CHRIS CRUCIAL: A *very* good data point for Joe Biden 🤓

PLUS: Could RFK Jr. make the debate stage?

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1. Joe and the stock market

I have written a lot this week about President Joe Biden’s problems as he prepares for his reelection race — from low approval numbers to deep public confusion about the relative strength of the economy.

But, I am always mindful that there are LOTS of ways to look at and analyze this election. And that there are models and predictions out there — like Professor Allan Lichtman’s “keys” — that say that Biden is in much better shape than the polls (or my analysis) suggests.

That desire to look for what I am missing led me to this column by Mark Hurlbert for the financial site MarketWatch.

What Hurlbert wanted to do was figure out whether there were any correlations between leading economic indicators — the stock market, gross domestic product, consumer confidence — and the chances a president has of being reelected.

What he found is that of all the factors he looked at, the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the most closely correlated to a presidential incumbent winning.

Here’s his chart, which tells that story: