It turns out Joe Biden’s second State of the Union was the speech that wasn’t. It wasn’t uplifting or enlightening or even explanatory. It wasn’t rhetorically strong or politically rational, appealing only to his narrow partisan base. It certainly wasn’t unifying, despite Biden’s many references to unity and calls to […] Read more »
The State of Biden’s Next Campaign
Key Points• President Biden’s successful State of the Union address suggested he’s full speed ahead on running for a second term.• Despite polls showing that even many Democrats would prefer Biden not to run again, he has no real opposition within his own party — and the State of the […] Read more »
Feisty Joe Biden Is Back
It was a raucous, interactive, and argumentative State of the Union like no other. And when it was over, President Joe Biden had provided a clear signal of how he plans to contest the 2024 presidential election. Leaning hard into his populist “Scranton Joe” persona, an energetic and feisty Biden […] Read more »
DeSantis leads Trump for 2024 GOP nod — but not if Haley and others split the vote
A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll shows that in a head-to-head matchup, more Republican voters would cast their ballots for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (45%) than for former President Donald Trump (41%) if the party’s 2024 presidential primary were held today. Yet if even one additional Republican candidate challenges Trump and […] Read more »
Will President Biden’s State of the Union move numbers?
… Very rarely do State of the Union speeches meaningfully improve presidents’ approval ratings. Moving numbers is not really the key objective, and that should not be the criteria by which they are judged. Examining ratings before and after these addresses demonstrates that since 1978, the average State of the […] Read more »
Two-Thirds of White Evangelicals, Most Republicans Sympathetic to Christian Nationalism
A major new national survey conducted jointly by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) and the Brookings Institution finds nearly two-thirds of white evangelical Protestants qualify as either Christian nationalism adherents (29%) or sympathizers (35%), and more than half of Republicans are classified as adherents (21%) or sympathizers (33%). This is […] Read more »