Posted on 10/25/2020 5:30:14 AM PDT by RandFan
President Trump is up against the odds heading toward Election Day, but he is not out of hope.
Trump has lagged his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in polling throughout the campaign, and his last obvious opportunity to change the shape of the race — Thursday’s debate in Nashville, Tenn. — passed by without great drama.
The president's backers cite some factors that could deliver another shock upset like the victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats, traumatized by the 2016 result, are not counting Trump out, either.
If Trump emerges the surprise winner once again this year, these reasons will likely be cited to explain his victory.
Trump’s ground game
The Trump campaign is betting that traditional door-to-door campaigning will pay big dividends. The campaign has claimed it has more than 2.5 million volunteers. As Newsweek has pointed out, this would be a greater number than the 2.2 million who backed then-candidate Barack Obama during his dramatic 2008 run for the White House.
In conference calls with members of the media, Trump campaign aides frequently cite data that they believe displays their superiority. The Trump campaign claimed its volunteers knocked on more than 500,000 doors in swing states in a single week in September, for example.
“We’re actually running a real campaign,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on Monday.
The Biden campaign has pushed back, noting that it too has built a strong ground infrastructure. But no-one disputes that Biden’s side has been much slower to move to door-knocking, in particular — a reluctance largely rooted in caution about the coronavirus.
Biden’s approach may be validated in the end. Some strategists question the efficacy of door-to-door campaigning at a time when most voters can more easily and safely be contacted by phone, email or through social media.
But if Trump wins, expect plenty of credit to be given to his ground game.
Black turnout
A fall-off in Black turnout was one of the key reasons Clinton lost in 2016.
It was expected that turnout among the African American community would fall once Obama, the nation’s first Black president, was no longer on the ballot. But weaker Black enthusiasm for Clinton in cities in the upper Midwest such as Detroit and Milwaukee may have made all the difference.
Trump has focused on Black voters to an unusual degree for a GOP presidential candidate. His campaign has advertised extensively on Black-oriented radio and the Republican National Convention included a number of high-profile African American supporters such as former NFL star Herschel Walker.
There is considerable skepticism as to whether Team Trump really believes it can ramp up its numbers from the 8 percent of Black voters who supported him in 2016. But a dampening of enthusiasm for Biden could be just as meaningful.
Another wildcard is the quixotic candidacy of rap star Kanye West, who will be on the ballot in at least 12 states.
In terms of the big picture of the Black vote, there are some promising signs for Trump at the margins.
According to data site FiveThirtyEight, older African Americans remain firmly in the Democratic camp, but younger voters are less so. Polling from UCLA Nationscape showed support for Trump among Black voters between the ages of 18 and 44 rising from 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent this year.
The ‘shy’ Trump voter
One of the most popular theories among the president’s allies is that he suffers from an unusual problem — a “social desirability” bias whereby voters who support him hide their views from pollsters.
By its nature, this is a difficult thesis to prove or disprove — though skeptics note that, if it were true, online polling might be expected to show higher support for Trump than polls in which respondents are interviewed. This does not appear to be the case.
A related theory — one favored by Stepien, among others — is that Trump’s 2016 victory was built on big turnout in the least populous parts of some crucial states.
It seems somewhat plausible that those voters are not being picked up in polls or broader media narratives.
Trump has seen his support tick up in some areas based on public polling, though Biden has enjoyed a lead in virtually all national surveys and in several key battleground states.
Voter registration
Voter registration numbers in battleground states are a particular source of bullishness in the Trump camp.
A Trump campaign source focused on the shift from 2016, noting that in the last four full months of each election cycle “Democrats consistently out-registered Republicans in 2016, but now we are consistently out-registering them.”
According to the campaign’s figures, Democrats out-registered Republicans by more than 78,000 people in Florida between August and November of 2016. From August of this year until now, the GOP has a registration edge of roughly 104,000 in the state.
The same pattern is seen in Pennsylvania, where a small Democratic advantage during those last four months in 2016 has shifted to a GOP gain of about 72,000 this year.
