Trump

• President Joe Biden's overall approval rating remained at 45%, while 55% of voters say they approve of Donald Trump's job as president.
• Trump is leading Biden by 2 points in the general head-to-head, down from 6 points last month.
• The March Harvard CAPS / Harris poll survey was conducted online within the United States on March 20-21, 2024, among 2,111 registered voters by The Harris Poll and HarrisX.
• Follow the Harvard CAPS Harris Poll podcast at https://www.markpennpolls.com/ or on iHeart Radio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast platforms.

• Bipartisan support for suing tech companies for harm to kids is especially notable, given that Democrats and Republicans usually feel differently about corporate responsibility," says Erickson.
• What isn't surprising is that these measures are much less favored by Americans under 35, most of whom grew up with smartphones."
• By contrast, the poll found no consensus on policies aimed at reducing the number of students killed in school shootings.
• "As a society, we can't reach agreement on what we should do to keep our kids safe from mass shootings in schools.

• On March 19, 2024, Trump filed his brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith for Trump’s alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
• To support his contention, Trump cites Supreme Court cases, the Federalist Papers, and other writings from legal scholars.
• If a student of mine had submitted a brief making the arguments that Trump and his lawyers assert in their Supreme Court filing, I would have given them an F.

Sitting in judgment

• But it is not standard practice to characterize those cases and documents as saying one thing when they say the complete opposite.
• Trump begins by citing Marbury v. Madison from 1803, which is one of the court’s most consequential cases.
• Trump also argues that, according to the Constitution, “federal courts cannot sit in judgment directly over the President’s official acts.” This assertion is contrary to scores of cases where federal courts have reviewed presidential acts.
• That act grants the secretary of education the authority to “waive or modify” student loan programs during national emergencies.

Citing Kavanaugh

• But the main legal question remains – whether a president holds, as Trump claims, absolute immunity from criminal investigations and prosecutions for a president’s official acts.
• From a policy perspective, Trump claims that “functional considerations” warrant the absolute immunity that he seeks because if a president is subject to criminal liability, that legal exposure “will cripple … Presidential decisionmaking.”

• To further this claim, Trump relies on a 2009 law review article by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, who now sits on the Supreme Court.
• Trump quotes Kavanaugh, who wrote that “a President who is concerned about an ongoing criminal investigation is almost inevitably going to do a worse job as President,” which Trump provides as evidence of support for the position that a president requires absolute immunity.
• But even a cursory reading of Kavanaugh’s article reveals that Kavanaugh argued only for a deferral of a criminal prosecution until after a president leaves office.

Civil cases vs. criminal cases

• Trump urges the court to extend the presidential immunity established in this civil case to criminal matters.
• But he overlooks the fundamental difference between the civil justice system and the criminal justice system.
• The purpose of the civil justice system is to make an injured party whole again.
• But the purpose of the criminal justice system is to protect society, because crimes are understood to be harms against the public.

Wayne Unger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Fewer than 5% of respondents in 2023 and 2024 Gallup surveys said that climate change was the most important problem facing the country.
• Climate change opinions may even have had a large enough effect to change the 2020 election outcome in President Joe Biden’s favor.

Measuring climate change’s effect on elections

• The survey asked voters to rate climate change’s importance with four options: “unimportant,” “not very important,” “somewhat important” or “very important.” In 2020, 67% of voters rated climate change as “somewhat important” or “very important,” up from 62% in 2016.
• Of these voters rating climate change as important, 77% supported Biden in 2020, up from 69% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016.
• This poll found that more voters trust the Democrats’ approach to climate change, compared to Republicans’ approach to the issue.

What might explain the effect of climate change on voting

• This means that climate change opinion would not need to have a very large effect on voting to change election outcomes.
• Second, candidates who deny that climate change is real or a problem might turn off some moderate swing voters, even if climate change was not those voters’ top issue.
• Third, some voters may be starting to see the connections between climate change and the kitchen-table issues that they consider to be higher priorities than climate change.

Where the candidates stand

• Biden and former President Donald Trump have very different records on climate change and approaches to the environment.
• While in office, Trump rolled back 125 environmental rules and policies aimed at protecting the country’s air, water, land and wildlife, arguing that these regulations hurt businesses.
• He has also added several new rules and regulations, including a requirement for businesses to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.
• Biden has also signed three major laws that each provides tens of billions in annual spending to address climate change.

What this means for 2024

• If these trends continue, then climate change could provide the Democrats with an even larger electoral advantage in 2024.
• Of course, this does not necessarily mean that the Democrats will win the 2024 election.
• Immigration is currently the top issue for a plurality of voters, and recent national polls suggest that Trump currently leads the 2024 presidential race over Biden.

Matt Burgess receives funding from Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the University of Colorado Boulder.