Liz Cheney’s Kamikaze Campaign

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The defiant speech from Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming after her defeat in yesterday’s Republican primary could be reduced to a single message: This is round one. …

The magnitude of Cheney’s defeat yesterday underscores how strong Trump remains within the party, and how little chance a presidential candidacy based explicitly on repudiating him would have of capturing the nomination.

Yet many of Trump’s remaining Republican critics believe that a Cheney candidacy in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries could help prevent him from capturing the next nomination—or stop him from winning the general election if he does. “Of course she doesn’t win,” Bill Kristol, the longtime strategist who has become one of Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, told me. But, he added, if Cheney “makes the point over and over again” that Trump represents a unique threat to American democracy and “forces the other candidates to come to grips” with that argument, she “could have a pretty significant effect” on Trump’s chances. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, The Atlantic

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Americans Not Convinced Marijuana Benefits Society

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Americans are evenly split in their views about marijuana’s effect on society, with 49% considering it positive and 50% negative. They are slightly more positive about the drug’s effect on people who use it, with 53% saying it’s positive and 45% negative. …

Similarly to recent years, nearly half of U.S. adults, 48%, report that they have ever tried marijuana. The rate was 4% when Gallup first asked about it in 1969, climbed to 24% by 1977, was 33% in 1985 and had crossed the 40% threshold by 2015.

Far fewer Americans say they currently smoke marijuana than have tried it. The 16% now reporting smoking it is the highest Gallup has recorded, although not by a statistically significant margin over last year’s 12%. CONTINUED

Lydia Saad, Gallup

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Cheney’s fate in Wyoming is a final test of Trump’s hold over the GOP

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Rep. Liz Cheney’s uphill battle to keep her seat in Wyoming’s GOP primary on Tuesday underscores how Donald Trump’s hold on the Republican Party is tightening even as the former President’s legal challenges are mounting. That dynamic poses stark choices for the thin band of Republican elected officials and voters resistant to his dominance within the party.

If Cheney loses Tuesday, as expected, the result will place an exclamation point on a summer that has seen Trump-backed candidates, almost all of whom echo his falsehoods about the 2020 election, win most hotly contested party primaries. …

“There is no lane in the Republican Party that is viable for [a] Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, or Mike Madrid,” Madrid, a long-time strategist who has become one of Trump’s sharpest Republican critics, told me. “The party is never going to go back to what it was.” And that means, in the near term at least, there’s a hard choice facing the leaders and voters in the GOP coalition who view Trump as a threat to American democracy. Do they continue to support a party that remains in thrall to him or launch a more direct attack against his influence, even if that helps Democrats in the 2022 and 2024 elections? CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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New Hampshire: Republican lead on the generic ballot continues to narrow slightly

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A new poll conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center (SACSC) at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics (NHIOP) finds Republicans holding a 3-point lead at 46%-43%, down from a generic 6-point advantage in January and a 4-point lead in March. The political environment has remained poor but stable for incumbent officeholders. 68% of New Hampshire registered voters still believe the country is on the wrong track, unchanged since our March poll.

The poll also found incumbent job approval has somewhat receded since our March poll. President Joe Biden’s job approval has decreased slightly to 42%-57% from 43%-57%. Governor Chris Sununu is now at 60%-37%, down from 62%-36%. Senator Jeanne Shaheen is now at 47%-46%, down from 48%-47%; Senator Maggie Hassan is at 44%-51%, down from 46%-49%; Congressman Chris Pappas is at 42%-45%, down from 43%-42%; and Congresswoman Annie Kuster is at 40%-45%, down from 42%-45%. Only 39% of voters believe that Hassan deserves re-election. 38% of CD-1 voters believe that Pappas deserves re-election, unchanged since March, while 36% of CD-2 voters believe that Kuster deserves re-election, up 3 points since March. CONTINUED

Ann Camann, Saint Anselm College

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Public Divided on Student COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements

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As U.S. students begin the 2022-2023 school year, Americans are mostly divided on whether students at all levels of education should be required to have COVID-19 vaccinations as a condition of in-person attendance. Slightly less than half of Americans, 48%, believe elementary students should be vaccinated in order to attend classes, while slim majorities favor vaccinations for middle school, high school and college students. CONTINUED

Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup

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More Americans are pessimistic about the impact they can have on climate change compared to three years ago

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Only about half of Americans think their actions influence climate change, a decline from the two-thirds who said the same three years ago. They are also slightly less concerned about the effects of climate change on them personally or to say individuals have much responsibility to address climate change compared to 2019.

Most Americans continue to believe that climate change is happening and caused, at least in part, by human activities. Among those who believe climate change is happening, 70% acknowledge that individuals need to make lifestyle changes to fight climate change, and most are taking a variety of steps that reduce their own climate impact. However, they tend to be motivated more by financial reasons rather than environmental concerns. CONTINUED

AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

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