Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Pundits are having trouble adjusting to 2024 election realities

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Jonathan Martin/POLITICO:

Forget No Labels. Biden’s Third-Party Peril is on the Left.

Young Democrats find U.S. support for Netanyahu’s war effort is untenable, potentially costing the president millions of liberal votes.

Yet the collective Democratic fixation on No Labels increasingly looks misplaced — or at least disproportionate given how the 2024 political landscape is taking shape.


Jacobson seems to chase most every name that bubbles up in the news cycle ( just ask them). Yet she’ll be hard pressed to find the sort of well-known figure she needs to be viable because they want either to retain future prospects in their own party (Nikki Haley) or they don’t want to don the scarlet T in their future obituaries for having enabled Trump’s return. (Most every anti-Trump Republican plus Joe Manchin.)

Meanwhile, how many more polls do there have to be of Kennedy near double-digit votes in swing states before he’s taken seriously? And: how many Biden speeches must be shouted down until Democrats realize that a hot war in Gaza this fall may mean 30,000 fewer votes apiece in Madison, Dearborn and Ann Arbor and therefore the presidency?

It’s the left that presents the most acute peril to the president.

On the other hand, Jonathan Martin also wrote about Joe Biden’s Big New Hampshire Blunder, pushing Dean Phillips. Anyone remember New Hampshire? I think the Biden win was just last month (Biden won with 63% in a write in vote, Phillips couldn’t get to 20%.) And on Saturday, Biden took 96% of the South Carolina vote in the first official Democratic primary, while Phillips, who couldn’t get to 2%, finished third.

You decide who’s got their finger on the pulse, and who is throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.

The Economist:

Trump’s lead over Biden may be smaller than it looks

Consider only the highest-quality polls, and the Republican’s advantage melts away

The size of Mr Trump’s lead varies widely by the quality of pollster, as assessed by

FiveThirtyEight (see chart). This early in the election cycle, the pollsters in its highest tier of quality have conducted polls only sporadically. (One exception is a weekly survey conducted by YouGov, an online pollster, for The Economist.) However, in total, 13 polls have been conducted in 2024 by firms in this group. On average, they show a virtual tie between Mr Trump and Mr Biden.

By contrast, most polls released in January 2024 have come from pollsters’ middle class: firms with good but not exceptional records. Polls in these (“good” and “decent”) tiers show Mr Trump with a 2.4-point and 1.7-point lead respectively. Meanwhile, pollsters with a poor record or no prior published results show Mr Trump with an average margin over Mr Biden of around six points.

I know I track polling and forecast elections for a living - but folks, give yourself a break. Living and dying by the polls every day is going to make your life far too painful.

— Logan Phillips (@LoganR2WH) February 4, 2024

Guardian:

Nikki Haley: Trump spends more time ‘ranting’ than fighting for American people


Republican candidate attacks Trump for being more concerned with himself than with country ahead of South Carolina primary

Turning Trump’s own words against him, Haley said that the former president is “going to be spending more time in a courtroom than he’s going to be spending on the campaign trail”. At a time when the US is “in disarray and the world is on fire, we need a president that’s going to give us eight years of focus and discipline, not one that’s going to be sitting there ranting about how he’s a victim.”.

She added that Trump, in recent days, “hasn’t once talked about the American people. And that’s a problem.”

She went on to accuse him of having a “temper tantrum” after she garnered 43% of the vote in New Hampshire last month. “Why? Because he wasn’t controlling the situation.”

Haley’s caustic attack on Trump came as he continues to command a seemingly unassailable lead in the Republican nomination contest. He comfortably won elections in Iowa and New Hampshire, and is now showing a double digit lead in opinion polls in South Carolina, where the Republican primary contest is on 24 February.

In the latest Washington Post-Monmouth University poll of potential Republican primary voters in South Carolina, Trump was 26 points ahead on 58% to Haley’s 32%.

If she wants to spend more time attacking Trump, good for her. It won’t help her win over republicans to vote for her, though.

