Former President Bill Clinton pollster Doug Schoen said Tuesday that President Joe Biden should “stay home” if he wanted to help Vice President Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania.
Biden has an approval rating of 42.3%, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls from July 21 to Sept. 2. Schoen said that with an approval rating that low, Biden would hurt Harris’ chances by campaigning with her.
“I was working for Bill Clinton in 1999 and 2000,” Schoen said. “He had a 60% approval. The fact that Al Gore ran away from that record probably cost the former vice president the election. Joe Biden’s approval, last time I looked, was about 40% … The best thing Joe Biden can do for Kamala Harris and her ‘new way forward’ is stay in the White House – or given the last two weeks in Rehoboth Beach, stay home.”
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Schoen earlier agreed with “Your World” guest host Charles Payne that Harris’ reported reversal on hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” was not genuine and motivated by growing support for fracking in Pennsylvania.
“I think it also means, ‘whatever I say don’t take seriously, because my values are your values’,” he said. “‘What I say today and what I say tomorrow doesn’t really matter.’ It’s artful politics and frankly gives her the freedom to say and do anything she needs to do to get elected, which in the short-term might be helpful – in the long-term, I daresay, is disastrous because to me the numbers you’re putting up now are the key to the election.”
Harris leads former President Donald Trump by 0.5% in a head-to-head matchup in the state, according to the RealClearPolling average.
“Whoever wins Pennsylvania, I think, is very likely to be the next president,” Schoen continued. “It’s effectively a tie and if she is perceived to be against fracking, which was her stated position in 2019, it could cost her western Pennsylvania and ultimately the state and the presidency.”
Nearly half of of Pennsylvanians, 48%, backed fracking in 2022, up from 39% in 2012, according to Muhlenberg College, which has polled members of the state about the energy-production technology over the last 15 years.
Featured Image Credit: The White House
