The new poll from Monmouth released Wednesday makes it clear that most Americans do not want Trump to have a second term. 55% of registered voters want someone other than Trump in the White House; 42% say Trump should not be reelected.Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents are seriously looking at 3 replacements for Trump: Biden (23-- down 2% since late September), Warren (23%-- down 5% since September) and Bernie (20%-- up 5% since September).
The poll tested the perceived “electability” of eight candidates among Democratic voters. While Biden remains the candidate seen as having the best chance of beating Trump next year, both Warren and Sanders have narrowed the gap. When asked to rate Biden on a scale from 0 (would definitely lose to Trump) to 10 (would definitely defeat Trump), 51% of Democratic voters give him an 8, 9 or 10 and just 11% score him less than 5. His average score is 7.3. In June, 59% gave Biden a high score and 9% gave him a low score, for an average of 7.7.Warren averages 7.1, which is up from a 6.4 score in June. This includes 49% who give her an electability rating of 8 to 10 (up from 32%) and 11% below 5 (down from 16%). Sanders averages 7.0, which is up from a 6.5 score in June. This includes 48% who give him an electability rating of 8 to 10 (up from 39%) and 10% below 5 (down from 17%).Biden’s electability rating has declined mainly among self-described liberals (from 7.7 in June to 6.8 now) while it has remained stable among non-liberals (from 7.8 to 7.7). Warren’s perceived electability has grown more among non-liberals (from 6.1 to 7.0) than among liberals (from 6.7 to 7.0). Similarly, Sanders’ electability score has grown more among non-liberals (from 6.1 to 6.8) than among liberals (from 6.9 to 7.2) since June. Harris has seen her rating decline more among liberals (from 6.4 to 5.3) than among non-liberals (from 5.7 to 5.4). Buttigieg’s electability score has declined among liberals (from 5.8 to 5.3) but remained stable among non-liberals (5.2 in both June and November).
Biden is tanking. We knew it was just a matter of time. His response is to lash out against Elizabeth Warren and the progressive agenda that motivated millions of voters Tuesday night. To Biden-- a career-long conservative, first as a Republican-leaning independent and then as a quasi-Democrat-- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders and their fight for working families looks "elitist," while his career as a dedicated servant to the privileged and well-off is... whatever it is he can twist it into in his own mind. This is a guy who said lobbyists representing special interests-- including most of his despicable corrupt family-- aren't bad people.Just as you would expect from any conservative creep like Biden, he's now trying to eviscerate Warren by casting her as a snooty elitist from Harvard, out of sync with the middle class.
Biden’s comment, made in a Medium post on Tuesday and reiterated in a radio interview this morning, underscores a theme central to Biden’s candidacy: that he is the lone Democrat who can win back the white working class voters who swung the 2016 election to Donald Trump.“If you don’t agree with Elizabeth Warren, you must somehow be not a Democrat. You must somehow be corrupt. You must somehow not be as smart as she is,” Biden said on SiriusXM’s Urban View. “It’s just something we don’t do in our party. It’s not who we are.“She has things in her plan that are just not realistic, but if you question it, she says you don’t understand or you’re talking like a Republican,” Biden said on continued. “It’s just an elitist attitude that it’s either my way or the highway.”Calling Warren “elitist” is an attempt by Biden to paint Warren as too extreme for the Democratic electorate. He's looking to stoke resentment among working class voters by casting Warren as a snooty, liberal Harvard professor and not the person she portends to be on the campaign trail: a scrappy Oklahoman taking on Washington corruption.It comes as Biden is looking to blunt Warren’s momentum as she overtakes him in early state polling.Biden’s play is centered on Medicare for All, long used as a wedge issue by his campaign to define the former vice president as the moderate battling a cast of Democrats who have moved too far to the left.Biden built on an inflammatory Medium post he published Tuesday, in which he wrote, “Some call it the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to politics. But it’s worse than that. It’s condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view."He continued, “It’s representative of an elitism that working and middle-class people do not share: ‘We know best; you know nothing.’ ‘If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.’ This is no way to get anything done.”There are risks for Biden attempting to paint Warren as elitist, given the mechanisms in which they fund their campaigns. Warren has shunned big-dollar donors and fundraisers; her reliance on grass-roots money has helped catapult her to the top of the field in early states as she swamped Biden in fundraising from July through September. Warren has faced criticism because she made the move only after transferring $10 million out of her Senate campaign fund, which includes money raised through the very methods she now rails against.Biden has also come under scrutiny over his use of private jets and for staying in posh hotels even as his campaign spent $2 million than it raised in the last fundraising quarter. While Warren relied on small dollar donors to bring in $25.7 million last quarter, Biden relied heavily on private fundraisers and raised just $15.7 million. What’s more, Biden took the unusual step of greenlighting a super PAC to support his candidacy, even as the rest of the field has moved away from a funding mechanism allowing unlimited contributions.Though Biden did not name Warren in his essay, it was apparent that he was referencing the Massachusetts senator who snarked that the former vice president was running in the wrong primary after he criticized the vague contours of how she would pay for her $20 trillion Medicare for All plan."So if Joe Biden doesn't like that, I'm just not sure where he's going," she said Friday. "Democrats are not gonna win by repeating Republican talking points. … If anyone wants to defend keeping those high profits for insurance companies and those high profits for drug companies, and not making the top 1 percent pay a fair share in taxes, and not making corporations pay a fair share in taxes, then I think they're running in the wrong presidential primary."The barb prompted Biden to write the essay outlining all his accomplishments for the Democratic Party throughout his career.And he did not back down when asked about his criticisms of Warren in an interview Wednesday morning.This is not the first time the two candidates have butted heads. They exchanged barbs in the October debate after Biden’s claim that he was the only candidate with major legislative achievements. Warren pointed to her own work, including helping create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau after the financial crisis.“I convinced people to vote for it,” he insisted.“I am deeply grateful to President Obama, who fought so hard to make sure that agency was passed into law.”
Biden, of course, still thinks the path forward is to work with Republicans. After all, down deep, it's what he is. In the Boston Globe this morning, Liz Goodwin enumerated see of the big ideas of the top candidates. "With Donald Trump out of the way," said Status Quo Joe, "you’re going to see a number of my Republican colleagues have an epiphany. Mark my words. Mark my words." Most of his Republican colleagues are dead or gone and he is clueless about the new breed of GOPer. Because I don't think he's talking about Moscow Mitch. "Now the people that are running against me tell me I’m naïve; one said I should be in the Republican primary, God love her. That’s not the way you get things done, man. You don’t go in and tell people that they disagree there’s something fundamentally wrong with them." Goodman tweeted that "Warren promises far bigger policy changes than Biden, and it's fair to question whether she's setting up voters for disappointment if she does win. But Biden's promise of an 'epiphany' (which he's been making for months) & bipartisanship is also dubious."When Biden-- almost as big a liar as Trump-- wrote that "I have fought for the Democratic party my whole career" he was lying in the same manner he's been lying his whole life. [PolitiFact rates 15% of Trump's public statements "true" or "mostly true" and rates 37% of Biden's "true" or "mostly true," better than Trump for sure-- but that still leave most of what he says a lie. Most Democratic politicians mostly tell the truth, not most lie.] In the past, Biden has admitted that when he was just getting started in politics he "thought of myself as a Republican." The Delaware Republican Party was talking with him about running as a Republican but he was hesitant because he didn't like Richard Nixon. Because of that antipathy for Nixon, he registered as an Independent. After he went to work for a local Democrat, Sid Balick, he switched his registration to Democrat and soon after began running for office, appealing to white resentment of black people.
