Corbin is professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa.
Clowns to the left of me
Jokers to the right
Here I am
Stuck in the middle with you.
These are lyrics from the song “Stuck in the Middle With You,” co-written by Garry Rafferty and Joe Eagan and released by their band, Stealers Wheel, in 1972. The 43 percent of voters who are independent would agree that the line “stuck in the middle” speaks to them and our 2024 presidential election.
On March 12, Joe Biden and Donald Trump locked up their respective political party nominations, starting a 244-day campaign to Nov. 5. Research reveals the vast majority of registered Democrats are committed to vote for Biden despite his octogenarian age (though former special counsel Robert Hur told Congress that the president had “ photographic recall ”).
Likewise, research finds that MAGA Republicans will vote for Trump, regardless of past legal issues (e.g., $83.3 million E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse finding, New York’s $453.5 million Trump Organization litigation, 2005-2021 Trump Organization criminal tax fraud, etc.) and pending cases (2020 federal election interference, Georgia’s RICO case over 2020 election interference, stolen classified documents, 2016 porn star hush-money election interference and 34 counts of falsifying business records).
Research also shows that due to Democratic and Republican polarization, independents will determine – on Nov. 5 – who will be America’s president in 2025.
A number of Democratic and Republican loyalists are turning against their respective party’s designated candidate. Let’s explore that issue.
Joe Biden
Back in the summer of 2022, Politico reported that RootsAction – a left-wing activist group that supported Biden’s 2020 election, tried to persuade him not to run in 2024. Se leve.
There’s sufficient rumbling that some Black, Latino and young voters are suspicious of supporting Biden again in 2024. However, 15 millennials and members of Generation Z recently endorsed Biden and joined the Students for Biden-Harris coalition in arguing that his achievements supersede his age.
Gallup’s annual governance poll reveals 63 percent of voters want a third-party choice. American Bridge, Third Way, MoveOn and Save our Republic PAC – all left-of-center groups – worry the centrist group No Labels and political activists Robert F. Kennedy, Cornel West and Jill Stein will take votes away from Biden.
Third-party candidates are Biden’s biggest re-election threat.
Donald Trump
Turmoil in Trump’s world is more troubling than in the Biden camp. Business Insider reports 40 of Trump’s 44 former cabinet members (91 percent) are not endorsing his 2024 candidacy. Wikipedia’s “List of Republicans who oppose the Donald Trump presidential campaign” features 128 individuals, from party leaders to judges to members of Congress to a former president.
Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr testified before Congress that Trump is “a troubled man” who must face justice. Former Vice President Mike Pence announced on Fox News that his ex-boss has strayed too far from conservative philosophy. Both are not endorsing Trump’s campaign.
A GOP group calling itself Republican Voters Against Trump launched a $50 million ad campaign featuring first-person video testimonials of more than 100 former Trump voters.
The Guardian notes Fox News on-air personalities’ relationship with Trump started eroding with the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt and ensuing $1.6 billion lawsuit by Dominion against the network.
On Jan. 25, the Wall Street Journal (like Fox, controlled by the Murdoch family) criticized Trump for meddling in congressional talks on border security and his blatant threat to permanently bar Republicans from the MAGA camp who supported Nikki Haley’s campaign. The Journal called his actions “a high act of self-sabotage” and “it would be a good reason to vote for someone else.”
The WSJ-Trump romance has been eroding for years as witnessed by the editorial board’s leading op-ed on Nov. 9, 2022, titled “Trump Is the Republican Party’s Biggest Loser.”
Biden and Trump
Turnover of employees is a standard measure of business stability (or chaos). Trump had a 35 percent first-year turnover of senior executives while Biden only had an 8 percent first-year turnover. By Trump’s last day of office, 60 of the 65 senior executives (92 percent) had left his administration. Currently, Biden’s turnover rate is 71 percent.
Between now and Nov. 5, continue to do your independent homework, versus being a lemming and getting hoodwinked by the political parties’ disinformation, misinformation and propaganda.
Let’s admit it. We have clowns to the left, jokers to the right and here I am – like 43 percent of voters – stuck in the middle with you.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.