'Republicans made a mistake': Pollster identifies GOP's biggest blunder on Biden SOTU
March 08, 2024
Sarah Longwell, a one-time Republican pollster who has kept her distance from the party ever since the emergence of former President Donald Trump, said the GOP made a grievous error by setting expectations so low for President Joe Biden's State of the Union response.
Appearing on CNN Friday morning, Longwell said that Biden delivered an excellent address by any standard, but she added that its impact was enhanced because Republicans had spent so many months writing off Biden as a doddering invalid on the cusp of death's door.
"Last night, what he said was for the Democratic base," Longwell explained. "But how he said it was for swing voters who needed to see that this guy was all there, that he could do the job. And I told you yesterday when I was on the show, the Republicans have made a mistake because they set the bar at dementia."
Longwell said that the sharpness of Biden's address easily cleared that bar and added that "if that's what dementia looks like then I hope that's how I have dementia when I'm older because he was on his game."
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Longwell also said that the Republican reaction to Biden's address showed that he was on top of his game.
"You can tell how well he did by how annoyed Republicans are this morning and last night," she said. "You could just see how upset they were."
Finally, Longwell praised Biden's ability to come across as a happy warrior who was eager to fight with his political rivals without outright hating them.
"He did the thing that I think Joe Biden is particularly good at, where he sparred with Republicans... he somehow managed to have it be incredibly political, he managed to be going right at republicans, but often was also joking with them, smiling at them, egging them on a little bit," she explained.
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