President Donald J. Trump delivers remarks to employees and guests Thursday, June 25, 2020, at Fincantieri Marinette Marine in Marinette, Wis. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour)
In The New York Sun, Michael Barone highlights some polling data that could predict a big win for Donald Trump in November. He writes:
As I try to understand public opinion in yet another presidential election year with President Trump as the Republican nominee, I see an anomaly.
On one hand, the polls look very much like the 2020 and 2016 election results. Trump trails Vice President Harris by 1.9 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, for instance.
That margin looks a lot like the 2.1-point popular vote margin for Secretary Clinton in November 2016 and is not qualitatively different from the 4.4-point popular vote margin for President Biden in November 2020.
On the other hand, current poll numbers, representing interviews conducted through the end of August, showed Democrats significantly further ahead in those earlier years — Mrs. Clinton by 3.9 points, Mr. Biden by 7 points. The differences are even starker in target states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Depending on how you resolve this anomaly, you will be expecting quite a different experience on November 5. If you concentrate on the similarity between today’s polling results and the last two actual election results, you’ll expect yet another excruciatingly close election, with the electoral vote majority probably determined by which candidate carries two or three states by tenths of a percentage point.
If you concentrate on Democrats’ smaller polling margins over Trump this year as compared to 2016 and 2020, however, you’ll expect him to run considerably better this time, perhaps winning the popular vote and probably carrying the electoral vote without difficulty.
So which is the better view? Is he really running better this time, something sufferers from so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome must have a hard time believing, or are we just looking at the same old same old?
There’s evidence for that latter view. I don’t see significant changes in assessments of Trump’s character. He compared favorably on some traits with the flagging Mr. Biden, but Democrats’ and the dominant press’s month of joy over Ms. Harris’ succession has eliminated, at least temporarily, some of the former president’s advantages.
Read more here.
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