Analysis: Biden Retains A Sturdy Lead, Need More Focus On The President’s Rampant Cheating
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Summary – The Presidential race remains pretty static and stable, with Biden holding a 7.6 pt lead (50.5/42.9) in the 538 polling average this morning. While the President has gotten a few good polls in Florida this week, there has been no significant shift in the battlegrounds and Biden still retains sizable leads in 4 key states – AZ (Biden leads by 5.1 pts in the 538 polling average), MI (7.4), PA (5.1) and WI (7.1). In each of these states Biden is at 49 or above, reminding us, as we wrote last week, If Biden can gain just a single point in the coming weeks, up to 51.5%, he will be over 50 in the core battlegrounds and will be in control of the race.
For Trump to win he will have to win 2 of those 4 states (assuming he wins the remainder of the close battleground now). This will require him to gain 5.1 points net, and turn a 7.6 pt Biden lead to a 2.5 pt one. 2.5 pts is 51.25 to 48.75, which means Trump is will have to get up to 48.5% -49% to have a shot.
Getting up to 48-49% is going to be very hard for Trump. Late undecideds usually break against incumbents, not for them. He and Republicans are going be outspent down the stretch. He’s only hit 48-49% job approval for a few days in the earliest day of his Presidency. Using the Real Clear Politics poll averages, Trump HAS NEVER been above 45% against either Clinton or Biden, and only got to 46% in 2016 for about 48 hours at the end of the race (Rs received 44.8% of the vote in the 2018 House races). Getting to 48-49% will require him to get a place of job approval and vote share he’s never earned before – no easy thing given the state of things today.
As we wrote on Monday, it’s hard to see an issue path forward for him. The economy is realistically his only card to play, and he will have to somehow convince the country his record of worst job loss since Hoover, worst deficit since WWII, millions losing health insurance, give ways to companies and rich people is worthy of a second term. Yesterday revelations about his lying about COVID and his manipulation of the intelligence about threats to the homeland will make it far harder for him to use COVID or “law and order” to his advantage.
We don’t yet know how these two big new understandings of Trump’s mendacity are going to play out, but they are far more likely to make any potential rebound for the President more challenging. There were already faint signs of the race moving slightly against the President in the daily trackers over the past few days. As we’ve written, even a shift of a point against the President would be very perilous now. We should all watch the daily trackers in the days ahead…….
Will Biden Expand the Battlefield?– Now that we know Democrats are likely to outspend the Republicans in the home stretch, the Biden campaign has some interesting decisions to make about whether it expands its targets both geographically and demographically. The campaign is currently on the air in 9 states – AZ, FL, MI, MN, NC, NV, OH, PA, WI. Will they add GA, IA and TX to the mix? With Trump cash strapped and struggling there is an argument for spreading him as wide as possible; creating a degree of complexity and difficultly that will be hard for the Trump campaign to manage. We will keep watching this important strategic call in the days ahead.
All The President’s Cheating– In a new GEN Magazine essay, I argue that we all need to be paying far more attention to the President’s extensive cheating this cycle. As his campaign struggles, the President appears to relying on and exploring far more on illicit ways of staying in power. This is no small matter, as it was cheating and outside manipulation which allowed Trump to win in 2016. It’s my belief we should be making far more of Trump’s lawlessness in this campaign and be challenging it far more aggressively in the days ahead. Do read the essay – it is worth your time.