements, trashing the polls as incorrect after they’re dangerous for him and lauding them after they’re good, and refusing to simply accept the place he’s within the race doesn’t bode nicely.
It might really feel counterintuitive that Trump might be forward. As Colin Jost of “Saturday Evening Stay” put it on the White Home Correspondents’ Dinner final month, “The Republican candidate for president owes half a billion in fines for financial institution fraud and is at the moment spending his days farting himself awake throughout a porn star hush cash trial, and the race is tied? The race is tied! Nothing is smart anymore.”
I agree that in a simply world, Trump could be in jail and never on the poll once more. However all of this does really make sense when you go away the Acela Hall bubble and notice most voters don’t care about Trump’s trials. They care about themselves.
Unemployment, grocery costs, gasoline costs, house affordability, crime, the migrant disaster — all of that is immediately impacting voters. Nevertheless unseemly, Trump’s salacious rendezvous with Stormy Daniels shouldn’t be.
Voters are bored with politics
Biden doesn’t appear to understand that voters aren’t searching for extra politics — they need higher insurance policies.
And his associates on the left — and, paradoxically, within the media — try to impress this upon him.
“As somebody anxious in regards to the prospects of a second Trump time period, I believe it’s greatest to be trustworthy about actuality,” mentioned CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “He must do one thing daring and dramatic to grab the initiative on asylum coverage, for instance, and reverse these numbers.”
Former Clinton adviser Mark Penn wrote in The New York Instances that Biden “seems all too targeted on firming up his political base on the left together with his new shift on Israel … and is failing to attach on the fundamental problems with inflation, immigration and vitality.”
“Sadly,” he warns, “Mr. Biden shouldn’t be reaching out to reasonable voters with coverage concepts or a robust marketing campaign message.”
One other former Clinton adviser, James Carville, additionally known as for higher coverage arguments that embrace actuality. “We’re not going to persuade under-30, under-35 [voters], ‘Oh, we actually constructed an awesome nation for you.’ You’re this job market … I don’t assume you’re going to purchase that. We want robust advocacy explaining to those children what precisely they’ve at stake right here” and went on to call reproductive rights and environmental protections.
Swinging to the far left on Israel to appease pro-Palestinian younger voters — who themselves solely rank the problem 15 out of 16 by way of prime priorities — makes little sense. “Discovering an answer to the battle between Israelis and Palestinians” additionally solely ranked 14th in a Pew ballot of prime international coverage priorities amongst all People. It might be a difficulty round which there’s plenty of ardour, but it surely’s not a kitchen desk subject driving most voters.
Likewise, merely hoping the seediness of the Trump trials will flip voters off isn’t efficient both. Hope isn’t a method, and it’s no match for concern.
People are afraid, and people fears needs to be met with actual coverage options that truthfully tackle crime, the economic system, immigration and different prime issues.
The polls will not be a prediction, however they need to be a prescription. And if Biden desires to show these numbers round, he first must cease denying them.
S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.
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