A spate of polls has people warning against jumping to conclusions. So I will leap only to a singularly sound one.
It's that the American people want something better than a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch.
But I knew that already, just by keeping up.
Here is a summary of the above- referenced poll findings: The New York Times-Siena College poll has Biden's presidential job approval rating at 33 percent, while Monmouth University has that at 36 percent; the Times-Siena poll also has 64 percent of Democrats, citing advanced age and poor job performance, wanting a nominee in 2024 other than Biden; that same poll shows half of Republicans willing to abandon Trump now that the House special committee filets him, and shows Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trumper without direct insurrection complicity, to be the second choice; that same poll has Biden leading Trump, 44-41, while a Harvard/Harris poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris leading DeSantis--should they supplant Biden and Trump--by 42-38.
Here is what these snapshots mean:
Biden has thus far failed badly as president, but remains at the moment slightly preferable to one person so long as that person is a lying seditionist.
But that's in a nationwide poll testing popular vote, which doesn't matter. What does matter, which is the Electoral College, has a built-in bias for sedition, quite unintentionally. The founders couldn't have known the dramatic population trends.
The presidential outcome in 2024 will be decided by Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and maybe a newcomer. North Carolina is a prospect.
On the other hand, Biden's numbers could improve across the board if he learns how to communicate and figures out how to lead, and if inflation lands softly and the economy begins recovery by 2024. Of those, the unlikely soft economic landing seems the most likely.
Trump's political health could actually get worse as Liz Cheney and friends keep laying him bare.
But always keep this in mind: A multi-candidate Republican primary and the Electoral College could re- install Trump anyway through inordinate minority power.
Meanwhile, nearly two of three in Biden's party don't want him to run again, largely because of his age and perhaps perceived effects of it, not to mention the threat or likelihood of his defeat based on it. His calling card for the nomination in 2020 was electability. Take that away and he's the Biden who twice lost Democratic presidential primaries badly.
The finding also reflects that Biden's style of delegating and reacting has managed to alienate his party's progressive wing for being too cautious and the centrist contingent for being too bold.
Biden speaks the language of the left when told to do that, but does so without confidence or credibility. That he even tries distresses the center, the language of which he speaks only slightly better. He simply is not ideological or much good at teleprompter reading.
While Bidenism doesn't exist for Democrats except as a default position, Trumpism, or at least disruptive resentment conservatism, remains the heavily dominant element of the Republican Party even as party voters show signs of moving away from the disgraced namesake.
The party's second choice, DeSantis, is all about Trumpian disruption and resentment.
The third choice is Ted Cruz, the most disruptive and resentful Republican until Trump and DeSantis came along.
One valid way to look at the Times-Siena poll that had Trump at 49 percent among Republican primary voters with DeSantis at 25 and Cruz at 7 is that 81 percent of Republicans ... actually like that kind of thing.
Finally, that 42-38 advantage that the Harvard poll shows Harris holding over DeSantis probably reflects generic leanings on the two parties. After all, Democrats have led in the meaningless raw popular vote for nearly all recent elections.
It perhaps also shows Republicans dragged down more among swing voters by insurrection than Democrats are dragged down by inflation and ineptitude.
But raw popular leanings are never the point. The Electoral College defies them in presidential years, and, in midterms, the context is a referendum on the sitting president's performance, which motivates the out-of-power base more than the in-power base.
The only variable is the U.S. Supreme Court ruling repealing Roe v. Wade, which gave dejected Democrats something of their own to vote against, even if they think their president has been typically asleep at the switch on it.
Here, then, is a conclusion not jumped to, but reasoned toward in these paragraphs: The advantage for the midterms stays with the out-of-power Republicans unless Roe v. Wade blows up the equation, and the presidential race in 2024 will pit Trumpism if not Trump against somebody not Biden, with a half-dozen states deciding for the rest of us.
John Brummett, whose column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, is a member of the Arkansas Writers' Hall of Fame. Email him at [email protected]. Read his @johnbrummett Twitter feed.