1. Slovak nationalist-left government candidate Peter Pellegrini won the country's presidential election yesterday, cementing the grip of pro-Russian Prime Minister Robert Fico over the country. Fico, who took power for the fourth time last October, has turned the country's foreign policy to more pro-Russian views and initiated reforms of criminal law and the media, which have raised concerns over weakening the rule of law. Pellegrini had 53.26% of the vote, versus 46.73% for pro-Western opposition candidate Ivan Korcok, results from 99.66% of voting districts showed. Slovak presidents do not have many executive powers, but can veto laws or challenge them in the constitutional court. They nominate constitutional court judges, who may become important in political strife over the fate of Fico's reforms, which would dramatically ease punishments for corruption. (Source: reuters.com)
2. Poles vote in local elections today, selecting thousands of councillors and mayors who will play a key role in allocating billions in European Union funds and giving an early indication of their satisfaction with the government of Donald Tusk. Tusk's appointment as prime minister in December marked a turning point for the largest country in the EU's east, drawing a line under eight years of nationalist rule that set Warsaw at odds with Western allies and putting the nation of 38 million people on a resolutely pro-European course. The broad coalition which Tusk leads won a majority in October's parliamentary elections on promises to roll back judicial reforms implemented by the previous government that critics said undermined the independence of the courts, while boosting the rights of women and minorities. He has painted victory on Sunday for his liberal Civic Coalition (KO), the largest grouping in the ruling alliance, as essential if Poland is to avoid sliding back towards nationalist rule under the Law and Justice party (PiS). (Source: reuters.com)
3. Donald Trump is leading President Biden in six of the seven most competitive states in the 2024 election, propelled by broad voter dissatisfaction with the national economy and deep doubts about Biden’s capabilities and job performance, a new Wall Street Journal poll finds. The poll of the election’s main battlegrounds shows Trump holding leads of between 2 and 8 percentage points in six states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina—on a test ballot that includes third-party and independent candidates. Trump holds similar leads when voters are asked to choose only between him and Biden. The one outlier is Wisconsin, where Biden “leads” by 3 points on the multiple-candidate ballot, and where the two candidates are tied in a head-to-head matchup. (Sources: wsj.com, s.wsj.net) Editor’s Note: It’s important to remember that the margin of error on most (if not all) of these polls is at least 3%, so a “2 percentage point “lead” isn’t a “lead.” It’s a statistical tie. An 8 percentage point “lead” is a “lead.”
4. Gallup:
Americans are less likely now than they were in 2020 to believe a number of positive personal qualities and characteristics apply to President Joe Biden. Gallup tested eight character items for each candidate in a March 1-20 poll -- six that were asked in 2020 plus “is intelligent” and “puts the country’s interests ahead of his own political interests.” The biggest decline has come in the percentage believing Biden is able to manage government effectively, but his scores are down at least six percentage points on each characteristic. Over the same period, public impressions of Donald Trump, Biden’s likely challenger in the 2024 election, haven’t changed to a statically significant degree. (Source: news.gallup.com)
5. Only 38 percent of likely 2024 voters believe President Joe Biden will be alive at the end of another four-year term, according to an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com. And that means one thing: Vice President Kamala Harris is just as likely to be in the top job as Biden come January 2029 if he wins reelection. Some 36 percent of likely voters believe Harris will be president at the end of the term. The exact same proportion as think Biden will be in the job. (Source: dailymail.co.uk)
6. Below, in one chart, is the most recent (and most relevant) national poll data regarding President Biden.
(Source: foxnews.com)
7. Gallup:
Gallup also measures Americans’ views of national concerns monthly by asking them to name, unprompted, what they believe is the most important problem facing the country today. This question format is asked before the list of issue concerns in the survey and yields a slightly different conclusion, finding immigration ranking ahead of inflation. Overall, 28% of Americans, the same as in February and the most for any issue, name immigration as the top problem. That essentially ties the 27% reading from July 2019 as the highest since Gallup started compiling mentions of immigration in 1981. (Source: news.gallup.com)
8. Bloomberg’s “The Big Take”:
Immigration has erupted into a defining issue of the 2024 ballot, with a Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll finding it second only to the economy as voters’ top concern. Courts are bogged down by unprecedented levels of cases—federal agents encountered 10,000 people a day crossing the southern border in December—and the tumult has exposed the US system as underfunded, opaque and bursting at the seams. (Source: bloomberg.com)
9. Trump’s message (on immigration) appears to be resonating with key elements of the Democratic coalition that Biden will need to win over this November. Roughly two-thirds of Americans now disapprove of how Biden is handling border security, including about 4 in 10 Democrats, 55% of Black adults and 73% of Hispanic adults, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March. A recent Pew Research Center poll found that 45% of Americans described the situation as a crisis, while another 32% said it was a major problem. Vetress Boyce, a Chicago-based racial justice activist, was among those who expressed frustration with Biden’s immigration policies and the city’s approach as it tries to shelter newly arriving migrants. She argued Democrats should be focusing on economic investment in Black communities, not newcomers. Gracie Martinez is a 52-year-old Hispanic small business owner from Eagle Pass, Texas, the border town that Trump visited in February when he and Biden made same-day trips to the state. Martinez said she once voted for former President Barack Obama and is still a Democrat, but now backs Trump — mainly because of the border. Immigration will almost certainly be one of the central issues in November’s election, with both sides spending the next six months trying to paint the other as wrong on border security. (Source: apnews.com)
10. Bloomberg:
To understand the 2024 US presidential election, it is essential to understand the politics of fentanyl.
