It is a welcome development for the country and for Washington’s ability to govern. Unfortunately, the selection does not guarantee that the United States will be able to swiftly come to the aid of its close allies, including Israel, as well as fund its own government and sustain domestic strength.

After conservative firebrand Jim Jordan’s third failed attempt at becoming Speaker of the House of Representatives last week, the Republican conference dropped him as their nominee.

This led to a new open nominating process that started with nine candidates from across the Republican spectrum and ended with moderate-leaning Majority Whip Tom Emmer as the nominee.

However, within four hours, his bid was shot down by the MAGA wing of the party and he never made it to the House floor. Right-wing representatives were following the lead of former President Donald Trump who signaled he was against Emmer and even made calls to House members expressing his opposition.

The root of the MAGA hostility towards Emmer’s nomination was his vote to certify President Joe Biden’s 2020 electoral college victory. Some GOP members also singled out Emmer for supporting same-sex marriage, and in an appalling exchange a colleague even questioned his Christian faith.

After Emmer’s withdrawal on Tuesday, the Republican conference miraculously coalesced around the lesser known Mike Johnson – a deeply conservative member and mentee of Jordan who was backed by the far-right of the party – and he was elected speaker on Wednesday afternoon without losing a single Republican vote on the floor.

While it is undoubtedly positive that the American people finally have a Speaker of the House again, the Republican Party is playing with fire by choosing someone with little leadership experience and a rigid hard-right track record. Democrats are not innocent either, as their decision to join the motion to vacate on Kevin McCarthy led to an extreme conservative gaining the speaker’s gavel

Johnson is extremely conservative on social issues, as he voted against federal protections for same-sex marriage and has repeatedly supported and co-sponsored national abortion ban bills. In fact, he is the first former chair of the deeply conservative Republican Study Committee to become speaker.

Furthermore, Johnson was a prominent election denier in 2020 and the legal architect of the Electoral College objections that were denied by the Supreme Court.

It is clear that Trump and his MAGA acolytes got exactly what they wanted, as one of their own is now the most powerful Republican in Washington. If their victory could not be any more clear, Rep. Matt Gaetz emphasized it with glee on Steve Bannon’s podcast, “If you don’t think that moving from Kevin McCarthy to MAGA Mike Johnson shows the ascendance of this movement and where the power in the Republican Party truly lies, then you’re not paying attention.”

House Democrats are already seeking to paint Johnson as “Jim Jordan in a suit.” Make no mistake, Johnson’s extreme positions along with his lack of fundraising skill compared to his predecessor will hurt congressional Republicans’ electoral chances in 2024. While former Speaker Kevin McCarthy raised over $100 million for Republicans during the 2022 election cycle, Speaker Johnson has raised just $553,013 total this cycle.

This dynamic will certainly create challenges for Republican congressmen from moderate districts in California who benefitted from McCarthy’s robust political operation. Along with losing out on fundraising opportunities, Johnson’s extreme right-wing social positions will not play well in these swing districts.

There is also some doubt over whether Johnson will be on the side of public opinion on upcoming legislation to strengthen our allies and ensure we avoid a government shutdown that could have catastrophic economic consequences.

Johnson voted against the current continuing resolution, which has reached its halfway mark, and he has been one of the staunchest opponents to sending aid to Ukraine.

It is clear the American people want Congress to support our allies as they battle terrorism and authoritarianism, and Johnson and the GOP must show voters they can be trusted. A poll this week from The Economist/YouGov found 61% of registered voters think the U.S. should maintain or increase military aid to Ukraine and 83% of registered voters think the U.S. should maintain or increase military aid to Israel.

While President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries line up behind a supplemental bill that will send military aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, as well as new funding to help secure the southern border, there is significant opposition among House Republicans to additional spending, especially for Ukraine.

The ultra conservative Johnson mirrors the right flank of his caucus on these issues, but to pass real solutions to the pressing challenges facing Congress he must find a middle ground that Democrats and Senate Republicans can accept. Otherwise, moderate Republicans will be forced to go around him and work closely with their Democratic counterparts.

The first big test for Speaker Johnson is in less than a month when he will either let the government close down or work on a bipartisan basis to keep America as a functioning democracy at a crucial moment for our allies. Positively, Johnson seems to be moving towards the middle in his new leadership role, as he has proposed a second continuing resolution that would last through January, albeit with little detail about the spending numbers.

In order to have a successful speakership and meet the needs of the United States at this critical inflection point, it would be wise for Johnson to moderate his views and seek productive compromise with centrist Republicans and Democrats. Speaker Johnson must put policy over politics to bolster our allies and protect our economy.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Instead, House Republicans again failed to display any semblance of leadership and elect a Speaker of the House, despite a number of international and domestic crises, and continued to paralyze our government. 

Indeed, this dysfunction comes at a critical moment for global affairs as the Middle East is engulfed in a full-blown war between Israel and Hamas, while Ukraine continues to battle against Russia’s invasion. 

Further, we are barreling towards a government shutdown later in November when the continuing resolution expires. With the House frozen, Congress will be unable to prevent the economic consequences such a shutdown would have.

To be sure, the United States cannot expect to lead the free world and support our allies if we are unable get our own house in order. Failing to quickly empower McHenry with the ability to move legislation would be a mistake, as House Republicans risk permanently undermining American credibility and respect around the globe.

Yet, some in the GOP are not finished causing chaos, risking America’s credibility around the world, and undermining Republican’s own electoral viability ahead of 2024. When it looked like Jordan may step aside for McHenry, Rep. Jim Banks said that, “Expanding powers for a temporary Speaker is a dangerous precedent and exactly what the Democrats hoped would happen.”

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz also came out in opposition to empowering McHenry. As Republicans would likely need buy in from Democrats to overcome the extremists in their caucus who are the root cause of the current situation, Greene slammed the idea as “The wrong thing to do,” while Gaetz said, “I’m against speaker lite. It’s constitutional desecration.”

Notably, Republicans do not seem to care that their constant infighting is harming their own political stock ahead of crucial 2024 elections. Last week, Majority Leader Steve Scalise was forced to withdraw from the Speaker’s race after he could not garner enough support to bring his bid to the floor. Jordan played a significant role in undermining Scalise’s bid and then became the Republicans’ nominee for speaker. 

Scalise allies along with moderate Republicans in Biden-won congressional districts are particularly wary of voting for Jordan, a prominent election denier and abortion rights opponent who will create additional political vulnerability for the Republican conference in 2024.

Jordan rallied his allies against Scalise despite offering to nominate him on the floor, and top Jordan-backer former President Donald Trump and fellow Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene even raised questions about Scalise’s health. Fox News host Sean Hannity also got involved on Jordan’s behalf as well by using both his television program and personally calling Jordan’s opponents to apply pressure within the fractured GOP.

After toppling Scalise’s bid, Jordan took his nomination to the House floor on Tuesday and subsequently lost 20 Republican votes, finishing with a lower total than Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and well short of the 217 votes required to win. After a second attempt on Wednesday, Jordan did not make any progress and instead lost two additional votes. He then seemed prepared to temporarily withdraw from consideration and endorse the empowerment of McHenry, but House Republicans reversed course on Thursday and Jordan lost a third vote Friday.

The entire Republican delegation from California backed Jordan the second time around, taking the risk of supporting Jordan in the hopes that the House could move on with its business. In his official statement, Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego County clearly recognized the harm this is doing to the country, saying, “Let’s come together, elect Jim our Speaker, and show the American people how we can lead again.”

Unfortunately for Issa and House Republicans, time and again this does not come to fruition. Not only are they unable to compromise with Democrats, but they are also unable to compromise with themselves – leaving their conference totally unable to govern. 

In fact, it is increasingly difficult to see a way for any Republican to get the 217 votes to become Speaker of the House without reaching across the aisle for Democratic support.

This scenario appears to be a non-starter for Republicans, which led to the initial momentum for passing a resolution empowering Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry to temporarily conduct the work of the speaker, allowing the House to function.

Quite simply, the House is running out of time to get its act together. Both Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appear eager to swiftly pass a bipartisan package that includes military aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan as well as more funding for the nation’s southern border. 

Meanwhile, a paralyzed House risks undermining the pledge President Biden made in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the U.S. “Isn’t going anywhere. We’re going to stand with you.”

Unfortunately, this effort will be for naught if Republicans in the House are unable to organize and unite around a leader. Furthermore, if Jordan somehow does climb the steep hill ahead to become speaker, he will likely oppose Ukraine aid as well as nearly any other initiative coming from the Biden administration. 

Ultimately, empowering McHenry would be a step in the right direction. With Vladimir Putin on an official visit to Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Iran threatening to involve itself in the war between Israel and Hamas, which would lead to a regional, if not global war, America’s strongest adversaries are on the march. Congress cannot afford to waste any more time in a rudderless stalemate as our enemies abroad attempt to establish a new world order.

Further, a possible government shutdown, while war rages on two continents, could cause devastating damage to the economy, our national security, and America’s global reputation. Republicans would be wise to avoid this outcome, both for the sake of the American people and if they want to have any chance of holding the House next year.

To strengthen America’s resolve on the world stage and avoid potential economic catastrophe, it is essential for congressional Republicans to end this circus, get their house in order, and work with moderate Democrats to responsibly govern and address the serious threats facing our country and our world.

Douglas Schoen is a Democratic political consultant.

That said, whether due to increasing concerns over Biden’s approval numbers, age, cognitive abilities, and the multiple investigations into his son Hunter, it is increasingly possible that Biden may decide within the next few months not to seek re-election. Were that to happen, Vice President Kamala Harris would likely be the odds on favorite to replace Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket.

However, given the way California Gov. Gavin Newsom has sought to aggressively raise his national profile lately – assertively defending Biden’s record, traveling widely to campaign for Democratic candidates, and serving as Biden’s mouthpiece following the GOP debate on Wednesday, there are legitimate questions as to exactly what Newsom is trying to do, and why is he doing it?

It must be said that Newsom himself has been very careful not to give the impression that his sights are set on challenging Biden. In fact, he has often done the opposite, calling for Democrats to rally around Biden, despite any reservations, saying, “The train has left the station, we’re all in. Stop talking. He’s not going anywhere. It’s time for all of us to get on the train and buck up.”

As a sign of the close relationship between Biden and Newsom, the Biden campaign asked Newsom to attend the second Republican presidential debate, held in Simi Valley, California, as part of a group of top Democratic officials in order to promote Biden’s agenda in contrast to Republicans’ “extreme and out of touch views.”

For Newsom, being asked to attend the debate on behalf of the president is an easy win in his ongoing efforts to build his national brand. He has traveled to six red states, created a PAC to distribute $10 million to Democratic candidates, and provoked Florida Gov. and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis to a debate hosted by Sean Hannity this November. 

Any politician doing what Newsom is would certainly be assumed to have their eyes on the White House. He is integrating himself with donors, building political goodwill with the base, and is hoping to develop a reputation as a determined leader who is willing and able to take on the GOP, an important factor, as Newsom has never had to face a credible Republican challenger due to Democrats’ stranglehold of California statewide politics.

As Democratic strategist Brad Bannon put it, Newsom is “Doing what any able and ambitious politician is doing, he’s putting himself in position to run for president if Biden doesn’t.”

To be sure, the spotlight on Newsom’s ambitions may have more to do with sentiments around the incumbent and his running mate, more than Newsom’s actions. Democrats are deeply concerned about Biden’s age, low job approval, and the widespread unpopularity of Vice President Kamala Harris.

Indeed, slightly more than three-quarters (76%) of American adults say Biden’s age may “Negatively affect his ability to serve another full term as president,” while two-thirds (67%) of Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents want the party to nominate someone other than Biden in 2024, per CNN polling. 

Further, Harris’ 37% favorability rating even trails Biden’s (41%) according to the RealClearPolitics average, and Republicans have taken notice, running ads declaring that a “vote for Biden is a vote for Harris.”

For her part, VP Harris has stayed relatively quiet on Newsom, although her advisors have made their displeasure at Newsom’s recent attention-grabbing activities known. One Harris advisor told NBC, “It’s disrespectful” and others complained that the upcoming debate with DeSantis may give some voters the impression that Newsom is running a “2024 shadow campaign.”

Newsom had a chance to assuage the VP’s concerns on “60 Minutes” last Sunday, when he was asked about any presidential hopes, although his answer is unlikely to have soothed Harris. 

When asked if recent efforts to clean up the streets in California factors into a presidential run, Newsom was evasive, saying, “I’m never going to overpromise that in the short run,” when pressed on whether that was a yes or a no, Newsom replied, “That was a…that was a never-ending response to your question.”

Last year, in response to the same question, Newsom said emphatically, “No, no, not happening, no, no, no, not at all.”

This is not to say Newsom would automatically be able to beat Harris in a hypothetical matchup. She often leads him in polling, and, as the face of the Biden administration’s high-profile campaigns to protect abortion access, voting rights, and strengthen gun control, Harris has plenty of opportunities to continue improving her image and record. 

Additionally, California’s struggles with crime and homelessness under Newsom have been well documented, and the Democratic base would be unlikely to quietly accept the optics of a privileged, white man catapulting himself to the top of the ticket over the first black, female Vice President.

Ultimately, while it is incredibly unlikely that Gavin Newsom would challenge Joe Biden in 2024, he has laid the groundwork to be Democrats’ top choice should Biden decide to withdraw for age or health reasons, although the longer Biden stays in the race, the weaker any Newsom campaign would be, if he could launch it at all. 

However, whether Newsom is eyeing a last-minute entrance into the 2024 race, or jockeying for the leading position ahead of 2028, it is clear that he has been the Democrat who is most active and preparing for any opening, should one be created.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

This is by no means the first time age has played a role in politics – Ronald Reagan was asked whether at age 73 he was too old to be reelected in 1984 – although rarely have politicians’ ages been front and center the way they are now.

Both frontrunners for each party’s presidential nomination – President Joe Biden (80 years old) and former President Donald Trump (77 years old) – would be the oldest president in our nation’s history – a record Biden already holds, while Trump would occupy both the 3rd and 1st spots on that list should he win next November.

The issue extends to Congress as well. Rep. Nancy Pelosi recently announced that at age 83, she is seeking another term in the House. And Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is 81 years of age, has now had two separate, very public, health scares in the span of a month, appearing to freeze for more than 30 seconds in front of reporters, yet he remains in his powerful Senate position. 

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is 90 years old, made headlines earlier this year when she was away from the Capitol for months due to health issues that forced her to miss more than 90 floor votes and held up a number of Biden’s nominees, including judicial appointments to Federal Courts.

Americans are overwhelmingly united in their concerns about the age of our political leaders, and want change. More than three-fourths of Americans (77%) say there should be a maximum age limit for elected officials, with a plurality (45%) putting that limit at 70 years old, according to a CBS News/YouGov survey. Support is bipartisan in a way that very few issues are in our current political environment: nearly 8-in-10 (79%) Republican voters and 76% of Democratic voters agreed with instituting age limits.

