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New polls: (None)
Dem pickups: (None)
GOP pickups: AZ GA ME MI NV NH PA
Due to personal circumstances, today's blog will be a bit short.
Also, we have dug a bit deeper into two new "pollsters," the Commonwealth Foundation and the Manhattan Institute. Upon closer inspection, they appear to be right-wing groups with clear agendas. We don't trust their numbers, so we are deleting their polls and won't use them again. It's a big problem that so many "pollsters" are really groups with a political agenda that announce polls whose veracity is questionable.
The George and Joe Show Debuts Today
We'll mention the U.K. and French elections below, but the big U.S. story today is Joe Biden's interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos. Biden's candidacy hinges on his acing the interview. Politico suggests nine questions Stephanopoulos should ask Biden. Only one relates to policy matters. The other eight relate to Biden's health and whether he is up to the job for 4 more years. We agree completely. Biden has already made his views on policy issues known. The man himself is the issue now.
You can read the questions directly at the link if you want. We're going to summarize them in a more direct way than a serious national journalist like Stephanopoulos could ever do. There goes our shot at becoming serious national journalists.
- Have you had any neurological tests and will you release all your medical records?
- When you are struggling for words, does your mind go blank or is it racing?
- Were you aware that your staff has been trying to hide you from the public?
- You blamed your debate performance on travel from 2 weeks ago; doesn't the country need a president who recovers faster?
- If you decide to step aside, will you support Kamala Harris?
- Since polls show voters like the Democrats' policies, just not you, wouldn't withdrawing help the party?
- Aren't you just like Strom Thurmond, Dianne Feinstein, and Robert Byrd and are past your use-by date?
- You said you would challenge Donald Trump to golf if he carried his own bags. What did you mean by that?
- Could you please describe your objections to the Supreme Court's immunity and Chevron decisions?
As you can see, only the last one is about policy. We don't know if anyone close to Biden reads Politico but it would be political malpractice if there were weren't a couple of staffers assigned to read every major publication in the country and make a summary for Biden. Since so many of them are calling for him to step down, maybe someone needs to crank up Excel to keep score. At the very least, Biden should be prepared for questions like the ones above, as well as questions on difficult policy issues like immigration and the Middle East. (V)
Wealthy Democratic Donors Are Starting to Pressure Biden to Toss in the Towel
Democratic megadonors have had enough of Joe Biden's waffling and want him out. They are going to use their wallets to serve as both carrots and sticks. Their decisions—and his—could have a huge effect not only on the presidential race, but also downballot.
One potential problem with Biden stepping down is that the Biden campaign has $91 million in a bank account owned by an entity that might not be able to legally transfer the money to a different candidate, except—maybe—Kamala Harris. There could be court cases about this and the Democrats don't want a ruling sometime in late 2026. So a group of big donors is trying to collect $100 million to put in a sort of escrow account called Next Generation PAC. It could be used to help a new presidential candidate, or, if need be, to help downballot Democrats. The idea is to have a large chunk of money that can be used as needed.
Reed Hastings, the executive chairman of Netflix and a major Democratic donor, has openly called for Biden to call it quits. He has also said that all the other megadonors he has talked to agree with him. Gideon Stein, another big donor, said he was witholding $3.5 million until Biden stepped down. Abigail Disney, an heir to the Disney fortune, sent an email to the DNC saying that it and the other Democratic committees "will not receive another dime from me until they bite the bullet and replace Biden at the top of the ticket."
If Biden forges ahead, it could create a serious problem with the big donors refusing to pony up. Biden has done well with small donors, but now with Donald Trump doing well with large donors, the Democrats can't afford to alienate their big donors. One thing working for the Democrats is that while they are worried about bigoted white men refusing to vote for a Black woman, say, just as an example, Kamala Harris, the big donors are not like that. They understand that the Democrats and Republicans are fundamentally very different and who the Democratic presidential candidate is doesn't matter so much except as to who is more likely to win. (V)
Are the Dakotas Really That Bad?
For weeks we were treated to news items about how Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) was buttering up Donald Trump so she could trade in the state for a bucket of warm [insert liquid in bucket here]. When she proudly announced that she is one tough woman, as evidenced by her shooting her defenseless puppy in the head, Trump scratched her off the short list.
Now the other Dakota wants its 15 minutes of fame (or do states get 30 minutes?). Gov. Doug Burgum (R-ND), who was a software nerd until he ran for governor in 2016, has recently become the Trumpiest guy in the whole state. He, too, dreams of that bucket. The once-moderate has now gone full-blown Trumpist. The only problem is that when he calls Joe Biden a "dictator," it is obvious he doesn't believe a word of what he is saying. But Trump doesn't care if the person talking to him believes what he is saying. He just likes to see people humiliate themselves in front of him.
