President Joe Biden's approval ratings are low. Even his own party's rank-and-file think he's too old for the job and would rather someone else were their nominee for president.
But Biden is not a drag for down-ticket Democrats, who have been overperforming in special elections this year and who have been winning ballot initiative battles. Biden isn't even a drag on himself, as a critical percentage of voters in battleground states say they will vote for him even if they don't approve of him or his job performance.
"It's kind of been a long time coming. Democrats have steadily improved" in their voter share in a wide array of races, says Arizona-based pollster Mike Noble, founder of Noble Predictive Insights. Since the election of former President Donald Trump in 2016 and the judicial upending of guaranteed abortion rights in 2022, Democrats have improved their support among college-educated voters, and "those voters are more apt to vote in elections that have an abysmal turnout," such as special elections, Noble says.
An analysis of 2023 special elections results by the elections website FiveThirtyEight found that Democrats overperformed by an average of 10 percentage points. That means that even when Democrats lost special elections, they did better than the political landscape would indicate, given the partisan breakdown in the district and the electoral history there.
A look at special elections in battleground states underscores that August analysis.
In Pennsylvania, a Democrat won a special election for a state House seat by a 3-1 margin, compared with the party's 2-1 win in the 2022 general election. A state Senate seat in a heavily Republican district stayed in GOP hands in a special election earlier this year, but the victor won by a smaller percentage than the Republican candidate did in November 2022.
In Wisconsin, the GOP won a July special election for a state assembly seat, 54% to 46%. That's a smaller margin than in 2022, when the Republican won the seat with 61% of the vote, compared to 39% for the Democratic candidate.
A special election for a Wisconsin state Senate seat was barely won by the GOP candidate, 50.8% to 49.1%. During the previous election, in 2020, the Republican won far more comfortably, with 54% of the vote, compared to 46% for the Democratic candidate.
In a regularly scheduled election, Democrats scored an upset win for a seat in the state Supreme Court, providing a critical liberal majority on a panel that may decide abortion rights, redistricting and other issues. Democratic Judge Janet Protasiewicz won by more than 11 percentage points in a state where whisper-thin margins are more common.
In New Hampshire, a Democrat won a run-off for a state House seat by more than 11 percentage points, after winning the exact same number of votes as the GOP rival in the 2022 general election.
In Virginia, Democrats flipped a state Senate seat in a January special election. Republicans retained a House of Delegates seat in a special election that month but by a substantially smaller margin than the GOP won the seat in 2021.
Republicans made few inroads in 2023 special elections – the most notable being in Maine, where the party flipped a state House seat in a June special election. Democrats still hold an 81-seat majority in the chamber.
Republicans as well as nonpartisan analysts caution that special elections are not necessarily predictive of regularly scheduled general elections, since special elections tend to bring out only the most motivated voters.
In New Hampshire, for example, the Democratic Party is more organized, better funded and professional in nature, while the GOP relies more on volunteer and grassroots workers, says Scott Spradling, a nonpartisan political analyst in the Granite State. That gives Democrats an advantage in special elections, where a big part of the battle is getting people to show up and vote, he says.
But the trend favoring Democrats is notable because the party's highest ranking member, Biden, is faring poorly in polling on his job performance and overall approval.
"The old-school concern is about the approval rating being underwater," meaning the official has a higher disapproval than approval rating, says Berwood Yost, director of the Center for Opinion Research at Franklin & Marshall College in Pennsylvania. But because voters aren't too happy with politicians in either party – and are far more entrenched in their partisan leanings than in the past – "you can still win and not be above water" in approval ratings, Yost says.
Two things are boosting Democrats, analysts say: abortion politics and Trump himself, who is not only turning off some independent voters but causing schisms in his own party.
Intraparty fights in battleground states (literally, in Michigan, where physical confrontations have occurred between pro-Trump and Trump-skeptical Republican officials) are dividing the party. In Arizona, the internal battle could weaken the GOP nominee next year for a critical Senate seat.
In Georgia, the GOP has two wings: the one dominated by the likes of firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the one led by politicians like Gov. Brian Kemp, who Thursday quashed the idea of holding a special session to oust Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stop her prosecution of Trump.
If Trump is indeed the GOP nominee in 2024, "a lot of people will stay home," says University of Georgia political science professor Scott Ainsworth, giving Biden a chance to win a red state where he prevailed by a very narrow margin in 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump has been motivating not just his devoted base but Democratic voters who might not be crazy about their own likely nominee and don't want another Trump term, Ainsworth says.
"We maybe have entered an era where people don't feel excited about particular presidential nominees. Sometimes, it's the other person's negatives. Biden doesn't always inspire some voters, but by the same token, he doesn't have the heavy baggage that Trump has," Ainsworth says.
Biden is outperforming himself in a number of battleground states – doing better in hypothetical head-to-head matchups against Trump than he is in his own approval ratings.
