Trump Needs a Convention Bounce
September 1, 2020 · 10:25 AM EDT
Whether you believe in convention bounces or not, President Donald Trump and the Republicans need one to salvage the elections this fall.
On the current trajectory, former Vice President Joe Biden is likely to win the White House and Democrats are more likely than not to take control of the Senate. And even though the president told The Wall Street Journal that Republicans would take back the House, Democrats are on pace to grow their majority.
Nearly four years later, the 2016 presidential election result looms over any political projection. But Trump’s victory should be a lesson in probability rather than a call to ignore data. We should reject the false choice between following the data and being open-minded about less likely results.
Confidence in the analysis that Democrats are poised to win in November comes from the depth and breadth of the data. Biden not only leads Trump in the national polls, but in most of the individual battleground states that will decide the Electoral College. And Trump continues to struggle to reach his 2016 performance in key congressional districts around the country.
It’s hard to identify any state or district where Trump is performing at least as well as he did four years ago, let alone better. And that’s critical, considering that in 2016 Trump was just the right candidate at just the right time against just the right opponent winning by just enough in just the right states to win.
The president was operating on very slim margins, with a low electoral ceiling and little room for error, before a global pandemic and a national conversation about racism in America, his responses to which are driving his deficit in the polls.
More specifically, Trump is trailing his 2016 margins by 5 to 8 points or more. For example, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by 9 points in Texas and 5 points in Georgia. Both states are virtually even in this year’s race. Trump is also falling short of his 2016 totals in Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. Even in non-battlegrounds, Trump is stumbling. He won Mississippi by 18 points in 2016 and led Biden by 10 points in a recent poll for former Democratic Rep. Mike Espy’s Senate campaign.
Last week’s convention was important because Republicans are running out of time. Trump can’t wait until Nov. 3 to improve his standing. And the party probably can’t wait until the debates, when Republicans are certain that Biden will self-destruct and have a legitimate James Stockdale “Who am I? Why am I here?” moment. A majority of Americans will have already made up their minds about who they want to be president before the first debate on Sept. 29 and tens of millions of people will have already cast their ballot by the third and final debate on Oct. 22.
The convention also had the difficult task of changing the trajectory of an election that has been remarkably stable. This election cycle, and even just this year, has been filled with multiple events more historic than a four-night series of speeches on TV: the impeachment of a president, a global pandemic, near economic collapse, a national conversation about racism in America, and the first Black woman and first Asian-American on a presidential ticket. Through it all, Biden’s fundamental advantage, even when narrow, has been consistent.
While it’s certainly possible for the president’s standing to improve, that scenario would more likely involve a gradual increase in his support rather than a single event, such as a convention, causing a spike in his approval rating. Polling over the next week or so will help determine whether the convention changed the game.
If Trump’s standing improves by a handful of points, even without a dramatic event, it may not deliver him a second term but it could be enough to keep the Senate in GOP hands for another two years.