Harvard Poll Finds Americans Receptive To Law-And-Order Message
Voters want to see immigrants with criminal records deported, rioters and looters arrested and prosecuted, and border security stiffened, according to a Harvard poll that suggests there is ample room for President Trump to sell his law-and-order message — if he can break through questions about his character.
More than two-thirds of those surveyed by the Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris pollhave a favorable opinion of police, compared with 51% for the Black Lives Matter movement. Antifa, the left-wing “anti-fascist” movement, has just 14% approval.
About three-fourths want to see the border tightened and want to see illegal immigrants who commit crimes deported rather than protected, as sanctuary cities do.
But Ford O’Connell, a Republican Party strategist with close ties to the White House, said Mr. Trump can win by hammering home an issues-based message about his record over the past four years and his plans for the next four.
“From economic stewardship to law and order to tighter border security to no more crippling economic shutdowns — the issues are overwhelmingly on President Trump’s side,” he said. “And rather than trying to out-personality Biden, which there’s nothing wrong with, Trump would be better served by challenging Biden on the issues and reminding voters what he has done and where he wants to go.”
Trump-Biden Race Tightens As Both Sides Expect Close Contest
President Trump has lagged Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden badly in the polls for much of 2020, but strategists in both parties predict his numbers will rise and the race will tighten as the Republican Party consolidates further behind him this fall.
There are already signs that the race is tightening.
In Michigan, Biden’s average polling lead dropped from 8.4 percentage points on July 28 to 2.6 percent a month later, according to the average of polls kept by RealClearPolitics, while in Pennsylvania Biden’s average lead dipped from 7.4 points to 5.8 points during the same period.
Republican strategists say the change in tactics for Biden, who has been criticized by Trump for spending most of the last several months of the pandemic in Delaware, is a sign he expects the race to tighten.
“Just look at the Joe Biden and see the actions. Now they’re talking about leaving the bunker,” said Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist. “Obviously they recognize they’ve been playing prevent defense on Trump and now they’re going to have to change their tactics.
“If they keep playing prevent defense, which is the bunker strategy, they may wind up losing the election,” he added.
Trump Attempts Shift In Tone On Gloomy Election Polls
With just over three months to go until November’s presidential election, Donald Trump is trying a new tactic: humility.
With more and more national opinion polls giving Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, a widening lead over Mr Trump, the president returned to the White House podium last week for his first coronavirus press briefing in nearly three months with a markedly different tone.
Ford O’Connell, a Republican strategist who is close to the Trump campaign, said the White House “wants to make the case that [the president] is leading the charge to combat the coronavirus and save American lives”. “It is all about being front and centre on the coronavirus,” Mr O’Connell said. “If President Trump continues to make coronavirus briefings as he did this week, where he is succinct, realistic and informative . . . not only will the key voters he needs come home to him . . . but many other voters will be far more receptive to his messages concerning Biden.”
Bad Polls For Trump Shake GOP
President Trump’s troubles are deepening, according to several recent opinion polls that show rising public support for impeachment.
Those polls include one released Wednesday from Fox News that sent shock waves through Washington. It indicated 51 percent of voters support impeaching Trump and removing him from office.
Trump pushed back at that poll vigorously on Thursday, as did his campaign. But the broader fear among Trump loyalists is that Republican elected officials will begin to follow the trends in public opinion — and peel away from the president.
It’s a legitimate worry, according to some moderate Republicans.
The Fox News poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent favored Trump’s removal from office, a position shared by 57 percent of female voters, 50 percent of white female voters, 39 percent of independent voters and even 12 percent of self-described “Trump voters.”
Others, more supportive of Trump, asserted that such a breaking point is unlikely to ever come.
“Absolutely not,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell, arguing that Republicans who abandoned Trump would doom themselves to defeat. “Running from him is a fool’s errand. Everything runs through Trump, so running from him is not a smart idea.”
New Poll Has Bad News For Trump. Voters Think The Economy Is Getting Worse
President Trump's strongest case for reelection is arguably the economy — he says so himself. But that argument might be slipping with voters, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll.
For the first time since Mr. Trump won the presidency in 2016, more registered voters say the country's economy is getting worse than say it's getting better. Voters still think the economy is good, but of those polled, 37% say the economy is getting worse, compared with 31% who say it's getting better and 30% who say it's staying the same. Just two months earlier in June, 23% of voters Quinnipiac surveyed said the economy was getting worse.
"As trade tensions with China dominate the headlines, confidence in the economy is slipping," Quinnipiac University Polling analyst Mary Snow said in a statement. "The number of people who think the economy is getting worse rose by double digits since June. And roughly four in 10 voters blame the President's policies, saying they are hurting the economy, the highest level since Trump took office."
The president typically lists economic gains as his top accomplishment, and the state of the economy is highlighted frequently in administration and campaign talking points. But if voters don't see the world the same way, that message could be undermined.
If there is no recession, and voters continue to think the economy is good, even if people think the economy is heading in the wrong direction, that's probably good enough for the president's prospects, said GOP strategist Ford O'Connell.
"Since FDR, every incumbent president who has avoided a recession has been reelected," O'Connell told CBS News.
Democrats, O'Connell said, are going "full-court press" to convince voters that the economy is heading for a recession. The White House and Trump campaign will continue emphasizing the message that the economy is strong — and would worsen exponentially under a Democrat, O'Connell said.
Support for Biden Steady After Comments About Segregationist Senators
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s comments about working with segregationist senators don’t appear to have dented him, according to new polling showing he remains the overwhelming front-runner ahead of this week’s first Democratic presidential primary debates.
