Biden’s approval has been sinking since Afghanistan withdrawal. Trump didn’t overtake the general election polling lead until April of 2023. The Hamas attack on Israel happened happened in October, 7 months after Trump took the polling lead.
I’m not saying Israel isn’t an important issue, it just isn’t THE issue.
I also don’t agree that police reform is pushing the polling either. Black voters tend to be more conservative than white democrats/progressives. Many people miss this fact because they see civil rights issues as liberal. By and large black voters rejected the defund the police nonsense. And quite frankly it was white progressives that sunk police reform with that.
Now this gets a little complicated from here, or at least it does for me. The polling is showing Biden is losing some support among black and Hispanic voters nationally. But democrats have historically overperformed nationally and underperformed electoral college. That’s the win the national vote and lose the electoral college phenomenon. So Biden is losing some support in areas where democrats already overperform.
With the realignment Biden actually competes more efficiently within the electoral college. Grabbing more college educated voters, white suburban voters and +65 voters brings Biden into areas democrats have traditionally lost.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/...ytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
I tend to believe the polling and more and more immigration is becoming the top issue but in truth for democrat voters it tends to be migration. There’s a big difference there.
It’s also important to remember Trump outright lost his bid for reelection and Obama lost considerable support in his reelection. So the modern electorate seems to make incumbency a little taxing lately too.
There’s a lot to consider but I don’t buy the Israel and police reform arguments because they are not showing up in the polls.
