DV Journal

I wonder whether my hearing is failing. Should I get it tested?

In this seminal presidential election year, I haven’t heard the answers from either side about the issues bearing down on the country.

The over-coverage of the Iowa caucuses was in direct proportion to the candidates’ avoidance of the great matters that the victor will have to deal with in the Oval Office.

If the Republicans are off down the yellow brick road of the Wizard of Donald Trump, the Democrats are well along a road of political ruin, believing they won’t win unless Trump is imprisoned or removed from the ballot. That represents a negative political dynamic.

Neither political caravan has emphasized there are great issues ahead that, if they were to embrace, would lead to victory.

Trump is sure he has the formula, and he may be right. Grievance, his and those of the voters — vast, shapeless grievance — propels the Republicans forward: Unhappy about something? Trump is your man.

Joe Biden’s message is to vote for more of the same. That should be a message enough because the Biden years have been overall good years with an economy that is growing despite inflation and woes abroad.

For Trump, everything is a platform, everything a bullhorn; for Biden, no message is getting out. He is in the chorus when he should be the lead singer.

Questions about Trump’s fitness for office are muted and questions about Biden — mostly his age — are front and center. It is asymmetrical, but it is what it is.

It is up to the Democrats to turn their fortunes around beyond waiting for Trump to fall. Trump is a political phenomenon, and his Republican and Democratic opponents need to accept that.

Meanwhile, huge issues are begging for attention. Here are just five:

—How to prepare for artificial intelligence and its boost to productivity set against its threat to jobs.

—How can we accommodate the effects of climate change? Should we build seawalls in vulnerable cities along the coasts? Can Boston, New York, Miami and San Francisco be physically defended against rising seas?

—The looming matter of Taiwan. Will we defend it, or will we let it fall to China? The stakes are appeasing China or going to war — world war.

—The housing crisis. This is a here-and-now issue that should be at the top of the Democratic agenda. This is a people issue like abortion. People have nowhere to live, and that should be a gift to any politician.

—Immigration writ large, not just as a crisis at the Southern border. It is a world issue in which every war, drought, coup, recession and religious purge worsens as more people from Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Middle East seek a better life — but often just life itself. We can seal the border, but the undocumented will still arrive. Migrants are pitiable, as are all refugees, but they are flooding the stable countries of the world so fast that they endanger those countries. It is conquest by migration.

The candidates haven’t delivered great speeches on these or other issues, let alone a series of speeches that would move the electorate and the country. Nothing echoes from the rafters when Biden, Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis speak. It is small-bore stuff, no cannons.

Politics in democracies is carried forward by great speeches that raise new issues, redefine old ones and shiver the timbers of the electorate. Think Washington, Lincoln, both Roosevelts, Churchill, De Gaulle, Kennedy, Reagan and Thatcher — and, in a special category, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. They carried the day with rhetoric and found their place in history with words.

Trump’s speeches are just Trump, part of the phenomenon, part of the disinformation cascade. Biden’s sound —  as I am sure they are — written by committee, like corporate press releases. And, oh, Harris reduces everything to incoherence. Haley and DeSantis have been hobbled by a disinclination to take on Trump frontally.

The big issues are hanging out like ripe fruit, ready to be plucked by any candidate with the nous to do so and craft a speech or several. None have I heard.

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First, Colorado. Then Maine. Now — Pennsylvania?

Using the same argument progressive Democrats are relying on to remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot in at least two states, state Sen. Art Haywood (D-Philadelphia/Montgomery) announced Tuesday he’s filing an ethics complaint in the state Senate against his Republican colleague Sen. Doug Mastriano.

Mastriano is an outspoken Trump supporter who has repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen, the results corrupted by widespread fraud.

Calling him an “insurrectionist,” Haywood said there is ample evidence showing Mastriano wanted to overturn the 2020 election that brought President Joe Biden into office. As a result, Haywood says, an investigation by the Senate is warranted. The Senate could vote to expel, censure, or reprimand Mastriano (R-Adams/Franklin) or reject the complaint.

He accused Mastriano, who ran for governor in 2022, of taking part “in a coup attempt to keep Donald J. Trump in office.”

