We lost because the incumbent president had a 39% approval rating and 70% of Americans felt we were on the wrong track.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

Joe deserved a better approval rating but if he had an approval rating of fifty percent he could have been a classmate of Methusaleh and would have won. All other explanations are wanting. When people tell you we have to throw this group or that group under the bus to win don't believe them.

[AfternoonJoe]

1. And a change...

It's hard to run on a "change" platform when you're in the current administration. We knew she would represent real change but it was so difficult to message and so easy for the other side to message against that, i.e. "She was there for 3 1/2 years and did nothing...". It really comes down to these things.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

3. If Joe had a 50% approval rating we wouldn't have had to change anything.

[peregrinus]

2. Voting for Trump

Is like taking a swig of milk from a carton. Having nasty spoiled rotten chunks pour into your mouth then putting the carton back in the refrigerator and deciding that maybe it will be better tomorrow.

[Charging Triceratops]

54. We lost because journalism is dead

And spending of ridiculous ads like "anti-trans" ads made more noise than ANY of Felon-47's criminal, traitorous malfeasance.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

78. 100!!

[Nimble_Idea]

4. i thought i was reading news max

[DemocratSinceBirth]

6. No need to be abusive

Are we or are we not part of a beloved community?

[BeyondGeography]

5. Unfair things happen when you are incapable of defending yourself verbally

[Autumn]

7. Now we need to know why 70% of America thought we were on the wrong track.

[whopis01]

11. My take on it is this:

I think the big factors are

1) The hardcore Republican / MAGA base will say we are on the wrong track any time their guy isn't in charge.

2) A good chunk of people have been fed massive disinformation about problems with the border, crime, unemployment, undocumented foreigners, etc.

3) Immigration concerns

4) Inflation

I don't have a good guess for what percentage falls into each category. But (1) is going to be impossible to change and (2) is going to be more of a problem moving forward, but it needs to be addressed somehow. I think (3) and (4) are going to work in our favor in the next election cycle.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. The MAGA base isn't enough to win by itself.

[whopis01]

26. Never said it was

I was answering the question about why do 70% of Americans think we are on the wrong track.
Part of the 70% is the MAGA base and they are going to say we are on the wrong track any time their guy isn't in charge. My point was whatever percent that is, you aren't going to change them - so don't put effort there.

[travelingthrulife]

15. And bigotry, bigotry, bigotry...

[Autumn]

16. I think one and two have nothing to do with it. Trump or any republican are

going to get those people.

[whopis01]

99. I am confused by your response

The question was “why do 70% of Americans think we are on the wrong track?”

How can the MAGA / hard Republican base and misinformed people have nothing to do with that number being so high?

[Autumn]

105. Because about 21% of the population is conservative. Mix in religions because a lot of them such as

evangelicals, and catholics vote their religion, A big part of those people are not going to vote for Dems for whatever sin they can think of. Close to 90 million people sat out this election, that's people in the voter age population that didn't vote, or didn't bother to register. A good chunk of those people think it's a waste of time to vote because both parties are the same, a lot of ignorance and misinformation right there. Voters who don’t feel candidates represent their views might choose to opt-out of voting, in 2016 only about 55% of eligible registered voters voted. Some red states just make voting difficult. The fact that a lot of people work on Tuesdays, usually the working poor, means it makes it difficult to get off to stand in long lines to vote.

I never said MAGA / hard Republican base and misinformed people have nothing to do with that number being so high. I answered your responses to the question 1 and 2 are always going to go with conservatives. and actually you can roll 3 in with that because immigration is a conservative boogie man. On your list that leaves the economy. I think that, Joe's age and media's infatuation with Trump were also a part of it.

[whopis01]

106. When you said "one and two have nothing to do with it"

that sounded like you were saying one and two have nothing to do with the number being so high, since I was just saying why I thought the number was so high.

[Jk23]

27. Your rent goes up fifty percent in four years you start looking for someone to blame.

The man on the TV box says that the immigrants are taking all the housing and getting it for free and you find someone to blame.

