As we enter the final weekend before the final day of this election season (there seems no good reason to use the term "election day" any more), Joe Biden's lead in the RCP polling average is just under 8%. The story that will be told about the polls in 2020 is their remarkable consistency over the course of many months. Preferences were settled months ago, it seems, and nothing that has happened since has had much of an impact on these preferences.
The battleground states are, however, much closer. Biden's average lead among them is 3.1%. I think it is safe to say that Biden will win the popular vote by a wider margin than Clinton did in 2016, and probably much wider. But those battleground states will decide the outcome in this election.
The early vote count now stand at 88 million. The early votes in Texas have already exceeded the total number of votes in that state in 2016. This indicates, obviously, a hefty increase in turnout, which most assume will be more helpful to Biden than to Trump.
Donald Trump is running one of the most bizarre reelection campaign's in history. As one might expect, he is running more on the platform of personality than anything else: "Vote for me and you'll get four more years of . . . me! What could be better than that?"
This tactic may provoke cheers from the loyal 43%, but it is a serious misreading of the mood of the country as a whole.
Sometimes a crisis is good for a campaign. It was the Obama administration, I think, that made famous the slogan, "Never let a crisis go to waste." In the midst of the emergency, the incumbent plays up his own leadership, all that he has done and his plans for the future to meet the crisis head on. He attempts to exude confidence while not minimizing the harm that the crisis has inflicted. He remains calm, but never seems out of touch or disconnected from the harsh realities that people are enduring. Listen to FDR's speeches during the Depression and WWII if you want some examples.
Trump has not bothered with any of this. I think Hillary Clinton ran a uniquely terrible campaign in 2016, partly because she was not able to suppress her disdain for large swaths of the country. But I think Trump has run the most incompetent campaign in my lifetime. It seems that he decided back in the late Spring or early Summer that taking the pandemic seriously had no electoral traction for him. It would be better, then, to dismiss it as a slight and passing inconvenience. Though 230,000 have died, he generalizes from his own experience and concludes, it's nothing. "Barron had it for, what, like 2 seconds!" He says thing you can't imagine someone saying at the bedside of a seriously ill Covid patient, or to the bereaved family of yet another victim.
You might also think he'd emphasize the economic successes under his leadership, the peace accords in the Middle East, and then of course one or two hallmark promises for a second term. He'd have begun with these themes months ago, and pounded these few succinct messages relentlessly (nowadays they call that "message discipline"). At the same time, his negative depictions of his opponent would represent a sort of parallel track, but the thing is, you can overplay this hand. It can start to seem like absurd fear-mongering. You make yourself look and sound a ranting fool if you do that. Rationality is reassuring during a crisis. Nothing expands your coalition like a confidence-building maturity, but Trump has never been capable of that.
The vast majority of Americans are not particularly enthused by political theater. In the long run we get sick of all the crazy. We want a calm and serious pilot, not some embittered clown chasing the spotlight around the stage. Political allegiances are sometimes set aside by the voter who inhabits this large middle-ground. This voter is at ease with compromise, and somewhat cynical about constant partisan squabbling. When one candidate seems, well, like nothing more than a slovenly narcissist with authoritarian tendencies, and the other seems to carry himself with dignity and respect for others, the choice is clear. In that situation, that moderate voter will choose calm sanity every time.
Which is why, while Trump has run a campaign marked by a volatile mix of incompetence and demagoguery, Biden has been brilliant. Just stay calm and let the other guy hang himself on his own rope, his advisors must have told him. That's what he's done, and it's working like a charm.
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Read also:
You're fired, by Bruce Gyory
Raucous 2016 gives way to subdued 2020, by Peggy Noonan
Trump: No, by Ramesh Ponnuru
Hell, no, by Kevin Williamson
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