Change?
An interesting shift, made more interesting by the fact that Trump has also gained — a little — on Biden in the national average despite the spate of polls lately showing Biden with a gory 12- or 15-point lead. On June 23, he trailed the Democrat by an average of 10.2 points. Today it’s 8.6 points. Not great, but at least there’s movement in the right direction for him.
It makes me wonder if his effort to rebrand Biden as a pawn of left-wing radicals has gotten him some traction. Fox has the race 49/41 today, down from 50/38 a month ago. The big change has come among a demographic Trump badly needs to win this fall but which had slipped away from him in recent months, namely, senior citizens. Suddenly they’re back in the fold: “Whites with a college degree (+3) and without a degree go for Trump (+9). He’s also the choice among White evangelical Christians (+43), rural voters (+9) and seniors (+1). Last month, seniors went for Biden by 10.” News reports this week about the Biden/Bernie Unity Task Force may have convinced some seniors that Trump is right, that Sleepy Joe will become Antifa Joe once he’s elected and under the left’s thumb. The coverage of the CHAZ in Seattle and the anarchist vandalism in Portland may be contributing to senior angst as well.
So why is Trump still trailing by eight, the same deficit he faced when Fox measured the race in May? You know why.
[M]ore trust Biden to do a better job than Trump on race relations (+21) and coronavirus (+17 points). Last month, more trusted Biden on the virus by 9 points. The two are trusted about equally on the economy (Biden +1). It was a 3-point Trump edge in May.
Twenty-nine percent rank coronavirus the No.1 problem facing the country. That tops the 15 percent who cite the economy and 10 percent who say race relations.
Eighty-six percent are concerned about coronavirus spreading, and the number saying the virus is “not at all” under control jumped 18 points since last month, from 33 percent to 51 percent.
COVID’s going to sink him if the epidemic doesn’t slow down by November. Trump has a puncher’s chance in November if either the virus “burns out” somehow a la New York and, against all odds, doesn’t reemerge for a fall second wave or if the pharmaceutical industry comes up with a game-changing treatment that knocks down the number of hospitalizations and deaths over the next three months. In either of those scenarios, Trump could plausibly say “the worst is behind us” and voters might turn their attention to other issues, like the economy, in which he fares better against Biden.
If he can’t plausibly say “the worst is behind us” on Election Day, he loses. I think the election really is as simple as that at this point.
Which is not to say that if the worst is behind us on November 3 that Trump definitely wins. He has a chance in that scenario, but he’s done himself a ton of damage with his messaging over the last few months, both on COVID and beyond. Fox finds Biden ahead on all sorts of personality metrics, including — wait for it — mental soundness.
Voters believe Trump lacks the key traits for the Oval Office: less than half think he has the mental soundness (43 percent), intelligence (42 percent), and judgment (40 percent) to serve effectively as president.