To be clear, while the median age in the House (58 years old) and the Senate (65 years old) makes the current Congress the oldest in history, the issue is most prominent in the race for the presidency.

Indeed, nearly 8-in-10 (77%) Americans – including 74% of Independents and 69% of Democrats – say Biden is too old to effectively serve another four year term as president, per a recent AP-NORC poll. When asked about Trump, a majority (51%) of adults said the same. 

While age is a bigger political vulnerability for Biden than for Trump, the data underscores that at least one-half of Americans feel that either of the two most likely presidential candidates is too old for nation’s highest office. To put these numbers in context, towards the end of his second term in 1987, just 48% of Americans said Reagan – then 11 and 8 years younger than Biden and Trump, respectively, would be at the end of their second terms – was too old to be president.

The administration has begun pushing back on concerns about Biden’s age, as Republicans continue to make it a centerpiece of their campaign, including telling voters that “A vote for Biden is a vote for (Vice President) Kamala Harris,” insinuating that Biden would be unable to finish a second term.

Responding to a CNN article which referenced concerns about Biden’s age and fitness, deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton tweeted, “Here on Earth, we saw the President start his day in India at the G20, end the day in Hanoi with a substantive & detailed 40-minute press conference at 9 p.m., and continue to answer questions — including from @cnn —as he departed. What will be enough?”

For his part, Biden has attempted to make light of voters’ concerns by suggesting that with age comes the required experience to be president. Earlier this year, he joked at the White House Correspondents Dinner, saying, “I believe in the First Amendment, not just because my good friend Jimmy Madison wrote it,” and, “You call me old; I call it being seasoned. You say I’m ancient; I say I’m wise.”

That said, these efforts are unlikely to address what is a growing political liability for the incumbent. The percentage of Americans who say Biden does not have the stamina to effectively serve as president has risen from 51% in November 2019 to 74% in CNN’s most recent tracking poll. 

Further, among Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents, Biden’s age was their top concern about Biden as a candidate in 2024 (49%), while his mental competence (7%) and his health (7%) were tied for second.

Even Biden’s admirers have concerns. David Ignatius recently wrote in the Washington Post, imploring Biden not to run due to his age, Harris’ unpopularity with voters, and asking Biden to trust the Democratic process to find a new leader for his party. Ignatius notes that Harris – who he correctly notes would become voters’ focus – is “less popular then Biden,” with just a 39.5% approval rating, per FiveThirtyEight.

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, a candidate for the GOP presidential nomination, has made instituting age limits a pillar of her campaign, along with calling for a generational change in our political leadership. Another GOP hopeful, Vivek Ramaswamy, consistently reminds voters of his age (38 years), implicitly drawing comparisons to Trump and Biden.

Yet, it is doubtful any meaningful legislation will be forthcoming, or that a generational change will happen anytime soon. Our political system tends to reward incumbents, allowing officials to hold office years after they should have stepped aside. 

And, older Americans tend to vote at higher rates than younger Americans, and are less likely to hold a candidate’s age against them. The data bears this out: While nearly 80% of Americans under the age of 40 say the ideal age range for a president is in their 40’s and 50’s, less than half of adults over 60 years old say the same, per Pew Research. 

Ultimately, while it remains to be seen how large of a role a candidate’s age plays in 2024, voters are clearly concerned about the age of our elected officials generally, and President Biden specifically. For an issue to have such widespread, bipartisan support is exceedingly rare, and officials in both parties must honestly begin answering the question of how old is too old for public office.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

To be clear, while the economy and inflation will surely be the top priorities when voters go to the polls next November, immigration will not be far behind. In fact, roughly one-quarter (24%) of registered voters say immigration is the most important issue facing the country, just slightly lower than those saying the economy (26%), and inflation (34%) – the top concern – according to a recent Harvard-Harris poll.

Moreover, immigration is one of Biden’s biggest vulnerabilities. Only 31% of Americans – including 27% of Independents – approve of how Biden has handled immigration. Comparatively, nearly 4-in-10 (37%) Americans approve of the president’s handling of the economy, per Gallup polling.

Indeed, Biden’s struggles on immigration come amid a growing humanitarian catastrophe at the southern border, upending months of steady decline in illegal border crossings. The Washington Post reported that August saw a record number of migrant families cross the U.S. – Mexico border, and the total number of arrests at the border has now increased by 30% for two straight months. 

To put those numbers in context, the Washington Post notes that in August, Border Patrol agents made 177,000 arrests at the Southern Border, up from 132,652 in July, and 99,539 in June.

Following the repeal of the Trump-era Title 42 rule last May, Biden held up the declining number of border apprehensions as proof of his policy’s success, but the drastic increase in arrests at the southern border make it clear that Biden must formulate a new approach, or immigration will remain a political open wound when Biden can ill afford one.

To that point, Biden finds himself locked in a neck and neck race with former President Donald Trump – who will likely win the Republican presidential nomination – with the incumbent leading by just 0.9%, per the RealClearPolitics average. Given Biden’s sagging poll numbers on immigration, Republicans – and whoever wins the party’s nomination for president – will almost certainly make the issue a centerpiece of the 2024 campaign.

In such a close race, Biden should prioritize winning over moderates and reinforcing his left flank, yet he is struggling on both fronts. 

Biden has found himself under fire from both the right and the left over his administration’s handling of the southern border. Republicans, predictably, have slammed Biden for what the political right calls his “open border” policy, however, the most notable attacks have come from within Biden’s own party. 

Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently took aim at the Biden White House, saying, “Immigration is arguably this administration’s weakest issue… it’s my belief that some of the hesitation around this has to do with a fear around just being seen as approving…or really just the Republican narratives that have surrounded immigration.”

Democratic leaders of deep-blue cities and states – such as New York City, Massachusetts, and Illinois – are also voicing their frustrations with the White House over a lack of federal assistance to deal with the influx of migrants. 

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey recently declared a state of emergency due to the surge in migrants, Illinois Sen. Dick Durban said he asked the Biden administration for more help to deal with the ongoing crisis in May but has yet to hear back.

Further, multiple outlets have noted the “total breakdown” in the relationship between Biden and NYC Mayor Eric Adams amid the federal government’s limited support for the Big Apple, which is dealing with a migrant crisis that Adams said “will destroy New York City.” 

Adams has also ripped into Biden, accusing the president of playing politics at the expense of New York, decrying the White House’s “conscious decision that it’s better politics to let New York suffer than to actually try to fix the problem.”

Quite simply, unless Biden drastically overhauls his approach to immigration, the administration will continue to find itself under fire from both sides of the aisle and will struggle to convince voters that he should be trusted with another four years in office.

That said, Biden will have to tread lightly, as progressives continue to lambast the White House for what they see as inhumane policies towards migrants. With virtually zero possibility that a divided Congress will pass substantial – albeit much needed – immigration reform, if Biden is to have any possibility of improving his disastrous polling numbers on immigration, and his chances in 2024, he must use the presidential bully pulpit to change voters’ perceptions.

Ultimately, this will require Biden to reiterate a commitment to strengthening border security, strictly enforcing current immigration laws, and imposing harsher penalties for repeated attempts to cross the border illegally, with continuing to push for expanded pathways to citizenship for DREAMers and reducing barriers for refugees who are credibly seeking political asylum.

To be sure, immigration has been an issue every modern president has struggled with, and Biden is no different, although it is a unique Achilles Heel for the president, who largely seems unable to decide whether he wants to placate the left-wing of his party, or if he wants to soothe concerns held by an overwhelming majority of Americans that his approach to securing our southern border is ineffective at best, or dangerous at worst.

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant.

If, for whatever reason, Biden is unable or unwilling to seek a second term, the front runners to be the next leader of the Democratic Party would likely come down to two Californians: Vice President Kamala Harris and current Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

While any vice president is the most obvious choice to succeed a president, Harris’ low polling numbers have caused many Democratic insiders to consider other high-profile politicians who could mount a last-minute campaign, like Newsom.

Indeed, new polling by my firm, Schoen Cooperman Research, found that Harris’ favorability – just 41% favorable – was even lower than Biden’s (46%), and recent NBC polling revealed that Harris was viewed more negatively than any other Vice President in the history of its poll. 

Recognizing the dilemma Democrats find themselves in with Harris, Newsom has quietly been trying to boost his national profile ahead of a possible last minute 2024 run. Newsom has spent the past year campaigning for Biden in red states, taking out ads attacking Republican Governors in Florida and Texas, and is preparing to debate Florida Governor and GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis this November in the swing state of Georgia. 

It is highly unlikely that Newsom would be spending this much time outside of California, and presenting himself as a strong, national leader of the Democratic Party if he did not see an opening in 2024.

That being said, new data suggests that Harris may not be in as weak a position as previously thought, and indicates that Newsom may be overconfident if he thinks that he would be able to successfully top the Democratic ticket should Biden withdraw.

In the NBC poll, which was conducted in June, just 32% of voters had a favorable view of Harris – compared to 41% in my firm’s latest poll – marking an impressive 9-point increase in just two short months.

Moreover, evidence of Harris’ improved standing among Democratic voters extends beyond her favorability ratings. In a horserace that asked who voters would like to see replace Biden on the ticket should he withdraw, nearly 4-in-10 (37%) Democratic primary voters support Harris, more than double Newsom’s support at 17%, per SCR polling.

Perhaps even more impressive for the Vice President is that by a 28-point margin (50% to 22%), Democratic primary voters see her, rather than Newsom, as having the best chance to win a general election were Biden to step aside as the nominee. Harris is also stronger than Newsom amongst crucial voter groups such as suburban women – 27% of whom say Harris has the best chance to win a general election compared to 12% for Newsom. 

Public polling reinforces Harris’ strength vis-à-vis Newsom. Weekly polling by FiveThirthyEight shows Harris consistently leading an expanded field of candidates, and notably besting Newsom by double digits overall, and among key demographic groups such as African-American and Hispanic voters.

Despite early stumbles, Harris has clearly benefited from being the administration’s point person on hot button issues such as abortion, civil rights, and gun control, all of which figure to be centerpieces of the 2024 general election. Or, as a Biden campaign aide put it in Politico, “The issues where she’s out in front happen to be the ones that people care about and that motivate our base.” 

However, before either Harris or Newsom faced general election voters, they would have to win the support of the Democratic base, and in that contest, the data clearly reveals that Harris is in a much stronger position than Newsom, and that the base believes Harris gives them the best chance to win if Biden were to decide to bow out of the 2024 race.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime political consultant and the founder of Schoen Cooperman Research.

Put another way, the first Republican debate was more notable for Trump’s absence – both physically and as the target of attacks – rather than anything that other candidates did or said, as no candidate did anything to stand out from the pack or weaken Trump’s commanding lead over the rest of the field. 

And, while it is too early for post-debate polling, one should expect little, if any, decrease in Trump’s lead.

Indeed, even when the candidates did discuss Trump – whose interview with former Fox host Tucker Carlson aired at the same time on X (formerly Twitter) – they mostly offered weak criticism, clearly afraid of alienating the party’s base and drawing Trump’s ire. When asked whether they would support Trump if he were to be convicted in any of his many legal cases, only Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson said they would not, drawing boos.

To be sure, going into the debate, expectations should have been tempered. Trump leads his GOP rivals by 41-points according to the RealClearPolitics average, and just one other candidate, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is even polling in double digits. 

That said, there were times when various candidates attempted to make the case for why they should be the party’s nominee, even if none were strong enough to remotely threaten Trump’s path to the nomination. In particular, DeSantis, Pence, Christie, and Haley stood out, as did Vivek Ramaswamy. 

One of the biggest questions going into the debate was whether DeSantis would capitalize on the chance to reverse his campaign, which has struggled amid sagging poll numbers, high-level staff turnovers, and donors abandoning him over his hard-right swing on positions such as abortion and gun rights in Florida. 

The Florida Governor mostly stayed on message, touting his landslide 2022 win and his record in the Sunshine State, however DeSantis noticeably shied away from taking on Trump by name, opting for general calls for the party to “look forward” before mostly fading into the background as other, more charismatic candidates made their case.

Former VP Mike Pence clearly tried to associate himself with the accomplishments of the Trump administration, while criticizing his former boss for his actions and behavior surrounding Jan. 6, 2021. Pence also showed some fire by demanding DeSantis “answer the question” when DeSantis initially tried dodging whether Pence had done the right thing in certifying the 2020 election. 

The former VP also channeled Reagan-esque Republican principles of America’s place as the “arsenal of democracy” vis-à-vis supporting Ukraine against Russia’s full-scale invasion, a position antagonistic to the MAGA crowd. 

However, Pence is arguably the furthest to the right of any candidate – save for Tim Scott – on abortion, and his calls for a national abortion ban are sure to alienate moderates and Republicans who have seen anti-abortion measures fail in multiple states.

Christie, who essentially has a better chance to be Attorney General in a second Biden administration than he does at securing the Republican presidential nomination, often seemed like the straight-talking attack dog he wants to be. He chastised Donald Trump’s conduct and attacked Ramaswamy over his inexperience and flip-flopping on Trump. 

Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made a well-rounded case for her candidacy, especially on foreign policy and abortion. She slammed Pence’s proposed national abortion ban, saying, “No Republican president can ban abortions any more than a Democrat president can ban all those state laws.” 

Further, Haley, who served as Ambassador to the UN under Trump also took Ramaswamy to task over his calls to end U.S. support for Ukraine, and lack of foreign policy experience, saying Ramaswamy has, “No foreign policy experience, and it shows,” drawing raucous applause from the crowd.

For his part, Ramaswamy, the 38-year old biotech entrepreneur clearly reveled in being the center of attention and the one taking the most shots from other candidates. He has been climbing in polls, but remains at just 7%, hampered by a low-national profile and no governing experience. However, his profile is likely to see some improvement, as he sparred with Christie, Haley, DeSantis, and seemingly everyone on stage.

Ramaswamy offered little in terms of substance, even seeming arrogant at times, but in a primary election dominated by personality over policies, he held his own, did not wilt under the lights of his first-ever debate, and succeeded in bolstering his image as the young, energetic, political outsider who deserves to be taken seriously. 

Moreover, Ramaswamy cemented himself as Trump’s most vocal defender among the other candidates, even challenging Mike Pence to, “Join me in making a commitment that on day one you would pardon Donald Trump” and declaring Trump “The best president of the 21st century.”

Ultimately, while many of the candidates on the stage in Milwaukee did their best to convince Republican voters that they should be the party’s nominee, it is incredibly unlikely that any of them did enough to seriously challenge Trump, who despite not being on the debate stage, walked away the winner, and remains poised to secure a third straight GOP presidential nomination.  

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

While the final rules and topics are up in the air, Fox News’ Sean Hannity is set to moderate the discussion this fall in the swing-state of Georgia. We can expect the event to be a no-holds-barred slugfest, as both governors are desperately seeking the national spotlight and vying to sell themselves to their respective parties as the ‘Plan B’ 2024 presidential candidate.

