Index – Abroad – Trump dug a deep well for him, but Biden also leaves the basement

After the person of the Democratic Party presidential candidate was decided in mid-April, it was time for the presidential election campaign to start correctly, we would write in an average year. However, this year is certainly not an average year: President Donald Trump is verbally fighting the coronavirus epidemic instead of his opponent, while his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, is literally trying to show signs of life since your basement.

While the situation may still change a lot until the November presidential election, Trump criticizes Biden in national polls and has to dig a deep well in many pendulum states that are more important to victory than national numbers.

After the epidemic led to a dramatic crisis in the economic boom that traditionally favored the incumbent president, GOP strategists are trying to hold their base together by insulting China, though it is expected to be more important to voters if the epidemic will end in the fall. be it life, if the economy begins.

Biden is more cynical in his view that there is no campaign, and the fight against Trump is being waged by other better-prepared Democratic politicians. At the same time, he also has a pair of skeletons in the closet which, if the epidemic situation improves, might be enough for November.

Foxon is also on the decline

The coronavirus hit the government unprepared in many countries of the Western world and brought to light a number of serious systemic weaknesses, but the popularity of the government was benefited by the epidemic and the surrounding national coalition almost everywhere, from France to Australia. and Hungary. In the United States, however, cooperation has not gone well and trust in leaders has not been good for the crisis, in fact: Donald Trump popularity the FiveThirtyEight reference summary by it began to deteriorate markedly after a small jump in late March, currently at 42.6 percent.

It is not that Trump has not been guided by the logic of political gain. Initially, he denied problems for weeks, fearing the negative economic (and consequent political) effects of the quarantine measures. When it became clear in March that the epidemic had also erupted in the United States, it formed a campaign event in defense: the incense by day and by night incense itself and the efforts of your government, and the capabilities of your subordinates and governors asking help from the federal government. And he treated the white home press events about the epidemic as his own public relations events and boasted several times about how good the virus would bring him.

In the present case, however, it seems that good vision and aggressive public relations could not override the weak and uncollected reaction of the federal government. Although the number of infected people registered in the United States of 1.1 million, more than 60,000 victims are not the worst in the world in terms of population (the number of known cases is less than in Italy, Belgium or Switzerland, the death rate is the half that of France, a third of Spain),

The president was also forced to give up public relations self-sealing press conferences after a scandal occurred large enough to think that after UV light and disinfectants (on external surfaces) were quickly done with A virus called SARS-CoV2, could be to examine how these could be applied internally by similar methods. Although he later tried to salvage the matter by speaking sarcastically, the medics and center-left press were quite upset and feared that this could make many people think of drinking disinfectant (which is deadly after all). After that, Trump pulled back a bit from live press conferences and, just like the old days, shares his thoughts with the world on Twitter. (In any case, his campaign manager, Brad Pascale, still sees the role of his victory in television appearances.)

It weakens in the pendulums.

Poor judgment of coronavirus treatment also makes its mark in presidential election polls. Nationwide, recent polls measure Biden’s lead of around six to ten points. Four years ago, then-Democrat Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, led four points ahead of Trump, making her opposition far better in that regard.

More importantly, Trump’s judgment is extremely weak in several major pendulum states. Although Clinton received two more percentage points nationwide in 2016 than Trump, the US presidential election. USA They are not decided by direct votes, but by the so-called electoral votes. In the historical system, there are 538 voters who are distributed among the states in proportion to the population. The candidate who receives the most votes in a given state receives the entire electorate in that state, and the one who receives the majority of the electorate becomes president. This system enhances the role of tight states: in vain, Trump left the country’s most populous places, New York or California, managed to attract several smaller states won by Democrats in the Midwest in the rusty zone of industry. dying

All of these states were heavily won by Trump in 2016, beating Clinton by less than a percentage point in the previous three and gaining 1.2 percent in Florida. In 2020, you certainly won’t be able to shake it again.

Of particular interest is Florida, the largest pendulum state, populated but always in close competition, where the popularity of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has greatly plagued the epidemic. It is the second oldest state in the US. USA In harboring quite a few conservative and wealthy retirees who give the Republican camp a traditional waistline: Trump scored 17 points for Clinton in 2016 among those 65 and older. However, the popularity of Trump and DeSantis, according to polls, has also begun to decline among the elderly, as they are most threatened by the epidemic.

