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Why Isn’t Biden Dragging Down Democrats? Thank Abortion Politics and Donald Trump_我的网站
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President Joe Biden's approval ratings are low. Even his own party's rank-and-file think he's too old for the job and would rather someone else were their nominee for president.
But Biden is not a drag for down-ticket Democrats, who have been overperforming in special elections this year and who have been winning ballot initiative battles. Biden isn't even a drag on himself, as a critical percentage of voters in battleground states say they will vote for him even if they don't approve of him or his job performance.
"It's kind of been a long time coming. Democrats have steadily improved" in their voter share in a wide array of races, says Arizona-based pollster Mike Noble, founder of Noble Predictive Insights. Since the election of former President Donald Trump in 2016 and the judicial upending of guaranteed abortion rights in 2022, Democrats have improved their support among college-educated voters, and "those voters are more apt to vote in elections that have an abysmal turnout," such as special elections, Noble says.
An analysis of 2023 special elections results by the elections website FiveThirtyEight found that Democrats overperformed by an average of 10 percentage points. That means that even when Democrats lost special elections, they did better than the political landscape would indicate, given the partisan breakdown in the district and the electoral history there.
A look at special elections in battleground states underscores that August analysis.
In Pennsylvania, a Democrat won a special election for a state House seat by a 3-1 margin, compared with the party's 2-1 win in the 2022 general election. A state Senate seat in a heavily Republican district stayed in GOP hands in a special election earlier this year, but the victor won by a smaller percentage than the Republican candidate did in November 2022.
In Wisconsin, the GOP won a July special election for a state assembly seat, 54% to 46%. That's a smaller margin than in 2022, when the Republican won the seat with 61% of the vote, compared to 39% for the Democratic candidate.
A special election for a Wisconsin state Senate seat was barely won by the GOP candidate, 50.8% to 49.1%. During the previous election, in 2020, the Republican won far more comfortably, with 54% of the vote, compared to 46% for the Democratic candidate.
In a regularly scheduled election, Democrats scored an upset win for a seat in the state Supreme Court, providing a critical liberal majority on a panel that may decide abortion rights, redistricting and other issues. Democratic Judge Janet Protasiewicz won by more than 11 percentage points in a state where whisper-thin margins are more common.
In New Hampshire, a Democrat won a run-off for a state House seat by more than 11 percentage points, after winning the exact same number of votes as the GOP rival in the 2022 general election.
In Virginia, Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in a January special election. Republicans retained a House of Delegates seat in a special election that month but by a substantially smaller margin than the GOP won the seat in 2021.
Republicans made few inroads in 2023 special elections – the most notable being in Maine, where the party flipped a state House seat in a June special election. Democrats still hold an 81-seat majority in the chamber.
Republicans as well as nonpartisan analysts caution that special elections are not necessarily predictive of regularly scheduled general elections, since special elections tend to bring out only the most motivated voters.
In New Hampshire, for example, the Democratic Party is more organized, better funded and professional in nature, while the GOP relies more on volunteer and grassroots workers, says Scott Spradling, a nonpartisan political analyst in the Granite State. That gives Democrats an advantage in special elections, where a big part of the battle is getting people to show up and vote, he says.
But the trend favoring Democrats is notable because the party's highest ranking member, Biden, is faring poorly in polling on his job performance and overall approval.
"The old-school concern is about the approval rating being underwater," meaning the official has a higher disapproval than approval rating, says Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. But because voters aren't too happy with politicians in either party – and are far more entrenched in their partisan leanings than in the past – "you can still win and not be above water" in approval ratings, Yost says.
Two things are boosting Democrats, analysts say: abortion politics and Trump himself, who is not only turning off some independent voters but causing schisms in his own party.
Intraparty fights in battleground states (literally, in Michigan, where physical confrontations have occurred between pro-Trump and Trump-skeptical Republican officials) are dividing the party. In Arizona, the internal battle could weaken the GOP nominee next year for a critical Senate seat.
In Georgia, the GOP has two wings: the one dominated by the likes of firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the one led by politicians like Gov. Brian Kemp, who Thursday quashed the idea of holding a special session to oust Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stop her prosecution of Trump.
If Trump is indeed the GOP nominee in 2024, "a lot of people will stay home," says University of Georgia political science professor Scott Ainsworth, giving Biden a chance to win a red state where he prevailed by a very narrow margin in 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump has been motivating not just his devoted base but Democratic voters who might not be crazy about their own likely nominee and don't want another Trump term, Ainsworth says.
