This piece is of course anecdotal but I continue to believe Biden's vaccine rules (covered as "mandates") are underdiscussed as a cause of his approval drop.
The Dem coalition is more pro-vaxx (higher social trust) than the GOP, but that doesn’t mean *everyone* in the D coalition is that way.
Vaccine rules / "mandates" are sufficiently personal and may read as threatening enough to the low trusters to turn them against Biden
Biden's approval drop accelerated with Afghanistan but continued when Afghanistan receded from the headlines in September. Vaccine rules announced 9/9.
Morning Consult looked at this with regards to Black voters specifically and found an approval drop
Of course all of that doesn't mean the vaccine rules were wrong or bad policy. Even politically they could be overall worth the trade-off if they help ensure the pandemic is less of an issue next year.
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I delved into the child care plan of the Build Back Better Act. It's one of the most ambitious parts of the bill, that could greatly help millions of families.
But its design could bring serious implementation challenges, both practical and political
The core of the plan is that the federal government would agree to pick up the bulk of childcare costs at licensed providers, offering generous subsidies to most families, who'd only have to pay a limited "copay"
But there's some fine print, including:
-Lots of discretion is left to state governments, including whether to participate at all.
-The full subsidies won't be available until 2025
-The whole plan expires after 2027
Governor approval ratings from Morning Consult. Some of the polling was done as far back as July (before Biden's approval really fell into the toilet).
Blue state moderate Rs — Phil Scott, Charlie Baker, Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu — most popular
9 of the top 10 most popular governors are Republicans, with the sole Democrat being Ned Lamont.
Swing state D governors in MI, PA, WI, NV not doing so hot. All of those seats are up in 2022
I was curious how the governor approval ratings compared to their party's presidential candidate's vote share.
The blue state moderate Rs overperform most, but the red state moderate Ds also overperform (though only enough to put them slightly above 50% approval)
I don't think a lack of clarity is the real hold-up. It's substance.
Manchin and Sinema have demanded various changes in the bill. Dems have offered some of what they want, but not all of it, in hopes they'll say it's good enough. They haven't yet.
Durham tries to get to the bottom of where the pee tape allegation came from. He seems to imply what he thinks is the answer without actually proving it.
This is a bit complicated so needs some decoding (cont'd)...
Much of the Steele dossier relied on information provided by Igor Danchenko, who is the subject of this indictment.
Per indictment, Danchenko was close to an unnamed Democratic PR Executive who worked in Russia and had associations with many key figures named in dossier
This Democratic PR Executive told Danchenko that he had inside information on the downfall of Paul Manafort, from "a GOP friend". Danchenko wrote up his info and put it into the dossier.
But the PR exec actually just made that up, had no "friend" who gave him inside info
Manchin said he wanted $1.5T over 10 years, not $3.5T.
Dems responded by dropping some programs (like paid leave), but keeping most in, & setting them to expire in a few years while hoping they'd later be extended permanently. Landed at $1.75T on paper.
Dems' hope was that Manchin just wanted a lower on-paper topline number he could point to, and was willing to look the other way on the openly-expressed intention these would in reality be permanent programs.
His comments today suggest he won't. But, Q is whether he sticks to it
They've certainly been talking but it seems the WH framework was more of a "we're trying to please him, let's see if this is good enough" rather than a deal he actually gave private approval to.
(Though who knows, maybe there's another secret document!)