Democrats prospects in November improving after two solid weeks for President Biden by John Zogby
Last week was another very good week for President Biden. Biden had a beautiful photo-op signing the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act, a huge win both legislatively and morally for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
Wholesale prices grew at a lower rate last month, and gas prices now average under $4 per gallon as more people are taking vacations. Airfares are now down, and the president's polling numbers are improving. His average over the past four polls is now 42.3%, up 4 percentage points from last week.
Speaking of polls, the Democrats lead in almost every competitive Senate race. A new poll now has Democrat Val Demings actually tied with incumbent Florida Sen. Marco Rubio — a race that had left the radar screen months ago. She is also outpacing his fundraising. The congressional generic is now tied, a far cry from the GOP’s 8-12 point lead of just a few weeks ago.
Photo from President Biden
And the icing on the cake for a great week is when your nemesis is having a terrible week. While there was an outcry from his supporters when the FBI conducted an unannounced raid at his Florida home in Mar-a-Lago, we have now learned that former President Donald Trump had actually been issued a subpoena that he ignored and the raid was hardly a surprise. And just before this writing, we know that he was in possession of "top secret" highly classified nuclear technology documents, and there is speculation that he might have shared them with Saudi officials.
Forget, for now, the Saudi speculation — there is no good reason for a former president to have those documents. Some GOP House members are starting to back off their initial criticism of Attorney General Merrick Garland.
This comes after the United States killed the head of al Qaeda in his rental home in Kabul, Afghanistan, a strong counter to the argument that the U.S. could not fight terrorism without actually being in the area, while Kansas voters overwhelmingly rejected an effort to change the state's constitution that protects the right to an abortion.
It wasn't simply the margin of victory of 18 percentage points but the large turnout that showed that the Democrats may just be able to get their base out to vote and win support among suburban mothers in key states this year. While Republican leaders played down the Kansas loss publicly, arguing that inflation will be top-of-mind with voters in November, the high turnout in a Kansas August did indeed stun them.
The president's polling numbers are not really moving, but the prospects for the Democrats in November improved substantially.
John Zogby (@TheJohnZogby) is the founder of the Zogby Poll and Zogby companies, including John Zogby Strategies, and author of We Are Many We Are One: Neo-Tribes and Tribal Analytics in the 21st Century America.
