MILWAUKEE — Pollster and political analyst Frank Luntz summed up the state of play in the presidential contest on Thursday, the last day of the Republican National Convention, with former President Donald Trump headed to a rematch with Joe Biden — if the president can hang on to the nomination.
In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, Luntz said, “Trump’s voters are energized and Biden’s supporters are demoralized. And I don’t see that changing.”
As I write this Thursday night, Biden’s fate is unsettled.
Republicans are going home from their controversy-free convention, delighted with Trump and their new vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Democrats getting ready to show up next month in Chicago do not know, for now, what to expect.
The president, now battling COVID, has been making the case that Vice President Kamala Harris and himself have better odds to win than a ticket with players to be named at a later date. Democrats starting over from scratch means a divisive side show will start the moment Harris is passed over. Harris is getting the second look she needs to lock it in — to become the presidential nominee if Biden is not.
Trump and Vance would have a field day if Democrats rejected the first female vice president, who is the first Black and first Asian American in that job.
Biden’s disastrous debate with Trump last month set the stage for the Democratic mess, even as Biden and his team said it was just a bad night. Trump’s attempted assassination last Saturday deified him among his supporters — and handcuffed Democrats this week from lobbing their strongest attacks.
The seeds for Biden’s crisis were planted before the debate, Luntz said.
“Joe Biden has run the worst reelection campaign in my lifetime. …And every decision they made up until and including doing a debate that they simply were not prepared to do. It’s just been foolish. And it put him in a position right now where he may not make it through the week. There’s a reason why candidates, why incumbents, want debates later, not earlier. They want to be able to pull their story together. And why Biden insisted on this debate (in June) is beyond me, but it’s probably cost him the election,” Luntz said.
So if someone were writing the book about the Biden campaign, would the title be, I asked Luntz, “One Bad Night.”
“No,” Luntz said. The title should be “Mistakes,” Luntz said, because it’s been that way “all the way through the campaign.”
More observations from Luntz:
More swing states emerging
Biden’s struggles put more swing states in play. “Democrats can still win, but not with Joe Biden,” Luntz said.
Polling shows “Trump is winning in the swing states of Nevada and Arizona because of his appeal among Latinos. He’s winning in Georgia and North Carolina because of his unusual appeal among younger African American men, and he’s competitive or leading in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin because he’s winning a shocking percentage of the union vote.”
Trump’s strength is such that “he’s taking away core Democratic voters. It’s not that he’s adding people. He’s removing people from Biden’s camp. And I don’t see how Biden brings them back.”
Next state that may be in play, said Luntz, is Minnesota.
Biden’s student loan foregiveness may backfire
The Biden administration has offered up a variety of student loan foregiveness programs, a policy initiative that could attract younger voters. But Luntz explains how it can backfire.
There are a lot of working class voters who Vance is targeting — who may never have attended college. Or, if they are older, they never got the government to pay off their student debts. Student loan breaks fuel resentment among the voters Vance is targeting.
Luntz said that, to his surprise, “I would have thought that that issue would have been great across the board, freeing up people’s lives by canceling the debt. On the contrary, it’s turned out to be a negative amongst some groups and really upset the segment that JD Vance is speaking to. And this is important because these are people who haven’t voted Republican before. Actually, that segment didn’t go to college, is economically stressed, (is) living paycheck to paycheck… has traditionally been the core of the Democratic vote. It’s not the core of the Democratic vote anymore. And that’s why the election is so interesting.”
The Vance impact
“Not that much,” said Luntz because those who like Vance “are already giving Trump a hearing. I do believe that Vance’s articulation of the working-class mantra, and the challenges of Americans who live paycheck to paycheck, is at least as good as Trump and perhaps even better.”