Biden leads Trump, Quinnipiac says!

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Also, NATO spending numbers: On the one hand, hallelujah! Then again, not so fast!

A brand-new Quinnipiac poll has Biden ahead of Trump by four points nationwide. On the other hand, a brand-new poll by Morning Consult has Trump ahead by four.

Just this once, we'll let you exult. Headline included, here's the start of the Quinnipiac report:

2024 Election: Biden Holds On To Slight Lead Over Trump, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds

In a hypothetical 2024 general election presidential matchup, President Joe Biden holds a small lead over former President Donald Trump with 49 percent of registered voters supporting Biden and 45 percent supporting Trump, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released today.

This compares to Quinnipiac University's January 31 poll when Biden had 50 percent support and Trump had 44 percent support.

In today's poll, Democrats support Biden (93 - 4 percent), while Republicans support Trump (91 - 7 percent). Independents are divided, with 44 percent supporting Biden and 42 percent supporting Trump.

The report proceeds from there. Recent impressions:

On Tuesday night, we watched a chunk of Donald J. Trump's town hall event with Laura Ingraham. We were surprised, as we were in his last town hall event, by how cool, calm and collected the candidate managed to be.

The man who sends those all-caps tweets at 2 a.m. doesn't seem to show up for these events. He makes all the ridiculous claims and adopts all the ridiculous stances, but his demeanor is that of a fairly normal candidate.

With respect to those ridiculous stances, let's review the recent hubbub concerning NATO members. Trump continues to say or suggest that there's some such thing as "NATO dues"—and that he may turn Vladimir loose on countries which are in arrears.

As usual, the factual claims are a jumble. Headline included, here's the start of a February 12 report in the Washington Post:

See which NATO countries spend less than 2% of their GDP on defense

Donald Trump said over the weekend that he would encourage Russia to attack “delinquent” NATO allies that, in his judgment, spend too little on defense.

His remarks shocked leaders on both sides of the Atlantic—and mischaracterized how the 31-member alliance works.

NATO member nations all make payments to cover the operating expenses of the organization, which was founded in the aftermath of World War II to help Western Europe counter the Soviet Union with help from Canada and the United States. But they don’t pay membership fees to remain in the alliance, so there’s no delinquency to speak of.

Countries do, however, commit to spending at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense each year, with the goal of ensuring the alliance’s military readiness and deterring any potential attacks. The commitment is a guideline, not a requirement, that has been in place for nearly two decades.

That's the way the report started. Member nations "commit to spending at least 2 percent of their GDP on defense each year." As he continued, Derek Hawkins offered this overview of who's been keeping up:

Last year, 11 countries met or exceeded that target, according to NATO statistics. The rest spent smaller portions of their GDP on defense. (Iceland, the only member state with no armed forces, is omitted from the data set.)

Most of the countries that spent beyond the 2 percent mark either share a border with Russia or sit near the front lines of the Ukraine war. Trump’s insinuation that they’re not paying their share is false.

Two percent of GDP is the target, goal or commitment. Here are the percentages from 2023 for some of the larger NATO members:

Defense spending in 2023 (as a percentage of GDP):
Poland: 3.9%
United States: 3.49%
United Kingdom: 2.07%
France: 1.90%
Germany: 1.57%
Italy: 1.46%
Canada: 1.38%
Spain: 1.26%

The U.K. is slightly over the two percent target. France is slightly below it. 

Some other countries aren't all that close. This report from Forces.net offers an upbeat projection:

Nato: Which countries are paying their fair share on defence?

A record number of Nato nations are set to meet or exceed the alliance's spending target, but other members are still falling short.

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said 18 nations were expected to spend 2% of their gross domestic product (GDP) on defense in 2024—up from 11 in 2023 and a six-fold increase from 2014 when only three Nato allies hit the spending target.

The expected increase in defense spending also means European Nato allies as a whole will collectively spend 2% of their combined GDP—worth $380bn—on defense for the first time.

[...]

The latest increases follow a trend of gradual increases in defense spending across the alliance over the last decade—Nato allies in Europe invested only 1.47% of their collective GDP in defense in 2014.

We don't know who will spend how much. Later, we'll try to get with Calchas.

Blue tribe viewers are told that Donald J. Trump is nuts. Red tribe viewers are told that his tough talk about turning Vladimir loose is the perfect way to get recalcitrant NATO members to build their capacities up.

Quinnipiac says that Biden's ahead (though certainly not by enough). We're still focused on this question:

How vigorously will he campaign?