And Priscilla, we're also getting some new polling out today on the 2024 race. Walk us through what this means for the President.

Well, it's still very much a close race, but again, Donald Trump showing in these polls that he continues to hold an advantage over President Joe Biden. Now, according to these numbers that you see there on your screen, 49% of registered voters choose Donald Trump, and then only 43% for Biden. Now, earlier in the year, Biden's numbers were around 45%, so he still... Those numbers are holding steady. There are issues that are dogging the President and that his team is well aware of, one of them being the handling of Israel's war against Hamas that is unfolding in Gaza. Now, you've seen the protesters that have been happening across campuses. And according to our polling here, there is major disapproval over the President's handling of the Israel Hamas war, with 71% disapproving. And then two is the economy. And this has been an issue that the White House and the Biden campaign have tried to convey to voters that it is heading in the right direction. But we are still seeing in these numbers that there is still quite a bit of hesitation over whether that's indeed true, with registered voters here, only 34% approving of the President's handling of the economy.

These are two issues, Jessica, that are going to be front of mind for voters. That is what Democratic strategists anticipate at this point, especially the economy. And so these numbers do not look good for President Biden. And again, this has been a challenge for the Biden campaign. As the President hits the trail, he has been touching on the economy and trying to, again, show the results of what his administration has done and how it's affecting voters in a positive way. But clearly, what these polls show is that there is still a long road ahead for the President. Jessica.

About six months until election day at this point, Priscilla Alvarez at the White House for us. Thanks so much. And joining us now is Senior Political Analyst and Senior Editor at the Atlantic, Ron Brownstein. Ron, great to see you. We just heard Priscilla walking us through some of those polling numbers. And just to reiterate for people, 71% of US adults disapprove of Biden's handling of Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. And you look at that number of those 18 to 34, 81 % disapproval rate. Ron, at this point, what political impact could those numbers have for Biden as he's running for re-election?

Yeah, and a majority of Democrats in the poll say they disapprove of his handling. Look, on its own, we saw in the Harvard IOP poll that concern about the war ranked relatively low among the issues that young people care about most. But it is reinforcing what was already happening, which is that Biden has struggled with younger voters really since his emergence as the Democratic nominee. I mean, he did not do well with them in the 2020 primary. They did rally around him against Trump in the 2020 general election, but his approval among them has been low ever since. And you are seeing what you are seeing on college campuses. There are obviously excesses, there are anti-Semitic behavior as part of it, but it is also a genuine reflection of a broad discontent in the Democratic coalition, especially among younger voters, with the extent to which he has basically stood arm and arm with Netanyahu as he has pursued this strategy on the war. And you see in the CNN poll, Biden underperforming among young voters. Again, this is not the only reason, but when you start off facing a headwind, it is just another obstacle that he has to get over to get anywhere near what Democrats have gained among these voters in the past.

Yeah. And you mentioned the protests. We've obviously been covering them over the past several weeks as they have grown across the country. What do you think... What impact do you think they're going to have? As I just said, we are still six months away from election day, and the semesters are set to end soon-ish for a lot of these students. But yet we do see all of these images over and over and over again.

Yeah. Often, when you're the incumbent, you're running not only against your opponent, you're running against events. You're running against what is actually happening. And as Priscilla was saying, the persistence of inflation, the fact that it hasn't gone down as it continued to decline the way that the Fed was hoping. You can see that reflected in these polling numbers, both nationally and key states, and the discontent about the economy. And similarly, when you have this level of tumble on college campuses, there's a risk for Biden of getting hit on both ends of the swinging door, where the visibility of this discontent, I think, will inflame the concerns among those in the Democratic coalition that are alienated and disappointed in his policy and how far he has gone down the road with Netanyahu. And then conversely, just the sheer disorder presents a risk to him. Republicans believe that one of the problems Biden faces, and really this is the political manifestation of the age issue, is that many voters think he just is being overmatched by events, which is something that can really prove devastating to a President, but back to Jimmy Carter. And this again becomes one more example of that.

So it is a dangerous trend for Biden. He needs this war to calm down so he can begin to try to regain some ground among younger voters. But of course, Netanyahu's incentive is exactly the opposite. I And he wants October seventh to be as far in the rear view mirror as possible before he has to face voters. So they are, as on many fronts, I think, operating on very different white lines.

And in digging into some more of these numbers in our new poll, it showed that 61 % of registered voters think that Biden's time in office has been a failure, with only 39 % saying success. And then you look at Trump's numbers there, 55 % saying his time in office was a success, with 44 % saying it was a failure. What do you think is driving these numbers?

Yeah. Well, interesting. First of all, I mean, the CNN... Every poll is different. The CNN poll that's out today is the worst for Biden of the recent polls. I mean, there were four other national high quality national polls this week that had the race between even and a plus two for Trump. So this is at the low end of what we are seeing for Biden. But directionally, there are some important consistencies between this poll and the others. And one of them is what you cite, which is that the retrospective assessments of Trump's presidency have been consistently improving. I mean, his job approval in multiple polls now, looking back, is higher than it ever was when he was President. I think the key to that is largely the comparison with Biden on inflation above all, but also on some other issues like immigration. And in many ways, voters are putting on Trump as a way, as a antidote to what they don't like about Biden. The other thing that's really important in the CNN poll is you continue to see this pattern that I wrote about a few weeks ago, as in all of the other national polls, as in the three key swing state polls that came out today, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin.

Biden is largely, somewhat surprisingly, holding his 2020 support among white voters, particularly college-educated white voters, and not even really declining much among the blue collar white voters who are the core of Trump's coalition. The reason he is down from where he was in 2020, dramatically in the CNN poll, is because he is underperforming what he got last time and what Democrats traditionally get among non-white voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters. The CNN poll has him as only plus 12 among of those voters when he was more like plus 45 in the exit polls in 2020. So that really raises the question, can Trump really sustain those inroads all the way to November, given the way he talks about racially related issues? Can Biden sustain what he has now among white voters, given the discontent about the economy? It's an upside down racial dynamic in '24 that's behind all of these numbers.

It is. It's very interesting. All right, Ron Brownstein, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.