There is little chance that Democrats will nominate someone other than President Biden, just as Former President Trump appears poised to win the Republican primary in a landslide. However, should any one of the multiple indictments and investigations facing Trump disqualify or dissuade him from seeking the presidency, DeSantis’ high-profile fight with Newsom helps assure his position as Trump’s successor.

Likewise, Biden’s age, declining mental acuity, and stubbornly low job approval, along with Vice President Kamala Harris’ deep unpopularity, have set the stage for someone like Newsom to mount an eleventh-hour campaign.

Matt Rexroad, a Republican political consultant, aptly summarized the mutually beneficial scenario to Politico: “The best thing that could happen to Ron DeSantis is the liberal governor of California attacks him as he’s running for president. And the best thing for Gavin Newsom, who wants to be ‘plan B’ for the nomination this time or ‘plan A’ next time, would be to be attacked by the governor of Florida.”

DeSantis, despite his early promise following a historic win in the 2022 midterms, has struggled to step out of Trump’s shadow, causing high profile donors to defect and prompting a number of campaign staff shakeups. His efforts to win over MAGA voters – by advancing conservative abortion and guns laws in Florida and waging a public fight with Disney over LGBTQ issues – have been to no avail, and if anything, have dissuaded establishment and moderate Republicans.

It’s reasonable that the Florida governor sees a showdown with the highest-profile Democratic governor in the country as an opportunity to – once again – resurrect his flailing presidential campaign. After being considered an early frontrunner, DeSantis trails Trump by 38-points nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average, and is behind by 20-plus-points in the all-important early primary states.

For his part, Newsom, who has been quietly setting the stage to launch a last-minute presidential bid, if by chance President Biden steps aside due to his age, clearly sees the debate as a way to attract visibility and enhance his image with the Democratic base. The California governor has been traveling the country to campaign for President Biden in red states with well over a year until the presidential election – something he would not be doing if he did not see a potential opening in 2024.

Should President Biden bow out of the race, Democratic voters will be seeking a competent, strong-willed leader who can take the fight to the Republican Party. A nationally-televised debate with the one man that Democrats have more disdain for than Trump – DeSantis – is the ideal way for Newsom to prematurely throw his hat in the ring for 2024 if the opportunity presents, or at the very least, become an early favorite for 2028.

To be sure, DeSantis’ and Newsom’s not-so-subtle motives have been put on full-blast by the other: DeSantis called on Newsom to stop “pussyfooting around” his 2024 presidential ambitions, and has highlighted the tens of thousands of Californians who have moved to Florida as fleeing from the negative impacts of Newsom’s liberal agenda.

Newsom’s camp has not taken these attacks lying down. A spokesman for the governor recently added fuel to the fire after DeSantis tried to change the debate rules, saying: “Ron should be able to stand on his own two feet. It’s no wonder Trump is kicking his ass.”

Notwithstanding these personal attacks, the debate – at its best – has the potential to turn into a legitimate proxy debate between blue America versus red America at a time when the 2024 presidential race – between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump – is set to be more about personalities and scandals than the issues.

While neither DeSantis nor Newsom are unwilling to criticize the other personally, their disagreements have largely been about the issues. Newsom ran ads in Florida warning Floridians that “freedom is under attack in your state,” due to DeSantis’ conservative agenda. To counter, DeSantis ran ads in San Francisco that blamed Newsom’s “leftist policies” for the city’s homelessness and drug crises.

By bringing their years-long conflict to a head in prime-time, both men can personify their party’s vision for the future of the country – the loud, indignant, conservative culture warrior versus the liberal-lite leader of the state with the largest economy – at a time when neither is the actual face of that party.

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant. 

Robert Malley, President Biden’s Iran envoy, tasked with negotiating a new nuclear deal, has been stripped of his position, lost his security clearance, put on unpaid leave, and removed from the State Department’s website, allegedly for giving the Iranians access to classified information. 

Rumors surrounding Malley, who was also the lead Iran negotiator under former President Obama, began swirling in May when he failed to show up to a classified briefing related to the possibility of a new nuclear deal, but the State Department ducked the questions, simply saying Malley was on extended personal leave.

Then, last month the State Department confirmed that Malley was put on leave and his security clearance was suspended, but the Biden administration has stonewalled any further Congressional investigations into what exactly Malley did that necessitated such measures. 

Understandably, the administration’s flip-flopping over Malley has hurt it in Congress, with one Congressional staffer saying, “There’s no fixing a loss of trust of this magnitude. If you can’t believe what the administration tells lawmakers, then there’s no way to conduct business.”

Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul has said that Malley may have committed “treason” by transferring “intelligence and foreign secrets to our foreign adversary” and Republicans have been pressing the White House for answers, but to no avail. 

Of course, given the recent indictment of former President Donald Trump for potentially mishandling classified information, a reasonable person would assume that the Biden administration would take equally harsh action against Robert Malley, although that has not happened.

To that end, despite the White House and State Department refusing to be transparent amid what is increasingly looking like a coverup, we know that Malley lost his security clearance in April or May, although for some reason, remained working at the State Department until late June, and even gave interviews up until then.

While it remains unclear whether Rep. McCaul is correct that Malley committed treason, it is undeniable that the ordeal has complicated our ability to negotiate a new nuclear deal with Iran, and further undermines our relationship with Israel, which is already under pressure due to the country’s ongoing turbulence and Biden’s public spats with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Further, even the appearance of a top American official being in bed with the Iranians poses a considerable threat to America’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, who, despite recently signing a peace deal with Iran, has a deep historical and religious rivalry with Tehran. 

To be sure, Malley’s past does him no favors in mitigating the accusations against him. In 2008, he was forced to step down as an advisor to President Obama after it was revealed that Malley met with members of Hamas, a U.S. designated terrorist group which rules Gaza and has fought several wars with Israel. 

During the Trump presidency, Malley earned a reputation for being “far too willing to bend to Iranian wishes” according to Politico reporting, however, while it is one thing to hold philosophical views that are perhaps at odds with the official White House position, it is a vastly different matter to leak classified information and, in the words of Rep. McCaul, “commit treason.”

Inevitably, Malley’s case draws parallels with those of Aldrich Ames, Robert Hanssen, and to a lesser extent Jonathon Pollard. Ames and Hanssen, a CIA agent and FBI agent, respectively, used their positions to pass information to the Soviet Union (and then Russia), while Pollard, a Naval Intelligence Officer was convicted of passing information to Israel.

However, there is a glaring difference between those three cases and Malley’s. Ames, Hanssen, and Pollard all served decades in prison, with all three men receiving life sentences, although Pollard has since been released. 

In Pollard’s case, although many felt his sentence was too harsh, given that Israel is an American ally, the government made it clear that even passing information to an ally betrays America’s interests. 

Conversely, the Biden administration continues to shield Malley, blocking Congressional investigations into the matter, seemingly hoping to minimize the issue until it blows over. 

And, despite the seriousness of the accusations, mainstream media has been Biden’s ally in what is increasingly resembling a cover up, with scant reporting on what exactly Malley did.

Ultimately, if the allegations surrounding Malley are true, and given that he has been stripped of his security clearance and now an FBI investigation into the case, there is some credence to that idea, it raises immense questions that the Biden administration must answer. 

In that same vein, if President Biden is so intent on securing a new nuclear deal with Iran that he feels publicly acknowledging Malley’s actions would complicate any Congressional support, any new Iran deal would be permanently tainted.

While the bulk of the media attention in the days to come will be on Hunter Biden and what comes next for the First Son, a very serious issue, involving national security, and a potential betrayal of the interests of the United States is brewing, with the questions surrounding Robert Malley. 

How this case is resolved will say a lot about the Biden administration, its approach to national security, and the sanctity of classified intelligence, even more so given the ongoing indictment of former President Trump over his handling of classified documents.

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant. Saul Mangel works at Schoen Cooperman Research.

Recently, Newsom traveled to Idaho, where registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by more than four to one, and is reportedly planning to visit other politically similar states, like Montana and Utah. The ostensible purpose of these trips is to tout Biden’s accomplishments and shore up enthusiasm for the Democratic Party, but Newsom’s underlying goal is undoubtedly self-promotion.

Newsom’s feud with Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is further evidence of this. Back when DeSantis was considered the frontrunner for his party’s presidential nomination, Newsom smeared him in public speeches and attack ads over his far-right policies on abortion and transgender rights.

The governor’s intentions are easily discernible, despite his claims to the contrary. Newsom has insisted that he has no interest in seeking the presidency, but we shouldn’t assign much weight to these claims. Actions speak louder than words, and Newsom’s actions strongly suggest that he is trying to put himself on the radar of Democratic donors and elites if, for whatever reason, Biden does not seek a second term.

Further, as then-Senator Barack Obama demonstrated in 2008, a Shermanesque statement is not carved into stone. A politician who reneges on a past denial of having presidential ambitions can essentially say, “that was then, and this is now.” The “now” for Newsom would be if Biden drops out of the race.

The main challenge for Newsom is that, if Biden were to step aside because of his age, health, or standing in the polls, it would likely be late in the process, perhaps December of this year or even January of next year, one month before primary voting would begin. Why? Because Biden would want to wait as long as possible before becoming a lame duck president.

If that were the case, it would be particularly difficult – but not impossible – for Newsom to enter the primary contest against the likely nominee and would-be frontrunner, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democratic elites and donors are skittish over the prospect of Harris at the top of the ticket, and with good reason. Her average approval rating is even lower than Biden’s, as approximately 39% of voters approve of Harris, compared to 41% for Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregation of recent polls. She also has the lowest net favorability rating of any vice president in recent history, per recent NBC News polling.

Newsom well-understands the dilemma Democrats find themselves in. The incumbent president is vulnerable and his natural successor is a vice president with no discernable accomplishments from her time in office. With Trump likely to clinch the Republican nomination – unless his legal challenges preclude him from running – Democratic voters will be eager for an ‘electable’ nominee who is established nationally and has the infrastructure to mount a last-minute campaign. Enter Newsom.

Still, it would be a logistical nightmare – although not impossible – for Newsom to enter the race if Biden bows out around the holidays or thereafter. Almost certainly, Newsom would sidestep the first contest in South Carolina; the state was responsible for setting Biden on a path to the nomination in 2020, and by dint of the African American vote, Harris would be the assumed frontrunner. Rather, Newsom would hit the ground running on Super Tuesday, and would seek to run big and wide to overwhelm the current vice president.

Still, Newsom could struggle to break through in a national primary race against a Black female vice president, as the Democratic Party has become increasingly tethered to identity politics. That being said, with the threat of Trump returning to the White House, and if Newsom’s red state cross-country tour achieves its veiled goal, he may be able to win the backing of enough Democratic donors, elites, and electability-focused primary voters to overtake Harris.

How Newsom would fare in a general election – against Trump, or whomever the GOP nominee may be – is also an open question.

On one hand, Newsom is young, charismatic, a political force, and the governor of a large state who handily survived a recall election. He has also swung to the center to reject the far-left’s agenda in his state, including the reparations task force proposal, which would have cost taxpayers billions of dollars when the state is already on the precipice of budget deficit, per the CalMatters Organization.

That being said, California is still far to the left of the country, and Newsom’s tenure has been mixed. He has presided over a surge in homelessness and an affordability crisis, and 4-in-10 Californians have reportedly considered leaving the state, per recent PPIC polling.

Of course, this analysis is riddled with ‘ifs’ – Biden not running for reelection, Newsom being able to mount a primary campaign in short order, and so on. The only part that is certain is that, by dint of his recent actions and statements, Gavin Newsom wants to run for president in 2024.

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant.

Although a longshot for the nomination, Christie has been stronger than most pundits predicted. Due to his consistent schedule of television interviews and soundbites of him attacking Trump, he is receiving more national media attention than most other Trump challengers.

Arguably more important than the momentum and early success of Christie’s campaign is the blueprint he is laying out for other candidates. 

The Christie playbook has included calling out Trump’s election lies, highlighting his repeated electoral losses, pointing to the evidence in Trump’s indictments rather than blaming the Department of Justice, questioning why so many of his former staffers say he should not be president again, and framing him as an unserious candidate who wants to be President again solely for personal gain. He continues to make the rounds on CNN, NBC, ABC, and Fox News shows to attack Trump’s record and his grievance politics. 

This strategy marks a stark difference from the rest of the field, including second leading candidate and Trump’s main rival Ron DeSantis, who has mostly tiptoed around criticizing Trump even when given clear opportunities to do so. 

 Christie has generated enough buzz to draw attacks from Trump himself, despite Trump’s claim that he only targets the opponent who is currently in second place. While sitting at just low single digits in national polls, Christie clearly has the former president’s attention and knows it, as he joked in this tweet.

To be sure, the former Governor of New Jersey faces a steep climb to the nomination due to his poor ratings among the GOP base. CBS/YouGov’s June poll found 79% of Republican primary voters currently say they are not even considering him, and a Monmouth University poll found his favorable ratings 26 points underwater. 

Yet, Christie has the potential to create the biggest lasting impact in the Republican Party – even if he doesn’t win. Christie is taking on Donald Trump directly, and by doing so, may be the one who can pave the way for a post-Trump Republican Party.

Even if a candidate with a strong chance to win employs Christie’s playbook, Trump is still the prohibitive favorite to secure the GOP nomination and the indictments have only further consolidated the Republican base behind him.

Thus, Christie’s anti-Trump playbook likely offers more benefits to the Democratic Party in a 2024 Biden-Trump general election rematch. 

Due to President Biden’s low approval ratings and poor marks on the economy, the Democrats must run a negative campaign that leverages Christie’s lines of attack to present a choice between Biden and Trump. Christie’s emphasis on Trump’s selfishness and irresponsibility may not work with GOP primary voters but will likely be persuasive with independent and moderate general election voters who were crucial to Biden’s 2020 win.

Realistically, Chris Christie’s campaign will be a success if he can knock down Trump and DeSantis enough to give an alternative, more sensible candidate a chance at winning the nomination. But the more likely scenario is he will refine anti-Trump messaging that will prove crucial to the Democratic Party’s effort to give Trump one final defeat.

What is the payoff for Chris Christie, a senior position in the next Biden administration or a high-level ambassadorship?

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant. 

While Trump’s approach to politics often appears more incoherent than intelligible, there in fact is a calculated strategy steering his primary campaign. It involves turning his intensifying legal troubles into martyrdom at the hands of the left-wing political establishment, while at the same time relentlessly attacking his top opponent, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. 

Though this strategy is largely devoid of actual policy, it has been effective thus far: Trump has consolidated the support of the majority of Republican primary voters nationally, doubling his lead over DeSantis, per RealClearPolitics’ average of primary polls. Bearing in mind that national data is best viewed as a general gauge, the latest polls in the first four primary states also find Trump with at least a 20-point lead.

