Top Lines: US Economy And Trade Policy | 2020 Election And Political Analysis | Coronavirus Crisis | Protecting Our Elections And Disinformation | Immigration And The Border | Countering Illiberalism's Rise
As we’ve written in our recent 2020 Polling Roundups, NDN has never been a subscriber to the Trump has magical powers school of political analysis. Without the help of Jill Stein, Russia and the Comey Letter, Clinton would have likely beaten Trump by 5-8 points in 2016. Trump’s job approval has been minus 10 or worse for more days than all other Presidents in their first term combined since polling was invented. He’s led his party to three consecutive disastrous elections (2017/18/19) and he got himself Impeached for trying to cheat in a crude and ridiculous way in the 2020 elections. This is not the record of a political mastermind.
The President received only 46% of the vote in 2016 even with lots of help from Russia and the FBI, and his party only got to 44.8% in 2018 losing a very high turn out midterm 44.8 to 52.4 (8.6 pts). As there will be no third party candidate this time, Trump will have to get to at least 48% to have a shot at winning the Electoral College this year, meaning he’ll have to win 2-3% pts of the vote he HAS NEVER HAD to be competitive. With civil unrest, Great Depression level unemployment, a still yet quelled pandemic, and Putin lite law and order bluster, is this likely? We don’t think so.
Let’s look at where things stand five months out from the 2020 election:
Job Approval – Using 538’s excellent tracker, the President’s job approval is 42.7% favorable, 53.8% unfavorable, -11.1 pts. On Election Day 2018 it was 44/52.4, -8-4, on a day where he was beaten by 8.6 pts. So the President is significantly lower today than he was in a very high turnout midterm where he only received 44.8% and lost by 8.6 pts.
Congressional Generic – On Election Day 2016 Democrats led in 538’s Congressional Generic tracker by 1 point, 45/44, and on Election Day 2018 it was 50.7/42.0, almost 9 pts. Today Democrats lead 48.7/40.9, 8 points. This question – your Congressional preference – suggests the overall structure of the 2020 election is far more hostile to Republicans than in 2016, and remarkably similar to the 2018 outcome.
Party ID – We tend to put a lot of stock in this number, as it is the answer to the basic question of what Party do you currently affiliate with. We are going to do a bit more work on this in the coming weeks as not every poll reports this number, and it is not tracked the same among all polls. But today we will use a single poll as a surrogate for an aggregate, one that has been in the middle of the pack of polls recently, the daily GSG/GBAO tracker. Today it has Party ID at 49% Dem, 41% Republican, 8 pts.
Trump Biden Head to Heads – Using Real Clear Politics’ tracker, the current average is 49.9% Biden, 42.1% Trump, 7.8 pts. Two polls, Monmouth and ABC/WaPo had Biden’s lead in the double digits this week.
The Electoral College – Assuming MI and PA go to Biden, Trump must win all three of the next tier – AZ, FL, WI - to win, while also holding on to all of the next tier – GA, IA, NC, OH, TX. In recent polling Biden leads in every one of these states except for Iowa and Texas, which are functionally tied. Fox News polls released yesterday had Biden up by 9 in Wisconsin (!!!!), 4 in Arizona and 2 in Ohio. Trump is far below where he wants to be right now.
The NYTimes has quite a story today which reports on how Trump world is coming to terms with how badly the election is going for him right now. And don’t forget that all those elections Dems won in 2018 in these states – from Congress to governorships and in state houses – will make the collective Democratic voice in these states much louder this year, helping blunt the traditionally powerful Trump noise machine.
The Senate – In our analysis last week we noted that Republicans are not performing well in any of the 10 seats they are defending this cycle. Most of their incumbents are in the high 30s and low 40s, disaster territory for an incumbent this late in the cycle. The only state where Rs are even hitting 45 now is GA, and in one recent poll Senator Purdue trailed Ossoff, and Senator Loeffler was at 32%!
As Simon was quoted in the NYTimes: “The Republican brand seems depressed across the board,” Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist and founder of the NDN, said in an interview. “A lot of time senators can insulate themselves from the vagaries of the national electorate, but that doesn’t seem to be happening this time.”
Key Takeaways - So putting all this together we see Republican incumbents for President and Senate now living at 41-42-43, and a margin across many different measures of 7-8-9 for the Democrats. One can only find a poll or two taken in the past several months where ANY Republican in ANY competitive state is even at 45%. Trump’s job approval is 42.7; his head to head w/Biden is 42.1; Party ID and Congressional Generic is 41; most incumbent GOP Senators are topping out at 42 right now. When numbers line up like this, and it is not always the case in elections that they do, a clear structure has developed within the electorate, and that structure, that dynamic is as negative for GOP as any election we here at NDN can remember at this point in an election cycle.
So for Trump to win he and his Party are going to have to travel from 41-42-43 today to 48-49 in November. That my friends is a very very heavy lift, and it is particularly difficult for what is in essence the incumbent party. Looking back over the past generation of US politics, you will be hard pressed to find any incumbent in a Federal race who was able to come back and win from 41-42-43 this late in the cycle. And as we said, we don’t believe that Trump has magical powers, can defy traditional politics physics. He has never broken 46% in a race, and he enters the summer with America more battered and challenged than perhaps in any time in the past 100 years.
Where this election wants to be today is Biden winning 53-55 to 45-47, and the Senate flipping. Where it will be five months from now we don’t know, but based on all this data we’ve reviewed with you we believe we are more likely to see a Democratic wave this fall than Republicans holding onto either the Presidency or Senate.
We believe when we look back at this time in future years, we will view President Trump as having been both an incompetent President and political strategist; incompetent but also very very lucky.
Simon, Chris, Georgia, and the rest of the NDN team
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Contributions or gifts to NDN are not deductible for federal tax purposes. Contributions of gifts to The New Policy Institute are tax-deductible. |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
800 Maine Avenue SW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20024
www.ndn.org @NDN_NPI
If you believe you received this message in error or wish to no longer receive email from us, please [link removed].
