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President Donald Trump has been relentless in his political attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden, despite the fact that the RNC recently poll-tested 20 different lines of attack against Biden and found that none of them were effective.
Trump’s latest line of attack has been the ill-defined conspiracy theory known as “Obamagate” — which Mediaite founder Dan Abrams has dismissed as “100 percent bullshit” — but it certainly wasn’t the first, and won’t be the last. The hobby horse has found plenty of traction among Trump’s supporters and media allies, but not much anywhere else.
If recent past is prologue, the presumptive Democratic nominee might tale comfort in knowing that Trump’s political apparatus is having a difficult time divining a persuasive attack strategy.
On Friday, The New York Times published a deeply-reported piece by Alexander Burns, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Martin, and Nick Corasaniti entitled “A Sitting President, Riling the Nation During a Crisis,” which noted the frequency and ferocity of Trump’
But deep in that report was the revelation that Trump’s attempts at tarring Biden — some of which he’s still using — are not effective, according to his allies’ own data:
Last month, a poll commissioned by the Republican National Committee tested roughly 20 lines of attack against Mr. Biden, ranging from the private business activities of his son, Hunter Biden, to whether Mr. Biden has “lost” a step, a reference to mental acuity. None of the lines of attack significantly moved voter sentiment, according to two people briefed on the results. There were some lines of attack that had potential, one of the people briefed on the results said, but they were more traditional Republican broadsides about issues like taxes.
That’s not to say that Mr. Biden’s troubles are over. Polling in the presidential race has been very stable in that both candidates have risen and fallen together in roughly synchronized fashion, with Biden retaining a statistically solid national lead, and beating Trump in key states.
But even as Trump has weathered the most difficult crisis of his presidency with extremely poor marks from voters, his approval rating has risen to the highest level since his inauguration. It’s still below 50 percent, but could indicate a rising floor of
Trump may be having a hard time denting Biden, but despite a crisis that has exposed him to some fairly devastating public opinion news, Trump doesn’t seem to be falling away either.