“He used his prominence and reputation in the Senate and his office to conduct a bogus hearing, at which advisors of the then president who were not under oath provided testimony which proved later to be false,” said Haywood. “Further, he introduced a resolution to ‘disapprove and reject’ the certification of Pennsylvania’s election results.”

Holding hearings and introducing resolutions is not a crime. In fact, it’s part of a state legislator’s job. And although he attended the Jan. 6 rally in Washington, D.C., and listened to Trump speak, Mastriano did not go into the Capitol Building and was not charged by federal authorities.

Haywood argues the Senate is free to declare a member an insurrectionist, just as Colorado’s Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of state have done in Trump’s case. Trump has never been charged with insurrection.

“He was part of a large, angry, armed, violent mob that was assembled at the Capitol for the purpose of overturning the election,” Haywood said Tuesday.

It may not be a coincidence that Haywood said he received information from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to make his complaint. That’s the same progressive nonprofit organization that brought the case to take Trump off the ballot in Colorado.

Brie Sparkman, policy counsel for CREW, said, “The constitution must be enforced, and accountability must be pursued against those who engaged in an insurrection against it.”

“Sen. Mastriano is an election denier, who despite having taken an oath to defend the United States Constitution, he supported and appears to have taken part in an insurrection against it. His continued service in the Pennsylvania Senate poses an acute and ongoing threat to democratic institutions in the commonwealth and nationwide.

“Sen. Mastriano has expressed no remorse in the actions on that day, even going so far as to continue to uphold the big lie during his unsuccessful run for governor in 2022,” said Sparkman.

Investigating candidates for public office in Pennsylvania over claims the other party believes are false would be unusual, to say the least.

The Senate Republican Caucus said in a statement, “It is unfortunate we are seeing the new year start with political gamesmanship. As outlined in Senate Rules, any ethical complaints are reviewed in a thorough manner.”

Mastriano had called for an audit of the 2020 general election and the 2021 primary election in July 2021, citing a poll that showed 40 percent of Pennsylvania voters believed there were problems. He was later subpoenaed to testify by the Congressional Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

Mastriano released this statement:  “One would think that the long time Senator for the Fourth District of Pennsylvania would start out the New Year by helping people and improving quality of life in his own district which is suffering from record crime rates and an epidemic drug overdose that is cutting down so many of his constituents in the prime of their lives.

“Sadly, the Senator is focused on a partisan PR stunt. What is truly unethical is a Senator using his bully pulpit to attack the freedom of speech of those he disagrees with. The Senator should tread carefully with this new precedent. Some could construe that his inflammatory anti-law enforcement rhetoric and actions led to the deadly and destructive riots across our commonwealth during the Summer of 2020.

“The Senator further embarrassed himself by justifying his specious ethics complaint with a report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). CREW is a well-documented far left activist organization founded by a Democrat operative and uses a DNC vendor (Act Blue) to solicit donations from left-wing donors.

“I do not need a lecture on the U.S.  Constitution. I volunteered to defend it while serving our nation for over 30 years as an officer in the U.S. Army.

“This stunt will not intimidate or silence me,” he said.

Two Republican strategists said they believe Mastriano does not have much to worry about.

Christopher Nicholas, with Eagle Consulting, said, “Sen. Haywood is bored.”

Charlie Gerow, CEO of Quantum Communications, agreed.

“You’ve got to wonder where Sen. Haywood has been for the last two or three years,” said Gerow. “We’re almost through the Biden presidency, and he’s just waking up to the act he can get some headlines by attacking Doug Mastriano?”

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Memo to presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump:

Assuming one of you will be elected president of the United States next year, many computer scientists believe you should be addressing what you think about artificial intelligence and how you plan to deal with the surge in this technology, which will break over the nation in the next president’s term.

Gentlemen, this matter is urgent, yet only a little has been heard from either of you who are seeking the highest office. President Biden did sign a first attempt at guidelines for AI, but he and Trump have been quiet on its transformative impact.

Indeed, the political class has been silent, preoccupied as it is with old and — against what will happen — irrelevant issues. Congress has been as silent as Biden and Trump. There are two congressional AI caucuses, but they have been concerned with minor issues, like AI in political advertising.