Throughout the campaign, Trump will continue positioning himself as a victim of political persecution and making the case that President Biden and Hunter Biden – both of whom are also under federal investigation – are the figures who deserve more serious scrutiny. Regardless of the truth or falsity of this narrative, it allows Trump to maintain a solid constituency within the Republican Party that will continue supporting him, especially in light of the potentially multiple additional indictments he is likely to face.

Indeed, Trump’s martyrdom narrative will only become more entrenched if he is indicted in the special counsel’s probe, either for mishandling classified documents or for attempting to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. This is especially likely if the concurrent federal probes into President Biden’s potential mishandling of classified documents and Hunter Biden’s alleged influence peddling – among other investigations into the First Son – fail to result in charges.

In a recent letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, which Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, Trump’s lawyers sought to reinforce the narrative that their client is suffering an unfair application of justice, versus the Bidens, who are being given a free pass.

To be sure, Trump’s lawyers well-know that the Attorney General must decline the meeting they demanded, as Garland took the appropriate step of recusing himself from the special counsel’s investigation into Trump to avoid the appearance of political interference, as he did with the probe into President Biden. But this fact is irrelevant to Trump and his team, whose primary focus is uniting Republicans around Trump by positioning him as a political warrior facing unjust persecution.

Throughout his political career, Trump has proven himself a virtuoso at playing both the winner and the victim, and this is no exception. As Rich Lowry recently wrote for POLITICO, this role has allowed Trump to construct “an impenetrable political forcefield” with Republican voters – each success he experiences proves that he is on top, while any setback validates his victimhood and shows that his political enemies are threatened by his strength.

This positioning, taken together with Trump’s habit of persistently attacking his political opponents, has made him into an almost unbeatable primary opponent, as DeSantis is quickly discovering.

As Republican voters have embraced Trump’s self-contrived image as a political martyr, DeSantis, who was once viewed as the most viable non-Trump candidate, has simultaneously declined in the polls. In turn, DeSantis’ deterioration has motivated other Republicans to jump in the race – a scenario that inherently benefits the former president, as it splits the non-Trump vote.

Even though DeSantis only officially declared his candidacy recently, Trump has been going after him for months with anything he feels he can make stick – ranging from DeSantis’ support for cuts to broadly popular entitlement programs, to accusing him of “grooming” high school girls, to calling him a “RINO globalist” and “Ron DeSanctimonious.”

For his part, DeSantis has only recently begun hitting back after months of tiptoeing around the former president’s barrages. The Florida Governor recently suggested that Trump was “moving to the left,” referring to his recent flip-flopping on issues such as immigration and spending, and has sought to implicitly contrast his record advancing conservative reforms with the chaos Trump brings. 

“At the end of the day, leadership is not about entertainment…It is about results, and in Florida, we didn’t lead with merely words…we have produced a record of accomplishment that we would put up against anybody in this country,” DeSantis said at a recent campaign stop in Iowa. 

If history is any guide, DeSantis’ veiled shots will only fire-up Trump to double-down on insulting his former protégé. 

To be sure, Trump’s 2024 playbook – insulting his challengers into submission and positioning himself as a political martyr and an aggrieved victim of the political left – is nothing new. And while it’s hard to say whether this strategy will continue to pay off as the campaign begins in earnest, it appears increasingly likely that Donald Trump will bludgeon his way to the top of the GOP ticket, once again.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

For months, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and his GOP allies have demanded spending cuts in exchange for voting to raise the federal debt ceiling. Biden and congressional Democrats have refused to acquiesce, citing the bipartisan tradition of lifting the country’s borrowing limit without preconditions.

To be sure, Biden’s argument prevails in a vacuum: both parties accrue debt, and thus are equally responsible for ensuring the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. It is regrettable — and dangerous — that House Republicans are using the debt ceiling as a political football, and there is merit to Biden’s claim that McCarthy is “holding the economy hostage.”

That being said, with just days until default, it is simply not feasible for Biden — whose approval rating hit a record-low just after he announced his reelection campaign — to continue digging his heels in. Not only is striking a deal to reduce spending good politics, as most voters actually support many of the House GOP’s proposals; it also makes practical sense, given how high both inflation and interest rates currently are, and the fact that the U.S. is over $31 trillion in debt.

This showdown comes at a time when half (48%) of the country has “almost no confidence” in Biden on the economy, per a Gallup survey, and the majority (60%) also believe the federal government spends too much money, according to AP-NORC polling.

Accordingly, the electorate supports several of the budget cuts Republicans have proposed, as well as McCarthy’s plan to roll these policies into one bill in exchange for raising the debt limit, per the April 2023 Harvard CAPS Harris poll. In addition, nearly two-thirds (64%) of registered voters believe Republicans should hold out until Democrats agree to spending restraints.

Evidently, Biden recognizes that he doesn’t have the upper hand in this fight. This week, he designated top aides to negotiate with their GOP counterparts while he attends the G-7 Summit in Japan, which he will return from prematurely to continue talks. This is a step in the right direction, though there is still much to be done before the June 1 deadline.

Biden is no stranger to debt ceiling deal making.

In 2011, then-Vice President Biden played an active role in negotiating $2.4 trillion in spending cuts with Tea Party House Republicans in exchange for raising the country’s borrowing limit. In 1995, then-Senator Biden advocated for a deal that would lift the debt ceiling and restrain federal spending, while still protecting vital social programs. Biden will need to strike a similar compromise in the next two weeks, despite facing pressure from the progressive left to reject all of the House GOP’s proposals.

Biden has already indicated an openness toward rescinding billions of dollars in unspent pandemic relief funds, which most registered voters (65%) support, per the aforementioned Harvard CAPS Harris poll. Additional GOP proposals that also have majority support are strengthening certain work requirements for recipients of some federal assistance programs (62%) and freezing U.S. government spending at last year’s level (61%).

Most importantly, Biden must come out in support of capping federal spending — which is the big-ticket item in the House GOP proposal — and back away from his initial plan to increase discretionary spending by nearly 10% in 2024.

Work requirements will likely prove to be the most difficult piece of the deal for Biden to hammer out, which McCarthy has indicated are a ‘must’ for any deal, though progressives have deemed “entirely unreasonable.” On Wednesday, Biden took the smart approach by leaving the door open to expanding requirements, with the exception of those programs related to health care, i.e., Medicaid.

Beyond the politics of the debt ceiling debate, it is self-evident that a default would be completely catastrophic for the U.S. and world economy. If a deal isn’t reached in time, the consequences could include a worldwide recession, frozen credit markets, tanking stock markets, and massive layoffs, according to an October 2021 report from the White House Council of Economic Advisors.

The current stalemate is already producing real economic consequences: according to Bloomberg, the cost of insuring against a U.S. default is now higher than in emerging markets, such as Brazil and Mexico.

Clearly, there are no winners in this debt ceiling deadlock — not Democrats, not Republicans and certainly not Americans. But if a deal isn’t reached in time, even if McCarthy and his GOP allies are to blame, President Biden will be the biggest loser.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

In addition to halting business on the committee – which was evenly split between Democratic and Republican Senators in her absence – for three months, Feinstein’s leave regrettably provoked a predictable political response from both sides: Republicans doubled-down on partisan obstructionism, while a divided Democratic Party played identity politics.

To be sure, Feinstein has put Senate Democrats in an awkward position for months by insisting that she would be returning but not providing any indication as to when.

She missed 91 votes during her prolonged absence , according to an NBC news tally, Politico reporting, as well as the Senator’s website, which enumerates her voting history. Feinstein’s absence held up vital Senate business, including the confirmations of federal judges and Biden’s nominee for Labor Secretary, Julie Su. Feinstein’s absence also undermined efforts by Senate Democrats to block Republican legislation rolling back new air pollution standards, which the GOP was able to pass on a 50-49 vote – especially with Senator John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania, also out for medical reasons until very recently.

Some Democratic lawmakers publicly urged Feinstein to resign so that the Senate could continue with its business, which would then have tasked California Gov. Gavin Newsom with appointing her replacement until the 2024 election. However, many prominent Democrats decried these calls as sexist, echoing a familiar talking point for a party that has become increasingly defined by identity politics.

“I’ve never seen them go after a man who was sick in the Senate in that way,” Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last month. Other female Democratic Senators like Kristen Gillibrand, D-New York, and Debbie Stabenow, D-Minnesota, also jumped on the bandwagon, saying Feinstein was being treated “unfairly” and being held to an “unacceptable” and “unprecedented” standard.

This is despite the fact that several elderly male senators from past decades – Strom Thurmond, Carter Glass, and Karl Mundt – all received similar treatment when medical issues caused their absence. As the New York Times Editorial Board put it: “In all of those cases, as with Ms. Feinstein, the senators ignored concerns about their capacity and pleas from their colleagues as long as they could.”

Democrats who sounded this ‘sexism’ alarm have only inflamed what was already an uncomfortable situation, and appeared both irresponsible and evasive. Perhaps they were worried that pressuring Feinstein to resign would indirectly place a spotlight on Biden’s age in an election year – but in reality, the spotlight was already there, and Democrats like Pelosi only made it shine brighter by refusing to acknowledge the reality of Feinstein’s case.

Unflattering reports about the 89-year-old senator’s cognitive decline have been swirling for more than a year, even before her medical absence – which until just last week, had no end-date in sight.

Of course, the decision to resign is ultimately Feinstein’s and Feinstein’s alone – and regrettably, the veteran senator seems more inclined to tarnish her legacy than resign prematurely.

It’s reminiscent of the decision made by the late Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, when President Obama quietly urged her to step down so he could fill her seat with a younger liberal Justice, given Ginsberg’s old age and deteriorating health. As Democrats know all too well, Ginsberg declined to do so, and died just one month before Donald Trump was defeated in the 2020 election. Trump then appointed conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett – Ginsberg’s ideological antithesis – to fill her seat on the bench, solidifying a conservative majority on the high court for decades to come.

Liberal observers and Democratic officials decried Barrett’s swift confirmation, which occurred within weeks of the 2020 election, as hypocritical and brazenly partisan. This was an entirely fair assessment, in light of what the Republican-controlled Senate did just years earlier by blocking President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, from seeing a floor vote for an entire year under the guise that the vacancy occurred during a presidential election year.

Indeed, Republicans have brazenly politicized the judicial confirmation process for years: in 2016 with Garland, 2020 with Barrett, and now in 2023 with Feinstein.

In April, at Feinstein’s request, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-New York, asked to advance a resolution replacing her on the Judiciary Committee until she could return. Instead of doing the decent thing and honoring Feinstein’s wishes, the top Republican on the panel, Senator Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, along with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, blocked the effort.

Despite some Republicans’ claims to the contrary, this was nothing more than a transparent move designed to stonewall Biden’s judicial nominees and stall proceedings on a number of other crucial matters, including a new ethics reform bill for Supreme Court Justices.

Feinstein’s return ostensibly relieves Senate Democrats of a months-long headache, allowing the party to confirm Biden’s outstanding judicial and cabinet appointments, and to advance key pieces of legislation, the most vital of which will be clearing a debt limit increase before next month.

While Democrats may be out of the woods for a moment, both parties should feel sorrow after the posturing we’ve witnessed in Feinstein’s absence, which is emblematic of how uncivil our politics have become.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Until now, Biden had been successful at laying the blame for a lack of progress on the debt ceiling on House Republicans, who had been unable to pass a bill to serve as a starting point in negotiations, and who have tied raising the debt ceiling to a wish list of partisan demands that are unlikely to advance.

Put simply, as the U.S. economy teeters on the brink of a recession amid persistent inflation, multiple bank failures, and record levels of economic pessimism, President Biden and Congressional Republicans have been locked in a dangerous game of political chicken, betting that voters would blame the other side for the economic devastation that a default would cause.

However, two recent developments should be a wakeup call to the president that he must come to the table and send a message to voters that the economy takes precedence over politics.

First, Republicans can now credibly tell voters that they did their part by sending the White House a proposal, so if the country defaults, it will be Biden’s fault for refusing to negotiate.

This is not to argue that Biden should give Republicans everything they proposed – McCarthy’s bill is certainly flawed – but to say that all efforts should be made to avoid a default, even if neither side walks away with everything they want.

This is familiar ground for Biden. During debt ceiling negotiations in 1995, then-Senator Biden pushed for restraining federal spending as part of a deal to raise the debt ceiling. In a 1995 column for the New York Times, Sen. Biden pushed for a tradeoff that would lift the debt ceiling, and protect vital social programs, while prioritizing a reduction in government spending – identical to the middle-of-the-road approach needed today.

It must also be said that, despite Biden’s insistence on unconditional negotiations, Republicans are equally to blame for weaponizing the budget and Biden’s low approval ratings on the economy to score political points. Raising the debt ceiling has historically been a procedural vote to allow the country to pay for past spending, and the full faith and credit of the U.S. government should never be used as political leverage.

Ultimately, both sides will have to find compromise, and in the absence of any other legislation, the McCarthy-backed bill must serve as a basis for a deal which stops the United States of America from falling off a fiscal cliff.

To that end, Democratic Senator Joe Manchin expressed hope that the passage of a bill would finally spur good-faith negotiations, saying, “I applaud Speaker McCarthy for putting forward a proposal that would prevent default and rein in spending…While I do not agree with everything proposed, the fact of the matter is that it is the only bill actually moving through Congress that would prevent default.”

Positively, there are signs that the president may agree with Sen. Manchin’s assessment. Last Monday, Biden invited the top four Congressional leaders – Sens. Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell, Speaker McCarthy and Rep. Hakeem Jefferies – to the White House for discussions on May 9.

At the same time, the administration’s messaging on the meeting is less than hopeful, as it does not appear that the president will substantially change his approach, despite having lost his leverage following the House passing a bill.

Addressing the upcoming meeting and GOP demands linking the debt ceiling with future spending, a senior administration official told reporters, “If you need to hear again that it’s your responsibility to address the debt ceiling without conditions and a ransom, then he can say that again.”

Second, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen announced that the U.S. could hit its borrowing limit much earlier than expected, predicting an “X-date” of June 1. According to Sec. Yellen, after that date, the U.S. government “will be unable to continue to satisfy all of the government’s obligations.”

Making matters worse, there are just seven days between May 1 and June 1 where Biden, the Senate and the House are in session together, leaving very little time to forge compromise on a deal with immense ramifications.

Biden may believe that he benefits politically by standing his ground, and that voters will support his fight against the cuts that Republicans are proposing, but that belief is simply out of the mainstream.

In fact, nearly three-quarters (74%) of likely voters feel that Biden should negotiate with Republicans to find common ground on the debt ceiling, including modest reductions in federal spending, per Echelon Insights polling.

Fair or not, as President, Biden will receive an outsized share of the blame for any negative shocks to the American economy caused by a failure to reach a deal.

