Dems still haunted by ’16 loss
Biden is leading Trump, but ‘a poll is just a poll’
WASHINGTON – Democrats have heard this story before.
Their standard-bearer builds a sizable lead in the race for president against Donald Trump. Everything seems pointed in their direction. Pundits talk about a Democratic victory like it’s inevitable.
Then it doesn’t happen.
Still licking their wounds four years after Hillary Clinton’s stinging loss, Democrats are grappling with heightened expectations. Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden cruised to a double-digit lead nationally weeks ago and has stayed there as President Trump takes a pounding over his handling of the coronavirus crisis, high unemployment and the fallout from nationwide protests over police brutality.
Not only does Biden lead polls in every battleground state – a wider command than Clinton ever had – the former vice president is either ahead or competitive in states that the GOP must carry, including Texas,Georgia, Iowa,Ohio and Missouri. Democrats also have a path to take control of the Senate.
On one hand, Democrats are gushing about their prospects: a chance for a sweeping victory, not just eking out a win, to deliver a clear repudiation of the Trump era and unseat Mitch McConnell as Senate majority leader.
But they’re not able to shake off their painful memories of 2016, when many Democrats assumed that the Republican Party’s nomination of a reality TV show host with no elected office experience would ensure a Clinton victory in November.
“That memory can’t be erased,” said Luis Heredia, executive director of the Arizona Education Association, the state’s teachers union, and a Democratic National Committee member. He recalled watching swing states Pennsylvania and Michigan quickly col
Joey Garrison “The thing that keeps me up at night is the unknown unknowns.”
Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party
lapse for Democrats on election night. “That memory is still very fresh, especially for me.”
“You remind people that a poll is just a poll,” Heredia said. “It’s a moment in time on Tuesday morning when somebody answered a call. Let’s not get carried away. We should be winning by 20 points, given the circumstances. Winning by 6 points is still too close for us to say that we’re ahead of the game.”
Different dynamics in 2020
In interviews with DNC members from six battleground states, including party leaders, each came back to an old campaign cliche: “Take nothing for granted.”
Democratic anxiety is assuaged a bit by the different circumstances this time around: Trump is an incumbent, unable to run as a businessman outsider fighting to “drain the swamp.” Multiple crises – including a pandemic that’s resulted in more than 129,000 American deaths – are part of his record. He just wrapped up arguably the most difficult month in his presidency, capped by a controversy over reports that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers.
Perhaps most significantly, Biden lacks the low favorability and trustworthiness marks that doomed Clinton, whose polarization gave Trump an opening many Democrats did not see.
There is a major warning sign for Democrats: Despite Biden’s sizable lead, his supporters are significantly less enthusiastic about him than Trump’s loyalists are of the president, polling shows.
“Democrats across Wisconsin have two reactions to this moment,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “The first is that Trump is an unmitigated disaster, and polls demonstrate that everyone knows he’s bad. The second reaction is that we have learned our lesson from 2016.”
He said Democrats “can’t take their foot off the gas even for a second” by buying too much into the polls, noting that Clinton led Trump by as many as 15 percentage points in Wisconsin after the Democratic National Convention in August 2016. Trump ended up winning Wisconsin by less than 1 percentage point.
“I would encapsulate it as ‘grim resolve,’ ” Wikler said of the mood among Democrats. It’s “mystifying that Trump even has the scraps of support he has,” given his troubles. He said Democrats fear Trump is “willing to cheat his way back into power” by limiting voter access and refusing to accept results.
There are four months left before the election, enough time for the race to upend again.
“The thing that keeps me up at night is the unknown unknowns,” Wikler said.
‘A lot can happen’
Trump’s wins in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three pivotal states that historically vote Democratic, proved fatal for Clinton in 2016. Winning back the Rust Belt is key for Biden, who holds a polling lead of 6 points or more in each state, according to the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
Democratic leaders in these states said they began rebuilding campaign infrastructure quickly after their 2016 defeats in preparation for 2020.
“I don’t think anybody is comfortable with these numbers,” said Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party. “There were people in 2016 who, very early on, because of who Donald Trump was, thought, ‘How could this nation possibly choose Donald Trump?’ Now that that’s happened, we recognize that we should never count anybody out.”
