2024 Presidential Campaign Thread, Pt. 4

(The Guardian) Despite months of campaigning, Trump leads Biden in five key swing states, new poll shows
The Biden campaign woke up to some disquieting news this morning, when a major poll was released showing that Donald Trump still leads Joe Biden in five of the six swing states that will be crucial to deciding the November election. Perhaps the most concerning part about the poll from the New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer was that while it was news, it was not exactly new – surveys have for months found the president trailing his predecessor in states he carried four years ago. What’s notable about this one is that the presidential campaign is now well underway, with Biden campaigning across the country in recent weeks, and his allies spending millions on advertisements intended to rebuild the coalition that elected him to the White House in 2020. Yet despite all that effort, the poll does not show much of an increase in his support.

Perhaps more worrying for Biden’s prospects is what the survey says about the voting groups that are turning against him. While Black voters have been a reliable Democratic voting bloc, Trump’s support among them is 20%, the highest for a Republican presidential candidate in decades. The two men are also tied in support among Hispanic voters and 18-29-year-olds, groups that Biden won majorities of in 2020.

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Gaza war, desires for change in America weigh on Biden, poll finds
The New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer poll released today found that one of the reasons why Joe Biden is lagging in support among groups who backed him in 2020 is his handling of Israel’s invasion of Gaza. The survey also found a more surprising explanation for why many voters do not want another four years of Biden: a desire for change in the United States – which they do not believe the president can bring.

Biden’s handling of the conflict in Gaza, or his foreign policy more broadly, was the reason cited by 13% of those who voted for him in 2020 but do not plan to do so again this year, the poll found. Of that group, only 17% called themselves sympathetic to Israel. That finding underscores the tensions among Democrats and their supporters over the president’s approach to the war, amid concerns of excessive civilian deaths.

The poll also found a substantial desire for change in the country, and a belief that Donald Trump was more likely to deliver it. A majority of respondents backed making changes in America, with 14% saying the system needs “to be torn down entirely”, and 55% backing “major changes”. Trump would bring more change the survey finds, although voters are split over whether that would be good or bad. But unlike Biden’s detractors over Gaza, these voters are moderate or conservative leaning, underscoring the breadth of the groups the president may have to win back to triumph in November.

(The Guardian) Democratic pollster says too much 'inconsistency' to draw conclusions about Biden, Trump rematch
Joe Biden’s campaign reached out to share the thoughts of Democratic pollster Geoff Garin regarding this morning’s survey finding the president trailing Donald Trump in several swing states.

Garin argues that the poll clashes with other surveys that found Biden is gaining support – and that it is simply too early to tell how the election will shake out. Here are his thoughts: The only consistency in recent public polls is inconsistency. These results need to be weighed against the 30-plus polls that show Biden up and gaining – which is exactly why drawing broad conclusions about the race based on results from one poll is a mistake. The reality is that many voters are not paying close attention to the election and have not started making up their minds — a dynamic also reflected in today’s poll. These voters will decide this election and only the Biden campaign is doing the work to win them over.

(The Guardian) Potential running mates join Trump at court as star prosecution witness Cohen testifies
Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is not alone in making a show of support for Donald Trump outside his business fraud trial in New York.

Also joining the former president are several potential Republican running mates, including Ohio senator JD Vance, who showed up yesterday.

In addition to Johnson, North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Florida congressman Byron Donalds and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy turned up outside the courtroom. All are considered potential vice-presidential choices for Trump.

Their appearances coincided with the testimony of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer who testified that he submitted phoney invoices to cover up hush money payments.

(The Guardian) White House calls Nazi language 'abhorrent, sickening and disgraceful' after Trump video mentions 'unified reich'
The White House has issued a denunciation of Nazi content after a video Donald Trump shared on social media included the phrase “unified reich”.

While noting that federal law prohibits him from commenting on the 2024 election, the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said: “It is abhorrent, sickening and disgraceful for anyone to promote content associated with Germany’s Nazi government under Adolf Hitler.”

And in case there was any doubt about who he was referring to, Bates added: “Just as it is disgraceful to dine with neo-Nazis, or to say there were ‘very fine people on both sides’ after Charlottesville, or to falsely claim that Hitler ‘did some good things’.” Those are all things Trump has done or said. “Any antisemitic dog-whistling is dangerous and offensive – and profoundly un-American,” Bates said.

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Trump deletes video mentioning 'unified reich' from Truth Social account
Donald Trump appears to have deleted a video posted on his Truth Social account that contains language mentioning a “unified reich”. The video could once be found here, but the link is no longer active.

The Biden campaign has spent most of this morning slamming Trump for using the language in a video touting his plans if returned to the White House, which was first spotted by the Associated Press. In a statement following the deletion of the video, a Biden campaign spokesperson, James Singer, said its publication was “part of a pattern of his praise for dictators and echoing antisemitic tropes. He’s a threat to our democracy and Americans must reject him and stand up for our democracy this November.”

(The Guardian) Trump pushes anti-immigrant rhetoric as he tries to woo Black and Hispanic voters in Bronx campaign rally
Thousands of Donald Trump supporters came out to Crotona Park in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening to support the former president as he rallied for nearly 90 minutes.

In attempts to woo Black and Hispanic voters in one of the country’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, Trump launched fiery tirades against immigrants and Joe Biden’s immigration policies. “African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” Trump said, adding that the flow of migrants into New York is hurting “our Black population and our Hispanic population, who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose”. At one point, Trump even accused migrants of wanting “to get us from within”, saying: “I think they’re building an army.”

In response to Trump, the crowd whooped and cheered, with many at one point breaking into chants of “Build the wall!” and “Send them back!”

Trump also responded to former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who said earlier this week that she would vote for him in November. “I think she’s going to be on our team,” Trump said, adding: “I appreciated what she said.”

Despite Trump’s legal woes and Biden’s handling of the border crisis, it appears that inflation is the biggest concern among voters. “The cost of living defines this election,” writes Amy Walter and David Wasserman in the Cook Political Report. A new poll by the Guardian and Harris released this week found nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the country is in an economic recession, with the majority blaming Biden.

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Donald Trump’s rally in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening drew a significantly more diverse crowd compared to his typical white-majority rallies in other parts of the country.

The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reports: Up to a quarter of the thousands of people who came to hear him (the New York City parks department said Trump’s campaign had a permit for up to 3,500 people) were Hispanic or Black. Some of the supporters wore their Make America Great Again politics proudly on their sleeves. “I’m a Black dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” read one T-shirt. A group of three Hispanic women waiting for the secret service to screen them at the start of the evening chanted “Trumpito!” “Trumpito!” as they danced to the official theme song of Trump Latinos.

Theo Diakite, 29, an African American who lives close to the park, said he was drawn to the rally out of curiosity. He has never voted in his life, but this year is feeling tempted to back Trump. He has noticed that other people in his neighborhood share that curiosity. “There are a lot of people who were firm against him in 2020, but are now not so sure.”