Biden is not a Sure Winner

From history.com Heading into Election Day on November 2, 1948, it seemed like Thomas Dewey had the U.S. presidency in the bag. Numerous polls and pundits predicted a win for the Michigan native, New York governor and prominent gang-busting attorney. But, as a now-famous photograph would show, everyone—including the editors of the Chicago Tribune—got it wrong. The surprise victory of the plain-spoken Democratic nominee, Harry S Truman, would become one of the biggest upsets in U.S. presidential history—and it would forever be memorialized, thanks to an embarrassing newspaper gaffe.

On the Saturday before the election in 2016, the Princeton Election Consortium said Clinton had a 99% chance of winning. While other people’s speculations were less extreme — and Nate Silver’s election-eve estimate that Trump stood a 28% chance was probably about right; some unlikely things still had to happen, but everybody has gotten wet when there was a 28% chance of rain.

So where will Joe Biden be in the last seven days of this campaign? The Hill reports “Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday defended his light travel and campaign schedule, saying he’ll embark on a swing-state blitz this week and that he regularly keeps 12 hour days even when he has no public appearances on the docket. Biden did not have any events on his schedule for Monday, but in the late afternoon, he made an unscheduled trip from his home in Wilmington, Del. to Chester, Pa., which is 15 miles away.”

Is this any way to conduct a campaign? Maybe his campaign’s polling has him convinced he has a win in the bag. Has he spoken to Hillary Clinton?

Second Debate Not a Game Changer

To many of the commentator’s surprise Donald Trump behaved like a mensch. That made the debate rather boring.

Trump needed to impress viewers that he has done an excellent job in his first four years and deserves another term. He did not make the case.

The two issues that are front and center for most Americans are COVID-19 and health care.

1) Trump repeated what he has said at his rallies that the disease would go away and added that we will have a vaccine by the end of the year (scientists in the know say a vaccine won’t be available until late in 2021 at the earliest).

2) Trump has a health plan that is far better than Obamacare (that plan has been promised ever since Trump was inaugurated in January 20, 2017).

Joe Biden has not made an overwhelming case for his election. Donald Trump has not delivered protection against the virus nor presented a new health plan.

This election is not a choice. It is a referendum on Donald Trump. Trump knows that fact.

Red states are likely to remain red and blue states remain blue. If Trump can win all the states he won in 2016 he will be in office for another term. However, if polls are to be believed Trump will not be inaugurated on January 20, 2020 for second term. Just remember that almost all the polls predicted Hillary Clinton would win four years ago.

Why Trump’s enthusiasm edge over Biden could matter

Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, April 4, 2012, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Are you enthusiastic about Joe Biden as the Democratic Party nominee for the November election? I am not.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has a serious problem winning in November. He leads President Donald Trump in pretty much every single national poll. Yet the same polls find that Trump’s supporters are much more enthusiastic about voting for their candidate than Biden’s supporters are voting for theirs.

This split is potentially a good sign for Trump because the candidate who has led on enthusiasm (or a closely related question) has won every presidential election since 1988, though there are reasons to think Biden could break this streak.

Importantly for Trump, the leader on enthusiasm has gone on to win in close elections as well as ones with wider margins.

One of those close elections was four years ago. Trump had a consistent edge over Hillary Clinton in enthusiasm. His voters were 4 points more likely to say they were very enthusiastic in voting for him than Clinton’s were for her in the final ABC News/Washington Post poll, even as Clinton led overall. That enthusiasm advantage should have been one of the warning signals to the Clinton campaign.

The Los Angeles Times opinion page May 16 has the headline “Opinion: Joe who? Biden’s the likely nominee, but readers are oddly quiet about him.” One contributor wrote “I have watched Biden the last few months. Does he inspire others through his leadership? The answer obviously is no. So why will he almost certainly be nominated for president by the Democratic Party? He’s not at the top of his game, he’s prone to making verbal mistakes, and he does not have a coherent message. I can’t imagine him leading our country.”

Sadly I have to agree with that writer. Biden has not offered any message. I’m here to oppose Trump is not a message. It appears Trump will lose in November due to his incompetence related to the coronavirus and the state of the economy rather than enthusiasm for Joe Biden.