In Pennsylvania, a Franklin & Marshall poll found, just 3 in 10 voters think Biden is doing an "excellent" or "good" job. But the president would defeat his predecessor Trump 41% to 40%, the survey found.
In Arizona, a plurality of 49% of voters disapprove of Biden, compared to 40% who approve of him, according to an Emerson College poll. But Biden trails Trump by just 1-3 percentage points, depending on whether third-party candidates are included, the poll found.
In Michigan, half of voters disapprove of Biden's job performance, with 43% approving of it, Emerson College found. But in a head-to-head matchup, Biden and Trump are tied, with 44% support each.
In Georgia, a Public Opinion Strategies poll found, 54% of Peach Staters disapprove of Biden and 43% approve of the president. But Biden would beat Trump, 44% to 43%, the survey found. The same polling firm got similar results in Nevada, where 52% of voters disapprove of Biden and 40% approve of him – but prefer Biden as the next president, with 46% supporting the incumbent president for reelection and 43% wanting Trump back, the poll found.
In Wisconsin, the disconnect between approval and support for reelection is especially stark. A Marquette University poll found that while 53% of voters disapprove of Biden's job performance (45% approve of it), they still favor Biden (52%) over Trump (43%) for president in the 2024 election.
A big part of Trump's problem in Wisconsin is Republicans, says Charles Franklin, director of the Marquette poll, noting that Biden has more support in his own party than Trump does among GOPers.
"We think of Trump as having an iron grip on the GOP, but actually he faces a minority of around 30% of Republicans that don't care for him, compared to some 14% of Dems who don't like Biden," Franklin says.
That is playing out in other critical states, Yost says.
"Ultimately, when it comes down to voting for someone, it's not just the person, but the acceptability of his or her opponent," Yost says.
B | 当年,德化白瓷、安溪铁观音、闽南绸缎从桥下扬帆南洋;如今,桥南古街红砖古厝、骑楼、番仔楼相映成趣,木偶戏台上提线木偶牵丝运笔“秀”书法,千年古韵与今日烟火悠然相遇。 工业遗产的活化利用令人瞩目。客户端、光明日报等报道聚焦惠安县崇武镇橘若古渡码头园区保留33亩闲置码头的原有风貌,融入艺术展馆、码头T台等业态,把“看海”变成集吃、住、游、玩、文化体验于一体的滨海“微度假”,成为文旅消费新地标。
C | “黄斗笠、花头巾、短上衣、宽黑裤”——人民日报客户端《惠安女的“花样”年华》、中国青年报《海风吹不散的“花头巾”》等报道,将笔触伸向崇武大岞村:夕阳染红礁石,几位当地阿嬷弯腰演示补网,湖蓝衣角随海风扬起,宛如从老照片里走出的渔家群像。昔日,惠安女扎紧头巾是为抵御风沙、撑起劳作,一万多名惠安女更以“万女锁蛟龙”的壮举成为惠女水库建设主力,铸就了艰苦奋斗、无私奉献、拼搏创业的“惠女精神”。如今,传统民俗与存量资产的双重“活化”,正在这片海岸线上催生独具辨识度的文旅消费新活力。
D | 文旅热度居高不下,如何将“网红流量”转化为“长红留量”?25日,央视《朝闻天下》讲述了泉州的破题之道:泉州旅游协会主动终止全部原“泉州伴手礼”商标授权并重新申报认证,还将推出城市文创IP“泉州礼物”,让游客“所买皆精品”;针对爆火的蟳埔簪花围,当地出台全国首个非遗习俗团体标准《蟳埔女习俗“簪花围”服务规范》,实现明码标价、持证经营;古城核心区通过业态“准入”“准出”清单,鼓励老字号和非遗技艺入驻,夜晚更有30支民间文艺队伍街头快闪。2026年上半年,泉州古城接待游客531.67万人次,同比上涨8.7%,一套覆盖文旅全链条的品质“护城河”正在成形。 《新华每日电讯》刊发《幼有善育 泉州探索托育服务新模式》,光明日报、经济日报、中国青年报、中国新闻网等相继推出相关报道,聚焦泉州作为全国首批普惠托育服务发展示范城市的探索:搭建“政校行企”协同平台,为行业提供科学托育服务标准和高质量从业人员培训,化解家长“不敢托”的顾虑;通过运营补助、场地支持等配套政策降低机构成本、引导降低收费,破解市民“托不起”的难题;“医育结合”从个别试点走向全面制度化,构建起覆盖全市的健康守护网。“泉享托”品牌正让更多家庭享受到方便可及、普惠优质、安全放心的托育服务。(泉州晚报社融媒体记者 宋尧)。
Current article:http://www.zhanggengsenchaiweikeng.cfd/list_18jm5c7/ulz.html