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      We Did an Experiment to See How Much Democracy and Abortion Matter to Voters

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      Yes, the economy is important, but we found that election subversion attempts appear to matter more to voters than polling suggests.Voters usually penalize those supporting electoral subversion.Ashley Gilbertson for The New York TimesDo abortion and democracy matter to voters?If you look at the results of New York Times/Siena College polling, the answer often seems to be “not really.”Around 40 percent of voters agreed that Donald J. Trump was “bad” for democracy in our latest poll. Only around a quarter said that issues like democracy and abortion were more important to their vote than the economy.But in election after election, the final vote tallies seem to tell a very different story. Last fall, Democrats excelled when abortion and democracy were at stake, even though our pre-election polls offered little indication that these issues were driving voters. It raises the possibility that the usual poll questions simply failed to reveal the importance of abortion, democracy and perhaps other issues as well.With that in mind, we tried an experiment in our latest Times/Siena poll. We looked at the persuadable voters — those who were undecided or who said they were open to supporting the other candidate — and split them into two groups. We gave each group a set of two hypothetical Republican candidates based on views on abortion and democracy.While only an experiment, the findings suggest that democracy has the potential to be an extremely important factor in people’s voting — even among voters who say it’s not important to them at all.Here’s the democracy matchup:Hypothetical A: Would you be more likely to support a Democratic candidate who says Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy, or a Republican candidate who tried to overturn the 2020 election?Hypothetical B: Would you be more likely to support a Democratic candidate who says Donald Trump is a unique threat to democracy, or a Republican candidate who says we should move on from the 2020 election?If democracy didn’t matter to voters, these two hypotheticals might not yield very different results.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Trump Health Report Claims ‘Weight Reduction’ but Skimps on Specifics

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      The former president’s doctors have often offered hyperbolic or unverifiable claims in reports about his health.Former President Donald J. Trump posted a fawning but vague health report from his doctor on Monday that declares that Mr. Trump’s health is “excellent” and that he has recently lost weight through an “improved diet” and “daily physical activity.”Mr. Trump’s physician, Dr. Bruce Aronwald, wrote the single-page report over two months after Mr. Trump, 77, underwent a “comprehensive” health examination in September, the document says.In August, Mr. Trump reported to the Fulton County Jail, during an intake process for one of four criminal cases he is facing, that he weighed 215 pounds. That was nearly 30 pounds less than the White House doctor reported in 2020.But the report on Monday did not include even basic details such as Mr. Trump’s weight, his blood pressure, his cholesterol levels, any prescriptions or even how much weight he had lost. Dr. Aronwald instead wrote that Mr. Trump’s “physical exams were well within the normal range and his cognitive exams were exceptional.”The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to questions about specific details regarding Mr. Trump’s health.The timing of the report appeared to be taking a jab at President Biden on his 81st birthday. While Mr. Trump has repeatedly mocked Mr. Biden’s age, he has had his own verbal stumbles on the campaign trail.Mr. Trump’s doctors — an eclectic group of personal and White House physicians — have previously released memos and reports that have offered few details about his health and included hyperbolic claims and descriptions of his condition as “excellent.”Dr. Harold Bornstein, Mr. Trump’s longtime personal physician, declared in late 2015 that Mr. Trump would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” He then later told The New York Times that Mr. Trump was taking medication for various ailments, including a prostate-related drug to promote hair growth. Dr. Bornstein later said that Mr. Trump sent his bodyguard among others to seize his medical records from Dr. Bornstein’s office after the physician fell from Mr. Trump’s orbit.Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, a White House physician for Mr. Trump, asserted in 2018 that with a better diet, Mr. Trump could have lived to be 200 years old. Another White House physician, Dr. Sean P. Conley, repeatedly misled the public about the severity of Mr. Trump’s illness after he contracted Covid in 2020.Mr. Biden, as president, has undergone annual physical exams and releases significantly more detailed health reports. His latest report, in February, was five pages long, noting specific ailments, like arthritis, and the regimen of tests taken — to detect neurological disorders, for example.But tests and reports have done little to reassure voters that Mr. Biden has not slowed in his senior years, and any slip of the tongue or stumble on a stairway draws further public attention. During remarks at the White House on Monday, he confused Taylor Swift with Britney Spears.Concerns about age and health have been a sore subject for both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, who would each be well past 80 by the end of a term in 2029. They have repeatedly dismissed such concerns, and each asserts that he is more than capable of serving another four years in the Oval Office.In one notable episode, Mr. Trump repeatedly bragged in television appearances about acing a cognitive test that looks for signs of conditions like dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, wielding it as proof that he was sharper than Mr. Biden — who at the time was his opponent in the 2020 election.Mr. Trump was particularly boastful of completing a memory test that involved reciting the words “person, woman, man, camera, TV” in the correct order.Recent polls have found that roughly two of every three voters say Mr. Biden is too old to serve another four-year term. About half say the same about Mr. Trump. More

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      Is Biden vs. Trump the ‘Election We Need’?

