We’d Like a Do Over - Top Three Takeaways – January 26th, 2022 

We’d Like a Do Over - Top Three Takeaways – January 26th, 2022 

1. We’d like a do over. Political polls in off-election years are generally worth what you paid for them. Though as I pointed out last fall, there are times when they do matter even when an election isn’t imminent. That’s when influential people pay attention to them and make decisions based in part on what they say. There are many examples of this but among the most notable examples, Bill Clinton’s willingness to drop HillaryCare in his first term and “triangulate.” In that vein, when the bottom began to fallout of Biden’s poll numbers last fall, I declared BBB and the rest of Biden’s agenda was DOA in the Senate. We see how it’s played out. With Biden holding an approval rating of only 33% in Arizona and 34% in West Virginia, polls provided Manchin and Sinema all of the ammunition they’ve needed to hold the line against their own party including the president. The polls are also what’s behind the record pace of Democrats “retiring” from Congress in advance of this year’s midterms. It’s for these reasons they’re always being conducted, and organizations are always willing to pay for them. Love them or hate them, they matter based on who’s paying attention. And you’d better believe Donald Trump is. Especially when they say what they currently say. Yesterday Harvard-Harris' poll showed Donald Trump up six-points nationally in a hypothetical 2024 matchup. That’s nothing new, it’s just the latest. The three most recent national pollsters to sample Trump and Biden have showed Trump with leads of six, eight and thirteen points. And as Trump supporters know the polls have always under sampled his support. Trump performed 2.7% better on Election Day 2020 than the polls suggested nationally. All of this is say that wow does this country wish it had a do-over and it’s clear that not only would Donald Trump be positioned to win if there were a rematch today – it'd be a landslide. Not that I think Donald Trump needs any more motivation to run again, but what these polls are saying could ensure that not only does he run again but that others will be less willing to get in his way. Donald Trump is still the leader of the Republican party and Americans want a do over. They just wish they didn’t have to wait nearly another three years.  
2. Made in China. The good news for those desirous of quickly receiving the taxpayer funded (not free!) Covid tests made available through the taxpayer funded website covidtests.gov is that the tests are rapidly now arriving in the mail. And where are these tests arriving from? As it turns out, the same place the virus came from. China. That’s right, the iHealth tests are manufactured by Chinese based Andon Health Ltd. So not only did the Biden administration take your tax money and buy tests they said you could have for “free”. They bought them from China. China! So yeah, how confident are we about the error rate for those things? And how good do you feel having your money spent buying hundreds of millions of tests from China? Probably about as good as you feel paying a dollar and a half more for a gallon of gas that’s derived from oil we’re now importing from Russia. In happy news and thoughts... 
3. More Floridians are working than ever before. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s monthly employment report is out and it’s incredible. Especially in South Florida. Starting with the big picture takeaways... Florida’s added jobs for 20 consecutive months while our state’s labor force participation rate has been rising for well over a year. The combination of those realities has resulted in more Floridians currently being employed than at any other time in state history. Yes, more Floridians are working today than in February of 2020, the final month prior to the impact of the pandemic when Florida reached record low unemployment rates. And who’s leading the way? South Florida is. Broward’s unemployment rate a super low 3.6%, Palm Beach County’s even better at 3.3%. And the most remarkable story of all is playing out in Florida’s most populous county where Miami-Dade's currently posting a microscopic 1.4% unemployment rate. And what’s more – there are still more job openings than Floridians looking for work. There’s a lot of bad news all around us these days, but you don’t have to look any further than home to find the best stories in the country.