Biden’s voter enthusiasm is limited
But there’s strong will to vote against Trump
More Americans think Donald Trump is a “good” or “great” president than think Joe Biden would be a “good” or “great” president, according to a poll released this week by the Pew Research Center.
Yet Biden leads Trump by 10 points anyway in the same national survey.
It sounds like a paradox, but it explains a lot about the 2020 election.
Trump has passionate support. A lot of his supporters think he’s a “good” president. A lot of them think he’s a “great” president. But right now, there aren’t enough of them to re-elect him.
Biden has a broader base of support in the polls. But that base doesn’t have a lot of zeal for him. Only one in 10 Biden voters thinks he’d be a “great” president, according to Pew. Many (40%) think he’d be “good.”
The highest share of Biden voters (43%) thinks he’d be just “average.”
In fact, only about a quarter of Biden voters are “very excited” about their
candidate, according to a USA TODAY/ Suffolk national poll; lots more Trump voters (half) are “very excited” about Trump.
Yet Biden leads handily in this poll, too.
Can a presidential candidate who inspires so much less passion than his opponent prevail in the end?
The answer is yes, if he does much better than his opponent with independent and swing voters, which Biden is doing right now.
And if his political base is getting all the motivation it needs from the opposing candidate.
In the battleground state of Wisconsin, Democrats are expressing more enthusiasm about voting this fall than Republicans, according to the latest survey by the Marquette Law School.
Biden voters may not be energized about backing Biden; but they are energized about defeating Trump.
That makes the 2020 election a contest between two different kinds of political passions – passion for a candidate (Trump) and passion against a candidate (Trump).
At the moment, it’s not a very close contest. National and swing-state polls give Biden an average lead in the high single-digits or more. In Wisconsin, Biden leads by 8 in the most recent Marquette poll and by 11 in a recent New York Times/Siena survey.
But if the race narrows, which could easily happen, passion and intensity could help determine the outcome. Whose supporters will be more motivated to turn out and vote?
When it comes to passion for a candidate, Trump voters have the intensity. In the Pew national poll released Tuesday, 82% of Trump supporters said Trump is a “good” or “great” president. Only 51% of Biden supporters said Biden would be a “good” or “great” president. Surveys show that Trump voters are more excited about Trump than Biden voters are about Biden.
But when it come to passion against a candidate, Biden voters have the intensity. Overwhelmingly, voters unhappy with Trump don’t just disapprove of his presidency – they “strongly” disapprove.
That brings us back to that seeming paradox in the Pew poll, which shows Trump well behind Biden even though more people (37%) think Trump is a good or great president than think Biden would be a good or great president (28%). Trump has more ardent believers than Biden.
But the flip side is that he also has more ardent disbelievers. More people think Trump is a “terrible” president (42%) than think Biden would be a “terrible” president (28%), according to Pew. The most popular expectation about Biden (30% of all voters in the Pew poll) is that he’d be an “average” president. Hardly anybody (9%) thinks Trump is an “average” president.
Commitment to vote may be key
So, will “love” of Trump prove to be more motivating to Trump supporters than “hatred” of Trump is to Biden supporters?
Marquette pollster Charles Franklin has routinely asked two questions that shed some light on this question in Wisconsin.
One question gauges how enthusiastic people are about voting in the fall.
In Franklin’s first four 2020 polls, there was little or no enthusiasm gap between the two sides. But there is a gap in the latest Marquette poll, and it favors Biden: 68% of Biden voters are “very enthusiastic” about voting compared to 59% of Trump voters.
The other question gauges how much certainty people have about voting. There is no real difference in Marquette’s polling between Trump and Biden voters on this question. But in a recent Wisconsin poll by the New York Times/Siena, Democrats expressed more certainty about voting than Republicans.
In short, there is little evidence right now that pro-Trump sentiment is more motivating than anti-Trump sentiment. And there are at least a few signs the opposite could be true.
Most Trump supporters here and nationally say they’re voting for Trump more than against Biden. Most Biden supporters say they’re voting against Trump more than for Biden.
This is not a brand-new dynamic in presidential re-election races. A good example is 2004, when incumbent Republican George W. Bush inspired much stronger passions – pro and con – than Democrat John Kerry. That election was more about Bush than Kerry.
But this dynamic is even more pronounced today. Trump is more polarizing than Bush, who was quite polarizing at the time. And Bush had more success turning the spotlight on Kerry than Trump has had turning the spotlight on Biden. The Trump-Biden race may be the most extreme example among many in recent decades of an incumbent president providing the political energy to both sides. So far, this election has been far more about Trump than Biden.
It’s possible that in the end, Trump will provide more energy to supporters than to opponents. There’s little evidence of that in Wisconsin right now. And the race isn’t close enough today for enthusiasm to be a difference-maker.
But if the contest does narrow, intensity and enthusiasm could play a decisive role.
Given Trump’s difficulty throughout his term getting close to 50% support, an enthusiasm gap may be the only way the president can win in the states that determine the election.