Climate change and AI stand out as game changers in the next presidential term.

On climate change, both of you have spoken: Biden has made climate change his own; Trump has dismissed it as a hoax.

The AI tsunami is rolling in, and the political class is at play, unaware that it is about to be swamped by a huge new reality: exponential change that can neither be stopped nor legislated into benignity.

Before the next presidential term is far advanced, the experts tell us that the nation’s life will be changed, perhaps upended by the surge in AI, which will reach into every aspect of how we live and work.

I have surveyed the leading experts in universities, government and AI companies and they tell me that any form of employment that uses language will be changed. Just this will be an enormous upset, reaching from journalism (where AI already has had an impact) to the law (where AI is doing routine drafting) to customer service (where AI is going to take over call centers) to fast food (where AI will take the orders).

The more one thinks about AI, the more activities come to mind that will be severely affected by its neural networks.

Canvas the departments and agencies of the government, and you will learn the transformational nature of AI. In the departments of Defense, Treasury and Homeland Security, AI is seen as a serious agent of change — even revolution.

The main thing is not to confuse AI with automation. It may resemble it, and many may take refuge in the benefits of automation, especially job creation. But AI is different. Rather than job creation, it appears, at least in its early iterations, set to do major job obliteration.

But there is good AI news, too.  And those in the political line of work can use good news, whetting the nation’s appetite with the advances that are around the corner with AI.

Many aspects of medicine will, without doubt, rush forward. Omar Hatamleh, chief adviser on artificial intelligence and innovation at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, says the thing to remember is that AI is exponential, but most thinking is linear.

Hatamleh is excited by the tremendous effect AI will have on medical research. He says that a child born today can expect to live to 120 years of age. How is that for a campaign message?

A good news story in AI should be enough to make campaign managers and speechwriters ecstatic. What a story to tell; what fabulous news to attach to a candidate. Think of an inaugural address that can claim AI research is going to begin to end the scourges of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Sickle cell and Parkinson’s.

Think of your campaign. Think of how you can be the president who broke through the disease barrier and extended life. AI researchers believe this is at hand, so what is holding you back?

Many would like to write the inaugural address for a president who can say, “With the technology that I will foster and support in my administration, America will reach heights of greatness never before dreamed of and which are now at hand. A journey into a future of unparalleled greatness begins today.”

So why, oh why, have you said nothing about the convulsion — good or bad — that is about to change the nation? Here is a gift as palpable as the gift of the moonshot was for John F. Kennedy.

Where are you? Either of you?

The Republican Party of Pennsylvania and the Republican National Committee on Tuesday sent demand letters to the Shapiro administration asking for more information about the governor’s announced plan to automatically register new voters when they get their driver’s licenses or state identification.

Those letters are commonly issued immediately prior to a lawsuit. In October 2022, the RNC and PAGOP won a major battle before Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court after suing to stop undated absentee ballots from being counted. The RNC is currently involved in nearly 60 election integrity lawsuits nationwide.

“Gov. Shapiro is springing an unclear and unnecessary last-minute rule change on Pennsylvania voters just weeks ahead of a key November election,” said RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel. “He cares more about getting airtime on MSNBC than making sure Pennsylvania elections are secure and transparent. The RNC and PAGOP are continuing our shared mission of fighting for election integrity in the Keystone State by demanding immediate answers.”

The first letter, to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt, asked about safeguarding voters’ information when the Pennsylvania of Transportation (PennDOT) handles automatic voter registration across the state. In the past, voters had to “opt-in” for voter registration when getting their driver’s license, and most registrations were handled by the counties. Now, the state will assume people getting their driver’s license also want their information sent on to register them to vote unless they choose to “opt-out.”

“Unfortunately, the only information provided on this new voter registration process is found in Governor Shapiro’s press release, leaving unanswered many important questions about how PennDOT is implementing these changes, how the new system operates, and what safeguards are in place to keep ineligible individuals off the state’s list of registered voters,” the letter reads.

“As I am sure you agree, since this new process has been implemented just weeks before the October 23, 2023, voter-registration deadline for the November 7, 2023, election, a more complete explanation will facilitate voter education as to the process. Although PennDOT may have taken the lead on operationalizing these changes, Pennsylvania law vests ‘the primary responsibility for implementing and enforcing the license voter registration system’ to the Secretary of the Commonwealth,” the letter said.