Mr. Biden was the choice of 38% of Democratic primary voters — the same level of support as last week and 19 points ahead of Sen. Bernard Sanders, his nearest competitor, according to a Morning Consult poll finalized Monday.
A separate survey Morning Consult conducted in coordination with Politico found Democrats appeared to like Mr. Biden’s joking about not being called “boy” and his ability to work with Democrats who were avowed segregationists.
Some 31% of Democrats said the incident made them more likely to support Mr. Biden, while just 17% said they were less inclined to back him. Another 40% said it wouldn’t make a difference.
Among blacks, 30% said it made them more likely to support Mr. Biden, 20% said less likely, and 27% said it made no difference.
The Morning Consult/Politico survey found, if anything, the dust-up hurt Mr. Booker.
“Could he blow this? Absolutely. But for now, it’s his nomination to lose,” said GOP strategist Ford O’Connell.
Mr. Biden’s base of support is coming from minority voters, particularly blacks, and older voters — demographics that hold outsize influence in Democratic primary contests — who haven’t found reason to abandon him en masse, he said.
“If you want to boil it down to two slogans, it’s very simple: it’s ‘my buddy Barack,’ and ‘a return to normalcy’ for seniors,” Mr. O’Connell said. “[Obama’s] numbers among Democrats are even better than Trump’s dogged support among Republicans … it’s absolutely mind-numbing.”
Biden, Sanders Lead Pack Of 2020 Democratic Candidates: Fox News Poll
CivicForumPAC Chairman Ford O’Connell and New Heights Communications President Christy Setzer discuss the upcoming 2020 presidential election and which Democrat has the best chance of defeating President Trump.
'Granite Strong': Trump's Base Rock-Solid On Shutdown, Blames Democrat Opposition
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s field office on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was closed because of the partial federal government shutdown when George Godfrey Jr. showed up Wednesday, leaving him without a reimbursement check for his grain crop losses.
Despite the setback, Mr. Godfrey didn’t waver in his support for President Trump. In fact, he said he was ready to hang tough indefinitely with Mr. Trump in the shutdown fight over border security.
A Quinnipiac University poll released this week found that 86 percent of Republican voters approve of Mr. Trump’s performance, up from 82 percent in December before the shutdown.
Tim Malloy, assistant director of the poll, called the president’s base “granite strong.” He credited their loyalty with keeping Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating above 40 percent despite his poor showings on honesty, empathy, leadership and fitness to serve.
Republican Party strategist Ford O’Connell said the illegal immigration issue is what unites and energizes Mr. Trump’s supporters, which is why the crowds at campaign rallies in 2016 spontaneously broke out in chants of “Build the wall.”
“Most Republicans recognize that Democrats have no interest in getting a handle on illegal immigration. In fact, Democrats are doing their best to incentivize illegal immigration with the explosion of sanctuary cities across the country, driver’s licenses for illegals, free health care and even voting rights in some cases for illegal aliens,” Mr. O’Connell said.
“Republicans see the writing on the wall, and they recognize that Donald Trump is the last, best chance to get illegal immigration under control.”
9 Reasons Why The Polls May Be All Wrong Again
For months now, pundits and pollsters have been predicting a political bloodbath for Republicans this election. The House, they said, was really a lost cause. The only question was whether the GOP could duck the “blue wave” just enough to hold onto control of the Senate.
Talk radio giant Rush Limbaugh has dismissed the polling this election as no more accurate than it was in 2016. In fact, “El Rushbo” suggested some negative polls were intended to depress conservative turnout.
In the past 48 hours, curiously, several mainstream pollsters and data analysts confessed this week that neither a red advance nor a blue wave would really surprise them. In other words, they agree there could be a systemic polling flaw in the run-up to this year’s election.
Soon, voters will find out whether the prognosticators will once again spend Election Night daubing egg off their faces. Here are nine recent indicators suggesting that they may:
6. Pollsters May Have Miscalculated the Turnout
Midterms results vary widely depending on turnout, and how many voters will turn out to cast ballots in midterms is difficult to predict. GOP Strategist Ford O’Connell tells Newsmax: “I agree with the uncertainty expressed by several pollsters and data experts this week, including Peter Hart and Nate Silver, who see the outcome of this election as especially unpredictable. “Polling is not an exact science,” O’Connell cautions. “A lot of it is art.”
O’Connell says there’s one demographic whose turnout will serve as the best indicator of how Republicans will fare Tuesday: Seniors. “I’m not even looking at those [MSM poll] numbers,” he says. “I’m looking at seniors. I’m more concerned about a drop in senior voting than I am about an increase in any other group, because seniors are just so reliably GOP, especially for the midterms.”
Trump Aides Hope Win On Taxes Will Stem Slide In Poll Numbers
Near the end of President Donald Trump’s rocky first year in office, White House aides view imminent victory on a tax overhaul as a starting point to strengthen his weak approval ratings ahead of key congressional elections next November.
Some Republicans said any effort at a political turnaround must include reining in Trump's habit of lashing out at critics on Twitter.
White House aides said they recognized that Trump's poll numbers needed to start rising to limit the damage in 2018 elections in which his fellow Republicans' continued control of Congress will be at stake.
A Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives and Senate could jeopardize Trump's agenda.
Republican strategist Ford O'Connell said Trump had done much to keep his conservative base of support happy but had to expand his popularity. To do that, he needs to ease voters' concerns about his fitness for office.
"What he has to do to win over people like independents and never-Trumpers is make the American people feel comfortable with him as president," said O'Connell. "His achievements are quite striking, but he’s just not connecting (with the public).”
