Monday, September 28, 2020

36 Days and Counting

 We start the week with Biden holding on to a 7% lead in the RCP Polling average. This is in the middle of the range he's occupied for months now, with his lead fluctuating around 7%. It has ticked upward over the weekend after an ABC News/Wash Post poll gave Biden a 10% lead and a NY Times/Sienna poll put it at 8%.

The bad news for Trump continues, most of it self-inflicted. Just when all the emphasis was on his failure to guarantee a concession of power if he should lose the Nov. 3 election, the NY Times released its story on Trump's taxes. This news seems big, and the Times promises to release more findings over the coming days. In other words, a drumbeat of bad news for Trump.

This kind of thing seems likely to keep the few remaining undecided voters from drifting back into the Trump camp before the election.

Of course, this story will itself be supplanted by another within a day or two. That new story will likely be the reaction to tomorrow night's debate. Both sides will try to spin the facts into a win for their guy. The media will be looking for a sound-byte that can encapsulate the race (a "where's-the-beef?" moment). I will be curious to see whether the polls move at all as a result. We won't know that until next week, I suppose. If they don't--if Biden maintains his lead--you might expect more risk-taking from Trump in the next debate.

Unless, of course, Trump is actually trying to lose the race, which sometimes seems like a quite plausible surmise.

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See also:

Trump's Tax Returns Show He's a Populist Fraud

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