In last week’s article, we pointed out that Insider Monkey thinks 2016 could repeat itself, and Donald Trump could once again “get all the breaks” in close races. The writer, Inan Dogan, simply compared today’s polls with 2016, and showed where they were off, and how the race might be closer than anticipated.
Most pundits think this year is different. For one thing, in 1016, Trump was leading in the average of polls several times, but more importantly, the charts looked like a piece of paper from a lie detector test—jumping all over the place. We are not seeing that this year.
Both candidates have had a consistent, shallow range of support—and Trump has never been closer than four points this time.
MAIL-IN BALLOTS
But it’s not over. The BBC notes that one major variable is mail-in ballots, which are a lot easier to invalidate.
If voters fill out their forms incorrectly or do not follow proper procedure, or there is delay or disruption in mail delivery, it could lead to otherwise valid ballots being discarded. Understaffed or limited in-person polling places could also make it more difficult to vote on election day, discouraging Americans who had been considered by pollsters to be “likely voters.”
REMAINING DEBATE
While most people think Biden won the first debate—and Trump’s behavior turned off the very people he needs—suburban women—we have another debate this week.
If Trump presents a calmer, more presidential demeanour and Biden comes unglued or has some particularly dramatic gaffe, the balance of the race could possibly tilt in Trump’s favour.
GETTING ALL THE BREAKS
While there was only one State that was a big surprise for Trump in 2016—Wisconsin—he got the lucky breaks in most of the swing states—that were within the margin of error.
Even with polls showing an advantage for Biden, there are enough states where Trump is ahead or within the margin of error that – if things break just the right way for the president – the Electoral College arithmetic could work out for him.
A BIDEN FUMBLE
Biden is gaffe-prone. Ironically, Covid-19 has been a godsend for him. Not only is our horrible record negative for Trump, but it also kept Biden off the campaign trail. But now, he’s getting out there.
Then there’s the chance that, under the fatigue of the campaign trail, Biden shows his age and again raises concern about whether he is up to the task of being president. If he does, the Trump campaign will be poised to pounce.
THE LATINO VOTE
The New Yorker notes that one bright spot is Trump’s relative approval with Latinos.
Among Latinos—a crucial electoral coalition in the swing states of Florida and Arizona—Trump’s position has held steady and may even have strengthened. Last month, a Public Religion Research Institute poll put his approval rating among Latinos in 2020 at thirty-six per cent, eight points ahead of the percentage of Latino voters that exit polls found he won in 2016. More ominously for Democrats, a recent survey of Florida Hispanic voters found Biden polling eleven points behind Hillary Clinton’s exit-poll results in 2016.
HUMILITY (??)
A lot was noted about Trump’s speech to elderly voters, appearing to show sensitivity to their concerns over Covid-19. But then, of course, in his next appearance, he was again making fun of the disease. He could benefit by showing genuine empathy, and even some humility.
“I actually have a strong opinion about that,” Stuart Stevens, the Republican strategist who ran Mitt Romney’s Presidential campaign, said, when I reached him in Stowe, Vermont. “If you are thinking about what it takes for an unpopular incumbent to come back and win, there actually is a significant history. And I don’t know of any process that didn’t involve a mea culpa—an apology.”
THE ECONOMY, STUPID
New York Magazine says the second quarter was a disaster, but the third quarter numbers looked good, so people once again trust him more than Biden on the economy.
Perhaps because of the unusually strong growth in the third quarter, or because people appreciate the unique reason for the economic contraction in the second quarter (i.e. we shut everything down to try and slow a virus), the president’s approval rating on the economy has rebounded, and he is once again viewed positively on the economy.
HALTING THE COUNTING
Trump has already succeeded in getting the Supreme Court to stop counting people for the Census, which will be important in drawing new district lines across the country. What if he’s also able to stop counting ballots? He has already said the counting should end at midnight on election day. The Washinton Post says it’s a real possibility.
He could win if there are errors in the polls (though they would have to be more significant than the errors in 2016), and he could still win if the polls shift to his advantage as they did late in the 2016 contest (though that hasn’t happened to any significant extent so far this year).
He could also win if he successfully convinces Americans that he did win and manages to translate that into a termination of counting ballots. The mechanics of that are admittedly murky, depending either on compliant legislatures or judges or grimmer scenarios involving interventions by Trump supporters as the votes are being counted.
VOTER TURNOUT
The Chicago Tribune notes that a lot of the results will depend on enthusiasm. No one doubts that there is much more enthusiasm among Trump supporters. Most of the enthusiasm on the other side is against Trump, not for anybody. And more importantly, the larger number of voters who want Biden are meaningless if they don’t vote.
