Every week I write “public opinion doesn’t change quickly,” then a bunch of crazy shit happens, and people think, well that has to move numbers! And then it doesn’t. This past week, that was the NY Times bombshell story about Donald Trump’s taxes. There was also the debate, of course, but any shift in public opinion from the debate won’t be seen in polls for a few more days.
But being a shitty businessman, using “consulting fees” to your employee daughter to avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes, owing about $400 million coming due in the next four years, and paying nothing most of the time, and $750 the last two years … that had to leave some sort of mark, right?
Well, let’s take a look. But note that 200,000 dead Americans has cost Trump a net three points in job approvals. Numbers won’t change rapidly. But they can change—suburban trends could continue moving against Trump. People entering the electorate (the young and previous non-voters) could be motivated to participate for the first time by either side. Demographic trends can continue their march (older, more Republican voters are continuously, er, “exiting the electorate.” And partisans can be activated or deactivated based on the overall contours of the race. For example, I’m not sure I’d be particularly excited to turn out and vote if I was a Republican right now. Their leader is an international embarrassment. You stand with Trump, you’re standing right there side-by-side with the Nazi Proud Boys.
But will we actually see any of that in the polls? Let’s take a look:
First, let’s look at the national picture:
(The Economist)
That’s an 8.2-point lead, flat from the week before. But of course, the presidential election isn’t decided by such magical notions as “democracy” and “one person, one vote.” So we need to look at the states.
Let’s start with our baseline map.
(270towin.com)
Here are the polling aggregates for the battleground states, using The Economist’s data. (The battleground single-district electoral votes in Maine and Nebraska are an exception. None of the aggregators are aggregating that polling, so I’ve done my own crude averaging out of the latest numbers.)
| STATE |
ELECTORAL
VOTES |
ECONOMIST
POLL AGGREGATE
|
WEEKLY
CHANGE
|
TOTAL |
| BASELINE |
- |
- |
|
232-125 |
| MICHIGAN |
16 |
Biden +7.8 |
+0.2 |
248-125 |
| WISCONSIN |
10 |
Biden +7.6 |
+0.4 |
258-125 |
| Nebraska-01 |
1 |
Biden +6.5 |
- |
259-125 |
| PENNSYLVANIA |
20 |
Biden +6.2 |
+1.0 |
279-125 |
| Florida |
29 |
Biden +2.8 |
+0.4 |
308-125 |
| Arizona |
11 |
Biden +2.6 |
even |
319-125 |
| NORTH CAROLINA |
15 |
Biden +2.0 |
+0.8 |
334-125 |
| Maine-02 |
1 |
Biden +2.0 |
- |
335-125 |
| GEORGIA |
16 |
Biden +0.0 |
+1.0 |
351-125 |
| IOWA |
6 |
Trump +0.6 |
+1.0 |
351-131 |
| OHIO |
18 |
Trump +0.6 |
+1.0 |
351-149 |
| TEXAS |
38 |
Trump 3.8 |
-1.6 |
351-187 |
Georgia is this week’s big flip, moving from a narrow Trump lead to a tied race. I made a command decision and gave the tie to Joe Biden since he’s had the lead in the two most recent Georgia polls.
As you can see, Biden inched up in every single battleground except Arizona, which simply wasn't polled last week. That’s one way for Trump to not lose ground. Simply don’t poll. The shifts weren’t big, +1 being the largest anywhere, but again, that kind of slight movement is to be expected given how little public opinion shifts. And of course, Biden is winning, so even zero movement works in our favor.
Pennsylvania remains the tipping-point state, and note how solid Biden’s leads up to 270 electoral votes are. Things tighten up considerably after the Big Three rust-belt states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. The election will be won in those three states. Everything else afterward is gravy, at least for the presidential race.
Of course, there’s more on the ballot than the presidential, so running strongly in places like Arizona, Georgia, and Iowa makes it easier for us to pick up those critical Senate seats. Same in places that aren’t presidential battlegrounds, like Montana and Kansas. So every point matters, because there’s going to be plenty of races at the Senate, House, and local levels won by less than a point. So we work hard to squeeze out every last possible point, and do so everywhere.
