US presidential challenger Joe Biden. Photo / AP
COMMENT
With exactly two months to go, the United States presidential election is both essentially stable and buffeted by uncertainty.
The conditions and polls favour Democratic nominee Joe Biden, as they have for most of the pandemic-dominated year.
Yet with voting occurring during a health crisis, a Republican tilt to the Electoral College, and President Donald Trump seemingly prepared to try anything to win, the election outcome is uncertain.
It could end up being drawn-out and contested in a divisive debacle to rival Florida's Hanging Chads of 20 years ago. Then again, should Biden take Florida - one of the early states to count on election day - he would be heavily favoured for an overall victory.
The RCP Average, I believe, is the poll aggregator that's most sensitive to outliers and recent results. So the fact that it shows no change between now and the beginning of August seems to suggest that neither Biden nor Trump got a convention bounce...right? pic.twitter.com/2FeEvqDItH
— Noah Smith đ (@Noahpinion) September 3, 2020
In this contradictory and surreal year, the former Vice-President is presenting himself as a real-deal commander-in-chief, restorer of normality, a veteran insider who can get Washington to work, and yet a 77-year-old agent of change.
President Donald Trump is playing a strongman outsider in an inverted reality show, who picks and chooses what he's responsible for from what actually happens on his watch.
It is Trump who has to change things up to win. He is trying to turn law and order into a dominant theme and is attempting to control daily news cycles with briefings, interviews, campaign events and mini-controversies. He wants to distract attention away from the coronavirus which exerts a gravitational pull on the news.
Our model has ingested those Fox polls and the result is... no real tightening! Biden is +9 nationally (in two-party vote), about where he has been over the past month. The Midwest has tightened a bit v June/July, but that started before the RNC/Kenosha.https://t.co/O6Lknvo6Kp pic.twitter.com/Vz9S6VBjQP
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) September 3, 2020
At the Republican National Convention, there was an attempt to convince Americans to look beyond Covid-19. Overall, Trump's focus on the pandemic is mainly on the prospect of a vaccine even as the death toll is more than 185,000 and people are dying at a rate of 1000 a day.
But if he's not talking about people's practical struggles with the virus - from family deaths, health problems, income cuts, costs, unemployment, home evictions to schooling - he comes across as out of touch and callous. Ensuring emergency support payments continued to the unemployed should have been a strategic no-brainer for the Republicans.
Trump's current chaotic messaging, from mail voting to conspiracy theories, also reinforces the impression that the President is not the candidate of calm and stability. Having campaigned with Barack Obama during the financial crisis of 2008, Biden has been here before.
Obama took a steady stance on the meltdown while his rival John McCain was more erratic, suspending his campaign at one point that September. It gave voters a sense of how each candidate would deal with a crisis. From being tied in the polls, Obama jumped out to a 10-point lead.
âWill keep Americans safe from harmâ
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) September 3, 2020
Applies more to Joe Biden or more to Donald Trump?
Biden 51% (+6)
Trump 45%@CNN 8/28-9/1https://t.co/PkeIZ4dO34
A spate of polls yesterday suggested that Trump's attempts to stir up law and order as an alternative election issue have not worked so far.
It is below the pandemic in voter priorities - 60 per cent compared to 37 per cent in a CNN poll - and Biden beats Trump on who is considered best to handle it. Trump remains in front or tied with Biden on the economy and the Democrat has an advantage on who can deal with racism.
A Washington Post average of polls found the race completely unchanged now in contrast to before the party conventions. Biden leads Trump by 51 per cent to 42 per cent, by that estimate.
National GE,
— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) September 3, 2020
Among Independents:
Biden 50% (+10)
Trump 40%
.
Among Blacks:
Biden 83% (+72)
Trump 11%@QuinnipiacPoll, LV, 8/28-31 https://t.co/aLZCNJGWXL
The President's way of strongly signalling his intentions boxes him in. In order to appeal to his strongest supporters on public safety, Trump heavily condemned rioters but also made excuses for a vigilante and for police involved in shooting incidents. That should tell anyone concerned about racism, police reform and gun control that Trump will not deal with those issues.
The President does have advantages and openings. He can make decisions and announcements and use his influence as an incumbent, in ways to improve his prospects. He could make any economic improvements count between now and November. There will be White House efforts to keep voters aware of progress on a vaccine in October.
While Biden is doing better with more highly educated white voters and older voters than Hillary Clinton in 2016, he is not doing as well as he could with black and Hispanic voters - crucial members of the Democratic coalition.
You'll sometimes see people say stuff like "Biden MUST with the popular vote by 3 points or he's toast". Not true; at 2-3 points, the Electoral College is a tossup, not necessarily a Trump win.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 2, 2020
OTOH, the Electoral College is not really *safe* for Biden unless he wins by 5+.
Trump's biggest advantage is with the Electoral College. Biden's average polling leads in battleground states are lower than his national results. Trump gained power through small Electoral College victories in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Trump was a novel option in 2016, when voters could consider a disruptive change to the norm - from the confident viewpoint of a well-performing economy and stable government.
The environment is very different in 2020. Trump hasn't changed, but the landscape around him has.
The pandemic tsunami not only makes that old norm more appealing but lays bare the stiff challenges ahead. It forces voters to consider who is best to take them forward and how it can be done.
It comes after the US recently struck nuclear sites in Iran.