The Clintons are out of politics. Bill has a few more speeches, and Hillary - well, no one really wants to hear from her.
Biden opens 13-point advantage as Trump popularity drops to seven-month low: Reuters/Ipsos poll https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN23O1GX
I knew trump's own internal polling must be bad from the frantic, desperate tone in communications. Despite his feeble attempts to spin the situations (eg most recent "thanks 96% republican support tweet... that made-up number never changes), things like his promising again to sign a huge Infrastructure bill (that the republicans in congress say they will not support) shows he knows he is way behind. Internal Poll Showed Trump Losing by Wide Margin June 16, 2020 President Trump’s first internal reelection campaign poll conducted in March, obtained exclusively by ABC News, showed him losing a matchup by wide margins to Joe Biden in key battleground states. Trump has repeatedly denied that such data exists. The polling data showed a double-digit lead for Biden in Pennsylvania 55% to 39% and Wisconsin 51% to 41% and had Biden leading by seven points in Florida. https://politicalwire.com/2020/06/16/internal-poll-showed-trump-losing-by-wide-margin/
I think Trump voters avoid polls and are less likely to be honest in surveys so I do think there is a bias here that isn't being normalized for. Biden is ahead but not by as much as what is being stated. It's still going to be a close election, and we all know what happened in 2016. No one should think this is an easy Biden victory.
I think it has stopped. What date was the last story of looting? The Wendy's was burned down after the Rashard Brooks shooting, but otherwise, I don't think we've had looting or arsons for 2 weeks now (and the Wendy's arsonists are being sought by police). There have been protests which included some bottle throwing, graffiti-tagging, and toppling of statues as well as tear gassing, tasering, batoning, and arrests (mostly spurious). But I think the looting days are over unless there is another George Floyd style outrage. I don't think the media has done a great job of differentiating though, or showing the real tenor of the protests. My wife talked to a Trumper acquaintance who told her they were afraid looters would come to their home in West U. Instead of comparing state polling today to how things shook out in Nov 2016, I wish they'd compare them to same-month 2016. That way, you're comparing poll-to-poll instead of poll-to-election.
This leaves out the fact that Trump has a lot more states that he cannot afford to lose like Georgia Arizona and Florida. I am surprised Biden is not doing better in Pennsylvania.
That is a fair point. I think it comes down to which states do you really believe are swing states. For example I do not view Florida or Georgia or Michigan as true swing states. If Biden loses Michigan, he will be crushed...... and that is certainly true for Trump and Florida and Georgia. Some have rightfully pointed out that Biden doesn't HAVE to win Pennsylvania and while that is true....... I don't think he wins states like Arizona if he cannot win Pennsylvania. This is quite possibly the high mark for Biden...... coming off of COVID, very effective racial equality riots and the frequent criticism of Trump by the military. I don't think Biden will ever have as big a lead as he does now. That doesn't mean he won't win....... just that those 4-5 point leads can evaporate over the next 5 months......
Trump will always have an assumed base of support that actually looks for excuses to come home at any chance they can get, and need to be assumed as "come home" voters on election night. FoxNews will supply some excuse that gets in their head to give them a talking point that makes them feel like they are not bad people for voting for Trump, but publicly NONE of them will own Trump, and as we see here, they likely lie and say they didn't vote for him. See my posts yesterday on the bizarre notion that if Biden picks X Veep that NOW because of that they are voting for Trump. It's nonsense, and it's likely that voter is just looking for an excuse. On polling this MUST be considered to be an impactful aspect. Trump is going to get that 42 to 45% of the voters out to vote for him, or at least against Biden regardless. IF Biden can just turn out the Dem base, just win a smidge of the independent margin, and increase new voters Biden will destroy Trump in an electoral victory. If Biden falls into the Hillary trap of letting FoxNews AND CNN define her negatively, and have a poor electoral college strategy of incompetence in hitting the micro-targeted districts of white blue collar voters in the rust belt, Biden could lose, and maybe lose worse than Hillary with potentially losing Minnesota. The big question is how does Biden control the media cycle to keep his base engaged, and have a micro targeted campaign strategy around just a few key states like Wisconsin where he needs to knock it out of the park on blue collar economics, and trade. Bernie's presence campaigning for Biden in those districts will be key if Covid allows for traditional campaigning.