It asked what steps would be taken to prevent those not eligible to vote from registering, including people under 18, felons, out-of-state residents, and non-citizens.

The second letter, to Mike Carroll, state secretary of transportation, similarly asked how PennDOT would make sure only those eligible to vote are registered.

“There are important questions necessary to educate our voters and eliminate confusion,” said Pennsylvania GOP chair Lawrence Tabas. “Voting is a key pillar of democracy, and the process to register should be as easy and transparent as possible.”

Former President Donald Trump has long complained about how Pennsylvania handled the 2020 election, and he used the governor’s unilateral actions to repeat his claims that Democrats are using the Keystone State’s election rules to disadvantage Republicans.

“Pennsylvania is at it again! The Radical Left Governor, Josh Shapiro, has just announced a switch to Automatic Voter Registration, a disaster for the Election of Republicans, including your favorite President, ME!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “This is a totally Unconstitutional Act and must be met harshly by Republican Leadership in Washington and Pennsylvania. Likewise, the RNC and Ronna McDaniel must spend their time working on this, instead of meaningless Debates where I am up by more than 50 points.”

The next GOP presidential debate is Sept. 27 at 9 p.m. Trump has declined to participate.

Shapiro did not respond to a request for comment.

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For an alternate viewpoint, see “Counterpoint: Unwarranted Charges Demonstrate Two-Tiered Justice System.”  

Donald J. Trump is the first former president in our nation’s history to be indicted. He is also the first former president to be indicted twice. Tuesday, he became the first former president to be indicted a third time — in this case, for charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States, a conspiracy against the right to vote, and more. A fourth indictment is expected any day now.

His allies say this is overkill, that it is punitive, that it is a continuation of an attack on a beleaguered leader that has continued for seven years. A different frame is this: Trump committed obvious crimes before and during his time in office, and the rule of law is working.

Trump’s first 34 felony counts deal with hush-money payments to a porn star. By buying Stormy Daniels’ silence, the Trump campaign avoided a possible sex scandal in the final weeks of the 2016 campaign. Michael Cohen, Trump’s “fixer,” paid $130,000 to Daniels. Then, while in the White House, Trump reimbursed Cohen with payments from Trump’s company. Prosecutors say Trump fraudulently disguised those installments as legal expenses, in violation of New York law.

Trump has also been indicted on 40 charges related to mishandling classified documents once he left office. Jack Smith, special counsel at the Justice Department, has accused Trump of taking highly sensitive national security documents with him when he left the White House. And thanks to a slew of incriminating photos (bathroom storage, anyone?), we know he kept the documents strewn throughout Mar-a-Lago and showed them to individuals without security clearance. He also obstructed the government in its attempts to secure the documents.

Tuesday evening, the Department of Justice announced that Trump has been indicted on four more charges related to his role in the January 6 attack and his planned conspiracy to try to hold onto his presidency despite losing the general election. The Justice Department’s work builds on the impressive investigation conducted and then shared with the American people via blockbuster hearings by the bipartisan January 6th Select Committee. As we saw laid out in blistering detail from the committee, Trump and his cronies sought to cast doubt on Biden’s victory and then helped to encourage a violent mob on January 6.

The pending indictment in Georgia is also related to Trump’s interference in the outcome of the 2020 election. We all know about the “perfect phone call,” in which Trump called Georgia’s secretary of state and told him he needed to “find” him just 11,780 votes to swing the election. In the same call, the former president also invoked the name of Ruby Freeman — amplifying false claims that she and Shaye Moss had pulled thousands of fraudulent ballots from a suitcase and illegally entered them into the voting machines. (In late-breaking justice on this point — last week, Rudy Giuliani, who had also amplified those false claims, admitted in reaction to a defamation suit that he made false statements about the two Georgia election workers.)

All of these charges are incredibly serious, both the ones already made public and the ones we expect to come soon. Holding the highest office in the land should not and — according to the Constitution, does not — provide immunity from accountability. As would be the case for any other American, our legal system will review and judge Trump’s actions and determine what the consequences of those actions should be.

