Day: May 22, 2016

Democrats will miss him when he's gone, and should appreciate her while she's here, says Martin Longman:

I expected Democrats to begin expressing much higher approval numbers for Obama once they were forced to really think about Clinton or Sanders in the White House, but the trend is even stronger with independents who basically hate their choices in this election cycle:

Democrats have slowly looked at Obama more favorably since the beginning of 2015, but independents have begun to look at Obama much more favorably. After a sharp slide following his reelection, independents turned their opinions of Obama around at the beginning of 2014. Over the past year, that’s escalated. And since ratings from Democrats and Republicans are more stable, that shift by independents moves the needle a lot.

People don’t always realize that Obama’s approval numbers have been held down by the ambivalence of a lot of Democrats. The same is happening now to a much greater degree to Hillary Clinton. She won’t really have to do anything to see her negatives decline once the Democrats unite around her as the only chance of keeping Donald Trump away from the nuclear codes. If independents follow suit, which they will if they campaign is waged competently, she won’t be laboring under historically high negatives by the time people start voting.

As I said yesterday, Democrats want to fall in love with their candidates, while Republicans want to fall in line. You are seeing that now with all the Republicans falling in line behind Trump. And you will see Hillary's numbers rise when Democrats unite. The story of the Summer is set: The Resurrection of Hillary.