We can't believe Burgum gives a hoot about being vice president. It's actually a step down from being a governor, even from being governor of a state with only three electoral votes. It's all about 2028, of course. He is betting that the country might have an appetite for a sane Republican after 4 more years of Trump, and he wants to position himself as the one. He is 67, so in 2028 he will be 71. By current presidential candidate standards, he would be a spring chicken then. If he has to prostrate himself before Trump for a few months, so be it. But all his actions lately show that he really wants to get out of North Dakota.
Many reports show that Burgum is indeed on the veep list, possibly near the top, along with Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH). Vance is another fake Trumpist (he attacked Trump bitterly in 2016), but this is how the game is played: You hit the golf ball into the lake intentionally to make Trump look good.
From Trump's point of view, Burgum has a couple of good qualities. First, he is an older straight white Christian man. The base likes that. Second, he became a billionaire as a result of selling his software company to Microsoft for $1.1 billion. Trump likes billionaires. This also means he could toss $100 million into the campaign if need be. Third, North Dakota has a lot of oil and Burgum knows a lot of oil company CEOs. He could be useful in getting them to toss in some campaign funds. Trump asked them to pony up $1 billion but so far they haven't done it. Maybe Burgum could seal the deal. Also, Trump is now aware that he can openly solicit and accept bribes from oil-company executives (or any other executives) for government contracts or other little favors and be immune to prosecution. Why bother even hiding that now? Burgum knows a lot of fat cats. There is real potential there. (V)
The World is Moving to the Right--and the Left
There is evidence that the world is moving to the right. Witness Donald Trump's strength in the U.S., Marine Le Pen's performance in France last week, Geert Wilders' coming in first in the Dutch elections last year, Viktor Orbán's continued strength in Hungary, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's seeming invincibility in Turkey, and more.
But wait. Something weird happened in the U.K. yesterday. The Labour Party won a landslide victory, winning 412 seats in the House of Commons, to the Tories' 121 seats and the Liberal Democrats' 71 seats. A party needs 326 seats for a majority, and Labour has that and much more. The Tories lost 250 seats and outgoing P.M. Rishi Sunak has said "I am sorry" and tendered his resignation to King Charles III. His brainstorm of calling snap elections maybe wasn't one of his better ideas.
One thing the U.S. could learn from the U.K. is how to run an election. On May 22, Sunak announced that there would be an election on July 4, a slightly odd pick given its role in British history. That gave 6 weeks for the campaign. Yesterday the election was held. Today the King will ask Labour leader Keir Starmer to form a government. By next week, it will probably be up and running. None of this 2 years and several billion dollars stuff.
With such a large majority, Starmer will not have to compromise with other parties and will be able to enact much of Labour's platform without delay. Sure, Labour is somewhat divided, as always, but internal battles are easier to handle than external ones. It will be interesting to see how fast and how far Starmer moves. Unlike the U.S., where getting anything done is nearly impossible, we expect real change in the U.K. soon due to Labour's enormous majority.
In France, there will be a second round of elections Sunday. France has a district system, like the U.S. and U.K. In many districts, a left-wing candidate, a centrist candidate, and a right-wing candidate qualified for the second round by getting at least 12.5% of registered voters. In an attempt to stave off a far-right National Assembly, this week in hundreds of districts, either the socialist candidate or the centrist candidate has dropped out to force a choice between the right-wing candidate and one other candidate. The goal is to create a hung parliament, although the French use a somewhat friendlier term, cohabitation. (Please don't send mail. We know the difference. We are using our poetic license.)
France moved sharply and decisively to the right last week and the U.K. moved sharply and decisively to the left yesterday. What's going on here? One possible explanation is that in the U.K., people are just tired of the Tories after 14 years, especially since many of their leaders have been weak and ineffective. It may be less ideology than "these guys couldn't run a lemonade stand."
In France, part of the reason may be that young people are moving to the right, somewhat analogous to what young Black and Latino men are doing in the U.S. Polling shows that a quarter of 18-to-24-year-olds voted for Marine Le Pen's National Rally last Sunday. This is a shocking increase over past elections. To some extent, this may be due to Le Pen's choice of a 28-year-old TikToker, Jordan Bardella, as the face of the party. He is a lot more user friendly to young people than Le Pen's father, the racist and anti-Semitic Jean-Marie Le Pen. He has also turned down the bigotry somewhat and packaged it better. He talks more about France for the French than calling out enemies of the state by name. Bardella has also managed to goose turnout among young voters. It is up from 25% last time to 56% this time. By Monday, we will know if France has lurched to the right just after the U.K. lurched to the left. (V)
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