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      More from our inbox:Rosalynn Carter’s ‘Incredible Life’Protests at ColumbiaBidenomics Isn’t Helping Me Damon Winter/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “A Trump-Biden Rematch Is the Election We Need,” by Carlos Lozada (column, Nov. 12):When I first saw the headline on Mr. Lozada’s column, I thought, “No way!” After reading the piece and thinking about it, I have decided that this is the one election we truly need to have.There is no greater comparison than Biden vs. Trump. It is the classic confrontation of good versus evil, and the American people need to decide whether we choose to maintain a constitutional republic, or support an authoritarian, belligerent, vindictive form of government.The twice impeached, quadruple indicted former president is a clear and present danger, while Joe Biden is a staunch defender of democracy, fairness and decency. We need this election to once and for all defeat MAGA and Trumpism, and send Donald Trump packing, if he is not in prison.There is no greater threat to the American way of life than Donald Trump, and even if Joe Biden is simply a place holder for the president who is elected in 2028, that would be far more palatable than a Trump presidency.Henry A. LowensteinNew YorkTo the Editor:Carlos Lozada argues that “we have no choice but to choose” between Donald Trump and President Biden and their dueling visions for America at the ballot box in 2024. This is, for now, a false choice.In light of the alarming polling trend regarding Mr. Biden’s re-electability, the wisest course of action for the Democrats is to urgently organize, with Mr. Biden’s blessing (he would have to be persuaded), a robust Democratic presidential primary in order to discover whom Democratic voters would turn out for in the largest numbers on Election Day.But the longer that Democratic elites delay, the Trump-Biden choice will, in short order, become one that we indeed cannot escape. If this occurs, as seems likely, it will be a choice that Mr. Biden and the Democratic establishment impose on the electorate.And if Mr. Biden comes up short at the ballot box in 2024, as the recent New York Times/Siena poll suggests he will, he and the Democratic Party’s other so-called leaders will have nobody but themselves to blame.Nicholas BuxtonNew YorkTo the Editor:Carlos Lozada writes: “Joe Biden versus Donald Trump is not the choice America wants. But it is the choice we need to face.”Yes, it is the choice we need to face, but what a risk!With Mr. Trump’s high polling numbers, it certainly seems that a significant number of people support his candidacy unequivocally. What he says and does — illegal or not — makes no difference. He evokes deep emotions and the feeling that he will settle their scores and protect them from the “woke” mob. They like Mr. Trump’s moxie and flouting of authority, but don’t listen to his actual plan of governance.He plainly wants to create an authoritarian government — put his cronies in the Justice Department and jail his political “enemies,” pack the courts and rule as his whims dictate.Yes, the best way to end Mr. Trump’s reign of influence would be to decisively defeat him in this election. But we are taking the huge risk that he could win — and end our democracy as we know it.I would rather risk losing to a Nikki Haley than take the chance on beating Mr. Trump. Unfortunately, we may not have a choice.It is the job of the Democratic candidates and the media to clearly present the facts about the likely choices in this election. And keep our fingers crossed!Carol KrainesDeerfield, Ill.To the Editor:Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, the 54-year-old Democrat running a long-shot presidential campaign, took direct aim at President Biden and his message in a recent CNN interview.Mr. Phillips said: “I think in 2020, he was probably the only Democrat who could have beaten Donald Trump. I think in 2024, he may be among the only ones that will lose to him.”Let’s think about that, because if you do, his argument is very persuasive. Mr. Phillips is a relatively young, moderate Democrat. Millions of people are yearning for an alternative to an octogenarian Joe Biden and to an existentially dangerous to our democracy Donald Trump.In a recent poll, a “generic” Democrat matched against Mr. Trump outperformed Joe Biden by more than 10 points. We Democrats want an alternative. Just maybe we’ve found one, and his name is Dean Phillips.Ken DerowSwarthmore, Pa.Rosalynn Carter’s ‘Incredible Life’At their home in Plains, Ga., in the same place they’ve always sat.” After the presidency, Mrs. Carter joined her husband in doing work for Habitat for Humanity, co-founded a vaccine advocacy organization and continued to campaign to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Dustin Chambers for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Rosalynn Carter, 1927-2023: First Lady and Influential Partner to a President” (obituary, front page, Nov. 20):Rosalynn Carter walked her own path, inspiring a nation and the world along the way.Throughout her incredible life as first lady of Georgia and the first lady of the United States, Mrs. Carter did so much to address many of society’s greatest needs.She was a champion for equal rights and opportunities for women and girls; an advocate for mental health and wellness for every person; and a supporter of the often unseen and uncompensated caregivers of our children, aging loved ones and people with disabilities.Above all, the deep love shared between Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter is the definition of partnership, and their humble leadership is the definition of patriotism. She lived life by her faith.I send my love to Mr. Carter, the entire Carter family, and the countless people across our nation and the world whose lives are better, fuller and brighter because of the life and legacy of Rosalynn Carter.Paul BaconHallandale Beach, Fla.Protests at Columbia Bing Guan for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Columbia Students and Faculty Protest War and the University’s Reaction to It” (news article, Nov. 16):Columbia administrators cite “unauthorized” events and the necessary continuation of “core university activities” as primary reasons for