Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
In the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregate, Donald Trump’s ratings with all polls are 41.4% approve, 54.7% disapprove (net -13.3%). With polls of registered or likely voters, Trump’s ratings are 41.9% approve, 54.5% disapprove (net -12.6%). Since my article three weeks ago, Trump’s net approval has improved about two points.
In FiveThirtyEight’s national aggregate of Joe Biden vs Trump polls, Biden’s lead has narrowed to a 50.0% to 42.5% margin, from a 50.3% to 41.2% margin three weeks ago. In the key states, Biden leads by 7.7% in Michigan, 7.4% in Wisconsin, 6.0% in Pennsylvania, 5.1% in Florida and 3.4% in Arizona.
On current polling, Pennsylvania is the tipping-point state. If Trump wins all states more favourable for him than Pennsylvania, and Biden wins Pennsylvania and other states that are better for him, Biden wins the Electoral College by 278 Electoral Votes to 260. But the issue for Biden is that Pennsylvania is about 1.5% more pro-Trump than the national average.
Trump’s gains come despite a coronavirus death toll that has trended up to over 1,000 daily deaths on most days. There have been over 160,000 US coronavirus deaths. However, the daily new cases have dropped into the 50,000’s from a peak of over 78,000 on July 24.
I believe Trump has gained owing to memories of George Floyd’s murder fading, and thus race relations becoming less important to voters. An improving economic outlook could also explain the poll movement, although the economic data is mostly pre-July, when the second coronavirus wave started. The US July jobs report will be released on Friday.
Despite the coronavirus’ effect on the US economy, Trump’s economic approval is close to a net zero rating according to the RealClearPolitics average. Nate Silver says that real disposable personal income increased sharply in April, contrary to what occurs in most recessions. This increase was due to the coronavirus stimulus, and explains Trump’s better economic ratings.
A danger for Trump is that extending the stimulus is stalled in Congress. This close to the election, Republicans should be eager to stimulate the economy, but there are many Republicans who are ideologically opposed to government spending.
Danger for Democrats in mail voting
Owing to coronavirus, much of the US election will be conducted by mail voting. Trump has been castigating mail voting, and this could depress Republican mail turnout. But there is a danger for Biden and Democrats in Trump’s attacks.
As Cook Political analyst Dave Wassserman says, mail votes can be rejected owing to voter error. Also, while there are some states that conduct elections mostly by mail, the US as a whole does not. There could thus be errors such as voters not being sent their ballot papers in time.
If Republicans mostly vote in person, while Democrats mostly vote by mail, it is likely to distort the election night results as mail votes usually take longer to count. Furthermore, mail errors, whether by election officials or voters, are likely to cost Democrats in close races. If Trump could get within five points in national polls, his advantage in the Electoral College and the mail issue could see him sneak another win.
In the RealClearPolitics Senate map, Republicans lead in 47 races, Democrats lead in 46 and there are seven toss-ups; that situation is unchanged from three weeks ago. If toss-up races are assigned to the current leader, Democrats lead by 51 to 49. If Trump’s numbers continue to improve, Republicans are likely to be boosted in congressional races.
I sent this to WB yesterday, but it was lost in the mail, and he’s only just posted it. So the numbers may be a bit out of date.
On the mail voting….
Arent we expecting a lot of the A rated pollsters to drop in the next week? ABC WP, NBC WallSt, Fox?
And it seems some of the others arent dropping national polls (pres or approval), rather concentrating on State, or senate or house districts.
It has long been suspected my many (including me) that the numbers will tighten once the campaign gets into swing. The next week and a bit, with more polling, will shake this out of the stats.
In other words, Florida is must-win for Trump, but more of a “nice to have” for Biden.
Polling over the next few weeks might be more favourable to Biden as the VP announcement and the Dem convention happen. Although, if it happens, it will be a bump that will simmer down – especially as Trump is going to have his convention later.
Nevertheless, the polls are doing exactly what I said they will do and right now Biden is still in a much healthier position than Clinton was in 2016.
I read the other day that Biden won’t be attending the convention in person. He’ll deliver his acceptance speech virtually from his home state.
How can Trump win? He scraped in last time and has surely lost 2 or 3 points then. Pennsylvania isn’t the swing state Wisconsin is.
Of course Trump can win – a little voter suppression, some media focus on Biden, a little serve of advertising – voila!
Well LVT, I will offer a bet.
If Biden wins by 6 to 8 pts I win PB kudos by being right.
