Gary Franks: Attention Iowa and New Hampshire voters — polls say Haley beats Biden by 17 points!

Former President Donald Trump has a big lead over other Republicans fighting for the nomination, but he finishes a distant second to former South Carolina governor and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley in a theoretical head-to-head matchup against President Joe Biden.

The liberal media is quick to cherry-pick what they want to highlight in polls.

For example, they will continue to boisterously pronounce that Trump is beating Biden. This would cause Trump supporters to stick with Trump. But they do not tell you that a generic Republican would beat Biden as well.

And the media refuses to tell you that a generic Democrat would beat Trump as well. Only Biden would lose to Trump. Interesting.

Thus, if Trump is the GOP nominee and Biden does not run, we will be stuck with four more years of radical Democrat (liberal) control of the White House — in a precarious world with unsecure borders and more wasteful government spending.

In a recent Wall Street Journal poll, Trump does beat Biden, but narrowly. Biden’s recent remark that he is running merely “to beat Trump” demonstrates that his heart is not fully with a second term. Or maybe it’s just personal (wanting to beat Trump).

The Democratic National Convention, not the Democratic primaries, will determine the nominee for the party. With Biden’s steadily declining job approval rating, hovering in the mid-30s, it is becoming increasingly more likely that Biden will pass the baton onto another Democrat to run in 2024.

On the other hand, for the Republicans, the person who has performed the best in all the debates, and has the strongest numbers in a head-to-head matchup against Biden, is not Trump. It is Haley. She crushes Biden by 17 points.

Iowa and New Hampshire voters, wake up. We must consider not just the person who can win Republican votes, but also the person who can win over registered independents and like-minded Democrats. Trump is not that person.

The divided Congress demonstrates that we are a polarized nation. The support from registered independents will determine the next president of the United States.

Meanwhile, the media, attempting to give Biden and the Democrats a strong wind behind their backs, are trying to convince Americans that they should get it when it comes to the economy. After all, unemployment is down, inflation is down, gas prices are down. We (American voters) should “be happy.”

Let us take a peek behind the curtain, however.

The workforce participation numbers are not good compared to earlier decades. Only 62% of Americans are working, compared to the workforce participation rate that was near 90% in the 20th century. Not good.

On inflation, it is clear why most Americans feel that the economy is in the tank. Let us look back to prior to Biden being in the White House.

Let us say as an example that the cost of a normal load of groceries was $100.

Then we had an inflation rate of nearly 10%. That would mean after the first year of the Biden administration you were paying $110 for that same amount of goods.

Even if Bidenomics cut the inflation rate in half for the next year it would represent a $5.50 increase. That sum must be added to the prior year’s $110, bringing the new total after the second year of Biden’s presidency to $115.50.

Now if you can cut the 5% inflation rate even lower to just 3%-4% in the third year, we could applaud the overall decline, but that 3%-4% is on top of a previous total of $115.50.

Subsequently, the person who was paying $100 for goods and services when Trump was in office, is now forking over a whopping $120 for the same items. That would represent a 20% increase since Biden took office.

Raising interest rates to curb inflation has come with consequences.

Mortgage interest rates have nearly doubled during the Biden presidency. Interest rate hikes have also hurt folks seeking car and small business loans as well.

Another result of the aforementioned poll: Nearly two-thirds of respondents would give the economy a thumbs down.

All this is reminiscent of then-California Gov. Ronald Reagan’s memorable quote against incumbent President Jimmy Carter: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” The negative answer was politically fatal for Carter.

It is therefore not hard to figure out why Trump is beating Biden despite all of Trump’s legal woes and drama.

Gas prices are a different story. Though higher than when Biden took office, we feel good when the price of gas is below $3 a gallon. But when it comes to our strategic oil reserve, meant to address future emergencies, it is at its lowest point in nearly 40 years. This is not comforting.

On foreign policy, the media took care of that by not taking up foreign policy during the debate season in 2020. That helped Biden. They downplayed former Defense Secretary Bob Gates evaluation of Biden’s skills in this area. “Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy issue,” Gates has said. Based on the worsening conditions around the world and our porous southern border today, regrettably Biden’s string of failures has continued.

Iowa and New Hampshire voters, we cannot continue to go in the wrong direction and expect to remain the greatest nation in history. Like never before, we need you to get it right in the upcoming Republican presidential primaries.