Trump’s drop in polls has confident Democrats sensing ‘a tsunami coming’
President Donald Trump’s management of this summer’s crises has triggered what Democrats detect as a tectonic shift in the political landscape, with party leaders suddenly bullish about not only taking back the White House but also wresting control of the Senate, as well as expanding their House majority.
Trump’s incumbent advantages have steadily eroded since the spring, with the president now trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in virtually every public poll nationally and in battleground states, as well as lagging behind the former vice president in fundraising for May and June.
Trump and his advisers insist that their campaign’s internal data show the race as more competitive - “In the real polls, we are doing very well,” the president claimed Friday - and that he can gain momentum in the weeks ahead with a disciplined message and a brutal, sustained assault on Biden’s character, ideology and mental acuity.
Yet Trump has never shown much discipline, and time and again this year he has stymied his campaign’s best efforts with bouts of seeming self-sabotage. On Friday night, Trump provoked critics anew with his decision to commute the prison sentence of longtime confidant Roger Stone, an act Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, called “unprecedented, historic corruption.”
With the coronavirus pandemic still raging across much of the country, Biden enjoys a commanding position, though his campaign advisers say nothing is yet secured and they are careful not to take any state for granted.
Both Democratic and Republican operatives increasingly view Trump as a drag on GOP candidates in many key Senate and House races - especially in suburban areas, where polling and focus group data suggest he has been bleeding support.
Voters’ disapproval of Trump’s handling of the pandemic and of the racial justice movement, as measured in public surveys, has buoyed Democrats down the ballot. Some long-shot Democratic challengers in Kentucky, South Carolina and other Republican strongholds reported staggering fundraising hauls in recent days, which party leaders see as a sign that their playing field could expand further.
“It’s just in the air,” Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview. “You just feel it, the importance of taking back the Senate.”
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