Democrats: You can chill out now!
Well, last week was an emotional roller coaster. A New York Times/Siena College poll showed President Joe Biden behind Donald Trump in a bunch of battleground states, sending Democrats into a tizzy. Then, last Tuesday, voters handed Democrats a string of election victories — the kind they have enjoyed in election after election since Trump was inaugurated in 2017.
What’s going on here? Are the polls wrong? Are the Democrats strong but Biden weak? Let me offer a few thoughts.
Americans increasingly use polls to vent, not to vote. During the 20th century, when Americans were in a better mood about the state of the country, presidents generally had high approval ratings and broad support during their time in office. Since 2003, the national mood has grown unbelievably sour, and since 2005, sitting presidents have had underwater approval ratings during about 77% of their terms.
As progressive political strategist Michael Podhorzer argues, a lot of this negativity is not a reflection on particular politicians. It is “indicative of broad and intense dissatisfaction with our governing institutions and political parties.” These days, when pollsters call people a year away from the election, they take the opportunity to lash out at whoever is in the White House. It’s their way of venting and saying they want change.
This does not mean that when it comes time to actually pick a president, their preferences will be the same. “Americans know the difference between answering a survey and casting a ballot, even if the polling industrial complex and pundits don’t,” Podhorzer writes. George W. Bush and Barack Obama had periods of low poll numbers but still won reelection when voters had to make an actual decision.
The median voter rule still applies. The median voter rule says parties win when they stay close to the center of the electorate. It’s one of the most boring rules in all of politics, and sometimes people on the left and the right pretend they can ignore it, but they usually end up paying a price.
The Democrats’ strong showing in elections across the country last week proves how powerful the median voter rule is, especially when it comes to the abortion issue. Abortion was not always a great issue for Democrats. But it became one because of the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the subsequent Republican legislation to severely restrict abortion. This year, Democrats and their supporters effectively played to median voters, with, for example, an ad in Ohio in which a father who grew up in the church castigated the GOP for not allowing abortion exceptions for rape and the health of the mother, and one in Kentucky in which a woman who was raped by her stepfather noted that she would have had to carry the baby to term under the extreme Republican laws.
Dull but effective government can win, and circus politics is failing. The Trumpian GOP has built its political strategy around culture war theatrics. That culture war strategy may get you hits on rightwing media, but it has flopped for Ron DeSantis, flopped for Vivek Ramaswamy, and it flopped last Tuesday night on the ballot. Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, did so well in Kentucky in part because he stayed close to the practicalities, focusing on boring old governance issues like jobs, health care costs and investment in infrastructure. He also demonstrated a Christian faith that was the opposite of Christian nationalism. As he told E.J. Dionne Jr. of The Washington Post, “For me, faith is about uniting all people. It says all children are children of God. And if you’re truly living out your faith, you’re not playing into these anger and hatred games.”
Remember that none of us know what the political climate will be like a year from now. Neither you nor I have any clue how some set of swing voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are going to see things in 12 months or what events will intervene in the meantime. Nobody does.
It’s better to ask the simple question: Do I think Biden is doing a good job?
I look around and conclude that he is.
The economic trends are good for average Americans. The U.S. economy grew at a torrid 4.9% annualized rate in the third quarter of this year. The prime-age employment rate is near record highs, and inflation is down to 3.7%.
Household debt is way down. The average family’s net worth rose by an inflation-adjusted 37% between 2019 and 2022. The gains were broadly felt: Income increased almost across the board, benefiting urban and rural people, homeowners and renters, white people and Black people.
I spoke last week to Mitch Landrieu, who oversees Biden’s infrastructure initiative. It was like talking to someone from a saner epoch. He described hundreds of productive meetings he’s had over the past year with Republican and Democratic governors and mayors to get more than 40,000 different projects off the ground — roads, clean water and all the rest. “It’s gone swimmingly well; it really has. This is not a conservative or liberal thing,” Landrieu said. And the scope is huge: Nearly $400 billion has gone into investments. “When history renders its verdict, this will be comparable to Works Progress Administration, or the Eisenhower highway construction program or rural electrification,” Landrieu added.
I’m not saying this election won’t be close. Democrats don’t like that Biden is so old. I’m just saying he has a path to victory. As former Obama adviser David Axelrod has been saying, Biden has to make this a comparison election — him versus Trump. And I’d add that he has to make this a prosaic election. It’s not which of these two men do you dislike least; it’s which set of goods do you want to buy: low prescription drug prices or higher ones, some student debt forgiveness or none, abundant infrastructure jobs or few? If Biden can make this about concrete benefits to everyday Americans, I suspect he’ll be fine.