That was the first thing I caught too. What is the deal with Penn which is where Biden has historically been super popular in campaigning for Obama where he was key? If I had to guess and take this poll seriously (might be a fools errand) i would say that Biden might need to really think about targeted messaging and changing the narrative around China and the Steele industry. There might be some false assumptions in Penn that Trump has done something to help many Penn based companies that has created a local narrative. I do know too that I believe Penn was the very first state that Trump's campaign started spending money in with ad buys. However on the other hand, the Florida margin on behalf of Biden is also just as interesting for opposite reasons. Biden's gold mine state that is easier to get back than even Penn and Michigan is actually Florida. He has great messaging on Social Security protection, and Trumps own statements about privatizing SS only about a month ago which was head scratching that he would say something so stupid. If Biden wins Florida Trump would basically have to sweep all the Rust belt states, and maybe pickup another unlikely purple state.
Biden needs to have a platform that addresses the key concerns of working class voters, minorities, women, young and suburban voters - that sounds like a lot but much of it is overlapping. This platform must be strong, concise, and non divisive. What's Biden's economic policies going to be to get the unemployment rate down? How will he bring the country together and heal wounds? How will he fix Obamacare? How will he manage coronavirus? What is he going to do about education costs? I think if he can come up with 5 strong talking points with meat behind on those 5 questions he can define himself in stark contrast to Trump. Biden needs to run on a platform that America has gotten off course under Trump and here's how he's going to captain the ship away from the iceberg and save this country. They did it before with Obama in 2009, and he can do it again to clean up this mess.
I am not in agreement here. Trump won in 2016 mainly do to people giving him a chance and as a protest vote against Hillary or them just staying home. I think his base of voters is about 35 to 40% and not all of them are gonna be willing to actually go out and vote because of long lines and Covid. The anti Trump vote is very motivated and growing much more than Hillary in 2016, I don't see the media really having that big a deal considering there are not many swing voters unlike in 2016. Trump is now a known commodity and he not gaining any new supporters but is losing them.
I think the issue with state polling is we just don't have enough polling in the states to really make a valid judgement one way or the other. In Pennsylvania, RCP shows 9 polls since the beginning of the year and only 2 since the end of April...both by the same pollster (CNBC which showed Biden gaining 7 points over a 2 week span...but also showed Trump leading by 4 in the first poll after no other poll had him leading since they've been tracking going back to last year). The problem with so few polls is that they can be extremely noisy and not actually show the actual feel of the populace, was the first poll an outlier, is the second? It's likely the first one was due to what other polls have shown, but there's just not enough data to know. Florida's a little better in that we have 10 polls since the beginning of March, but only 3 have had more than one poll. FAU has been pretty consistent and has provided the most polls since RCP has started tracking...they have shown it to be within a point or two either way up until their last poll in May which suddenly showed Biden up 6..which mirrors most of the national trend. It'll be interesting to see next month's poll and see if Biden has built on that jump. Again...it's just hard to tell, though, because we have so few polls to go on. I think the ultimate question will be how long Coronavirus lasts..in my opinion, what happens with Coronavirus going forward direclty impacts Trump's changes in November. If this thing is under control in August or September, we don't get a 2nd wave come November, and the economy starts springing back to life with people getting jobs by Election day, it's likely he squeaks through for another four years. If Coronavirus is still a large presence and people are still out of work because of it, Trump has no chance and the story becomes whether the Dems can take the Senate.
I agree with most of this but bI don't see anyway Trump gets any momentum leading up to Nov, his campaign team is terrible, he will still say and tweet asinine things. Biden will get a bump when he announces his VP more than likely and if he can find something minimally uplifting to message on I think the lead can continue and get bigger. I see where Trump actually starts depressing his own vote tournout because they get fatigued and embarrassed and I see that happening with some diehard folks. To sum up my thinking, I don't think Trumps hardcore base is much over 35% and I think the secret Trump voter will probably just stay at home this time.
I just respectfully disagree on some of these points. I think he was a known commodity in 2016 politically for the most part with the exception of a few really key areas where the Trump platform was dissected a bit more because of their specific economic issues (see Wisconsin). Just a few weeks ago before Covid hit, Trump was right smack dab where he was in approval where he was the day after the election. I'd love to think you are right and he really has lost support LONGTERM, but I think Biden strategists should have a plan that assumes on November 1st Trump's real approval will be much closer to where it was in February than where it is now during the height of Covid. I sort of hope that it is because that means the economy has rebounded and Covid is mostly taken care of. I'm hurting right now financially and hope its a closer race because the economy is so much better than it is now because right now it sucks a$$, and right now because of that fact, Trump would get destroyed, and would lose voters that I'm saying will come home to him if you assume the economy will look more normal than it does right now at this moment.