Swalwell: I support more security at the border, more certainty at the border. That's what President Biden is trying to achieve. He needs authorities from congress to do that. And what we're seeing is that he is trying to govern, and Republicans are trying to sabotage. pic.twitter.com/NNwq6hBFPb

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 4, 2024

Politics sucks when you’re trying for policy. But you can’t have policy without politics (without it, you’re out of power).

USA Today:

3 takeaways from President Biden's blowout win in the South Carolina Democratic Primary

Pam Joy, a Black 62-year-old waitress from Charleston, sat out of the Saturday's primary but said she plans to vote for Biden in November despite her concerns about his age because she usually votes for Democrats.

...

Voter turnout Saturday, not surprisingly, decreased dramatically from the highly competitive, open Democratic primary of 2020, which Biden also won. Turnout among Democrats Saturday was only about 24% of the 2020 turnout.

But Michael Tyler, communications director for the Biden campaign, said Black voters made up approximately 76% of the early vote in South Carolina this year, compared with 56% in 2020.

Betty Managault, 82, a retired nursing assistant who is Black, said she voted for Biden because he was “a godly man.” She said there was no doubt in her mind that Biden would win the primary but felt it was important for her to vote.

“My ancestors, they died for me to get this right to vote,” she said, as she sat at a table selling sweet grass baskets she’d made.

Andrew Romano/Yahoo news:

What Biden's South Carolina primary win means for his 2024 chances

For starters, Democrats seem to be falling in line. A full 74% of potential primary voters now say they support Biden as their 2024 nominee against Williamson (4%) and Phillips (3%) — up from 68% who said in December that they would vote for Biden in their state’s primary or caucus.

Likewise, Democratic support for Biden (62%) versus a hypothetical “someone else” (28%) is 11 points higher than it was just last month — and less than half (42%) of potential Democratic primary voters say they want another Democrat to challenge the president, down from 50% in December and 54% in November. Democrats are also increasingly likely to describe Biden as “fit to serve another term as president”: 64% now vs. 54% in November.

At the same time, Democrats are seven points more likely to say they approve of how Biden is handling the presidency (81%) than they were last month (74%). As a result, Biden’s overall approval rating among all Americans (40%) has jumped by three points over the same period — and while still low, it’s higher than it has been since August of last year.

The issue on which Biden has gained the most ground since December? The economy, where he’s gone from 36% to 39% approval among all Americans — and from 69% to 79% among Democrats.

This modest shift likely reflects real-world economic trends, including falling inflation, low unemployment and higher-than-expected growth. A third of all U.S. adults (33%) now describe the current state of the American economy as excellent or good, up six points from 27% in December and 10 points from 23% in September.

Usually, House Leadership won’t bring something to the floor when they know they don’t have the votes to pass it. In the case of the border bill, they won’t bring it to the floor for the exact opposite reason - they know it will pass easily with bi-partisan support.

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) February 5, 2024

Haaretz:

Israelis Won't Like What Masha Gessen Has to Say About the Gaza War

Growing up in the Soviet Union, the idea of Israel's existence was a lifebelt for Masha Gessen. Now one of America's leading intellectuals has some harsh criticism for the state

Gessen recalls that in 2016, too, following the publication just after the election of Donald Trump of an essay, "Autocracy: Rules for Survival," in The New York Review of Books, they received a large number of letters of support. However, the takeaway of many readers was far from the message Gessen had tried to convey. Speaking from the experience of living in Russia under the regime of Vladimir Putin, Gessen had issued a powerful call in the article for the American people to take responsibility for their fate in the wake of a disastrous election, not to be tricked by the ostensible normalcy the authoritarian regime pretends to be preserving , and to fight for democratic principles. However, many readers found an ostensibly comforting subtext in the article that wasn't there – to the effect that Russia could be blamed for Trump's rise.

