Trump and Biden offer opposing views of the country.
Conventions done, sprint to Election Day is on
The Republican and Democratic conventions didn’t only present competing political parties to voters. They also reflected clashing visions of reality in the nation Donald Trump and Joe Biden are battling to lead.
In Trump’s America, the coronavirus is no longer a looming threat: The president accepted the GOP nomination with an address cheered by the sort of big crowd that has been outlawed in the District of Columbia for fears of spreading the disease. In Biden’s America, the virus remains a deadly menace: He accepted the Democratic nomination on a stark stage in his Delaware hometown with a few reporters as his audience.
On this, the two rivals agree: Electing the other guy would be apocalyptic, imperiling the very idea of America.
“At no time before have voters faced a clearer choice between two parties, two visions, two philosophies or two agendas,” Trump said in his speech from the South Lawn, a sentence Biden could comfortably have uttered. Trump said that “this election will decide whether we save the American dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.”
In his acceptance speech, Biden warned that the “American dream feels as if it’s slowly slipping away” by the policies and actions of the incumbent.
“I don’t need to tell you that,” the former vice president added. “You feel it every single day in your own lives.”
Biden has repeatedly said that a “battle for the soul of the nation” is on the ballot, almost exactly the same words that the Trump campaign used Friday in a fundraising appeal.
“While the conventions are trying to paint a picture,” former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said, “there’s a reality that people are living.”
What follows over the next 66 days will be millions of dollars in ads, four debates and a sprint to Election Day.
The Fivethirtyeight.com average of national surveys gives Biden an edge of 9 percentage points over Trump, 51%42%, though that doesn’t reflect any bounce the president might have gotten from his acceptance speech Thursday night. Biden also holds single-digit leads in the most crucial battleground states: 8 points in Michigan, 5.7 points in Pennsylvania, 6.2 points in Wisconsin, 5.5 points in Florida.
COVID-19 has cost more than 182,000 lives in the United States and counting.
The stock market is hitting records, but the unemployment rate was 10.2% in July as the economy reels from the pandemic’s repercussions.
The shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has sparked new protests over police treatment of Blacks. Violence has erupted in the streets of Kenosha and elsewhere.
The sharpness of the conditions raises a question: In an America that is so polarized, with voters viewing every event through such different lenses, how will either candidate manage to govern when the election is over?