It’s not a universal syndrome. Republican Ronald Reagan maintained his popularity, so much so that five years after departing in 1975, California voters strongly endorsed his challenge to Democratic President Jimmy Carter.

The arc of Reagan’s successor, Democrat Jerry Brown, was very different. He enjoyed strong support in the early stages, but two failed efforts to become president and other miscues dragged down his popularity and voters rejected his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1982.

It mirrored the experience of Brown’s father, Pat Brown, who had overstayed his welcome, tried to win a third term in 1966 and lost to Reagan.

“I believe the people of California would like a respite from me and in some ways I would like a respite from them,” Jerry Brown said after his Senate defeat. Decades later, he won two more terms as governor and retired in 2019 with his legacy and popularity intact.

The difference between Brown’s two stints as governor illustrates why some holders of the office leave on high notes and some do not.

Brown 1.0’s constant yearning to abandon the governorship for higher office, when coupled with a lackluster record, simply turned people off. Brown 2.0 made few promises, kept those he made and demonstrated engagement in the job to which he was elected.

The flip side of the popularity coin is a governor who doesn’t over-promise and under-deliver, but shies away from doing the job. Democrat Gray Davis won the office in 1998 on his credentials, which included a term as lieutenant governor. But once he was inaugurated, he indicated by word and deed that he was risk-averse and didn’t intend to do very much.

Davis let two crises fester – one in state finances and the other in electrical energy – and barely won re-election in 2002 against a very weak Republican challenger. A year later voters recalled him and replaced him with action movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger initially enjoyed strong public support with his promises to overhaul a bloated state government and won a full term in 2006, but left behind a string of failed efforts to win voter support for reform measures and was very unpopular, having naively made promises he was incapable of keeping.

That brings us to Gavin Newsom, who has three years remaining in his governorship but is beginning to resemble Jerry Brown 1.0, implying to voters that his real interest lies in building national political standing rather than governing California.

“He’s kind of taking on a new persona,” Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley-IGS poll, told the Times. “He’s no longer just the governor of California. He’s a spokesperson for the national party and basically voters are being asked to react to that.”

Newsom’s dip is exacerbated by two other factors: a growing malaise among Californians about rising crime rates, homelessness and economic disparity, and Newsom’s failure to deliver on the big promises he made to win election in 2018, such as single-payer health care and 3.5 million new housing units.

While Newsom has launched some potentially transformative changes in medical care for the poor and mental health, neither has borne fruit yet. It’s not surprising that a governor with a thin record of achievement and a wandering attention span is losing support.

Dan Walters is a CalMatters columnist.

Your cheeseburger and fries are going to cost more. So is the medical bill for treating the subsequent heartburn.

Two minimum wage bills Gov. Gavin Newsom signed already are digging in, worsening the inflation hitting consumers. The overall state minimum wage will rise from $15.50 an hour to $16 on Jan. 1. But Assembly Bill 1228 increased the minimum wage for fast-food workers even higher, to $20, effective next April 1, for those brands with 60 or more restaurants nationally.

Restaurants already are planning to pass the higher wage on to consumers. BJ’s Restaurant has 59 stores in California and its headquarters are in Huntington Beach. “We expect higher menu prices in restaurants throughout the state as operators look to mitigate the added costs,” CEO Greg Levin announced during an earnings call last week. “We are still finalizing our menu pricing plan for next year, but expect to be able to offset inflationary pressures.”

Senate Bill 525 increased the minimum wage for most healthcare workers to $23 an hour next July 1; $24 on July 1, 2025; and $25 on July 1, 2026. Great for those workers — if they’re not laid off. But the costs will be passed on to patients and taxpayers.

Gov. Newsom’s own Department of Finance just estimated the wage increase would cost the state government alone $4 billion more a year. Half would come from federal funds; but half will receive a transfusion from the state general fund, meaning California taxpayers. That would add $2 billion to the current estimate of a $14 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2024. The $4 billion estimate does not include costs to private health care offices and systems, which could be much higher.

“Increasing the minimum wage always results in higher prices to the consumers,” Raymond Sfeir told us; he’s the director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. He pointed out the $20 fast food wage won’t apply to brands with 59 or fewer places, giving them an advantage. Companies growing fast will have a strong incentive to not rise above 59. Many firms might not even come here, meaning fewer jobs in the Golden State.

