Despite indictment, Trump retains huge lead in Republican primary polls and narrowly leads Biden
Despite the indictment, he retains a huge lead in national polling to determine the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
- Despite the indictment, he retains a huge lead in national polling to determine the 2024 Republican presidential candidate.
- Polls of early states will become more important as we approach these contests, but for now national polls are the best guide we have.
- In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate of national Republican primary polls, Trump currently leads with 53.1%, with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis far behind on 21.2% and nobody else over 6%.
- Trump’s lead has only marginally declined from 53.5-20.8 over DeSantis in my last US politics article in late May.
Biden’s ratings have not improved since debt limit deal
- In late May, President Joe Biden agreed to a debt limit deal with Republican House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and the deal was passed by both chambers of Congress by June 1.
- Biden’s ratings in the FiveThirtyEight aggregate are currently 54.2% disapprove, 41.2% disapprove (net -12.9).
- In my May US politics article before the debt limit deal was struck, his net approval was -10.4.
- The failure of Biden’s ratings to improve after the debt limit deal suggests Republican rhetoric on the need for spending cuts in the lead-up to the debt crisis was effective, and that McCarthy could have pushed for deeper cuts than what occurred.
- Bad news for Trump regarding the indictment (his national favourability ratings have fallen) may be compensated by Biden’s drop in approval ratings.
Boris Johnson resigns from UK parliament
- Johnson knew he would be forced to a byelection, so he resigned preemptively.
- As Sunak and Johnson are rivals, it’s very unlikely that Sunak will allow Johnson to return as a Conservative candidate.
Right and far-right are doing well in Europe
- If this occurs, Spain will follow Italy last year as the second major European country to fall to the right.
- In Germany, the centre-left Social Democrats formed a governing coalition with the Greens and pro-business Free Democrats after the September 2021 election.