Americans have been traumatized by a years-long wave of overdose deaths caused by the synthetic opioid. Once rarely used outside hospitals, fentanyl has become a ubiquitous street drug made by criminal gangs, often in Mexico, from cheap chemicals typically manufactured in China. It frequently is a hidden ingredient in other illicit drugs and can have fatal consequences for unsuspecting users.
About 8 in 10 voters in seven swing states say fentanyl misuse is a “very important” or “somewhat important” issue when deciding who to vote for in November — more than the number who cite abortion, climate change, labor and unions, or the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, according to a recent Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll of almost 5,000 registered voters.
Fentanyl has come up repeatedly in a campaign unfolding after an especially deadly phase in the US opioid epidemic. From just before the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in November 2019 to October 2023, about 270,000 people died of an overdose from a synthetic opioid, according to the most recent provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those fatalities account for the vast majority of overall opioid overdose deaths, which have climbed to about 80,000 a year.
Editor’s Note: Between 1964 and 1975, an estimated 58,300 members of the U.S. armed forces were killed or went missing in action in the Vietnam War. (Sources: bloomberg.com, pro-assets.morningconsult.com, britannica.com, bold/italics mine)
11. Voters are divided on whether they think the system of democracy in the United States is working, as 46 percent say it is working and 49 percent say it is not working, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released today. There are big differences along party lines. Democrats 66 - 31 percent think the system of democracy in the U.S. is working, while Republicans 62 - 33 percent think it is not working. Independents are split, with 45 percent thinking it is working and 49 percent thinking it is not working. In a head-to-head presidential election matchup, 48 percent of voters support President Joe Biden and 45 percent support former President Donald Trump. This is virtually unchanged from Quinnipiac University's February 21 poll. When the matchup is expanded to include independent and Green Party candidates, Trump receives 39 percent support, Biden receives 38 percent support, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. receives 13 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 4 percent support, and independent candidate Cornel West receives 3 percent support. There is no clear leader in either of these matchups because the leads are within the margin of error. (Source: poll.qu.edu)
12. One-third (34%) of Americans would like to go and settle in another country if they were free to do so. Fifty years ago, this number stood at a much lower 10%. The Gallup Organization asked this question in eleven different national polls between 1948 and 1995. During that time, the desire to emigrate never went higher than 13% (1972) and dipped as low as 5% (1950). In fact, the number of people wanting to leave the country averaged 6% in polls taken between 1948 and 1960, hovered between 9% and 13% in the early to mid-1970s, and was a similar 9% to 12% in the 1990s. There are significant age differences in wanting to move out of the country. Currently, half (51%) of those under the age of 35 want to resettle (up from 19% in 1974) as do 39% of those 35 to 54 years old (up from 6%). However, only 17% of Americans age 55 and older want to leave. (Source: monmouth.edu/polling-institute. Bold/Italics mine)
13. Nearly two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a record number of voters think abortion should be legal, with two-thirds favoring nationwide law guaranteeing access, according to a Fox News national survey. Fifty-nine percent think abortion should be legal in all or most cases, up from the previous high of 57% in September 2022 and a record low of 44% in April 2022. Support for legalization is up (mostly by double-digits) across the board since April 2022, two months before Roe was overturned. That includes increased support among voters ages 65 and older (+16 points should be legal), conservatives (+12), Republicans (+11), and White evangelical Christians (+10). Overall, just 7% think abortion should never be permitted, while five times as many say it always should be (35%). Another one-third (32%) say abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. (Source: foxnews.com)
14. After narrowly backing Israel’s military action in Gaza in November, Americans now oppose the campaign by a solid margin. Fifty-five percent currently disapprove of Israel’s actions, while 36% approve. The latest results are from a March 1-20 survey. The poll was completed before the U.N. Security Council on Monday passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire during Ramadan. The measure passed because the United States abstained rather than vetoing the resolution. Seventy-four percent of U.S. adults say they are following news of the Israeli-Hamas situation closely, similar to the 72% Gallup measured in November. One-third of Americans (34%) say they are following the situation “very closely.” All three major party groups in the U.S. have become less supportive of Israel’s actions in Gaza than they were in November. (Source: news.gallup.com)