A shortage of healthcare workers was the excuse Newsom made for increasing their wage. But if that’s the case, Sfeir pointed out, why were such workers defined as also including janitors, gardeners, drivers and gift-shop clerks? And how about helping health workers — and all workers — by reducing the cost of living in this state with tax cuts and more housing?

Sfeir warned, “When healthcare costs increase, families with limited means are affected more than anybody else, leading them to demand fewer healthcare services.”

Both these bills were pushed strongly by unions, especially the powerful Service Employees International Union. Laphonza Butler, gifted a U.S. Senate appointment by Gov. Newsom, is a former president of the SEIU State Council. Until union power over government is reduced in this state, expect everything to cost even more.

They have done this notwithstanding the prohibition against taking life, liberty or property from any person — not just any American, but any person — in the Constitution each has sworn to uphold, and they have done so pursuant to secret rules that they themselves have established for these killings.

Last year, 11 senators and 39 members of the House of Representatives sent a harshly worded letter to President Joe Biden asking him to stop the secret, but not the public, killings. As of this writing, he has not publicly replied.

Here is the backstory.

The purpose of the Bill of Rights — the first 10 amendments to the Constitution — is to protect personal liberty by restraining the government.

The Fifth Amendment prohibits killing persons, restraining liberty and taking property without due process; that means a jury trial at which the government must prove criminal behavior or fault, depending upon its goal.

If the country is at war — lawfully and constitutionally declared by Congress — obviously the president can use the U.S. military to kill the military of the opposing country. And if an attack on the U.S. is imminent, the president can strike the first blow against the military of the entity whose attack is just about to occur.

There are no other constitutional circumstances under which a president may kill.

When President Harry Truman targeted Japanese civilians as the Japanese government was within days of surrendering in World War II, he murdered them. Notwithstanding his unprosecuted war crimes, and with the government’s version of Pearl Harbor still fresh in many Americans’ minds, Truman was regarded as heroic for using nuclear bombs to cause the profoundly immoral, militarily useless and plainly criminal mass killings of the hated Japanese.

Fast-forward to the 9/11 era, and Bush had precedent to begin his own presidential killings of people the government wanted Americans to hate. While Congress did authorize him to use force against those who caused or aided the 9/11 attacks, we all know that his thirst for Middle Eastern blood knew no regard for the Constitution, evidence, proportionality, civilian lives, morality or human decency. Thus, $3 trillion spent and 1 million dead in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Julian Assange sits in a British dungeon awaiting decisions on his extradition to the U.S. because he courageously, lawfully and constitutionally published documents and videos demonstrating conclusively that Bush’s use of drones targeted and murdered Afghan and Iraqi civilians, and his administration covered it up.

Obama took this to another level when he targeted and killed Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in the U.S. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, advised Obama that the killing was lawful, as al-Awlaki had encouraged folks in the Middle East to fight against American soldiers there. Holder likened killing al-Awlaki to police shooting at a bank robber whom they are chasing while he is shooting at them.

Holder forgot that al-Awlaki was unarmed, was not charged or indicted for any crime, was never accused of violence, and was not even the subject of an arrest warrant when a drone evaporated him while sitting at an outdoor cafe in Yemen.

The exercise of power by the federal government is largely based on precedent and politics. Whenever a president wants to kill, he need only find an example of a predecessor having killed with impunity — without due process, without a declaration of war and without an imminent attack. And then he needs only to calculate what he thinks he can politically get away with.

Joe Biden — whose drones in 2021 destroyed a dam in Syria, killing thousands, and who targeted civilians in Afghanistan, killing dozens, and whose shipments of guns to Ukraine and Israel are killing tens of thousands of folks he wants us to hate — is using unlawful powers that his modern predecessors used and got away with to target and kill unsympathetic persons. But the U.S. has not declared war on Russia or Gaza.

The nature of political power is to expand so that it fills a perceived need, unless there are mechanisms in place to restrain its expansion.

The founding generation believed that British monarchs had no limits on their powers and that was a good enough reason for the 13 colonies to secede violently. They also believed that they had crafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to impose sufficient restraints on the federal government. And they believed that the states could peacefully leave a federal government they had voluntarily joined when it exceeded its constitutional powers.

Sadly, the Founders were wrong.

Every president takes an oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution as it was written, not as he may wish it to be.

Yet, today, the president writes laws and rules that let him restrain personal liberty and kill with impunity, and Congress and the American people let him get away with it. Formally, we still have a Constitution. Functionally, it has utterly failed to restrain the government.