The map expands.

Due to these trends, several analysts believed that the electoral map had become more complex: in addition to several pendulous states, Democrats also emerged in some traditionally Republican states during the epidemic. But there is speculation that there may be a state that Trump can change: Polls in Nevada, New Hampshire, or New Mexico, which voted for Clinton in 2016, say the president’s rhetoric for a quick restart of the economy is more popular with people. unemployed and less qualified than it is. Cautious Democrats.

Governors and the relationship between governors and the federal government will also play an important role in those places, which promise a closer fight: Polls show that many Americans are much more satisfied with the state’s performance than the federal authorities. And in that regard, it could backfire when Trump openly clashes with more cautious governors over the quarantine lifting, or fails to condemn the far-right engines protesting the curfew, who are unpopular even among Republican voters.

In any case, it’s worth keeping a distance between the numbers and the current odds. Although the popularity of the candidates in the last elections generally did not change dramatically in the campaign finals, six months before the vote, these numbers are, at most, an indication of how the candidates are at the starting line and would be difficult predict the results for November in 2016 (actually a few weeks before 2016). nor did most predict).

Although increasingly popular within his right-wing camp, the president’s perception has not been particularly good among the general population (FiveThirtyEight sums it up to be 38 to 43 percent since February 2017, apart from one or two short jumps ), but this has been offset by good economic conditions. : As we wrote in January (in a very different situation), record low unemployment, rising wages, and an uninterrupted economy will greatly improve Trump’s chances in November. However, the economic situation has changed dramatically since then, with the US economy. USA Turning into a severe recession in the first quarter of this year, with a GDP decrease of 4.8 percent.

Since the big downtimes only started in mid-March, the second half is expected to get even worse. Trump’s swords in relaunching the economy as soon as possible, but that’s the power of the governors, and reopening too soon, according to Asian examples, will do more damage in the long run. But according to some news, the president denies from the beginning that his stance or weaknesses in handling the epidemic are responsible for the bad numbers and do not change his attachments.

China, China, China

It is still difficult to predict how the economy will hold in November and how this will affect Trump’s trial. According to speculation, in some places, the president’s popularity would already skyrocket if the recovery was just beginning and people could vote in a more optimistic position as a result; Others say it will take years for unemployment and wages to return to pre-crisis levels, so Trump cannot build on the economy.

According to Politico, the Republican Party has two strategic directions on what the message should be in the absence of economic results. One would be based on defamation of China: a leading party strategist, based on an internal document, recommended to Republican candidates that

Among the recommended campaign messages is that the epidemic was caused by China, but Democrats cannot / dare to crack down on Beijing, but Republicans are ready to “impose tough sanctions.”

In the Trump campaign, “stealing jobs” China has been a central player for four years, although it is difficult to say how much it yielded to its results. Now, however, according to polls (regardless of party affiliation), 70 percent of the population believes that the Chinese have covered up the epidemic and falsified data about it. Not surprisingly, this text is also being pushed by Donald Trump and his government, who want to overcome bad luck in China and the World Health Organization (WHO), which, of course, was not the base.lan, However, it only serves to hide the fact that the US government. USA has tragically managed the situation.

It also weakens the message that the president, meanwhile, feels a strong need to say good things about Chinese party secretary Xixing. Meanwhile, China is starting to err on the side of aluminum foil conspiracy theories regarding acidification, and it is also largely dealing with the ability of intelligence to anoint a Chinese laboratory to unleash the virus (while Chinese foreign fake news teams accuse the US military of developing the virus.)

This line is rather taken by Trump circles, which have also stumbled on the proposal to keep congressional and local candidates away from the party due to the misjudgment of some strategists. A Trump campaign video tries to pretend that Joe Biden is too “soft” in the case of China, with the Republican Party trying to convince people by phone calls to pendulum voters in the pendulum states that only they can protect the American people from the red threat.

