Cook Political Report released its latest Electoral College outlook earlier today. Add this to the growing Everest of bad news for Trump.
Some highlights:
- Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and NE-02, previously tossups, are now “Lean Democratic.”
- Maine-AL moves from “lean Democratic” to “likely Democratic,” while ME-02 moves from “likely Republican” to “lean Republican.”
- Georgia moves from “lean Republican” to “toss-up.”
The full breakdown is here. With these moves, Biden now has 279 electoral votes in the solid, likely or lean Democratic category, compared to 188 solid, likely or lean Republican votes for Trump. In Cook Political Report’s analysis, Trump would need to sweep all of the toss-ups and then scoop up at least 11 “lean Democratic” votes (presumably NE-02 and either Minnesota or Wisconsin).
In other words, at this point, Trump would need to thread the needle to win another term. And according to Cook Political’s Amy Walter, a lot of Republican strategists know it.
Republican strategists we’ve spoken with this week think Trump is close to the point of no return. A couple of others wondered if Trump had reached his “Katrina” moment: a permanent loss of trust and faith of the majority of voters.
In talking with strategists on both sides this last week, it’s also clear that Trump is dragging Republican congressional candidates with him as well.
Reportedly, Trump is trailing in districts where he romped in 2016, and a lot of second-tier and third-tier Democratic Senate candidates are printing money.
Small wonder that, as Walter puts it, “this election is looking more like a Democratic tsunami than simply a Blue wave.” In other words, unless Trump can right the ship, he could potentially get Goldwatered, Hoovered, or Landoned.
Giving my age away here—but were Democrats panicking like this in, say, 1972 and 1984? Those seem to be the only elections I can recall in recent times where it was already clear the Democrats were getting stomped. The only difference is that at least in those years, the Democrats still had some infrastructure. The Republicans don't seem to have much of that left now.