Throughout his presidency, Biden has struggled to soothe Americans’ concerns over the state of the economy, an issue which will certainly be at the top of voters’ minds in 2024. Having presided over an era of record-high inflation, and three of the top five largest bank failures in U.S. history, President Biden should take advantage of this opportunity to show voters that he can put politics to the side when the country needs common sense leadership.

In 2011 – the last time the country was this close to default – then-Vice President Biden skillfully oversaw the negotiations with Senate Republicans that staved off economic disaster. Twelve years later, it is imperative that Biden commits himself to finding a solution with House Republicans. Even if it is not perfect, the nation will be better off for it.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant. Saul Mangel is a strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research.

Justice Thomas has come under fire for neglecting to report that he and his wife vacationed on Crow’s yacht and flew on Crow’s private plane to a resort in upstate New York and a private club in Northern California also owned by Crow. Justice Thomas also failed to disclose that Crow, who funds conservative groups like the Federalist Society and Club for Growth, bought property from him, including the house where Thomas’ mother currently lives.

In response to these revelations, Senate Democrats want to investigate Justice Thomas and compel him to appear at a congressional hearing. While this extraordinary step might very well be appropriate and necessary, it would ultimately drag our nation’s “independent” judiciary further into the political fray.

Our Founding Fathers intended for the Supreme Court to be insulated from politics, as the job of the judiciary is to impartially interpret the laws written and enforced by partisan elected officials. Yet, the Supreme Court has come to be viewed as a partisan institution, and public trust in the high court is at an all-time-low. A recent Gallup poll found that just 25% of Americans have confidence in the Supreme Court, which marks an 11-point decline in the past year alone.

Part of the reason confidence in the court has plummeted is because of the dramatic increase in political polarization over the last decade, which has rendered Congress unwilling and unable to enact compromise legislation on important issues. This has empowered unelected judges to essentially make sweeping changes to laws that affect millions of Americans’ lives.

In just one term, the current Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority delivered major wins for the right’s agenda and dramatically altered the course of American law in a way that largely went against the will of the public and – in the case of the Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which ended the legal right to abortion – upended decades of precedent.

Regrettably, the Supreme Court’s upcoming decisions this term are almost certain to continue this troubling trend. The high court is set to hear arguments in cases involving the legality of the most commonly-used abortion pill, gerrymandering, and the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions.

To be sure, both parties are also guilty of using the Supreme Court as a political weapon, which has damaged the institution’s integrity. Republicans outwardly manipulated the confirmation process to solidify a conservative majority on the Supreme Court during the previous two presidential administrations, and many Democrats have advocated for passing a law during Joe Biden’s presidency that would expand the size of the Supreme Court, i.e., “court packing,” in order to shift its ideological balance in their favor.

In many ways, both parties are responsible for the hyper-partisan situation the Supreme Court now finds itself in. In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid changed the filibuster rules so that they would not apply to the federal judiciary aside from Supreme Court justice confirmations. Republicans were deeply offended by this partisan move, with Sen. Susan Collins saying Democrats would “rue the day they broke the rules to change the rules.”

Just a few years later, Sen. Collins’ words would prove prophetic, when Republicans effectively froze former President Obama’s selection of now-Attorney General Merrick Garland from being confirmed to the high court, hastening enhanced partisanship in the selection process for the country’s most important court.

Also damaging to the integrity of the entire judicial branch is the growing trend of judge shopping at the District Court level. The judicial system is not built for plaintiffs to be able to handpick their judge, and yet, as we just witnessed with the U.S. District of Northern Texas, the plaintiffs set up an office in Amarillo solely to hand-pick an outwardly anti-abortion judge who they knew would rule in their favor.

The judiciary should not be mired in such political controversy, and in fact, has not been for much of America’s history. Even as recently as the 2000s, the court was not nearly as politicized, and qualified judges were usually confirmed almost unanimously, regardless of whether they were liberal or conservative.

Liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was confirmed by a 96-3 vote in 1993, and conservative Chief Justice John Roberts was confirmed by a 78-22 vote in 2005. Now, every jurist is confirmed essentially on party lines with very few crossover votes.

While suggestions such as court packing are counterproductive, there are actions Congress can take to restore public confidence in the Supreme Court and the courts generally.

The first step should be imposing the same formal code of ethics upon Supreme Court justices that the rest of the federal judiciary is subject to, which 69% of Americans support, per a YouGov poll taken after the Justice Thomas scandal broke. Additional steps could be term limiting federal judges and strictly enforcing guidelines for required recusals of judges in certain cases where conflicts are present.

Chief Justice John Roberts could also take initiative to hold his Court accountable by enforcing a self-ordered strict code of ethics on the sitting justices.

Ultimately, the politicization of the American judiciary has the country on the verge of a constitutional crisis. Congress and Chief Justice Roberts must act immediately in order to enforce accountability and restore integrity.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Six months later, the economic crisis that we – along with many others – feared is unfolding before our eyes, and has taken on a new dimension.

Last week, in the span of 72 hours, two banks – Silicon Valley Bank, the 16th largest bank in the country, and the New York-based Signature Bank – collapsed, forcing the federal government to intervene in order to avert a breakdown in the global financial system.

The consequences of these failures will take months to actualize, but in all likelihood, other banks will rein in lending, triggering a credit crunch and greater volatility in the stock market. Taken together with the continued fallout from the quickest pace of interest rate hikes since the 1980’s, the most likely result will be a recession.

To be sure, Fed Chair Jerome Powell had no choice but to raise interest rates to tame historically high inflation. However, doing so too rapidly – and arguably too late – always carried the risk of breaking something in the U.S. economy.

Ultimately, the political fallout from all of this for President Joe Biden – whose approval ratings on managing the economy and handling inflation are already deeply underwater – could be considerable, as the crisis is on track to peak just as he is gearing up to run for reelection.

Even before last week, Americans had little confidence in the stability of the economy. In February, 50% of Americans said they were worse off financially today compared to one year ago, per recent Gallup polling, the worst assessment since the Great Recession era in 2008 and 2009.

Economist/YouGov polling conducted just after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and during that of Signature Bank underscores the political troubles that lie ahead for Biden. By a 3-to-1 margin, Americans say the economy is getting worse (49%) rather than better (17%). Further, three-quarters of the public (73%) believes either that the U.S. economy is already in a recession, or that a recession is likely within the next year.

Americans’ fears are well grounded. Just 15 years ago during the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), seemingly-steady banks collapsed, the country plunged into a recession, and millions of Americans lost their jobs. It then took nearly six years for employment to reach pre-crisis levels.

This is not to say that we are doomed to relive the 2007-2009 crisis. In fact, the causes of the two recent bank failures are wholly different from those during the GFC. Back then, banks were crippled by bad loans and the housing bubble bursting. At the root of today’s problem is poor risk management by the banks and a Fed that is behaving aggressively to stem inflation.

That said, this distinction is irrelevant to a panic-stricken public worried that history could be repeating itself.

To his credit, Biden has taken action to reinforce to Americans that the U.S. banking system remains safe and secure. The FDIC took the extraordinary measure of backstopping all deposits at the two troubled banks, rather than adhering to the traditional policy of only insuring deposits up to $250,000.

There has been some backlash to this decision on both sides of the aisle – including from the far-right, which is averse to the idea of government bailouts, and from the far-left, which is invariably suspicious of collusion between big banks and the federal government. However, for every American with their money in a bank account, the only concern is the stability of the nation’s banking system.

Biden, who was clearly wary that this move would be interpreted as another “bank bailout” akin to 2008, has stressed a key point of clarification that “no losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” but rather “from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.”

While Biden may have conveyed to Americans that they won’t be saddled with the responsibility of bailing out billions in uninsured deposits, his political challenges are far from over.

Having presided over a period of historic inflation, and now over the 2nd and 3rd largest bank collapses in U.S. history, any effort Biden makes to campaign on strong economic indicators like historically low unemployment will be perceived as disingenuous – especially as the U.S. moves closer to a recession.

It is worth nothing that raising the debt ceiling is a procedural way for the U.S. to pay its bills, including trillions in past spending that was authorized under former President Trump, and using the issue as a political bargaining chip is dangerous. Despite the devastation a default would cause to the world economy, far-right House Republicans are weaponizing the issue to capitalize on Biden’s poor job ratings.

Even so, a majority (53%) of Independents would blame both parties should the U.S. be unable to pay its debt. This underscores the political risks to President Biden if a deal is not reached, even if the other side is at fault.

Joe Biden was elected Vice President during the GFC, a time when the economy itself – and Americans’ confidence in it – had collapsed. 15 years later, President Biden finds himself in the White House during the most challenging time for the U.S. economy since the 2008 crisis, and his presidency will be defined by how he handles it.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant. Saul Mangel is a strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research. 

Six decades after ideological differences between the world’s communist powers resulted in the Sino-Soviet split, China and Russia have reunited, driven by their shared quest for a global “redistribution of power” and desire to dismantle the U.S.-led world order.

This “alliance of autocracies,” as Steven Lee Myers aptly deemed it, is built on a mutual belief that the West’s supremacy has declined, and that as great powers, China and Russia are entitled to rule their own spheres of influence and to use brute force to suppress human rights, self-determination and democracy.

This guiding principle puts all free nations around the world at risk, and necessitates that the United States — as the leader of global democracies — articulates a coherent foreign policy strategy for navigating the inherent dangers of the deepening relationship between the two revisionist powers.

This is especially critical in light of recent reports from American intelligence agencies that China may supply Russia with weapons to aid its war against Ukraine, which would be an alarming escalation and a break from China’s ostensibly “neutral” stance on the war.

To be clear, it is incumbent on the White House to communicate to Beijing that supplying lethal aid to Russia would be met with economic consequences and cause irreparable damage to China’s relationship with the West. We must also make clear that China stands to benefit more from inclusion in the U.S.-led world, not standing alone with Russia, and should keep diplomatic lines open in order to avoid unintended conflict.

While Russia desperately needs China to stabilize its economy amid unprecedented sanctions, President Xi’s calculus is that Russia is useful ballast in his larger battle with the U.S. and our allies. Further, if Putin is defeated in Ukraine, China will likely lose access to cheap Russian energy, and will have a mercurial, humiliated and nuclear-armed dictator on its northern border.

Some had hoped that the two country’s divergent geopolitical objectives, and the combined economic and political impacts from Russia’s protracted war would entice Chinese President Xi Jinping to reconsider whether the “no limits” friendship between the two nations actually did have its limit.

Instead, the anti-democratic alliance between the two countries — which is resentful of American hegemony and committed to tearing down the liberal world order that has prevailed for more than eight decades — is growing stronger.

I have previously written about the forces that have driven the burgeoning alliance between China and Russia, including in “The Russia-China Axis: The New Cold War and America’s Crisis” as well as “The End of Democracy? Russia and China on the Rise, America in Retreat.”

I’ve argued that the passive foreign policy of former President Obama and the isolationist tendencies of former President Trump created a leadership vacuum on the world stage and damaged essential relationships with our allies in Asia, Europe and the Middle East.

Moreover, the Biden administration oversaw a tumultuous withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan that severely undermined the U.S.’s credibility in the eyes of many countries, and signaled to autocrats like Putin and Xi that America was weak.

While President Biden has thus far led an impressively strong and united NATO response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there are signs that public support for the war is fading, as just 20% of Americans now say the U.S. is not doing enough to support Ukraine, less than half of the share of Americans who said that one year ago (42%), per recent polling.

With a reelection campaign on the horizon, and opposition to the war growing on the political right, Biden could soon lack both the political capital and the actual power to ensure that the U.S. sustains its current level of support for Ukraine.

In turn, Putin is betting that Western fatigue will hand him the victory his mauled army has so far been unable to achieve; meanwhile, Xi is sizing up America’s will to defend free and sovereign nations, should he decide to invade Taiwan.

Both must be proven wrong.

For the West to prevail, the United States must lead the fight with a strategy suited to the complex challenges we face.

Immediately, the Biden administration can send a strong message to Beijing and Moscow by ramping up the number of U.S. soldiers we have stationed in Asia, as a deterrent to Chinese designs on Taiwan.

Additionally, in light of Putin’s decision to pull out of the bilateral “New START” treaty — intended to limit the nuclear weapons both nations could deploy — the U.S. should restart and enhance our nuclear weapons development program.

In many ways, the strategic approach we need closely resembles the one former President Ronald Reagan employed to grind down the Soviet Union. We must improve engagement with our allies, demonstrate America’s commitment to defending democracy and use the full economic and military potential of the combined Western world in order to uphold the values we hold so dear.

Make no mistake, this goes far beyond the current conflict in Ukraine. An alliance between two of the world’s most powerful despots — leading an “axis of evil” with Iran and North Korea — poses a unique and immense threat to the democratic values we cherish.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

The Biden Administration’s misguided efforts to renegotiate the Iran Nuclear Deal – with the hope that the offer of sanctions relief would entice the regime to change its behavior – have been to no avail. Mounting evidence suggests that Iran has continued its pursuit of nuclear weapons and has supplied Russia with thousands of drones to aid the Kremlin’s assault on Ukraine.

The White House’s dashed hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough with Iran have ostensibly prompted a much-needed reorientation of their approach to Tehran. At the end of January, the U.S. and Israel held their largest ever joint military drills, clearly designed to send a message to Iran, and hopefully a harbinger of what’s to come for U.S.-Israel cooperation in the region.

Shortly after the drills, and during visits to Israel by C.I.A. Director William Burns and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israel conducted four drone and missile strikes against Iran and Iranian proxies in Syria.

Notably, Israel’s first strike targeted a military complex in Isfahan, Iran, which produces missiles and drones, the same drones Iran is supplying to Russia. Some have interpreted this as a favor to the U.S., which has asked Israel to provide more support for Ukraine.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seemed to confirm this supposition, telling French President Emmanuel Macron that Israeli actions against Iran “also harm Iran’s capabilities” to assist Russia.

It is ultimately self-evident that Israel – as the only true democracy in the Middle East, whose military has carried out hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets over the past decade – is a major strategic asset to the U.S., and is vital to America’s efforts to counter and contain the Iranian regime.

This is especially clear when considering the challenges facing President Biden, who is contending with a number of other foreign policy challenges vis-à-vis Russia and China, while also leading a skeptical public that is fatigued with Middle East wars.

Daniel Shapiro, the former U.S. Ambassador to Israel under President Obama, made a similar argument recently, noting that the situation with Iran “calls for a revised U.S. strategy, coordinated to the maximum degree possible with Israel and other regional partners.”

The regional partners that Shapiro refers to – Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and other moderate Arab nations – have a key role to play as well, and their diplomatic capacity should be called upon to buttress Israel’s diplomatic and military capabilities.

Holding large-scale joint military drills like the one that just concluded is a good start. But beyond that, the administration and the Pentagon must also ensure that Israel is allowed to purchase any systems that would be needed to wage an attack on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Further, as Shapiro alluded to, the Biden Administration must also communicate to Tehran that Washington will not oppose, and could actually support, further Israeli military action against Iran or its proxies in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza.