Campaign from the basement

Joe Biden, meanwhile, is almost running an anti-campaign. Although he is not yet an official candidate for the party, after the resignation of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, it is quite certain that Barack Obama will be vice president of the Democratic Party candidate in November, he only needs to gather enough delegates on paper. However, Biden, who served as a senator prior to his vice presidency, currently has no political standing and cannot campaign for the epidemic, not trying to signal himself through his study in his basement, podcasts and phones with its party allies, with moderate success so far.

This, according to some, will be an advantage anyway. While it is difficult to rival the stupidity of the Trump tsunami, Biden, 77, the grand master of misunderstanding, also caused some embarrassing moments in the Democratic pre-election campaign.

They excelled far beyond the Democratic pre-election camp, their victory was not primarily due to himself or his aides, but to his popularity as Obama’s vice president among black blacks among Democratic voters, and (as a result) the central left part of the party closed in early February.

Biden’s chances are not enhanced by his son, Hunter Biden’s morally questionable Ukrainian and Chinese business affairs, into which Donald Trump had previously spread. Like Tara Reade, a former Biden Congressional office employee in recent weeks, accused the politician of sexually harassing her in 1993. Although many more similar allegations have been made against Donald Trump, this has not shaken conservative voters much. But the Left has traditionally taken sexual harassment allegations seriously.

Part of the party left was already at war with Biden before these allegations, and many of Bernie Sanders, who called himself a Democratic Socialist, demanded concessions from what they thought was Biden’s too centrist, others said that by no means way they were willing to vote for the former vice president. that he had assured his former rival of Sanders’ support.

They light up slowly

Although the rebels are estimated to represent only a small portion of Bernie Sanders’ camp, the push and pull inside the party could still cause unpleasant minutes. So Biden is far from an invulnerable candidate, making it perfect for Trump to fight for the internal use of disinfectants while Democratic governors carry the party behind him.

And Bident can also be helped by choosing a good vice presidential candidate. The Democratic cast has been going on for some time, and there is speculation that the party will definitely start to be a woman, Biden promised in a previous television debate. Senator Elizabeth Warren, who can appease the left wing, became known nationally for managing epidemics (and led the state that voted for Trump in 2016), Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer for the energetic senator from California Kamala Harris, of Jamaican-Indian descent, has many names on the hat.

Due to the epidemic situation, in addition to the local politicians who dominated the media, the machinery of the Democratic campaign was also launched. Left-wing political action groups (formally nonpartisan groups that function as campaign funds in practice) across the country have begun targeting Trump and Republicans in tougher television commercials than previous opposition styles, including some senators Republicans running for reelection in November.

The latter promises to be a particularly interesting field: not only will presidential elections be held on November 3, but at least as important is the election of Congress. Similar to presidential election forecasts, the polls will be conducted with caution in the lower house of the legislature, and Democrats will retain the majority they won in the 2018 midterm elections, but in the Senate they are it is much more difficult. Members of the Upper House are elected by state, so Arkansas’s 3 million, highly Republican, have delegated two senators in the same way as California’s 39 million, highly democratic. In November, a third of the six-year-old senators will be elected, and Democrats will start with a six-person disadvantage, which means they will need a result similar to Barack Obama’s overwhelming victory in 2008, otherwise the Republican Party he will retain power for a very important presidential and legislative process. cut in washington

Due to the coronavirus epidemic, its chances are even more difficult to predict than average, and the uncertainty caused by the epidemic may even affect how voting is held. In Congress, Democrats and Republicans have even disagreed in recent weeks about what steps are necessary to safely hold elections. Democrats are swords by extending the possibility of a voting letter, which Republicans are reluctant to fear, making it easier for their opponents to vote. Experts fear that unless Congress reaches a compromise, logistical chaos could come in November and turnout could drop significantly, as many will not want to alter their health in the vote. Meanwhile, Joe Biden also suggested that Donald Trump could try to postpone the elections, although otherwise the President has no authority to do so and could only do so in dire complications.

Therefore, this year’s campaign appears to be even more divisive than the average in recent years, as the two sides have come together even in terms of how to keep voting. However, the result, based on the current situation, will not depend on this, but mainly on whether Donald Trump deepens further in the next six months or if the restart of the economy takes him out of the hole.

(Cover image: Donald Trump at the White House on April 22, 2020. Photo: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)