Ultimately, we have ourselves to blame for these killings and undeclared wars. Why do we repose the Constitution for safekeeping into the hands of those who subvert it? If a future president uses Bush’s lust and Obama’s logic and Biden’s hatreds to kill Americans in America, then no one’s life, liberty or property will be secure.

To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.

Great. But that shouldn’t obscure the fact that a commission would be the result of our legislators constantly acting like children by refusing to be good stewards of taxpayers’ dollars, which is their No. 1 job. There are also a few important things needed to make such a commission successful.

In the last 50 years, when the budget process has been in place, Congress has managed only four times to pass a budget on time and through the regular process. Seventeen times, members of Congress haven’t bothered to pass a budget at all. That hasn’t stopped them from spending money they didn’t have, or from making promises to voters they wouldn’t be able to fulfill. I doubt I need to remind you that it’s gotten worse. In the last half-decade, Congress added $5 trillion to the already elevated and growing federal debt with no plan for repayment.

Nor should I need to remind this column’s readers that government interest payments are growing quickly, propelled by higher interest rates applied to an expanding debt level. That’s the result of years of excuses that interest rates would remain historically low.

While you might see how legislators chose to believe that inflation and high interest rates were things of the past, there’s no excuse for ignoring the upcoming insolvency of programs like Medicare and Social Security. This looming calamity has been warned of for decades in government reports and scholarly publications.

To be sure, the insolvency dates might change with new projections, but what has been constant is the knowledge that around the 2030s, Social Security’s trust fund will dry out, triggering a reduction in benefits across the board of about 20%. To avoid cutting benefits, Congress could decide to borrow the money — at least $116 trillion of it — over the next 30 years. That option has been right there, written in all its red-ink glory, in the tables of reports produced by the Congressional Budget Office.

So, yes, Congress knew this was coming. And yet it did nothing. Making matters worse, Republicans have abandoned the mantle of at least paying lip service to fiscal responsibility by refusing to talk about entitlement reform.

Now that we are clear about a bunch of delinquents who don’t want to do their jobs, let’s consider a fiscal commission.

At the heart of the commission’s charge must be a commitment not just to reduce some deficits, but to put the government back on a sustainable track. As my colleague and former CBO Director Keith Hall convinced me, the commission will fail if it doesn’t have a clear target from the start. Then it will need to be both transparent and accountable by operating in the open, making its findings and deliberations available to the public, and thereby fostering an informed debate about the choices facing the nation.

The commission could be established through legislation mandating that Congress consider any resulting proposals on a fast-track basis, with limited opportunities for amendment and delay. Such mechanisms have been used successfully in the past with military-base closure commissions and trade agreements, and they could be adapted to the task of fiscal reform.

In short, a fiscal commission represents a pragmatic approach to a problem that has for too long been mired in politics and short-term thinking. It offers a pathway out of the fiscal morass, provided it is empowered to act, and its recommendations are taken seriously.

For Congress, which has shirked its responsibilities, the commission offers a chance to redeem itself by enabling reforms that might otherwise never see the light of day. In this way, the commission does not usurp Congress’s role but rather complements it, providing the impetus needed for genuine fiscal reform.

Veronique de Rugy is the George Gibbs Chair in Political Economy and a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Re “Fiscal policy still matters” (Nov. 5):

The United States of America’s national debt is $33 trillion. Without figuring the interest and paying the debt off at a thousand dollars a second it would take over a thousand years to pay off the debt. We hear from the running politicians that we are strapping our children and grandchildren with the debt. There aren’t enough generations in the future of America’s history to pay off the debt we now owe.

The credit card debt in America is $1 trillion. The credit card debt interest at 18% per year is $180 billion a year. That is a lot of goods and services that are used and down the drain without being paid for. Another debt that will never be paid for. The existential threat of drowning in red ink is greater than any other threat we have outside of nuclear disaster.

— John Seibert, Laguna Niguel

Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is just fine

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is doing what they are supposed to do and that is protect the taxpayers of this county. I have lived in this county all of my life and as a senior I have nothing but praise for the devoted deputies willing to risk their lives to save ours. People make a choice in life to be either law-abiding citizens or to live a life of crime. If the latter is chosen then the consequences are pretty cut and dried, To all of the activists and others who think prisoners should have all of these rights, think again. Jails are in place to keep law-abiding citizens safe, not to coddle criminals and obsess over their rights. These people gave up their rights when they decided to become murderers, rapists and everything in-between. I did not support Chad Bianco for sheriff, by the way. But do I support him now? You better believe I do.

