Subject: Joe Biden is suddenly polling a little better than Hillary. I didn’t see that coming. - The Washington Post
From: "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Alexander S. Mackler" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 2015 17:44:01 -0400

Joe Biden is suddenly polling a little better than Hillary. I didn’t see
that coming. - The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/08/20/joe-biden-is-suddenly-polling-a-little-better-than-hillary-i-didnt-see-that-coming/?wprss=rss_the-fix&tid=sm_tw_pp

Joe Biden is suddenly polling a little better than Hillary. I didn’t see
that coming.

The Quinnipiac poll giveth; the Quinnipiac poll taketh away.

One month ago, when a batch of Q polls found Hillary Clinton struggling to
beat Republicans in three states won by President Obama, I dismissed
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/07/22/sorry-democrats-if-hillary-clinton-tanks-joe-biden-cant-save-you/>
the
calls for Vice President Biden to save the Democrats. "The vice president
polls substantially worse against Republicans than Clinton does," I wrote.

And at the time, it was true. For most of his time in the Naval
Observatory, Joe Biden has polled behind the president and his assumed
successor for the Democratic nomination, weakened by — respectively —
slightly lower support from black voters and slightly lower support from
women.

Other reporters have had to settle for getting Donald Trump wrong. I've
decided to zig where they zagged: I'm going to blow it on Biden.

Thursday's Q poll resets the narrative
<http://www.quinnipiac.edu/news-and-events/quinnipiac-university-poll/2016-presidential-swing-state-polls/release-detail?ReleaseID=2271>,
with Biden polling slightly better against Republican candidates than
Clinton in Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. More importantly, he's got
narrowly positive favorable numbers in each state. In each state, Clinton
is deeply underwater, her unfavorables settled in above 50 percent.

Peter Brown, assistant director of the Q poll, who is clearly happy when it
makes news, says that Biden "gets the love" and "is becoming a more
important player in the 2016 presidential race, with a solid grip on the
'from the gut' support of Pennsylvanians."

Joshua Alcorn, a senior adviser to the Draft Biden campaign — whose
head gamely answered my annoying questions last month — was even happier.
"The Vice President’s strength in these polls shows there is a desire to
have him on the stage for the Democratic debate in October," Alcorn said in
a statement. "Americans trust him to offer an alternative vision for our
country."

How strong is Biden? Strong enough for me to choke down crow, but still not
strong enough to "save" the party. "Saving" the party conjures up the image
of a Colin Powell saving the Republicans in 1996, Godzilla-ing all over a
weak field. According to the Q poll, Hillary Clinton is celebrating the
fifth month of her e-mail scandal by trailing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) in
Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio. She leads Jeb Bush only in Ohio; she leads
Donald Trump only in Ohio and Pennsylvania. (All three Republicans have
homes in South Florida. It is the primary residence for the first two.)

Biden does ... only marginally better. Clinton loses Florida to Bush, Rubio
and Trump by nine, 12, and 2 points, respectively. Biden loses it by 13
points to Bush and six points to Rubio; he edges out Trump by three points.
Clinton beats Bush and Trump in Ohio; Biden does the same, and also polls
slightly better than Rubio. Clinton beats Trump in Pennsylvania, but polls
behind Bush and Rubio. The same is true of Biden. So you could say that
Biden is strong where Clinton isn't and be largely correct, at least
according to these three polls. You could say that both struggle in
megastates won by President Obama, and be even more correct.

The ad hoc committee to get Biden into the race is looking at a half-full
glass here. "Some of the head-to-head numbers with Republicans reflect that
they're taking this idea seriously," said Steve Schale, a well-regarded
Florida Democratic strategist who helped the president win the state twice.
"Joe Biden’s generally well-regarded. I’d chalk the Clinton numbers up to
the fact that she had a real bad August, but she’s not the only candidate
who’s ever had a bad August."

Meanwhile, Biden remains in the mid-teens in the Q poll's Democratic
primary test. "I suspect that if he decides to get into the race that
you'll see some of that change and bounce up," Schale said. "When you poll
someone who’s not in the race, I’m not surprised to see a low number."

The enthusiastic read on this is that an excitable Biden vote is out there,
waiting for the decision to run. The less-enthusiastic read is that
Democrats already have a candidate whose personal favorable ratings grew
before announcing a run for president, as people called for a stateswoman
<http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203611404577041950781477944> to
step in and save the party. That candidate was Hillary Clinton.

Eric D. Schwerin
[email-masked]

Sent from my iPhon