[uponit7771]

34. ☝🏾THIS!☝ Its called "real wage index" which disconnected from the 2019 trajectory cause rise in prices. So telling some

... one the economy is great when they are spending 30% less in food is extra fucked up.

I think if the DNC addressed real wages we NO DOUBT would've taken an extra 2%

[John Shaft]

88. Only an idiot believes that

Donald "Child Rapist" Trump supporters are idiots. Bad faith people of low moral character. They waste air a crackhead could be breathing.

[Jk23]

94. Has Adley Stevenson pointed out to one of his supporters

If only the smart people vote for you you're going to lose and lose badly.

And I hate to break it to you but the Working Poor are not all crackheads. I don't think really being classist against voters is really a winning strategy either.

[John Shaft]

100. Donald "Child Rapist" Trump supporters are idiots and Bad People. Period.

They are not valid and nothing they say has any validity because they support and condone a child rapist.

MAGAts have no value as human beings. YOU CANNOT WORK WITH PEOPLE WHO DENY THE EXISTENCE OF REALITY AND TRUTH. You cannot "reach across the aisle" with people who PATHOLOGICALLY LIE.

They are scum, vermin, and weirdo perverts. I'd rather have a dope fiend with a pure heart than any vile MAGAt with their thieving, cowardly hands on ANYTHING.

I know what you are trying to do. It doesn't work. It's transparent as hell.

Period. Full stop. End of story.

[dpibel]

91. Show me 50%

The graph here says average apartment rent in Nov 2020 was $1102. In Nov 2024 it was $1340.

That's an increase of $238.

238/1102 is 22%.

No fun, for sure. But not 50%.

Just trying to keep us tethered to verifiable reality.

[Jk23]

93. Location specific in my neck of the woods they didn't really go up 50%

I'm curious about that chart because I haven't seen rents like that for a two-bedroom apartment in quite a while.

So yeah I'm being realistic there are a lot of areas in this country that saw dramatic rent increases over 4 years without dramatic pay increases.

[dpibel]

97. "Not me, but I'm sure there's somebody."

That really sums it up.

That's actually what polling showed: People said they were generally doing fine, but others were in trouble, hence things were bad.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. "Wrong track"/"right track" is a lazy, pointless poll question that should always be ignored

It could mean almost anything. Some people might have been looking at the rise of xenophobia and bigotry, and thought "America is on the wrong track"; while the xenophobes and bigots thought "look at the immigrants and LGBTQ people - America is on the wrong track". Some might look at the presidency, and think "wrong track"; some might look at Congress, or the Supreme Court (especially after Dobbs) and think "wrong track".

[SharonClark]

52. I would've said we were on the wrong track

because I live in a red state where the GQP legislature has gone bonkers and the GQP threat is constant.

I’m certain there are other good Democrats in that 70%.

[Autumn]

60. No it really isn't. It's really very simple, struggling people vote their pocketbook.

As James Carvel once said "It's the economy stupid."

[muriel_volestrangler]

62. There's nothing about "pocketbook" or "economy" in "this country is on the wrong track"

There are different questions for that - "are you better or worse off", "are you optimistic about the economy" and so on. "Wrong track" is a meaningless catch-all that doesn't say what the responder thinks is wrong (or right), let alone who is responsible.

[Autumn]

65. You should understand that for some people the economy does suck.

[muriel_volestrangler]

67. But that doesn't mean the poll question is any good.

The problem is that "I think the economy sucks" is just one of many possible reasons for saying "the country is on the wrong track".

[Autumn]

75. Sure, but I'm not interested in a poll. One can have a conversation about many reasons why

President Biden had a 39% approval rating and 70% of Americans felt we were on the wrong track.

It doesn't matter if you say "I think the economy sucks" or if you say "the country is on the wrong track".

If people are struggling , as a lot of people are they will vote for a person who says he's going to take care of their problems. No matter what those problems are.

