If Biden wins, Democrats will face a harsh political landscape.
The numbers give Joe Biden ample reason for confidence about the election. Only 42 percent of voters, according to polling averages published by FiveThirtyEight and RealClearPolitics, currently support the Republican incumbent’s reelection. When asked, “Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?”—the wording used by many polling organizations—only about 43 percent of Americans say they approve.
Although only about 2 percent of voters are still undecided, Trump stands before a nearly insurmountable wall. America has never had a president whose disapproval rating, since the first month of his presidency, has been higher than his approval rating. Two weeks before the election, more than 50 percent of voters think he is doing a bad job and plan to vote for his opponent. Many already have. As a Democratic pollster, I am delighted by all the evidence that most of the country will reject Trump, his racism, his values, his policies, and his vision for America.
Even so, 43 percent of Americans approve of how Trump is doing. Consider the implications for both parties and the nation. These voters approve after 215,000 people have died from the coronavirus; after 25 million ended up on unemployment insurance; after The New York Times found that Trump had paid only $750 in taxes in his first year as president and owes hundreds of millions of dollars to his creditors; after The Atlantic reported that he called American soldiers who died in battle “suckers” and “losers.”
Yet if Democrats win the presidency—and even both houses of Congress—their difficulties will burgeon the day Trump leaves office. Not only must they hold their own coalition together as they contend with the coronavirus and the economic crisis that it created, but they will face fierce opposition from the voters who support Trump despite everything. Far from being chastened into moderating the GOP’s rhetoric and cooperating with a new administration, the remaining elements of a vanquished Republican Party will likely become more extreme. It’s happened before.
The full article can be read at The Atlantic.