The 2020 Presidential and Senate nowcast: Trump finds his issue
The 2020 Presidential and Senate nowcast: Trump finds his issue
Here is my weekly update on the 2020 elections, based on State rather than national polling in the past 30 days, since that directly reflects what is likely to happen in the Electoral College. Remember that polls are really only nowcasts, not forecasts. They are snapshots of the present; there is no guarantee they will be identical or nearly identical in early November.
I am afraid I have some bad news for those who think Trump did not have a convention bounce. In the past week, disapproval has eroded by 1.9% and approval has increased by 1.5%. Both of these have moved over 3% from their recent nadirs. I am sorry to tell you that Trump’s attacks on violent protests have been effective, presumably by convincing some Whites who were previously on the fence that “the animals” are loose and have to be brought to heel:
This is probably why Biden had a press conference in which he unreservedly condemned the violence, and Trump has continued to attack anyway.
In any event, here is the updated map through September 5. To refresh, here is how it works:
– States where the race is closer than 3% are shown as toss-ups.
– States where the range is between 3% to 5% are light colors.
– States where the range is between 5% and 10% are medium colors.
– States where the candidate is leading by 10% plus are dark colors.
There has been a spate of new polling, in which Biden’s numbers have generally weakened slightly, but without a major effect on the State totals. Nevada moved from “lean” to “likely” Biden, and Kentucky from “solid” to “likely” Trump. Conversely, both New Hampshire and Maine moved from “solid” to “likely” Biden.
Over the past 5 weeks, however, there has been an erosion in Biden’s “solid” plus “likely” Electoral College votes from 302 to 279. Even so, based on the current map Biden still just has to win the “solid” and “likely” States, and need not win any of the “lean Biden” States, in order to win the election.
There have also been several changes in the Senate map this week, and as the Presidential map, they have been in opposite directions:
On very sparse, as in 1, poll in the past month, Alaska moved from “likely GOP” to “toss-up,” and more importantly, heavily polled Iowa moved from “toss-up” to “lean Democrat.” Contrarily, South Carolina moved from “toss-up” to “lean GOP,” and Texas moved from “lean GOP” to “likely GOP.”
At current polling, if Democrats win all those seats rated “solid,” “likely,” and “lean Democratic,” they will have 51 Senate seats; up to 54 with the “toss-ups,” and 55 if they were to capture the “lean GOP” seat.
We are now at the Labor Day weekend. There is only one more jobs report before Election Day. Last Friday’s report continued to show progress, but at a slow rate. Trump will probably get a small boost out of the improvement in the economy, even though it is only to “less awful” levels. Meanwhile, new US coronavirus cases have leveled off at about 40,000 cases per day, while deaths have slowly declined to about 800 per day. The leveling off in cases suggests that we are not going to see any substantial improvement in the pandemic over the next few weeks. The public’s accurate perception that Trump has failed to contain COVID-19 is in my opinion now baked into the cake.
Thus I expect some continued incremental improvement in Trump’s position as voters who were leaning GOP “come home.” I see very little chance of a major Biden scandal, but a substantial chance that Trump will do something which will temporarily alienate several percent of voters.
In sum, I am comfortable saying that Biden will win a majority of the votes cast, or attempted to be cast, by the electorate. Trump’s hopes must be on interfering with the casting and counting of votes, and once again stealing an Electoral College victory by scaring Whites in the rust belt.
Thanks.
[Just the 1st two and last two paragraphs excerpted below.]
Sep. 4, 2020, at 11:57 AM
How Trump And COVID-19 Have Reshaped The Modern Militia Movement
Researchers warn there may be more violence.
In the video, the host of a local independent news radio program surveys the late-night shadows of a Kenosha, Wisconsin, car lot. You can just make out four men, long rifles in their hands, as they pace on top of the building. “We got militia on the roof here, and it’s pretty neat,” he says. On the ground, the videographer chats with other people he identifies as part of “the militia” — including an eager and excited-looking kid who tells the videographer his name is Kyle.
Kyle Rittenhouse would go on to allegedly kill two people and injure a third later that night. In the aftermath, the extent of his ties to militia activity — and militia activity itself — have been widely discussed: Are militias hate groups? Was Rittenhouse actually a part of a formal militia group? When people who identify as militia members show up in the middle of a protest … whose side are they on?…
…But targeting opponents of the White House means a drastic change in the character of the American militia movement, said Robert Churchill, a history professor at the University of Hartford who extensively researched the militia movement of the 1990s. The majority of militia members back then were radical libertarians, he said, agreeing with Jackson, but their opposition to the federal government broadly meant they weren’t a partisan force. In fact, that definition of militias — small, armed groups of civilians fighting against the government — has characterized these kinds of movements throughout American history, Churchill told us.
