PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION 2020: THE LAST HURRAH

 

At long last, it’s here. One week from the date of

this post, the nation begins counting votes in the 2020 presidential election. Before that starts, we have things to say about the last days of the campaign and what’s at stake. We’ve been writing about the 2020 election for two years. On the eve of hearing the people speak, we offer an updated perspective.

The Race

Many things could happen, though they seemingly

fall into three broad categories: (1) a decisive Joe Biden win; (2) a historic Donald Trump comeback; or (3) chaos resulting from a too-close-to-call election that encourages ballot challenges and litigation initiated by Trump. With incredibly high stakes, the country sets sail on an unpredictable journey that will likely speak volumes about America’s future.

Not much has changed going into the final week from the situation we detailed on October 20. Biden enjoys a solid lead in the national polls and a narrower, but not insubstantial, lead in the key

battle ground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Trump, however, retains a precarious path to victory. No “October Surprise” that might shift the race has occurred and, as the clock ticks, one appears less and less likely.

The Last Debate

Trump and Biden faced off October 22 in their final televised debate. Under tight control by moderator Kristen Welker of NBC, Trump interrupted Biden much

less frequently than in the first debate and, for the most part, stylistically comported himself much better than on September 29. That doesn’t mean he didn’t lie and mislead as he’s done throughout his term. Fact checkers still had a busy night.

In post-debate ads and appearances, Trump tried capitalizing on Biden’s statements about transitioning from the oil industry in fighting climate change, especially in petroleum-rich states like Texas and Pennsylvania. The right- wing media claimed that would change the race.  Most mainstream pundits, however, lauded Biden’s performance. Biden won CNN’s instant poll, 53-39, with women rating him higher by 60-35. Trump didn’t close his gender gap.

       

CNN Instant Poll conducted by SSI's

Perhaps not unexpectedly for three lawyers,   

Left to Right: Rob Wiley, Henry Jones, Woodson Walker

among us concurring and dissenting opinions emerged. Woodson, though agreeing Biden did himself little harm, contended he missed opportunities for a clearer, more forceful statement on racial justice and a more cogent, better organized explanation of his coronavirus plan. Rob disagreed and thought the former vice president performed admirably in nearly all respects. Henry noted the inherent difficulty in standing on a stage alone before millions of people while facing a hostile, mendacious, adversary and a media-savvy moderator.

Henry’s observation suggests we ought not forget the notion MSNBC host and former senate staffer Lawrence O’Donnell reminds viewers of every chance he gets. The think-on-your-feet skills

needed for presidential debating bear little relationship to the capacity for deliberation and reasoned, data-driven decision making required of a president. On this score, the three of us agree. Biden wins hands down.

After the debate, the candidates, their running mates, and surrogates (like former President Barack Obama) hit the road, barnstorming the battle ground states and blitzing the airwaves with ads wherever they had money to buy time. Biden has

more money, so more people will see his ads in more places. Trump kept holding his signature rallies, virus or no virus. Vice President Mike Pence continued holding rallies though five members of his staff tested positive for the virus. Biden and running mate Kamala Harris continued their restrained approach to campaigning in the pandemic.

The Stakes

The horse race is what it is, and we’ll know the

outcome soon enough. What this election means transcends the contest. We accept the conclusions of those like the bipartisan group of over 500 national security experts, including 22 four-star military officers, who back Biden, the Republican-inspired Lincoln Project, and the

plethora of publications like USA TODAY and the New England Journal of Medicine that don’t usually endorse candidates but have done so this time. They’ve recommended that their diverse audiences support Biden because they see another four years of Trump as an existential threat to American Democracy.

      

We need not again list the current president’s sins. We’ve cataloged them and commented on them time after time in the nearly four years he has been in office. We have pointed out the ways in which his behavior disrespects the rule of law, denigrates our most significant

and important institutions, and undermines our standing in the world. Indeed, if Biden wins, coronavirus notwithstanding, he may face his biggest challenge in restoring America’s standing among nations, particularly our traditional allies in Europe and Asia.

Should Biden capture the presidency, we will have plenty to say about what tasks he should prioritize and about how he should navigate the difficult job of

putting the country back together again. For now, it’s enough to say we think it imperative the American people give him the job.

This is crunch time. Millions have already

voted,  navigating around the voter suppression efforts of Trump and his Republican cronies. The signs have been positive and turnout may break all kinds of records. But this isn’t done yet. As we write and post this, another week of voting remains. That time is too valuable for anyone not to make use of it.

Vote! We believe our democracy hangs in

the balance.

