The RCP polling average (the average of the 10 most recent national polls) now puts Biden's lead at 8.1%. That's the highest it's been in quite some time and the jump is mostly the result of one poll (NBC/WSJ) which returned a 14% Biden lead (up from 8% in the previous iteration of the same poll). The three polls taken since the debate vary greatly (Biden by 7, 3, & 14) but the average of all three is 8%.
Many more polls will come out in the next day or two, but so far the evidence is that the debate may have moved the needle a titch in Biden's favor if at all. That might be accounted for by undecideds making up their minds.
It's commonplace of partisans for the trailing candidate to dismiss polls as unreliable and therefore irrelevant. Trump supporters tend to say that the size and enthusiasm of the crowds at his rallies is a better indicator. This of course is simply picking the snapshot that suits your bias. American history is chock-full of losing candidates with an enthusiastic following (William Jennings Bryan comes to mind). To dismiss the polls this year is to dismiss hundreds of polls by dozens of pollsters, nearly all of them showing Biden with a lead. A few days ago I heard that of 400 national polls over the course of the year, only 20 showed Trump's support as high as 45%. And just to be clear, 45 is a losing number.
There is no doubt that Trump's core 43% is very enthusiastic. But of course Trump needs to reach beyond that core, and he has not only been unable to, he seems not even to try. A strong denunciation of white supremacy even as he pivoted to make his point that most of the recent violence plaguing our cites has been the "leftist" variety would have helped. And reassuring America that a peaceful transition of power, should he lose the election, was guaranteed (of course!), that too would have allayed fears and possibly swung some undecideds into his column. He would have lost no votes (except perhaps for a few Proud Boys) but might have gained more.
The undecided voters are a dwindling cohort. If the polls are correct, even if every one of them went with Trump he still might well lose the election (which may explain why Trump doesn't care about them). My assumption is that these voters dislike both candidates and are trying to decide which is the lesser evil, or if not voting at all is the lesser evil. I think a bunch of them will chose the third option. Trump routinely complains about the media narrative concerning his character, and yet time and again, as at the debate, he feeds that narrative. This leaves the undecided voters with a confirmation of the narrative. Donald Trump's presidency has become the biggest "self-own" in American history.
* * *
See also:
It's late, but there's still time, by Pat Buchanan
After Trump, the GOP can still be saved from itself, by Andrew Bacevich. Andrew is addressing a question that interests me: the future of the GOP or more broadly the future of conservatism as a political movement.
No comments:
Post a Comment