There are about six months to go until the big day in the US now, where the people will be going out to elect or re-elect the President as well as various other legislative and Governor elections going on across the United States. So, I thought I’d look into how the polls have been so far on a number of the key states and also just the polls in general.
So far it is looking like the Democrats have a slight advantage at the least which isn’t too much of a surprise as that is typically the case dependent on what party the incumbent President is a part of and what party has controlled Congress over the current term, generally the opposition tend to have the advantage. The Democrats have maintained a consistent and quite average lead over the Republican’s in the generic congressional ballot polls and from this it would be expected for them to hold the House of Representatives and to also be on the way to making gains in the Senate with a chance of flipping it from the Republicans.
I have not seen a single poll yet that has the Republican’s leading the generic congressional ballot, the closest so far is a poll that only had the Democrats one point ahead and that was conducted from May 21st-26th by McLaughlin & Associates
which is only rated as a C/D pollster. Generally, the Democrats are leading here anywhere from 5-9 points, not the largest of leads but still so far good for the Democrats, but it isn’t something that the Republicans could not possibly close the gap on within the time still left, once again it is those that are yet undecided who will make a big impact here.
It’s early yet to specifically go into certain polls for the House of Representatives or Senate seats as the primaries to choose the candidates for those elections still need to come to a conclusion.
Now we shall talk about the presidential polls. Again, so far what I have seen isn’t the best of news for Donald Trump but he still does have plenty of time to recover from it, although recent events likely aren’t helping him, such as the coronavirus response and also the current racial unrest in the country.
The polls also indicate that Biden is able to galvanize the African-American vote behind him much more effectively than Hillary Clinton, which means there may be a bigger turnout on that front for him in the election which isn’t good news for Trump, but it remains to be seen yet if they will turn out, that we won’t know until the actual election happens but so far it is looking good for Biden on that front, largely due to him having been Barack Obama’s Vice-President.
One of the scary things facing Biden is his gaffes, including one recently where he said blacks who don’t vote for him aren’t black, it remains to be seen if that comment will have much of an effect although I reckon the current racial unrest will actually negate it, in the sense of burying the incident and I also think otherwise it also would not have had much of an effect anyway, apart from maybe having more African-American’s decide not to vote in the election for either candidate.
The above problem is a constant overbearing weight for Biden and the Democrat’s, even more so when the presidential debates take place later this year, we could possibly see some bad gaffes from Biden take place and I also don’t have a single doubt that Trump will be finding ways to exploit that as some sort of tactic. The problem also for Biden is he doesn’t appear to have a very good temper and can often resort to throwing out some rather amusing insults, his temper can also again make him further prone to accidental gaffes and thus I again don’t doubt that Trump will be attempting to make him lose his temper as another tactic.
That’s not to say Trump isn’t prone to gaffes, as he certainly is and often, he won’t even admit them and other times even embraces them. Somehow in 2016 Trump was able to deflect all of his controversies and merely used them as a way of getting more coverage. Trump’s tactic has often appeared to be that all media attention is good media attention. Again, it will remain to be seen if this unique resistance Trump appears to have with controversies and his ability to deflect will hold up this time as well.
Another thing to note is also the progressive vote, namely those who would have voted for Bernie Sanders but now may not even vote at all, some may even vote instead for Trump or a 3rd party. The young vote has also consistently been a problem for the Democrats in the essence that not enough of it exists, the Democrats have lots of general support from that base but when push comes to shove many of them don’t turn out to vote on the big day, which is quite detrimental to the Democrats.
A possible tactic that Biden could use is to choose a running mate who is younger and also more progressive as a way to try and attract more of those bases over and have them come out to vote in larger numbers and it could also be a good idea for Biden to make some concessions towards adoption of some more progressive policies as another way to entice these bases, which are fairly essential for the Democrats and Joe Biden’s victory.
But on the polls themselves, overall Biden has been leading in the National GE polls by fairly encouraging margins above Trump, although this doesn’t necessarily mean Biden would win the presidency if such polls came to fruition as it isn’t about the popular vote but about what states they are able to win, as the presidency is decided by the electoral votes, the big magic 270 to win. It has been often in recent elections that the Republican candidate loses the popular vote but still wins the electoral vote and becomes President, which has also become fairly controversial in recent years.
On the state’s that Trump flipped in 2016 such as Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, Biden has been maintaining some fairly consistent leads although not safe by any means, the one poll I have seen where Trump is either tying or leading was in Pennsylvania and it was only from one pollster called Hodas & Associates.
In other key swing states such as Florida and Ohio it has been a bit closer, although Biden has maintained leads in Florida, in Ohio though it has been a bit flip-floppy between Trump and Biden. Keep in mind that these states are very important for Trump to win, even the loss of one of these could be the end of Trump’s chances for a 2nd term. It is also interesting to note that Biden has maintained a small lead in Arizona over the last month as well, another state Trump really needs.
All in all, it is too early to really be looking into the polls yet and making much of a prediction from them, but it still gives a little insight into the general mood and the possibility of what may happen. But ideally, we should not be focusing too much on the polls until at least a month or two away from the election. There is still as of now plenty of time for Trump and the Republican’s to attempt to close the gap but also plenty of time for Joe Biden and the Democrats to widen their leads.
I will continue to monitor the polls as I always enjoy doing and will make any posts if anything interesting pops up, but other than that I won’t be doing any more significant posts on US polls until at least September-October time where they should be more accurate and telling.
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