TWO WEEKS OUT: WHERE THE 2020 BIDEN-TRUMP PRESIDENTIAL RACE STANDS

 

                                   WEEKS

Let’s start with three basic truths about the 2020 presidential election two weeks from the day the vote counting starts (millions are voting early and have been for some time):

1.                        Democratic nominee Joe Biden enjoys a solid lead in the polls;

2.                        incumbent Republican President Donald Trump could win, but his path seemingly narrows every day; and

3.                        the factors that swung the 2016 election to Trump have not surfaced so far.

This is the universe in which both nervous Democrats and hopeful Republicans live as the race comes down the home stretch.

Biden’s Lead

As of October 20, two weeks before election day:

*Biden leads in fivethirtyeight.com’s national polling average by more than ten points and just under nine in the Real Clear Politics polling average.

*In the three decisive battleground states Trump won in 2016 by a total of 77,000 votes, Biden leads by five points or more in the 538 and RCP polling averages for Pennsylvania, by six in Wisconsin, and by seven in Michigan.

*Biden holds narrower leads in other battleground states Trump won in 2016 including Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.

*Three states – Iowa, Texas, and Ohio – are essentially tied. Trump won them all last time and he likely has no path to a second term without at least two of them.

Should Biden hold his leads in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and win the states Hillary Clinton carried four years ago, he need not win any of the toss up states (Iowa, Texas, Ohio) or other battleground states. Right now, Trump doesn’t lead in any state Clinton won four years ago.

 

Trump Could Still Win

Nate Silver’s 538 forecast, based on computer modeling  using polls, gives Trump a 12%

chance of winning. On the eve of the election in 2016, with Clinton leading in the polls, that forecast gave Trump a 35% chance of winning. Trump still enjoys a structural advantage in the electoral college because of small western and southern states he seemingly can’t lose. If he could flip a few states where Biden now leads narrowly, he possibly could pair those with states like Arkansas, Wyoming, and the Dakotas where he’s likely to win by more than 15 points and perhaps cobble together an electoral college majority.

Trump also draws encouragement from the idea of the so-called hidden Trump vote. Supposedly a sizeable number of Trump supporters don’t reveal themselves to pollsters, but will turn out on election day and put him back in the White House.

Evidence that a hidden Trump vote exists is tenuous at best and results from myths that have sprung up about the 2016 election, especially the idea that the polls got  

everything wrong. In truth, the 2016 national polls forecast the popular vote accurately. Clinton held a three-point lead going into election day and won by about 2.3 points, well within the margin of error for any poll.

As Clinton pointed out in her book What Happened, not  many polls were in the field in

the final days of the campaign in states like Wisconsin. They didn’t measure there the drop in her support, seen elsewhere and likely caused by FBI Director James Comey’s reopening of the e-mail investigation.   

Biden’s lead has remained stable. It has endured since the spring and has grown, in part, because of Trump’s abysmal handling of the pandemic. Relying on a hidden vote seems like a fantasy now, but only counting the ballots can tell us if such a thing exists.

Maybe the Calvary Isn’t Coming

Whatever Clinton’s complicity in her loss, and we’ve been unsparing in our criticism of her,

the things that did her in haven’t happened to Biden to this point. First, there’s no Comey on the horizon. Trump’s efforts at creating an “October surprise” through investigations into Biden and his son Hunter, Clinton, and former President Barack Obama have, so far, fallen flat.

More important, demographic factors increasingly work against Trump. Take senior

voters. Trump won them, 52-45 in 2016, but some recent polling shows Biden leading among that group. Trump’s gender gap has only gotten bigger. He lost women, 54-41 2016, and is losing them now, 55-39. He’s not winning men by as much as he did last time. In 2016, Trump carried the male vote, 52-41, but right now leads only 49-45.

Turnout among people of color could decide the election. A decrease in black turnout for Democrats, when compared to 2008 and 2012, hurt Clinton in those critical upper mid-western states. She won almost 90% of the African American vote, 66% of Hispanics, and 65% of the Asian-American vote. Biden seems headed in the same direction, but turnout remains the issue. Early indications suggest a bigger turnout among people of color, though only the counting will tell us for sure.

Long line of African American voters during days of early voting Oct2020

All of this occurs with Republican voter suppression efforts as a backdrop. Trump’s railings about non-existent fraud with mail-in voting also complicate the picture. The country may have to work through all that after election day.

 We should keep in mind the admonition of the great American philosopher Yogi Berra that the game “ain’t over ‘til it’s over.” Fair enough, but Trump has only a few outs left, the game isn’t tied, and he doesn’t have runners on base.            

THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: PENCE AND HARRIS HAVE THEIR SAY

 

Vice presidential debates are seldom memorable, but the October 7 contest between Republican Mike Pence and Democrat Kamala Harris broke new ground. Aside from the first appearance by a woman of color on the vice presidential debate stage,

this debate featured a fly who by the end of the evening had 4,067 social media followers. The Fly landed in Vice President Pence’s hair and stayed over two minutes. We could comment on the symbolism. But we won’t. Don’t ever say 2020 hasn’t been a strange year.

Beyond the adventures of The Fly, most post-debate analysis focused on whether it

changed the trajectory of a race that’s looking like a potential blowout. The Biden-Harris ticket entered the debate leading by 9.5 points in the fivethirtyeight.com polling average. Polls released right before the debate showed Biden-Harris ahead by as much as 16 points.

We agree with the pundit consensus that

nothing in the debate fundamentally changed the race even though CNN’s instant poll showed Harris winning, 59-38.   Women thought Harris won, 69-31.

 

Each Had Their Moments

Both candidates entered the debate with specific objectives, some multi-layered and nuanced. Pence, a smooth speaker who

politely, even gently, parrots Republican talking points, defended President Trump’s disturbing coronavirus, climate change, and foreign policy failures. He tried presenting more of a conventional Republican agenda and less of Trump’s personality cult, arguably describing a presidency that doesn’t exist. He pushed the

case Harris will lead Biden down a leftist, socialist path that over- taxes and overregulates. Pence made his points and got whatever mileage he could out of raising that set of issues.

Harris, being part of a ticket that’s ahead, but

still somewhat unknown herself, had to get people comfortable with the idea she can handle the presidency since Biden would take office at age 78. Responding to the succession question, she reminded voters of her resume as a three-time

elected official. She had strong moments on restoring America’s role in the world and the virtue in the Biden-Harris candidacy of having significant Republican support. She also tried laying out the ticket’s program since Biden didn’t get to in the first presidential debate

because of Trump’s interruptions and bullying. She effectively put the Affordable Care Act on the ballot with the reminder, “They’re coming for you,” when she identified a list of impacts terminating the act would cause. The instant poll results and the commentary suggested she succeeded.

 

Missed Opportunities

If both candidates had their moments, both missed opportunities. Harris, for example, could have used the Breonna Taylor question

in promoting how a Biden Justice Department might use federal civil rights laws in such cases and remedy the failures of Bill Barr as attorney general.  She also could have been stronger in her condemnation of the White House events that apparently spread the corona virus.

Pence, for his part, simply ducked a number of questions, like whether he had conferred with Trump about a transfer of power in light of the president’s covid-19 illness. The country needs an answer to that question and a good one might have done the Trump campaign some political good.  Pence may have been catering to Trump with his refusal to adhere to the time limits, but had he followed them, he might have gained credibility for making the debate process more dignified and civil. Critically, Pence didn’t answer the core values question of whether Trump will peacefully transfer power if he loses.             

 

Gender and Race

Inevitably gender and race were likely to

become part of this debate. The historic nature of the Harris candidacy assured that. The gender component manifest itself most in Pence’s incessant habit of exceeding his time (which moderator Susan Page of USA Today tried

controlling, mostly unsuccessfully) and the fact he frequently interrupted Harris. He didn’t do it as rudely and as aggressively as Trump did on September 29, but he did it. It didn’t go unnoticed. Women commentators on the cable networks took him to task, as did our female life partners. Like Harris, they didn’t appreciate Pence’s “lectures” about her record or approach to certain issues.

Pence also probably didn’t earn the Republican ticket any minority group votes by denying the existence of systemic racism or by supporting the grand jury findings in the Taylor case that resulted in no indictments against the police officers who killed her. Given the racial reckoning going on in the country, few reasons exist for taking those positions except knee jerk support for police or cultivating the backing of white nationalists and similar minded individuals. Perhaps Pence feared distinguishing himself from Trump.    

 

Back to the Fly

The Fly generated a lot of post-debate frivolity,

including Biden’s use of a fly swatter in a fundraising pitch. Debates in presidential campaigns often disappoint and people need something to talk about aside from each candidate’s delivery and style. The Fly added that this time. Still, it

was serious business as the vice-presidential debate – and we usually only have one – has become an important part in the process of electing a president. With both presidential candidates in their 70s, getting a sense of the woman and man who might replace them mattered.

Voters who want Trump’s policies – if not his style –  can take comfort in Pence’s performance, for all its flaws. He has some of Trump’s capacity for rudeness, but he wasn’t outlandish, just disconcerting. He knows the drill on the Republican agenda.

Harris showed she and Biden are on the same page. We think they have the better of it on policy, character, and preparation. Harris showed herself capable of taking the baton from Biden and running with it should that become necessary, suggesting she achieved her most important objective.