Forget the Polls, President Biden. Our Readers Have Some Strategy Ideas.
The results of the latest New York Times/Siena College polls showing Donald Trump leading President Biden in five crucial battleground states were bad news to many Democrats. There’s still time for Mr. Biden to win back some swing voters, but a lot of his supporters are wondering the same thing: How?
“People wanted things to get back to normal after the pandemic, and now they want perhaps a different kind of change,” writes Katherine Miller, a politics writer and editor in Opinion. “The ‘more’ people seem to want can sometimes be articulated clearly in economic or foreign policy decisions, and at other times it sounds more like a vibe that would be hard to measure.”
We asked readers what that vibe might sound like: Is it a slogan, a speech, a push for new legislation? Or something more personal that only the president (and not his campaign or aides) can deliver? Not all readers support Mr. Biden, of course, but the polling prompted our curiosity about strategies to run for re-election.
A selection of their responses, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows.
Sell a lifestyle, not a diet
His public relations problem is that his plan is “eat better and exercise” — there’s no fast solution pill. He should focus on ways to create generations of success in the United States: long-term investments and improvements that fix past mistakes. — Anne van Leynseele, Seattle
He has to lay out his economic agenda for the next four years. What are his solutions for housing and child care? Women don’t only care about abortion. We want to know how you’re going to help us choose to have a child. — Hannah Weinstock, Queens, N.Y.