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October 20, 2020 - 8:00am
According to the polls, Donald Trump is heading for humiliation.
He has himself (and Covid) to blame for that — but it’s important that the right lessons are learned from his likely defeat.
If he loses, it will be seen as a loss not just for the man and his administration, but also for any resistance to the liberal agenda. While Trump’s national conservatism may have worked for him in 2016, it will be portrayed as evermore out-of-step with an increasingly diverse America. Eventually, the future always overwhelms the past.
But do the facts fit with that narrative? Polling evidence featured on the FiveThirtyEight site, reveals a more complicated picture. Contrary to what one might expect, Donald Trump has gained, not lost, support among black and Hispanic voters since 2016. The deficits are still huge of course — for instance, a massive 71% among black voters; but that compares to 82% four years ago. Especially interesting is that most of that gain is among younger black voters (men more than women). Trump has also gained ground among younger Hispanic voters.
Republicans should note that the rising generation of non-white Americans are open to a patriotic, pro-worker platform — and why shouldn’t they be?
If Trump is set for defeat then it’s because he’s lost support among white voters — specifically older white Americans without a college degree. Remarkably, the polling shows Trump gaining support among younger white Americans and those with degrees. Again, this is not what the standard narrative would lead us to expect. (The only non-surprise is that Trump has lost support among women.)
So, if Trump loses, it’s primarily because he hasn’t held onto the voters who made him President. There’ll be more than one reason for that. For instance, older, poorer Americans have the most to fear from the mishandling of the Covid crisis. They might also find Joe Biden’s folksy persona more attractive than Hillary Clinton’s hauteur.
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Subscribe‘Again, this is not what the standard narrative would lead us to expect.’
And why would anyone believe the ‘standard narrative’ as disseminated by the MSM and the pollsters etc? As with all articles about the US election in the British media, this article seems to bear no relation to the latest facts on the ground.
The latest info I have – from Steve Turley last night – is that Trump is ahead by 10 points in early voting in Texas. To put that in context, Hillary was up by 20 at this stage last time in Texas and lost the state. Turley also reports that Trump has a lead of 2 points in early voting in Michigan, when the expectation was that Biden would have significant lead in early (mail in) voting.
Trump is behind in Florida, but not by as much as would be expected before the in-person voting. And in some polls he is now ahead with Latino voters in Florida, which represents a massive swing from 2016. (This is largely owing to Bernie Sanders eulogising the very socialism that so many Cubans and Venezuelans fled).
Meanwhile, more and more people are becoming aware that the Bidens are one of the world’s great crime families. And the revelations on that front have barely begun…
Oh Lord. Who are the Bidens? Three dead, one drug-addled loser and one 77 year old. Fantastic if they’re a “great crime family”.
Well taking 1.5 BILLION off then Chinese is pretty impressive by any standards. As Trump said, they make Hillary look like an amateur.
Once again you are relying on polls, when a large percentage of the Right don’t go out on the street whining and they don’t respond to pollsters. Hence, all the poll results are skewed to the Left. Remember this… Conservatives are conservative.
“It’s a question that Boris Johnson should pay very close attention to.”
Don’t any British politicians understand that the electorate are trying to give them a hint about immigration?