Biden approval ratings thread, 1.0

[pbrower2a]

D's are gonna keep both Houses of Congress

My assessment (from a different thread):

Years in which a new Party takes over the Presidency usually bring in a significant number of Senators and Representatives with the new President. Democrats won only two Senate seats that they expected to win, one against a very right-wing Senator in a state drifting strongly D and another defeating an incumbent who really had no business being in the Senate. Appointed pols who have little-to-no experience winning electoral campaigns usually lose. Two others were Democrats who survived jungle primaries for a Senate seat and won their seats (in Georgia) in part due to the misconduct of the defeated President.

Oddly, Democrats lost more House seats than they gained while Joe Biden won the Presidency. Ordinarily a win for a President's Party brings into the House some marginal pols vulnerable in the next election. This time the vulnerable new pols in the House are members of the Party that lost the Presidency. Maybe Republicans can continue to gerrymander House seats in the usual stack-and-pack method as they did in 2011...but maybe they can't. New members of the House are more vulnerable than older ones as a rule because the more established ones have usually had districts designed to make re-election easy and because they are able to get goodies for their constituents such as money for some spur expressway or the expansion of a military base -- and because they have successfully honed their political skills.

Any Republican pols who run on such issues as "Trump really won" will be easier to defeat than those who prove quick studies on the area in which they are members of Congressional committees. To be sure, we will still be only twelve years away from the Tea Party election of 2010 and a similar election in 2014... but demographics now more strongly put weak Republicans at risk of defeat.    

[pbrower2a]

For what it is worth:

March 1-7
588 registered voters

Favorabilities

Joe Biden: 52/45 (+7)
John Fetterman: 29/20 (+9)
Malcolm Kenyatta: 10/6 (+4)
Mitch McConnell: 18/64 (-46)
Donald Trump: 43/54 (-11)

Do you think of yourself as a Trump Republican, a traditional Republican, or something else?
267 Republicans

Trump Republican 42%
Traditional Republican 38%
Something else 17%
Do not know 4%

Do you think of yourself as a progressive Democrat, a centrist Democrat, or something else?
243 Democrats

Centrist Democrat 45%
Progressive Democrat 33%
Something else 15%
Do not know 7%

https://www.fandm.edu/uploads/files/200017560246277019-fmmarch2021-topline.pdf

This looks like a better position for Democrats five months after the Presidential election than at the time in which Pennsylvania had a nail-biter contest. It is favorability, and not approval, in a swing state. It would be on the map if it were "approval". 

[pbrower2a]

The times are changing. This poll is hard to believe, but I have seen other polls of North Carolina that suggest the same thing. This suggests that North Carolina has gone from being a lean-R state (as shown in the 2020 election) to decidedly D.

NC - Meredith College
March 12-15
699 registered voters

Approve 56%
Disapprove 40%

https://www.meredith.edu/assets/images/content/Meredith_Poll_Report_Spring_2021_final.pdf

Demographic change? That happens slowly. One thing did change, and this is the first poll of any kind that has addressed one of my questions about the post-Trump political scene:

Political Violence

With the racial equality protests and the riots on January 6 at the Capitol, the issue of political
violence has become prominent in American politics. Security experts suggest that we will see more
political violence in coming years, as a result of the hyper-polarization in the country. North
Carolinians strongly support non-violent protests guaranteed in the Constitution, but strongly
oppose more violent types of expression. Political acts such as holding a sign in front of a
government building (67.8% support) and participating in a peaceful march (84.2% support).
Every demographic group, including political partisans, strongly support those types of
expressions.

On more extreme political acts—taking over a government building, using violence or assassination
against political opponents, or bombing—well over 80 percent of North Carolinians oppose those
type of acts. Only the youngest respondents—and only about 20% of them—supported the idea of
using more violent means of political statements.

“Although we should be concerned about any type of political violence,” McLennan stated, “the
public roundly opposes this type of behavior. However, the fact that over 11% of North Carolinians think that taking over a government building or just under 10% feel that it is acceptable to commit violence against a political opponent or assassinate a political leader that is acting inappropriately should be of great concern to use all.”

Violence at polling places, although rare, is concerning to respondents to our survey. Over 40% of
respondents indicated that their willingness to vote would be decreased if they saw political
observers carrying firearms outside the polling place. Also, if there was violence between
representatives of the two major parties outside the polling place, almost two-thirds of respondents
indicated that they would be less likely to cast their ballots. On the issue of potential violence at
polling places, such as seeing political observers carrying firearms, over half of the Democrats
(52.9%) indicated they would be less likely to vote, but only 28.7 percent of Republicans felt that it
would affect their voting behavior.

In terms of the causes of increased political violence over the last year, a plurality of North
Carolinians (38%) say that extremists on the political left and right are equally to blame. There is,
however, a large partisan gap among the respondents with a large percentage of Democrats
(46.5%) blaming right-wing extremism and Republicans (36.8%) blaming political violence
primarily on left-wing extremism.

