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In 2016, Hillary Clinton, like Joe Biden, was ahead of Donald Trump in almost every poll, but the Republican won the US election. This time, too, Trump may well succeed in surprise, but his media has become more radical.
Can Donald Trump win the US presidential race in his favor despite extremely low poll numbers? CNN host John King addresses this question to his viewers, only to answer himself, “Yes, but it will be extremely difficult.” It’s a clip from the news channel from October 23, 2016, which is nearly identical to the one from October 18, 2020. At the time, almost all experts believed that Hillary Clinton would easily defeat Trump. Today, this year’s Democratic nominee Joe Biden is way ahead in the polls.
In both CNN videos, King shows a map of the US with the states that are supposed to vote for Clinton and Biden, respectively. 270 electorates from the respective states need a candidate to be elected president by the Electoral College. CNN predicted, not counting some major swing states, 307 out of 179 election men and women for Clinton against Trump in the clip four years ago. In this election campaign there are 290 to 163 voters for Biden. Many experts still believe that déjà vu is unlikely. Because many things are different from 2016.
“Biden hardly inspires anyone”
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After all, Biden’s lead is far greater than Clinton’s four years ago. With an average of ten percentage points, the Democratic candidate leads the president of the United States in national polls. This advantage was consistent throughout the election campaign and, unlike Clinton’s leadership, did not noticeably collapse in the weeks leading up to the election. At the time, the Democrat was leading by seven points about three weeks before the vote, just under 14 days later, her lead had almost been cut in half. In the end, he got the most votes anyway. The problem for Biden, despite the lingering cushion, is that the winner in the US is not the one with the most votes, but the one with the most voters from individual states.
“Joe Biden will get an overwhelming victory in terms of votes, by a greater margin than Hillary Clinton did,” Greven said confidently. But the expert on party system and electoral campaign in the United States of the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin warns in an interview with ntv.de: “Trump can still reach 270 votes in the Electoral College.” The problem of Clinton’s mobilization at that time also has Biden this time: “It does not excite almost anyone.” Biden also feels the headwind against the “top Democrats” who prevailed in 2016, because it represents no real change, but just a return to normalcy. For this very reason, Trump is campaigning as a loser and could once again get votes as an anti-establishment candidate.
Furthermore, according to Greven, high poll numbers for the candidate himself could have a demoralizing effect on Democratic voters with regard to going to the polls, and the opposite effect on the opponent, who sees that he has to vote to change things. . This time, however, this effect will be less, because “the four years of Trump’s presidency and the failure of the government in the pandemic mobilized themselves,” says the American expert, and that is a relevant difference with 2016: ” In this election, the holder is by evaluating his performance “. This time around, Democratic voters could increasingly go to the polls saying they want to eliminate Trump, rather than wanting to vote for Biden. This is supported by the fact that almost a week before Election Day, more than half of all voters in 2016 cast their votes by mail or in person, more than ever.
“People will be surprised”
Due to the Electoral Collage system, election experts Arie Kapteyn of the University of Southern California Center for Economic and Social Research and Robert Cahaly of the Republican opinion and polling firm Trafalgar do not even conduct national polls. “This is an irrelevant statistic,” they told the US magazine Politico. In 2016, their polls were the few that predicted Trump’s victory in the Electoral College. Also this year, their assessments show that the important states on the battlefield, the disputed states in which both candidates have a realistic chance of winning, are very close. “People will be surprised,” they believe.
Clinton lost the battlefield states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin four years ago, and would have only needed 80,000 more votes (0.06 percent of all votes) to win in these three states, and thus also in total. . But: Biden leads Trump in most polls there, too this year. However, slight changes are emerging: In Iowa, Trump now leads a poll by seven percentage points, after the same September poll showed a tie there. In Florida and Pennsylvania, the predictions are now both ways, and in Michigan all the polls show Biden’s win, except for Cahalys Trafalgar Group, which was correct in 2016. so Trump can win there, “says election expert Greven.
Trump voters lie in polls
Poll experts Kapteyn and Cahaly attribute the fact that Trump’s chances are not as bad as some predictions to the phenomenon of “timid voters” – timid voters who do not want to publicly recognize Trump and distort the statistics. In 2016, Kapteyn and Cahaly found that American citizens were less likely to vote for Trump in telephone polls (this is the way most polls are still conducted) than when polled online or by letter. . This year, due to the heated environment in the country, many people are “even more reluctant” to voice their support for Trump lest they be grouped with the extreme and loud fanatics of the president. In the Kapteyn and Cahaly focus groups, Trump’s lead was cut roughly in half when participants were asked who their friends and neighbors would vote for rather than who they would vote for.
On the other hand, Biden has other tricks up his sleeve: On the one hand, due to ethnic polarization, American citizens of color are likely to increasingly want to vote against Trump. Then there are the undecided voters. Or your little number this year. In 2016, Trump triumphed over Clinton with eight percentage points in voters who had only elected one of the candidates in the month before the election. He can no longer touch many of them; Trump’s four-year experience as president has dramatically reduced that number. But, Greven says, the “swing voter” phenomenon is generally overestimated, because even independent voters tend to have clear biases in the Democratic or Republican direction.
Trump benefits from division
Rather, the election expert acknowledges other factors playing into Trump’s hands this time – Trump’s celebrity factor, for example, which has not only remained intact over the past four years, but has steadily increased thanks to the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week care for the president. . Trump is almost ritually adored by his followers. It doesn’t matter what you do or say. Due to extreme polarization and division in society, what someone says or does is no longer qualified in the US, but only who does it, says Greven: “We are almost dealing with tribalization. Citizens belong, for so to speak, different tribes that no longer communicate with each other and no longer have a common base of knowledge, facts and values. ” Trump fuels this phenomenon, draws his strength from it, and can build on a loyal electorate.
Polls are not election results. You should have learned that in 2016. Although Biden is in the lead almost everywhere, Trump can win the presidential election as he did against Clinton in 2016. Poll experts Kapteyn and Cahaly also explain this with the fact that people they love to lie everywhere. So also in surveys. Greven from FU Berlin also warns: “Polls should be taken with caution and can be very misleading.” It can also be assumed that this time Trump will illegally repeat the 2016 election upheaval.
Violence and manipulation?
Therefore, a prediction of what would happen if Trump did not present enough voters, that is, lose the election, would be even more important anyway. Republicans are already testing illegitimate means of deciding elections by discrediting postal voting and preventing Democrats from voting. In Texas alone they tried (albeit to no avail) that 100,000 votes cast at a polling station were invalid.
He has made it clear multiple times that Trump might not accept defeat. The longer the results are verified in one or more states, the more likely it is that the courts will decide the choice, right down to the Supreme Court, where conservative justices now form a clear majority.
Even riots and violent clashes in the street cannot be ruled out, in fact it is probable. Stores in major cities in the United States have already entrenched themselves these days. “We must fear the worst,” warns Greven: The police and the national guard would be more on Trump’s side, anyway the Ministry of Justice. If the election result is controversial, state parliaments – Republicans rule in many of these states – would have the right to usurp the issue and send voters to Washington of their choice, says the American expert: “That can still be very ugly. be.” Anyway, all surveys would go to the trash can.
