So recently (well, since he was elected, really) I've been seeing this recurring theme in political threads that it doesn't matter what the Democrats do, Trump is going to win re-election next year for sure and nothing we can do will change that. As someone who was overly-optimistic in 2016 that Clinton would defeat him, I totally get approaching with caution, but... really?
Now sometimes when these bold declarations are made, the person who stated it doesn't back it up with anything, though other times they will point to something that confirms their view - the economy, or polling numbers. I understand that not everyone is like the PoliEra regulars, who breathlessly hang onto every poll that gets released and keep up with new developments 24/7. But I thought it'd be interesting to gauge what drives these viewpoints (other than just general pessimism, which... yeah, things suck right now), and maybe I can even brighten some outlooks by pointing out that it might not be all that bad.
First, here's what the electoral map is looking like in 2020, courtesy of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball:
It's hard to quibble with this at the moment - Sabato assigned the race ratings based on the assumption that 2020 will be a fairly close election. In his write-up of the initial ratings release, Kyle Kondik (the site's editor) acknowledged that making Michigan a Lean D state might be jumping the gun, but said the same of putting Florida down as Lean R (despite the disappointing result in 2018, it's still hosted some very close elections going back to 2010, each election year since featuring at least one marquee race that's decided by about one point or less). There's no indication that Trump has actually gained in any of the states that Clinton won in 2016 - his path to re-election basically requires him to repeat his 2016 performance almost perfectly. Pennsylvania is probably the linchpin to his strategy here - he could lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona but still win if he holds everything else - but it would probably sooner come down to whether he can win Wisconsin and Arizona, both of which would probably stay red before Pennsylvania does (despite his winning margin in PA being slightly larger in 2016).
But sure, that doesn't acknowledge whatever strengths and weaknesses the Democratic nominee will bring with them a year from now. It's easy to say that the nominee will be one of Biden, Sanders or Warren. It's almost impossible to predict, however, what developments will occur during the campaign outside of some very broad generalities (Warren and Sanders will definitely have more trouble attracting some right-leaning independents than Biden would, while Biden will likely make several silly gaffes on the campaign trail). However, I have seen some people suggest that Trump is outright leading all of the candidates, right now, which is patently untrue. In fact, RealClearPolitics' polling aggregates feature Biden leading by 6.3%, Warren winning by 5.4%, and Sanders posting a six-point lead. It's been pretty rare that Trump has led any of the candidates in national polling at all - there are five polls conducted since his initial election where he's beaten Warren (and five ties), two where he beats Sanders, and just one where he beats Biden. Polls are of course a snapshot, and no one is saying that these numbers will be the exact same a year from now, but it makes about as much sense to assume those leads would increase as it does to assume the Democrats will deflate. Biden, Sanders and Trump are all known quantities, and Warren's awareness has been getting up there as well. Democrats also post a 7-point lead in the generic congressional ballot, which suggests the eventual nominee will have a favorable environment to run in.
The only other really compelling point I've seen is that the economy is still good, and true, in past elections "is the economy good? then the incumbent will sail to re-election" has generally been a good rule of thumb. I'm inclined to believe that won't hold up next year though. For one thing, there is no guarantee that the economy will still be good by the time voters cast their ballots, but more importantly, Trump's approval ratings are atrociously bad. The only way a good economy seems to be benefiting him is by keeping his numbers from becoming even worse. By contrast, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama all went into their re-election campaigns with positive approval ratings - in a presidential race featuring an incumbent, it is the single-most useful metric in determining whether a president will be re-elected. Carter and HW Bush were viewed negatively, both due to the economy as well as other factors. Trump is viewed negatively independently of how well the economy might be doing right now. If we do slip into a recession, you can probably expect things to get that much worse for him.
The only thing Trump seems to have going for him is foreign disinformation campaigns, which... well, yeah, you've got me there. However, the reason that was so effective in 2016 was because it aided a decades-long smear campaign waged against Hillary Clinton by the Republican Party. The inclination towards hating Clinton was already there, the Russians just helped. And it's worth pointing out that it can be reasonably assumed that Clinton only lost the election due to the last-minute release of the Comey letter. If not for that, she very likely would have won, given the direct effect it had on her polling numbers nationally as well as in the crucial swing states, regardless of her issues as a candidate and whether or not she campaigned in certain states.
This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be (narrator: it wasn't), but I figure I'd get a few talking points out of the way in anticipation of some of the most obvious rationales for why Trump will win. I'm leaning towards him losing at this point, just based on everything I outlined above, but I of course can't say that with absolute certainty. I probably won't even do that on election night until the minute it's called for his opponent.
That being said, remember the prophecy:
While midterm results are never exactly 1:1 with presidential (see the predictive power 2010's elections had over 2012, i.e. none), 2018 was unique in that its turnout came in just below presidential levels, and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan all going hard blue in a high turnout election should scare the shit out of any Republican strategist.
