Looking purely at the recent polling, Donald Trump must be considered current favorite to win November’s national election. We’ve explored how his felony convictions in New York City have not altered this overall trajectory, which has appeared to favor the challenger for months now.
The oddsmakers and political forecasters seem to agree with this assessment, pegging the 45th president as likelier than not to become the 47th president in various published models. For what it’s worth, I don’t put a ton of stock into these models, especially with four-plus months left to go, but they’re still worth mentioning. As of this writing, Trump leads Biden (in RealClearPolitics five-candidate field averages) by nearly five points in Arizona, six points in Georgia, five points in Nevada, five points in North Carolina, and two points in Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin are almost exactly tied. Beyond these ‘big seven’ battlegrounds, Democrats have at least some cause for concern about an expanding map. I’m still rather skeptical about Trump’s chances in either of these states when all is said and done, but these are averages from late last week, not just single snapshots, as the election year summer gets underway:
https://twitter.com/DecisionDeskHQ/status/1801721430419378256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Let’s put it this way: If Democrats are really sweating Minnesota or Virginia on election night, there’s a very good chance Trump will be re-elected. Based on the head-to-head polling, the incumbent’s approval rating, and broad voter sentiments, betting on a Trump victory makes sense. However. I will once again return to a fixation I’ve been writing about for months, based on some fresh data. As I’ve been pointing out, Biden enjoys the built-in advantage of ‘high propensity’ voters favoring his party by a meaningful margin. The Americans who are absolutely guaranteed to vote now lean decidedly blue. Democrats also have a well-established and lavishly-funded turnout and ballot operation that will wring every last vote out of their machine, fueled by people for whom voting (often early, by mail) is basically a religious rite. Republicans, by contrast, are generally skeptical of non-traditional voting methods, and their coalition is increasingly reliant upon ‘low propensity,’ or haphazard (sometimes at best) voters participating. Advantage: Democrats. Public opinion data also shows that many would-be voters are deeply disenchanted with their choices this year:
https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1802308353051295771?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This is relevant because it speaks to the battle over the key “double disapprovers,” among whom Biden won handily in 2020. Polling this year shows this demographic more evenly split, some with Trump leading. But there’s a decent chance that a lot of these unsatisfied millions just stay home this fall. If turnout is relatively low, the importance of cranking out the base will rise for each major party. And Democrats are just better at that than Republicans are these days. The New York Times has published new data fortifying the high vs. low propensity voter dynamic I’ve been harping on so much. The more engaged the voter, the more likely she or he is to be a Democrat:
https://twitter.com/IAPolls2022/status/1802293966949204269?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
via joemiller