silencing pro-Palestinian groups on campus.I don’t always agree with the politics of these groups, and I agree with the university’s finding that “threatening rhetoric and intimidation” exist at their protests. Still, the university’s actions raise these questions:What is a university if not a space for the free exchange of ideas? Is protest not a core university activity at an institution celebrated for its amplification of student voices?As long as they don’t incite violence or endanger members of our community, Columbia’s pro-Palestinian groups should be allowed to offend, frighten and protest whenever and wherever they’d like.Benjamin RubinNew YorkThe writer is a member of the Columbia University class of 2027.Bidenomics Isn’t Helping Me John ProvencherTo the Editor:Re “Bidenomics Has a Mortal Enemy, and It Isn’t Trump,” by Karen Petrou (Opinion guest essay, Nov. 19):Ms. Petrou is absolutely accurate. I am self-employed, work full time and cannot make ends meet.I’m constantly trying to determine whether to pay the bills or rent on my business; luckily, I have kind landlords. I pay a mortgage as well. I’m college educated. The last couple of weeks of every month I am generally broke and couldn’t pay anything if I had to. And this situation has gone on for years now.I really like President Biden, but I do agree that on this particular issue the administration is getting it wrong.Shannon TrimbleSan Francisco More

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      Appeals Court Hears Arguments on Trump Election Case Gag Order

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      A three-judge panel is considering how to balance the former president’s free-speech rights against the need to insulate prosecutors, court personnel and potential witnesses from intimidation.Prosecutors and lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump squared off on Monday in a federal appeals court in Washington to debate the validity of the gag order placed on Mr. Trump in the criminal case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.The hearing in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit followed more than a month of back-and-forth arguments about the order. It was put in place by the trial judge in October to stop Mr. Trump from maligning or threatening prosecutors, potential witnesses or court employees involved in the case.From the start, the gag order has led to a momentous clash over how to protect people taking part in the election interference case from Mr. Trump’s barrage while preserving his rights as he campaigns for president and claims that the prosecution is political persecution.When Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama, first imposed the order, she tried to thread that needle by barring Mr. Trump from lashing out at any people connected to the case — herself excepted — while still allowing him to say what he wants about what he asserts is the partisan and retaliatory nature of the case.Mr. Trump’s lawyers appealed the order almost as soon as it was imposed, deriding it as “the essence of censorship.”Each of the three judges on the appellate panel assigned to the case was nominated by a Democratic president: Judges Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard were both Obama appointees, and Judge Brad Garcia was appointed by President Biden.In court papers, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have told the appeals court that the order should be repealed since it violates the First Amendment. They also said it represented an effort by Judge Chutkan to “micromanage” Mr. Trump’s “core political speech” before and during a trial that is scheduled to begin in March in the midst of the Republican primary season.Prosecutors working for Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the federal prosecutions of Mr. Trump, have fired back that courts have wide discretion to limit the statements made by criminal defendants. They say that this gag order in particular was needed because of Mr. Trump’s “near daily” attacks against Mr. Smith, Judge Chutkan and potential witnesses in the case, including former Vice President Mike Pence and Gen. Mark A. Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.The prosecutors have tried to position themselves as protectors of both the integrity of the judicial process and the people who take part in it, telling the appeals court that Mr. Trump’s threats on social media have sometimes had damaging effects in the real world.It is not clear how quickly the three-judge panel of the appeals court will decide on whether to rescind the gag order or keep it in place as the case moves toward its trial date. The gag order has been in abeyance for about two weeks as the court has gotten filings from the defense and the prosecution.If the order is upheld and goes back into effect, Judge Chutkan may confront an even tougher issue: how to enforce the decree if Mr. Trump violates it. A violation of a gag order is treated as a matter of contempt of court, which could result in a reprimand, a fine or imprisonment. But how that would play out is complicated.There are two types of contempt: civil, which is typically used to coerce future compliance with an order like making a recalcitrant witness testify; and criminal, which is focused on punishing past defiance of an order. Typically — though not always — judges have treated violations of gag orders as the latter type.In federal court, judges cannot unilaterally impose a fine or order someone imprisoned for criminal contempt. Rather, such an accusation is treated as a new offense that requires the appointment of a prosecutor and another trial — including a right to a decision by a jury.The battle over the federal gag order comes as a state appeals court in New York is considering the merits of two related gag orders imposed on Mr. Trump by Justice Arthur F. Engoron, who is overseeing his civil fraud trial in Manhattan.Those orders — which are also currently paused — would bar Mr. Trump or any of his lawyers from targeting Justice Engoron’s law clerk. The clerk has suffered repeated attacks by the former president and his allies, who have accused her of being a Democratic partisan. More

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      Happy Thanksgiving, Hermit Billionaires!