“There is little evidence that most North Carolinians condone political violence,” McLennan states,
“but there is evidence that partisans in the state see the causes of violence quite differently.
Whether it is Republicans blaming Antifa for violence or Democrats blaming the Proud Boys and
similar groups for the increased violence, the consequences of these attitudes could be significant.
Law enforcement should treat all violence as equally important, but political leaders may reflect the
same attitudes as many of our respondents and cause some who cause political violence to be
under-investigated or punished.”

North Carolina may not be a viable microcosm of America, but in essence

1. Peaceful protest is acceptable irrespective of the political orientation
2. Political violence, including the violent disruption of political process, is unacceptable
3. Although such people are clearly in the minority, about one tenth of Americans approve of political violence to get their way.

My guess is that the third group consists largely of extremists on the Left and Right. Obviously that is far larger than some current protest movements with a left-leaning orientation (Black Lives Matter) and, frankly, much of the Right (including the "gun rights" movement).

I can say this: if the state were Massachusetts or Wyoming and something has disdain among 80% of the public such would suggest that it is unpopular nationwide. America may be polarized -- but not that much. Violence is as American as cherry pie -- but so are tornadoes and rattlesnakes. At least I can take shelter from a tornado and can back off from a rattlesnake.

If Democrats can connect incumbent or challenger Republicans to support of the January 6 insurrection, then they have a powerful tool.        


 

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

56/40 is hard to swallow but it would not be impossible to believe that North Carolina's Trump fever has finally broken a bit.

It is hard to believe, and America has not known as sharp a swing in ideology on a national scale since an environment in which Jimmy Carter could win into one in which he had no chance. Carter had some bad luck, to be sure, but one can attribute much of the change from a Carter-friendly environment to a Reagan-friendly environment to cultural change. The Religious Right and pro-gun interests won over a large part of America in all regions, and Carter stayed put. Carter lost -- big.

We may have had a similar moment in time.

North Carolina may not be a microcosm of America, but any momentous change in the political culture of a state not tied to something unique to that state that is near the center of the political spectrum bodes ill for those on the wrong side of political history.

What do I mean by unique to a state? One such example would have been the decline of the coal-mining industry in West Virginia. No state depended more upon coal for jobs and income, and the powerful United Mine Workers Union could get the vote out for Democratic pols. That is obviously over, and West Virginia is no longer the sort of state that votes D in Presidential elections other than R blowouts

[pbrower2a]

*One good poll from NC exists.*

"Biden is the Democratic Reagan and we will get  nut map in 2022."

The big point is that Donald Trump is now so d@mn toxic. Until I saw the above poll showing that Americans abhor political violence I was chary of saying that a fundamental change had happened in American politics. But it has. Sure, it was what I expected... but it was even bigger.

It is impossible to see footage of the storming of the Capitol without seeing all the TRUMP banners. You can trust that Democrats will make the most of this against any Republican who was even wishy-washy about opposing the Putsch.

Republicans would be wise to not go after people who voted to impeach Donald Trump.  Except fr people now political neophytes, those are the future of the GOP as of now. 

Joe Biden may be taking the role of Reagan as it falls into his lap.

[pbrower2a]

MO (Remington)

43% approve
53% disapprove

Hey, Tender, I know it's been a while since you've posted this, but do you have a link for that poll? I've been searching on google for Remington polls and recent polls of Missouri and I'm not having much luck finding it.

The most recent poll I found on the firm's website dates back to June last year, in fact.

Unless Remington made the poll for a private entity, the absence of a link suggests the worst, such as a fabrication. I generally trust people for valid polls. In view of this disclosure I delete the poll in question from my map. 

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

Michigan - Market Resource Group, March 15-18, 610 likely voters, MoE: 4%

Approve 50%
Disapprove 41%

Are you missing something?  The link is to a national poll that has only one connection to Michigan, and that is an add promoting gambling on-line in Michigan. You may have the wrong link. This is a national poll connecting to American Research Group.


Biden job approval, nationally

mo..year....App..Dis...Undecided

Mar 2021   60%   34%   6%
Feb 2021   58%   34%   8%
Donald Trump:
Jan 2021   30%   66%   4%
Dec 2020   41%   56%   3%
Nov 2020   41%   55%   4%
Oct 2020   35%   60%   5%

These numbers tell a story. As late as October many Democrats saw a wave election that would ravage the GOP. Trump had the late surge because he actually held mass rallies... you know, damn the viruses, full speed ahead!  Polls in November and December reflect President Trump's loss, and the January poll (presumably after the Putsch) suggest that President Trump lost all credibility.

Trump of course had good cause to leave the White House before the scary exorcists Champ and Major (Joe Biden's dogs) would come in. Dogs see right through people, and if they figure that you are up to no good, then you are in danger of a severe mauling. OK, so much for the dog jokes...  President Biden seems to be close to an inverse of Trump approval about now. I'm not going to say that that will hold. 

