Why confidence is tinged with fear as Biden surges ahead in the polls
JOE BIDEN’S campaign and his Democratic Party are feeling an emotion they have not sensed in quite some time, and one that prompts more than a little fear: confidence.
Poll after poll has placed the presumptive Democratic nominee ahead of President Donald Trump, with comfortable national leads that in some cases have swollen to double digits.
He is ahead by narrower but consistent margins in battleground states, and Biden himself has grown increasingly bullish on the idea that Democrats will win back the Senate majority, a possibility not even dreamed of until recently. Once an anaemic fundraiser, he is now routinely drawing multimillion-dollar hauls.
Trump is presiding over a Depression-style economy, a global pandemic and boiling social unrest.
His administration has lost several high-profile Supreme Court cases, his former National Security adviser’s new book has painted a damning portrait, and he is now in perhaps the weakest position of his presidency with less than five months before the general election.
The images of a half-empty arena for Trump’s much-hyped rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday underscored the perception of a diminished incumbent, one who has long seen crowd size as a barometer of success.
But for Democrats, the very idea that they are doing well provokes an underlying skittishness. They worry about voting during the coronavirus crisis, amid restrictions that could make it harder to cast ballots. Some fear a coming misinformation campaign and say the party risks underestimating Trump’s ability to turn the country against their nominee.
They also worry their party still does not fully understand what led voters to Trump in the first place, and they are terrified that overconfidence, like some of them had four years ago, will lead to complacency.
“It feels like 2016 all over,” said Andrew Werthmann, a member of the city council in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who has been almost cringing as he watches Biden surge in the polling he cannot help but keep looking at. “It’s not a good energy to think you have a presidential election in the bag,” he said. “Especially not in our state, where exactly that happened last time.”
Biden’s campaign believes the pathway to the presidency runs through states in the industrial Midwest – such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, the three usually Democratic states Hillary Clinton lost in 2016.
However, they are also increasingly optimistic about once-unthinkable states such as Arizona, Texas and Georgia. They have twin goals of trying to motivate black voters in urban cores and college-educated voters in the suburbs to turn out in bigger numbers than Clinton drew.
“I’ve always had an expanded map in my head that includes Texas, maybe even South Carolina, maybe Georgia. We’re not going to concede anything,” said Cedric Richmond, the co-chairman of Biden’s campaign.
While Biden at this point is faring better against Trump than Clinton did, the next few months hold challenges for him. He has failed so far to excite Latinos, a fast-growing electoral bloc, and some young black voters still view him with scepticism.
Trump retains a solid base of supporters. Two weeks ago, an unexpectedly favourable employment report raised the spectre of a boosted economy, one area where Trump continues to poll better than Biden.
But Biden also has been helped by factors outside his control: Trump, who unlike in 2016 has a record to be measured against, has not yet found a line of attack that has resonated with voters. And the president is facing not only Democrats in whom he inspires unprecedented anger, but a revolt among Republicans, some of whom have formed anti-Trump networks that are airing ads against him. (© The Washington Post)