[Ilikepurple]

79. I think it does if the questions have different answers.

The problems with the generality of this question are at least two-fold. It fails to capture which issue the direction is seemingly going the wrong way. It fails to capture which direction it is going wrong in. I personally don’t like it because this question just adds more progressive voter dissatisfaction to conservative dissatisfaction numbers and they are not often unwound. The economy is a pretty high priority, but I have to say James “it’s not just the economy stupid, stupid.” Also, to the OP, I agree let’s not use these or any other numbers to throw people under the bus.

[Autumn]

103. I don't think a poll is the cure all to tell us why we lost. I think an honest discussion

would work just as well.

[uponit7771]

33. ***REAL WAGES DISCONNECTED FROM 2019 TRAJECTORY!!!*** People, it's that simple. DNC was talkin about acronyms the

... economist cared about but not the ones working Americans cared about.

Therefore "the economy is great" is a pretty fucked up thing to say to someone who is buy 30% less food !!!

[DemocratSinceBirth]

48. That's it.

A lot of peer reviewed research suggests the inflation was more of a result of pandemic related supply chain interruptions than any fiscal or monetary stimulus, but the incumbent party got the blame.

[Autumn]

66. Right. And some people just don't fucking get it.

[Jose Garcia]

37. Inflation was the biggest issue

Immigration didn't help us either.

[biophile]

8. One thing I learned in medicine

Is that it’s never just one thing. Sometimes it’s the combination of two or more things- neither one consequential alone- acting in concert or at least potentiating each other is the reason for expressed disease. So the election was a group of bad things - ineffective messaging combined with pervasive RW media, misogyny and patriarchy, ignorant people who are easily manipulated by the master con man criminal, Russian sourced bomb threats and ballot burning.
In other words, death by a thousand cuts- or at least a multitude of wounds

[Happy Hoosier]

9. And why was that?

Journalistist malpractice.

"Journalists" in this country gave air to absolute bullshit about the economy, not to mention the non-stop "Biden OLD" we got for months on end. The whole age issue evaporated after Biden withdrew, despite Trump's brains melting out of his ears.

[Redleg]

13. Exactly

The media surely did the nation no favors. And they still haven't learned, and in spite of this, Trump and his fucking cabal will continue to denigrate the media until absolutely nobody trusts it for news.

[RainCaster]

14. Journalism died with false equivalent doctrine

When every urinalist began searching for bad things to say about Obama every time Trump would do something outrageous. That is what killed my faith in urinalism.

[Tesha]

10. Manufactured opinion over facts

Exactly.

[JI7]

17. But even with those numbers both Biden and Harris would have won

against non white person and white female that was like Trump.

They would beat Sarah Palin, George Santos, Mark Robinson.

[Martin Eden]

18. False perceptions reveal the influence of the RW media landscape

And the inability of American voters to discern fact from fiction.

[tonekat]

19. Now we're headed off the tracks. N/T

[orangecrush]

43. Got that right

[JCMach1]

20. Misses the whole point of how that opinion was crafted

And votes/opinions were manipulated by social media.



VP Harris ran a perfect campaign for 25 years ago.

It's not 25 years ago.

[TheKentuckian]

70. It would have still been good just four years ago.

But it isn't four years ago either.

[onenote]

21. Correct.

I know all the arguments about prices coming down, about gas being less on an inflation adjusted basis than it was 50 years ago, etc. Those arguments don't matter to the vast majority of voters. They don't care what their grandfathers paid for gas. What they care about, and what drives their perception, is that even with gas prices falling in late 2024, the price was still higher than it had been at any point during the Trump years, both before and after the pandemic. Some illustrative numbers, recognizing that these are national averages and that local and regional numbers can vary quite a bit: during the first Trump administration, regular gas never was at or above $3.00/gallon and was under $2.50 19 months, including quite a few months prior to the pandemic. During the past four years, the price of regular gas was under $3/gallon for only 3 months, all at the start of the Biden administration. Otherwise, it was between $3 and $4 for 37 months, $4 and $5 for five months, and over $5 one month. Those numbers create a perception that is hard to turn around. Same thing for grocery prices. Yes, they stabilized and even began dropping the past year. But what most people pay for their weekly groceries is still higher than they remember it being. And the increase in wages doesn't really offset it, because the good news of getting a raise is diluted when a good portion of that raise is spent on more expensive items like groceries and gas.