Until now. Given the way things are changing, the people who study the militia movement and have spent years talking to its members think there’s a risk of American militias becoming more like the militias of other, often politically unstable, countries. “What matters is if the movement becomes essentially a more traditional Latin American pro-regime paramilitary, which seems to be what Trump is trying to create or wants,” Churchill said.
At least it’s working in Texas, sort of.
Trump erases Biden’s lead in Texas
WASHINGTON – Texas remains a toss-up in the presidential race. But Democrat Joe Biden’s modest – and somewhat startling – lead over President Donald Trump has evaporated in the last two months.
From a 5-point edge in early July, Biden now lags Trump by 2 points among likely Texas voters in a poll released Sunday by The Dallas Morning News and University of Texas at Tyler.
Trump’s lead is 48-46. …
Related: 5 Boats Sink At Trump Boat Parade In Texas
There are Republicans in the edges who blow hot and cold on Trump. They overwhelmingly voted for Trump as the lesser of two evils when he ran against Hillary and I assume they will do so again because of abortion or gays or guns or just because he is not a Democrat. The difference this time is no one is going to sit this one out—well maybe some but less than in 2016–white college educated Republican women learned it was okay to vote for Democrats in 2018, there are no notable third party candidates to siphon off anti Trump votes and more Democrats than Republicans have been registered since 2016 in the battleground states. The moron in chief is flailing and I have to believe we have not heard the last of the Atlantic stories. He is a horrible, incompetent person and something over 50% of the population knows that.
The “bounce” is from the low end of his approval range for the last two years to the middle of his approval range of the last two years. Still underwater. Color me underwhelmed.
Even BLM is a small black separatist group I could care less about. They don’t speak for me and vice versa. Ignore them and you get little notice.
The fact that Trump is an incompetent goon does not mean that he won’t get reelected. And, he will muddy the water incessantly to make sure that he can whine about cheating when he loses. Provided that his attempts to fiddle the election don’t work. I’m not going to be convinced that he won’t hang onto power until Biden is sworn in, provided that happens.
If people who want Trump out fail to keep a sense of urgency about this election right up until January 20, anything can happen.
i noticed in my corner of Ohio that “Blue Line Unlimited” signs outnumber the Biden/Harris signs 6 to 1…so i agree with NDD that this is an issue Trump can win on; the question between now and November becomes how many of those who polled for Biden early on because of Trump’s handling of Covid return to Trump on the law and order issue…
I am beyond tired of this “law and order” nonsense.
You put a spin on what is obviously a 100% racist message and allow trump and his voters to talk about how they are not racists.
No, he is, and so are all of his voters.
End of story.
Stop giving them an out.
Oh, btw a hat tip to the most clueless comment I have heard in a long time: “BLM is a small black separatist group” . The ignorance is staggering.
The ransacking of Michigan Avenue in Chicago caught a lot of attention in Wisconsin. The number of Wisconsin residents that have visited downtown Chicago possibly outnumbers those visiting Milwaukee. Likewise the focal point of a lot of northwest Wisconsin business, entertainment, education is the Twin Cities, which is quite close to the Wisconsin border. That it suffered another intense bit of looting due to a suicide was noticed. Then Kenosha. Is there any reason to think that these events could be a pressure on the Democratic vote in November in Wisconsin? I sense that Democrats don’t really think it is going to be the kind of drag that could flip the state against the prevailing polling for Biden. On the order of problems for them it is at least third, maybe lower. Worry number one I think is a bit hard to discuss but is simply what happens if coronavirus situation feels a lot better in the coming month. Two is will there be any general sense that the candidate is not functioning well enough to actually be President if elected.. Some where after those two is this one.
EMike,
“…The ignorance is staggering.”
[No, the whiskey is staggering. May I please have some more?
The ignorance is just endemic within the long line of political SNAFU irrationalisms going back to 1968, but even earlier if one looks closely at how the New Deal began shriveling up once FDR’s body lay cold in the ground. We briefly had a second coming in MLK, but an assassin stopped that literally dead in its tracks.]
EMichael, assuming you were addressing my comment; it should be clear to everyone that when i talk of those supporting “Blue Line Unlimited,” i’m talking about those who’ve set themselves up to be opposed to Black Lives Matter, even if i don’t call them racists, so i hardly think i’m “putting a spin on” who they are…likewise, “law and order” have been racist buzzwords at least since Goldwater; i don’t think anyone misunderstands what i was talking about there . . . but among the rest of the population, racism isn’t black and white; it appears in many various shades of grey . . . there’s a big difference between the redneck on a barstool ranting about the niggers and the liberal white woman who voted for Obama but who still clutches her purse tighter when a black man appears on the same street
it’s those white liberals or independents who are vaguely uncomfortable in the presence of blacks who might be for Biden in good times, but who might vote for Trump if their unspoken or even unacknowledged fears get the best of them . . .
@Rjs,
Well said. Thanks.
RJS,
No, my comment was not directed at you, but to Bert.