— Cappi Duncan, Cherry Valley

Landmark hangar in Tustin

Sadly we lost one of our two gentle giants, the hangars in Tustin, on Oct. 7. They served bravely thousands of men and families during WW11 and Vietnam and were well loved in the community and a welcoming landmark when you landed at John Wayne. Thousands showed up to see the catastrophe, looking through fences and all asking why? Hopefully the city of Tustin and the Navy will finally stop neglecting the final one and act to save it.

— Patrick Shane, Tustin

When Joe Biden was briefed about Beirut, he said, “Yeah, Beirut was good in his day, but Mickey Mantle was a better home run hitter.”

With the incompetence and corruption of this Biden administration, and Trump not speaking a lot because the courts have him under various gag orders, “The Donald” has risen in the polls. Some pollsters say he is winning in five key swing states.  Although results in Virginia’s elections Tuesday still point to abortion hurting Republicans.

I guess it reminds us that the more we see of a politician, the less we like. Biden won the presidency from his basement; Trump might win it back from the witness stand of three trials.

Donald Trump is particularly popular in the South. It seems odd that a brash, obnoxious New Yorker like Trump would resonate in the South. We do not like the personality of Trump, but we really, really, really do not like how big, expensive, arrogant and corrupt the federal government has become. He is a proxy for our anger.

We are also tired of the arrogant, leftist, coastal elite narrative that we are racist rubes, and they know better than we do. Lefties paint a narrative that every Southern state’s state bird is Jim Crow. Trump’s policies and results represent what we want. It takes a bombastic outsider to change Washington.

All this racist finger pointing at the South is the deflection of the racism of the North. There are no more racist cities than Boston or New York.  Remember Martha’s Vineyard as its denizens clutched their pearls when illegal immigrants arrived, and turned them away? The reality is that the races get along better in the South, especially in smaller towns, than up North.

The South and Republicans take a dim view of government. We believe it should be minimal and should serve the people.  Democrats believe government should be big and serve them.

Barack Obama traffics in woke race baiting like no one else. He is probably the puppeteer running the Biden administration. Obama pops into campaigns in states like Virginia and Kentucky with robo-calls to help Democrats and to keep the machine going. He is pro-Palestine and hides behind his woke rhetoric. He does not even make light or joke about himself, because that would be racist.

Everyone knows Biden is a total disaster. But if they dump him, they get the lightweight affirmative action product, Kamala Harris. She is Biden’s safety net. You move him out, you get her. Checkmate and stalemate.

The Dems have party discipline that the GOP does not have. They destroyed Robert Kennedy Jr. as a primary challenger to Biden. Even when Kennedy was polling at 20%, they refused to let him debate Biden or to provide him Secret Service protection. Even worse, when he asked for security, Biden offered Hillary Clinton.

Although he invites criticism, Trump continues to take the slings and arrows of the outrageous left. CNN repeats the Democrat’s confusing mantra “democracy is at risk,” whatever that means. They somehow reason that Trump views himself as some all-powerful Roman emperor. It’s too bad Orange Julius is trademarked; it would be a great campaign moniker for Trump.

Democrats use the brute force of government to prosecute their political opponents. Donald Trump is prosecuted by three very Democrat prosecutors, which only made him soar in the polls. Then he was ceremoniously arrested in Georgia. The Dems were excited that day. Elizabeth Warren showed up for the booking in full tribal warpaint.

Democrats want to disqualify Trump from running for President under some archaic treason law that kept Confederates from office during Reconstruction.  Trump is now the first president arrested since Jefferson Davis. And that is why there will always be a Trump merchandise aisle at every Dollar General, Stuckey’s, Cracker Barrel, and roadside fireworks stand in the South.

A libertarian op-ed humorist and award-winning author, Ron does commentary on radio and TV. He can be contacted at Ron@RonaldHart.com or @RonaldHart on Twitter.

The central government can’t be a benign policeman, even if its intentions were as stated (which they may be): international rules-based order and economic stability. But it can wreak havoc by trying. We know this because it already has. Pick your start date, but the last 30 years present evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of what U.S.-sponsored “order” really looks like, thanks to an unbroken bipartisan chain of presidents and a bunch of presumptuous bumblers who wear weighty political titles from the executive and legislative branches. (The judiciary isn’t off the hook either.)

