This is the question left to the country after the NH primary. It settled some things but left others still in doubt. Like Fareed Zakaria on CNN news I have a “take” on some things and here is mine on NH and more broadly, the Presidential contest after NH

How is Trump doing with his party?–Pretty well, I’d have to say. He has somewhere between 1/3 and half of Republicans in his pocket and can do pretty much whatever he wants and keep them and their voting power. He is also widely followed and even respected and admired by a fair number of Republican voters who don’t quite fall into category no 1. His one serious issue within the party is that despite the foregoing, there are still a lot of Republicans(maybe close to 50% of them according to the NH stats)who mistrust him. 

This mistrust is no doubt deeper among some than others, and it is difficult to guess at what the percentages are there. Also, NH is less likely to be a Trump state than a lot of others(SC, for example)which further complicates matters. But on the whole, I’d say he has to worry some about at least 1/3 of rank and file Republicans who still have their doubts. It is likely that many will come around eventually and be back in the tent before election day. But how many, and in what states?

What can be stated for sure is that Trump is the dominant voice(the only one)in the Republican party now and he has the party machinery and its large wealth at his beck and call. He is likely to use both to his advantage in the campaign.

How is Trump doing with other voters?–Outside the GOP its harder to measure this. Using NH as a measure, however, and some polling elsewhere, it appears he is doing badly, as would be expected, among Democrats. This is likely not much of a worry to the Republicans, but what might be is that he seems to be fairly badly among independents at the moment. This could change, of course, but he did not do well with them in NH where he lost about 60% of their votes. This is likely to be a close Presidential election and he needs more than that performance would show he’s getting among them to be competitive. Obviously he might do better among independents elsewhere than he did in NH but he needs to take advantage of any opportunity with them. This will be harder to do if he continues to get more shrill and contentious as he seems to have done in the last day or so with Haley. He may be the first Presidential candidate ever to turn nasty during a victory statement. He appeared to be too thin skinned to accept an 11-point victory if it was not followed by surrender from his opponent.

How is Biden doing with his own party?-He is also doing pretty well if he keeps the question to his own folks, the Democrats. In fact, it looks as if he might make a plausible case that he does better among Dems than Trump does with Republicans. For complex reasons we won’t pursue here and now, Biden’s name was not on the NH ballot. But a write-in campaign was organized to keep him from being embarrassed by the results and without campaigning he ran up something in excess of 80% of the vote. MN multi-millionaire Dean Phillips finished with a feeble less-than-20%. Of course it is not impossible that other challenges may appear inside the party, but the chances of a serious one seem low.

How does Biden do elsewhere?–Well, he’s not encouraged by this as much as by the party, but it could be worse. He has had startlingly low approval ratings, particularly considering the low unemployment rate. This seems to be from a number of causes, two in particular. Those would be the(mis?)perception of the US economy’s status and personal doubts about the President’s competence. 

The economic issue has been contentious for sometime and is complicated. No reasonable person can complain about low unemployment, consistently below 4%. But not many seem to be noticing much. Come to think of it the US has not had a bad unemployment time that lasted very long for more than 40 years. The rise in unemployment that began with the Carter and Volker team’s anti-inflation drive peaked during 1981 and unemployment topped out at around 10%. It is not much remembered now, but Reagan was fairly unpopular for about the first year he was in office because of rising unemployment.(It wasn’t all his fault but as usual the guy at the top takes most of the heat) People in the 40-65 age range constitute a huge portion of the US electorate, but the majority of them have no or only a vague memory of this time. One hopes that they never have to find out that however difficult inflation may be, recessions are usually worse.

The economy is very complicated and clearly paying more at the gasoline pump or the check out line at the supermarket are financially painful and not inclined to help incumbents. But gasoline prices have tended downward in recent weeks and inflation overall looks just a tad better. Also, there has been a small uptick in Biden’s popularity with the public. It is a not unreasonable thought that there could be a connection here. If the better economy continues, the Dems are almost certain to profit from it.

The issue of Biden’s ability to do the job is difficult. l personally, I don’t doubt that mentally he is up to it. He actually has a fairly long list of accomplishments, mostly economic and mostly not immediately impactful, which attracts little attention and support. He appears to have played an active role in bringing this about. And his speeches are usually coherent and well delivered. Despite his long term- and still there- tendency to the occasional gaffe, he usually makes sense and shows balance. The same cannot be said for Trump who often appears to be mentally out of control, particularly when he is angry and petulant about something. Since this seems to be a lot of the time this is quite manifest, the most recent example being his graceless and self-centered “victory speech” I mentioned above. We all feel anger from time to time, but a person who can’t control his has no business in the Presidency.

Biden’s greatest weakness in his presentation of himself to the public, however, does have to do with his age. Although I’m not personally that much worried about it, he gives and impression of lack of energy. He seems tired much of the time, not incapable of thinking or planning at all, but perhaps not tops at pushing things, pursuing ideas and plans and, frankly, intimidating people as a President sometimes needs to do. I think he would be likely to do OK with this in a second term but there may be a lot of members of the public who would disagree with me. A number of people, who might otherwise vote Democratic, might withhold their Presidential vote or vote for another candidate. A few might vote for Trump.

Trump, on the other hand, has a powerful voice and manages to exude self confidence even when saying something ridiculous. He sounded very authoritative the other night while confusing Haley and Pelosi. How this plays with the public I don’t know. I like to tell myself they most of them will eventually see and reject his mistakes and bluffs, but I say nothing for sure about this.

Three is still a long way to go in getting delegates. Is it all over on the Republican side? No, there’s still room for Trump to make a serious mistake and it is always possible(though this appears less and less likely)that the various prosecutions of Trump might bring to light information that would cost him votes. The smart money seems to be going on the idea that nothing will come of those cases in various courts until after the election. Time will tell.

Regardless, here’s a nightmare scenario for the US and the world. Suppose little if anything comes out from the court cases before the elections. Trump is elected. Then, shortly after the election information begins to emerge from the prosecutions(Jack Smith’s is the best bet)that Trump did in fact commit serious crimes. But now he’s President-elect and any attempt to stop his ascendency to the Presidency will almost surely result in legions of Proud Boys and other semi-lunatics in the street? What do you suppose would be the next big thing?

Well, there’s still a lot of time. There’s no need to go into deep depression yet. Just watch what’s happening and rather than keeping your powder dry, keep your minds alert.