No one is above the law. To protect the integrity of our legal system and our democracy, it is essential for this case to proceed like any other.

For an alternate viewpoint, see “Point: The Indictments Fit the Crimes.”  

Since leaving the White House in January 2021, former president Donald Trump has become public enemy No. 1 in the eyes of the Department of Justice and several district attorneys.

To date, Trump has been charged with 34 felonies by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for falsifying business records. The 45th president faces more than 40 felony counts in the investigation concerning classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. And, he has been charged with four felonies by Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding his role in the January 6 incident. Trump is also expected to be charged for his role in the supposed plot to overturn the Georgia election results.

If convicted on just a few of these charges, Trump will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.

First, it should be mentioned that Trump is the only former (or current) president to be charged with criminal activity. Coincidentally or not, Trump is the only president to be impeached twice.

Second, a strong argument can be made that most of these charges are political in nature.

Consider, for example, the charges levied by Bragg, who boasted during his campaign that he would leave no stone unturned in his quest to charge Trump. In fact, the case Bragg is prosecuting was not pursued by his predecessor or the Federal Election Commission.

In his two years as district attorney, Bragg has gone out of his way to ensure that violent criminals are treated with kid gloves. Moreover, Bragg has downgraded 52 percent of felonies to misdemeanors. Over the period, he has also emptied New York City’s prisons even as violent crime has soared throughout the Big Apple. Yet, while appearing before the media to announce the Trump indictment, Bragg said, with a straight face, “These are felony crimes in New York state, no matter who you are. We cannot and will not normalize serious criminal conduct.”

The same dynamic applies to the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, who has a long history of mishandling investigations into prominent politicians, including a conviction on bribery charges levied against former Virginia governor Bob McDonnell that was overturned by the Supreme Court.

Third, and perhaps most significant, while the Justice Department and district attorneys pull out all the stops to put Trump behind bars, they conveniently downplay and slow-walk investigations against Trump’s political opponents.

Over the years, Justice has refused to seek charges against Hillary Clinton for deleting 33,000 government emails or her attempt to smear her 2016 opponent, Trump, with the totally false Steele dossier.

Most incredibly, Justice has refused to investigate appropriately Hunter Biden and his father, President Biden, aka the Big Guy, even as the evidence of Hunter’s shady deals with foreign governments —  including China, Russia and Ukraine — increases daily. In fact, according to recent whistleblower testimony, the Justice Department intervened and prevented a robust investigation into a bevy of alleged crimes perpetuated by Hunter and, possibly, the Big Guy.

And, lest we forget Hunter Biden’s infamous laptop, which allegedly documents a litany of crimes committed by the Biden family? Unbelievably, the laptop remains in FBI custody while Hunter was recently offered a sweetheart plea deal in which he would avoid a single day of jail time.

Meanwhile, the GOP-led investigation into the Biden family’s misdeeds reveals more than 170 suspicious activity reports pertaining to banking transactions from foreign oligarchs to Biden-family bank accounts. This comes on top of bombshell testimony by Hunter’s business partner, Devon Archer, who acknowledged that then-Vice President Biden was involved in Hunter’s overseas business deals with members of the Chinese Communist Party and the widow of the mayor of Moscow, who allegedly sent Hunter $3.5 million.

Fortunately, the American people see through this charade. Recent polls show that the vast majority of Republicans, and a slight majority of all Americans, believe that the wave of charges against Trump is “politically motivated.”

On the other hand, polls also show that most Americans believe Hunter Biden, and possibly Joe, are being given preferential treatment.

The U.S. justice system has been corrupted and weaponized. Donald Trump is just one example. This should be disconcerting to all Americans, regardless of political affiliation. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “Justice cannot be for one side alone but must be for both.”

You don’t have to be a hardcore cynic to suspect that one of the goals of Tuesday’s indictment of Donald Trump — the third this year — is to keep the GOP primary electorate rallying around the former president. It’s a transparent political ploy openly discussed by operatives on both sides of the aisle. So if it works, Republican primary voters will have nobody to blame but themselves.

But if Trump does win the nomination and then goes on to beat President Biden, whom will Democrats blame then?