Barnes said the Clinton campaign started focusing on Michigan “late,” after the party conventions in the late summer, but the Biden campaign is already working closely with the state party’s operations.
“We all recognize the importance of this moment and the opportunities here, but they are only opportunities for us if we take advantage of them by doing the work,” she said.
Rick Bloomingdale, president of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO and a DNC committee member, said Biden’s strong numbers show that workers are worried about the economy and the pandemic, and “they’re seeing no leadership from Washington, D.C.”
“But that doesn’t mean they’re going to hold,” he said. “Trump has shown an incredible ability to be down and then back up. A lot can happen in those (final 120) days. In 2016, people thought, ‘Oh man, if they nominate Trump, this thing’s a waltz.’ It wasn’t, of course. We shouldn’t assume it’s going to be this time.”
He said, “We’d all love for the election to be over today. But we also know that’s not the case.”
Asked whether he feels good about Biden carrying Pennsylvania, Bloomingdale said, “I was confident that Hillary was going to win Pennsylvania. If we do the work, we’ll win. If we don’t do the work, we won’t win.”
Wikler said Democrats in Wisconsin “erased” the advantage an incumbent typically has by laying groundwork since 2017.
Like Michigan and Pennsylvania, Trump carried Wisconsin with strong support from white, working-class voters, winning rural counties across the state with more than 60% of the vote. Since then, Wikler noted, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., won her reelection in 2018 by double digits. Wikler said he believes Biden can make more inroads in rural areas where farms have been hurt by Trump’s trade policies.
“We know that Trump is targeting Wisconsin as an absolute-must state for reelection,” Wikler said. “For us, that means we have to fight for every vote, and we’re investing accordingly.”
Biden has bigger lead than Clinton
Biden leads Trump nationally, 53%41%, according to a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll released last week, and holds a 9.4% lead in the Real Clear Politics average of polls.
At this juncture in 2016, Clinton’s advantage over Trump was smaller, 46%40% in the USATODAY/Suffolk poll, and Trump started to close the gap. In the Real Clear Politics average of polls on July 1, 2016, Clinton led by 4.8 points, a tightening from her double-digit advantage in the spring.
Although some slammed the accuracy of polling after Trump won in an upset, Clinton’s final lead in the popular vote, 48.2% to 46.1%, closely matched final polls. Trump’s edge in the Electoral College came from close wins in swing states.
Troubling for Trump this go-around: Only 20% of voters surveyed in the USA TODAY poll say the USA is headed in the right direction. The majority (67%) say the country is headed in the wrong direction. Biden also lacks the same negatives as Clinton, including questions over character.
Fifty percent of voters surveyed say they find Biden honest and trustworthy, compared with 30% for Trump. Six weeks before the 2016 election, Trump led the trustworthy question. A Washington Post/ABC poll found 33% of voters found Clinton honest and trustworthy, and Trump was trusted by 42%.
David Paleologos, director of Suffolk University’s Political Research Center, said the 2016 electorate was swung by “the haters” – voters who disliked both Trump and Clinton. He said the “intensity against Hillary Clinton ended up being higher than Trump, especially in the swing states.” Trump benefited by a race that turned highly negative because Clinton was more polarizing.
“This year, you don’t have that,” Paleologos said. “He’s likable. He’s likable Joe.”
For Trump, Paleologos said, “that’s really the challenge ahead. He doesn’t have an opponent who people hate or have a visceral reaction to.”
Biden’s biggest vulnerability could be
“I don’t think anybody is comfortable with these numbers. There were people in 2016 who, very early on, because of who Donald Trump was, thought, ‘How could this nation possibly choose Donald Trump?’ Now that that’s happened, we recognize that we should never count anybody out.” Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party
Trump campaign launches attacks
the enthusiasm gap. Most of his supporters back him because he’s “not Trump,” according to Paleologos. Half of Trump’s backers say they are “very excited” about their candidate; 27% of Biden backers say that. “The people for Trump, they love him. The people for Biden, they shrug their shoulders,” Paleologos said.
Biden leads overwhelmingly among voters not enthusiastic about either candidate. “That’s right now taking its toll on the Trump campaign,” Paleologos said.
