A new Quinnipiac poll in Wisconsin shows Joe Biden leading Donald Trump, 50% to 44% among registered voters.
When the match up is expanded to include independent candidates, the race is too close to call. Biden receives 40% support, Trump receives 39% support, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 12%, Jill Stein receives 4% and Cornel West receives 1%.
In the U.S. Senate race, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) leads challenger Eric Hovde (R) 54% to 42%.
In Pennsylvania, Muhlenberg College has Senator Bob Casey (D-inc) leading with 45% to Republican Dave McCormick’s 41%.
Donald Trump thought his “let the states decide” position on abortion was threading some imaginary middle ground on the controversial issue.
A new poll suggests its backfiring badly.
Navigator Research finds that 65% of voters now think Trump’s position on abortion is that “abortion should be illegal” — up 8 percentage points from September of 2023.
In contrast, 70% believe Joe Biden’s position is that abortion should be legal.
That’s a problem for Trump because overall 57% of Americans agree more that abortion should be legal nationwide compared to just 43% who say that individual states should decide whether abortion is legal or not in their state.
And 64% agree with the statement that “we shouldn’t let our fundamental rights and freedoms be decided by the whims of politicians… everyone in the country should have the same basic right to an abortion, no matter where you live” compared to 36% who think “every state should be able to decide what its own abortion laws look like.”
I’ve argued that Trump’s stance on abortion is actually the most extreme one since it essentially endorses the most draconian bans passed in some solidly red states.
If this poll is correct, it appears most voters agree.
A new poll by a conservative, highly-rated, conservative Arizona-based pollster Data Orbital has Biden up 1 and Gallego up 4. It is the first time Biden has led in an Arizona poll since June, 2023.
Simon Rosenberg: Here’s my take on where things are – Joe Biden is a good President. The country is better off. National polling is close and competitive, within margin of error. We’ve gained a few points in recent weeks in the national vote and in the Congressional generic. The two sets of battleground polls out last week had every single state within margin of error. We got an encouraging poll out of Arizona yesterday, and yes Trump got a good PA poll, one which was, for the record, conducted by the lead pollster for the Trump campaign. As I wrote yesterday Senate and House polling is good, and the GOP’s “bad candidate” in the battlegrounds problem has returned. We have enormous financial and organizational advantages right now. Trump has the most disqualifying “negatives” we’ve ever seen, and a deeply consequential rebellion inside his party is becoming an existential threat to his candidacy. Due to Biden’s successful Presidency Trump’s central attacks against the President are evaporating (see below).
Finally, as I wrote on Sunday, we have a lot of evidence, including last night’s strong Nikki Haley vote in Indiana, that as Americans get closer to voting – moving from registered voter to likely voter to voters – Trump and Republicans lose ground, and we gain. And the problem for Trump and the Rs is the whole country has begun going through that process now and will continue to do so as we go deeper into 2024
President Biden’s campaign is continuing its swing-state ad blitz this month with a $14 million ad buy. This follows a six-week, $30 million ad buy in March and April. Biden’s new ads focus on Donald Trump’s record of restricting abortion rights and promise to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. They’re good ads but there’s little evidence they are moving the polls. Biden remains behind in the polling averages of most of the battleground states.
Meanwhile, Trump has dominated the air waves — though not with ads. Instead, he’s the focus of wall-to-wall coverage of his criminal trial in Manhattan. I’m skeptical whether this kind of media coverage helps Trump. But it suggests Biden needs to get more creative about his messaging.
For instance, a Politico/Morning Consult poll out this morning finds solid majorities haven’t seen, read or heard anything about Biden’s major legislative accomplishments. Another expensive ad blitz from Biden just may not move the needle.
“In 2010, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was experiencing memory loss and mental fogginess so severe that a friend grew concerned he might have a brain tumor. Mr. Kennedy said he consulted several of the country’s top neurologists, many of whom had either treated or spoken to his uncle, Senator Edward Kennedy, before his death the previous year of brain cancer,” the New York Times reports.
“Several doctors noticed a dark spot on the younger Mr. Kennedy’s brain scans and concluded that he had a tumor, he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Kennedy was immediately scheduled for a procedure at Duke University Medical Center by the same surgeon who had operated on his uncle, he said.”
“While packing for the trip, he said, he received a call from a doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital who had a different opinion: Mr. Kennedy, he believed, had a dead parasite in his head.”
“I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., quoted by the New York Times from a 2012 deposition.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. issued a challenge for Donald Trump to debate him head to head at the upcoming Libertarian Party convention this month.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the independent presidential candidate, is on track to submit enough signatures to get on the ballot in Texas, potentially setting the stage for a three-way contest in the nation’s second most populous state,” the New York Times reports.
“While Mr. Kennedy is unlikely to win the Republican-dominated state, his addition to the presidential race in Texas could have an unintended and unexpected consequence: lending a hand to the Democratic challenger seeking to unseat Senator Ted Cruz.”