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      Gail Collins: Bret, I guess we should start with things we’re thankful for this year. Don’t suppose the imminent end of the political career of the dreadful Representative George Santos rises to the level of holiday cheer.So you go first. No fair counting family and friends.Bret Stephens: It’s a depressing world, Gail, so we need to find cheer wherever we can, and the House Ethics Committee report on Santos does make for delightful reading. My favorite bit: “During the 2020 campaign, a $1,500 purchase on the campaign debit card was made at Mirza Aesthetics; this expense was not reported to the F.E.C. and was noted as ‘Botox’ in expense spreadsheets.” Santos would have been around 32 years old at the time.Gail: You’re right. Makes me cheery just hearing it.Bret: On a loftier plane, I was delighted to see Joe Biden describe Xi Jinping as, well, “a dictator” of a “Communist country” while Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, visibly winced. That was another wonderful moment.Gail: I can see how Biden felt a little cornered when a reporter asked him if he still believed Xi was a dictator. I mean, what was he supposed to say? “No, I think he’s changed a lot?”But it also does seem as if it’s the kind of question he should have been a tad better prepared to handle.Feel free to perk me up again.Bret: I loved Biden’s answer. It reminded me of Ronald Reagan calling the Soviet Union an “evil empire,” to the consternation of diplomats and pundits but to the relief of anyone who liked hearing an American president state the obvious and essential truth. I also think it’s worth celebrating the fact that inflation seems to have been tamed without cratering the rest of the economy in the process. That might not help Biden’s campaign, since a lot of price increases are now baked into the system, but at least things aren’t getting worse.OK, now your turn.Gail: Hey, this is a president who has really kept the economy under control, who has a great program for building new roads, bridges and mass transit and who always keeps climate change in mind when he’s working out an agenda.And who does not seek out cheap headlines by saying things that are both wrong and wrongheaded just to get attention.Bret: Like Elon Musk?Gail: OK, never been grateful for Elon Musk. He has, however, made me more appreciative of stupendously rich people who don’t get involved in public debates. Happy Thanksgiving, hermit billionaires!Bret: He’s also made me more appreciative of normal billionaires who, unlike him, don’t promote crackpot antisemitic conspiracy theories on their social media platforms. I’m also appreciative of companies — like IBM, Paramount, Apple and Disney — that have pulled their advertising dollars from X, formerly known as Twitter, out of disgust for his views. Now I’m rooting for Tesla owners to trade in their Model 3s for a Rivian or any other electric car that doesn’t run on a high-voltage blend of bottomless narcissism, knee-jerk bigotry and probably too much weed.Gail: Well said. Moving on to politics: I’m grateful that some Republican presidential candidates other than He Who Shall Not Be Named are getting some attention. Particularly your fave, Nikki Haley.On that topic, tell me what you think about the primaries. Trump is way ahead nationally, but do you think Haley could do something impressive in the early primaries? If, say, Chris Christie dropped out and endorsed her?Bret: My gut tells me that primary voters prefer a contest to a coronation, but then my brain remembers that the G.O.P. has turned into a cult. As the field narrows, Haley will pick up Christie voters and maybe some DeSantis voters, too. But Trump will pick up other DeSantis voters, plus Ramaswamy’s.I’m about as thankful for Trump’s dominance as I would be for a terminal cancer diagnosis. But hey, aren’t we trying to keep things optimistic?Gail: Maybe it’s my desperation that creates these imagined scenarios in which Haley impresses New Hampshire voters, who are always up for a script in which they get to pick the new star. And then the campaign gets a real jolt when Christie drops out and gives her his endorsement.Bret: I like this fantasy. Say more.Gail: Then Haley starts a serious campaign that draws terrific interest among rich Americans who don’t want a president who has to spend half his time in court trying to prove that he didn’t actually try to fix the last election, that his real estate empire isn’t just a fairyland of debt, that — I could go on. If Haley could get the serious-alternative attention and funding, it’d be quite a ride.And oh, did I mention that I’d be thankful if she rethinks her position on a six-week abortion ban bill?Bret: Gail, I bet this is the first time you wish the 1 percent were more like the majority, at least in terms of attitudes about Republican candidates. If Park Avenue got to decide the G.O.P. primary contest, Haley would be the nominee in a heartbeat.And speaking of heartbeats: Biden turns 81 this week. Happy birthday, Mr. President. May you live to 100, but please, please, please retire. We’ll all pitch in to buy you a new Corvette, at least before we have to take away the keys.Gail: Sigh. Once again, I’m gonna have to follow up my praise of Biden in office with a plea for him to leave it. If you’re in good health like he is, your 80s can be a great time of achievement. Or your 90s — look at Jimmy Carter and all his charitable work and Rosalynn Carter, who just died at 96. But that doesn’t mean it’s a good time to be president of the United States.If our president really wants to make me thankful this season, he knows what he can do.Bret: Let’s face it: There’s just not a lot to be thankful for, politically speaking. So, um, read any good books lately?Gail: Well, right now I’m on “Romney,” the Mitt biography by McKay Coppins, although Romney himself was so wildly cooperative it feels as if he should get some kind of co-author status. So far, it’s a very good read.And I just finished our colleague Adam Nagourney’s book “The Times,” which is about … well, us. Adam’s a friend and a terrific reporter. Bet anyone who’s a devoted Times reader will gobble it up.Finally, I sort of have a thing for presidential biographies, and if anybody’s looking for a really fine one, I’d recommend “Washington,” by Ron Chernow. Always good to start at the beginning.How about you?Bret: Generally, I hate books about the media by the media: Solipsism is one of the curses of our profession. But everyone who has read Adam’s book tells me it’s terrific, and I’ve promised myself to get to it before the year’s out.I’m making my way through two books right now, one to feed the mind and the other the