The U.S. government’s inherent ineptness speaks volumes. “Ought” implies “can,” and the policy mavens cannot. Wishful thinking is no substitute for real thinking. Each new crisis is not so different from previous ones as to make it unique. We can and must learn from the past, even the past that is so recent it’s still the present.

Government “crisis management” is a contradiction in terms. War typically has calamitous results, however optimistic the prognostications and later assessments. Helping a belligerent bloodies the hands of the helper, even if only metaphorically. Fighting proxy wars, which the policymakers might prefer to direct war these days, or engaging in covert operations is no moral shield. The horrendous consequences are foreseeable. Pleading that “We didn’t intend the bad stuff” does not wash. Call it “collateral damage,” whatever the policymakers call it, they enable the ruin of innocent lives and entire societies. We should have no part of it.

We know what war brings. It brings the death and dismemberment of innocents, always including children. It brings the utter destruction of the things that make life possible, such as food, water, homes, hospitals, and infrastructure. The chance of killing only bad guys is zero. I think the government’s own war simulations would agree. Hypothetical rosy scenarios offered in somber tones from secure stateside arms chairs don’t count. Even moves intended as defensive may understandably be perceived as aggressive, bringing snowballing countermoves that threaten more innocents and risk turning a local conflict into a big-power confrontation. The danger of nuclear war always looms.

Before considering joining in a war, assume the worst. Then don’t join. It’s the safe bet.

On top of that misery, intervening in wars sets the stage for terrible events to follow: revolution, dictatorship, government control of everyday life, atrocious recriminations, and plain chaos. That’s the safe bet too.

Intervention also sets the stage for aggrieved foreigners who want revenge against the country that is seen to have enabled their adversaries. If that is not the lesson of at least the last 30 years, what is? Direct and indirect participation in wars can come home to roost traumatically. Policing the world or arming one part against another is no recipe for security. And let’s not forget the excuse the U.S. government seizes to spy on and censor Americans in the name of national security.

Finally, there is the lack of consent. It would be bad enough if the arrogant policymakers sowed their destruction on their own dime and in their own name. But they don’t. They presume to speak for us and to make us pay for their adventures. I never signed that blank check, did you?

But they don’t need our consent. The game was rigged long ago. Hypothetical consent is good enough, and most people go along because they’re busy living and virtually powerless anyway. They also heard about it in the government’s schools.

Helping other governments fight wars is crazy. That’s not isolationism because the position embraces free trade with the world (unmanaged by governments) and the free movement of people. The word is nonintervention. When war breaks out, government personnel should be permitted to do only one thing: call for a cease-fire!

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other. This commentary was originally published at Antiwar.com

Yet that whole oversight process is working backwards in Anaheim, as the feds led a corruption investigation, followed by intervention from the California attorney general. Now, 1 ½ years after the resignation of Mayor Harry Sidhu following the filing of an FBI affidavit, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer has confirmed an investigation into City Hall corruption. Better late than never.

As a quick recap, city officials began negotiating with the Angels baseball team in 2019 over the sale to the team of the stadium and surrounding 150 acres. Some of the dubious machinations over that sale were publicized in the media – e.g., questions about seemingly under-market pricing and concerns about City Council secrecy.

The state in 2022 asked for – and a judge agreed – to halt to the stadium sale. Anaheim City Council cancelled the deal and the team agreed. In a lengthy city-sponsored report released in July, independent investigators bolstered FBI allegations of a “cabal” of insiders who had outsized control of City Hall – a problem that went well beyond Sidhu.

Subsequent elections have yielded mixed results between reformers and those representing the usual city interests, which has stymied anti-corruption reforms. There’s still a key role for the DA’s office, which under Spitzer has operated in a professional and balanced manner, to sort through the mess. But we are left with a key question: What took so long?

To be sure, Haley faces a number of formidable obstacles that make it unlikely for her to succeed. First and foremost, Iowa Republicans tend to be Evangelical, and as we’ve seen in the past, prefer the most conservative, right-wing candidate. 

Whether it be Mike Huckabee in 2008, Rick Santorum in 2012, or Ted Cruz in 2016, the winner of the Iowa GOP caucuses in recent times has not fit Haley’s mainstream Republican mold. It seems former President Donald Trump holds the mantle of most conservative this time around, especially given his appointment of the Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Secondly, while 16% in the latest polling in Iowa is impressive for Haley, she still remains tied with DeSantis, the oft-scrutinized Florida governor. Although she has risen ten points since the previous Des Moines Register poll and has the momentum, it is highly unlikely DeSantis will cede to Haley and drop out, especially given the deep pockets of his allied Super PAC, Never Back Down.

