Trump's re-election chances
This is not 2016
Trump is not immune to the laws of political physics
Who will win the election? That’s always on everyone’s mind this time every four years. Let me disclose now that I am not making any predictions about the outcome. We have more than 5 months to go and a lot can happen between now and then. There is a phenomenon that I want to debunk here, though. That is the idea, rarely said explicitly, that since Trump won last time when nobody thought he would that he is somehow immune to the laws of political physics.
Last time around, Trump was an underdog. The polling showed him behind. Election forecasters expected Clinton to win. As we all know, he did win although not in the popular vote. His surprising win still traumatizes many Democrats, many of whom think he is Teflon and cannot be stopped no matter what he does. This view is patently false.
From the beginning of his presidency, Trump has been unpopular. With a brief exception in January 2017, his numbers have been underwater his entire presidency. This was true despite a good economy for three years. In 2018, the Democrats took back the House of Representatives with their biggest margin since 1974. They also made gains at the state and local level. Despite having a terrible Senate map, they only lost 2 seats.
Legislatively, the only significant thing Trump has signed is tax cuts. His other major initiative, gutting the ACA, failed and was toxically unpopular. The rest of his agenda has been mostly bluster and symbolic moves.
His handling of COVID, while initially somewhat popular, is now decisively underwater. He trails Joe Biden in the polls by an average of 5.5 points. According to the latest Fox News poll, Biden’s backers are slightly more enthusiastic about voting than Trump’s backers are. Biden leads on every issue except the economy, which Trump only leads by 3 points. If the election were held today, Biden would likely win and possibly very comfortably.
2016 v 2020
Let’s remember a few things about 2016. First, Trump had an opponent with awful favorable numbers and who did everything she could to make them bad. This was true from her handling of her email scandal (yes, it was a legitimate scandal) to her lack of transparency on basically everything to her massive conflicts of interest. Worst was her being under FBI investigation, which leaked out new information on a regular basis. While Trump had a new controversy every hour, she had the same one over and over again.
One major thing Trump had going for him was no governing record to attack. He had the benefit of being seen as an outsider who would drain the swamp and not be beholden to anyone. He no longer has either of those advantages. In fact, his approval rating has been hurt the most not by his behavior, but by pursuing unpopular policies like healthcare and tax cuts. While Republicans were on offense on healthcare in 2016, it is Democrats who now have a major advantage on it.
On top of that, Trump is now presiding over a pandemic that he has botched. While he is not (yet) getting blamed for the tanking economy, he can no longer run on it being the “best ever.” His slogan of “Keep America Great” will need some serious fine tuning.
Another difference between Biden and Clinton is that the latter had a very hard time taking advantage of Trump’s many weaknesses. On almost every problem he had, such as ethics, integrity, arrogance, transparency, etc., she had problems of her own. The only real argument she could make was that she was not nearly as bad as him. Biden so far has decent favorable ratings, is not seen as a liar or corrupt, is not awash in conflicts of interest and is not under FBI investigation.
Fairly or not, Clinton was a polarizing figure for more than 25 years. Few things animate Republicans more than attacking her. While Joe Biden will be attacked plenty, he is not nearly as polarizing a figure. Despite all of her liabilities, Clinton still won the popular vote and lost the Electoral College by less than 80,000 votes in three states. There is a good chance that absent James Comey’s last minute intervention, she would have won.
What is also instructive is looking at Trump’s margins Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He won by less than 1% in each. His share of the vote was not much better than Mitt Romney. The difference is that Clinton did much worse than Obama. The story here is not Trump the juggernaut. It’s Clinton the terrible candidate.
Let’s not forget the 2016 Democratic primary either. Clinton won, but not without having to break a sweat. Bernie Sanders eventually endorsed her, but not until July long after it was clear he was not going to win. This time around, Bernie Sanders endorsed Biden in April. What was expected to possibly be a contested convention has instead ended quickly and cleanly. The Democrats vastly more united this time around.
Not only is Biden leading in the polls, but his lead is bigger than Clinton’s was during this time and has been much more stable. In fact, Biden has not trailed in a head-to-head poll this whole year. While Clinton led most polls, there were ties and Trump led in a few. Biden’s average vote share is around 48%, which higher than Clinton ever got throughout the 2016 campaign. His lead is the steadiest on record.
Despite these differences from 2016, Trump has not adjusted. He has only ever run against Hilary Clinton. He has so far not been able to settle on a consistent message against Biden. He cannot decide if Biden is corrupt, is sleepy, is in bed with China, is a swamp creature, an insider, too old, etc. He’s essentially throwing everything at a wall and seeing what sticks with no real success thus far. Just as Democrats found out last time, a muddled message is likely to go in one ear and right out the other for most voters.
Looking to previous Presidents who won re-election after a bad midterm, one consistent pattern is that they reached out to people beyond their base. Reagan essentially saved Social Security from going under. Clinton signed Welfare Reform. Obama tried to enact a grand bargain on spending and taxes. Trump is doing no such thing. This is incredibly risky for any incumbent, let alone an unpopular one. His hope for re-election was to run on a good economy against a self-proclaimed socialist and now he has neither.
Trump does have at least two good things going for him that he did not have in 2016. One is better favorable numbers. In 2016, it was 20 points underwater. Today it around 11 points underwater. Still, that is hardly a good number. The only way Trump really can win again is if Biden’s numbers crater. If the election is a referendum on Trump, he loses. But because of the pandemic, his ability to define Biden has been hindered.