Michigan is close to the national average in political orientation, so I would expect Michigan to have similar approval and disapproval numbers for President Biden as polling numbers show nationwide.   

[pbrower2a]

Pennsylvania, Republicans only.


https://susquehannapolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Toplines-PAStatewide-GOPGubernatorial-PublicRelease.pdf

 Q8. Former President Donald Trump?
1. Favorable 203 83%
2. Unfavorable 50 12%
3. No Opinion 19 05%

Yuck! Of course, many people have left the Republican Party of Pennsylvania after the Capitol Putsch, most likely about that. 

[pbrower2a]

Pennsylvania, Republicans only.


https://susquehannapolling.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Toplines-PAStatewide-GOPGubernatorial-PublicRelease.pdf

 Q8. Former President Donald Trump?
1. Favorable 203 83%
2. Unfavorable 50 12%
3. No Opinion 19 05%

Yuck! Of course, many people have left the Republican Party of Pennsylvania after the Capitol Putsch, most likely about that. 

I think they need a new calculator.  Those raw numbers don't match those percentages. 

203/50/19 should be 75%/18%/7%.

I almost never fact-check for calculations, figuring that those are so basic that nobody with a college education, complete or in progress, could make those.

Figuring that the January Putsch is not going to look better with time, the image of Trump is likely to get even worse than what he had at the time of the 2020 election. Many Republicans have left the GOP because of Trump. They would likely go into some other conservative Party rather than vote for Trump.

Only 272 registered voters of 700 were polled beyond a question of partisan identity, of course all of them were Republicans.  That's roughly 74.6% among Republicans alone. To get 350 of 700 with 'favorability' as a proxy for saying "I would vote for Trump", one would need 147 voters among the other 428, or about 32.7% of the Democratic and Independent vote crossing over. That is unlikely.   

[pbrower2a]

The Approval map is too Fav red towards D's, D's aren't gonna win TX

As I recall it was a 1% margin. The 5% terracing of colors makes too much significance of the difference between 15% and 40% and too little of the difference between 1% and 4%, which is a huge difference as a predictor of electoral results. .

[pbrower2a]

Michigan - Market Resource Group, March 15-18, 610 likely voters, MoE: 4%

Approve 50%
Disapprove 41%

(the poll connected elsewhere, and a correct link has been made available ).

*snip*

Yeah, here’s the actual link to the poll.

https://www.mrgmi.com/2021/03/23/mrg-michigan-poll-state-of-the-state-of-public-opinion-4/

It doesn't change the color. The color for Michigan is rather pale, but note well: a gap of 9% approval and disapproval is a big margin under most circumstances, and it is much bigger than the narrow margin (just under 3% of the Biden win in 2020. The map does not really change for this.

New Hampshire - University of New Hampshire, March 18-22, 1744 registered voters, MoE: 2.3%

Approve 53% (nc)
Disapprove 45% (nc)

https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1641&context=survey_center_polls

Not all that surprising. New Hampshire has had low ceilings and high floors for both Parties and their pols for a very long time. Joe Biden can win this state by 5% in a close election, but for him to win it in 2024 by 10% or so he will need a D blowout. That would be about 400 electoral votes.

An 8% positive gap between approval and disapproval is good at any stage for so polarized a state.  

Approval of handling COVID-19: Biden 60-38 in March. It was  42-58 for Trump in January.

More on former President Trump:

1. According to this pollster he never had higher favorability than approval, although he got close twice, in the spring of 2019 and the spring of 2020. Those were not the right times for being nearly even, let alone above, in favorability.

2. It is now at 37-55. I don't have the numbers for October and November 2020 around Election Day, but the negative gap in New Hampshire was large enough to suggest that Trump had no real chance to win the Granite State in 2020. It is even worse now after his claims that he and his supporters have been cheated. To go further on this is to rehash the overall election, which is no longer relevant in this discussion which seems to point more to 2024 than back to 2000.

3. Speaking of 2024, New Hampshire voters by an overwhelming majority think that the Republican Party (59-37%) believe that Republicans would be wise to move away at the least from the personality of Donald Trump. Only 2% of Democrats and only 34% of Independents think that Republicans would be wise to stick with Trump. But 74% of Republicans apparently have no problem with Trump as their Party's leader.

If I were a conservative Republican, I would recognize that the Democrats know something that the majority of 'my' Party don't know. Getting 74% of 45% of the population, 34% of 10% of the population, and 2% of 45% of the population suggests about 42% of the vote overall, which is close to "Mondale 1984" territory. Americans have tended to live in partisan echo chambers, so it is easy to see that Republicans who still live in an echo chamber in which the can't imagine anyone voting against Donald Trump and his concept of America unless a traitor.

It may take a smashing defeat for Republicans in New Hampshire and elsewhere to recognize how toxic Donald Trump is.  But he is that.  

