Biden is Strongly Positioned to Win - Rob Horowitz

Joe Biden enters the final two weeks of the campaign in a strong, nearly commanding position. It is still possible for President Trump to pull out another come from behind victory, but he is rapidly running out of time in a race where close to 30 million votes have already been cast and that continues to be driven by voters’ disapproval of his performance as president and a sense of pessimism about a future under his leadership.

President Trump’s job approval rating, the number that most closely correlates to vote performance in presidential re-election campaigns is currently only 42.8 %, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average of polls.  Fifty-four percent of registered voters now disapprove of how the president is handling his job, with nearly 50% of registered voters over-all strongly disapproving.  

 Presidential job approval is by far the most important measure in re-election races because they are mainly referendums on the incumbent. Given the strong feelings that this president evokes, this time, it’s in all likelihood, even more the case .  Simply put, the most important task for President Trump and his campaign was to substantially improve people’s perceptions of how he is doing his job.  He missed what was perhaps his final opportunity to do so by failing to reset and engage in some learning behavior on Covid-19 in the wake of his own bout with the illness. Instead he has doubled down on his failed approach to the pandemic, continuing to minimize it and provide the public with outright falsehoods.  He is compounding this problem politically by visually driving home his irresponsible attempt to wish the virus away at nightly rallies where the television cameras show most people are not wearing masks or socially distancing. This failure to change course has predictably resulted in voters continuing to give him poor marks for his response to the pandemic at a time when the number of cases and hospitalizations are increasing nationally and in key battleground states.

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Additionally, the president’s negative attacks on Joe Biden have fallen flat.  The former vice-president is far more popular than Hillary Clinton, making him a less inviting target. The Trump campaign’s shifting grab-bag of attacks, including tying  him to the left wing of the Democratic party, portraying him as somehow corrupt, and saying he is nearly senile have failed to strike a responsive chord. In fact, the president’s description of Biden as dangerously diminished have backfired by lowering expectations that the former vice-president’s solid performances on the stump, in last week’s town meeting, and in the debate have easily exceeded.

Joe Biden currently leads Donald Trump nationally, 52.5% to 41.7 %, according to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average of polls.  He has expanded his lead over the past two weeks due in large measure to the president’s disastrous debate performance and continued poor handling of the pandemic.  The former vice-president also has a large cash advantage and is substantially outspending the president on television advertising.

The electoral college map also favors the former vice-president.  Biden’s lead among seniors and narrowing of the gap among non-college white voters--two traditionally strong Republican and Trump sub-groups--has resulted in steady leads in the key mid-western battlegrounds; Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania and in two states Trump won comfortably in 2016, Ohio and Iowa, now being very much in play.  Biden is narrowly ahead in three other states that Trump won in 2016: Arizona, Florida and North Carolina and has made Georgia sufficiently competitive to force the president to travel there.

The final debate Thursday night will provide President Trump with a large enough audience that a superior performance by him or a disastrous one by Biden could help narrow the gap at least a little.  Also, a disciplined closing message that focused on the economy-one of the only areas where at least a plurality of likely voters think Trump would do a better job than the former vice-president-- could provide a boost.

All-in-all,  however, this election is quickly slipping away from the president.  The Biden campaign is right to guard against complacency by continuing to warn that it is closer than it appears and that Donald Trump can still win. For that to happen, though, something fundamentally has to change and to change very soon.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
 
 

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