Source: Politics<\/p>\n
President Joe Biden\u2019s Monday campaign event with California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be a meeting of two Democrats whose fortunes are careening in opposite directions.<\/p>\n
For Newsom, the past six weeks have been a resurgence after finding his political career on the ropes. For Biden, they\u2019ve been a nightmare after a strong start to his presidency.<\/p>\n
Just a month ago, FiveThirtyEight\u2019s poll average<\/a> showed California voters divided evenly on whether to retain Newsom or boot him from office. Meanwhile, Biden\u2019s average approval rating<\/a> sat at 51 percent, 8 points higher than his 43 percent disapproval.<\/p>\n Yet while Biden\u2019s standing has flipped over the past month-plus \u2014 he\u2019s now in negative territory in the FiveThirtyEight average, 45 percent approval to 48 percent disapproval \u2014 Newsom has seen crucial improvement, leading the recall by a double-digit margin in the California poll average as of Thursday.<\/p>\n These countervailing trends \u2014 Newsom rising even as Biden\u2019s standing crashes nationally \u2014 point to an uncomfortable reality for Democrats: Even if Newsom runs up the score next week, the party\u2019s congressional and statewide officials are in peril in next year\u2019s midterm elections. And instead of Biden riding in to help save a member of his party, the president may be latching onto what\u2019s looking increasingly likely to be a strong Democratic political win.<\/p>\n Newsom\u2019s early August crash led to a wave of panic among Democrats from the West Coast to Washington. Numerous polls showed a narrow margin between the percentage of likely voters who wanted to keep Newsom in office, versus those who wanted him out \u2014 a problem exacerbated by the gap in interest<\/a> between eager Republicans and apathetic Democrats.<\/p>\n Since then, the outlook for Newsom \u2014 who won with 62 percent of the vote in the 2018 election \u2014 has improved markedly. Currently, \u201ckeep\u201d leads \u201crecall\u201d in the FiveThirtyEight average, 54 percent to 42 percent. That\u2019s still off his 2018 pace, but it\u2019s far more comfortable than it looked before ballots went out last month.<\/p>\n \u201cThe big changes were on the Democratic side,\u201d said Mark Baldassare, the president and CEO of the Public Policy Institute of California, pointing to increased Democratic engagement as the recall drew nearer. \u201cI would probably say that had to do with the recall becoming more real for the Democrats over time and a reflection of the fact that they were paying attention to the recall and its consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n Democrats and many Republicans credit Newsom\u2019s recovery in the face of national Democratic headwinds to his chief GOP antagonist: radio talk-show host Larry Elder, who in polls leads the field of contenders to take over from Newsom in the now-unlikely event the recall succeeds.<\/p>\n