4. 66% of Republicans want Trump to run for President in 2024. Only a microscopic 1% of Democrats do, and a small 22% of Independents. That is very low for Democrats who might have cause to see Trump as an easy person to defeat. I have suggested that Trump might go down to a landslide defeat and take a raft of Republican elected officials down with him in 2024...

I'm sure that plenty of Republicans would have been delighted to have Dukakis winning the Democratic nomination in 1992 or Mondale winning the Democratic nomination in either 1992 or 1996. Neither was a menacing figure and had lost big. Trump is a mencing to Democrats for what he did after the election.

5. It is a long time (just over 42 months) to the 2024 election). If nothing happens between now and 2024 except that Joe Biden chooses to run for a second term, then the overall map suggests that President Biden will be re-elected solidly. Assuming that nothing important happens between now and November 2024 is a huge assumption devoid of justification. If I saw polling numbers like this in March 2024 as shown for about a third of the states as on this map I would see President Biden as a shoo-in. But this is March 2021 and not March 2024. (By the way -- the pale pink shade for Texas is effectively a tie). Biden has a distinct lead in a favorability poll in Pennsylvania, so that leaves little opening for any Republican. I do not show favorability ratings for genuine swing states, but I can discuss them to the extent that I see them relevant. 

6. So much about one small state? New Hampshire gets so treated very often because it is relevant far beyond its region.

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

What most decides the accuracy of polling as a predictor is the appropriateness of the model for turnout.Democrats usually have last-hours GOTV drives that consolidate the vote. That obviously did not happen in 2020 due to COVID-19. That won't be relevant in 2022, when Democratic voters are more likely to get complacent about electoral results (the midterm effect). All midterm elections have gone badly for the party that holds the Presidency beginning in 2002, and there is no cause to believe that the fifth time will be the charm.

OK, something is very different this time. One of the right-wing shock-jocks who got a Medal of Freedom for "excellence in broadcasting" will no longer be around to smear people to the left of Augusto Pinochet. The messy situation on January 6, 2021 isn't likely to look any better in eighteen months. Several Republican Senators are retiring with no hints on whether they have understudies groomed to take over for them.

No two elections are exactly alike. How much conventional wisdom will be wrong in 2022?

[pbrower2a]

One state, but it is electorally huge as it is near the national average and will be an absolute must-win for any Republican nominee for President. North Carolina, Meredith.

  Political Leaders
Approval of President
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?
Response Number Percentage
Strongly approve 229 30.5
Approve 185 25
Disapprove 82 11.5
Somewhat disapprove 168 28.0
Don’t know/refused to
answer
35 5.0
N=699

Approval of Governor
Do you approve or disapprove of the way Roy Cooper is handling his job as
governor?
Response Number Percentage
Strongly approve 188 24.8
Approve 212 27.3
Disapprove 121 19.6
Somewhat disapprove 130 21.4
Don’t know/refused to
answer
48 6.9
N=699

Roy Cooper is the incumbent Democrat. He is in a strong position.

Now, partisan identification, and it does not look good for the GOP in North Carolina:

Political Party

What political party do you most identify with?
Response Number Percentage
Democratic 297 42.5
Republican 212 30.3
Other 33 4.7
Unaffiliated 147 21
Refused/No answer 10 1.4
N=699

https://www.meredith.edu/assets/images/content/Meredith_Poll_Report_Spring_2021_final.pdf

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

These Approvals are too rosey right now.

WI, PA, NH net positive

GA, NC, FL, TX arent bright red, IA is definitely not light pink, D's have a small chance in IA

Can you accept that at this point approval is a measurement of performance and achievement while dodging offense to political sensibilities? President Biden is doing far better at that than Donald Trump did at this time.

The Texas poll is by a 1% margin. I find the Georgia result hard to believe, but somehow I expect new polling soon in the wake of some provocative legislation by Republican figures in Georgia.

The terracing of results is not how I have things as an election is nigh; I usually have three categories (bare, weak, and strong) with ties. Much will change between now and November 2024. At a certain point I see no practical difference between a politician being up by 10% in a matchup and 30%  because the electoral result will be the same (except in Maine and Nebraska due to the votes by district). I see a much bigger difference between a 2% and a 3% edge in a matchup or a gap in approval than between 7% and 12%, let alone between 15% and 45%.       

[pbrower2a]

Fine a 2.5 D slide is probably realistic or D+3 in Senate and narrow House majority but a D+5 or 8 is probably unrealistic at this time due to Covid is choking the Economy

Approval polls are predictors of how an incumbent would do if up for election shortly.

Excerpted from my material on another thread (with some modifications, some of them snark):

Some things will not change, such as elections already done. Beginning in 2000 we have had six Presidential elections, only one of them arguably a landslide (2008).