Furthermore, with 8 major candidates still in the GOP primary field, the opposition to Trump is seemingly more divided than might otherwise be needed to present an opening for Haley. Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who Haley appointed to the Senate, is well funded and seems insistent on remaining in the race at least through Iowa and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie appears intent on competing in the New Hampshire primary. 

For Haley to make a legitimate run at the nomination, she needs to consolidate the field so it becomes a two-person contest between herself and Trump, something that looks unlikely to happen given the current dynamics of the race. Positively for Haley, former Vice President Mike Pence dropped his presidential bid this past weekend.

A third barrier for Haley is Trump’s continued strength among the GOP electorate. The Des Moines Register poll shows that he has a favorability of almost two to one positive among Iowa Republicans, giving him a rating that is as high as any other Republican, indicating, as the polls show, that roughly two-thirds of Iowa Republican caucusgoers are considering supporting the former president.

A final obstacle for Haley, who is the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, is her strong vocal support of Ukraine and Israel in their wars against authoritarians and terrorists. Conservative Republicans, particularly those in the House and the base of the GOP electorate, have been skeptical of American support for Ukraine, despite being vocally supportive of Israel at the same time.

There is a growing isolationist movement within the Republican Party which is pulling its foreign policy away from Ronald Reagan’s doctrine of peace through strength abroad. Put another way, Haley’s hawkish stance on foreign policy is most likely out of sync with that of many, if not most, Iowa Republican primary voters.

Furthermore, as alluded to above, over 35%, of Iowa GOP primary voters categorize themselves as Evangelical Christians, making them a crucial bloc in the caucuses. Based on her career and the tact of her current campaign, Haley has not positioned herself as a candidate who appeals to Evangelicals. 

Going back to the first debate, Haley was arguing for a 15-week compromise on abortion and ruled out the possibility of a national ban. Her recommendations are at variance with those in the Evangelical community specifically, and conservative Republican community more generally, who philosophically and emotionally, are deeply committed to an outright ban on abortion.

If Haley can pull off a massive swing in the Republican primary and win the nomination, she will be in a strong position for the general election. In fact, she outperforms Trump against Biden in four of the six battleground states included in the recent New York Times/Siena College poll.

Even if everything swings Haley’s way and she continues to ride the current momentum into the new year, the success of the Haley presidential campaign will still be predicated upon whether the rest of the field coalesces around her to defeat Trump. If this consolidation does not materialize prior to the February primary in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, it is very likely Donald Trump will walk his way to a third straight GOP presidential nomination.

Douglas Schoen is a longtime Democratic political consultant.

A recent survey from The New York Times and Siena College found Trump leading Biden in the polls in five crucial swing states won by Biden in 2020 — Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

At least some of this is due to perceptions of Biden’s age, with 71% of respondents agreeing that Biden is “too old” at 80 to be president of the United States. This includes a majority (54%) of those who would vote for Biden over Trump.

This is not the first poll to show that concerns about Biden’s age are weighing him down.

In September, an NBC News poll found that 74% of registered voters surveyed had major (59%) or moderate (15%) concerns about President Biden having “the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.” By comparison, 47% of those polled shared similar concerns about 77-year-old  Trump.

Whether people like it or not, Biden’s age is a problem for those who aren’t eager to see another Trump term. The previously mentioned NYT-Siena College poll noted that a generic Democrat would beat Trump by 8 points.

But of course it’s not just Joe Biden’s age that’s a problem. While the White House has tried to spin “Bidenomics” as a win for the American people, most Americans aren’t buying it. NBC News polling shows that only 28% are satisfied with the state of the economy and 59% of America disapprove of Biden’s handling of it. While Biden entered office wanting to be a big-spending, transformative president like Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the results have been more akin to the inflation-riddled presidency of Jimmy Carter. Though at least with Carter America saw deregulation — yes, deregulation — in major sectors of the economy (from airlines to trucking to telecommunications) which helped the economy boom down the line. Many Americans will vote with their bank and retirement accounts in mind.

It’s no wonder Biden now finds himself under pressure from all sides, drawing a primary challenge from moderate Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota as other Democrats, like Gov. Gavin Newsom, are obviously waiting for a chance to jump in.

It’s clear Biden failed in his mission to be either transformational or unifying. His age is just one surface-level reason people don’t want him to run again.