I hate to say it, but the outcome of the election probably was baked in from the start -- just as Joe's victory in 2020 was a "change" election, driven by dissatisfaction with the Trump presidency, particularly the pandemic, the 2024 election also was a "change" election, driven in large part by dissatisfaction with the economy.

[Kaleva]

25. Agree

[Elessar Zappa]

29. Yup.

I think inflation played a bigger part in our loss than misogyny (although that certainly contributed).

[standingtall]

35. Baked in to an extant but not hopelessly baked in

We lost Pennsylvania by just 1.7%, Michigan by just 1.6% and Wisconsin by just 0.9%. We could've done some things to have gotten us over the hump. Republicans control the media apparatus to combat that we needed a team of partisans to go on shows and social media and explain why inflation got like it was and also point out that the unemployment rate was lower and for a longer period of time in decades. We had some surrogates, but not nearly enough and many of the ones we had functioned more like de facto news reporters we a slight partisan slant rather then White House or Democratic surrogates, We also needed an organized plan for a mass exodus from twitter the moment Elon Musk bought it not just after the election. The Gaza situation also happened in which there was no good answer for. I don't know if that was enough to swing the election, maybe it was maybe wasn't, but it sure didn't help. We also spent to much time trying to flip republican voters, when we should've had a more aggressive outreach in the areas our people were in. We went heavily after White voters in very White rural and suburban areas and neglected or ignored pockets of rural areas with high populations of Black voters. Kamala Harris should've never said "were the underdogs" cringe every time I heard her say it. I don't care if it was true or not She still never should've said that, because under dogs usually lose and we didn't give her the ball to lose.


High approval ratings would not have guaranteed victory either. Bill Clinton averaged a 61% in his 2nd term and Al Gore still lost, okay it was stolen, but it never should've been close enough for Bush to steal to begin with.

[Ilikepurple]

82. At least someone here can tell us what is correct and what is not.

I’m sure glad that media, propaganda, disinformation, racism, misogyny, transphobia, world events, and fear of crime and immigrants are officially not something we really need to focus on.

[oldmanlynn]

22. Throw in inflation which most Americans dont care to understand the real cause

And throw in the fact that Republicans control the narratives because they are talking about it every day.

Its sad that republicans control the image of democrats because they talk about our image more than dems do.

[Fiendish Thingy]

23. And that 39% and 70% were due to media failure and propaganda success. Nt

[Sneederbunk]

24. Get ready for no track.

[Elessar Zappa]

28. Good point.

It was uphill from the beginning.

[WhiteTara]

30. I lay that at the feet of the "left wing media"

Remember when Hillary was the most admired woman in the world for several years and then the media got hold of her and boom, a pariah. That is what they did to President Biden.

Of course, the GOP was behind the media attacks, because you know, left wing media.

[tritsofme]

32. It's really that simple. Democrats arguably outperformed from those numbers considerably.

Incumbents just don’t win with numbers like that, we’ve seen it all over the world.

[WarGamer]

36. right track/wrong track has been trending in the wrong direction for many years.

[Zambero]

38. And short-sighted voters forgot why trump lost big in 2020

following a 2018 wave election for Democrats. They're about to remember.

[andym]

39. Joe was hovering near 40% since Nov 2021-- A Democrat would have needed to differentiate him/herself from Joe

in a big way in order to win. Joe's favorability directly correlates with the price increases seen in the Summer/Fall of 2021.

Kamala would have had to come out with a big "change" platform to attempt being linked too closely to Joe if she wanted to overcome this "being on the wrong track" polling. Trump's "doom and change" campaign actually worked well for him.