If Trump wins however, I undertake to make 5 woke posts in a row, publicly acclaim Dan Andrews and buy some solar panels.
I’m just enjoying the idea of Texas as a competitive race:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/texas/
(Not likely to actually work out that way on the day- supposedly the Biden camp has decided against putting any campaign resources in there – but it nonetheless amuses me).
I think the Biden camp would rather win the election then jeopardize it by trying to expand electoral map into Texas. I’m sceptical of Texas, and Georgia too, but think Arizona is possible. Apparently Trump clashing with the late popular Arizona senator John McCain has rubbed voters in Arizona the wrong way; plus the changeing demographics has improved Democrats chances in Arizona. Keep in mind Democrats can’t completely ignore Red/pink states and concentrate on battleground states as there are senate races that need to be considered.
Based on the electoral-vote.com site(no comment on accuracy)
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Pres/tipping_point.html
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Senate/tipping_point.html
I would be focusing on New Hampshire, Maine, Iowa, Virginia, South Carolina for the senate and
Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and possibly Arizona for the president
Biden needs to come out. He can’t rely on the anti Trump sentiment alone and needs some good old fashioned narrative of his own.
He has been drumming up the suburban meme but without the assistance of a big open convention and in your face town halls etc. leaving it mostly to the debates is a risk. Small target strategies can work so long as that campaign is pitched well. You don’t want people scratching their heads in Nov thinking ‘what does Joe stand for?’.
Biden 5% ahead in Swing states: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
biden needs to not come down with & die from covid19 before the election. -a.v.
“Trump’s net approval has improved about two points.”… Is that within the margin of error of the poll?
“Biden’s lead has narrowed to a 50.0% to 42.5% margin, from a 50.3% to 41.2% margin three weeks ago. ”
-0.3% difference for Biden vs +1.3% difference for Trump between polls…. Surely that’s well within the margin of error…
What’s definitely NOT within the margin of error is the continued direct 7%+ difference between Biden and Trump.
“biden needs to not come down with & die from covid19 before the election”…
At the moment, that’s all what’s needed, really.
Still, I am looking forward to the choice of VP ….
i’m still worried. -a.v.
This Article considers the possibility that a major dispute over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election could arise, even without foreign interference or some other extraordinary event, but rather just from the ordinary process of counting ballots. Building upon previous research on the “blue shift” phenomenon, whereby adjustments in vote tallies during the canvassing of returns tends to advantage Democratic candidates, it is easy to imagine a dispute arising if this kind of “blue shift” were consequential in the presidential race. Using examples from both Pennsylvania and Arizona, two states susceptible to significant “blue shifts” in previous elections, the article shows how the dispute could reach Congress, where it potentially might metastasize into a full-fledged constitutional crisis. The most frightening scenario is where the dispute remains unresolved on January 20, 2021, the date for the inauguration of the new presidential term, and the military is uncertain as to who is entitled to receive the nuclear codes as commander-in-chief. In order to avoid this risk, Congress should amend the relevant statute, 3 U.S.C. § 15.
https://lawecommons.luc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2719&context=luclj
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/mail-ballots-u-s-election-1.5677465
“How can Trump win? He scraped in last time”…
Indeed!…. He lost the popular vote when he was competing against the “much hated, by right and left, Killary”, when Putin & Wikileaks unleashed their campaign to support him without just about any control, when he was advertised as a “fresh voice from outside the establishment”, when he was promising to “drain the Washington swamp”… and all the rest of that crap…. and at the time the COVID-19 test of his character was nowhere to be seen (but now: 5,095,524 infected people in the USA so far; 164,094 deaths).
Of course the Democrats must not be complacent…. but they shouldn’t be “timid” and “scared” either…
“This Article considers the possibility that a major dispute over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election”….
I agree that that’s the last card left for Trump to play, and I have little doubt that he will play it. But I guess that he won’t be taken seriously if Biden wins with a margin that cannot be explained by the “blue shift” phenomenon.
In any event, it seems that the “blue shift” may be just explained by young, non-white voters, who may lean towards the Democrats, casting votes that are counted later.
