US Presidential Election: On Very Thin Ice

A bit on the cutting edge, Joe Biden won the nomination because he wasn’t Bernie Sanders, and then he would win the election because he wasn’t Donald Trump. With a political career of nearly 50 years behind him, Biden has been a much more conventional politician than Trump.

Here and now, he remains a controversial candidate, as an aging midfielder in an era marked by attacking players and confrontational flanks on both sides.

After a disappointing start In this spring’s nomination match, 77-year-old ring fox Joe Biden has so far played his cards well: With few exceptions, he has avoided the misstatements that have haunted him earlier in his career, and has managed to reach out a hand. to the left wing in his own party without intimidating. move the remaining voters away from the center. The historic election of Kamala Harris as the vice presidential candidate was a slow and sure move that was widely welcomed, and the Democratic fundraiser in August 2020 broke all records.

Democrats want Compare it to 1932, when its candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt almost had to stay alive and avoid great losses to ensure electoral victory. Herbert Hoover was a sugar-rich business leader who had first run for office when he was elected president and became one of the most unpopular presidents of all time after his passive handling of the economic crisis.

The Republicans either Compare 1968 or 1988, which were years of turbulent elections when your candidate won with a message of law and order. In 1988, Democrats first clearly led, but their candidate could not withstand the pressure of a negative and personal Republican election campaign. Then, however, the big change came earlier, and the Republicans clearly led seven weeks before the election.

In 1968, radical leftist protesters dominated the streets, but inside the polls, a conservative candidate claimed the support of the silent majority.

This is how Trump can win the election

The similarities between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump have become increasingly striking, and Trump invokes the support of Nixon’s silent majority. But polls so far don’t indicate great potential for progress for his law enforcement line. Trump has a high floor and a low ceiling of voters – apparently he can count on 40% support no matter what he says or does, but rears his head on the ceiling a little short of the 46% the latter received.

“I can always find a new wife”

As long as Trump has the most committed supporters, while Biden has the most, it can well be argued that Biden this year is the silent majority candidate. The self-centered Trump would rather compare himself to 2016, when he retaliated against all the gloomy predictions and won. Trump is also historically very good at raising money, but he has spent a lot of money without getting paid.

No postwar president he has been re-elected with such high unemployment in the fall of the election, or with such a low proportion of satisfied voters at the beginning of the election year.

Both the situation and the candidates are so special that too much emphasis should not be placed on previous experiences. The electoral campaign takes place in an exceptional situation during a pandemic and the candidates are more than 150 years old in total.

The most controversial postwar president makes the most outlandish accusations against his opponent, gets his passport stamp and is attacked book after book by former employees. Although the 2020 election campaign is perceived as unusually harsh and dramatic, the polls are far more stable than in any election campaign in modern times.

Biden’s leadership has been around 7-8% over the summer, having emerged there as a result of the crown crisis and Trump’s mismanagement. Trump got a small boost per thousand after the Republicans’ national meeting, but he’s still 7% behind.

We have to go back to The sensational re-election of Harry Truman in 1948 to find a candidate who won the US presidential election even though he was 7% behind in the polls two months before Election Day. As the Republican incumbent president in 1976, Gerald Ford went further than Trump is now behind, despite the fact that the Democrats won in the end. But Ford and Trump are two very different candidates, and in recent decades the trend has been toward smaller voter movements in presidential campaigns.

Anger against Trump is growing

Compared to mid-September 2016, Donald Trump is further behind now, while fewer insecure voters remain. A recent poll showed that 82% had decided and that Biden among them led with 8%. In that case, it doesn’t give Biden an unassailable advantage, but Trump obviously depends on winning a large majority of those who haven’t made up their minds.

So far in the 2000s The Republican candidate has won three of the five presidential elections, although the Democratic candidate has won the most votes in four of them.

In a politically polarized United States, where the outcome can be predicted in at least 35 states before the election campaign begins, presidential elections are primarily about getting the most votes in the auspicious states. Trump’s potential trump card in the re-election fight is that he is again better off there than at the national level. Trump may win over voters even with 1-3% fewer voters, but he’s still in a thin layer.

Biden clearly leads in the 20 states in which Clinton won in 2016. He also has about a 7% lead in Wisconsin and Michigan, two of the states in which Trump later won by a few per thousand.

They have one thing in common

The magic number The states that Biden should win is probably only 23, as the Democrats win most of the major states. Biden’s 23rd state may be Texas, Ohio or Georgia, where he is just behind the polling average, but Trump is the favorite in all three. Two best targets are Florida and North Carolina, where Biden is slightly ahead of the polls.

A big positive for Trump is that he is making progress in Florida, which is now also the state he represents and in which he will vote. But if Trump can win both, he must continue to win in both Arizona and Pennsylvania as well. Biden leads by about 5% there – he grew up in Pennsylvania and has increased the leadership in Arizona.

In short, Trump should go up at least 4% nationally and, furthermore, have almost all the margins with him in the auspicious states. Something dramatic must happen if you want to turn this around and win the battle for the United States.

Something could be one or more loss hedges from Biden. In 1996, speculation about 73-year-old challenger Bob Dole’s health increased when he fell off the stage during one of his speeches. In 2016, it caused a decline for Hillary Clinton who had to be propped up in a car due to a rapidly transient illness.

The bite is exposed by physical signs of weakness now, and must appear mentally sharpened in all three televised debates. He has always been better in debates with one opponent than with many, and he won the vice presidential candidate duels in 2008 and 2012. But in 2020 he is 77 years old and there as a presidential candidate.

Trump won the election despite the fact that according to opinion polls and commentators, he lost the debates last time, but he has higher expectations and is further behind now. The pressure is formidable on the two elders, as the election campaign enters a difficult endgame where Biden still has a clear advantage.

Lahlum is up to date on the book “Trump, Biden and the Battle of America.”