 

Margin

Blue for Trump, Red for Biden

10-15% saturation 8
8-10% saturation 6
5-8% saturation 5
1-3% saturation 4
under 1% saturation 2

Gray... completely out of contest, and you know how those states and districts are oriented.

I am guessing, putting the wayward Second Congressional Districts of Maine and Nebraska in the middle category.

Fully thirty-one states were decided by 15% or more in 2020!  It is possible to say that the Trump Administration flooded some farm states with farm subsidies to distract voters in those states from the damage that his trade war with China caused.

(If you think that any state in gray will switch affiliation from 2020 to 2024 and you don't have a convincing story, then the local sheriff might be interested in finding your supplier).   

 How the states have voted beginning in 2000:

all six for the Republican
5 R, 1 D
4 R, 2D  
(white - 3R, 1D)
4 D, 2 R
5 D, 1 R
all six for the Democrat

That is six elections and the biggest changes since then have been

(1) that several states that once favored Democrats in Democratic wins and that even voted twice for Bill Clinton in the 1990's have swung completely to the GOP and haven't gotten close
(2) the West Coast went from the fringe of competitiveness for Republicans to out of reach for them
(3) Virginia went from the sort of state that never voted for a Democrat except in a landslide (from 1952 to 2004 it had gone D only for LBJ in 1964) to strongly D; New Mexico went from shaky D to strong D; Colorado went from iffy in D landslides to solid D.
(4) the fast-growing Mexican-American vote in the southwestern United States is making Arizona and even Texas shaky for Republican nominees for President.
(5) The Republican Party has lost its appeal to the educated part of the urban middle class.

Not shown on this map: the urban-suburban difference in politics is becoming a triviality as suburban areas lose their old rural character (white populations, low density and relatively recent infrastructure that has low costs of maintenance) and become more urban (less white, higher density as apartment complexes replace the 70-year-old 'starter homes' of WWII veterans, and obsolete infrastructure in need of costly repairs or rebuilding).

If you want to consider the 1990's, in case anyone has any idea that states that went for Bill Clinton, often solidly, in the 1990's, could imaginably go back to the Democrats... I don't see that happening. Clinton won Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Tennessee, and West Virginia twice, and those look like the last times that those states will ever vote for a Democratic nominee for president for a very long time.  Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, and Montana went for Clinton once in the 1990's. Unless Texas goes for the Democrat in 2024, just about any election of 2024 unless an overwhelming landslide will look much like one of the Presidential elections from 2000 to 2020. I cannot say which one is most likely to be closest to that of 2024; it could be anything from 2004 (bare R majorities in the popular vote and Electoral College) to 2008 (almost a landslide). If you expect anything else now based upon political realities already documented, then the local sheriff wants to know what you are on and who is your supplier. 

all six for the Republican
all six for the Republican, but twice for Clinton in the 1990's
all six for the Republican, but once for Clinton in the 1990's
5 R, 1 D
4 R, 2D  
(white - 3R, 1D)
4 D, 2 R
5 D, 1 R
all six for the Democrat

The electoral map has changed little from 2000, with the election mist uncharacteristic of those elections from 2000 to w020 being the near-landslide win by Obama

Clinton split in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Montana... and any of those could be D wins in 2024 except perhaps Montana -- and Colorado looks like a sure thing in anything other than the wake of a disaster by Biden. Biden or Harris has a better chance of winning Texas, which has not voted for a Republican nominee for President since 1976 than of any state in green.

[pbrower2a]

Wow, I remember Trump started off in the negatives but I didn't realize he was already close to -15 by day 69. I mean, he deserved it, but I thought it was still like in the higher single digits at that point still.

Trump's abrasive, take-no-prisoners message was already well entrenched. He had done nothing to win Democrats over except to threaten their relevance. Trump had his base but little else.

His inexperience as a political life showed. His my-way-or-the-highway approach to politics reflected his way as a tycoon and executive in private industry. Government operates by different rules. The CEO of a private business in theory can fire a clerk for having a bumper sticker for a politician that that CEO despises, but the President cannot fire a letter-carrier or even a GS-1 clerk for such. A top executive can always fire middle-management... but the President cannot purge Congress or State governors. He can rip into someone like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer all that he wants... but she is still Governor of Michigan and Donald Trump is back to being a private citizen. 

Because Joe Biden is the near-inverse of Donald Trump in almost every aspect except age, one can hardly be surprised that approval ratings for Joe Biden are the near inverse of those of Trump. That's nothing new; that is how things were after Trump repudiated everything about Barack Obama. If you are going to repudiate someone, then repudiate someone of unqualified awfulness. Were I taking over an executive position in which I little knew the staff, I would ask among my earliest questions

"What did my predecessor do right?"

My first objective is to undo bad practices. Attempts to perfect what was good comes later because the bad stuff must be extinguished.    