Moreover, as recent reports suggest that Iran is building plants within Russia to enable the Kremlin to produce thousands of drones domestically, time is of the essence in confronting the Iranian regime.

To be clear, I am not advocating for an imminent strike on Iran. But without a credible threat, Tehran will continue its pursuit of nuclear weapons, endangering the entire globe.

While these strategic considerations take precedent for the president, whose job it is to protect the American people, Biden could face political blowback from within his own party as he shifts the U.S.’s approach to Israel vis-à-vis Iran.

Throughout his decades in Washington, Biden has earned a reputation as a pro-Israel Democrat. As Vice President, he was often the preferred interlocutor for Israeli officials, due to former President Obama’s prioritization of achieving détente with Iran.

While support for Israel was once a bipartisan cause, the growing power of the political left has coincided with a reduction in support for the Jewish State within the Democratic Party. Prominent progressives like Senator Bernie Sanders have repeatedly called for cutting critical military aid, while others like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have erroneously labeled Israel an “apartheid state.”

Indeed, Biden’s pro-Israel views now put him in the minority among Democrats. The majority of (53%) of Democratic voters – including 62% of self-described “liberals” – have an unfavorable opinion of Israel, per Pew Research.

Israel’s newly elected government, which has, with some accuracy, been described as the most right-wing government in the country’s history, only further complicates the political landscape for Biden.

The Biden Administration has made it clear that they are uncomfortable with some Ministers in Netanyahu’s new cabinet, specifically Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, due to their right-wing views on Palestinians, LGBTQ+ issues, and their positions on unilaterally annexing parts of the West Bank.

Regardless of the animosity the administration may feel toward these far-right Israeli Ministers and the potential political blowback Biden could face from the left, there is a clear need for the U.S. to coordinate closely with Israel by providing diplomatic and military credibility to Jerusalem’s actions against Tehran. This is especially critical in light of the additional severe foreign policy challenges – i.e., Russia and China – that America is facing.

Positively, Blinken’s visit to Israel signals that this administration understands the intrinsic value of Realpolitik, and is serious about preventing the Ayatollahs from acquiring nuclear weapons, which would put the U.S. and the free world at grave risk.

Douglas Schoen is a political consultant. Saul Mangel is senior strategist at Schoen Cooperman Research.

Last Thursday, Biden finally broke his silence after facing pressure from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress to address the issue publicly. His press conference, however, could be too little too late.

At a time when just 43% of voters – including only one-third of Independents – approve of Biden’s handling of national security, the president ultimately did himself a disservice by neglecting to promptly address the four bewildering and unprecedented incidents that transpired over nine days.

Biden’s silence until this point has given his political opponents an opening to cast doubt on the administration’s ability to keep Americans safe and navigate the growing conflict with China, which is responsible for at least one of the intrusive objects.

A massive Chinese surveillance balloon was shot down on Feb. 4  off the coast of South Carolina after crossing the U.S. for eight days, prompting an outcry from the public and members of Congress demanding to know why Biden had not ordered the balloon to be shot down sooner. Then, American fighter jets scrambled to shoot down another  three unidentified objects earlier this week, one each day.

While the President stated on Thursday that the other three objects were most likely not connected to the initial Chinese spy balloon, we do know that they posed enough of a threat to force the closure of civilian air traffic, and to warrant fighter jets to shoot them down. 

In his State of the Union address, Biden made only cursory references to the danger posed by China, and neglected to mention the incursion directly, even though stories of the balloon dominated news coverage in the days leading up to his speech.

Biden spoke at length about the need for unity and bipartisanship – and ironically, one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans have agreed on since the speech is that Biden has failed to provide a coherent explanation on China’s activities to a concerned American public.

Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, took the White House to task for the President’s silence, claiming that he has “real concerns about why the administration is not being more forthcoming with everything that it knows.”

Prominent Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal also alluded to the potential breakdown in public trust due to the White House ostensibly withholding information: “The American people need to know more so they’ll have confidence in our national security.”

It has been reported that the administration knew about the initial Chinese spy balloon and tried to hide it for nearly a week before citizens in Montana reported sightings. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to China to meet with President Xi Jinping on a high-profile diplomatic trip, which was then cancelled once the balloon was shot down. 

Even if the administration was acting in good faith by concealing incomplete information, and though Biden ultimately took the appropriate step on Thursday by finally addressing the public, his credibility on national security is already strained in light of his mishandling of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, and this could only worsen matters.

While domestic affairs tend to be more politically relevant in an election than foreign ones, Biden’s spotty track record on international issues – notwithstanding his largely laudable handling of the war in Ukraine – could have real consequences for Democrats in 2024.

By an 11-point margin (46% to 35%), Americans trust congressional Republicans over congressional Democrats to handle matters of national security, per recent polling. Worse, Independents are more than twice as likely to trust Republicans more on the issue (46%) over Democrats (19%). 

Again, Biden may have been right to wait to officially brief the public on the flying objects until the intelligence community has gathered all of the relevant facts. That being said, White House should have communicated that from the get-go, rather than sidestepping the issue almost entirely.

To be sure, this is not the first time this year that the administration has failed to do damage control on a highly sensitive matter. 

There have been multiple discoveries of classified documents at Biden’s private home and office, and it was revealed that the administration referred one of the discoveries to the Department of Justice weeks before disclosing it to the public. 

Though the White House has been cooperative and forthright with the government’s investigation into the documents, this trickle of information, from a communications angle, gives the impression that the administration was intentionally withholding information. 

To clarify, the threat Beijing poses to our national security is more serious than Biden’s staff having potentially mishandled classified documents nearly a decade ago, which appears to have been a case of innocent oversight. That being said, both are characteristic of a breakdown in public communications that has unfortunately become a pattern with this White House, one that threatens to derail the president’s ability to convince the American people that he deserves a second term in office.

At the end of the day, though, the danger China poses to U.S. interests is a matter of national security and national interest, not politics. Foremost, Biden has a duty as Commander in Chief to brief Republican leaders candidly about what we know and what we don’t, so that America can be unified in standing up to what appears to be an unprecedented attack on our independence and our values.

China has threatened to retaliate against the U.S. for shooting down their spy balloon. Going forward, it is incumbent on President Joe Biden to more directly address these threats as well as the incursions in U.S. airspace – if not for the sake of his political career, then for the sake of informing the public he leads.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Progressives are pushing back against President Joe Biden’s new “middle-ground” immigration policy, which pairs stronger deterrence measures for illegal border crossings with the opening of limited legal pathways for asylum seekers and migrants.

This renewed Democratic infighting over the border ultimately leaves President Biden and Democrats in toss-up House and Senate seats vulnerable to attacks from Republicans. Just 13% of Americans believe the situation at the border has improved under Biden – a sentiment that the GOP will be able to weaponize in the runup to the 2024 election if there is a vocal group of Democrats essentially advocating for open borders.

While this new positioning is ostensibly a step in the right direction for Biden, whose uneven approach to the border up until this point has landed him a 33% approval rating on his handling of the issue, the president now finds himself under fire from his left flank.

Last week, 77 Congressional Democrats signed a letter publicly calling on the president to reconsider his policy.

Immigration activists took the president to task as well. Eleanor Acer, director of the refugee program at Human Rights First described the new policy as a “humanitarian disgrace.”

This new measure is essentially extension of Title 42, a COVID-era rule that allows the government to expel migrants on public health grounds without taking standard procedural steps.

The policy increases the use of expedited removal for those who illegally cross the border, encourages asylum seekers to obtain authorization in a third country before making their way to the U.S., and imposes a five-year reentry ban for violators. 

At the same time, it expands humanitarian “parole” for citizens of Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Haiti by opening 30,000 monthly spots for citizens of those four countries seeking asylum. In order to qualify for one of the spots, migrants must pass a background check, be able to buy a plane ticket, and have a sponsor in the U.S.

To be sure, there must be an even more forceful effort by the administration to prioritize curbing illegal immigration in a way that treats it as a matter of both national security and economic policy, despite the internal strife it could cause.

The border is in crisis, and the response must match the severity of the situation. In 2021, there was a record number of apprehensions at the Southern Border and cities such as New York have been overwhelmed by an influx of migrants for months. 

While many migrants have legitimate claims to asylum, others are seeking to abuse the process and using it to traffic in dangerous individuals and drugs like fentanyl, which is now the principal cause of death among Americans aged 18-45.

This conflict within The Democratic Party further dooms the prospect of this Congress advancing a comprehensive fix to our nation’s broken immigration system, as neither party has articulated a unified approach that can be used as a starting point for bipartisan talks. 

For his part, Biden deserves credit for finally making an effort to mend the crisis at the border with the resources he has at his discretion. Yet, it will be clear in the coming weeks and months that a more forceful approach to controlling the border is needed, leaving him with a decision to make.

Even if Biden continues towing the centrist line, as he should, if progressives push back against his policies, as they have, it could deepen the rift within the Democratic Party in a way that gives Republicans political ammo to use against Democrats in 2024. 

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Despite lingering concerns about his age and health, Biden is viewed in Democratic circles as the party’s best chance of staying in the White House. While the midterms provided some reassurance of Biden’s political viability, the real issue is that the president has failed to informally anoint a potential successor, making him all-but indispensable.

Biden recently said that he intends to run again, a prospect that first lady Jill Biden is reportedly now “all-in” on. In all likelihood, Biden will be the Democratic nominee without a serious primary challenger — yet, there is no denying that this is a shaky prospect for someone who will be 82 years old in 2024.

To be sure, if Biden decides against running for whatever reason, chaos would ensue within his party. His natural successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, is an untenable option. Only 39% of Americans view her favorably, which is lower than the ratings of the last four vice presidents at this point in their tenure, and her handling of the migrant crisis at the Southern border has been widely deemed a failure.

None of the other potential 2024 hopefuls on the Democratic side — Gavin Newsom, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, Gretchen Whitmer and Cory Booker, among others — rise above the rest. Any would be highly vulnerable in a national contest against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is increasingly regarded as the heir apparent of the Republican Party.

Should Biden step aside, there is only one Democrat that the Republican Party would truly, and with good reason, fear in 2024: Michelle Obama.

The case for Mrs. Obama’s candidacy is undoubtedly compelling. For one, she is one of the most popular political figures in the Democratic Party, and indeed in the country.

On top of the fact that she is viewed favorably by an overwhelming 91% of Democrats, recent polling finds her with a wide lead over a sans-Biden primary field: she is 8 points ahead of the second-place contender, Kamala Harris, and 12 points ahead of the third-place candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Given Mrs. Obama’s universal popularity with the base and obvious association to the beloved former President Barack Obama, no Democrat would mount a serious primary challenge against her. She is the only alternative to Biden who could save the party from a grueling primary battle — one that would put intraparty divisions and rifts on display and delay Democrats’ pivot to the general election campaign.

Her national appeal is also robust: she left the White House with a 68% favorability rating among all Americans, according to the last Gallup poll taken during the Obama Administration. A separate Gallup survey found that she was the most admired woman in the U.S. from 2018-2020 (the last time the survey was conducted). Additionally, according YouGov’s tracker, her husband remains one of the most popular former presidents, with a 58% favorability rating.

Mrs. Obama is also in a rare position that few political figures find themselves in these days, as she is perceived as both authentic and well-qualified. She has seen the operations of the presidency up-close and has remained active in political causes; but she is not a politician, so she doesn’t bear any baggage that could undermine her candidacy.

She is deeply admired, and has a celebrity-like aura that could generate much-needed buzz and excitement among both Democratic voters and donors alike. The level of enthusiasm that her candidacy would engender — with the Democratic base, as well as Independent women and minority voters — would reverberate down the ballot.

Mrs. Obama has repeatedly and adamantly insisted that she has no desire or intention to seek the presidency, and we now know that she was not a strong proponent of her husband’s decision to run in 2008.

That being said, it is not difficult to envision a scenario in which Mrs. Obama is put in the same position that Biden was before the 2020 election.

Following the death of his son in 2015, Mr. Biden repeatedly insisted that he would not seek the presidency at any point in the future. But Biden jumped into the 2020 race at the urging of party insiders, who rightly concluded that he was the only Democrat who could prevent another four years of Donald Trump. Biden has since described his turning point as the 2017 Charlottesville riot, when Trump described the White supremacists as “very fine people.”

To be sure, Biden had presidential ambitions long before 2020, while Michelle Obama has never expressed interest in the job. However, she could feel compelled to change her mind.

Mrs. Obama played an active role in the 2022 midterms, using her considerable clout to advocate for two of the core Democratic causes close to her heart, voting rights and women’s rights.

Admittedly, it is improbable, but not impossible, that Michelle Obama will run for president in 2024. But there is no denying that she stands above the rest as the only prospective candidate who could assure Democrats another four years in the White House.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was sworn to his sixth term in office Thursday, returning gto power as the leader of the most far-right government in Israel’s history. 

The White House has reportedly held several high-level meetings to deliberate how America’s approach to our closest Middle East ally might be affected as a result.

Top U.S. officials are grappling over whether America should avoid engaging with two Israeli ministers in particular – Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich – who hold alarmingly extreme right-wing positions on issues such as the Palestinians, LGBTQ rights, and the situation in the West Bank.

To be sure, the Biden Administration’s trepidation is justified, and their concerns surrounding Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are not only valid, but are also shared by many Israelis. 

However, the importance – to both country’s national security interests – of preserving the increasingly fragile U.S. – Israel relationship cannot be understated. 

Both nations maintain a vested interest in countering the repressive Iranian regime, bolstering Israel’s ties with Saudi Arabia, and engendering a freer and more secure Middle East. 

It is thus incumbent on President Joe Biden and his administration to not lose sight of the values and goals both nations share, and to not respond to an impermanent government in a way that could inflict permanent damage on one of America’s most valued alliances.

To his credit, President Biden has historically been a strong supporter of Israel, and has stood firmly against the growing anti-Israel sentiment within his own party, including calls from prominent progressives to suspend American military aid to Israel.

While there is no indication that the president will waver in his support for the Jewish State, he does now face the arduous challenge of walking a fine line between rejecting extremism in the ranks of Israel’s government, while being mindful not to disparage Israel itself. Antisemitism is on the rise in the United States and globally, due in part to unjust criticisms of the Jewish State.

The Israeli government’s shift to the right comes as Democrats have moved to the left in their attitudes towards Israel, and progressives are bound to pressure the administration to respond harshly to Israeli policies that they see as undermining the peace process. 

President Biden’s Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has pledged that the U.S. will base its approach to the incoming Israeli government on policy, not on individual personalities, and that the administration will hold Israel “to the mutual standards we have established in our relationship over the past seven decades.”

The administration has also already signaled that Netanyahu will be held personally responsible for any extreme policies enacted by far-right ministers, especially in sensitive areas like the question of Palestinian statehood or West Bank annexation. 

