Seven days before the US elections: What do the polls say?

One week before the US presidential elections, the chances of a reelection for Donald trump They seem to get more complicated every day. This, because he continues behind the former vice president Joe biden in surveys at the national level and in key states, which, in the opinion of experts, makes it difficult to repeat the surprise of 2016, when against all odds it narrowed the gap with Hillary clinton in the final stretch of the campaign, and that in the end meant – despite the advantage of the Democratic candidate in the popular vote – winning the Presidency in the Electoral College.

“Perhaps most concerning to President Trump is that he is clearly behind his 2016 pace. At this point, four years ago, he was quickly closing the gap with Hillary Clinton. You cannot see such progress in the 2020 poll against Biden, ”he wrote this Monday. Harry Enten, CNN Politics analyst.

At this time, Enten highlights, Biden has risen between nine and 10 points nationally, depending on the average being examined. According to the portal RealClearPolitics, Today the advantage of the Democrat over the Republican President is 7.8 percentage points. But what is more important, says the electoral expert, is that the former vice president of Barack Obama figure with more than 50% of the preferences in several of the main surveys. “Biden’s lead may have dropped a point or so since the beginning of October, although it is well within the historical average at the beginning of the year,” Enten notes.

Hillary Clinton’s lead dropped to just two points on the national average a week before Election Day on Nov. 8, 2016, according to RealClearPolitics records. “His lead had been as high as seven points approximately 21 days before the election. Clinton’s 45% vote percentage was low enough to leave Trump with plenty of room in the final week of the campaign to corner voters who were not favoring either candidate at this time. “said the CNN analyst.

In 2020 the Bloomberg agency is pessimistic about Trump’s reelection chances. In addition to highlighting the distance “formidable” Biden’s rating in national polls, notes that he “has maintained a huge fundraising advantage over Trump that gives him the ability to run wall-to-wall ads in key states. Y FiveThirtyEight, the political statistics site owned by ABC News, it gives Biden an 87% chance of winning the election. “

While Bloomberg recalls that polls are tighter in critical states like Florida and Ohio, he emphasizes that early voting data is “encouraging” for Democrats. In states where voters register by party, Democrats have requested 10.1 million more votes than Republicans, and have already cast 5.5 million more, according to the US Elections Project.

And the US agency believes it has an explanation for the Republican’s difficult electoral moment. “As with most re-election campaigns, the 2020 race is largely a referendum on Trump’s first term: his combative style, his response to the coronavirus, and the accompanying economic turmoil,” he says.

But the differences go beyond national polls, according to CNN. A ABC News / Ipsos poll published on Sunday and held after the final debate between Biden and Trump, found that Trump’s net favorability rating (favorable-unfavorable) is very weak: -22 points.

“The fact that Trump has a profoundly negative net favorability rating is nothing new. It has been the norm during his presidency and it was also the norm during his 2016 White House bid. The most interesting data from the survey is that Biden’s net preference was +1 point. A positive net favorability rating is the norm for Biden these days, ”the television network highlights.

Clinton, however, had almost universally negative net favorability ratings in the past month and nine days before the 2016 election. That is, he disliked more than he liked, recalls CNN.

So all Biden needs to do is win over voters he likes, says the network, which reports its latest poll, which shows that the former vice president beats Trump by a 93% to 6% margin among likely voters who had a favorable opinion of the Democratic candidate. “All Biden needs to do right now to win is retain the voters he has,” he says.

Bloomberg points to a similar analysis. “Biden’s lead in national polls is three times greater than Clinton’s at this point in 2016. It is above 50% in most national polls and in many state polls, which means that undecided and third-party voters will not be decisive, ”he says.

“Of course, Clinton also had an 87% chance of winning at the same point four years ago. The lesson from 2016 is that surveys and forecasting models are only as reliable as the assumptions on which they are based ”, warns Bloomberg.

Still, there are reasons to be skeptical that Trump can accomplish the same feat in 2020, the agency notes. “It is a very different environment”said the Republican strategist Whit ayres to Bloomberg Television. “Donald Trump is playing defense now in states where he won very comfortably in 2016, like Iowa, Ohio and even Georgia and North Carolina. Maybe Texas too. All I’m saying is that it would be even more of a turnaround if Trump took out what he got in 2016, and it was a huge surprise in 2016. “

Thus, Bloomberg notes, the Republican president’s hopes of victory are now based on an increasingly unlikely combination of events: a game-changing news event, winning over undecided voters, and garnering an avalanche of support from “hidden supporters.” ”. “Trump’s performance in the debate last week was better than his first at the end of September, but perhaps not strong enough to influence voters who are not among the approximately 53 million who have already cast their votes.”, says the news agency.

Regarding the possibility of an event that changes the course of the elections, Enten recalled what happened four years ago. “The 2016 campaign, on the other hand, was in a big change right now. Among a host of factors, the letter from (then-FBI Director) James Comey ‘investigating emails on the laptop of (former Democratic Rep.) Anthony Weiner that were potentially related to an investigation into the use of a private server by of Hillary Clinton ‘had just been published at this point in the 2016 campaign. This year there have been no bombs of that magnitude, ”said the television station’s electoral expert.

According to Bloomberg, Trump hopes to repeat his surprising victory over Clinton with an electoral map that looks like 2016. “His problem is that the map looks much more like 2008”, agency highlights. And adds: With Obama at the top of the vote, the 2008 Biden was elected vice president with women’s votes, a record number of black voters and white voters in the economically suffering industrial Midwest and rapidly changing states in the West and South. . Clinton was unable to recreate the so-called Obama Coalition four years ago. Now, Biden’s road to victory could look remarkably like 2008. ”