"We maybe have entered an era where people don't feel excited about particular presidential nominees. Sometimes, it's the other person's negatives. Biden doesn't always inspire some voters, but by the same token, he doesn't have the heavy baggage that Trump has," Ainsworth says.
Biden is outperforming himself in a number of battleground states – doing better in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against Trump than he is in his own approval ratings.
In Pennsylvania, a Franklin & Marshall poll found, just 3 in 10 voters think Biden is doing an "excellent" or "good" job. But the president would defeat his predecessor Trump 41% to 40%, the survey found.
In Arizona, a plurality of 49% of voters disapprove of Biden, compared to 40% who approve of him, according to an Emerson College poll. But Biden trails Trump by just 1-3 percentage points, depending on whether third-party candidates are included, the poll found.
In Michigan, half of voters disapprove of Biden's job performance, with 43% approving of it, Emerson College found. But in a head-to-head matchup, Biden and Trump are tied, with 44% support each.
In Georgia, a Public Opinion Strategies poll found, 54% of Peach Staters disapprove of Biden and 43% approve of the president. But Biden would beat Trump, 44% to 43%, the survey found. The same polling firm got similar results in Nevada, where 52% of voters disapprove of Biden and 40% approve of him – but prefer Biden as the next president, with 46% supporting the incumbent president for reelection and 43% wanting Trump back, the poll found.
In Wisconsin, the disconnect between approval and support for reelection is especially stark. A Marquette University poll found that while 53% of voters disapprove of Biden's job performance (45% approve of it), they still favor Biden (52%) over Trump (43%) for president in the 2024 election.
A big part of Trump's problem in Wisconsin is Republicans, says Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette poll, noting that Biden has more support in his own party than Trump does among GOPers.
"We think of Trump as having an iron grip on the GOP, but actually he faces a minority of around 30% of Republicans that don't care for him, compared to some 14% of Dems who don't like Biden," Franklin says.
That is playing out in other critical states, Yost says.
"Ultimately, when it comes down to voting for someone, it's not just the person, but the acceptability of his or her opponent," Yost says.
For Democrats, Trump may be their best asset.
。 本报讯 6月13日，全县总河长会议暨防汛抗旱、人居环境整治工作会议召开，深入学习贯彻习近平总书记关于水生态文明建设、河长制、防汛抗旱、人居环境整治等工作重要指示精神，传达了张国清副总理在全国防汛抗旱工作视频会议上的讲话精神，高效落实国家及省、市相关会议要求，对全县河长制、防汛抗旱、人居环境整治重点任务进行安排部署。
县委书记刘晓军，县委副书记、县长、东戴河新区党工委书记韩景生等县和东戴河新区领导出席会议。
二 | 就河长制和防汛抗旱工作，刘晓军说，各级河长要提高政治站位，切实担负起河湖管理保护、防汛抗旱、防灾减灾的重大责任，综合治理水环境，提高河湖保护治理水平和成效，坚持统筹部署，强化预判、预报、预警、预案措施，全面排查各类隐患。要强化督查考核，进一步完善河长制考核评价体系，以严督实考确保河长制和防汛抗旱工作落地见效。要明晰责任链条，各级河长要压实河湖管护“第一责任人”职责，河长办成员单位要同向发力，构建齐抓共管工作格局，包保县级领导和包保部门严格落实包保责任，县防指各成员单位要强化大局观念，确保防汛抗旱工作取得扎实成效。 就人居环境整治工作，刘晓军说，要提升思想认识，落实工作责任，按照“县级主导、乡村主责、百姓主体”的工作机制，推动农村人居环境整治工作持续深入开展。要完善垃圾治理系统配套体系的建设，做好日常清洁和维护，建立农村环境治理长效机制。要主动担当，真抓实干，群策群力，同频共振，着力推进城乡环境综合整治，引导人民群众转变生活观念，实现环境卫生常态化治理，切实维护和保持人居环境整治成果，实现全县人居环境大提升。
三 | 会议强调，扎实做好河长制、防汛抗旱和人居环境整治工作，既是政治责任也是政治任务，各乡镇（农场）、部门要以“时时放心不下”的责任感和“事事抓在手上”的执行力，深耕管河治河“责任田”，坚决打好防汛抗旱“主动仗”和人居环境整治“持久战”，牢牢扛起守护河湖安澜、社会安宁、百姓安康的政治责任，为实现绥中全面振兴新突破作出新的更大贡献。（刘媛媛）。
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