Trump is Wall Street’s favorite to win in 2020, but his reelection prospects look bad in state polls

Presidents who seek reelection usually win. So Las Vegas oddsmakers, despite President Donald Trump’s low-40s approval ratings, still rate him even money for another term. Wall Street expects him to win next year.

But a look at state-by-state data clarifies the scale of Trump’s challenge. As the president tries to rally supporters at a 2020 kickoff rally in Orlando on Tuesday, he is fighting from behind.

A new Quinnipiac University poll of Florida showed the president trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by nine percentage points, 50%-41%, in their potential matchup for that state’s 29 electoral votes. Trump also trailed other possible Democratic nominees, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

Last week, a veteran Michigan pollster showed Trump trailing Biden by 11 points for that state’s 16 electoral votes. Before that, statewide polls in North Carolina and Texas showed Biden ahead by 12 and four percentage points, respectively....

I don't think Trump will win, but I don't want to argue that point here. The "Trump is an uber-genius who is beating the Democrats like a rug" choir should hold their fire. Maybe you are right. That's not the point.

The point is, if Trump doesn't win in 2020, anything Trump doesn't have cemented into place by this time next year, or August-September of next year at the latest, will disappear down the memory hole the moment a Democrat is sworn in.

The list of things that Trump can securely accomplish at this point is getting very, very short. RBG is a wild card; who knows? Maybe he'll get something solid on trade and immigration, though I suspect our opponents, who understand our political calendar, are just playing for time. (Mexico will be perfectly happy to move all of Central America north of the Rio Grande the moment Biden or Harris or whomever takes over.)

The big kahuna at this point is the Barr investigation. It needs to be done right, but if indictments are not forthcoming soon, it will be too late unless Trump is reelected. Exposing the illegality of the plotters is probably the most powerful means of changing the electoral dynamic -- but that case should be made sooner rather than later, so there is time for it to sink in and so that it cannot be dismissed as political grandstanding in the heat of a campaign.

The clock is ticking. Trump is paying the penalty now for his lackadaisical attitude towards staffing his administration early in the game. It has probably dawned on the Trump inner circle by now that they can't actually control the executive branch without all those deputy-under-assistant secretaries and Schedule C's in place, but that's water under the bridge. If Trump gets a second term, maybe he'll actually staff his administration next time around.

What Barr does, or doesn't do, in the next couple of months will be decisive. If no action is taken soon, there is a high probability that the Obama/Clinton scandals will simply evaporate in 18 months. We won't forget, but that won't much matter. We are almost out of time.

The pollsters have the same problems now as the did in 15/16....

TRUMP doesn’t fit their mold.... they have no idea who these voters are or will be, let alone how to reach them. The ones they do know, generally don’t like to talk to them either. That and some are playing the same old tricks, and intentionally manipulating the outcomes as well.

Here’s 2020 in a nutshell, short of something HUGE like a massive Economic Collapse happening before election day...

Trump will outperform 2016 in every state. He will win EVERY state he took in 16. In states he got over 45% but didn’t win in 16, expect him to win most if not all of those as well. In states he got 40-45% expect Trump to go right into them and battle for them and likely win some of those as well.

It doesn’t matter who the Dems put up on the ballot, there is no path to victory for them.

I expect Trump to score at least 3-5 Million more votes in 2020 than he did in 16, and if the winds blow right he could get a few million more.

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