Democrats should never forget Bill Clinton's "It's the economy stupid."

OTOH, let's give credit where it's due-- Kamala outperformed Joe's polling deficit against Trump AND outperformed Joe's favorability by A LOT.

[standingtall]

41. Inflation got like it was in large part because of Trumps mishandling of the pandemic

So I don't know how any Democrat could've differentiated themselves from Biden in any meaningful way, especially sense what Biden was doing was actually working. Was a failure of messaging by Democrats, because Biden's approval/favorability and polling numbers should've never been allowed to get as bad as they got.

[andym]

77. Not sure messaging could help: price increases finished off Carter, Bush Sr, and almost Reagan

The favorability of even the "great communicator" Reagan was in the toilet in the beginning of 1983 because of high interest rates and stagflation-- it's only when the Fed's actions bore fruit and inflation was tamed and interest rates came down that Reagan's favorability soared and Democrats' hopes of defeating him were dashed.

[standingtall]

85. I was very young, but I remember Carter losing in 1980

We were in an actual recession then and Carter's approval ratings were worse then Biden and Carter didn't have historically low unemployment rates he could point too. As far as Bush Sr. "read my lips no new taxes" and he raised taxes that hurt him. Bushed term was an extension of the Reagan/Bush administration so there might have been a bit of fatigue there. Plus a 3rd party candidate Ross Perot got a significant amount of the vote throw in a charismatic Democrat like Bill Clinton and Bush was doomed.


Also remember we only lost this election by 1.5% in the poplar vote and only lost Pennsylvania by 1.7% Michigan by 1.6% and Wisconsin by 0.9%. So I firmly believe we could've made up at least that extra 2% we needed in those 3 important swing States. Carter and Bush were not remotely close to winning and therefore not equivalent to this election.

[mr715]

40. President Biden

Isn't owed anything.

He had a crappy approval rating because he couldn't formulate a message. He governed and worked with legislated, but he could not message.

And for the record, it never was one of his strengths. He is compassionate, earnest, a "good man", but he did not the requisite political bloodlust necessary to combat Trump. His reflexive desire towards comity undermined his own incredible successes.

Also, that debate. I know I'm a 1 trick pony, but the debate demonstrated that he lacked the spirit of the moment.


If we are fighting fascism, then pull out all the stops. If we don't, then its just words and I hate it.



MR

[standingtall]

42. Rather Biden was owed anything is irrelevant

We really needed to win this election and we didn't. National Democrats knew 4 years ago messaging wasn't Biden's strong suit and therefore should've formulated their own team to do Biden's messaging for him.

[mr715]

44. Biden was at the head of the ship

I think he is an old, egotistical man that couldn't be moved.

He deserves significant blame for the mess we're in. Half measures.

He could've been great. He could've been good. Now he is a footnote.


MR

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. I couldnt disagree more.

Respectfully he was blamed for inflation he didn't cause and didn't get credit for the things he did cause like infrastructure investment and guiding us out of the pandemic.

[mr715]

50. Hindsight is 20/20

But he could've been playing the game their way the whole time.

We wanted a return to normalcy and we got some palliative care. His do no harm approach did a bit of harm.

In my opinion. I thank you for your perspective and understand that you disagree.

MR

[DemocratSinceBirth]

51. Inflation kiilled us.

It has largely abated. However that means prices are just going up more slowly and everything still cost more.

[mr715]

55. I think inflation is the excuse

I think the electorate is a lot meaner and capricious than I imagined. The covid era, education losses, general craziness...

Can't know, but I think your analysis is more optimistic than mine. Issue based. Inflation eases, we'll pivot back to power.

I am less optimistic. I think we've entered the Mr. Beast reality politics show. And we need to negotiate in that environment, which is devoid of meaningful connection to policy or governance.


MR

[DemocratSinceBirth]

56. Our politics are polarized. Both sides start with, say, 45% of the vote

Ten percent of the electorate respond to material conditions.

