Jay Weber Show transcript 6-27-24 7:10am
Am I good, or what?
Yesterday, in our wispolitics.com segment-i predicted the newest Emerson college poll that had Donald Trump up two in Wisconsin and Eric Hovde only ‘down two’ to Tammy Baldwin was not reflective of those races-and predicted the latest Marquette poll would show a tied presidential race. And Hovde down 5 to 7 points.
Well, the latest MU poll came out midday yesterday-and sure enough-the latest figures from Charles Franklin show the race tied with registered voters and Donald Trump down two among ‘likely’ voters...
And it shows Eric Hovde lagging Tammy Baldwin by five. As I predicted.
This is a bit of a shift in the presidential race-in which-the last time franklin polled in April-Trump was up by two. These results from April-and June-both fall within the four point margin of error for any polling with this sample size.
This is a tied race.
What a shock.
And-as always-we can learn more about the ‘state of the race’ from the other questions that the pollsters asked, rather than the ‘raw numbers’ at the top.
And when you look at the so-called ‘internals’, this mu poll shows that-while Biden’s top-line number has him in the lead- there is a softness in the level of ‘enthusiasm’ of Biden voters...as well as bad news for him if the other ‘third party candidates’ are mixed in.
So-top line figure: Marquette has Biden leading trump by two in both registered and likely voters- Biden’s 51 percent to trump’s 49...but with about 8 percent of voters still saying they are undecided...and with voter enthusiasm overwhelmingly on Trump’s side.
This had Charles Franklin, as he walked reporters thru these findings yesterday, saying this wide enthusiasm gap is ‘the thing’ that could be decisive, come fall.
There will be a huge emphasis for democrats-between now and election day-to try to get voters on their side of the aisle enthused and motivated to turn out and vote-any way they can.
Clearly, Biden’s performance as president hasn’t been inspiring. Everyone knows it’s been a disaster, including many of his own supporters.
And so, democrat strategists and the Biden campaign are going to have to find-other ways-to motivate their voters...
And it’s going to be the same old ‘song and dance’. Their strategy is going to be to vilify trump and to scare voters into believing that ‘democracy dies’...or ‘a dystopian future’ is in store for any woman, young person, black, Hispanic, or jew who doesn’t vote ‘Biden’.
The scare tactics and racial and gender alarms are being ‘locked and loaded’. I guarantee you that-in this long, hot summer we have just entered, some cop in some city is going to shoot and kill a black criminal during the course of a chase or confrontation-
And i guarantee you that everyone on the left and in the Biden, camp is going to do everything they can to elevate -any-shooting like that into another George Floyd, Michael Brown, racial scare fest.
It's guaranteed, given how desperate these dems are. Franklin’s mu poll isn’t the only one to show a wide enthusiasm gap that could cost Biden the election-and so- atop the democrat’s long list of priorities this election- ‘scare the hell out of Americans to try to trick them into voting’ is number one on the list.
This is going to be a summer and fall of fake stories about black lynchings and drag queen murders and back-alley abortions, if the Democrats have their way....Trust me.
So, aside from this 22-point enthusiasm gap...the MU poll also found: when third party candidates are factored in- Biden loses eleven points. oof. Trump loses five.
Which means- if you add RFK junior, Cornell West and Jill stein to the ballot...trump is leading again...by three points. 43-40.
This is another potential pitfall for Biden, and the activists on his side of the aisle know it. They have been doing everything they can, nationally, and in many states, to try to keep these other three off the ballot.
Now-here in Wisconsin-the threshold to get onto the ballot is not a high one. I believe your campaign only needs to gather two-thousand signatures and fill out a little paperwork.
That bar is-so low-that even supporters of Cornell West and Jill Stein should be able to clear it. The only question is: will they? Do their campaigns have-any-level of state or regional coordination. That is going to have supporters going out and gathering signatures in Wisconsin?
I assume RFK junior and Jill Stein supporters will clear this rather low bar. I don’t know about Cornell west. I’ve seen zero news on his campaign, or how seriously he’s taking this. My perception is: not very seriously.
However- there’s also the libertarian party candidate-Chase Oliver? -remember him?
He’s a gem...and the MU poll shows that-all together those four takes about 16 percent of the vote if they are all on the ticket.
If it’s just Stein and Kennedy who manage to make the ballot- they still gobble up ten percent of the vote and the majority of those votes are syphoned away from Biden.
And again- when it comes down to crunch time-all sorts of people who said they would vote ‘third party’ end up voting in the ‘main face off’ because they have gotten caught up in the ‘real race’ and want their vote to count...
But if Wisconsin races are so close that if stein and Kennedy syphon- one percent of the vote-away from Biden, it might be decisive.
Trump leads on the issues voters say are most important to them-and by huge 20-point margins- whereas-in the issues Joe Biden leads...it’s much closer to a 50/50 split.
Did you notice?
Trump leads by 24 points on the border and immigration.
He leads by 18 points on economy. 14 points on the middle east war.
But when Biden leads?
He’s up over trump by just seven points on who protects social security. He leads by only 9 points on health care...which no one is talking about and very few voters care about this cycle...
And to Charles Franklin’s credit-he didn’t fall into the lefty trap and invent a whole new ‘top issue’ for voters...and pretend that ‘defending democracy’ is a real worry or a real issue among most voters this year.
It's not. As hard as Biden and the dems have been trying to create-out of thin air- an ‘issue’ that Joe Biden leads on-
As hard as they have tried to make ‘defending democracy’ the most important issue for voters this fall- people aren’t buying it-and it’s not a real thing-aside from the fever swamps of the extreme left.
I applaud Franklin for not polling ‘who’s best at ‘defending democracy’.
Still- when other pollsters have leapt to poll that question for the dems- they are finding that voters are either split- or trust Trump more- to defend democracy.
The latest PBS poll shows trump has a nine-point advantage on ‘who will better ‘defend democracy’...
So let’s take a moment here to giggle over the fact that trump is leading Biden-even on the fake issue that the dems have dreamt up in an attempt to give Biden a winning issue.
Fantastic.
Meanwhile- it’s not surprising Tammy Baldwin has a five-point lead over Eric Hovde. He’s keeping it close. Wisconsinites, for some reason, don’t see tammy Baldwin for the complete ‘waste of skin’ that she is.
For some reason- voters let her get away with running a few ads about cows and cheese and the packers every election-and re-elect her.
We knew this would be the case.
When the race began, i said that Hovde needs to keep it close and hope that ‘voter turnout’ will sweep him past Baldwin and into the senate.
So-let’s take the topic full circle: That 22-point enthusiasm gap that Charles Franklin pointed to as Biden’s biggest worry here, people not showing up for him is also Tammy Baldwin’s biggest worry. Because her name is just under his on the ballot.
And if people aren’t showing up to vote for Biden, they aren’t showing up to vote for Tammy.
This is how Eric Hovde wins, if he can. It’s a big year for the GOP and a particularly sad, uninspired, turnout year for the democrats.
That’s what he and his team are hoping for.
photo credit: Getty Images
Audio version here > Trump enjoys a 22-point enthusiasm gap in latest MU poll