There are other theories in Trump World about specific states. Nevada is cited as a possible pick-up opportunity by some Trump allies, who argue that the electoral muscle of the state’s labor unions has atrophied because of the hit suffered by the tourism and gaming industry during the pandemic.
The Democratic registration edge overall in Nevada has dropped by about 10,000, according to the Trump campaign. Such a relatively small number is important in a state Clinton carried by just 27,000 votes.
The Latino vote
Trump will almost certainly lose the Latino vote nationwide. But crucially, there is little sign that his standing with Latinos has declined since 2016, despite the controversies that have flared around his immigration policies.
According to exit polls in 2016, Trump won 28 percent of the Latino vote — a surprise to some, since it was a slightly better showing than 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney, who hewed to a more centrist position on immigration.
Trump continues to poll at around the same level with Hispanic voters, even as his popularity with other key demographic groups has eroded.
The situation is especially intriguing in Florida, the largest and most important battleground state.
Two major polls in September, from NBC News/Marist and Quinnipiac University, showed Trump with a small lead among Florida Latinos. Trump won the Sunshine State in 2016 even while losing Latinos to Clinton by 27 points.
Cuban-Americans are especially vital in Florida. There is some anecdotal evidence suggesting the community’s traditional hostility to socialism might be weighing Democrats down as left-wing voices like those of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have become more prominent.
In Thursday’s debate, when Trump brought up Sanders, Biden responded that the president “thinks he’s running against someone else. He’s running against Joe Biden. I beat all those people because I disagreed with them.”
1. Joe Biden
2. Joe Biden
3. Joe Biden
4. Joe Biden
5. Kamala Harris
Must have watched a different debate than I did.
I think these are all very significant factors.
This writer seems highly poll-dependent and very clueless.
I strongly suspect Biden lost PA in that debate. Time will tell.
Yes: He is citing the fake polls. He is in for a surprise :)
“CAN” win? Then again it’s ‘the hill’ so there is that. I did notice in one of the buhzillions of byeDUHn/hVrris ads I was subjected to last night that he says he’ll ASK big corporations to pay their fair share. What happened to mister tough guy “You ain’t getting your xxx unless you do as I say!”? Could have sworn it was “I’ll make sure they pay their fair share!” previously. And then the ‘speeding semi killed my first wife and daughter’ ad. Did she pull out in front of the semi on purpose? Perhaps to get her daughter away from joe?
Debate night came and gone without too much drama? Biden said he wants to do away completely with fossil fuels.
We’ve got to get that mail in ballot extension in PA reversed at the SCOTUS. ACB should take her seat at the SCOTUS tomorrow or Tuesday, then we’ll see what happens.
The first sentence “President lags behind in recent polls” Come on Man, fake polls by fake media!!
Trump has lagged his Democratic opponent Joe Biden in polling throughout the campaign, and his last obvious opportunity to change the shape of the race — Thursday’s debate in Nashville, Tenn. — passed by without great drama.
Stopped reading after this nonsense
Riddle me this Batman. If GOP voter registrations are up—and the POTUS took 94% of the primary vote and other polls show GOP approval for him at 85-90%, why isn’t he considered by the “experts” to be in a better position than in 2016?
Him inadvertently creating the "Chumps For Trump" meme yesterday surely didn't help him, either :-)
He’ll win for the usual reason - more votes.
Joe Concha is with The Hill.
I can’t figure out why.
The Hill is basically trash and Joe seems like a nice guy.
Trump seems to have invested everything into his ground game. His direct mail and phone calls are relentless. Biden’s endless lies on TV go largely unchallenged there. I hope he made the right call.
Biden has a lot of Hollywood and elite cash...
I doubt repeated ads are going to be decisive. Biden has an enthusiasm gap. Who wants to turn out for him? His campaign is lacklustre and pathetic.
Biden has a lot of Hollywood and elite cash...
I doubt repeated ads are going to be decisive. Biden has an enthusiasm gap. Who wants to turn out for him? His campaign is lacklustre and pathetic.
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