The race is not over yet
One of Donald Trump’s great strengths as a campaigner — being a magnet for media and public attention — has become a weakness. When the celebrity businessman ran to be United States President in 2016, he blotted out the sun for rival candidates and reaped the rewards.
Up against America’s first female presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, Trump got endless coverage with divisive controversies and made his simple policy themes count.
Trump had no political record to run on and concentrated on appealing to core Republican voters to drive up enthusiasm. He also worked hard to boost Clinton’s unfavourable ratings.
This year Trump is once again at the centre of the general election campaign, against former VicePresident Joe Biden, but no longer a novelty or a challenger.
Trump’s widespread public exposure is not working for him. Biden’s low-key campaign is simply allowing Trump to commit selfsabotage. The narrative of November’s election is set: It is a referendum on the President.
The country is in a far more serious situation than it was in 2016 when an economic boom was under way, the Democrats had been in power for two terms, and Trump’s grievances against immigration and globalisation struck a chord with Republicans.
Voters have now seen the consequences of Trump’s decisions and indecision. He has been unable to offer plans for how the US gets out of its pandemic predicament, puts millions of people back to work and addresses racial injustice.
Polls suggest key voter groups such as senior citizens, independents and suburban women are fleeing to Biden.
In such momentous times, Trump’s preoccupations can seem petty. On Sunday, at his first rally since early March, he spent 10 minutes talking about the way he had walked down a ramp. He appeared to make light of Covid-19, which has killed 120,000 people on his watch.
There were no new messages in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on what he would do in a second term. Instead it was a re-run of old approaches — attacking his opponent and stirring cultural issues: Biden would be a puppet of China and the “radical left”; his career was “four decades of calamity, betrayal and failure”; and Biden “supported every globalist attack on the American worker”.
Trump talked about flag-burning, renaming army bases and toppled Confederate statues — attempts “to vandalise our history, desecrate our monuments”.
The “our” is yet another plea to Trump’s base which makes up between 40 to 45 per cent of the electorate.
His strategy is once again to
Incumbents win re-election when they can convince enough voters the safer option is to stick with the known.
maximise supporter turnout.
US elections tend to be a battle between experience and change. Incumbents win re-election when they can convince enough voters the safer option is to stick with the known.
Biden is hardly risky or new. He has said he would promote new leaders and is offering a change of policy direction and management. He leads Trump by 50.6 to 41.1 per cent in the RealClearPolitics national average.
Trump still has some openings. He is trusted more on dealing with the economy. The jobless figures could fall enough to tighten the contest. A vaccine could drop in timely fashion. He could make some headway with his law and order pitch and benefit from a cultural backlash. Some disillusioned supporters could return. Biden could be doing better with black voters than he is.
The Electoral College rules give the Republicans an advantage in close elections where the popular vote margin is less than 3 per cent.
Much could still happen in the next four months.