Betting Big on Biden?

A New York Times/Siena poll released yesterday shows how deep the problems are for Joe Biden, and by extension, the Democrat party.

The top line of the poll shows Trump and Biden tied at 43%-43%. Trump lost the popular vote by 4.4 points in 2020.

However, when you look deeper at the numbers in the battleground states, and the erosion in Biden's support with minority and young voters, you see that "good old Joe" has big problems.

In five of the six key battleground states Trump is up on Biden from 4 to 10 points.

It is particularly interesting in comparing the poll margins to actual 2020 election results.

Trump is up 10 points in Nevada.  Trump lost by 3 points in 2020.

Trump is +6 points in Georgia. Trump lost by 0.3% in 2020.

Trump is +5 in Arizona. He lost Arizona by 0.4% last time.

Trump is +5 in Michigan. He lost by 3 points in 2020.

Trump is +4 in Pennsylvania. He lost the Keystone State by 1.2% in 2020.

Trump is down 2 points in Wisconsin. He trailed Biden by 0.6% there in 2020.

In looking at the vote margins in 2020 in these swing states it is also a reminder of how incredibly close the election was three years ago.

Trump lost Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin by just thousands of votes out of millions cast.

If Trump had won those three states it would have resulted in an electoral vote tie which would have meant the Presidential vote would have been decided by the House of Representatives. Trump would have likely prevailed in that vote as Republicans controlled 25 state delegations, Democrats 23 and two were tied. (each state would have one vote in the Presidential tie-breaker pursuant to the Constitution).

There is also no doubt in my mind if a true investigation was ever done of the votes in Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin (and Pennsylvania and Michigan) that Trump would have won in 2020.

The fact that unsolicited ballots were mailed to every registered voter in those states  (in almost all cases in contravention of state law) and little to no signature verification on the mail-in ballots were done practically guaranteed a fraudulent election.

I warned in August, 2020 that the use of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election were "Magnets for Fraud".

Our voting systems are not set up to handle volumes of ballots that are mailed in. All the systems (voting machines, poll workers etc) have been established for in-person voting where collecting and counting the votes is done with automated machines and identities can be checked (where voter ID is permitted) by poll workers. Even if voter ID is not required in a state, in-person voting requires a real person to show up in person at the polls which limits attempts at voter harvesting and other fraudulent acts.

Moving to mail-in ballots when the entire voting system and infrastructure is geared to in-person voting is an invitation to fraud,

To insure the integrity of the election it would be necessary to have scores of people opening the mail, tabulating results and verifying signatures and voter id's against the registration rolls. It would be many times more laborious than the current system and require more time.

Of course, the familiar refrain is that no fraud was ever found.

However, was anyone in power eager to investigate and find it?

Democrats in office had no interest in investigating.

Neither did Republicans in states like Georgia and Arizona.

Any investigation finding fraud would have been an indictment of these officeholders and their oversight of the election.

Likewise, no members of the judiciary were interested in inserting themselves in a federal election and potentially changing the result.

How do I know something was amiss?

You don't have to construct any fancy conspiracy theories or make arguments about election meddling from Russia or China.

All you have to do is look at the voting patterns in previous Presidential election years compared to 2020.

According to US Census Bureau records, 92% of all registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 Presidential election.

The average of registered voters who cast ballot in the previous eight Presidential elections years (1988-2016) was only 83%.

92% of registered voters cast ballots in 2020? Compared to 83% over the previous eight elections? 

That is impossible to believe principally because most voter registration rolls are rarely kept up to date. That means there are thousands of people registered to vote who have died, moved out of state, married and changed their name and registered under another name showing as registrations on the voter rolls which are not valid. 

For example, my son who was registered at our home when he was in college was still showing up on the Ohio voter rolls more than a decade after he moved and registered to vote in another state. He had never been removed. It would have been easy for me to file a mail-in ballots in his name if I had been sent a mail-in ballot.

There has never been an election in U.S. history that I am aware of in which 90%+ of the registered voters turned out to vote. 

Previous studies have shown that one out of every eight voter registrations on a state's rolls were typically inaccurate or invalid.  If that is generally true, an 88% turnout of actual votes to registrations would be the maximum that could be achieved without some type of fraud or illegal activity,

In 2018, when California cleaned up its voter rolls, it removed a staggering 5 million "registered voters" from its rolls. There were 18.3 million registered voters in California in 2016. That means that two years later almost 30% of voter registrations were found to be illegal or inactive.

Unfortunately, when you mail out unsolicited ballots to nursing homes, apartment buildings and  dormitories there is a high likelihood those "registered voters" are not living there any more. What happens to the ballots? An activist could easily be tasked to pick them up and deliver to a group to fill the ballots out. 

If the mail-in ballots get returned to the post office as undeliverable what happens to them? It is all too easy for a post office employee to take them and deliver them to the same group filling illegal ballots out.

Is all of that more likely to occur in the big urban areas that are heavily Democratic? It would be a shock if it did not occur especially when you consider that the United Postal Workers Union routinely donates 85%-90% of their political contributions to Democrats each election cycle.

Getting these ballots filled out and counted with no signature verification, no id and no human being having to show up at a polling place makes election voter fraud all too easy.

For example, compare the mail-in ballots that were cast in Georgia and Pennsylvania between 2016 and 2020.

