Trump's Once-Bright Reelection Prospects Are Darkening Rapidly

[babylonsister]

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/trumps-re-election-2020-polls-coronavirus.html

vision 2020 Apr. 15, 2020
Trump’s Once-Bright Reelection Prospects Are Darkening Rapidly
By Ed Kilgore

snip//

The evidence is beginning to mount that the damage COVID-19 is doing to the economy Trump so often touted as his supreme achievement, along with meh public assessments of his leadership, have together reversed the arrows and made the incumbent an underdog, as National Journal’s Josh Kraushaar — by no means a liberal or partisan Democrat — explains:

President Trump is in an increasingly precarious position for reelection as he struggles to maintain focus on the coronavirus pandemic, instead nursing his personal grievances against the press and his political rivals in a time of crisis. He has already squandered the “rally around the flag” bounce that he received in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, and polling suggests that the president is losing ground to presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden both nationally and in key battleground states …


[T]he reality is that, absent a speedy V-shaped economic turnaround by the fall, Trump is now a decided underdog for a second term.

Yes, it’s true that past precedents of poor economic conditions blowing up presidential reelection candidacies (from Herbert Hoover to Jimmy Carter to George H.W. Bush) seem inadequate to the kind of disaster COVID-19 poses. But there’s also no example of a president being reelected in the midst of economic calamity on the grounds that it wasn’t entirely his fault. Given the extraordinarily polarized foundation on which Trump has built his political career and his presidency, it’s hard to imagine a figure less likely to inspire sudden respect and appreciation among those not already in his camp (even the regularly pro-Trump polling from Rasmussen currently shows as many Americans strongly disapproving of the job he is doing as approving of it by any degree). To the extent that every presidential election involving an incumbent is basically a referendum on life during the previous four years, you have to figure Trump’s current mediocre approval ratings (at 44 percent at FiveThirtyEight and 45 percent at RealClearPolitics) are a ceiling rather than a floor, assuming no shocking turnaround on either the public-health or economic conditions of the country.

And, as Kraushaar suggests, the nationally darkening climate for Trump’s reelection is being matched by bad news from states he needs to eke out another Electoral College win:

In traditionally Republican Arizona, a must-win state for Trump, he trails Biden 52 to 43 percent in a new OH/Predictive Insights poll. He’s down by 6 points to Biden in Florida, in an April University of North Florida survey, despite his generally sunny track record in the state. Biden led Trump in a trifecta of Michigan polls conducted in March. According to the RealClearPolitics statewide polling averages, Biden is ahead in every swing state.

snip//

But the idea that Trump has some infernal hold on the presidency (the combined product, I believe, of perennial shock over what happened in 2016 and the endless braying braggadocio of Trump’s conservative media voices) is looking shaky now. He clearly will not be able to campaign as the triumphant engineer of an economic boom created by bulldozing the environment and shiftless workers and godless foreigners while showering tax dollars on wealthy American job-creators. His other credentials for a second term are compelling mostly to people who want to return this country to the 1950s. That’s always going to be a decided, if loud, minority.

[CurtEastPoint]

1. Good. May they fucking extinguish totally. GDMFSOB

[Guilded Lilly]

2. And we can never quit ramping up the pressure and...

the GOTV.
Polls betrayed us before. We have to totally and completely squash his presidency into pulp.

[underpants]

3. He had bright re-election prospects?

They are getting killed in the burbs and amongst women.

If there’s any uptick in voting he loses all of his close wins from 2016.

[treestar]

6. +1

He's never had 50% approval. He has given us 4 years of chaos. And he only won by the EC and happening to win swing states by the skin of his teeth. At no time did his standing improve to such a point where his re-election looked "bright."

[Wounded Bear]

11. GMTA...

[crickets]

4. Can't wait to say, "...AND GOOD RIDDANCE!" to him. nt

[MuseRider]

5. This is why he is throwing

all the re-opening of states on to the shoulders of our governors. Let them deal with the mess while he starts up his real rallies and makes himself shine like a oiled turd.

[Wounded Bear]

7. "Bright prospects?" He 'won' with razor thin margins...

in three traditionally blue states, and never once increased his approval ratings.

I don't buy the "he was winning until he started losing" bullshit.

[underpants]

10. Me either

Post #3

[GusBob]

8. 30, 000 plus deaths. Has he said one word of condolence

To their family, friends, coworkers , etc

They could number in the milions

In their grief they suffer, and he ignores them and calls for liberation from a seige

Sorrow is also a seige

[Wounded Bear]

12. Remember when he fucked up that phone call to the Army widow?

It's not something he can do well.

[we can do it]

9. When did he have bright chances?

[HipChick]

13. He only has himself too blame..

Fuck him