15. Younger Americans are more likely to sympathize with the Palestinian people than the Israeli people. A third of adults under 30 say their sympathies lie either entirely or mostly with the Palestinian people, while 14% say their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people. The rest say their sympathies lie equally with both, with neither or that they are not sure. Older Americans, by comparison, are more likely to sympathize with Israelis than Palestinians. For example, among people ages 65 and older, 47% say their sympathies lie entirely or mostly with the Israeli people, while far fewer (9%) sympathize entirely or mostly with the Palestinians. (Source: pewresearch.org)
16. Almost half of Europeans have a positive opinion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy but the feeling varies wildly across member states. This is one of the main conclusions from an exclusive Euronews poll conducted by Ipsos among almost 26,000 respondents across 18 member states ahead of the elections to the European Parliament, which will be held between 6 and 9 June. The first-of-its-kind survey shows that 47% of Europeans hold a "positive" opinion of Volodymyr Zelenskyy while 32% have a "negative" view. Meanwhile, 21% say they "don't know enough" about the president, who has topped headlines for the past two years and has travelled extensively around the continent to speak on behalf of his war-torn nation. This makes Zelenskyy the best-liked leader of the eight European figures surveyed by Ipsos but also the most divisive, as his scores suffer the strongest swings. In the Nordic region and the Iberian Peninsula, Zelenskyy receives the highest "positive" marks: 81% in Finland, 74% in Sweden, 72% in Denmark and Portugal, and 64% in Spain. By contrast, more than half of respondents in Hungary (60%), Greece (57%) and Bulgaria (56%) have a "negative" opinion of the Ukrainian president. Other countries where the "negative" judgment outweighs the "positive" are Slovakia (50% against 26%), Austria (47% against 33%), Italy (41% against 32%) and the Czech Republic (37% against 36%). Another notable case is Germany, the EU's leading donor of military assistance. According to the poll, Germans are far from consensus in their assessment: 41% have a "positive" opinion of Zelenskyy and 36% a "negative" one. (Source: euronews.com)
17. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's Conservative Party is set for a heavy defeat at a national election expected this year, according to a seat projection published on Wednesday which showed the opposition Labour Party winning more than 400 seats. The YouGov model, which predicts results in individual parliamentary seats based on estimated vote share, projected that Sunak's Conservatives would win just 155 seats and Labour would win 403 seats. Britain's parliament has 650 seats. Polls have consistently given Labour a double digit lead over the Conservatives, ahead of an election which Sunak has said he expects to call in the second half of the year. The Conservatives have been in government, either in coalition or on their own, since 2010, but have had five different prime ministers in that time, as Britain's vote to leave the European Union and scandal over the handling of the COVID crisis led to continued political turmoil. (Source: reuters.com)
18. Three in 10 Americans say they attend religious services every week (21%) or almost every week (9%), while 11% report attending about once a month and 56% seldom (25%) or never (31%) attend. Among major U.S. religious groups, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also widely known as the Mormon Church, are the most observant, with two-thirds attending church weekly or nearly weekly. Protestants (including nondenominational Christians) rank second, with 44% attending services regularly, followed by Muslims (38%) and Catholics (33%). Majorities of Jewish, Orthodox, Buddhist and Hindu Americans say they seldom or never attend religious services. Twenty-six percent of Orthodox adults, 22% of Jewish adults, 14% of Buddhist adults and 13% of Hindu adults attend services regularly. (Source: news.gallup.com)
19. Pew Research:
A third of U.S. adults – including a majority of adults under 30 – use TikTok. Around six-in-ten U.S. adults under 30 (62%) say they use TikTok, compared with 39% of those ages 30 to 49, 24% of those 50 to 64, and 10% of those 65 and older. In a 2023 Center survey, TikTok stood out from other platforms we asked about for the rapid growth of its user base. Just two years earlier, 21% of U.S. adults used the platform.
A majority of U.S. teens use TikTok. About six-in-ten teens ages 13 to 17 (63%) say they use the platform. More than half of teens (58%) use it daily, including 17% who say they’re on it “almost constantly.”
A higher share of teen girls than teen boys say they use TikTok almost constantly (22% vs. 12%). Hispanic teens also stand out: Around a third (32%) say they’re on TikTok almost constantly, compared with 20% of Black teens and 10% of White teens. (Source: pewresearch.org)
One Quick Link (which is worth reading in full): Ipsos on Artificial Intelligence: Key insights, data and tables.