[pbrower2a]

Arizona, registered voters. Twenty states are now on display. What's great is that one of them was really, really close in 2020, The approval gap for Joe Biden suggests that disapproval numbers have yet to truly approach ' 100% less approval, as usually happens. To be sure, President Biden has done a fine job of dodging unpopular measures, which will not last, I see Biden approval in Arizona at 55% unlikely to hold. This said, I do not predict polling results as a dynamic. I let the dynamic speak for itself. The next effective President on the conservative side of the political spectrum, I now predict, will act much more like Barack Obama than like Donald Trump.     

Arizona LOVES their president!
https://twitter.com/ohpredictive/status/1376958319571701764?s=21

It's hard to believe, but Arizona may be the 2020 equivalent of what West Virginia was in 2000 -- a surprising pick-up for a state that one Party won almost all the time. This polling result suggests that Arizona is starting to resemble Colorado or New Mexico in politics. The demographics of Arizona would seem to be somewhere between New Mexico (a very poor state) and Colorado.

55% approval for a Democrat is freakish... but again, Arizona seems now to be inverting a poll in which Trump was down about 40-55 in approval at one point (I guess it was in 2018).

It is rare that a political figure can get away with doing the opposite of his predecessor as a way to get rw-elected. Trump did that with Barack Obama, which proved unwise in the extreme. Doing the opposite of Obama was one way to get hideous results. A President who gets 365 electoral votes in a country scared of a reprise of the Great Depression and then 332 after things had calmed down had to be doing something right. So Trump hated Barack Obama's guts? Tough luck!  

If yoou are going to repudiate someone, then repudiate what is wrong. So you despise your neighbor who regularly sees the dentist and gets his car's oil changed regularly and avoids trouble by paying his bills on time. . Is contempt for your neighbor a good reason for neglecting your teeth and your car and not paying bills on time?

If I were replacing a manager who had just been fired, then among the first questions I would ask is what my predecessor did right. I'm not shaking that! So maybe he  brought a suitable assortment of foods to the company picnic and was fussy about neatness in the office as such keeps morale up. But if he is dipping into the take from the soft-drink machine for his patronage of an escort service... that ends, ideally yesterday. If he tells off-color, offensive jokes... likewise. No, you do not get to make jokes about handicapped people. No, the girly calendars go down once and for all.  

....It's Wednesday morning, and the day on which the most polls come in. I'm not sure that I fully believe this one, but still, Arizona is close to the national average in the vote, and at times in 2020 it looked as if it would go to Joe Biden by a significantly larger margin than it did. This is the first poll of approval in Arizonaafter the Presidential election... and the sick spectacle whose date will be remembered in somewhat different infamy than December 7, 1941, but infamy nonetheless.      

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

Biden’s approval is not 65 like the liberal media says.

It’s 50-52%, not afar from Trump’s in the same period.

And no, he doesn’t have a +16 approval rating in Arizona, especially with the border crisis.

The approval numbers are unusually high because President Biden has so far avoided having to make tough decisions that hurt large numbers of people. Contrast Donald Trump, who was extremely willing to offend a near-majority of the People from the outset. The 39% disapproval rating suggests a honeymoon. But note well: 55% approval allows as much as a 45% disapproval. Even that allows at the least a 10% gap between approval and disapproval. Anything like that at the start of the 2024 campaign implies a near certainty of re-election at election time in any statewide race.

Even with a strong economy (COVID-19 has already created pent-up demand for many things in the economy) in which real wages are rising, I cannot see President Biden getting anything more than 60% of the popular vote... because that is about what FDR did in the 1930's, LBJ did in 1964, and Nixon did in 1972. Even Reagan got only 58% of the popular vote in 1984. The Republican Party has at the minimum the floor that Landon, Goldwater, and McGovern had. They won the vote of the partisan base but got nothing more.

The border crisis is more in Texas than in Arizona. This is practically a refugee crisis, and the cause is turf wars between drug syndicates in the countries from which these people come. Extant Mexican-American cultures in America can and will assimilate those who have a true Spanish-based culture, and those who are more clearly of First Peoples culture will (ironically) fit quickly into the Anglo mainstream quickly.

The real dynamic in Arizona is the increasing influence of Mexican-Americans in the political life of Arizona. Mexican-Americans have never experienced the animus that blacks have anywhere in America. Mexican-American political life is generally more liberal -- but it is competent. Cultural assimilation goes both ways with Mexican-Americans; they can assimilate non-Hispanics into their culture.

As I say of other polls that people dislike for their results: unless you see obvious bias, then wait for another poll to confirm or deny what you just saw. I find it difficult to believe that Arizona is much more D than Michigan, Nevada, or Wisconsin, but that is what the polls indicate. The 2024 election has Joe Biden in the drivers' seat so far. He will have the power of the incumbency in his favor. He is handling COVID-19 well, and at the expense of any Republican who has promoted a "let the good times roll" attitude. Governor Ducey did that, and his state has paid later... with loan-shark interest, so to speak, with the Grim Reaper collecting lives like a loan-shark collects principle and far more interest. 