soul. The first is the Johns Hopkins scholar Yascha Mounk’s “The Identity Trap,” an intellectual tour de force about the origins of identity politics and the threat it presents to genuine, honest, old-fashioned liberalism. The second is “My Effin’ Life,” by the greatest living Canadian: the singer and bassist Geddy Lee of the band Rush. It’s a story about how an improbable trio of geeks from Ontario rose to the pinnacle of rock ’n’ roll stardom while somehow holding on to their wits, souls and marriages.I’m sure you can’t wait to read it. I’m guessing you’d rather talk about budget negotiations.Gail: Well, one ongoing story line that’s driving me crazy is the House Republicans’ insistence that pretty much everything be tied to a cut in the I.R.S. budget.Now I know it’s natural for people to hate tax collectors. But the idea that you make the country more stable by making it easier for folks to conceal income and illicitly expand deductions is beyond me.Bret: Hope it won’t surprise you to learn that while I’m all for lowering taxes majorly, I’m also for collecting them fully. The Republican war on the I.R.S. isn’t pro-growth; it’s just anti-government.As for the big picture: We can’t go on like this, from one short-term spending bill to another, one budget crisis to another, one House speaker to another. This is banana republic governance — and by “banana,” I mean “bananas.” Pramila Jayapal, the progressive congresswoman from Seattle with whom I agree roughly once every 500 years, was right when she said, “It’s the same menu, different waiter.”Gail: In a normal — thinking non-Trump — era, the Republicans would have taken over the House by a more substantial margin. Usually happens when one party gets the presidency, as you know. Voters get nervous and want to put up some barricades against extremely partisan behavior.But this time the Republicans won by only a hair, in part because there were a number of awful Trump-promoted Republican candidates.So you’ve got a House run by a deeply inexperienced leader with a tiny majority. And everything bad that happens is going to be the Republicans’ fault.Except, I guess, if Biden’s dog Commander comes back to the White House and bites more people.Hey, before we go, happy Thanksgiving, Bret. Very grateful for the chance to converse with you every week.Bret: And to you!The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      The Crisis in Issue Polling, and What We’re Doing About It

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      A poll can be very close to the actual result but miss the key story line. We’ll try new question forms; we might even try an experiment or two.Protecting democracy has been a potent message in recent elections. Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesBy the usual measures, last year’s midterm polls were among the most accurate on record.But in harder-to-measure ways, there’s a case those same polls were extraordinarily bad.Poll after poll seemed to tell a clear story before the election: Voters were driven more by the economy, immigration and crime than abortion and democracy, helping to raise the specter of a “red wave.”In the end, the final results looked just about like the final polls, but they told a completely different story about the election: When abortion and democracy were at stake, Democrats excelled. And while the polls had sometimes or even often showed Democrats excelling, they almost always failed to convincingly explain why they were ahead — making it seem that Democratic polling leads were fragile and tenuous.Take our own Times/Siena polls. Our results in states like Pennsylvania and Arizona were very close to the final results and showed Democrats with the lead. By all accounts, abortion and democracy were major factors helping to explain Democratic strength in these states, especially against election deniers like Doug Mastriano or Kari Lake.But although these polls performed well, they simply didn’t explain what happened. If anything, the polls were showing the conditions for a Republican win. They showed that voters wanted Republican control of the Senate. They showed that a majority of voters didn’t really care whether a candidate thought Joe Biden won the 2020 election, even though election deniers wound up being clearly punished at the ballot box. Voters said they cared more about the economy than issues like abortion or democracy, and so on.The Times/Siena polling wasn’t alone in this regard. Virtually all of the major public pollsters told the same basic story, and it’s the opposite of the story that we told after the election. If we judge these poll questions about the issues by the same standard that we judge the main election results — a comparison between the pre-election polls and what we believe to be true after the election, with the benefit of the results — I think we’d have to say this was a complete misfire.If you do this exercise for previous elections, issue polling failures look more like the norm than the exception. There just aren’t many elections when you can read a pre-election poll story, line it up with the post-election story, and say that the pre-election poll captured the most important dynamics of the election. The final CBS/NYT, Pew Research and ABC/Washington Post polls from the 2016 election, for instance, barely shed any light at all on Donald J. Trump’s strength. They contributed essentially nothing to the decade-long debate about whether the economy, racial resentment, immigration or anything else helped explain Mr. Trump’s success among white working-class voters in that election.With such a poor track record, there’s a case that “issue” polling faces a far graver crisis than “horse race” polling. I can imagine many public pollsters recoiling at that assertion, but they can’t prove it wrong, either. The crisis facing issue polling is almost entirely non-falsifiable — just like the issue polling itself. Indeed, the fact that the problems with issue polling are so hard to quantify is probably why problems have been allowed to fester. Most pollsters probably assume they’re good at issue polling; after all, unlike with horse race polls, they’re almost never demonstrably wrong.In fairness to pollsters, the problem isn’t only that the usual questions probably don’t fully portray the attitudes of the electorate. It’s also that pollsters are trying to figure out what’s driving the behavior of voters, and that’s a different and more challenging question than simply measuring whom they’ll vote for or what they believe. These causal questions are beyond what a single poll with “issue” questions can realistically be expected to answer. The worlds of political campaigning and social science research, with everything from experimental designs to messaging testing, probably have more of the relevant tools than public pollsters.Over the next year, we’re going to try to bring some of those tools into our polling. We’ll focus more on analyzing what factors predict whether voters have “flipped” since 2020, rather than look at what attitudes prevail over a majority of the electorate. We’ll try new question forms. We might even try an experiment or two.We already tried one such experiment in our latest Times/Siena battleground state poll. We split the sample into two halves: One half was asked whether they’d vote for a typical Democrat against a Republican expressing a moderate view on abortion or democracy; the other half was given the same Democrat against a Republican expressing more conservative or MAGA views on abortion or democracy.In the next newsletter, I’ll tell you about the results of that experiment. I think it was promising. More