[mr715]

57. I think then we pretty much agree

Thanks you for your perspective. Onward.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

58. Have a great day

[Easterncedar]

45. We lost because the media didn't celebrate Biden's accomplishments

They pushed and sold the negative narrative. Biden was magnificent and effective. And decent.

[mr715]

53. We lost because Biden himself couldn't articulate Biden's accomplishments

He was a Senator-President. He legislated. He resembled LBJ.

He did us no favors politically because he couldn't consistently articulate a message.

Sporadically yes, at the State of the Union addresses, but no. His vision might've been clear, but his marketing was not.

[TheKentuckian]

64. At this late date, we were counting on the media to celebrate accomplishments?

That is crazy, what in the past say thirty years would indicate that any such thing was ever going to happen?

Bidenomics was tone death as can be and Biden supporters even here were adamantly arguing that my wages had gone up to more than offset cost increases like I'm too fucking dumb to look at my paystubs, bills, rent, and grocery receipts.

Now, I knew way better than to make bad horrible but the messaging even internally was pig shit and WAY more concerned about wagon circling than reaching even the choir much less anyone not in the pews.

[ibegurpard]

46. And that's because we lack sufficient means

To get the truth and the messaging around it out

[Vinca]

47. Odd how those 70% who were carping about the lousy economy under Biden are suddenly setting records for

holiday travel and are projected to set records for holiday spending. Don't give the electorate more credit than they deserve. They were primarily voting for the show they eagerly followed which didn't allow them time to read real news coverage and learn the facts. Anyone can predict how this is going to go. Everything will go to hell . . . again . . . and Democrats will all be elected in 2 and 4 years because now the electorate really is feeling pain and the only people they can blame are Republicans.

[Demsrule86]

59. No, When we allowed the billionaires in our party to decide to end Joe Biden...

we were in trouble and I hoped with the large fund raising for Kamala it would be OK... just like Hillary, Kamala would have been a wonderful president. But it was risky and I worried about the rustbelt...where we win or lose. I think Biden could have recovered from the debate and would have had a better chance in the rust belt than anyone else.

We will never know. Kamala Harris was an outstanding candidate...one of the best in our history. I don't believe we will be able to elect a woman president in my lifetime.

We took a big gamble to get rid of an incumbent president so close to the election and we lost. If you look at my posts, you would see this was always my fear. Of course once Kamala was our candidate, I worked my ass off and refused to believe she would lose. I always do that. She deserved to win.

[TheKentuckian]

68. Biden was on track to get Mondaled and dig holes in the House and Senate to match.

He became a gravity well and if it was deserved had nothing to do with it.

Incumbency was a net negative too but even if it wasn't Biden was not up for a vigorous campaign, certainly not with holding down his day job but realistically at all.

He should not have been trying to run again no matter how well earned on the merits.

I don't even think he would have been able to do it effectively 2020 if it wasn't for Covid.

Governing and campaigning are related but not the same skillset.

[standingtall]

71. Pretty complicated to say an incumbent President shouldn't seek reelection

As far as Biden digging holes in the House and Senate. Biden's polling numbers weren't any worse than any other Democratic candidate other then fantasy candidates like Michelle Obama until a flood of big Democratic donors demanded he step down and some of those same polls were funded by Democratic donors that had an agenda to get him to withdraw from the race.

Biden does have some blame in this, but so does the entire Democratic apparatus from the big donors to the Congress to the Senate etc. Maybe Biden could've recovered if Democrats would've been willing to rally around their President. We don't know. Maybe he falls on his face in another debate an losses. We don't know, but what we do know is what actually happened. The people who called for Biden to step down got their way with an alternative candidate and not only did we not win the Presidency, but failed to take back the House and lost the Senate too.

[standingtall]

96. They probably did the early debate because they got goaded into it

by the constant ridicule of Biden's age by the Trump campaign and the media. The story going to be coming out if it does come out will be from people who are trying to avoid taking responsibility for their role in what happened and therefore should be taken with a grain of salt.

