USE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES, PRESIDENT BIDEN

Whether or not this poll accurately reflects the thinking of the broader electorate, it deserves attention because the respondents seem to saying two contradictory things:

In six swing states that Biden narrowly won in 2020, a little more than half of voters classified as likely to decide the presidential election say threats to democracy are extremely important to their vote for president, according to a poll by The Washington Post and the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.

Yet, more of them trust Trump to handle those threats than Biden.

Among all respondents in these swing states, 44% think Donald Trump would do a better job of protecting America from "threats to democracy," while only 33% say President Biden would. In a subgroup of respondents the pollsters describe as "Deciders" because their previous voting history (or lack thereof) suggests that their votes are up for grabs, 38% say Trump would defend democracy better, while 29% say Biden would.

This is true despite the fact that many of these people expect Trump to threaten democracy if he's elected again:

Among the Deciders, more than 7 in 10 believe that Trump will not accept the results of the election if he loses, compared with one-third who say the same for Biden. Nearly half, 47 percent, say Trump would try to rule as a dictator if he is elected to another term as president, compared with 15 percent who say Biden would.

Among the Deciders, 73% believe Trump will contest the election results -- even though 38% of this group thinks Trump would defend democracy better. That's an overlap of at least 11%. Either this group believes that contesting election results is defending democracy or they think contesting election results, even by leading a violent mob, is not a threat to democracy, even though that's precisely what it was in 2020 and 2021.

Maybe they don't see January 6 as a real threat because they experienced it as a distant event on television -- some people got violent many miles away, then it ended and the election results were ratified as usual. No harm, no foul, I guess.

Nothing in the rhetoric of President Biden or his campaign ever personalizes January 6. We know there was a violent mob, but we never hear how the day's events (or the rest of the Trump smear campaign) affected individuals. Here's a typical Biden ad:



We're told that 140 officers were injured. Why don't we see any of them? Why don't we hear any of their names? Does any Biden ad include the words of Michael Fanone or Harry Dunn? Are there any slandered, harassed, terrorized election workers who might be willing to give Trump's threat to democracy a human face -- perhaps Wandrea “Shaye” Moss and her mother, Ruby Freeman, the Georgia election workers whose lives were destroyed by Trump, Rudy Giuliani, and others, and who won a $148 million judgment in a defamation case against Giuliani? And if not them, how about lesser-known election workers who have been subject to Trumpist terrorism?

DOUGLASVILLE, Ga. — When Milton Kidd leaves work at the end of the day, he slips out the back door of the domed Douglas County Courthouse, avoiding the public entrance where people might berate him or demand his home address.

He never takes the same route home two days in a row, and he makes random turns to avoid being followed.

Kidd, a Black man, has a very dangerous job: He is the elections and voter registration director for Douglas County.

“Milton Kidd is a nasty n***** living on tax money like the scum he is,” one voter wrote in an email Kidd shared with Stateline. “Living on tax money, like a piece of low IQ n***** shit.”

Another resident from Kidd’s county of 149,000 west of Atlanta left him a voicemail.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, Milton, but the American people have set a precedent for what they do to f***ing tyrants and oppressors who occupy government office,” the caller said. “Yep, back in the 1700s, they were called the British and the f***ing American people got so fed up with the f***ing British being dicks, kind of like you, and then they just f***ing killed all the f***ing British.”

I can't blame them for not wanting to stick their necks out, but humanizing the story of Trump's efforts to steal the 2020 election, and possibly this year's as well, might make voters realize that people's lives are on the ballot, not just "democracy."

Smart campaigns know that voters respond to stories of individuals. In 1988, this Republican ad had a moderate impact:



But what people really remember is the man mentioned in the ads below, along with what happened to his victims:




In 2004, George W. Bush tried to sell himself as the person who'd keep Americans safe. Hugging the daughter of a 9/11 victim made that personal:



And in 2012, a PAC affiliated with Barack Obama attacked Mitt Romney, formerly of Bain Capital, with an ad featuring a worker from a company Bain acquired and shut down, but only after workers were asked to build a stage for the announcement of their own termination, which the employee in the ad described as "like building my own coffin":



In 2024, ads might not be the way these messages are conveyed, so it might be up to Biden and his surrogates to personalize these issues. For Trump's base, he's the individual whose allegedly undeserved suffering makes Biden's alleged attacks on democracy personal. Trump's frequent references to the January 6 prisoners also personalize the issue. When Trump talks about immigration, he often mentions individuals who were victims of crimes ascribed to migrants. Statistics refute the notion that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans, but Trump understands intuitively that anecdotes resonate more with voters than data.

Does the Biden campaign understand this? Or do Biden and his people think saying "Democracy is on the ballot" is enough?