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      Las lecciones de las campañas de Bush y Obama para Biden

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      En manos de un candidato hábil, las encuestas preliminares pueden ser un mapa de ruta para darle un giro total a una campaña en dificultades.Mucho antes del día de las elecciones en 2004, algunos estrategas le advirtieron al presidente George W. Bush que tendría una campaña difícil porque los electores estaban angustiados por la guerra en Irak y la economía, dos temas que esperaba sortear para llegar a un segundo mandato.Los asesores de Bush se apresuraron a restructurar la campaña. Su meta fue evitar que el público centrara su atención en el presidente y su historial y lograr, más bien, presentar al opositor demócrata más probable, el senador de Massachusetts, John Kerry, veterano de la guerra de Vietnam, como alguien que cambiaba de opinión con facilidad, que no era de fiar en temas de seguridad nacional y que no podía guiar a la nación, que todavía estaba recuperándose de los ataques terroristas del 11 de septiembre.“Identificamos una debilidad que sin duda podríamos explotar en nuestro beneficio en unas elecciones que se esperaba que fueran cerradas”, explicó Karl Rove, asesor político sénior de Bush durante mucho tiempo.Ocho años después, los asesores de otro presidente en funciones, Barack Obama, gracias a su análisis de varias encuestas públicas y privadas, llegaron a la conclusión de que las inquietudes de los votantes en torno a los efectos persistentes de la Gran Recesión y la dirección de la nación podrían arruinar sus posibilidades de llegar a un segundo mandato.Siguiendo el ejemplo de Bush, Obama ajustó su campaña y, en vez de poner énfasis en los logros obtenidos durante su primer mandato, se concentró en desacreditar a su opositor, el exgobernador de Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, presentándolo como un empresario adinerado totalmente desconectado de los estadounidenses de clase trabajadora.En esta era de división y polarización, el presidente Joe Biden no es el primero en recibir datos que parecen indicar que su reelección está en riesgo. El problema es que las campañas de reelección de Bush y Obama, quienes lograron ganar un segundo mandato en la Casa Blanca, ahora más bien son prueba de que las encuestas realizadas con tanta anticipación no pueden predecir lo que ocurrirá el día de las elecciones. En manos de un candidato hábil, incluso pueden ser un mapa de ruta para darle un giro total a una campaña en dificultades.Bush y Obama eran candidatos diferentes y enfrentaban obstáculos distintos: en el caso de Bush, el embrollo de una guerra; en el de Obama, una economía nacional sacudida por la crisis financiera global de 2008. Sin embargo, ambos decidieron transformar su campana de reelección de un referendo sobre el presidente en funciones a una operación para resaltar cuánto contrastaban con un opositor que ellos mismos definieron, con anuncios televisivos fulminantes, meses antes de que Romney o Kerry fueran nominados en las convenciones de sus partidos.En el caso contrario, un presidente republicano de la era moderna que perdió las elecciones para un segundo mandato, George H.W. Bush en 1992, cometió el error de ignorar los datos mostrados por las encuestas sobre la angustia de los electores en el tema de la economía y su avidez de un cambio tras 12 años de republicanos en la Casa Blanca.Bush padre, según dijeron sus asesores en entrevistas recientes, se confió por el reconocimiento del que fue objeto por su papel al frente de la coalición que expulsó a Saddam Hussein e Irak de Kuwait, además del desdén que sentía por su opositor, un joven gobernador demócrata que había evitado el reclutamiento militar y tenía un historial de relaciones extramaritales.El expresidente Barack Obama reformuló su campaña para centrarse en desacreditar a su oponente, Mitt Romney, y mostrarlo como un empresario adinerado totalmente desconectado de los estadounidenses de clase trabajadora.Doug Mills/The New York Times“Biden tiene grandes dificultades, pero creo que es posible ganar la contienda”, aseveró David Plouffe, antiguo asesor sénior en la campaña de reelección de Obama. “Claro que comprendo que un presidente o gobernador en funciones piense que las personas deban saber más sobre sus logros. Es cierto, pero, a fin de cuentas, esto es un ejercicio comparativo. Eso fue lo que descubrimos”.La Casa Blanca de Biden ha desestimado las encuestas —incluida una realizada por The New York Times en colaboración con el Siena College que se dio a conocer recientemente— por considerarlas poco significativas tanto tiempo antes de las elecciones. Los asesores del presidente indicaron que las victorias demócratas en las elecciones de este mes demuestran que el partido y su abanderado están en una buena posición.Sin embargo, después de meses de una campaña basada en sus logros económicos con pocas señales de éxito, Biden ha comenzado a centrar su atención en Donald Trump, el expresidente republicano que probablemente sea su opositor, en particular en sus políticas de inmigración y derecho al aborto. Por este motivo ahora se transmite un anuncio en el que el expresidente aparece caminando por un campo de golf mientras se escucha al anunciante decir que Trump apoyó los recortes fiscales “para sus amigos ricos”, mientras que las empresas estadounidenses fabricantes de automóviles tuvieron que cerrar plantas.