A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that President Trump’s approval rating is up and that he has strong, sustained support among his base, but it also shows that just four in ten of those surveyed would vote to reelect him next year.
The president’s approval rating is surprising high given the anti-Trump media and cultural onslaught he has endured since beating Hillary in 2016, but there are warning signs for him heading into 2020, each of which may be mitigated by the conflicting will of Democrat primary voters who want both “aggressive policy positions” and electability in their 2020 presidential candidate.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Trump’s job-approval rating has ticked up, but many of his party’s policy positions are viewed as out of the mainstream, and there is broad opposition to his effort to fund a border wall by declaring a national emergency, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.Twenty months before the next presidential election, Mr. Trump’s job-approval rating, at 46%, is similar to those of Presidents Clinton and Obama at this point in their terms, though personal ratings of Mr. Trump are below those of the two Democratic predecessors.. . . . Amid the increased approval rating, the poll found an array of warning signs for Mr. Trump.Mr. Trump leads a generic Democratic opponent, 46% to 40%, in five Midwestern states he carried in 2016: Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. But he trails a generic Democrat, 50% to 39%, in five Sun Belt states Democrats aim to flip in 2020: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas.
Apparently, Democrat voters want someone who has “aggressive policy ideas” but one who can also beat Trump. Given that today’s Socialist Democrats are pushing Medicare for all, “free” college, and the ridiculous Green New Deal that promises to eliminate cow farts and airplanes, it’s hard to imagine a Democrat with “aggressive policy ideas” getting very far in a general election.
The Wall Street Journal continues:
Some 55% who said they intended to vote in a Democratic primary want a candidate who proposes larger-scale policies that might cost more, while 42% prefer a candidate with a smaller-scale and less-expensive agenda. And a majority of the party’s primary voters said they would pick a candidate who shares their views on issues over one perceived as having the best chance to defeat Mr. Trump.. . . . The poll found, by a 56% to 40% margin, that Democratic primary voters prefer a candidate they agree with to one seen as having the best chance to win. The split is most pronounced among younger voters and those who classify themselves as “lean Democratic” as opposed to “strong Democratic.” Older voters and more reliable party members were more likely to back a candidate who can win, the poll found.
This Democrat voter “Socialism Now” vs. “We Must Win” mentality is reflected in an LA Times report.
Marcus Scott is looking for a Democratic presidential candidate who will be rude to Donald Trump. Kara LaMarche wants an upbeat, positive approach. Ben Dion wants a nominee with experience and gravitas. Linds Jakows has had it with older white men in power.Those voters, like fellow Democrats across the country, seek very different things in the big and growing presidential candidate field. But they share one top priority: Picking a nominee who will beat President Trump in 2020.
Democrats need to understand #WhyTrumpWon before they can even consider fielding a viable 2020 opponent. Happily, they are not willing to think, effectively or critically, about that without attacking American voters as “deplorables.” Nothing says “vote Democrat” to moderate, patriotic Americans quite like: “You are a disgusting racist xenophobe racist who is xenophobic. And racist! And disgusting!”
As the Democrat party has lunged to the radical left, its base and key players are no longer interested in fielding moderate, white, (mostly) sane candidates of either gender.
Indeed, the LATimes notes that “electability” has taken on new meaning among Democrats.
Voters, however, have widely varying views about what electable means in 2020. To some, it is code for a safe, cautious choice — a centrist white male who presumably can speak to swing voters. To other Democrats, that’s a recipe for killing off excitement within the party’s young, diverse, progressive base, which needs to be mobilized to win in 2020.The contrasting ideas about electability will come sharply into focus in the coming weeks if two late entrants to the 2020 race come off the sidelines. If former Rep. Beto O’Rourke jumps in, the 46-year-old Texan will represent a bid for generational change that could mobilize new voters in a way supporters compare to Barack Obama.If Vice President Joe Biden runs, he will likely lean heavily on the case that his long experience makes the 76-year-old the party’s safest bet to win the White House.“I believe he is the only person who could take on Trump and beat him,” said Dick Harpootlian, a South Carolina state senator and longtime Biden backer. “We’re going to need someone who can motivate the middle-of-the-road voter.”Other Democrats believe the party must put up a candidate better equipped than the former vice president to speak to and harness the energy of the younger generation of voters that helped deliver victory to the party in the 2018 midterm elections.“I truly believe this great nation is ready for change,” said Robyn Joppy, a business consultant who heard Biden speak at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Washington, D.C. “I love him. But I think his time has come and gone.”
Ultimately, traditional ideas of “electability” were undone first by Obama in 2008 and then by Trump in 2016. This fact is not lost on the left.
The LA Times continues:
Some Democrats are skeptical about assessing candidates’ electability. Emily Cain, executive director of Emily’s List — a group that supports female Democratic candidates who support abortion rights — notes that detractors called Obama “unelectable” when he launched his upstart run to become the nation’s first black president.“This is a subjective measure that comes back to, ‘This is a candidate who is not like what I previously experienced,’ ” she said.Republicans’ experience in the 2016 primary was another cautionary tale against forecasting who is electable: Trump’s GOP rivals argued vociferously against him on grounds that he would surely lead the party to defeat in the general election.“I’ve always found that voters generally think that the candidate I agree with most on the issues is the most electable,” said Neil Newhouse, a pollster at Public Opinion Strategies who advised Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign.
That “voters generally think that the candidate I agree with most on the issues is the most electable” is unsurprising, but it does cause problems for a Democrat Party that is finding itself embracing policy ideas that are fundamentally anti-free market and, I would argue, un-American.
Trump won on a platform of Making America Great Again, and the Socialist Democrats tend to agree with New York governor (and reported 2020 Democrat presidential hopeful) Andrew Cuomo that “America was never that great.”
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