Biden downplayed his lead during his first news conference since April after a speech last week in Wilmington, Delaware. He was asked about his unorthodox campaign, which has operated largely from his home in Delaware during the pandemic. Biden said “the irony” is he’s probably been able to reach more voters through virtual campaigning.
“So far, it remains to be seen, I don’t want to jinx myself, I know the polling data is very good. But I think it’s really early. It’s much too early to make any judgment,” Biden said.
Trump and Republicans have struggled to find an attack against Biden that’s stuck.
During a conference call with reporters, Trump communication director Tim Murtaugh threw the gauntlet at Biden.
He slammed Biden for not denouncing the tear-downs of monuments by protesters, called him a “disaster” on the economy, talked extensively about Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., questioned Biden’s ties to China and argued the Obama-Biden administration’s handling of the H1N1 pandemic left Trump with a shortage of N95 masks. He accused Biden of using COVID-19 as a “political weapon in a cynical attempt” to undermine public confidence.
“Joe Biden is hoping to ride out the rest of these four months without taking any of these questions,” Murtaugh said. “He’s not undergoing thorough vetting before the American people, and he’s not facing scrutiny because his handlers know he is not up to it.”
Comparing the 2020 and 2016 elections, Robby Mook, Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager, said, “I almost look at it as: Is there very much that’s the same?” He appeared on the podcast of David Plouffe, Barack Obama’s former campaign manager. “First and foremost, I’d say COVID has changed everything.”
Mook, president of the House Majority
PAC, said Trump is taken “more seriously” and “being held to account in a way that he wasn’t in ’16.” Whereas Trump’s “petty” remarks were treated as a “novelty” in 2016, they’re now seen “in a context of a true lack of leadership,” he said.
Political experience tends to be a liability in campaigns, Mook said, but it’s viewed as a strength for Biden during the pandemic. “I think Hillary kind of got the opposite end of that.” He predicted the race would tighten up as voters, as they historically do, “go home to their parties,” but not if Trump can’t “get his act together.”
“Biden wants this to be a referendum on Trump, and he’s winning that right now. Trump needs to reengineer that to be a choice – and he can’t even offer what that choice is,” Mook said. “So how in the world are they supposed to get this on firmer ground for their strategy?”
Dems claim to understand ‘pulse’
None of the Trump taglines on Biden has gained traction like “Crooked Hillary” and chants of “Lock her up” four years ago.
Democrats, despite their cautious optimism, are bullish about the issues being in their favor: a pandemic they contend exposed failed presidential leadership and Trump’s “law and order” response to protests over systemic racism and police brutality as polling shows more Americans are favorable to the Black Lives Matter movement.
“We understand what the temperature and the pulse of the country looks like right now,” said Shelia Huggins, an attorney from Durham, North Carolina, and DNC committee member.
She said her Democratic friends aren’t talking about a 2016 repeat as much as they once were.
“We’re too busy listening to a president who is talking nonsense pretty much every day,” she said. “You’re easily reminded that 2016 is not what needs to be on the forefront of what we’re thinking about. We need to be thinking about 2020.”
In Arizona, Heredia said he believes Democrats have momentum to carry the state for Biden, win the U.S. Senate race between Democrat Mark Kelly and Sen. Martha McSally and flip both chambers of the state Legislature, where Republicans have slim majorities. The last Democrat to carry Arizona for president was Bill Clinton in 1996.
“There’s a perfect storm building up in Arizona, I would call it a perfect ‘haboob’ in our state,” he said, referring to the dust storms that pop up in the Southwest
Ken Evans, a DNC committee member from Florida, who runs a camp for children in Fort Lauderdale, said he knows many “nonpartisan people” in Broward County who voted for Trump because they couldn’t back Clinton, but they plan to vote for Biden in November. He said the president’s handling of the coronavirus was the last straw.
“That’s making the difference. That’s what’s going to bring out the vote,” Evans said, defending voter enthusiasm for Biden. “They’re excited to bring normalcy back to the White House” after all the “tiresome” Trump drama, he said. “People are tired.”
When it comes to Biden being ahead in polls, though, Evans returned to four years ago.
“So was Hillary, right?” he said.