[Hekate]

98. I do not think the facts support your assertion

[ucrdem]

61. We lost because we pulled an Al Franken on the guy who beat Trump in 2020.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

63. Has an incumbent president ever won with a 39% approval rating in exit polls?

[standingtall]

72. Has a convicted felon ever been elected President before 2024?

[ucrdem]

74. Eggzactly.

Strange days.

[ucrdem]

73. Has a twice-impeached ex-president insurrectionist with felony convictions ever won?

No sarcasm intended. Regarding the approval rating, probably not, but it was essentially a meaningless number. Joe's habit of running is to come on strong at the end and he was on track to do it again. No one else had a hope in hell. That was obvious to me and I wasn't worried until operation Franken got under way. I still didn't think he'd drop out but I knew it was over as soon as I heard the news. That was a sad, sad Sunday.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

80. I was depressed for weeks... Kamala did the best she could under the circumstances.

[ucrdem]

86. She gave it her all, and did surprisingly well.

But she isn't Joe Biden.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

87. Well said!!

[MichMan]

101. It was a most unusual election in many ways

1) A sitting VP has not won election as president since Martin VanBuren in 1836

2) Only once previously (Grover Cleveland in 1892) has someone who lost re election been elected again to another term

3) Only two sitting presidents have withdrawn from running for a 2nd term; LBJ and Biden. In both cases, their sitting VP lost.

[meadowlander]

81. His polls suggested Biden was on track to lose Minnesota and Virginia too.

Let's not fool ourselves. New Hampshire was in play by the time he dropped out.

[ucrdem]

84. WaPo, July 17: 'The polls are inconclusive. Advantage Biden.'

Biden’s dismal debate performance and the intense criticism it drew from the media and even other Democrats didn’t result in a dramatic drop in his numbers — or really much of a drop at all. Biden was getting around 41 percent of the national popular vote (including third-party candidates) before the June 27 debate and is at 40 percent now, according to FiveThirtyEight.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/17/inconclusive-polls-help-biden/

[DemocratSinceBirth]

89. Biden's internal polls showed TSF winning 400 + Electoral College Votes

Kamala likely also saved the AZ, WI, Mi, and NV Senate seats and a bunch of House seats. This could have easily been 1980. It hurts because TSF is uniquely awful.

[standingtall]

92. I don't believe these mythical internal polls people keep alluding

because the public polls never showed Trump getting 400 plus electoral votes. This was never going to be 1980. Biden wasn't going to lose California and lose like 45 States like Carter did.

[Initech]

69. We lost because Fox News is on everywhere.

It's on in doctors offices, it's on in gyms, it's on in restaurants, in homes, you name it. Ww lost because too many people watch that shit.

[J_William_Ryan]

76. "...70% of Americans felt we were on the wrong track."

Well, they ran the train completely off the track.

[Skittles]

83. so they think authoritarianism is a better track?

alrighty then

[Takket]

90. i was curious wht drumpf's approval numbers are.......

honestly..... this country is so fucked. i mean.......... FUCKED. pardon my French but i don't know what else to say about these numbers. i wish i could enjoy watching all these IDIOTS get RUINED by their own fucking stupidity, but all us Harris voters are going to suffer along with them..............

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/favorability/donald-trump/

[Freethinker65]

102. Biden's Presidency did what it set out to do. It got us through a pandemic returning the country to stability/normalcy

An end to rash economic decisions, vindictiveness, trashing of allies, and attempts to cut social safety nets. Four years of competence and compassion and non-corruption from cabinet members. An agenda to help all Americans.

Biden/Harris did that. Amazing.

Many who voted for Biden, did so thinking he would be a one term President and that during that one term new Democratic leaders would rise to the occasion to move the country forward. There should have been an actual Democratic Presidential primary.

[intheflow]

104. I hate that "wrong track" question.

It literally says nothing about what people are thinking. MAGA thinks we’re on the wrong track when Black women can run for president. I think the country’s on the wrong track allowing a rapist felon to run for president. It’s BULLSHIT.