Instead of talking up a blue wave, Democrats should be guarding against complacency and putting turnout strategies into overdrive. “People can get tired of the partisan bickering and get turned off by all politics,” Dingell told Bloomberg. “Everybody has got to make sure that the voters turn out.”
COMPLACENCY
Fox notes that Biden’s campaign is not taking the election for granted.
“If we learned anything from 2016, it’s that we cannot underestimate Donald Trump or his ability to claw his way back into contention in the final days of a campaign, through whatever smears or underhanded tactics he has at his disposal,” [Jen O’Malley Dillon, Joe Biden’s campaign manager] wrote.
LAW AND ORDER
The Toronto Star says if there’s more rioting, Trump’s “law and order” appeal may begin to work.
Trump’s strategy of branding himself as the “law-and-order” president in dealing with demonstrators is a potentially winning one. “If our opponents prevail, no one will be safe in our country,” Trump said recently, trying to stoke fear among the electorate. Such a tactic has proven successful in past elections. The best example is 1968 when Richard Nixon defeated Democratic challenger Hubert Humphrey.
THE SUBURBS
Likewise, while Trump’s attempts to frighten suburban women haven’t worked so far, that might change.
Trump’s racist appeal to suburban white voters may be working. He insists Biden wants to destroy suburbs by ordering low-income housing to be built in those neighbourhoods, which he insinuates will result in more crime and lower property values. Cynical, despicable and untrue? For sure! But it could well resonate with a good part of that “silent (white) majority” to whom he’s trying to appeal.
Those are all issues-oriented reasons why Trump could win. There are also the nefarious reasons. . .
DISINFORMATION
The Washington Post lists some of the misleading—or just plain wrong—information that is coming into the campaign.
On Aug. 30, the president retweeted footage of a Black man violently pushing a White woman on a subway platform under the caption, “Black Lives Matter/Antifa” — but the man was not affiliated with either group, and the video was shot in [the previous] October. . .
Trump has built a political career around falsehoods, issuing more than 20,000 false or misleading statements during the first three-plus years of his presidency. But many experts said the onslaught of the disinformation efforts by Trump and his team in the late weeks of the campaign make the deception particularly difficult to combat, not to mention dangerous to the country’s democratic institutions.
MAIL-IN VOTER SUPPRESSION
Some people would “crawl over broken glass” to vote for Trump, but many Biden voters are not so dedicated—and if voting can be made more difficult, that could swing the election
massive voter suppression, simply preventing people from going to the polls or having their votes counted. There is deep concern that Trump and his buddies at the head of the U.S. Postal Service are planning to deliberately slow down mail delivery so that mail-in ballots from heavily Democratic regions don’t arrive in time to be counted.
POLL WATCHING
Trump’s campaign has arranged thousands of individuals to monitor polling
Still, this year’s operation by the Trump campaign is highly unusual, voting rights advocates say, both in its focus on early voting and in its emphasis on finding evidence to support baseless assertions by the president and his supporters that Democrats plan to flood the system with phony mail ballots to steal the election. . .
Pat Dion, head of the Republican Party in Pennsylvania’s Bucks County, [said] “There’s going to be lots of watchers, lots of cameras and lots of attorneys all across the country. It’s going to be chaotic.”
GUNS AT THE POLLING PLACE
Michigan’s Secretary of State has outlawed the open-carry of guns at polling places, but is that enforceable?
Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy. . . maintains there is no enforcement to take because nothing is actually against the law – calling it a ludicrous statement because there’s no teeth behind it. Murphy said there is no law prohibiting open carry so therefore because there’s the absence of law, it makes it legal.
TROOPS AT THE POLLING PLACE
Meanwhile, Politico notes that the army may show up.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper stopped short of committing to keep troops away from polling stations next month, prompting Democratic lawmakers to call on the Pentagon chief to vow that the military won’t be used to influence the election.
Reps. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) told reporters on Tuesday that Esper was evasive in written answers to questions they submitted on the politicization of the military and the role of the armed forces in a peaceful transition of power.
While there are only two weeks left before election day, a lot could happen. For instance, just eleven days before the last election, the FBI reopened the case about Hillary’s emails. While most people had no idea what “Hillary’s emails” was all about, most people were sick of hearing about it. They knew that if Hillary were elected, we would hear about it for months or years more. Whereas, if Trump won, the issue would quickly die—which it did.
Something like that could happen, in addition to all the issues and circumstances above. There are many reasons why Trump could yet win.
