I guess this (and trump's own internal polling) is causing trump defenders to question polls again...
Newest polls show that the Criminal in Chief has locked in the Karen vote. Trump, from WH sources, breathed a heavy sigh of relieve upon hearing.
He never ceases to stoop even lower in his campaign tactics. What a sad time to be an American. I can't wait until he is gone.
" Should Biden continue to hold a sizable lead, the chances of an Electoral College-popular vote split will probably be low. But if the polls get closer, the odds will increase because the eventual tipping point state is almost certainly among these eight states. But as it stands now, if Trump carries Arizona along with every state that’s more Republican-leaning in those recent polls, he would almost certainly win the presidency." https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-latest-swing-state-polls-look-good-for-biden/ This has been my position since day one. The national polls do not mean a whole lot. The issue is the Electoral College and the swing states that are at issue. The swing states at issue are more conservative that the country as a whole. So what works with the general public and is reported by the media, may not work in these swing states. Biden needs to find a way to gain support in Pennsylvania, as cannot afford to lose that state. This is why it really isn't all doom and gloom for Trump.
But national polls do mean quite a lot. The states do not really move independently of each other-- when a candidate becomes 3% more popular or less popular among the whole country, that popularity tends to be distributed across the states rather than only concentrated among a specific type of states. These "more Republican-leaning states" mentioned here are defined as those who are Republican leaning than the national average (which means Biden would need to do more than simply eek out a 1% win in the national vote in order to win Electoral College), but as the national average moves, so do these states.
I agree with you that there IS a tipping point, but I do not believe that we are going to be at that tipping point come October and November. You are right, if the national polls skew hard towards Biden, he wins those battle ground states and even some solid Republican states. I personally do not see that happening though. I suspect that we are in a down trend for the President right now, and who knows come October. Still, even with Trump having a down period, Pennsylvania is a toss up. That is a state Biden should be ahead by 5 points or more at this point. Also, a lot of this is going to come down to the strategy of the candidates in the coming months when it pertains to getting votes in these battle states. Love or hate Trump, his campaign out did the Clinton campaign from a strategic stand point. Let's see how it plays out this year.
[Politico]‘We’re thinking landslide’: Beyond D.C., GOP officials see Trump on glide path to reelection Conventional indicators suggest the president’s bid for a second term is in jeopardy. But state and local GOP officials see a different election unfolding. Donnie totally has this in the bag. He just needs to coast to victory.
Agree. Like I said, Biden can still go 0 for 27 on 3s the rest of the way even when his team has a 24-0 2nd quarter lead.
Hopefully they keep on taking those midrange shots that is currently putting them on track to victory.
I don't think the media or pundits should over look the chance of Trump winning re-election. His supporters will show up and vote come pandemic or high water. There are a very motivated group and Trump also will have people vote for him that would not publicly admit it out of shame that they like his racist positions. This election is again going to be decided in the Mid West and that certainly favors Trump. There are a lot of blue collar and white collar voters out their saying nothing about BLM or the riots in public out of fear of reprisal that will vote for Trump when alone in that ballot booth. For Biden to win, the young and minority voters need to show up in large numbers..... the offended apolitical white people need to vote...... and hope that enough white women have been disgusted enough to vote against him. The election is going to be determined in socially conservative states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, North Carolina and Arizona. Biden should hold on in Michigan and Trump should take Ohio....... but Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are total toss ups at this point, and that is with Trump's recent problems.
Biden has a much better chance if he wins PA, but he doesn't "need" to win it. In the meantime, he's +2.0% there. (All numbers from 270towin.com aggregates but realclearpolitics.com aggregates are similar.) If you give Biden WI and MI (he leads both states by a lot) and then toss in AZ, where he's favored now (+3.0), he's at 269. If that's as far as he gets and Trump sweeps every other close state, we have a tie and the House chooses Biden and the Senate chooses VP. But he doesn't "need" AZ either. He's also leading in Florida (+2.0) and NC (+1.0), both by increasing margins. If he wins either of those states--and you take away PA and AZ--he's at 287 or 273, respectively. That's leaving out the new swing states of OH (+2.0), IA (tied), and GA (-2.0). He's also tied in TX, based on polls, though being optimistic about TX is like Charlie Brown thinking Lucy isn't going to pull the football away this time. Even reliably red states like MO, UT, and MS (with its large Black population) are polling closely enough that R's will have to keep their eyes on them. Trump has already begun sinking large amounts of money into ad buys to try to hold states he won last time including former red states like Ohio and Iowa. He's even spent money in GA and TX. That's money and effort he won't have in order to spend it elsewhere. He's playing defense in red states while Biden's playing offense in swing states in which he's already leading. But the polls, while valuable, aren't as predictive as the betting markets. Six weeks ago, Biden had a healthy lead according to polls and was leading most or all swing states, but betting markets favored Trump 10%. Ever since then, every day, Biden has gained on Trump and is now favored by 9.5%, almost a 20% turnaround. I'm not saying it's a sure thing by any means, especially after 2016, but Biden has several paths to victory and PA isn't required in several of them. By contrast, Trump needs a sweep.