"In 2016, the Russian secret services didn't do anything they hadn't done in previous decades," Gessen says now. "But it's a lot more pleasant to shout about how the Russians are to blame for everything, than to think how Trump – and, as we understand now, not only Trump but politicians of his ilk in general – could find a huge camp of supporters in the United States. It's a big, missed opportunity for reflection by commentators, journalists and all the rest."

The Biden Effect: Days after US sanctions were announced, Israel's Bank Leumi informed a West Bank settler that his accounts are frozen. pic.twitter.com/ACS9bEw2jI

— Noga Tarnopolsky נגה טרנופולסקי نوغا ترنوبولسكي (@NTarnopolsky) February 4, 2024

Roger Sollenberger/Daily Beast:

The ‘Profound Influence’ of Christian Extremists on Mike Johnson

Speaker Mike Johnson’s spiritual journey reveals ties to Christian fundamentalists who support slavery. Johnson’s office won’t say where he stands on that issue.

A Daily Beast investigation of his affiliations, influences, and public statements shows that Johnson’s worldview was forged in a radical theological tradition—the leaders and adherents of which have disputed some of the country’s most important constitutional principles, including amendments that freed the slaves and extended basic rights to all citizens.

That may sound dramatic, but Johnson’s connections to one particular strain of Christian fundamentalism elicit legitimate questions about the speaker’s biblical and constitutional interpretations. Those questions are all the more pressing given how open leaders of this movement have been about using anti-democratic means to achieve their desired religious ends—and given Johnson’s own prominent role in the GOP effort to overturn the 2020 election.

While Johnson’s legal endeavors to keep Donald Trump in office have been well documented, so, too, have his ties to that fundamentalist strain, known loosely as Christian dominionism.

And speaking of Mike Johnson:

A group of House conservatives opposed Speaker Mike Johnson’s new standalone $17.6 billion Israel aid package because it isn’t fully paid for with offsetting spending cuts https://t.co/wH8l7nBXvY

— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) February 4, 2024

Matt Lewis/Daily Beast:

Trump Is Botching His Already Dismal Shot With Women Voters

If Donald Trump doesn’t change his campaign’s trajectory, the voter gender gap will be a gender Grand Canyon by November, as hordes of women run screaming away from the presumptive nominee, earning Joe Biden a second term.

According to a new Quinnipiac poll, 58 percent of female registered voters now support Biden—an increase that propelled Biden to a 6-point lead against Trump in a hypothetical 2024 presidential matchup. As of December 2023, Biden’s support among women was just 53 percent and has grown by 5 points in just the last month.

It’s not absurd to think that three women have contributed to this abrupt shift: Nikki Haley, E. Jean Carroll, and Taylor Swift.

It’s amusing to me in many ways that PA polls stand out in a sea of other state and national polls right now in the sense that they’re one of few that consistently show Biden up. Muhlenberg, SP&R, F&M, all of them. Even QPac, an out of state pollster, shows the same.

— Joshua Smithley (@blockedfreq) February 4, 2024

Bolts magazine:

A Wave of States Reduce “Death by Incarceration” for Young Adults

Massachusetts banned sentences of life without parole for “emerging adults” up to age 21, the latest in a series of states revisiting who counts as young in the eyes of the law.


When the Massachusetts supreme court banned sentences of life without the possibility of parole against children in late 2013, the state was ahead of the curve—just five states had taken that step as of the start of that year.

Today there are 28. In an unusually rapid sea change over the last decade, red and blue states alike have rushed to bar that punishment, which denies someone any possibility of ever leaving prison, for anyone under age 18. That includes GOP-run Ohio in 2021, and Democratic-run Minnesota and New Mexico last year.

Will a similar surge now shield even more youths from being incarcerated for life with no hope of release?

Once again, Massachusetts is ahead of the curve: The state supreme court issued landmark rulings on Jan. 11 that expanded its earlier holding, and raised the minimum age for a life without parole sentence from 18 to 21.

Cliff Schecter and Tony Michaels take a light hearted look at Trump voters:

YouTube Video