“In this paper, we study the drivers of the “Blue Shifts” using comprehensive administrative and
survey data from a large diverse jurisdiction — Orange County, California. Our results indicate that
voters who are young, nonwhite, not registered with the two major parties, or are voting for the first
time, are more likely to cast types of ballots that are counted later in the process. As a result, vote
share shifts of different magnitudes emerge in precincts in a manner consistent with their underlying demographic and political composition.”
https://preprints.apsanet.org/engage/api-gateway/apsa/assets/orp/resource/item/5e7bce380e55c30019685cca/original/why-do-election-results-change-after-election-day-the-blue-shift-in-california-elections.pdf
apparently, in the usa, if you’re evicted or foreclosed you can’t vote. neat, eh. meanwhile the media blames both sides for the impasse in washington. -a.v.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/08/07/gop-senate-walked-out-of-dc-for-a-reason-voter-foreclosure-2020-edition/
————
biden needs to not come down with & die from covid19 before the election. -a.v.
————
These will be tough calls for the campaign team to make. He also needs to consider others who might attend various events.
But ‘Biden in the Basement’ will start to resonate. And he can’t be seen to be relying on anti trump sentiment alone.
The Pres of France flew to Lebanon and walked the streets of Beirut. It was controlled but popular. If voters sniff Biden is flying low in fear of Covid because of his age it will hurt him come Nov.
The media are partly to blame. They are so infatuated with Trump they allow him to control and dominate the space. They only pick up on Biden if they suspect the barest of verbal slip ups – eg ‘black diversity’ FFS – or him replying to something dumb or offensive Trump has said.
This should improve post conferences.
for sure, its a fraught exercise in balancing incompatible necessities, but i agree, biden needs ultimately to get outside & into spacious, sparsely peopled venues. and i agree that should happen after the convention when there’s a v.p. candidate to share the limelight & debates to capitalise on. -a.v.
The benefit for democrats, where they can get mail in voting, is that it can be used to overcome deliberate efforts to make voting a much harder much more painful event on election day. If you were going to have a 6 hour wait to vote and still have a chance your vote would be rejected, essentially electorate fraud, you’d swap that in an instant with a mail in vote that might have the same chance of being rejected, but without the 6 hour wait and face to face intimidation of election officials, and it also takes the touch screen / computer ‘errors’ moving votes to the wrong candidate out of the equation.
The republicans are right to fear it they have done massive work to effectively disenfranchise vast elements of the community that could effectively be enfranchised by vote by mail.
covid 19 affects young & old, it leaves many survivors with on-going medical conditions. when does the number of usa infections (c. 5 million today) begin to affect recruitment to the armed forces? seriously. the virus is ripping through the south & midwest, traditional military recruitment ground, lots of immigrant & native born families with long family traditions of military service in counties being ravaged by an out of control virus. it has brought aircraft carriers & their highly specialised ship & air crews out of service. how many “top guns” can they replace with the recruitment grounds laid low by virus. despite restrictions on travel, “stars & stripes” reports the virus is present in army bases around the country leading to claims the army may be a super spreader. how’s the army in germany faring? the army in korea? the marines in darwin?
try this article from japan times, its a whopper. -a.v.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/20/asia-pacific/us-military-western-pacific-coronavirus-china/#.Xyy4zigzbWA
“The republicans are right to fear it they have done massive work to effectively disenfranchise vast elements of the community that could effectively be enfranchised by vote by mail.”…
Yes, good point. In the USA, where voting is not compulsory, the Republicans disenfranchise the voters… In Australia, where voting is compulsory, the Liberals moronise the voters…
Different strategies adopted to achieve the same objective….
canadian gov’t will be slapping $3.6 billion of tariffs on metal products from swing states in retaliation for trump’s new tariff on canadiam aluminium. every bit helps, eh? -a.v.
alfred venison says:
Saturday, August 8, 2020 at 1:01 pm
“biden needs to not come down with & die from covid19 before the election. -a.v”
I am not sure I could tell if he did
Trump will still loose.
Trump is already loose in the top paddock.
this is interesting. -a.v.
The nation’s top military officer says the Pentagon is still weighing its options when it comes to recruitment and COVID-19, several days after an internal memo surfaced publicly that suggested all recovered patients would be ineligible to join the military. That interim guidance was revised Wednesday to suggest that only those who had been hospitalized would be disqualified — but the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Mark Milley, told NPR that even the latest version remains just a draft.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/07/851925815/pentagon-issues-guidance-banning-recruits-previously-hospitalized-with-covid-19
deleted – wrong thread.
I see Joe Biden has spoken to Michigan Governor Esther Whitmer about potentially being running mate. Strategically it make sense as Michigan is a battleground state that would be handy for Joe Biden to win come November. Whitmer also gave the state of the union response for the Democrats in 2020.