When Trump was indicted the first time — and on a legal theory just as novel as the one prosecutor Jack Smith used Tuesday — veteran Democratic operative Bob Shrum said that any attempts by Democrats to boost Trump’s candidacy would be a mistake.

“I don’t want to run against Trump because he might win,” said Shrum, now the director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California-Dornsife. “The problem with this ‘help-Trump-win’ strategy — and smart people know this — is that Hillary Clinton was rooting for Trump in 2016, too.”

As time passes and new poll numbers roll in, Shrum looks more prescient every day.

Many Democrats see a 2024 election with Trump at the top of the GOP ticket as a dream come true. Republicans are 0-3 since the 2018 midterms and, they believe, getting The Donald back on the ballot will keep that streak alive.

But there’s another 2024 scenario, one bolstered by both biology and Hunter Biden’s bank records: An elderly, unsteady incumbent, suffering low approval ratings and dogged by questions about phone calls with his son’s shady foreign business partners, hiding out in a Delaware basement.

That’s the Joe Biden Democrats are betting on between now and November 2024. That’s 15 months of staircases, hot microphones, and unscripted encounters with the press for an 80-year-old candidate about whom only one thing is certain: 12 months from now, he will be 365 days older than he is today.

Democrats gloated (and with good reason) when the latest New York Times/Siena College polldropped showing Trump with a massive 37-point lead over Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and the rest of the field at 3 percent or less.

But a day later, that same poll also showed Biden and Trump tied at 43 percent in a head-to-head race, and Biden’s approval rating at a dismal 39 percent. It is just one of many recent polls indicating that, as of today, Trump vs. Biden is a coin toss.

How can it be this close? Check out their negatives. While 55 percent of voters disapprove of Trump, 54 percent feel the same about Biden.

These aren’t outliers. The CBS poll released last weekend had Biden’s approval at 40 percent. On the economy, it’s 34 percent.

Once again, this is today. Right now. It’s before Biden suffers another embarrassing fall while boarding Air Force One. Or appears to drift off during a White House sit down with a head of state. Or tries to explain the next round of revelations about his direct interactions with foreign businessmen who gave money to his son.

Do Democrats honestly believe the Joe Biden of August 2024 will be in better shape than the Biden of today?

Biden’s mantra is, “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.” And here again, Democrats’ math is shaky. Americans know the alternative. Donald Trump is the most famous and the most hated man in U.S. politics. There’s nothing you can tell Americans about him they don’t already know. Liar? Con man? Conspiracy-spewing, self-absorbed jerk?

Americans know all that … and he’s still tied with Joe Biden.

Predicting the future of politics, particularly in this hyper-partisan, social-media-saturated moment is a fool’s errand. But it’s hard to look at the likelihood of a Biden vs. Trump race and not recall 2016. That was the year a candidate with no chance of winning ran against a candidate who was guaranteed to lose.

The result was Donald Trump.

With a nominee approaching his 82nd birthday, who is frequently incoherent in public, and who has a year of influence-peddling allegations ahead of him, how confident are Democrats that 2024 will be different?

Polls show only a third of Democrats even want Biden to run again. Perhaps all this is a sign the president should pull an “LBJ” and announce he won’t seek another term. In 1968, that allowed Lyndon Johnson’s vice president to become the party’s nominee.

Hey, Democrats — have you met Kamala Harris?

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If 2024 is a re-run of 2020, who will carry Pennsylvania? According to the latest poll, the Keystone State is too close to call.

In a theoretical general election match-up, a new Quinnipiac University poll of 1,584 Pennsylvania registered voters has former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden in a virtual dead heat.

That poll, released Wednesday, had 47 percent supporting Trump and 46 percent for Biden. Both Republicans (89-7 percent) and independents (51-37) favor Trump, while Democrats remained strongly with Biden (94-4).

“Though battling fierce legal headwinds, Trump leaves the rest of the GOP pack (including Ron DeSantis) looking like ‘also rans’ and is running neck and neck with President Biden,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

Pennsylvania is known to be a swing state, and voters here supported Trump in 2016. But Biden narrowly carried the commonwealth in 2020 by just 1.2 percent.