“Por supuesto que estamos considerando opciones para propiciar conversaciones en torno a Trump y MAGA (sigla del eslogan “Hagamos a Estados Unidos grandioso de nuevo”) lo más que se pueda”, comentó Kevin Munoz, vocero para la campaña de Biden. No obstante, Munoz añadió: “Estamos en una posición diferente a la de Obama y Bush. Tuvimos excelentes resultados en las elecciones de medio mandato. Hemos tenido elecciones especiales muy exitosas. Nuestra teoría se demostró de nuevo el martes pasado”.Cambiar drásticamente la dinámica de la contienda puede resultar menos fructífero para Biden que para sus predecesores. Obama y George W. Bush lograron desacreditar a Romney y Kerry porque los electores, en esa etapa temprana de la campaña para las elecciones generales, no sabían mucho de ellos.En cambio, no hay mucho que la campaña de Biden pueda decirles a los electores acerca de Trump que no sepan ya (de hecho, tampoco pueden decirles mucho sobre Biden que no sepan ya). Además, al menos hasta ahora, Trump no ha pagado ningún costo político por el tipo de declaraciones (como cuando se refirió a sus críticos como “alimañas”) que en el pasado podrían haber estropeado las probabilidades de un candidato más convencional. Hasta ahora, el hecho de que se hayan presentado acusaciones formales en su contra por 91 delitos del ámbito penal en cuatro casos solo ha afianzado su apoyo.Cuando la campaña de Bush comenzó a planificar su reelección, se enfrentó a cifras de encuestas que, si bien no eran tan inquietantes para el presidente como algunas que han salido a la luz en las últimas semanas sobre Biden, sí eran motivo de preocupación. Una encuesta realizada por el Centro de Investigaciones Pew reveló que el 46 por ciento de los encuestados dijo que las políticas económicas de Bush habían empeorado la economía y el 39 por ciento dijo que las tropas estadounidenses debían regresar de Irak lo antes posible; frente al 32 por ciento del mes anterior.“Decidimos desde el principio que queríamos que las elecciones giraran en torno a la seguridad nacional, aunque la economía fuera el tema número uno”, dijo Matthew Dowd, el principal estratega de la campaña de Bush en 2004. “Estábamos en desventaja respecto a los demócratas en materia económica. Y como parte de esa estrategia, deseábamos definir a Kerry negativamente en materia de seguridad nacional desde el principio, y como un líder débil e inseguro para poder posicionar a Bush como un líder fuerte y sólido en materia de seguridad nacional”.Al poco tiempo, la campaña de Bush estaba al aire con anuncios que atacaban a Kerry por comprometerse a revertir la Ley Patriota, la cual le otorgaba al gobierno federal mayores poderes para perseguir a terroristas. Esa ley fue aprobada poco después de los ataques del 11 de septiembre con un apoyo abrumador en el Congreso, incluido Kerry.“John Kerry. Jugando a la política con la seguridad nacional”, decía un locutor.El expresidente George W. Bush se enfrentó a cifras de encuestas que, si bien no eran tan inquietantes para el presidente como algunas que han salido a la luz en las últimas semanas sobre Biden, sí eran motivo de preocupación.Doug Mills/The New York TimesOcho años más tarde, mientras Obama preparaba su campaña de reelección, muchos estadounidenses le dijeron a los encuestadores que el país iba en la dirección equivocada y que su situación financiera era peor que antes de que Obama asumiera el cargo. Por ejemplo, una encuesta del Washington Post/ABC News encontró que tres cuartas partes de los estadounidenses decían que el país iba en la dirección equivocada.Los asesores de Obama estudiaron las campañas de reelección de otros presidentes en funciones en problemas. “Sabíamos que la mayoría de las campañas de reelección eran un referéndum”, dijo Joel Benenson, quien fue el encuestador del equipo de Obama.“También sabíamos que teníamos una crisis económica masiva que no fue en absoluto culpa de Obama. Pero también sabíamos que era el presidente en funciones y no podía culpar a su predecesor por ello. No podíamos convencerlos de que la economía estaba mejorando”.Pero Romney, dijo, “no estaba completamente formado entre los votantes”, lo que presentó una oportunidad para resaltar su riqueza y retratarlo como alguien cuyas políticas favorecerían a los ricos.Por el contrario, George H.W. Bush, dijeron sus asesores, ignoró las advertencias, confiando en que el índice de aprobación de los votantes cercano al 90 por ciento que registró después de la guerra en Kuwait hacía que su reelección estuviera casi garantizada. “La adulación de la guerra de alguna manera silenció los instintos políticos normales de muchas personas cercanas al presidente”, dijo Ron Kaufman, quien fue asesor principal de esa campaña.Rove subrayó que la posición de Biden está más deteriorada en este momento que la de Bush padre en 1992. “Bush parecía no tener ideas para el futuro, pero la gente lo consideraba un ser humano admirable”, explicó Rove. “El problema de Biden es que la gente ha llegado a la conclusión de que no puede desempeñar el trabajo, pues es demasiado viejo y no tiene ni el vigor ni la agudeza mental necesarios para hacerlo”.En encuestas recientes conducidas por el Times y el Siena College en cinco estados clave, el 71 por ciento de los participantes respondió que Biden era “demasiado viejo” para ser un presidente efectivo.Plouffe afirmó que la campaña de Biden debería aprovechar la lección que aprendió el equipo de Obama después de estudiar la campaña perdedora de Bush padre. “La gente de Bush intentó convencer a los ciudadanos de que la economía estaba en mejores condiciones de lo que pensaban”, indicó. “Algo que he aprendido es que no puedes decirles a las personas qué pensar de la economía. Ellos te dirán lo que piensan de la economía”.“Yo empezaría cada discurso con la frase: ‘Estados Unidos tiene una decisión frente a sí, ambos somos hombres blancos mayores’”, afirmó Plouffe. “‘Pero hasta ahí llegan las similitudes’”.Adam Nagourney cubre política nacional para el Times, en especial la campaña de 2024. Más de Adam Nagourney More

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      With Joe Biden Turning 81, the White House Is Focused Elsewhere