Hilary Clinton chose Virginia senator Tim Kaine as running mate which helped delivered Virginia for Hilary last election. For whatever their positive attributes Kamala Harris and Karen Bass are both based in California hardly a state that is a priority for the Democrats considering its so safe. I will acknowledge though where your running mate is geographically based is not the means and ends all of the selection criteria.
VPs don’t carry states. Anyone who chooses a VP to carry a state is a fool. They balance a perceived shortcoming on the ticket.
Trump did not choose Pence to win Indiana.
Obama did not choose Biden to win Delaware.
Bush did not choose Cheney to win Wyoming.
The Russians have hacked Reddit for Trump:
https://www.zdnet.com/article/hackers-are-defacing-reddit-with-pro-trump-messages/
“I will acknowledge though where your running mate is geographically based is not the means and ends all of the selection criteria.”…
Indeed!… Biden’s greatest danger at the moment, that will be fully exploited by the Republican propaganda, is that too many Sanders supporters may simply stay at home in disappointment. Therefore, Biden’s first priority is to attract those voters by:
a) Offering a suitably tailored Progressive program.
b) Choosing a running mate who can rally the support of Sanders’ followers.
Warren may do the trick…. but perhaps there is another option….
“Anyone who chooses a VP to carry a state is a fool. They balance a perceived shortcoming on the ticket.”….
Correct!
“Indeed!… Biden’s greatest danger at the moment, that will be fully exploited by the Republican propaganda, is that too many Sanders supporters may simply stay at home in disappointment. Therefore, Biden’s first priority is to attract those voters by:
a) Offering a suitably tailored Progressive program.
b) Choosing a running mate who can rally the support of Sanders’ followers.
Warren may do the trick…. but perhaps there is another option….”
I backed Warren in the primaries, the problem for her and Karen Bass who are strong progressives they probably are not in the running because of their age. A Biden/Warren ticket or Biden/Bass ticket the ages would be 78/71 and 78/66 respectively.
Biden strategists are probably looking for someone younger under 60 to balance out the ticket. And also if something was to happen to Biden, there would be someone there young enough and fit enough to take over the job. It’s why Kamila Harris and Susan Rice both 55 are likely a factor in why their heavily favored. Gretchen Whitmer at 48 also fits the bill.
I really believe Warren and Bass are on the shortlist to make the Democrat Left (Sanders supporters) feel relevant. But are not being seriously considered by the Biden group.
I suspect that the headline of this post is a little misleading. Yes, the polling averages have come in ever-so-slightly over the last month, but a 50-42 win is still a landslide win, with over 400 Electoral Votes quite possible. Probably the biggest take-out of the these apparent “changes” in voting intention (and remembering that these movements are all well within the margin of error) is that things are remaining pretty stable. Trump has certainly leveled out his support in the low 40s, and that stemming of support loss in itself is a pre-requisite for his numbers to start improving – but a vote share on the low 40s is not going to win many elections, particularly when the opponent has plateaued at a level nudging 50%.
Biden is also well ahead (and outside any polling margin-of-error) in the key swing states of Pennsylvania (Biden +6), Michigan (+7.7), Wisconsin (+7.4) and Florida (+5.1), as well as small but consistent leads in Arizona and North Carolina, plus competitive polling in states like Texas and Georgia. If Trump is going to win, it’s hard to see how he turns these numbers around across so many states, and in circumstances where there is a pandemic raging out of control, and unemployment is soaring (both of which most voters appear to hold him responsible for)
Can Trump win? Of course – it’s a two-horse race, after all. But it’s hard to see how he’ll win without significant help from shenanigans, like voter suppression, USPS postal voting incompetence (overseen by a Trump appointee) and overseas interference. And even then, the numbers have been consistently pointing to a landslide for several months, and even electoral malfeasance will struggle to overturn a Biden landslide.
Kinda. You dont pick them to help carry the state they come from. But you can pick them if you see they have strengths in attracting demographics from states you need to win. So, you dont pick Whitmer to win Michigan. You pick her because she might attract independent and moderate republicans in the midwest/rustbelt. She may campaign heavily there, freeing up Biden to focus on Florida and NC – for example.
Harris or Rice seems the best choice to balance Bidens perceived shortcomings wrt age. Either would be great Presidents. However, Harris didnt do well in the primaries and I wonder how she will be welcomed in the midwest. Rice is untested in campaigning.
