Across the battleground states, down-ballot Democrats are running well ahead of President Biden. This delta has been a defining electoral feature since the 2022 midterms, where congressional Democrats significantly outperformed expectations set by Biden’s poor approval rating. With the incumbent back on the ballot in 6 months, some Democratic strategists hypothesize that down-ballot strength will lift Biden to victory. In essence, a reverse of the traditional coattails effect.  Two of the most commonly cited examples are in North Carolina, where the disastrous Mark Robinson won the GOP ..read more

The Liberal Patriot and Blueprint recently collaborated on a comprehensive national election survey to explore the major issues shaping the 2024 presidential election and to assess how voters respond to 40 different policy ideas either proposed or enacted by Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The online poll of 4,038 registered voters was conducted by YouGov from March 29 to April 5, 2024. Crosstabs of the data are available here and a table with all 40 policies is listed below. David Weigel featured the poll yesterday in Semafor’s Americana newsletter on politics and elections. TLP plans to relea ..read more

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on March 20, 2024. (Credit: Evelyn Hockstein/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) The context for the current aid package the U.S. Senate is set to approve and President Joe Biden is poised to sign this week is a turbulent world, with wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and a strategic challenge from a rising China. The Middle East is perhaps the most complicated of these, and it has generated some domestic political controversy. Over the past six months, Israel and Hamas have wage ..read more

President Biden answers questions beneath a portrait of America’s “Founding Father” George Washington. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) In seeking re-election, President Joe Biden has been haunted by voters' concern with his age. Their concern is not strictly medical. Biden's opponent, Donald Trump, although only three and a half years younger, doesn't elicit the same worry from voters. According to a March New York Times poll, 73 percent of voters thought Biden was "just too old to be an effective president," while only 42 percent thought that of Trump. In fact, unless voter ..read more

The Las Vegas Strip near New York, New York on Tropicana Avenue (All photos in this article by Brian Katulis) “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” is the promotional tagline for “Sin City,” a place where millions of Americans and people from around the world have gone for more than a century to escape and forget about life for a while. The city also has a history that in many ways parallels the American experience throughout most of the 20th and 21st Centuries, and there’s nothing like taking in everything this place has to offer in person. But here are some movies, television programs ..read more

We are on track for a historically large education divide among white voters. An average of recent polls finds Joe Biden winning white college-educated voters by 18 points and losing white non-college voters by 27 points—a colossal gap of 45 points.  Compared to 2020 results, Trump’s margin with non-college whites is holding steady, while Biden has significantly improved his standing with degree-holding whites. Such Democratic improvement is certainly welcome for Team Biden, but not unexpected. College-educated white voters have been shifting blue for a decade, driven left by Trump ..read more

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“Be realistic—demand the impossible!” So went the slogan of the young revolutionaries who thronged the streets of Paris in May, 1968. At the time, the slogan was viewed by mass working-class parties as profoundly misguided, regardless of the high idealism that lay behind it. But over half a century later, it could well be the slogan of today’s left parties—which are now more Brahmin than working class—as they have rushed to embrace “net zero” emissions by 2050 and the elimination of fossil fuels. This net zero commitment stems from the extremely high priority placed on this goal by the educ ..read more

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida depart arrival ceremony for the prime minister on the White House lawn on April 10. (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images) The missile and drone barrage Iran launched against Israel this past weekend understandably overshadowed last week’s state visit to Washington by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. Coming amidst cherry blossom season in the nation’s capital—the annual springtime celebration of the close ties between the United States and Japan—the visit yielded a raft of substantive pledges and agreements that testified to t ..read more

Iran attacks Israel: An image-grab from a video taken early on April 14, 2024, shows rocket trails in the sky above the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images) Iran’s attack against Israel this weekend, firing more than 350 missiles and drones that were nearly all intercepted and shot down, provided a vivid reminder of how dangerous the Middle East is today—and the important role the United States and its allies in the region still play in preventing the wider wars and worst-case scenarios from unfolding.  The unprecedented assault directly on Israel comes on top ..read more