Though Netanyahu himself is not considered a far-right politician, and enjoys broad support among Israelis, his commitment to staying in power, and a quirk in Israel’s electoral system have paved the way for far-right politicians to gain outsized influence.

After the elections, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich leveraged their power to force concessions from Netanyahu, including the recent announcement legalizing outposts in the West Bank, a move bound to anger the Biden administration, but one which Netanyahu was powerless to stop. 

The appointment of Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in 2007 for incitement of racism and for belonging to a terrorist organization, is sure to strain bipartisan U.S. support for Israel, something Democratic Senator Robert Menendez – a longtime supporter of the Jewish State – tried to make clear to Netanyahu, to no avail. 

To note, there is no guarantee that Ben-Gvir or Smotrich will be able to implement their more extreme policies. Netanyahu may currently depend on their support, but he has proved himself to be an extremely capable politician, and President Biden’s warning to hold him personally responsible may provide political cover for him to push back on far-right officials. 

It also goes without saying that Israel is one of many nations whose democracy has been threatened in recent years by far-right extremists in the highest ranks of government, the United States included.

No international alliance has ever been frictionless, and the U.S. – Israeli relationship is no exception in that regard, but the relationship between our two nations is exceptional in many respects. 

The United States is the standard-bearer of democracy globally, while Israel fills that crucial role in the Middle East. Our shared values have led to the endurance of a complex bond that has survived numerous leadership changes, including the rollercoaster that characterized both – in different ways – the Obama and Trump presidencies. 

The United States’ commitment to Israel’s safety, security, and prosperity has been a bedrock principle of American foreign policy for nearly eight decades, and it is imperative that it remains as such.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Importantly, as laid out in the indictment, Bankman-Fried’s actions involve corruption at the highest levels of our financial and political system. Should Bankman-Fried be convicted on all counts he is charged with, he faces up to 115 years in prison – in effect, a life sentence.

Ultimately, the revelation of the full scope of  Bankman-Fried’s crimes demand nothing less than massive oversight of the cryptocurrency environment, along with the Super PAC’s funded with crypto’s “dark money.”

In what the DOJ and others have described as a “house of cards,” Sam Bankman-Fried is alleged to have presided over an unprecedented criminal enterprise, and he now faces eight criminal charges including wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and using stolen money to buy political influence.

Indeed, Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York recently alleged, “Dirty money was used in service of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s desire to buy bipartisan influence and impact the direction of public policy in Washington.”

Put simply, John J. Ray, FTX’s new CEO, who is shepherding the company through bankruptcy proceedings and further litigation, testified before Congress that FTX and Bankman-Fried committed, “old fashioned embezzlement,” by “taking money from customers and using it for your own purpose.”

While these allegations and more will continue to be litigated in the coming months, it’s important to analyze the implications of FTX’s collapse and Bankman-Fried’s arrest given their magnitude on the crypto industry generally and Bankman-Fried’s mega political donations.

In terms of the impact on the crypto industry, companies that operate crypto exchanges like FTX, companies that trade crypto, and companies that generate their own crypto tokens, among others, should expect a sea-change in the regulation of their businesses.

The Biden administration is clearly behind the 8-ball on such regulations, having released its first and only proposal for what crypto regulation should look like just three months ago.

The administration’s calls for the traditional financial services industry to make international transactions easier, while also still cracking down on fraud in the digital asset space are well-intentioned and would be a positive foundation for crypto regulation.

Given the stakes though, this is clearly too-little, too-late for investors and customers of exchanges like FTX who have seen their accounts wiped out this year and leaves major questions for those with money or investments at other crypto firms.

It’s no surprise that Sam Bankman-Fried himself regularly met with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to lobby against such regulation. He also contributed nearly $40 million, mostly toward Democratic candidates or Democratic-leaning PAC’s during the 2020 and 2022 elections.

It is even more troubling that Rep. Maxine Waters – who chairs the House Financial Services Committee – originally planned to not subpoena testimony from Bankman-Fried, prompting intense criticism of the lawmaker, given that last month, she avoided answering questions about whether Democratic lawmakers and the DNC should give back tainted-donations.

Based on the sheer incompetency of FTX’s operation, it strains credulity that Bankman-Fried or FTX played by the rules on Capitol Hill when it came to the source of these donations, and politicians who accepted his money deserve the criticism they receive.

Right now, there is only one viable piece of legislation drafted in Congress to regulate the crypto industry, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act (DCCPA), which Bankman-Fried ardently supported and personally lobbied for.

To be sure, Bankman-Fried and crypto entrepreneurs like him who set the priorities in this bill wanted to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) oversight of crypto trading, rather than the much larger Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC), which is entrusted with regulating traditional investment markets.

Based on the more limited resources and tools at the CFTC’s disposal, the DCCPA would not have done anything to enable them to prevent a collapse of FTX’s magnitude from happening.

Looking forward, it’s clear that the CFTC would also lack the capability or bandwidth to regulate any other crypto firm because that was Bankman-Fried and other’s design: saddle the weakest regulator possible with the entire crypto industry and continue to carry out fraud at private firms.

Regardless of one’s opinion on the investment value of any crypto currency or token, it is crucial to learn how and where Bankman-Fried lobbied lawmakers and regulators alike in order for American consumers to have any confidence in the crypto industry in the future.

At the same time, capable regulators need the authority and power to protect investors from these multibillion dollar collapses which are coming to define the crypto industry.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

There is a quiet but clear preference among party leaders and conservative-leaning media for Trump to fade into the background, and for Florida’s popular governor, Ron DeSantis, to helm the party in 2024.

There is no question about it: Donald Trump is political quicksand for the Republican Party. His decision to dine at his Mar-a-Lago home with Nick Fuentes, a notorious antisemite and white supremacist, underscores both the political risks to the Republican Party — as well as the real risks to the country — if they continue embracing him.

On the other hand, DeSantis has been aptly described as “Trump with brains and without the drama.” The Florida governor largely imitates Trump’s policies and positions: he stokes culture wars, decries the “woke” left and exploits divisive social issues for political gain.

As governor, DeSantis has treated migrants as political pawns by sending them on planes to Martha’s Vineyard without warning, penalized Disney for diverging from his political views, politicized LGBTQ rights and has an A+ rating from the NRA.

While DeSantis largely channels Trump, he does so without the corruption on multiple fronts — including but not limited to mishandling classified documents, the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, tax issues with the Trump Organization — as well as the obviously ill-advised decisions Trump has made about what he has said and who he has met with.

Though I disagree with DeSantis more often than not, he is clearly a more politically savvy and policy-oriented version of Trump. In turn, he is likely Republicans’ best shot at winning the White House, the Senate and maintaining control of the House in 2024.

DeSantis is a fighter like Trump, but he goes to bat over policies and issues, rather than personal vendettas. He rarely loses his temper, veers off message or resorts to ad hominem attacks and petty insults. On the other hand, Trump’s proclivity for public spectacles and personal attacks overshadowed most of his policy achievements.

While DeSantis appeals to the right by being their culture warrior, his statesmanlike demeanor and generally successful economic and crime policies — which have turned Florida into an increasingly popular destination for those fleeing high-tax and high-crime cities in the Northeast and on the West Coast — have allowed him to make inroads with voters in the middle in a way that Trump was never able to.

An important note: DeSantis carefully chooses which elements of the right’s cultural agenda to elevate. Recognizing that an all-out abortion ban would be political suicide in a purple state, DeSantis signed into law a 15-week abortion ban, which has national support and is one of the least restrictive bans implemented by a red state.

Put another way, DeSantis, unlike Trump, knows how to win elections, and has the track record to prove it.

He won reelection by nearly 20 points this year, the widest margin of victory in a Florida gubernatorial race in decades, and also generated a statewide red wave. Just as significantly, he won with the support of independents, Latinos, women and suburban voters, which are the precise groups Republicans need to court in order to be successful in national elections.

Though some post-midterm election polling suggests that Republican and Republican-leaning voters now prefer that DeSantis is the party’s nominee in 2024, other polls still show Trump with a clear advantage.

It is notable that DeSantis is favored among more moderate Republican voters, while Trump leads with “strong” Republicans — a dynamic that could ultimately result in Trump winning the nomination, as primary voters generally tend to be more partisan.

Admittedly, the Republican Party will almost certainly not be able to make a clean break from Donald Trump — or make a decisive pivot to Ron DeSantis — before the next election.

The largest roadblock to a new era for the GOP is Trump himself, who would prefer to bring down the entire party rather than see someone else eclipse him as the party leader.

Trump has already declared that he intends to seek the presidency again in 2024, and is simultaneously facing a possible indictment for his removal of classified documents from the White House.

We know that Trump would use an indictment to rile up his base, and it is difficult to envision a scenario in which the Republican Party is able to conduct a standard primary election centered on policy, rather than on Trump, should he face charges.

Further, many other Republicans could also throw their hat in the ring, including Mike Pence and Nikki Haley, and the GOP primary field could end up looking a lot like the Democratic field initially did in 2020, when more than two dozen candidates were in the running.

A crowded Republican primary would almost guarantee that Trump wins the nomination, as more moderate voters will likely spread out their votes between the non-Trump candidates, while the Trump wing of the party will back their leader.

If that scenario comes to fruition, it would be wise for Republicans to coalesce around the most viable general election candidate, likely DeSantis, just as Democrats backed Joe Biden ahead of Super Tuesday in 2020.

But unlike Bernie Sanders in 2020, Donald Trump will not concede gracefully, and won’t go down without bringing the entire Republican Party down with him.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

All three problems could be remedied significantly with the passage of immigration reform legislation that physically strengthens and enhances the border, provides law enforcement with the resources they need to expeditiously process applications, creates a pathway to citizenship for those who came here illegally as children but have worked hard and played by the rules, and paves the way for moderate increases in legal immigration.

Not only would a compromise of this sort help mitigate the ongoing crisis at the Southern border, it would also relieve a historically tight labor market, which has been a major source of the current inflationary environment, while also ensuring that everyone living here is paying their fair share in taxes.

Yet, our political system is so broken – and our discourse is so adversarial – that Republicans in Washington, D.C. blame Democrats for allowing open borders, while Democrats criticize Republicans for being devoid of compassion when it comes to immigration policy, and political gridlock persists. All the while, Americans on both sides broadly support immigration reforms.

Roughly two-thirds of American voters support offering a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers (69%), strengthening border control (68%), and offering a pathway to citizenship to undocumented immigrants here already who have committed no crimes and already pay taxes (66%), according to recent polling.

Furthermore, in terms of skilled immigrants, more than 7-in-10 (71%) of Americans support increasing the number of immigrants who have a high level of education or specialized skills, including 83% of Democrats and 63% of Republicans.

In this newly divided Congress, both sides have an obligation – from a practical, humanitarian, and economic perspective – to meet in the middle on this issue, and pass bipartisan legislation that addresses this multi-faceted crisis.

The humanitarian emergency at our Southern border, which did also exist during the Trump presidency, has devolved into a catastrophe during Joe Biden’s first term. Millions of migrants, including children, are risking their lives to make the perilous journey from Central America – as we saw last June when 53 migrants were found dead, locked in a truck outside San Antonio.

A recent opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal cited data that contextualized the scale of this crisis: from October 2021 through September 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported slightly more than 2.7 million enforcement actions, which includes detentions of unauthorized individuals who crossed the border, and those deemed “inadmissible” at the border. For the same period in 2018-2019 – the last pre-pandemic year – Border Protection reported just 1.1 million enforcement actions – itself a huge increase from slightly more than 680,000 in 2017-2018.

Democrats who ignore and downplay the Southern border crisis are making matters worse, but so are Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, who have used migrants as political pawns by sending them on planes to Democrat-run cities and locales.

What this border crisis requires is not an all or nothing approach, but rather, reforms that will bolster funding for border security and law enforcement, expedite the processing of claims by migrants seeking asylum, and make much-needed improvements to the application process.

While surges in unauthorized immigration require intensive federal and state spending, legal immigrants soon begin paying taxes themselves, and also contribute legitimately to the workforce. In a historically tight-labor market, moderate increases in legal immigrants – both skilled and unskilled – will have a clear benefit to the overall economy.

Though Republicans often claim that unskilled, low wage immigrants often take jobs from American workers, the facts simply do not bear that out. In fact, when measured over the long term, the impact of immigration on overall native wage is “close to zero” per a National Academy of Sciences report.

Additionally, research by the economist Giovanni Peri shows that unskilled Americans may actually benefit from an influx of unskilled immigrants, as native English-language skills give them an advantage vis-à-vis moving into managerial roles in their industry as immigrants join.

Notwithstanding the necessity of immigration reform from a practical perspective, the politics are tricky, with both sides ostensibly hardened in their views.

Yet, compromise is still possible, as we saw with the passage of bipartisan infrastructure and gun safety laws by the current Congress. Further, as recently as 2013, the Senate managed to bass a bipartisan immigration bill that would have prevented the problems we are currently facing. That bill ultimately died, as House Republicans were committed to refusing anything that would codify a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and an increase in future admissions.

Since then, every subsequent attempt at reform has failed, killed by both sides’ extreme demands and unwillingness to compromise, no matter the humanitarian or economic costs of our broken and overloaded system.

Ultimately, left-wing Democrats’ proposal of open borders and a massive extension of federal benefits for illegal immigrants is not viable; neither are Republicans’ demands for sealing the Southern border and deporting tens of millions of immigrants, many of whom have been here since childhood.

With the incoming Congress nearly evenly divided, these extreme agendas must be jettisoned in favor of a grand bargain that Americans broadly agree on: a stronger border, a pathway to citizenship, as well as moderate increases in authorized immigration.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

However, the subsequent discovery that Russia committed at least 400 war crimes, including human torture, during its occupation of the city underscores the immense hardships that the Ukrainian people have endured, as well as the challenges that still lie ahead.

In that same vein, the reports of Russia’s dictatorial rule of Kherson – in which Ukrainian national songs was banned, speaking Ukrainian was criminalized, and schools were forced to adopt Russian curriculums – highlight the risks to Ukraine, and indeed to the free world, if the West wavers in this critical phase of the war.

While a Ukrainian victory would ultimately be due to the enormous sacrifices made by its people, soldiers, and leaders, Western aid – both military and humanitarian – has been essential in helping Ukraine fend off the much more powerful Russian military.

In an effort to break Ukraine’s will, in recent weeks, Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched hundreds of missile attacks on civilian infrastructure such as power plants and fuel depots. By targeting Ukraine’s energy grid as winter approaches, Putin is seeking to create a humanitarian crisis so vast that, even if Ukraine wins the war, they will have done so at a tremendous cost.

Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure are indeed harmful, but something even more dangerous is happening: Western support for Ukraine appears to be eroding due to the political and economic pressures facing leaders in the U.S. and European nations.

In the U.S., prominent Republicans have already signaled that their party will look to scale back aid to Ukraine when they take control of the House of Representatives next year.