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      President Biden has no plans for a lavish public celebration when he turns 81 on Monday, even as Democrats search for a strategy to assuage voters’ concerns about his age by next year’s election.For many of a certain age, there comes a point when marking yet another birthday, taking note of yet another passage of the calendar, is not greeted with the same enthusiasm it once was. And that’s for people who are not even running for president.For President Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, another birthday may bring more liability than revelry, offering one more reminder of his age to an already skeptical electorate. Unlike other presidents who have celebrated birthdays with lavish political events, Mr. Biden plans to observe his milestone privately with family in Nantucket later this week.The best birthday gift the oldest president in American history could hope for would be a strategy for assuaging voters’ concerns, but that has been hard to come by. Mr. Biden and his team have taken the approach that his record of domestic legislation and international leadership should belie any worries about his capacity, even though polls have shown consistently that that line of argument has not been persuasive, at least not yet.Some Democrats argue that Mr. Biden needs to do more to draw the contrast with his likeliest Republican challenger, former President Donald J. Trump, who at 77 has himself exhibited confusion in public lately. Mr. Trump has warned that the country is on the verge of World War II, mixed up the leaders of Hungary and Turkey, and boasted of beating former President Barack Obama in the polls when of course Mr. Obama is not running. If Mr. Trump wins next year and serves out four years, he would take over the status as the country’s oldest president.Others, including some current and former administration officials, said Mr. Biden’s staff members should stop treating him like an old man they do not trust and let him interact with the public and reporters more. Some said the president needed to start getting out on the campaign trail more to show his vigor, deploy more humor to defuse the matter and even boast about his age rather than ignore it.Others, however, said he needed to be protected even more, allowed more time to rest and not sent on so many draining international trips — what some cheekily call the “Bubble Wrap” strategy, as in encasing him in Bubble Wrap for the next 12 months to make sure he does not trip and fall.If some of this is contradictory, it may be because there is no easy answer, much as Democrats have been obsessing about Mr. Biden’s age. One thing the White House cannot do is make him younger. In a recent New York Times/Siena College poll of battleground states, 71 percent said Mr. Biden was “too old” to be president, including 54 percent of his own supporters. By contrast, 39 percent said that about Mr. Trump.“He doesn’t look and speak the part,” said John B. Judis, the longtime political analyst and author with Ruy Teixeira of “Where Have All the Democrats Gone?” published earlier this month. “He’s not a commanding or charming presence on a presidential or presidential election stage.”Mr. Judis said he thought Mr. Biden had demonstrated “astonishing success” in passing major legislation building infrastructure, lowering the cost of medicine and combating climate change, and added that he planned to vote for the president himself. But he noted that presidents were expected to be both the head of government and the head of state — a prime minister and a king, if you will — and that the public performance part had eluded Mr. Biden.“I think a lot of voters, and young people in particular, who are not at all put off by his political positions or accomplishments, are put off by his utter failure as a regal persona,” Mr. Judis said. “And I don’t know how that can be fixed. Not by bicycling. Biden’s best hope in that regard is the voters’ perception of Trump as a bad or even evil father who wants to wreck the family.”Nothing irritates White House officials more than discussion of Mr. Biden’s age, which they view as an obsession of the news media that does not correspond with the energetic and mentally sharp president they describe inside the Oval Office. While Mr. Biden shuffles when he walks, talks in a low tone that can be hard to hear and sometimes confuses names and details in public, they note that he maintains a crushing schedule that would tire a younger president.In the past few weeks alone, he has devoted countless hours to managing the Israel war with Hamas while also hosting separate summit meetings with leaders from Asia, Europe and the Western Hemisphere. He made a one-day trip to Israel, flying across the world and back without stopping in a hotel room, and they said he has worked the phone endlessly to deal with high-stakes foreign crises.Asked about his forthcoming birthday, the White House did not directly address the age issue on Sunday but chose to focus on the president’s accomplishments, making the point that his long experience in Washington has paid off.“Because of President Biden’s decades of experience in public service and deep relationships with leaders in Congress, he passed legislation that has helped to create more than 14 million jobs, lower prescription drug costs, invest in America’s infrastructure and technology and led to the strongest economic recovery in the developed world,” Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, said in a statement.“He has revitalized alliances on the world stage — cultivated over many years — to promote America’s interests and respond forcefully when global crises arise,” Mr. LaBolt added.Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic strategist, said the White House should lean even more into the benefits of Mr. Biden’s age rather than be defensive.“He’s been successful because of his age, not in spite of it,” Mr. Rosenberg said. “We’re all going to have to make that case because it’s true. We can’t run away from the age issue. It’s going to be a major part of the conversation, but we would be making a political mistake if we don’t contest it more aggressively.”Margie Omero, a Democratic pollster, said there were naturally limits to what the White House could do. “Nothing anyone, even a president, can do to avoid having a birthday,” she said. “President Biden should continue to do what he’s been doing: connecting personally with people, making jokes about the coverage and highlighting his administration’s accomplishments.”Some party strategists argued that age had dominated the discussion about Mr. Biden lately in part because the president had not yet fully engaged in the contest against Mr. Trump. At the end of the day, they said, Democrats and independents who may be leery of a president who would be 86 at the end of a second term will conclude that it is better to support an octogenarian they agree with than another soon-to-be octogenarian they consider a threat to democracy, abortion rights and other issues that matter to them.“This issue, like many others, will fade once the campaign moves into the general election phase,” said Brian Fallon, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. “Once the race gets reframed as a choice, it will be impossible for Republicans to try to weaponize the issue of age when their own nominee would also be over 80 in his next term.”If that were to work, it would be the best birthday gift Mr. Biden could hope for when he turns 82 next year. It is, of course, a big if. More