I swear to god I’ve seen a letter—not super long, perhaps two pages—from a Democratic polling firm addressed to the Biden team that more or less said, “COVID polls really poorly with voters, so you should stop talking about it if you want the party to do well in the midterms” (I think this was in early 2022?). I actually told someone about this recently, but I’m having trouble tracking the damn thing down. Part of the problem is that when you use the usual search terms (biden polls covid consultants 2022) it’s all public polls which are not what I’m interested in.
If I just misremembered this or bought into misinformation, I want to make sure I correct myself—both because I don’t want to further spread misinformation and I don’t want to damage my credibility by looking like a conspiracy nut. There are other things like the Delta airlines BS to point to politics driving the administration’s decisions around COVID rather than science, so there’s no need for me to make stuff up.
This story and a few others is what you’re thinking of, I imagine (from February of 2022). https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/pressure-builds-biden-democrats-move-past-covid/story?id=82754983 Some choice quotes:
Still, the message from the Democratic governors to President Joe Biden was unmistakable: With the midterms nine months away, Democrats are now joining the chorus of Republicans who say the nation must learn to “live with the virus” and are pressing Biden to chart a path forward. “Democratic voters have run out of empathy for unvaccinated people dying of COVID,” said Brian Stryker, a partner at Impact Research, a Democratic polling firm. “They are ready to live their lives.”
For many Americans, though, including a growing number of Democratic voters, living with COVID means loosening restrictions regardless of case counts or vaccination status. According to a new Axios/Ipsos poll, two-thirds of Americans say they do not believe it’s possible for the U.S. to eradicate the coronavirus within the next year, although they are divided about how to handle that. That reality puts unique pressure on Biden ahead of his State of the Union address on March 1 – a speech typically used by sitting presidents to declare victory and look toward the future. “The public is saying ‘enough.’ The politicians are saying ‘enough,’” said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican pollster and strategist. “If Biden doesn’t say ‘enough’ at the SOTU, he’ll be digging a hole he can’t climb out. The (Democratic) governors know this because they’re closer to the people,” he wrote in an email to ABC News.
This push obviously worked, because a few months later just before the midterms: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/19/biden-pandemic-over-covid-team-response-00057649
“The pandemic is over,” Biden said in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday night. “We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over.” The declaration surprised the president’s own senior health officials, many of whom only learned about Biden’s remarks from tweets and news headlines. The president had not originally planned to make major news on Covid, nor had he discussed with his health advisers announcing an end to the pandemic soon, two senior officials said.
EDIT: Damn did not see it’s for a specific letter and not public polls, my bad. Will keep looking then.
EDIT EDIT: @AernaLingus@hexbear.net OK I found that letter you’re talking about: https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/IMPACT-COVID-positioning-strategy-memo.pdf, it is from that Impact Research Democratic polling firm that Biden employed.
EDIT EDIT: @AernaLingus@hexbear.net OK I found that letter you’re talking about: https://punchbowl.news/wp-content/uploads/IMPACT-COVID-positioning-strategy-memo.pdf, it is from that Impact Research Democratic polling firm that Biden employed.
There it is!
I’ve been losing my shit trying to find it. I just came back to this thread because I found a single tweet referencing it but still hadn’t found the link. 
Thank you so much!! Now that you’ve found the PDF, I’ll also include the article that links to it, since it’s helpful to have more information about its provenance when linking it to someone:
https://punchbowl.news/archive/punchbowl-news-am-2-25-22/
Here’s a memo that has been making the rounds among House and Senate Democratic campaigns and consultants for the last week or so. And the reason this memo caught our eye is that it’s from Impact Research, a well-known Democratic firm that also happens to be where President Joe Biden’s pollster works.
John Anzalone is the founder of Impact Research, as well as being pollster for Biden’s victorious 2020 presidential campaign. We’ll note right now that the memo isn’t his, and it’s not the White House’s position.
But Molly Murphy and Bryan Stryker, who wrote the Feb. 15 memo — we’ve been sitting on it for a few days because of the Ukraine crisis, sorry — certainly have tapped into the mood of Democratic campaign pros, who see disaster in November unless the party figures out a better message on Covid.
Here’s the opening paragraph of their memo:
“After two years that necessitated lockdowns, travel bans, school closures, mask mandates, and nearly a million deaths, nearly every American finally has the tools to protect themselves from this virus. It’s time for Democrats to take credit for ending the COVID crisis phase of the COVID war, point to important victories like vaccine distribution and providing economic stability to Americans, and fully enter the rebuilding phase that comes after any war.”
And here are the bullet points:
· “Declare the crisis phase of COVID over and push for feeling and acting more normal.”
· “Recognize that people are ‘worn out’ and feeling real harm from the years-long restrictions and take their side.”
· “Acknowledge COVID still exists and likely will for a long time.”
· “Don’t set ‘COVID zero’ as the victory condition.”
· “Stop talking about restrictions and the unknown future ahead.”
Biden administration sources have told us they plan to talk about turning a corner on Covid during the State of the Union, so clearly they share some of these thoughts.
This debate in Democratic campaign circles comes as blue state governors are relaxing Covid restrictions. The CDC is preparing to ease indoor mask guidelines today, according to the AP.—
And even though it’s not what I asked for, the article about the governors in particular putting pressure on the Biden admin is still useful context, especially since it’s got a quote from a partner from the same polling firm.
(also @solrize@lemmy.ml—the letter has been found, but thank you for your offer!)
Glad you found it, and please feel free to add the links I sent you to your collection.
It’s real. Let me see if I can dig it up.
Thanks, I really appreciate it!!
I’ve gotten pretty good at bookmarking and cataloging my COVID information in the last year or so, but unfortunately I wasn’t so fastidious in 2022. Probably not surprising that my keeping tabs on COVID narrative stuff is inversely proportional to how jokerfied I’ve become about how politicians, the media, and the public talk (or don’t talk) about COVID
I have a link dump on another computer. It will be a few days before I can get to it but I’ll PM you an old version in a sec.
