Last week, a friend called me with concerns about the presidential race, something that repeats often during a typical week. We all have legitimate reasons to be terrified of a second Donald Trump presidency.
In response, I sketched out the reasons why I think President Joe Biden currently has a narrow but real advantage. Now, I’m sharing it with you all.
1) Trump is tied in polling, even though people aren’t paying attention
It’s an old political adage that voters do not start paying attention to campaign season until after Labor Day. A May 13 Gallup poll found that 71% of Americans were paying attention to the race, which means that a third weren’t. And the numbers were most pronounced among independents, with just 61% paying attention. This is particularly noteworthy because, for one, a significant number of potential voters haven’t seen Trump’s latest erratic, grievance-addled performances. Also, a Sienna poll for The New York Times found that 17% of voters blamed Biden for the loss of abortion rights. As more people begin to tune in, those misconceptions will be corrected.
And yet, despite those challenges, the polling is still essentially tied. In fact, take a look at the numbers in some of the polling, and the undecideds are ludicrously high. An Ipsos poll for Reuters has it at 41 to 39 in Trump’s favor. YouGov is at 42 to 40 for Trump. A Civiqs poll for Daily Kos pegs it evenly at 45 to 45. And Morning Consult shows 44 to 43 for Biden. Given that Trump has never hit 47% in his two elections and there’s no evidence he’s expanded his base of support, the biggest challenge is getting reluctant Biden voters to show up. That will happen when the race begins in earnest.
2) Where is Trump’s growth going to come from? He’s maxed out demographically
Trump got 46.1% of the popular vote in 2016 and 46.8% in 2020. Since then, his aging base has, well, exited the electorate at greater rates than the Democrats’ younger core base, and that’s without the anti-vax COVID-19 assist.
You can see Trump flailing in his attempt to find new voters. There was his disastrous speech at the Libertarian National Convention, during which he lost his cool on stage, petulantly shooting back, “maybe you don’t want to win.” Or his comically inept efforts to woo Black voters, like his rally at a Black church that somehow was filled mostly with white people.
One group that is open to Trump is young white men who, feeling alienated in the current political climate, are politically diverging drastically from their peers.
3) As people learn that Trump’s responsible for Dobbs, it’ll bleed support
Already mentioned above, but worth underscoring. Abortion and democracy were the two issues that propelled Democrats to an atypical, ahistorical victory in the 2022 midterm elections, despite Biden’s enduring personal unpopularity. Abortion was so powerful and dominant an issue that it overcame voter frustrations about inflation at a time when inflation was significantly worse than current rates.
Nothing in the two years since has lessened the impact of abortion. To the contrary, more people have learned that abortion is, indeed, health care thanks to stories like this one in People magazine (audience size: 85 million). This is no longer a niche issue in the political press. It’s gone mainstream, which explains why the pro-abortion side has won every ballot initiative, even in deep red states like Kansas and Kentucky, since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
And instead of laying low, Republicans are gunning hard for in vitro fertilization and birth control, and GOP lawmakers are helpless to stand in the way. Rather than defang the issue, Republicans are digging deeper.
4) Trump’s conviction will take its toll over time. Polling was brutal for him on that
I wrote up the numbers here. In short Trump can’t afford to bleed any of his support in a tied race. What does his conviction do? Bleed support.
And three weeks after I wrote that story, polling is still showing how Trump’s convictions are causing lasting damage to his campaign. Last Tuesday, an Ipsos poll for Politico found that 9% of Republicans and 15% of independents are “less likely to support Trump” because of his guilty conviction. Additionally, 23% of independents said the conviction was “very important” to their vote, and another 7% said it was “somewhat important.”
Remember, Trump needs to expand his support. Right now, this is costing him.
5) Dems are overperforming in special elections, which are actual elections—not polls
POLLS POLLS POLLS DID YOU SEE THE LATEST POLL?
I’m on record saying that pre-Labor Day polls are interesting but not determinative. But you know what is better than polls? Actual election results. Our own Daniel Donner did the research and found that “special elections have indeed proven to be useful in analyzing the election environment. There is still a good long-term correlation between the results of special elections and November elections.”
And what do this cycle’s special elections tell us? The same thing they were telling us in 2022 when they presaged that year’s unlikely Democratic victories: Democrats are outperforming Biden’s 2020 benchmark numbers.
Some corners of the political punditry are heavily invested in discrediting this theory, mostly by arguing that a presidential electorate doesn’t look like a special election electorate. But it does demonstrate which party is more energized, activated, and likely to turn out—all critically important factors in any general election. Of course, as far as the media is concerned, Democrats always lose. Are Republicans more energized? That’s bad for Democrats. Are Democrats more energized? Bad for Democrats.