Swing states – Biden still ahead over 5%: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states/
I’ve published for The Conversation.
https://theconversation.com/coalition-maintains-newspoll-lead-federally-and-in-queensland-bidens-lead-over-trump-narrows-144193
In more economic good news for Trump, the July unemployment rate fell 0.9% to 10.2% as 1.8 million jobs were created. The pace of job creation slowed from May and June, which were great months after a terrible April.
Thanks Adrian.
I would imagine that the jobs and other economic indicators will go south again in August and September, given the re-surge of Covid numbers over July. Just in time for the election campaign!
GU Politics/Battleground 8/1 – 8/6 1000 LV 53 40 Biden +13
There’ve been comments by Nate Cohn on Twitter that the Battleground poll didn’t weight for education, and so a ridiculous 63% of their sample were Uni-educated. Cohn did some reweighting to get Biden up 9. The Twitter thread starts here.
https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1292834015280533506
Joe Biden has selected Kamala Harris as his running mate.
Looks like the obvious choice was correct all along.
Monmouth* 8/6 – 8/10 785 RV 51 41 Biden +10
Kamala Harris Is Biden’s VP Pick — Here’s What It Means For The Election And Beyond
It’s a historic choice, with the potential for even more history to be made.
Harris is the first Asian American and the first Black woman in American history to be a general election candidate for president or vice president for either of the two major political parties. (Harris’s mother was born in India, her father in Jamaica. They met as graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley, in the 1960s.) Harris is just the second Black person (after Barack Obama) and the fourth woman (after Democrats Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008) to be on a presidential ticket for one of the two major parties. If she and Biden win the November election, she would be the first Asian American, the first woman of any race or ethnicity and the second Black person in U.S. history to be vice president or president.
Harris’s selection is the latest sign of the increasing diversity of the Democratic Party. Democrats last had an all-white, all-male ticket in 2004, with then Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards. This vice presidential process, with Biden committing to choosing a woman fairly early on and then choosing a Black woman, suggests the Democrats may rarely in the future have a ticket of two white men. They may also rarely in the future have a ticket of two white people (as in 2016 with Clinton and Tim Kaine) or two men (as in 2012, with Obama and Biden).
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/kamala-harris-biden-vice-president/
An effort involving several Republicans is afoot to get rapper Kanye West on the presidential ballot in key states. The idea is apparently that he might siphon some young and African American support from Joe Biden and help President Trump.
But a new poll provides a rare window into the limited appetite for third-party candidates in the 2020 election — and it appears to be a significant reason for Biden’s sustained advantage.
The Monmouth University poll is one of very few thus far this cycle that have included third-party candidates. And there’s a reason for that: The third-party candidates are relatively unknown and are apparently having little impact.
The poll shows Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen pulling 2 percent nationally, while Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins takes 1 percent. Previous polls from CNBC have also shown them in the low single digits.
That’s a marked contrast to where we were at this point four years ago. According to the RealClearPolitics average of polls back then, Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson was getting nearly 9 percent of the vote, while Green nominee Jill Stein was pulling about 4 percent.
Part of that was because of familiarity — both candidates were running for the second time in four years — but much of it owed to the unusual disillusionment with the two major-party nominees. Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were viewed favorably by only about 4 in 10 voters. That left an apparently gaping hole for third-party candidates.
As is often the case, third-party support dropped as the election went on and voters coalesced around the two candidates who could win. Johnson ultimately pulled just more than 3 percent of the national vote, while Stein got about 1 percent. Despite efforts to suggest that Stein, in particular, spoiled the race for Clinton, there is little evidence of that.
But that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have. The margins were so thin in the decisive states that it was utterly conceivable that third-party candidates could have served as spoilers, even if they ultimately didn’t. Johnson’s vote share, for example, was historic by Libertarian Party standards.
And that seems to be the goal of promoting West in 2020 — hoping that even a modest impact could make a difference (though he won’t be on the ballot in crucial Florida, Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he may have missed the ballot deadline in Wisconsin by a matter of 14 seconds).
That said, there’s a large difference between 2016 and today: Despite a similar number of voters not liking each candidate, this time they’re breaking strongly for the Democrat, and significantly fewer are threatening to defect to third parties.
The same Monmouth poll shows that about 4 in 10 people have favorable opinions of Trump (40 percent) and Biden (42 percent). That leaves a large chunk of the electorate that doesn’t view either man positively: 22 percent. That’s somewhat similar to 2016, when 17 percent of voters in exit polls reported viewing both Trump and Clinton unfavorably.