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Is it a collapse? All Trump critics and opponents are traumatized people, scarred by the horror of November 2016. But vigilance shouldn’t mean being afraid of our shadows. The average of national polls shows something approaching a collapse in the President’s standing over the last three weeks and especially over the last week. On September 19th, the FiveThirtyEight composite average gave Joe Biden a 6.6 percentage point lead over President Trump. By October 1st that number had swelled to 8.2 percentage points. Today it is 10.1 percentage points. These may not seem like big numbers. But in a race that has been on in earnest for a year and in an era of fierce and largely stable polarization it is a deep deterioration.
Given the momentous events of the last ten days – the debate debacle followed by the President’s COVID diagnosis and his erratic behavior since returning to the White House – it’s been quite difficult to get a firm read of the polls. In such a chaotic news climate ‘differential response’ can drive sharp shifts in the polls – when one side is going silent because they are demoralized by breaking news events. Indeed, at least early this week internal polls from Democratic campaigns in the Upper Midwest were not registering the sharp shift in polling.
More recent data may provide some explanation. Polls suggest the deterioration is concentrated in the Sunbelt. It seems possible whatever realignment or shift against Trump that was going to happen in the industrial Midwest had already happened. The greater movement was possible in the South. Internal polls had been showing a tight and tightening race for Michigan Senator Gary Peters. But the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on September 18th seemed to push him back into a clear lead over challenger John James. The most recent shift – if we can assume it’s really and we probably can – seems to be coming in the South and more specifically in Florida, Georgia, Texas, North Carolina.
For partisans it’s nice to win big rather than squeak by. And a solid Biden win will be particularly important this year to head off any effort by President Trump to shut down vote counting in the courts. At the end of the day though you can only win or not win. Running up the count doesn’t really matter. Where it potentially matters a lot is in Congress and in down-ballot races around the country – most particularly in the US Senate. A decisive Biden win could have major ramifications across the country and into the future because of the critical impact of these down-ballot races – both in the Senate and in state legislatures which will guide the reapportionment process over the next two years.
