Last night's election results were pretty damned good for Democrats. (And my wife won re-election to the town council!) The immediate question is what this means for NEXT November.
Reading a few different accounts, the analysis I'd offer is this.
- Last night's showing does not preclude Biden struggling for reasons specific to Biden - namely his age and the unfair estimations of his handling of the economy.
- It does suggest that the polity is not lurching rightwards on social or economic issues. Those wedge issues are helping Democrats.
The argument that the Anti-Biden Democrats are making is that Biden is actually a drag on the ticket and replacing him with some version of himself that's 15 years younger would mean an easy victory next year. I guess that's plausible as a thought exercise, but who is this mythical Younger Biden that can sate every Democratic constituency? If "inflation" is the reason that Biden is polling below Generic Democrat, then wouldn't Harris be tarred with the same brush?
The counterargument is basically that Biden will be the nominee and Trump will be the nominee. In that matchup, the hypothetical Generic Democrat is not on the ticket, but you have to choose between an old Biden and an old and openly fascist Trump, who might very well be in jail. The results from last night shows that people are generally not outraged by the status quo, as incumbents did pretty well. The only aspect of the status quo that they are outraged by is Dobbs. Trump is indirectly the author of Dobbs, and hammering him (and Mike Johnson) on this issue should only help Biden.
I do think that Biden's soft polling comes from two sources. The first is the famous aphorism, "Democrats need to fall in love, Republicans only need to fall in line." Even if Biden were a decade younger, he's not going to make Democrats swoon, but as the election gets closer, they will turn out for him. The second is the general fickleness of the younger voters that put him in the White House, in particular. There are a number of reasons why his numbers are soft with them, which I simply don't think will hold water for 12 months, again when contrasted with Trump (or even DeSantis). Young people don't like his Israeli policies, but wait until they hear what Trump and Generic Republican has to say about Palestinians and Muslims in general.
The most salient takeaway from last night is that the social issues that Republicans thought could win them control of the federal government are not going to work. While people cite inflation as being awful, consumer confidence is kind of all over the place, giving a mediocre but not bad reading on the economy. Even a slight improvement in people's estimation of the economy could turn the policy landscape decisively against Republicans.
Of course, people don't vote policy, they often vote "vibes". Even so, the "vibes" of electing Trump again would have to be fairly unappealing. People - I do believe - when faced with Grampa Joe and Agolf Twittler will pick the boring old guy over the revanchist fascist.
The polls weren't wrong about the 2023 election. But the polls about 2024 aren't predictive yet.
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