An email from Joe Biden’s presidential campaign says the former vice president raised $6.3 million from 96,926 people in its first 24 hours. Well, there goes the “Biden has no small donor base” myth. To quote Harry Enten….
Alexander Burns: “After the very first exchange [on the talk show “The View Friday morning], Biden never returned to the theme of the 2020 election as a national emergency. Why not use a platform like this to hammer home the central opening argument of his campaign? And Biden stumbled over the invasion-of-space and Anita Hill questions, both of which were among the most foreseeable early questions of his campaign. This was about as unchallenging an interview as Biden could expect and he could have prepared and delivered clear, definitive answers that didn’t involve litigating Senate procedure. And that’s just not what he did.”
“Having said that, the appearance also illustrated the core reasons why Biden is an appealing candidate to many people — his bear hug of the Obama administration’s record on policy and ethics, for one, and his richly emotional comments about his son, Beau.”
Susan Glasser: “Given the almost numbing predictability of the President and the ever-increasing difficulty his critics have mustering outrage toward him at this point, it came as a jolt to see Joe Biden go directly at Trump in a video announcing his Presidential campaign, on Thursday. The seventy-six-year-old former Vice-President unabashedly took the Trump-bashing course that most of the eighteen other declared Democratic candidates for 2020 have eschewed.”
“The new conventional wisdom in American politics holds that Biden is making a mistake. After all, opinions are so fixed about Trump that there is little point in talking about him to voters who have already made their minds up about the President.”
“We’ve got another five hundred and fifty-six days to go before we learn whether Biden is right. It’s a big bet.”
Former Vice President Joe Biden said he would not commit to serving only one term if he is elected president, The Hill reports.
Associated Press: “Democrats enjoy a 17 percentage point advantage over Republicans in Americans’ assessments of whom they trust more to handle health care, 40% to 23%. That compares with a public more evenly divided over which party would better handle several other major areas of national policy.”
“Among all Americans, 42% support a single-payer plan like the one espoused by [Bernie] Sanders, while 31% express opposition. … The partisan gap narrows significantly, however, for the option of Americans buying into a government program. Overall, 53% support the buy-in option, with 17% opposed and 29% on the fence.”
A new Public Policy Polling survey in Wisconsin finds President Trump with an upside down approval rate, 44% to 54%. Meanwhile, Trump trails a generic Democrat by nine points in the presidential race, 53% to 44%.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds that a majority of Americans say they oppose calls for Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against President Trump.
Key findings: Currently 37% of Americans favor starting the process that could lead to impeachment, a slight dip over the past month, while 56% say they oppose the idea, about the same as a month ago.
Asked their view of whether the report cleared Trump of all wrongdoing, 53% of Americans say it did not while 31% say it did.
David Wasserman: “It turns out the ‘blue wave’ of 2018 was just as much about subtraction as addition: President Trump’s best demographic, men without college degrees, was also the likeliest group to sit out the midterms. Their absence left behind an electorate skewed much more towards college-educated voters, particularly women, costing the GOP dozens of mostly suburban House seats and handing Democrats the majority.”
“According to survey data released by the Census Bureau this week, the total number of women with college degrees who voted fell just 2.4 percent between 2016 and 2018. In an October 2018 NBC/WSJ poll, Trump’s approval rating with this group was just 27 percent. Meanwhile, the total number of men without college degrees who voted fell 16.2 percent (this group had given Trump a much higher 64 percent rating).”
Politico: “Trump’s insults were actually masking respect — and genuine concern about Biden’s potential to win, Trump advisers say. As early as last fall, Trump was talking privately with aides about the threat Biden posed: ‘How are we gonna beat Biden?’ he would ask. When reassured that the moderate Biden would never defeat several of his more liberal rivals, Trump has pushed back: ‘But what if he does?’”
“The conversations, relayed by a Republican strategist with direct knowledge of the interactions, reflect the president’s assessment that Biden poses the biggest threat to his re-election, uniquely capable of competing with him in the Rust Belt states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania that carried him to victory in 2016.”
First Read: “They’re both white men in their mid-to-late 70s. And they’re both current/former creatures of the U.S. Senate.”
“But Joe Biden versus Bernie Sanders — the two 2020 candidates who lead in almost every Democratic poll — represents one heck of an ideological contrast, if the race ultimately comes down to these two men.”
“Of course, a full-out Biden-versus-Bernie ideological fight — if it comes to that — could create an opening for the other 2020 Dems, whose messages are in between a revolution and a restoration.”
“But also remember that both Biden and Sanders mutually benefit from contrasts with one another. Biden needs the foil of Sanders to show that his version of democratic socialism goes too far, while Sanders needs the foil of Biden to demonstrate that Obamaism-Bidenism doesn’t go far enough.”
Amy Walter: Restoration vs. Revolution
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