Kevin McCarthy, the next Speaker of the House, said that a Republican majority would not write a “blank check” for future aid packages. McCarthy’s remarks reflect a growing sense within his party that support for Ukraine should be curbed as the U.S. struggles with high inflation and a growing national deficit.

In the early days of the war, only fringe Republicans were pushing to halt U.S. aid to Ukraine. However, more traditional Republicans have shifted their stance in recent months, and support for Ukraine has declined among Republican voters as a result.

Roughly one-half (48%) of Republican voters now say the U.S. is doing too much to help Ukraine, an eight-fold increase since March (6%), per recent Wall Street Journal polling. While 81% of Democrats and nearly half of Independents support additional aid to Ukraine, only one-third of Republicans say the same.

To be sure, the Republican Party’s poor showing in this year’s midterm elections – in which they lost the Senate and only won the House by a handful of seats – means that the GOP will not be able to significantly curtail support for Ukraine. Though, it is clear that this incoming Congress will be less accommodating to President Biden’s aid requests than the current one.

While incoming Speaker McCarthy has clarified that he supports Ukraine and only seeks more accountability in U.S. aid packages, his “blank check” remark was gift to Putin, whose primary goal is to erode Western support for Ukraine.

To that end, Putin has weaponized Russian energy in an attempt to force governments in the European Union to choose between supporting Ukraine and keeping their citizens warm and safe this winter.

To date, E.U. governments – with the exception of Hungary – have been reliably in Ukraine’s corner, but European support for Ukraine will soon face its toughest test.

On Dec. 5, Europe’s ban on Russian oil shipments by sea kicks in, which is intended to deprive Putin’s war machine of crucial funding, though could seriously disrupt global energy markets. Europe’s decades-long dependence on Russian oil also means that cracks in the embargo may appear before it has any real impact on Russia’s ability to finance its war.

Even though E.U. nations have had months to prepare for this ban to take effect, the resulting increase in energy prices may prove too costly for countries already struggling with inflation.

President Biden has done a remarkable job thus far of rallying Europe and other democratic nations to support Ukraine. But as the president faces mounting political pressure to decrease U.S. involvement in the war, he cannot waver. Biden must remind his European counterparts as well as all citizens of the Western world that, while we are paying the price for democracy in dollars or euros, Ukrainians are paying the price with their lives.

Ukrainian soldiers will keep making these enormous sacrifices, despite comments by U.S. General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who recently suggested that a military victory cannot be won, therefore Ukraine should consider peace talks with Russia.

Since Russia’s invasion, Ukraine has put up a remarkable fight. Their military successfully pushed Russian soldiers out of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and now Kherson, and liberated hundreds of smaller towns. Russia’s army has been degraded into a shell of its former self, and discontent is rapidly rising inside the country.

However, Ukraine has also lost so much. More than 30 million Ukrainians have been displaced and up to 100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or wounded, along with 40,000 civilians killed, according to General Milley.

Those are tragic figures – yet, they underscore Ukraine’s persistence.

Ultimately, they should serve as a reminder to officials in Washington, D.C. and diplomats in Brussels that Ukraine is on the front lines of the global battle for democracy – a battle that, if the West continues its involvement, will prove triumphant in the end.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime political consultant.

Republicans lead by approximately three-points in the generic ballot, per RealClearPolitics’ average of recent polls. Individual surveys of likely voters – those who will ultimately turnout to vote – show an even stronger GOP advantage of four or five points, which suggests that Republicans could very-well outperform current expectations. GOP candidates in key swing-state Senate races have also made gains in recent weeks, and now either lead their Democratic opponents or marginally trail.

If current trends hold, Republicans can expect to gain roughly 30 to 35 House seats, and to walk away with a two- three-seat majority in the Senate.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast model now gives the GOP an 85% chance of winning a majority in the House, as well as a 55% chance in the Senate. The latter is particularly remarkable, as Democrats had a 71% chance of retaining their Senate majority just six weeks ago.

There has been a clear shift in the national issues agenda in the final stretch of the campaign that has benefited Republicans. Voters have honed in on quality-of-life concerns vis-à-vis the high cost of living and rising crime – two issues that the GOP is widely more trusted to address – while Democrats’ social issues-oriented agenda has become increasingly less compelling.

What does Republicans’ almost certain election sweep mean for the future of President Biden’s agenda?

Ultimately, if Democrats face a massive electoral defeat on Tuesday, as most are now predicting, the party will have no choice but to embark on a broader course-correction back to the political center in order to remain viable in future elections.

This is especially true if Democrats lose their majority in the Senate, where Republicans are running extreme candidates against establishment Democrats – many of whom are incumbents – in swing-states that Joe Biden won in 2020.

For instance, in Georgia, despite Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker’s extremist views on abortion, gay rights, pandemic, and evolution, he is still favored to unseat Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock. Moreover, Walker’s odds have improved by 14-points over the last month, per FiveThirtyEight’s analysis, despite salacious revelations that he fathered multiple illegitimate children and paid for past girlfriends’ abortions.

The relative strength of Walker and other anti-abortion, election-denying GOP candidates – such as Blake Masters in Arizona and JD Vance in Ohio – over establishment Democrats is indicative of how deeply dissatisfied voters are with Democratic positions and policies.

Polling throughout the year has suggested that Democrats’ embrace of left-leaning positions during the Biden Administration – largely at the expense of focusing on ‘kitchen-table issues’ like rising costs and crime – damaged the party politically. If not for the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer, which gave Democrats a compelling issue to run on when the party otherwise lacked one, Republicans’ victories would have been even more substantial than they likely already will be.

President Biden and Democrats will likely come away from this election with a mandate to pursue a moderate agenda and to build a productive consensus with Republicans in order address our nation’s most pressing issues: fiscal and economic policy, energy security, crime, and immigration, among others.

After Republicans took back control of Congress in the 1994 midterm elections while I was advising President Clinton, we worked with the other side towards a balanced budget and welfare reform, two policies that were broadly supported. In 1996, President Clinton won his second term by a landslide, and he left office under an economic surplus.

Most Democrats today would reasonably argue that a Republican-controlled Congress will work to block the Biden Administration’s agenda at all costs, regardless of whether or not it is sufficiently moderate.

However, we’ve seen that bipartisan compromises – even in today’s hyperpolarized climate – are in fact achievable. Within the last year, the Biden Administration passed infrastructure and gun reforms on a bipartisan basis, as Republican leadership clearly viewed it as being in their best interest to advance these broadly popular policies.

Going forward, Democrats have an opportunity to work toward a grand bargain with Republicans on immigration reform, crime reduction efforts, and moderate fiscal policies, which are broadly supported by the American public.

To be sure, there is a chance that Republican choose to reject Democrats’ attempts at compromising and instead spend the next two years pandering to the extreme fringes of their party by pursuing impeachment against Joe Biden or members of his administration.

If the Republicans take this path, Democrats will be able to weaponize this decision against them in 2024 – by attacking the GOP for putting partisanship over progress, as we did in the 1998 midterms – and then it will be Republicans who voters reject in 2024.

But if Democrats continue to forgo middle-of-the-road compromises in favor of progressive all-or-nothing wish-list positions, the Republican nominee for president in 2024 – whether it be Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, or someone else – will have a clear path to victory.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

Even though the vast majority of Americans do not identify with these fringe factions, both parties have in different ways embraced their radical beliefs. Not only has this exacerbated already-existent political polarization, but now, both parties see the other as a threat, rather than as a group of fellow citizens with whom they disagree.

Indeed, 81% of Democrats say the Republican Party will destroy America, and 79% of Republicans say the same of the Democratic Party, according to a recent NBC News poll.

A democratic republic simply cannot function without both parties at the very least recognizing that those on the other side of the aisle are not enemies. Partisanship is inevitable in a representative government, but it is a truly sad state of affairs when the only thing that the two major parties can agree on is that the other is a danger to the country.

And to be sure, the consequences of this intense polarization and radicalization extend far beyond engendering an unpleasant national political discourse.

Political extremism is the enemy of progress: when our government is trapped in a constant state of gridlock, America cannot prosper economically and progress socially. Further, we are more vulnerable to our global adversaries, America’s true enemies, who diametrically oppose Western values and want to undermine the U.S.’s global preeminence.

Ultimately, both Republicans and Democrats are guilty of enabling the ascendence of extremism within their own party. The GOP has embraced harmful conspiracy theories about the Deep State and voter fraud, while Democrats have entertained socialism and adapted a class- and identity-based approach to politics.

This is not to create a false equivalence between the two, as the right’s election denialism and detachment from reality is clearly one of the most significant internal threats America has faced in decades.

In 2020, far-right actors plotted to install fake electors and prevent the certification of President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory. Now, many GOP candidates are casting doubt on the results of the 2022 midterms even before Election Day, and the majority of Republican candidates this cycle embrace the “Big Lie” about the 2020 election.

Beyond undermining free and fair elections, the Republican Party has also taken up conspiracy theories – which once only had a place on the far-right outskirts of American politics – as central tenets of its policy platform.

Current Republican Senate candidates – including Blake Masters in Arizona and J.D. Vance in Ohio – embrace nationalistic conspiracies like The Great Replacement Theory, and support policies that would undermine civil rights for women, gays, and minority communities. Sitting Republicans in Congress, such as Rep. Lauren Boebert, also espouse white Christian nationalist values and renounce the constitutionally-ordained separation of church and state.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party has in many ways embraced a socialist-leaning agenda – and with it, policies that were once only supported by the far-left – and has entertained extreme causes like the ‘Defund the Police’ movement. This platform runs counter to the core American ideals of individualism and free markets, which are responsible for the country’s long-term economic success and global primacy.

Additionally, national Democrats have largely adopted an approach to governance that is centered on identity-politics and class-based political warfare, which has driven the country further apart by pitting Americans against one another.

The inflammatory rhetoric and harmful positions espoused by the radical left ‘Squad’ in Congress have also done the country a great disservice. Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib have made numerous anti-Israel remarks, harming relations with our closest ally in the Middle East and the only democracy in the region, while Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for the abolishment of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

It is telling that the only agreed-upon position among the far-left and far-right is support for withdrawing U.S. aid for Ukraine, which would existentially threaten global security and prop up autocratic regimes. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and the far-right have long opposed American support for Ukraine, and last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to President Biden requesting he pursue diplomacy with Russia (only to later retract it).

The democracy warning signs are flashing. If both parties continue to follow the path of those on the far-left and the far-right, we will remain divided into two Americas – demonizing those who differ with us politically, seeing our government paralyzed by gridlock, and increasingly vulnerable to our enemies.

This is a pivotal moment in American history, and it is incumbent on both Democrats and Republicans to make a concerted effort going forward to reject extremism, wherever it presents itself.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

While America’s foreign policy has not always embodied this ideal – especially under the former president, who championed a more isolationist approach – it is still the standard that we must strive for, now more than ever.

Today’s axis of evil – Russia, China, and Iran – poses an existential threat to global peace, security, and freedoms. These despotic and autocratic rulers silence free expression, punish opposition, and personify the antithesis of the values that America was founded on.

Unfortunately, as with most other matters in the U.S. today, America’s role in leading the defense against global autocracy has become politicized – even at this most crucial time, when Russia is committing war crimes against a sovereign nation.

Curiously, the far-right and progressive wings have joined together under the banner of rejecting American international leadership. This small but increasingly vocal minority is calling for the U.S. to step aside and essentially allow Vladimir Putin to walk away from Ukraine with everything he wants.

A recent opinion article by Jordan Bruneau, entitled, “Vote for Peace, Not Perpetual War on Election Day,” argues that the West should cave to Russia’s demands under the guise of making “peace” with Putin, a murderous dictator, because the war is too costly, unpredictable, and dangerous.

America doing so would essentially legitimize everything Putin has done up until this point: killing innocent civilians, extorting the international community with threats of nuclear warfare, using energy as a weapon, and most of all, attempting to violently subjugate a sovereign nation.

Further, it would send a clear message to other autocratic rulers – specifically those in Beijing and Tehran – that the United States will bend to the will of foreign powers that go to such horrific lengths, putting sovereign states and nations around the world, like Taiwan, at risk.

Moreover, we can be sure that the buck doesn’t stop with Ukraine for Putin. This is one battle in his grander quest to restore Russia to Soviet-era dominance, and if we hand him this victory, there is no telling what he might do next.

The author essentially makes the case for appeasement, based on the assertion that Americans “have no deep concern over what flag flies in the Donbas” and that the fate of eastern Ukraine is “not a hill to die on.” 

The piece also argues that J.D. Vance – the far-right Republican running in Ohio’s Senate race – is the type of leader voters should elect if they want “peace” in Ukraine. It’s worth noting that, when asked about the war, Vance recently said: “I don’t really care what happens in Ukraine, one way or another.”

While Vance – and others like him – may not care about Ukraine, Americans overwhelmingly do.

Americans widely agree that “The United States must support democratic countries when they are attacked by non-democratic countries” (70%) per recent Ipsos polling.

Moreover, nearly three-quarters (73%) believe that the U.S. should continue supporting Ukraine, despite Russia’s threats of using nuclear weapons. And by a factor of more than 2-to-1 (69% to 31%), Americans would be more likely – rather than less likely – to support a candidate in the midterms who pledges to continue supporting Ukraine with military aid. 

Americans clearly do not see the war in Ukraine as a far-off European conflict that does not concern us. The public recognizes that it is not just Ukraine being attacked, it is the very ideals of freedom, democracy, and human rights. 

As a pollster for more than 40 years, seeing such broad-based support for anything in today’s political climate – let alone for a war in Europe that has already had demonstrable economic consequences, and could have potential nuclear consequences – is rare and cannot be ignored. 

An important note: this is not to say that the United States should act recklessly. Russia possesses the largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and there is no telling what Putin may do if he feels cornered. We should take his threats seriously, but not cower in front of them.

Towing this fine line is critical. The Biden Administration, in addition to avoiding escalatory rhetoric and actions, must prioritize keeping NATO as united as possible – a challenging task, in light of the real possibility that Europe may be forced to survive winter without Russian energy – while making it clear that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with a devastating response.

For his part, President Biden has so far largely displayed the type of leadership that this crisis demands. He has commendably provided billions of dollars in aid – humanitarian, economic, and military – and has rallied the West around Ukraine’s cause, avoided putting U.S. troops in harm’s way, and kept Europe largely united against Russia in spite of a looming energy crisis. 

Right now, the world finds itself at one of the most perilous moments since World War II – and perhaps in history, given the strength of today’s weapons. A nuclear-armed dictator is threatening catastrophic violence if he is unable to subjugate a sovereign state. Other autocrats are watching closely, gauging the free world’s response, wondering if nuclear blackmail could be successful in their future conquests.

Undoubtedly, there are risks in standing up to dictators, especially when nuclear weapons are involved. But we must remember what Ronald Reagan said almost 58 years ago to this day: “The greater risk lies in appeasement.” 

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.