FRIDAY 7/12/24
One Point Gain -- President Biden has gained a point over Donald J. Trump, though still in a statistical tie, according to the latest NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist poll taken after last month's debate debacle, Morning Edition reported Friday morning. Biden leads Trump 50% to 48% in a one-on-one race, with a margin of error of +/-3.1 points. When a third-party candidate is mixed in Trump leads Biden 43% to 42% with the same margin of error. Other polls show Trump leading in important swing states, however, so it appears he has an advantage in the Electoral College count.
This latest poll also finds that at this point, none of the Democrats mentioned as an alternative to Biden fare any better than the president, against Trump. However, the poll also finds that 68% to 32% find it more concerning to have a president who does not tell the truth than one who might be too old to serve.
Meanwhile... FiveThirtyEight's Thursday average of polls show Trump with a 2.1-point lead over Biden in a three-way race. Trump averages a 42.4% lead over Biden's 40.2% and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 9.2%.
Biden's Thursday Presser --It seems like President Biden cracked the door open, if just by a sliver, when he said at the end of his 50-minute press conference Thursday night that he is not the only Democrat who can beat Donald J. Trump November 5. Earlier, Biden conceded that Democratic delegates can vote for someone else at the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago, but “it’s not gonna happen.”
If the president was any less intransigent, it was only in comparison to his interview last Friday with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News This Week. Television punditocracy generally were down on the chances Biden will withdraw from his campaign.
Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) became the 16th congressional Democrat to call for Biden to step down, telling CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, “Why would you gamble away your legacy?”
When a reporter asked about his 2020 campaign statement that he sought out to be a “bridge” from the Trump administration to a younger generation, Biden said he needed to finish the job he started. He remains unconcerned that he might not win re-election.
“We just completed NATO’s summit, and it was a big success,” Biden began in his prepared remarks ahead of the press Q&A, which led into reminding his audience that he had accurately predicted and prepared for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He spoke in detail about deteriorating US relations with China and how he negotiated to add Finland and Sweden to the alliance (but he also misspoke in calling Trump his veep).
“My predecessor has made it clear he has no commitment to NATO,” Biden said.
“I made it clear I would not back down to Putin.” The election is about more than an election, Biden said; “It’s about the world we live in for years to come.”
Biden touted falling inflation levels (the Labor Department reported Thursday morning the Consumer Price Index fell to 3.0% in June), his latest border policy and a Gaza ceasefire proposal that Israel and Hamas are trying to work out. Biden also touted his anti-Reaganomics economic policy, saying he “was determined to stop trickle-down economic policy.”
Biden campaign staff rumored to be surreptitiously polling Vice President Harris’ numbers against Trump must be asking someone – themselves? – the question of whether the veep would carry on with Biden’s policies the next four years.
Meanwhile, at Mar-a-Lago… Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán left the NATO summit Thursday for Florida, where he met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. This all came a week after Orbán met with Putin in Moscow.
He also visited with China’s Xi Jinping and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the past few weeks. But as NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg noted on CBS News’ Face the Nation, Orbán “made it clear when he came to Moscow that he didn’t go there on behalf of NATO.”
--TL