GA / TX will likely be out of reach esp with voter suppression tactics. Michigan & Wisconsin should be won by Biden, and I think PA will fall in line as state polls can be widely off this early on and depending on the pollster. Arizona will likely go to Trump - Hillary made the mistake it was in play - Biden shouldn't repeat that. I think NC is a key state for Biden. NC, PA, FL, MI, WIS, MN needs to be the bulk of his focus.
A few things... 1. Biden's up 6% in MI and 6% in WI. That's pretty solid. And those numbers have only gone up since BLM/protests. You'd be hard pressed to find a state, that isn't dark red, where Trump's numbers have gone up. In virtually every battleground (I agree PA is scary), Biden's going up and Trump's going down. 2. Right now, Biden is gaining on Trump in pretty much every demographic (white voters, male voters, evangelical Christian voters, +65 voters, and on and on) and he currently enjoys a 20%(!) lead among women. Biden won't win several of those demographics but he doesn't need to; he just needs Trump's numbers among them to be lower--in any area--than they were in a razor-thin victory 2016. None of that looks good for him. 3. Re: voter enthusiasm. You're absolutely right that Trump's voters are rock-solid and will turn out, no matter what. BUT: 3a. Trump's voters are mostly motivated to vote for Trump where Biden's voters are mostly motivated to vote against Trump. And as with almost all re-election campaigns, this election is a referendum on Trump. So those general election polls are telling us a lot more about Trump than they are about Biden, especially when Trump's approval rating is so low, his vs. Biden numbers are so poor, and when everything he's done over the last 3 months has alienated more and more typically independent/undecided voters. Trump's rock-solid base is 35-40% to be generous. 3b. Perhaps most importantly, when Trump eked out an electoral college win by tiny percentage points in the Midwest, everyone and I mean everyone believed Hillary had it in the bag. Consequentially, many people stayed home. Why would Hillary voters/anti-Trump voters come out in force when the election seemed to be decided? Those people will not stay home again and you can take that to the bank. So Trump has a number of problems. The question I'd pose to you and everyone else is how it is that he will turn those problems around? His lack of empathy (on Covid and on BLM) has harmed him tremendously. Will he begin to show empathy, for anyone? Can a narcissist feel or demonstrate empathy? I'd say not. Generals and other reliable, "staunch" Republicans have already turned on Trump for the fact that he places himself before the country over and over again. And we haven't even gotten to Bolton's book or Trump's niece's book, both very negative tell-alls. I can agree, for sure, that nobody wants to appear racist so the polls are probably somewhat baked that way. But Trump is looking at so many downward trends, that just continue to trend downward. He is not just falling, he is plummeting. What is he going to do to stop the bleeding and pick off enough voters beyond his 35-40% base to win?
Cheat. Or was this a trick question? Voter roll purges (this is a big one). Provisional ballots thrown in the trash. Voter intimidation. Few voting sites in "brown-ish" neighborhoods, plenty of sites in whiteyville. Etcetera.
I left out a couple small things: 1. The economy could hardly be worse. 2. As many as 150-200,000 Americans will have died of Covid on Trump's watch. In a referendum election.
Oh, they'll cheat. They always cheat. But it won't be as easy to intimidate voters or suppress the vote in minority neighborhoods with mail-in ballots. And, even in person, a lot of the intimidation has to do with a large police presence in minority neighborhoods. How's that going to look this year? And, in today's environment, it will be a bit trickier to discriminate against Black/brown voters. Still, they'll cheat. Will they cheat enough?
Here's another super-important metric I left out... Hillary was as unpopular/divisive a Democratic nominee in memory. Biden, by contrast, is generally likable. We saw a lot of protest votes against Hillary and, again, many of her supporters stayed home in '16. We won't see many protest votes at all against Biden and virtually none of his supporters will stay home.
