I'll cut right to the chase: Joe Biden is going to win this thing pretty easily. It could be what they call in layman's terms a landslide. None of the political press is going to tell you that the president of the United States is going to get crushed in an election. That doesn't make headlines, except maybe after the fact. I said on Twitter in March, "It's not whether Biden is going to win, but by how much."
Here's what I see: there are swing states everywhere, which would be fine, but for the fact that they're in the wrong places. That is, the president should not be fighting for so-called "red states". North Carolina is always decently close, but a Republican in decent position for re-election shouldn't have to worry about it. Texas is one of the most Republican states in the country. It's the "new" home base of the Republican political dynasty, the Bush family. No Republican president should have to fight for Texas. Georgia is in play; that's the same story: it shouldn't be happening.
Arizona never goes to the Democrats, not since Bill Clinton. Biden appears to be leading in Arizona by a healthy margin. Please bear in mind that Mitt Romney, who lost fairly convincingly, won Arizona by more than nine points.
Trump absolutely needs Florida to win the election, and that too is competitive. What about Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania? You'll recall these states that decided the election, because Trump carried them narrowly, and Hillary Clinton absolutely needed them. All three are slipping away fairly convincingly from Donald Trump.
Trump's supporters are fond of shouting, "Hillary had a polling lead, too!" True, as far as it goes. But here's the facts: the polls weren't that wrong. The polls showed significant tightening in the race, even in the final week. Trump's victory was plausible, and in fact occurred. James Comey functioned as an October surprise last time, and it worked. The voters were pretty tepid in their support for Hillary Clinton anyway, and a huge proportion of late deciders went for the challenger, Trump. (Technically, it was an open election, but I think it fair to put Clinton in the role of the incumbent after eight years of Obama.) Challengers are never held to account before the fact on the promises they make, and the uproar concerning Trump's character was so fierce for so long, that a great number of white men probably just decided that a bunch of women and minorities were being sensitive. Or it was the "liberal media" or whatever you like.
But this election is a referendum on the incumbent. Even if some significant portion of the electorate does not blame Trump for the troubles related to his handling of the coronavirus, the pandemic itself took away his special advantage on the economy. An incumbent widely seen as at least distasteful cannot lose his advantage on the economy, especially when he is perceived as lacking empathy.
Let's get back to the numbers. What you'll see in every summer with an incumbent president going into an election year is a malaise of approval ratings in the mid-40s, and then sometime in late July, when actual voters start paying attention to political news, and begin to think about how they will assess their choices in the fall, you usually see the president's numbers improve to the high 40s, or more. If the president has an approval rating at 47 or 48% on election day, the incumbent will likely win. There is some non-negligible segment of the electorate that will choose third parties, or not vote at all. Take an honest look at where Trump is right now. I'll give you my upshot: I don't think he'll get near 47%. In the national polls, Biden is pegging pretty close to 50% or higher, and averaging about 48% in the battleground states. Trump trails in most states on both counts. We might be able to say that whoever hits that "incumbency number" and hits it consistently, is going to be the president.
What do I think about the debates? I think the debates are Biden's to lose. If Biden has some sort of catastrophic performance in all of them, the undecideds and tepid supporters currently supporting him could stay home, or vote for Trump. Usually though, debates reinforce the narratives and thought processes of the voters. If it is ever said that a debate shifted an election, it ought to be said that whatever the big moment was reinforced something the electorate already thought.
The quintessential example is Reagan in 1980. When he asked, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" he had the benefit of being the challenger, against an incumbent who seemed overwhelmed by events. When Reagan asked the question, nothing President Carter could say in response could dislodge the perception that the overwhelmed president was making a last-ditch effort to scare voters away from his opponent. He added, "there you go again," which added to the perception. But the debate didn't shift the perception; it simply clarified the perception. If Donald Trump is a malignant narcissist with a shocking lack of empathy, who has no ability or willingness to actually confront the problems he has faced or created, something in the debate will confirm that perception. It's already out there. Strategically, the Biden team needs to try to find a way to reinforce this perception during the debate. Maybe anger the president into a random argument, the thrust of which challenges his sense of self. A normal person will somehow seem to accept the criticism, and somehow deflect it. Sometimes, a little joke at one's own expense will seem endearing, and take the bite out of an attack. Trump can't do this, and Biden's team knows this.
Conversely, I think Trump's best line of attack will pertain to Biden's age, and perceived lack of mental acuity. This is a dangerous attack, because Trump's own vocabulary indicates an age-related lack of mental acuity, or worse. But I think it's the best they've got. If Biden can't hack it, some segment of the electorate may hand the keys back to Trump, even knowing all of his flaws, and decide hopefully that we can do better in four years. I don't think that attacking Harris will help Trump. I think the middle of the electorate understands that it's Biden's show on the Democratic side. He's not a Trojan horse, because he wasn't fundamentally that exciting of a moderate candidate. If you wanted to use a moderate to hide radical influence, why not Mayor Pete? Why not Harris herself? Biden won the primary, because he is a deliberate contrast to the weaknesses of Donald Trump. Politics is much like sports; it's not about the absolute level of talent; it's the match-up.
If they have an October surprise in the Trump camp, it had better be a good one. Maybe they should have two or three. They're going to need them.
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