The Briefing, Vol. XII, Issue 2
This week:
- Joe Biden’s Valley Forge
- Iowa caucuses just one week away
- Haley gains ground in New Hampshire
President 2024
Joe Biden: The symbolism of President Joe Biden‘s campaign speech last week was obvious to the point of being heavy-handed. For George Washington, Valley Forge had been a place of discouragement and great suffering, but also of hope. With the American Revolution coming unglued after the fall of Philadelphia, Washington struggled to prevent his undersupplied, diseased, and hungry army from disintegrating, all the while training his men for the battles to come.
Joe Biden isn’t facing anything nearly so monumental or important — all that is on the line for him is his personal political future. But his situation is similarly bleak. He looks like a president who is about to lose reelection, based on all of the available information.
This is the point where he is supposed to turn things around, as George Washington did. Or so his dark and hyperbolic speech about “nearly losing America” on January 6, 2021 would suggest.
So far, there are no indications of a Biden turnaround. But he still has a lot of time, and Democrats clearly do have a strategy. They will wave the bloody shirt of January 6, as Biden did in his speech, and they will campaign as much as possible on the issue of abortion, which they are convinced helped them avoid defeat in 2022. These issues give them the best chance of avoiding having the election become a referendum on Biden, which he would likely lose.
Will that be enough to save Joe Biden? As of today, Biden’s disapproval rating, at an average 56.4 percent, is approaching the same level as its June 2022 peak, when gas prices reached above $5 per gallon. Biden trails Donald Trump in six of the last 10 national polls, and only ties him in two, despite his incumbency advantage and despite (or perhaps in part because of) Trump’s legal problems. Speaking of which, just imagine how much worse it could get for Biden if Trump manages to beat the rap on any of those.
Reinforcing these data points is the fact that Republicans also slightly lead on the generic congressional ballot, which would typically serve as a sign that they will keep their House majority.
New Hampshire-Haley: A new poll from the American research group shows Nikki Haley’s support climbing to 33 percent, her best showing yet in the Granite State.
Trump still leads in that and all other surveys, but his team is worried enough that he has begun attacking her in earnest.
Trump’s nickname for her, “Birdbrain,” is probably his most savage yet used on anyone. It’s getting a lot more play now since it was first used in late September. But what has changed is that Trump’s super PAC is now running ads attacking her as a liberal on border security: “Too weak, too liberal to fix the border!” Trump campaigners are also actively seeking to discourage any talk of Haley as a vice presidential candidate or as someone on Trump’s shortlist.
Iowa caucuses: Next Monday, Iowa Republicans will gather to caucus for their preferred candidates. Although the Hawkeye State has a reputation for surprising results, all signs still point to Donald Trump dominating.
Iowa is a do or die state for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, but all signs point to die. Most non-Trumper Republicans are more optimistic even here about Haley’s chances than they are about DeSantis. Despite being such a good candidate on paper, he has simply been unable to emerge from Trump’s shadow.
Iowa seemed like the place where non-Trump candidates would have their best chance. After all, Iowa Republicans rejected Trump in 2016, choosing Ted Cruz instead. But Trump has since reshaped the Republican Party in his own likeness and image. Indeed, by November 2016, Iowans had fully embraced Trump and handed him a robust nine-point victory in what at the time had been considered a swing state.
Iowa is tricky for political newcomers because it requires a level of voter engagement that most nominating contests do not. It’s one thing to show up and vote like people do in most states, but it’s quite another to commit your entire evening to attending an event where you have to listen to voters give speeches for their candidates before actually voting, counting votes, and selecting delegates.
This often bedevils campaigners who think they can bring tens of thousands of new participants into the process. Think of Trump in 2016 or of Howard Dean in 2004, for that matter. The caucusgoer is a peculiar animal, not necessarily reflective of the average voter whose image the polls are designed to capture.
Then again, things have changed a lot in eight years. Trump now has a much more serious political operation than he did at the beginning of the 2016 race, not to mention a much bigger lead. His victory seems very likely on Monday. Haley would like to surprise with a strong second-place finish that boosts her ahead of the New Hampshire vote eight days later.
House 2024
GOP majority: The departure of Rep. Bill Johnson (R) on Jan. 21 to become president of Youngstown State University leaves Republicans with only the narrowest House majority. Their ranks are already missing a few members, including the expelled George Santos and Kevin McCarthy, who officially resigned on Dec. 31.
Until special elections are held to replace them, the House will have 219 Republicans and 213 Democrats. This means that Republicans can afford to lose no more than two of their members if they want to pass a given measure or amendment.
Johnson has at least scheduled his departure after the Jan. 19 deadline for Congress to pass a spending bill to keep the government running. So far, House and Senate leaders have reached an agreement on the same spending levels that conservatives revolted against last year. This could lead to more drama later this month, given that this previously led to McCarthy’s ouster as Speaker.
