Back in early June I wrote that Donald Trump was in big trouble. Trump trailed Biden by close to double digits nationally. State level polls were equally grim. Nearly four months later, almost nothing has changed. Trump is down nearly double digits in the national polls and state-level polls show him trailing in every swing state, and at best running even some red states like Texas, Georgia, and Arizona.
As Cook Political Report elections analyst (and Twitter must follow) Dave Wasserman has noted, district-level polling, which suggested big problems for Clinton in 2016, backs up the national polls. Biden is running ahead of Trump in many suburban districts Trump carried by ten or more points in 2016. This spells trouble for down ballot Republicans.
Decisions by the campaigns suggest their internal polling matches what is publicly available. Joe Biden is making trips to Iowa, a state Trump won by nearly double digits, as well as Georgia. Kamala Harris is headed to Texas. Meanwhile, Trump has made recent trips to Nebraska (Nebraska, like Maine, apportions Electoral Votes by Congressional district, and the district containing Omaha is very much in play), Ohio, and a last-minute fundraising trip to California. Mike Pence is campaigning in South Carolina, a state that was on nobody’s radar six months ago.
The campaigns’ spending decisions mirror the polling. The Trump campaign is hurting for cash and pulling ads from key swing states including Ohio, New Hampshire, and Iowa. Biden has a three to one cash advantage and outspending Trump all over the map.
Democratic early vote totals are massive. According to University of Florida Political Scientist Michael P. McDonald’s U.S. Elections Project, Democratic voters have requested far more absentee ballots than Republicans and are returning them at higher rates, at least so far. The Republicans are banking on Election Day turnout amid a pandemic to offset Democrat’s early vote advantage. This strikes me as extremely risky, to say the least.
Regardless, turnout will be record breaking. There were 136 million ballots cast in 2016. I fully expect that there will be well over 150 million votes cast in 2020. Despite perceptions, I am not sure high turnout necessarily benefits one party over the other, but it is something to keep an eye on.
All and all, Biden is sitting in a very, very good position and Trump is in a world of trouble. Trump was unpopular in 2016. He’s unpopular now and has been throughout his term. There has been zero net movement in the polls since early summer and there is no reason to expect any significant movement with only a week to go.
This is not surprising. As I have noted elsewhere, Trump employed a terrible strategy in 2016 and is employing a terrible strategy now too. Trump’s campaign is a right-wing fever dream straight out of a Mark Levin segment on Hannity—it only speaks to the grievance driven right-wing media ecosystem and has zero penetration to the vast majority of people who remain outside the bubble. Trump is not a good politician and never has been. More than two hundred thousand Americans are dead in a pandemic. The President is doubling down on some bizarre conspiracy theory about Hunter Biden cooked up former NYC mayor and current presidential bagman Rudy Giuliani rather than overseeing any meaningful economic or public health response to COVID.
Yeah, but what about 2016?
As a political analyst, I fully expect any claim that a Democratic candidate is in a good electoral position will be met with “yeah, but what about 2016?” for as long as I live. Fair enough. Trump’s victory in 2016 broke something in the minds of many liberals. Polls cannot be trusted! Trump must have political superpowers!
Nonsense. This is not 2016. Clinton was the second most unpopular presidential candidate of all time (right behind the current president) and probably deserves a place on the pantheon of all time worst presidential candidates. Biden has positive net favorability and his net favorability has actually improved over the course of the campaign. Biden is polling better among almost every demographic group relative to Clinton four years ago, including among core Trump groups like non-college whites and senior citizens.
Even the polls in 2016 were much more accurate than most people remember. In the high-quality national polls released right before Election Day, Clinton’s highest topline number was 48% (from Fox News), while most had her in the mid to low 40s. 538’s national polling average had Clinton winning the national popular vote 45.7-41.8 on election day, a 3.9-point margin. The actual margin was just over two points.
It was clear the election was close, but people chose to disregard the evidence that Clinton was not a shoe in to win. I had a reporter ask me in my office on Election Day 2016 “who was going to fill Tim Kaine’s Senate seat when he becomes Vice President” and I told him there was a real chance Trump could win. He was stunned. The red lights were flashing this time four years ago. Most people, especially people living in urban areas, just ignored them.
There are fewer, if any, warning signs this year. Biden is consistently polling above 50% nationally and his lead is more than twice as large as Clinton’s. His position in state polling is better much better too. Biden has put a half dozen states in play, including Texas, Ohio, and Iowa, that were off the table four years ago.
One important caveat is that Trump did overperform in a number of states relative to the polling (especially in the upper Midwest). This was largely due to polling firms over sampling college educated whites and under sampling non-college whites. The parties were not always divided along educational lines like they are today, and polling firms were slow to adjust. My sense is most of the legitimate polling outfits are taking this into account now. The polling in 2018 was very good on balance. There is no reason to expect Trump to overperform his polling once again.
Some of the “error” in the 2016 polling wasn’t even error at all. There were lots of undecided voters and lots of people saying they were going to vote for third party candidates. The majority of these people broke for Trump at the end. The pollsters were trying to hit a moving target.
Polls are instruments for measuring public opinion. There is going to be volatility in measurement if public opinion is shifting. Fluctuation in the polls is not necessarily a problem with the instrument, it might be a sign that public opinion is unstable. This was the case in 2016, when a large proportion of the electorate was vacillating right up until the end. There is none of that this year. People have made their minds up. The polls are stable. I expect an outcome that closely reflects the polling.
Bottom Line
Trump won the Electoral College with 46-percent of the popular vote. This is a very difficult thing to do and there is absolutely no evidence that he has expanded his appeal. Trump can win, but it is going to take an even bigger Hail Mary than it did last time. This is someone who caught every break imaginable, not some act of political genius.
Furthermore, there is no way to objectively discuss this election without stating this is a disastrously failed presidency. The President’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Sunday the Administration has stopped trying to contain the COVID-19 epidemic. They quit on the job. There is no charitable way to describe this. They have flat out abandoned the American people amid the greatest public health crisis in a century. This is sheer lunacy from a public health perspective and reflects the fact that Trump has spent the last eight months trying to sabotage his own government’s response to the pandemic. It is madness.
I fully expect an outcome that reflects the reality that presidential approval is double digits underwater and has motivated the opposition to the extent where most Democrats would crawl over broken glass to vote against him. Turnout for Trump in rural areas will be very, very high, but turnout will be high everywhere. The suburbs are the kingmaker in American politics, and Trump has lost the suburbs.
Mitch McConnell got his judges. Now it is time to reap the whirlwind. Biden is going to flirt with 400 Electoral Votes. It is going to be a Republican bloodbath down the ballot. Nothing is off the table.