A right-wing social media influencer hired by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign who previously said Jan. 6 was “Democrat misdirection” appears to have himself been on the restricted grounds of the U.S. Capitol during the attack, NBC News reports.
“Most Americans continue to acknowledge the existence of climate change, according to the latest Monmouth Poll, but the number who see this as a very serious problem has fallen below half.”
“Support for government action to reduce activities that impact the climate has dipped below 6 in 10 for the first time since Monmouth began polling this topic nearly a decade ago. The poll finds that the drop in the importance and urgency of climate change has been most pronounced among younger adults.”
Los Angeles Times: “Many young voters don’t know much about Biden’s climate record, and many of the activists who helped fuel his 2020 victory are angry with his approval of a high-profile drilling project in Alaska and his response to the Israel-Hamas war.”
New York Times: “Surveys taken in recent months show young voters are more likely to sympathize with Palestinians in the conflict, but few of them rank the Israel-Hamas war among their top issues in the 2024 election. Like other voters, young people often put economic concerns at the top of the list.”
“And while young voters are cooler to Mr. Biden than they were at the same point in 2020, there is little evidence that American support for the Israeli invasion of Gaza is a critical factor in their relative discontent.”
“President Biden’s team is continuing its surge in swing-state staffing and ads this month, with dozens of new hires and an eight-figure ad buy,“ Axios reports.
“With Donald Trump stuck in a courtroom and behind in fundraising, the Biden campaign is looking to take advantage before Trump’s team can get up to speed.”
“Biden’s team also said it would follow its six-week, $30 million ad buy in March and April with a $14 million ad buy in May.”
Politico: “A zombie Haley candidacy continued to punch above its weight in the Trumpiest of states: The former South Carolina governor is on track to break 20% for the first time since she dropped out of the race two months ago.”
Daily Beast: “Particularly concerning for Trump’s camp was his relatively poor performance in the counties outside Indianapolis—with Haley’s ballot line garnering upwards of 30 percent in several crucial suburban areas.”
“FreedomWorks, the once-swaggering conservative organization that helped turn tea party protesters into a national political force, is shutting down, according to its president, a casualty of the ideological split in a Republican Party dominated by former President Donald Trump,” Politico reports.
Said the group’s president, Adam Brandon: “We’re dissolved. It’s effective immediately.”
This marks the end of the Tea Party in American politics.
Donald Trump’s Super PAC has launched a @MAGA account on TikTok — the first entity connected to the GOP nominee to join the video sharing social media platform, Fox News reports.
The Louisiana House of Representatives voted Tuesday to advance Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s plan to replace the current state constitution with a new governing document even though the governor has yet to explain exactly how he wants to transform state government.
However, convincing two-thirds of the House to vote Landry’s way may have been the easier part of the governor’s ongoing goal to consolidate even more power within his office. A supermajority in the 39-member Senate also needs to agree to a constitutional convention, and while the GOP holds a 28-11 edge there, its assent isn’t guaranteed.
Senate President Cameron Henry in particular has expressed skepticism about Landry’s plan, though he hasn’t shot down the idea.
“I don’t think it’s on track or off track,” Henry told NOLA.com’s Stephanie Grace last month. “I still think members have a lot of unanswered questions.” (The Republican who authored the bill that passed Tuesday, Rep. Beau Beaullieu, is Henry’s college roommate.)
But Landry’s allies removed one big source of concern for reluctant Republicans on Tuesday when they delayed the starting date for a convention from May 20 to Aug. 1. The current legislative session is set to last through June 3, and several senators complained about the final weeks overlapping with a potential gathering to revise the constitution. Ultimately, all but one House Republican voted for the bill, while just four members of the Democratic minority voted in the affirmative.
However, it remains to be seen whether this adjustment will be enough to satisfy Henry, whom LAPolitics.com’s Jeremy Alford recently identified as “[t]he only thing standing” in Landry’s way.
If the Senate signs off on the House’s bill, 171 delegates would convene for two weeks in the first half of August. Participants would include all 144 members of the legislature, while Landry would choose the other 27.
By contrast, most of the delegates to the 1973 convention that produced the current constitution were elected by voters. The Gambit, a local alt-weekly, also notes that delegates picked by the governor had to “reflect specific political and demographic interests,” a mandate not included in this bill.
Approval of a new constitution following a convention would require the support of a simple majority of voters on Nov. 5. If “yes” were to prevail, Louisiana would be the first state to adopt a new state constitution since Rhode Island in 1986.
The governor and his backers have remained quiet about what they’d like this constitution to include or exclude even as they’ve played down the entire process.
“We are not rewriting the constitution,” insisted Beaullieu, adding, “This is a refresh of the constitution.”
That’s not comforting to skeptics who have watched Landry, with the support of the GOP’s supermajorities in the gerrymandered state legislature, push his ultra-conservative agenda and augment his powers during his first four months in office.
“The governor’s influence is everywhere now,” Alford told The Gambit. “It’s like an octopus. His tentacles extend to the House, the Senate, the lobbying corps—everywhere.”
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