There were over 6 times as many mail-in ballots in Georgia and almost 10 times as many in Pennsylvania in 2020 as there were in 2016..

Yes, mail-in ballots made it easier to vote. It would explain part of the increase in voters in 2020.

It also made it much easier to cheat.

All signs point to the fact that these types of illegal ballot activities were being done in all of the disputed swing states in 2020.

There is no doubt in my mind that this type of fraud cost Donald Trump the election in 2020.

Can we believe the New York Time/Siena poll right now?

Is Trump really in this position in the swing states vs. Biden considering all of the baggage that he is carrying and the legal troubles he is being challenged with?

The internals in the poll look disastrous for Biden.

2/3rd's of registered voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

70% of voters agree with the statement that Biden "is just too old to be an effective President".

Biden has lost the large support he had among 18-29 year old voters and is essentially tied with Trump with this demographic. This seems largely based on the fact that voters in this age group say they trust Trump more than Biden on the economy by an astounding 28 points.

Voters overall prefer Trump over Biden on the economy by 22 points, on immigration by 12 points, on national security by 12 points and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by 11 points.

Biden only leads 71%-22% with Black voters when Democrats usually can count on 90% support with this group.

Biden is only registering support with 50% of the Hispanic vote.

49% of all all registered voters in the swing states say there's "almost no chance" they will support Biden.

I predicted over two years ago that irrespective of the baggage that Trump was carrying, his prospects would look better and better for 2024 if an implosion of the country occurred with Biden/Harris.

Trump has many critics but hard times have a way of focusing people on what is most important. Trump's personality is the most cited reason why many did not like him. When people are in trouble they are less concerned with personality and more concerned about performance. A deteriorating situation in the country will make Trump a lot more attractive to more people than you can imagine. 

This appears to be exactly what is behind these poll results.

In that same blog post I argued that Trump's brand could be permanently damaged if the Democrats or Department of Justice could show evidence of wrongdoing by Trump that went beyond what might be perceived as a mere political witch hunt.

Democrats have long claimed that Trump is a crook or has been involved in nefarious activities. However, we have heard this for five years and they have not been able to turn up anything on the man.

Trump has been in business for over 50 years with a high public profile for at least the last 40 years. If the current indictments they have against him are the best they can do it just shows the desperate measures they are taking to keep him from office again. I believe that the voters sense this as well. This is why it seems Trump's support has increased with every legal attack on the man.

I predicted all of this was coming. 

There is little question that the Democrats are going to turn over every rock and throw everything they can at Trump and his family the next few years.  They clearly live in fear of the man. They may get something that sticks and get people to believe that it is more than political retribution. If they do, Trump will not be viable in 2024 as his political brand will be permanently damaged. Once you lose trust you don't get it back.

Up to this point they have not been able to damage the Trump brand. It all looks like nothing more than political retribution. That may change when evidence is presented at any upcoming trials but Trump will also have his day in court. The ultimate judgment on Trump's culpability in any crimes may actually come on Election Day a year from now. If he wins with all of this hanging over his head isn't it hard to say that a jury of his peers has not acquitted him?

In the meantime, this polling indicates that Biden and the Democrats are in deep, deep trouble.

It is beyond me how the Democrat establishment and elites can allow Biden to head the ticket next year if his numbers stay like this.

It would not surprise me at all to see Biden announce he is not running for re-election within the next 30 days.

Why do I say that?

Many states have filing deadlines coming up soon for a candidate to be on the Democrat primary ballots early next year.

As you can see from this chart, most state candidate filing deadlines are between now and early January.

Source: https://news.ballotpedia.org/2023/10/26/38-states-and-d-c-have-confirmed-the-candidate-filing-deadlines-for-their-2024-statewide-and-presidential-primary-elections/

In order to allow other candidates into the race and be on the primary ballot, Biden would have to step aside soon.

If Biden pulls out after the primaries, I assume it would be left to the Democrat Convention delegates to make the party nomination choice. The Biden delegates would be released to make the choice. This would largely involve party insiders and leave Democrat voters removed from picking their candidate.

If Biden pulls out after gaining the nomination I believe it would then fall to the small Democrat National Committee (about 450 members) to make the selection of his replacement. This would be the real party elites.

Either of the latter choices would effectively remove the grassroots Democrat voters from the process of choosing their nominee.

That very well might be the preference of the Democrat establishment anyway. To see either of these scenarios play out would also not surprise me in the slightest.

Of course, if Biden is not on the ticket I believe it becomes much more difficult for Trump to win.

Trump vs. Biden is an easier choice for most voters to make. They simply compare how they and the country were doing under each.

You can see that readily in the NYT/Siena poll results.

When voters were asked whether Biden's or Trump's policies helped or hurt them these were the poll results.

53% say Biden's policies hurt them personally.

51% say Trump's policies helped them personally.

Trump vs. another Democrat makes it much more difficult for the Republicans.

It is no longer a clear and definitive choice in which voters have personal experience.

That is the main reason I favor DeSantis over Trump in 2024.

You can still get a strong, conservative agenda without the drama, distractions and disruptions that come with Trump.

It is a lower risk bet to make if you are a Republican voter.

However, there is no bigger bet that will be made in 2024 than if the Democrats go all in on Joe Biden based on the polling numbers we are seeing right now.

Do they really want to bet big with Biden?