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THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The Serious Case for Not Freaking Out About Trump’s Scary Poll Numbers

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4800 Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg has prominently argued that it’s premature to freak out about Donald Trump’s lead in the polls. Rosenberg’s case is partly that the Democratic Party is strong and has been winning lots of elections lately, as readers of his “Hopium Chronicles” well know. But there’s another, less-appreciated side to his analysis: That the people who make ads and run campaigns and do politics for a living know that Trump’s unfathomably high pile-up of negatives is, in the end, probably insurmountable for him. So we chatted with Rosenberg about this side of his theory — and about why the Biden team appears quietly confident of victory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

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0:31.5

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

0:36.1

You've probably encountered the work of democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg.

0:40.3

He regularly declares that we shouldn't freak out about polling averages showing Donald Trump

0:45.3

ahead, in part because the state of the Democratic Party is strong and that has been winning a lot of elections lately.

0:51.3

You've surely heard him say that on Twitter, on TV, or on his

0:55.6

Hopium Chronicle substack. But we're going to focus on another less appreciated aspect of Rosenberg's

1:01.4

analysis. It's the idea that people who do politics for a living know, or should know, that Trump's

1:08.3

pile up of negatives is probably insurmountable. The thought here is that

1:13.1

people who make political ads and run campaigns know what can be done with negatives this bad,

1:18.7

and that it's only a matter of time until that happens against Trump. This may explain why the

1:24.4

Biden team is quietly confident right now in the face of all the adverse polling.

1:29.3

So we invited Rosenberg on the show to dig into this theory of the case. Welcome, Simon.

1:34.9

It's great to be here, Greg. Simon, let's start here. You got it right in 2022 by predicting that the

1:40.8

much-Ballyhooed red wave wouldn't materialize. Now you're making a similar case.

1:45.9

Can you recap that for us? Yeah, I mean, I think the simple way to look at it is that in 2022,

...

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