[pbrower2a]

Biden’s approval is not 65 like the liberal media says.

It’s 50-52%, not afar from Trump’s in the same period.

And no, he doesn’t have a +16 approval rating in Arizona, especially with the border crisis.

50-52 is in fact still quite far from Trump's approval rating at this (or any other) point in his presidency. Try harder.

If you look at more unbiased polls, it actually wasn’t.

You could argue that explicitly GOP-friendly polls like Rassy and Trafalgar ended up being more accurate in some ways due to accounting for muh shy Trump effect or whatever, but the idea that they were less biased is facially absurd. The people who ran these polls went on Fox News constantly during the campaign and in Rassy's case explicitly supported Trump's attempts to overturn the results once he lost.

In the end, how well a pollster predicts the election boils down to what model of the electorate applies. Pollsters such as PPP and Quinnipiac had models that assumed that Democrats would do final-weeks electioneering that they usually do. Democrats in Michigan had succeeded in making their electoral database less vulnerable to Russian hacks; they simply could not canvas for votes in 2020 out of fear of COVID-19. Such canvassing is good for getting late voters to the polls. Democrats did not do that in 2020.

I expect Democrats to do this in 2022. 

[pbrower2a]

I definitely think it's gonna be a 3.5 Election our max in the Senate is 3 not 8 and we still can hold the House in a neutral cycle.

It's gonna be close either way not a landslide, any Approvals showing a landslide and Covid is rising and we are still on in a Pandemic is wrong.

We won the PVI by 8 in 2018 and our Election resurrected the EC blue wall, that is what's gonna happen in 2022, too. IL, MI, WI and PA, not OH, IA or FL

At this point that is all our best guess. To suggest otherwise is to suggest a dynamic that has yet to manifest itself.   

[pbrower2a]

Puquinniac poll, Pennsylvania:

Biden approval 59%, disapproval 43%

Fort Worth Journal-Gazette, Indiana:

Biden approval 45%, disapproval 43%

Fort Wayne Sta-Telegram, Texas:

Biden approval 45%, disapproval 46%

Ernest Hemingway High School, Michigan:

Biden approval 54%   disapproval 41%

Nebraska, Loof-Lipra polling:

Biden approval 40%, disapproval 47%

1st district, 38-52
2nd district  53-38
3rd district, 27-56

No comments? These were Aril Fools' jokes. Fort Wayne is in Indiana and Fort Worth is in Texas.

[pbrower2a]

New Jersey: Stockton, related to a gubernatorial race.

1. Approve/disapprove Joe Biden

53% approve (35% strongly), 37% disapprove (32% strongly)

16. Do you believe that the 2020 election was done fairly and accurately?
64% agree (58% strongly); 34% disagree (28% strongly). 

17. Do you support the continuation of voting by mail?

58% agree (49% strongly) 40% oppose (35% strongly)


https://stockton.edu/hughes-center/polling/documents/2021-0331-spring-politics-poll-frequencies.pdf 

No April Fools polls.  

Key:

30% red shade: Biden up 1-5%
40% red shade: Biden up 5-10%
50% red shade: Biden up 10-15%
60% red shade: Biden up 15-20%
70% red shade: Biden up 20-25%
80% red shade: Biden up 25-30%
90% red shade: Biden up 30%+

50% green shade: tie

30% blue shade: Biden down 1-5%
40% blue shade: Biden down 5-10%
50% blue shade: Biden down 10-15%
60% blue shade: Biden down 15-20%
70% blue shade: Biden down 20-25%
80% blue shade: Biden down 25-30%
90% blue shade: Biden down 30%+


It is approval ratings, and not favorability ratings. Favorability ratings are relevant when they are blatant  (as in states that are not close and usually do not get polled, like New York Rhode Island or Oklahoma) because the states rarely decide an election, but they always must defer to approval. Would I use a favorability rating for Illinois? Sure. Wisconsin? Absolutely not.

[pbrower2a]

We are still on track for a D 3.5 Election but things can change in 500 days

WI, PA and NH Senate goes D

GA goes R and replaced by OH or NC

Approval with Biden at 53% shows that, it's won't be a landslide


Biden is not at 59% with Covid cases rising

COVID-19 cases seem to be rising most where Republicans dominate political life and have resisted lockdowns.

Add about 2% to approval and you get what one can expect for an incumbent seeking re-election if such is on or near election day.

...We do not know who the Republican nominee will be in 2024. Donald Trump is still tainted, and any Republican who fails to distance himself from Trump will have some images of ugly incidents from you-know-when on attack ads.

Barring such a calamity as a war that goes badly for America or an economic meltdown on the scale of at least 2007-2009, Joe Biden gets re-elected. Polarized as America has been, the closest thing to a landslide that he could get is  about 54-45, which is just bigger than what Obama got in 2008 or the elder Bush got in 1988 in popular vote.

