He had a 50/50 or better chance to win re-election prior to this crisis. Many of us saw the signs but many also, including me, thought maybe the US government established standards, processes and power can do a decent job despite being lead by an idiot. And it probably would have if those standards and processes weren’t so weakened by his administration. Not following the pandemic war plan already established as an example. If he had handled this decently, I believe people would feel more comfortable about a 2nd term. A disaster is usually, though unfortunate, a great opportunity for those in power to gain support. We shouldn’t be surprised. Habits are already hard to breaks. We elected a liar and a bs artist that is irrational, erratic, who deny science and believe in wild conspirators theories. It was just a matter of time and unfortunately for us, he was the black swan in an expected but untimely pandemic. If anyone just normal was President, we probably would be facing another severe global recession but could be a shinning star to the rest of the world, instead we are experiencing depression like job numbers and likely 100k+ death with shocking level of spending and debts. And through this crisis, he continues breaking down established processes and replacing them with ad-hoc behaviors by people in his mold, while removing checks on corruption. Anyone stop and take the time to ponder ... will we be better or worse off down the road know the answer. We may still luck out, but it’s wishful thinking to expect better performance from this admin going forward.
And he still has a shot at winning reelection. In spite of the awful job Trump has done his approval ratings are in the norm of his Presidency or some even have him at the high end of his range. It's pretty much a conclusion he will lose the popular vote and very likely by more than he did last time but he is within striking distance of the Electoral College. I don't put too much stock in polls right now and a lot can change between now and election but no one should consider that the election is a foregone conclusion especially based on the job that Trump has done. If you look at Trump supporters they still believe he is doing a good job and blame everything on others.
He probably never lose his base... but he probably lost more of the middle. My overall point is he would have increased his chance much more than he reduced his chance of re-election.
Of course and I agree he's incapable of doing that. To paraphrase the late Denny Green, Trump is who we thought he was and we let him off the hook. I'm worried we're going to do that again..
I don’t think that’s quite fair. We thought we knew but we weren’t sure without actual actions. Now we know.
But what we are seeing, including here on D&D, it doesn't matter, since those that voted for him last time will come up with any excuse possible to excuse their continued support and justify their vote in November. No matter what he does or says, I expect him to get reelected.
Yet we've seen his approval ratings remain remarkably steady. From the mid 30's to the upper 40's. Even now which should be the worst moment of America since the 1930's his approval ratings haven't really changed. As NewRoxFan pointed out his supporters will rationalize anything or are straight up in denial.
My guess is that incumbents have a 60/40 advantage for re-election. In the 2018, Trump lost the suburban Soccer Mom vote, which he needs to win in 2020. This alone drops Trump's change to 50/50 at best. The latest polls show that the Soccer Moms have not returned. The swing states are favoring Biden. The reliable senior voters are 50/50. This is a shitstorm of bad news for Trump. Trump still has the Electoral College advantage and the 24 hour news channels giving him 2 hours a day to pontificate (and 2 hours a day of talking heads following his presser). Trump is essentially crowded out Biden for daily news coverage. Trump is now trying to divert everyone's attention from the Pandemic and Economic Depression, by manufacturing an Obama/Biden conspiracy theory. Trump is exceptionally good at marketing, so this is in his wheel house. But ... the Pandemic and Economic Depression will dominate the news cycles. As an aside ... The MSM is "good" at planning/running long term stories. Like Clinton emails, Benghazi, Clinton Foundation, Clinton Cash, Uranium One, etc. The Republican, giving them credit, know how to tee up these nothing-there-there stories and keep the MSM feeding on them. Trump OTOH will multiple times a week shoot-himself-in-the-foot, something in normal times would end a politician's career. The MSM starts to plan a month long series of stories on the latest Trump faux pas du jour, when Trump does it again. Back to point ... The MSM is setup to handle the Pandemic and Economic Depression stories. This is their wheel house. Trump can break through that some with ObamaGate, Liberate!, etc nonsense, but he will have an exceptionally hard time suppressing the Pandemic and Economic Depression stories.
Good post and agree with most of it. If I were to place a percent chance in Trump getting re-elected I would say 45% which is pretty much his approval rating. That’s not a good number for an incumbent President but trump isn’t an ordinary incumbent. Prior to this crisis I gave him about a 50% chance and this crisis has had some effect. What should be concerning is that even with an unprecedented crisis which around 70% of the US thinks Trump has handled poorly he isn’t taking a hit in his approval ratings. That’s saying that his support is resilient and if things turn around It won’t take much for Trump to capitalize on and win the election.
He had a net+ to start his presidency and quickly lost that once people realize he's not going to moderate. Some thought he might moderate. Give him credit for playing partisan politic to the max and frankly, a strong brain-washing propaganda game that is effective to keep not just his base but convince some outsider to join his original base. That offset some of the loss when people realize he wasn't going to moderate. As for the worst health crisis in recent years... through most health or external-created crisis, support for government and POTUS goes up, sometime by a huge margin. 911 was a good example of that. He had more room for an increase in support than a decrease. In fact, he got a quick bump, about a net +5 points but have now lost that.
I think the big question though is the power of propaganda. Can the right wing and their billionaires spend enough money on propaganda to take middle ground people and turn them right into a larger turnout for Trump support or more importantly turn them against liberal Democracy?? I agree that in a normal world, Trumps antics would destroy the middle of the road type of voter. But I fear that propaganda is having a very big affect here on why Trump is still viable in polling and what we see on the ground with regular voters. I cannot get on any form of media without being blasted by propaganda from Prager U, Epoch times, etc. which can work better than even FoxNews in presenting a product that looks more like NPR at first but is strategic in its approach to destroy support for widely popular Democratic ideals. The message in the end is always “liberalism” is bad more than it is Trump is good which helps Trump in the end. My point is I think we need to think about what’s going on with so-called “independent voters” and be very careful about understanding where they will go with the impact of well funded propaganda.
It's not about if those people who voted for him, voting for him again it's about the people that stayed home and did not vote at all. You act like he won in a landslide. 181,000 votes over 3 states was the margin of victory. I am not saying he can't be reelected but you are using the wrong data to make that argument.
So how do you factor in Bidens approval ratings? This is not in a vaccum and you have to use all factors not just approval ratings.
Certainly Biden is doing very well as the challenger and Biden is at about 60% which makes sense if Trump is in the 40's. I think those are about right and I have no doubt Biden will win the popular vote and probably more than Clinton did. Trump could still win the election.
Yes he definitely can still win but what do you see his path as being? He has realistically lost support since 2016 with suburban voters and women?
