It's almost the end of the month, when I'm tradition-bound to assess "the Twins in August," but first, a look at the political scoreboard in late summer 2019.
Even if you pad Trump's numbers by a few percent, in order to compensate for my TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome; or, Tired of the Dumb Shit), things aren't looking too good for him right now. Polls of the most plausible individual matchups look dire. For example, here, from a single polling organization (Quinnipiac), released day before yesterday:
Biden 54, Trump 38
Sanders 53, Trump 39
Warren 52, Trump 40
Harris 51, Trump 40
Buttigieg 49, Trump 40
Allowing for noise, a fair summary might be that Trump gets 39% and the Democrat gets 10 to 15 points more, depending upon name recognition. In that interpretation, the really bad news for Trump is not the gap between him and the various Democrats but the fact that he's stuck right where his approval rating has been since time immemorial: 40%.
Okay, let's attribute those bad polls to "fake news," which is how Trump pronounces "bad news," and proceed, in deference to the handiwork of some 18th-century slave owners, to his state-by-state approval ratings. More fake news, apparently, because here is a list of states he carried last time in which his approval rating is currently underwater (the depth of the water is noted):
Arizona -7
Florida -1
Georgia -1
Iowa -8
Michigan -11
North Carolina -5
Pennsylvania -9
Utah -3
Wisconsin -10
I'm not sure whether the news from Utah is the worst or the best for Trump. It must register the collective arched eyebrow with which Mormons regard, for example, the payment of hush money to pornographic film actresses and Playboy models with whom the married Trump, er, cavorted, rather than gauging how they will finally vote in 2020. Anyway, he can leak a little in Utah and still win. One of his problems, though, is that he's leaking also in states where his margin was small but, for the overall outcome, determinative: I mean the Great Lakes triumvirate of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, all of which he won by less than 1%.
Since the Clinton states plus those three Great Lakes states have 278 electoral votes, eight more than is needed to win, there has been brave talk from some MAGA spinners about "expanding the map." But to where? Here are the corresponding approval figures from the five states Trump lost most narrowly:
New Hampshire -25
Minnesota -15
Nevada -27
Maine -17
Colorado -16
It's the Democrats who appear better positioned to "expand the map"—see, in the first above list of states, Georgia, Iowa (home to lots of pissed off farmers), and Arizona, along with some other big states where Trump is barely above water, preeminently Texas, where he's +3, and Ohio, where he's +1.
I used to think the election would be close and that Trump might win again in the Electoral College. That's still possible, I suppose, but the chance of Trump taking a drubbing has come into plain view. The above state results, the most recent I know of, are from Civiqs. They are broadly consistent with data from the other organization, Morning Consult, that regularly takes the temperature of 50 states.
We Democrats like to warn ourselves against thinking only of the presidential election. A theme to the worrying is that some of our presidential candidates who are polling at 1% should withdraw from the marquee race and run for Senate. John Hickenlooper looks like he's poised to do that, and Trump's -16 in Colorado suggests that Cory Gardner, the incumbent Republican, could likely be defeated by the proverbial ham sandwich, let alone by a popular ex-governor. A useful exercise might be to call the roll of other 2020 Senate races featuring a plausible pickup for one side or the other and note where Trump's approval stands. Republican Susan Collins will be facing the voters in Maine, where Trump is at -17. In North Carolina (-5), incumbent Republican Thom Tillis is up for reelection. In Arizona (-7), Republican Martha McSally, who was appointed to John McCain's seat by the Republican governor, will try again to win on her own: she lost to Krysten Sinema two years ago, after Jeff Flake retired to purse his lips and sigh on his own time. Republican Joni Ernst, of Iowa (-8), is up for reelection. On the other side of the ledger, Democratic incumbent Doug Jones, who won a special election over mall rat Judge Roy Moore, will try to defend his seat in Alabama, where Trump is at +15. The Dems need to gain four seats, or three and the presidency, to win a majority.
Perhaps more intriguing than any of these states is the case of Georgia. It currently has two Republican senators. One, Dave Perdue, is coming to the end of his first term. The other, Johnny Isakson, just announced that he is retiring as of the end of this year due to poor health. So in November, 2020, there will be two US Senate races on the ballot in Georgia, one without an elected incumbent, both possible pickups for the Dems. Georgia is one of those southern states, like Texas, that is slowly moving the Democrats' way. Romney won it by nine points. Then Trump won it by five. It had a hot governor's race in 2018 in which the Republican, Brian Kemp, defeated Democrat Stacey Abrams by about 1.4%. According to Civiqs, 48% of Georgians currently approve of Trump's performance, and 49% disapprove. The history of double Senate races is that the same party wins both of them—and, in the event that it's a presidential year, look for a trifecta. A Republican trifecta would be like holding serve; a Democratic one would be game, set, and match. Kemp, the current governor, was at the time of his race against Abrams the Georgia Secretary of State, in charge of elections, and was credibly accused of suppressing the vote in Democratic precincts. Tighten your chin straps!
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