Standard-bearers have two different standards
Welp, it’s official. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — both of whom are unpopular and underwater in terms of favorability among Americans — are going to be our two major party choices for president.
Congrats, America?
On Tuesday night both Biden and Trump clinched enough delegates to become the presumptive nominees of their parties and will await their conventions to be formally nominated.
But who starts this next phase of what will be an excruciatingly long slog of a campaign in the better position? That’s up to interpretation.
Democrats are celebrating a strong State of the Union performance by Biden last week, which — at least for the moment — allayed fears that he is coming across as too old for the job. (He is, as most people who don’t work for Biden will tell you.)
Democrats also believe Biden has the upper hand when it comes to money. Here, they’re not wrong — Biden, the Democratic National Committee, and groups who support him have far out-raised those supporting Trump, who is also bleeding cash due to his many ongoing lawsuits, legal fees and legal fines.
And there are the issues. Democrats believe earnestly — just ask them — that Biden’s economy is improving by the day. At his SOTU address, he even boasted that the U.S. economy is the “envy of the world.”
But don’t tell that to U.S. voters, who disagree. Whatever bright spots there are, they’re not translating to approval, nor do voters believe Biden’s economy is better than Trump’s was.
Democrats also feel good about the issue of women’s reproductive health — and they should. Republicans’ efforts to ban or limit access to abortions and in vitro fertilization have not endeared them to a majority of voters. And Democrats reaped the benefits in the 2022 midterms.
Finally, Democrats are hoping to take another winning midterm message — democracy — out for a spin again, as Trump is parading his adoration for autocrats. A fan boy for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, a guy who’s promising to behave like a dictator the second he gets back into the White House, and who is still lying about the last election he lost is helping Democrats drum home that message on a daily basis.
But the news isn’t all good for Biden, as you might have predicted.
On immigration, still a top issue among many voters, Biden’s policies have been a clear failure, and despite Republicans’ craven attempts to keep the problem alive so Trump can run on it, the issue still plagues Democrats.
But the biggest problem for Biden is that the bar is set differently for him than it is for Trump.
Trump benefits from having a voter base with an exceedingly low bar. Trump can be a literal loser, who lost the White House, the House and the Senate for Republicans in four short years. He can be a convicted criminal — many of his voters say they’d still support him. He can be a rapist, as a New York judge said he was last year.
Trump can equivocate, backtrack and contradict himself on policy, as he has on myriad issues from abortion to entitlements. Trump can make vile and impolitic statements regularly — using Hitler-ian language to describe migrants, for example, or mocking Biden for a childhood stutter. He can be a liar, a jerk, and an ignoramus. He’s conditioned his base over the past nine years to love it all.
Biden, on the other hand, is being held to a much higher standard — by his own voters.
While his most stalwart defenders insist they’re fine with his age and fitness, 75% of voters — and half of Democrats — are very concerned about his health.
On Israel, Biden’s facing pressure from progressive voters and lawmakers inside the tent to more forcefully support the Palestinian people and be tougher on Israel.
Biden is losing key constituencies that Democrats have long captured, including Blacks, Hispanics, and young voters. Some of those votes are going to Trump
When Biden makes rhetorical or policy gaffes — for instance, calling an undocumented immigrant accused of murdering a Georgia college student an “illegal,” his base lets him know in no uncertain terms that he messed up. And often, he apologizes.
In short, his own voters are telling him to do better, be better, whereas Trump’s voters love him even when he’s the absolute worst.
The dueling bars mean Trump will have to fight to win new voters, while Biden will have to fight just to keep his own.
Meanwhile, many of us are looking for the bar — so we can drown our sorrows over this crummy choice.