In a GOP primary, however, Trump enjoys a big lead over the rest of the field. Quinnipiac has Trump garnering 49 percent support among GOP primary voters, with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 25 percent. Trailing in single digits are former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and former Vice President Mike Pence with 5 percent each. Nikki Haley, the former U.N. ambassador and former South Carolina governor, and Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) each had 4 percent. Other candidates came in at 1 percent or lower.

Among Democratic primary voters, Biden enjoyed 71 percent support. Environmental lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr. has 17 percent, and author Marianne Williamson came in at 5 percent.

Many Pennsylvania voters say they are closely following Trump’s legal challenges.

On the Justice Department’s filing of criminal charges against Trump regarding classified documents found in his Mar-a-Lago estate, 44 percent said they follow reports on that issue very closely. Another 38 percent said they are following it somewhat closely, while 17 percent said they are not following it too closely.

But 60 percent believe the charges are either very serious (45 percent) or somewhat serious (15 percent). While 37 percent think these charges are either not too serious (15 percent) or not serious at all (23 percent).

Half of voters (50 percent) think Trump should be prosecuted on criminal charges over his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House. In comparison, 44 percent believe he should not be prosecuted.

A majority of voters (56 percent) think serious questions remain to be answered, while 35 percent think Trump has given satisfactory answers on this matter. However, most voters (56 percent) think the Justice Department’s case involving Trump’s handling of classified documents after leaving the White House is mainly motivated by politics, while 41 percent think the case is primarily motivated by the law.

Among all voters, the top issue when it comes to picking a president is the economy (30 percent), with 28 percent naming “preserving democracy in the United States” as their most important concern. Gun violence is the top priority of nine percent of respondents; eight percent said abortion, and seven percent named immigration.

Among Republicans, the economy (47 percent) ranked first, followed by preserving democracy in the United States (23 percent) and immigration (12 percent).

Among Democrats, preserving democracy in the United States (34 percent) ranked first, followed by gun violence (18 percent) and abortion (13 percent).

And six months into his first term. Pennsylvania voters still feel good about Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Fifty-seven percent approve of how he handles the job, 23 percent disapprove, and 20 percent have no opinion. Among Democrats, Shapiro had an 84 to 4 percent approval rating and a 53 to 24 percent approval from independents. Republicans disapprove 41 to 34 percent.

Voters overwhelmingly approve 74–8 percent of how Shapiro is handling the response to the I-95 highway collapse in Philadelphia, with 18 percent not offering an opinion.

“Those across-the-board honeymoon approval numbers for first termer Gov. Shapiro are no doubt buoyed by voters’ perceptions that he stepped up and took charge when the bridge came down on I-95,” added Malloy.

In the wake of the I-95 bridge collapse, some 53 percent think roads and bridges in Pennsylvania are “mostly safe,” but 43 percent think the infrastructure is primarily unsafe.

Sen. Bob Casey Jr., a Democrat running for re-election in 2024, has a 44-to-32 percent approval rating. Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke while campaigning and then took time off from his job to be treated for depression, had a negative 39 to 50 percent approval rating, with 10 percent not offering an opinion.

Voters are also paying close attention to the scandal involving presidential son Hunter Biden. Some 33 percent said they are watching reports on it very closely, and another 37 percent said they are watching somewhat closely. Only 29 percent said they are not watching it too closely.

And 75 percent think the charges against Hunter Biden for tax issues and gun possession are very (41 percent) or somewhat (34 percent) serious. A much smaller cohort thinks the charges are not too serious (12 percent) or not serious at all (7 percent).

Fifty-eight percent think the plea deal with Hunter Biden regarding the federal tax charges and gun possession charge was mainly. In comparison, 36 percent think the plea deal was motivated primarily by the law.

The pollsters surveyed 1,584 Pennsylvania self-identified registered voters from June 22nd – 26th with a margin of error of +/- 2.5 percentage points.

The poll included 614 self-identified registered Republican voters with a margin of error of +/- 4.0 percentage points and 664 self-identified registered Democratic voters with a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points.

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(MANCHESTER, N.H.)  Donald Trump won the first debate of the 2024 presidential cycle Wednesday night, and it wasn’t even close.