(and this picture is outdated: Democrats did indeed win the Congressional vote in Arizona, and held the GOP margin under five points in Georgia, Ohio and Montana. They also probably would have won the Congressional vote in North Carolina, had Walter Jones in their 3rd district faced a Democratic opponent)
Now sometimes when these bold declarations are made, the person who stated it doesn't back it up with anything, though other times they will point to something that confirms their view - the economy, or polling numbers. I understand that not everyone is like the PoliEra regulars, who breathlessly hang onto every poll that gets released and keep up with new developments 24/7. But I thought it'd be interesting to gauge what drives these viewpoints (other than just general pessimism, which... yeah, things suck right now), and maybe I can even brighten some outlooks by pointing out that it might not be all that bad.
First, here's what the electoral map is looking like in 2020, courtesy of Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball:
It's hard to quibble with this at the moment - Sabato assigned the race ratings based on the assumption that 2020 will be a fairly close election. In his write-up of the initial ratings release, Kyle Kondik (the site's editor) acknowledged that making Michigan a Lean D state might be jumping the gun, but said the same of putting Florida down as Lean R (despite the disappointing result in 2018, it's still hosted some very close elections going back to 2010, each election year since featuring at least one marquee race that's decided by about one point or less). There's no indication that Trump has actually gained in any of the states that Clinton won in 2016 - his path to re-election basically requires him to repeat his 2016 performance almost perfectly. Pennsylvania is probably the linchpin to his strategy here - he could lose Wisconsin, Michigan and Arizona but still win if he holds everything else - but it would probably sooner come down to whether he can win Wisconsin and Arizona, both of which would probably stay red before Pennsylvania does (despite his winning margin in PA being slightly larger in 2016).
But sure, that doesn't acknowledge whatever strengths and weaknesses the Democratic nominee will bring with them a year from now. It's easy to say that the nominee will be one of Biden, Sanders or Warren. It's almost impossible to predict, however, what developments will occur during the campaign outside of some very broad generalities (Warren and Sanders will definitely have more trouble attracting some right-leaning independents than Biden would, while Biden will likely make several silly gaffes on the campaign trail). However, I have seen some people suggest that Trump is outright leading all of the candidates, right now, which is patently untrue. In fact, RealClearPolitics' polling aggregates feature Biden leading by 6.3%, Warren winning by 5.4%, and Sanders posting a six-point lead. It's been pretty rare that Trump has led any of the candidates in national polling at all - there are five polls conducted since his initial election where he's beaten Warren (and five ties), two where he beats Sanders, and just one where he beats Biden. Polls are of course a snapshot, and no one is saying that these numbers will be the exact same a year from now, but it makes about as much sense to assume those leads would increase as it does to assume the Democrats will deflate. Biden, Sanders and Trump are all known quantities, and Warren's awareness has been getting up there as well. Democrats also post a 7-point lead in the generic congressional ballot, which suggests the eventual nominee will have a favorable environment to run in.
The only other really compelling point I've seen is that the economy is still good, and true, in past elections "is the economy good? then the incumbent will sail to re-election" has generally been a good rule of thumb. I'm inclined to believe that won't hold up next year though. For one thing, there is no guarantee that the economy will still be good by the time voters cast their ballots, but more importantly, Trump's approval ratings are atrociously bad. The only way a good economy seems to be benefiting him is by keeping his numbers from becoming even worse. By contrast, Reagan, Clinton, Bush and Obama all went into their re-election campaigns with positive approval ratings - in a presidential race featuring an incumbent, it is the single-most useful metric in determining whether a president will be re-elected. Carter and HW Bush were viewed negatively, both due to the economy as well as other factors. Trump is viewed negatively independently of how well the economy might be doing right now. If we do slip into a recession, you can probably expect things to get that much worse for him.
The only thing Trump seems to have going for him is foreign disinformation campaigns, which... well, yeah, you've got me there. However, the reason that was so effective in 2016 was because it aided a decades-long smear campaign waged against Hillary Clinton by the Republican Party. The inclination towards hating Clinton was already there, the Russians just helped. And it's worth pointing out that it can be reasonably assumed that Clinton only lost the election due to the last-minute release of the Comey letter. If not for that, she very likely would have won, given the direct effect it had on her polling numbers nationally as well as in the crucial swing states, regardless of her issues as a candidate and whether or not she campaigned in certain states.
This ended up being a lot longer than I thought it would be (narrator: it wasn't), but I figure I'd get a few talking points out of the way in anticipation of some of the most obvious rationales for why Trump will win. I'm leaning towards him losing at this point, just based on everything I outlined above, but I of course can't say that with absolute certainty. I probably won't even do that on election night until the minute it's called for his opponent.
That being said, remember the prophecy:
While midterm results are never exactly 1:1 with presidential (see the predictive power 2010's elections had over 2012, i.e. none), 2018 was unique in that its turnout came in just below presidential levels, and Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan all going hard blue in a high turnout election should scare the shit out of any Republican strategist.
(and this picture is outdated: Democrats did indeed win the Congressional vote in Arizona, and held the GOP margin under five points in Georgia, Ohio and Montana. They also probably would have won the Congressional vote in North Carolina, had Walter Jones in their 3rd district faced a Democratic opponent)
