Opinion: Fumble in the Bronx: Democrats’ unlikely loss shows where Biden is bleeding

Opinion: Fumble in the Bronx: Democrats’ unlikely loss shows where Biden is bleeding

Joe Biden has a Bronx problem.

Last November, Republican Kristy Marmorato, an Italian Gen Xer, defeated incumbent Democrat Marjorie Velazquez, a Millennial of Puerto Rican descent, by just over three percentage points in a 69 percent majority-minority Bronx-based New York City Council district. In this district, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans four to one.

Sure, it was an off-year redistricting election. But according to recent battleground state polling from Siena College Research Institute, guess which demographics President Joe Biden is currently bleeding support from?

Hint: It ain’t elderly Caucasians.

Millennials and Hispanics have both started to sour on Biden for the same reasons Biden has been trailing his inevitable Republican opponent, Donald Trump, in nearly every public poll for the past few months: the perception of a flagging economy. College-aged Gen Z still overwhelmingly trends Democratic, but they’re also the least likely to vote.

Older Millennials are now halfway to turning 50. Younger Millennials have experienced the job market for going on a decade. We are starting families and struggling to pay off debt or afford quality health care. The cost of living has gone up significantly. The average Millennial is buying his or her first home at age 36, between three to eight years later than members of previous generations did.

In that environment, Siena’s battleground state survey of 3,662 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada from October gave Trump a slight edge of 46 percent over Biden’s 45 percent with “likely” voters aged 30-44. Trump led 47 to 43 percent among “registered” voters in that group. Bear in mind, this is a group that Biden carried by six points in his narrow 2020 victory.

Meanwhile, Pew Research Center reports, “Latinos have grown at the second-fastest rate of any major racial and ethnic group in the U.S. electorate since the last presidential election. An estimated 36.2 million are eligible to vote this year, up from 32.3 million in 2020. This represents 50 percent of the total growth in eligible voters during this time.”

And now, the leading Republican candidate for president is winning these voters over in droves. Increasingly, Latino voters see the twice-impeached, twice-divorced, four-times-indicted Trump as morally upright, successful in business, and sharing their values.

USA Today-Suffolk University data released last month show Biden trailing his repeat rival among Hispanic voters, 39 percent to 34 percent nationally. That is similar to Siena’s battleground state survey from last October, which measured Trump’s support at 40 percent.

The recent CBS/YouGov poll revealed Hispanic voter preference for Trump has inched up to an eye-popping 45 percent. Although that leaves him trailing Biden overall among Hispanic voters, that tally surpasses even George W. Bush’s peak performance in 2004. For the record, Trump won just 32 percent of Latino voters in 2020.

While polling results vary based on methodology and sample size, the underlying trends remain indisputable. Despite the lowest unemployment in over fifty years; despite real GDP growth of 3.1 percent last year; despite last week’s Commerce Department report indicating that inflation is on the wane; and despite all signs pointing away from a possible future recession, Joe Biden is still overwhelmingly perceived as weak on handling the economy.

Never mind the 2017 Trump tax cuts that added over $8 trillion to the national debt. Never mind Trump’s disastrous handling of a COVID-19 pandemic that cost over 22 million American jobs along with 350,000 American lives. Never mind the 91 felony charges against Trump, or his role in encouraging rioters to storm the Capitol Building in January 2021 after he lost the election. Never mind his disparagement of Mexicans eight years ago in his 2016 campaign launch.

If Democrats’ recent bloodletting in the Bronx hasn’t served as a wake-up call for Biden headquarters, I don’t know what will. If they can’t turn things around and quick, they’ll soon find themselves handing over the reins of power to the most dangerous, unqualified individual ever to ever sit behind the Resolute Desk.

It’s not the economy. It’s the messaging, stupid.

John William Schiffbauer is a political consultant and a former deputy communications director for the New York Republican State Committee.

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