What debate, you ask? Then you didn’t watch CNN’s broadcast from the leafy confines of St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., on Wednesday night. Like the old joke about boxing matches and hockey games, Granite State Republicans came to a voter town hall, and a debate broke out.

CNN touted the fact it gathered a roomful of potential GOP primary voters to help them make their choice in the 2024 race. Then the network proceeded to all but ignored them — only a half-dozen questions were taken from the crowd during the 90-minute event — and instead sent moderator Kaitlan Collins in swinging.

She never had a chance.

Collins kept most of the first half hour focused on two issues: Trump’s claims the 2020 election was stolen and his refusal to take responsibility for the January 6 riot on Capitol Hill. In a surprise to absolutely no one, except perhaps the news producers of CNN, Trump repeated what he had been saying for two years. “The election was rigged,” and “unless you’re a very stupid person,” you know it.

Republican Presidential Town Hall with Donald Trump moderated by Kaitlan Collins Live from New Hampshire (Credit: CNN)

Collins, who appeared taken aback by Trump’s statements, kept pushing. Instead of going to audience questions and letting voters ask about what was on their minds, Collins was determined to let everyone know what was on hers: He’s lying!

So she kept pressing him about his “false claims” regarding 2020, and he kept responding with talk about ballot boxes being stuffed in Pennsylvania and voter fraud investigations in Wisconsin.

At one point, an exasperated Collins insisted, “The election was not rigged, Mr. President. You can’t keep saying that all night.”

But of course, he could keep saying it, and he did. Because CNN put him on live TV, and he’s Donald Trump.

Are the people who run CNN unfamiliar with his work? What did CNN chief Chris Licht expect Trump to do — wilt under the unrelenting fact-checking from Collins and blurt out, “You’re right! I confess! I know I lost fair and square. My entire political reason for existence is a lie!”

The question of the night, asked by both horrified Democrats and dispirited, anti-Donald Republicans, was, “What the hell was CNN thinking?”

For Trump, the event was a twofer. He got to participate in a presidential debate, but alone — no pesky Chris Christie to put him off his game. Even better, his opponent was a finger-wagging Millennial media member, a stand-in for the people who hate Trump voters and who Republicans love to hate.

As veteran political analyst Jeff Greenfield tweeted, “Collins keeps trying to debate or refute Trump as he talks over her, and the audience cheers Trump on. It’s more evidence that this is a disastrous format.”

Not for Trump. He could hardly ask for a better setting. Holding a town hall, then having the “moderator” come out swinging reminded Republicans how unfairly the press treats them and their candidates. It also gave Trump the opportunity to walk into the media lion’s den and walk out with a win.

When the final bell rang, Trump World knew they had a winner.

“Smart people are asking: Where does DeSantis even go from here? There’s no oxygen for anyone not named Donald J. Trump,” one Trump ally told InsideSources.

A less-than-Trump-friendly GOP strategist who asked to speak on background had a similar take.

“Donald Trump should thank his team for talking him into doing the town hall. He steamrolled Kaitlan Collins repeatedly and, judging from the audience’s response, they loved it,” the strategist, who is not aligned with any presidential campaign, told InsideSources.

“He may not care about suburban moderates, but he doesn’t need to in order to crush the GOP primary field. And he may not even need to in a race against an increasingly feeble and unpopular Joe Biden.”

Biden responded to the CNN event with a bit of snark.

“It’s simple, folks. Do you want four more years of that? If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign,” Biden tweeted.

The obvious retort from millions of  Trump fans on Twitter: OK, Joe — now it’s your turn. When are you spending 90 minutes in a town hall with Tucker Carlson?

Biden won’t, of course. And nobody would ever expect him to. And that may be the most significant subtext of the beatdown Trump delivered on TV Wednesday night: Can you even imagine Biden doing this?

While Biden is shuffling between nap time in the White House and ice cream cones on the Delaware beach, Trump walks into the liberal media’s coliseum, faces the lions, and walks out holding up a bloody head.

And yes, we are entertained.

If this all feels familiar, it should. In 2016, CBS CEO Leslie Moonves famously bragged that Donald Trump’s candidacy “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for us.”

What America witnessed Wednesday night was a disaster for CNN, but it was damned good for Donald Trump.

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