The other good thing he has going for him is a money advantage. As the 2016 campaign and the 2020 Democratic primary showed, though, this does not guarantee a win. Biden won the primary despite spending little money overall and next to nothing in some states. Despite starting off at a cash disadvantage, Biden has begun to close the gap and will have plenty of money to compete in the fall.
Trump is no strategic genius
There has long been a temptation to see Trump’s provocations or tweets as being designed to distract and control the narrative. I have never bought into that. He does that because that is who he is. In any event, the idea that acting like he does is beneficial to his re-election is senseless. The fact is for three years of his presidency, the economy was doing well. A President Rubio, Kasich or Bush would have enjoyed approval ratings in the 60s and re-election chances in the 90s. Trump has been stuck in the low 40s and even with a good economy was no better than 50-50 of winning re-election.
While his conduct has not caused his numbers to crater, it has likely put a hard ceiling on them no matter how well the economy does. This is plain political malpractice. He had the benefit when he first came in of very low expectations. On Earth 2, he started off his presidency pushing for an infrastructure bill and had bipartisan support. Had he done that and acted like a normal, decent person, his party would likely still control the House. Of course, if he did all that he would not be Trump.
A great example of his lack of strategy is the ongoing stimulus negotiations. It is in his best interest to have as big a package passed as possible. Avoiding mass layoffs is crucial to not having a recession become a depression and speeding up the recovery. Trump has largely been absent from those discussions. He has even suggested he opposes continuing it and wants to the economy to “re-open.” He has emphasized the damage from the closure ahead of curbing the virus.
This is widely out of step with public opinion. The dominant fear is that things will open too soon, not that they will be closed too long. This is not a 50-50 split. It is closer to 2-1 or higher. Being so decisively on the wrong side of public opinion on a major issue people will be voting on is a great way to lose.
Trump has also opposed voting by mail even though it, too, is widely popular. He also does not wear a mask in public even though that is what vast majorities of people do. Long story short, when it comes to COVID, he is decidedly on the wrong side of public opinion on almost everything. There is no strategic genius behind this. It is as if he’s campaign solely for the 20-30% of the country that worships him.
Two ways of looking at 2016
In my opinion, there are two broad, competing views of the 2016 election that are most prevalent. One view is of it is that he is a master communicator and knows how to manipulate people and the media to his ends. In this view, he is always a step ahead of everyone and always setting a trap for opponents or the media to fall into. He has been able to unlock a coalition of voters who will propel him to re-election and nobody can figure out how to stop him. While this description is somewhat simplistic, it gets to the core of this view: Trump is so good at what he does that the laws of political physics no longer apply.
This view ignores the results of the 2018 midterms and other elections that Republicans have lost before and since. It also assumes that he can talk his way out of everything. While it is true he has been able to lie and BS his way through everything his whole life, COVID is the first thing he has ever encountered where that will not work. On most of the bad things he has done as President, such as Putin worshipping, Ukraine extortion, daily scandals, bigotry and open corruption, they were abstract enough that most voters could not connect them to their lives.
COVID is no abstraction. The fact that people are sick and dying every day is indisputable. No amount of downplaying or lying will change that. This is the first time he has ever faced a crisis he did not start and it is clear to most he has bungled it. He has all but given up trying to contain the virus and is instead mostly flailing. He has resorted to bragging about how great he is and telling states to re-open. Otherwise, he is promoting a new conspiracy theory almost every week, i.e. Obamagate, Joe Scarborough committing murder.
While Trump has little self-awareness, he does seem to have an idea that he is in trouble. His boasts about how great a job he has done along with his usual Twitter rants are not strategic decisions. He is just grasping for straws. This is the first time in his life where he is being held responsible for his actions, whether he likes it or not. No amount of blame shifting is going to change that.
Another way to look at the 2016 election is to see it as something of a fluke. This is not to say Trump cannot win again, but to say that to win last time, he needed every single star to line up just right. He needed: the other party in the White House for 8 years, a toxic opponent, not have a governing record to attack, gain a tiny edge in just enough places and have a last minute October surprise help him over the edge. While he may have some things going for him in 2020, he lacks most of those.
While Trump could still win, here is another possibility to think about at least as much: this is as good as it gets for him. He is trailing Biden now and it only gets worse from here on out. This may not show up in polls right away, but by the time November rolls around, he will be a massive underdog. In fact, it is more likely Biden wins in a blowout than Trump wins at all. His only hope is a major economic turnaround and that needs to start now.
Biden is a good fit for 2020
Contrary to Twitter and some former campaign strategists, Biden is actually running a good campaign and is a good fit for the situation we are in. He is calm. He shows empathy. He has vast experience dealing with crises, including economic and disease crises. He is not a fire breather or a revolutionary, but someone who projects stability and sanity. He is not threatening in any way and does not scare away voters he will need to win.
Trump needed two things going for him to win again. He needed to be able to brag about the economy and he needed an opponent who he could use to scare voters to him or towards not voting. He does not have the former and will likely struggle with the latter. Biden is well-positioned to continue Democratic gains in the suburbs and to keep the rest of the Democratic coalition together. Come November, barring something totally unforeseen, Biden is a massive favorite to win.
To reiterate, this is not to say Biden will win. Nothing is set in stone. Biden could implode somehow although it’s hard to see what that would look like (no, stupid gaffes don’t count). What it is to say is that Trump lacks many of the things he needed to have in 2016. Trump should not be underestimated, but he definitely should not be overestimated either. If I were a betting man, I would certainly bet on Biden winning right now.