But I’ll be consistent, and Donner’s data backs it up: The more energized party has the better chance to win. This isn’t rocket science. It’s (data-supported) common sense.
6) Trump underperformed his polling numbers in primaries
I love this Daily Kos headline: “Polls still love Trump more than voters do.” And it’s true. During the contested part of the Republican primary campaign, Trump consistently underperformed his poll numbers. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn has some theories on why that’s the case. My guess? It’s something we’ll see further down the line—people who support Trump are less scared of the alternative than those who are terrified of him.
But if nothing else, the notion that polls are missing some kind of hidden Trump vote isn’t borne out by the facts.
7) Inflation is under control but, yes, still problematic
Republicans couldn’t make inflation a determinative issue in 2022, despite having all of the historical advantages of an “out” party in a midterm election, a Democratic president with approval ratings in the 30s, and inflation rates approaching double digits.
Now? It’s back down to 3.3%, fast approaching historical norms and is the best among the world’s top economies. Republicans will obviously make this their issue, and in politics, if you’re explaining, you’re losing. It’s a loser issue for Democrats, but one that is less compelling than it was two years ago, and one which even then didn’t hold particular sway in the election.
One way in which Democrats can jujitsu the issue is to hammer Trump’s insane tariff proposal.
8) Republicans have been trying to make immigration a major election issue for years, but it hasn’t worked
For reasons not worth exploring now, Republicans have won the immigration debate.
Last week’s tragic news that Rachel Morin was murdered by an undocumented immigrant from El Salvador will only add fuel to the fire. The issue is now so toxic that Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who’s as reliably liberal as they come, expressed the need for immigration reform. Having busloads of immigrants drive up to cities across the country is not a tenable strategy.
On the flip side, Republicans have never been able to make immigration a particularly salient election issue. It’s just too abstract for most people to actually care about, once we get past the performative hysterics. And Trump handed Biden a gift when he sabotaged the deal that he had cut with congressional Republicans. It’s much harder for Trump to say he can get something done when he is literally the reason Republicans didn’t get an explicitly conservative immigration law passed.
Just note, the reason Biden negotiated that deal was because immigration hurts Democrats. He was neutering the issue for November. Still, Trump’s intransigence helps mitigate the damage.
9) Democrats are more scared of Trump than Republicans are of Biden, which impacts intensity
Oooh, this is a big one: A March NORC poll for The Associated Press found that “Democrats feel more fear and anger about Trump than Republicans do for Biden.” And it makes sense.
If Biden wins, the economy improves for Republicans, especially those who are depending on government benefits to survive. The worst that could happen would be for abortion rights to advance, but that part of the Republican base is already at max participation. Significant chunks of Republican voters don’t care.
On the other hand, if Trump wins, we literally lose rights. We already did, and he’s gunning for more. That is far more terrifying, and fear is a potent political motivator.
10) Trump is an incoherent mess who is more interested in airing grievances than putting forth a focused, popular agenda
Seriously, what the hell is Trump running on? Are Republicans actually going to bother having a party platform this time, or will they punt like they did in 2020? Because as of now, the Republican platform is “whatever Trump is rambling about at this moment.”
There’s a reason that Biden is eager to get Trump to debate this week: He knows that Trump can’t string together two coherent sentences to save his life. And while Trump’s endless list of grievances might motivate some of his supporters, he needs to expand beyond his core base.
11) Trump is siphoning donor money from Republicans for legal expenses and personal grifts
As of a few weeks ago, Trump had already spent $100 million of donor money on his legal expenses. He’s moving millions more to his businesses, happy to gouge the campaign. That’s money that won’t be used to attack Biden on television, or to open up a field office, or to fund direct mail, or to fund a million other more politically useful resources.
Meanwhile, Democrats at all levels are raising dramatically more money than their Republican counterparts.
Money isn’t the determining factor in politics, but it does matter.
Here are some stories of note:
Trump Demands a Cut of GOP Candidates’ Funding if They Use His Name or Likeness While Campaigning
Trump campaign warns GOP candidates not to fundraise off Trump’s conviction
Trump tells donors to give money to him, not Republicans ‘in name only’
Democratic committees are out fundraising GOP committees this election cycle
Trump’s Campaign Was Just a Scammy Money Grab All Along
So that’s the list I shared with my friend this week. There are other reasons to be optimistic, but let’s keep it simple for now. We’ll have plenty of opportunity to adjust the list over the coming weeks and months as we hit the stretch run of this election cycle.
Hopium Chronicles’ Simon Rosenberg joins Markos to discuss the “red wave-ification” of the economy and how prepared Democrats are for November. There is still work to do but we have a better candidate—and we have the edge.
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