I was not expecting this nonsense about polling in the state of Michigan to start up this soon.
I am fully aware that we are now officially under 12 months until America goes to the polls for the Presidential Election in 2024. I keep a watch on the calendar and being that I write about politics, watch politics, and make fun of politicians, I know that things are going to begin to speed up, particularly with the primaries coming up at the beginning of next year.
I also get the wishful thinking part and the whole point of view that Joe Biden is doing such an epically horrible job that there's no way in a logical world he has a shot at reelection. The Democrats know this also and that's why he will not be the nominee next year and why you're hearing all the noise of Democrats currently criticizing him and saying maybe he should think of stepping aside.
Yet even with all that, if Joe Biden were the nominee next year, it would be difficult for any candidate of the Republican party to win here in the deep blue state of Michigan.
That's not really my opinion. That's just a solid fact, and I'll get to why in a minute.
So let's take a look at some recent polling data that indicates how sleepy Joe is dead in the water some 49 weeks out from election day 2024.
EPIC-MRA polling shows right here that:
This comes on the heels of another ridiculous poll done here last month where Trump beat Biden, but Whitmer beat Trump like a drum in the state.
In a hypothetical contest for president between Trump and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, the same Marketing Resource Group survey found Whitmer beating Trump 46%-40%, a 13-point swing from the Biden-Trump result.
"It tells me that Biden has a problem, not necessarily the Democrats," Leonard said of the numbers.
"He has a problem with the base," Leonard added. “If the base doesn’t show up, they could likely see themselves in the same situation as they saw in 2016.”
On his way to the White House, Trump became the first Republican to win a presidential race in Michigan in nearly three decades in 2016, beating Democrat Hillary Clinton by 10,704 votes or a fraction of 1 percentage point. But since then, Democrats have dominated statewide contests in Michigan.
Biden defeated Trump in Michigan by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points in 2020. And Whitmer won her first term as governor in 2018 by 9 points over Republican Bill Schuette. Then, last year, she gained a second term by defeating Republican Tudor Dixon by 11 points, and Democrats won control of the state House and Senate for the first time in 40 years.
There is no doubt that Biden is currently having a problem with his base. That is why you're seeing top Democrats come out and question whether he should be the nominee of the party going forward. With his age and his ability to screw up both walking and talking, this is really to be expected.
Yet there is not currently a viable functioning operational Republican Party in Michigan. There are a bunch of warring factions and they need to figure out how to bring the party back to some semblance of an operational force. There is not going to be a Republican with a statewide victory next November as long as this is the current state of the party. We'll have the Republican nominee for president and the Republican nominee to replace retiring Democrat Debbie Stabenow in the United States Senate.
Write them both off right now—the Democrats will win both seats.
This is not because I'm being mean or I'm anti-Republican or I don't know what I'm talking about; this is because I'm saying this nicely as a warning and I do know what I'm talking about.
The Michigan Republican party right now is divided into three camps.
We love Donald Trump more than you.
We almost love Donald Trump as much as you.
What in the hell is wrong with the other two camps that love Donald Trump so much?
I have been sounding the alarm about this since the MI-GOP elected Kristina Karamo as its chair last February and she has run the party right into the ground.
From that article:
A listing of Michigan Republican Party account balances from West Michigan Community Bank showed $35,051 across seven accounts, with expenses for many of the scheduled speakers at the Sept. 22-24 conference on Mackinac Island not yet paid, including author Dinesh D'Souza and unsuccessful former Arizona candidate for governor Kari Lake.
At this point, 13 months before a presidential election, the Michigan Republican Party should have about $10 million in its accounts, said Tom Leonard, a former Michigan House speaker and former finance chairman for the state GOP.
The party had less than 1% of the $10 million target.
You should have 10 million dollars this far out from a PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION and you have less than 1%? Sign me up for this leadership team to lead the state GOP to victory. Hell at this rate the Get Out The Vote strategy and money raising is going, Trump could lose this state by even more than he did in 2020.
Karamo went on in the article listed above to say this.
During a closed-door state committee meeting on Sunday, the final day of the Mackinac conference, Karamo spoke about the health of the Michigan Republican Party's finances, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The News.
"The party is not going bankrupt," Karamo told state committee members.
Last week was the final nail in the coffin.
As predicted, the end is approaching with a budget person jumping off the ship, by giving her resignation letter Thursday (and the story was covered right here).
The Michigan Republican Party is considering how to deal with "imminent default" on its line of credit, according to a resignation letter from a member of the state GOP's budget committee.
The message, obtained Thursday by The Detroit News, reveals the seriousness of the financial problems facing a party in a battleground state a year before the 2024 presidential general election. Kristina Karamo, the Michigan GOP's chairwoman, has struggled to raise money after rising to power in February while railing against the party's "establishment," including past donors.
Jessica Barefield of Livingston County serves on the Michigan Republican Party's state committee, which features about 100 members. She also had been one of 13 Republicans on the influential budget committee, helping to oversee the finances. Barefield said in a resignation letter the budget committee had a Friday "emergency meeting" when the panel "was asked to weigh in on action steps regarding the imminent default on the line of credit," indicating the party is struggling to meet its obligations to pay back its past debts.
Maybe you have heard of the acronym GOTV, which for normal people stands for Get Out The Vote.
Those four little words are generally what make or break a campaign when it is in the margin of error in close districts. In 2016, when current national GOP chair Ronna McDaniel was the Michigan GOP chair, they did a better job of getting out the vote for Donald Trump, and he won the state by 11,000 votes.
If you want to have an effective get-out-the-vote campaign, you have to be organized in the counties where the vote is going to be close. In Michigan, that would be Wayne County, Macomb County, Oakland County, and Lenawee County.
Well actually not so much Wayne County, being that is where Detroit is located, but it would be absolutely dreamy if the Republicans cut down four or five of the percentage points that they usually lose by.
Yet if your state party is broke, you don't have money to pay anybody.
Which means you don't have money to organize to get out the vote.
Which means, quite frankly, you lose.
The Democrats do this much better than the Republicans here in this state and will for a while longer while the factions in the state GOP determine who is prettier.
Go ahead and call up 600 likely voters every other day if you want and show me the results that any Republican beats Joe Biden any day of the week by whatever margin they come up with. On Election Day 2024, if the Michigan GOP is still a dumpster fire, you could dig up JFK and he would win by five points in this state.
The way the Michigan GOP is run, you would actually think Hunter Biden was in charge.
In fact, tomorrow, I'm going to look into that.
