Monday, September 21, 2020

43 Days and Counting

 The RCP polling average, which covers all the polling of the last 14 days, now had Biden's lead up to 6.5% (from a low of 5.9%). Five of the last six polls have the lead at 8 or 9%, with the Rasmussen poll being the odd one out, showing Trump with a 1% lead.

There has been a remarkable consistency to these polls, and if they remain study and yet Trump does win (due to some segment of the voting public that the pollsters failed to account for, AKA the shy Trump voter), that would surely lead to a massive reassessment of polling methods.

What seems clear from this is that the violence in some of our cities, and Trump's resulting focus on "law & order," has not produced a noticeable tilt in the national polling. That could be because those voters who have made up their minds are truly settled, and there is nothing that can make them change their preference. Meanwhile, those who have not made up their minds are a relatively small cohort.

If all that is so, then it bodes well for Biden, ill for Trump. Add to that the fact that as each day passes the total number of people that have yet to vote grows smaller, which lessens the impact of late-breaking events (the proverbial October Surprise, a lousy debate performance, etc.). What will it take for an increasingly desperate Trump to move the needle?

Perhaps the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice will give Trump that issue. I suspect that the voters that Trump has lost since 2016 are people who voted him quite reluctantly then, but who could not bring themselves to vote for Hillary Clinton. These voters never warmed to Trump, never supported him wholeheartedly, and now they have a more acceptable Democratic alternative. This phenomenon might account for the fact that Trump's support among working-class Whites has waned significantly. So maybe a fight over the Supreme court vacancy will bring them back around. Michael Brendan Dougherty at The National Review explains this possibility well in The Vacancy Fight May Save Trump's Campaign.

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See also:

Trump and Biden's Wild West Showdown


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