The 2020 Presidential Race Six Months Out

Donald Trump has incumbency going for him going into the general election, as well as a deeply divided Democratic electorate that has only lukewarm support for former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democrats' presumptive nominee. 

But, Trump who as recently as February had a strong economy in his favor, now has the worst economy since the Great Depression. While facing a crisis can help a Presidency and briefly gave Trump a boost, his utter mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic thus far seems to be doing him no favors going into the general election. 

He is doing so poorly that he could easily take the Republican majority in the U.S. Senate down with him (the subject of other posts) and there seems to be no real likelihood that the Republicans will retake the U.S. House.

In national polling, Biden leads Trump by 5.3 percentage points.

Cook's Political Report summarizes the Electoral College Outlook as follows:

The current polling in all states not solidly Democratic or solidly Republican per Cook's Political Report is as follows (with 2016 results in parenthesis, followed by the swing in percentage points):

Minnesota (10) . . . . . . . . Biden + 12* (Clinton + 1.5) D+10.5
Colorado (9) . . . . . . . . . . Biden + 10** (Clinton + 4.9) D+5.1
Maine (2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . Biden + 10 (Clinton + 2.9) D+7.1
Virginia (13) . . . . . . . . . . Biden + 7.3 (Clinton + 5.4) D+1.9
Pennsylvania (20) . . . . . . Biden + 6.5 (Trump + 0.7) D+7.2
Michigan (16) . . . . . . . . Biden + 5.5 (Trump + 0.3) D+ 5.8
New Hampshire (4) . . . . Biden + 4.6 (Clinton + 0.3) D+4.3
Arizona (11). . . . . . . . . . Biden + 4.4 (Trump + 3.3) D+7.7
Nevada (6) . . . . . . . . . . .  Biden + 4.0*** (Clinton + 2.4) D+1.6
Ohio (18) . . . . . . . .  . . . .  Biden + 4.0 (Trump + 8.1) D+12.1
Florida (29) . . . . . . . . . . Biden + 3.2 (Trump + 1.2) D+4.4
Wisconsin (10) . . . . . . . . Biden + 2.7 (Trump + 0.7) D+3.2
North Carolina (15) . . . . Trump + 0.3 (Trump + 3.7) D+3.4
Texas (38) . . . . . . . . . . . . Trump + 1.4 (Trump + 9.0) D+7.6
Iowa (6) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Trump + 4.6 (Trump + 9.5) D+4.9
Georgia (16) . . . . . . . . . . Trump + 7.5 (Trump + 5.1) R+2.4

* Last polling from October 2019.
** Last polling from August 2019.
*** Last polling from January 2020.

Biden's lead exceeds the margin of error in the polling in Florida and all states where he has a stronger lead. But, not in Wisconsin, where the margin of error exceed Biden's lead. Trump's lead is less than the margin of error in North Carolina and Texas.

If Trump's relative support in current polling stays the same, he needs to win all of the solidly Republican states, Georgia, Iowa, Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Florida, Ohio, and Arizona. He also needs to win either Nevada, or both Maine's Second Congressional District and Nebraska's Second Congressional District to win the Presidential election in the electoral college.

This would be a 4.5 percentage point swing from the current polling against Biden from current polling (which exceeds the polling margin of error) six months from today, if all polling was perfectly correlated, and on that assumption, this swing would correspond to a Biden lead of 0.8 percentage points in national polling.

The status quo is that Biden wins the Electoral College 352-186 (assuming that Trump wins both Maine's Second Congressional District and Nebraska's Second Congressional District).

A 1.5 percentage point swing from the current polling against Trump would probably swing Nebraska's Second Congressional District to Biden in addition to North Carolina and Texas, giving rise to a landslide Biden win in the Electoral College of 406-132. 

Clinton fell short of Trump by less than one percentage point in the polls in three key states (Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin), and by just 1.2 percentage points in Florida. Trump won the 2016 election by a nose.

Of sixteen states that are even remotely in play in 2020, Georgia is the only one that has swung in Trump's direction, rather than away from him. Trump support in Ohio has fallen by more than 12 percentage points, where the incumbent Republican Governor has clashed with Trump on his handling of the COVID crisis.

The swing away from Trump is consistent with the fact that his favorability rating was last positive on January 26, 2017 (when it was positive by 0.1 percentage points), six days after he took office. By January 29, 2017 and every day thereafter in his Presidency, Trump has had negative approval ratings. On December 15, 2017, at his low point, his disapproval rating was 21 percentage points in excess of his approval rating. Currently polling disapproves of him rather than approves by 6.5 percentage points, just a little bit more than the amount by which he trails Biden in the polls.

The only measure by which Biden in not the clear front runner going into the November 3, 2020 general election against Trump is the betting odds which favor Trump by 8.8 percentage points.

Biden certainly has the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in the campaign and has a history of being absolutely miserable on the campaign trail. But, this election is primarily a referendum on Trump's performance in his first four years in office. So, if Biden can simply keep his mouth shut and refrain from making any unforced errors, there is a very good chance that Trump can be limited to a single term in office and that the United States can start to rebuild itself from the mess that Trump has left behind.