Republicans are not in a position in which to tank the economy now and won't be unless they get both Houses of Congress -- and that would be risky on their part.  As America gets out of the peril of COVID-19 (more people are inoculated fully against it than have ever contracted it, which is not so much the beginning of the end as the end of the beginning) it will have an economic recovery comparable to a post-war recovery. We will be in the late 1940's with more modern technology and some social reforms unimaginable in the late 1940's.

Good times are good for re-election; just think of Harry Truman in 1948.  Republicans unleashed the political venom against him, and he still won. Contrary to myth and an infamously-wrong headline on the Chicago Tribune,  Dewey didn't even come close, and Truman could win without the support of a Solid South.

 

[pbrower2a]

I never seen a non rosey scenario for Ds on pbower2A Approvals.

2016 he was wrong, 2020 was definitely wrong with high Approvals in MT that was the biggy right there and TX

Now these Approvals, he should come down on his Approvals, they aren't matching Election outcomes

Trump was doing much campaigning in person and Biden was doing little. Trump ended up with a huge advantage among late (basically Election-Day) voters. Democrats did not do their usual calls to voters to give rides to the polls. Democrats depended upon early votes, which was safest for everyone. I have canvassed in every election year beginning in 2008... except 2020.

Trump and the GOP got a late surge in electoral results. That happens when one side campaigns with hands tied behind its back. Trump has less regard for the safety of his supporters from COVID-19.  He came close to winning, but he still fell short.

So we all know what to expect in 2022 based on the patterns of midterm elections. All midterms since 2002 have resulted in losses for the Party in the White House, at least in the House of Representatives. Usually the party that won the Presidential election has two things going against it:

1. Presidential elections are gain elections for the Presidential Party that won. When the Presidential coat-tails operate, the President's Party brings in some new Representatives -- some of them weak. The weakest of those, or the ones with shakiest wins in a wave election, are the most vulnerable in the midterm.  (The oddity is that the Democrats actually lost seats in the House in 2020 despite winning the Presidency, so that may not work so well in 2022 for Republicans as usual).

2. Typically the President tries to pass the most popular segment of his agenda early. That is often a repudiation of the least-attractive aspects of his predecessor's legacy. Once that is over come activities much more controversial, and no President can ignore that. Maybe the contradictions in the campaign promises work against each other. Maybe things don't work as well as they might.

I look at 1994, 2010, and 2014 and I see Republicans' front groups doing much the same in 2022 -- well-funded smear campaigns against anyone who 'fails' to believe that pure plutocracy in which workers are responsible to rapacious plutocrats who owe workers nothing. (The front groups did the dirty work, and the Republican nominees got to do plain-folk campaigns). I see no evidence that such will not be successful again. If you are a liberal and can't understand why Wisconsin has Ron Johnson as a Senator and not Russ Feingold... Ron Johnson is a pliant stooge for the well-heeled heels of America, and that is what the heels want. It may be an exaggeration to say that America's economic elites want an America in which everyone not themselves struggles to prove themselves worthy of bare survival, but that is what one gets with people who believe the Gospel of Ayn Rand.

Are Americans wiser this time? Maybe, and maybe not. 

Also potentially working against Republicans: even if Donald Trump barely lost in 2020 his behavior after the election is despicable in the extreme. At least in 2022 Donald Trump will be the face of the Republican Party. Republicans were able to keep Dubya out of the 2010 and 2014 midterm campaigns, which was possible and wise. If I am one of those heels who believes that "he who owns the gold makes the rules, lest everything fall apart", then I don't want people associating my Party so much Donald Trump and his personal depravity as I want my Party associated with untrammeled greed.
 
OK, the D wave in the House of 2018 got culled some in 2020. There might not be so many weak incumbents in the Democratic majority in the House in 2022 as in 2020.

[pbrower2a]

So how can 2022 be different from the usual midterm? It is highly unlikely that President Biden will bumble his way into a calamity just in time to exploit some patriotic sentiment as  Dubya did in 2002, when Republicans actually won House and Senate seats.

1, Here's something to consider: we still have the lingering shadow of Donald Trump, beloved by his base yet loathed by a majority. The Capitol Putsch will have consequences, and anyone who didn't distance himself quickly from the Putsch will have his words or even inaction used against him in the court of public opinion. That might not hurt Republicans in ultra-safe seats, but any connection to Donald Trump will be suspect and it might be 'good' for defeat.   

2. Republicans put huge resources into defeating incumbent Democrats in 2020 and had some successes. They did better than anyone could have expected in 2020 in cutting the House margin for Democrats and keeping Democrats from getting a majority in the Senate for as long as possible.

The biggest gain in House seats for Republicans was in Florida, where the GOP ran a smear campaign against all Democrats in an effort (which succeeded, largely) in connecting them ideologically with Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.  That might not be so easy in 2022. Trump tried something that many dictators succeed at, which is nullifying an election that doesn't go the way that that leader wants it to go.