Joe Biden’s best chance – and 2024’s biggest wildcard – is the pro-abortion ad drop in October.
There are eight months to go. Most of the fundamentals still look better for Trump than Biden. But the President made himself interesting again last Thursday.
Voters of all persuasions were downbeat about the state of the country and its immediate prospects: nearly two thirds in my 10,000-sample survey said they thought America was heading in the wrong direction.
Despite European NATO’s technological superiority over Russia, we will struggle to defend against a Russian attack: only Finland and Poland have land equipment on the necessary scale.
His stubbornness – which made him President – may now be his undoing.
As we vote by state, the national polling averages mean little. Drilling down to the swing states, it is crystal clear that if the election were held today, the former President would win a clear victory.
The best chance to beat Trump has been the same since the start of the contest: not via Nikki Haley, but through Ron DeSantis. Polls show he is the only candidate who can win Trump supporters as well as Trump sceptics.
Farage is 59 – a rubbery, ebullient 59, but 59 nonetheless. Does he really fancy a decade’s prospective work to recast the right, with no certainty of elected office at the end of it?
The danger is that the conflict slowburns into a wider one, with hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies accelerating, and knock-on consequences for inflation and Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Republican challengers are putting their own egos ahead of any coordinated effort to beat the former president, whilst any move against Biden are likely to come later, at the Democratic National Convention.
The longer Number Ten fails to declare, the more cheerfully Labour will pile in – preparing to frame the Prime Minister as a bottler if he waits until after the Budget to rule out a May poll.
The channel will help to shape Tory members’ take on the general election, the Conservatives, Reform UK, Farage, post-election debate…and, not least, America’s own election, Trump and Biden.
It looks like there is a deal to be done where the proposed $60 billion package is paired with major reform of America’s porous southern border.
Travelling around America, it is always interesting to meet and listen to Trump voters who are not straight out of the liberal conception of MAGA central casting.