BTRTN: The Short Answer: Is This 2016 All Over Again?

Tom assesses whether Biden might fall apart at the end, just like Hillary.

There is one question that soars above all the others at this point among Democrats:  are we on the verge of repeating 2016?  Might the robust lead enjoyed now by Joe Biden somehow morph into another nightmare when all the Electoral College votes are counted?

The circumstances on the face of it all seem eerily similar.  The chart below, in a nutshell, gives rise to the Democrats’ angst, summarizing polling in the six states that Trump flipped in 2016 to win the election.  Biden’s lead over Trump in those states right now is virtually identical to that of Clinton four years ago.  And yet she lost each of those states, a 4-point lead on average in the polls on October 26, 2016 somehow becoming a 3-point loss on November 8, a downward swing of 7 points.  Might it all blow up again?

Polls from Oct 18-26
State	2016	2020
Florida	Clinton +1	Biden +2
Iowa	Even	Biden +1
Michigan	Clinton +8	Biden +9
Ohio	Even	Trump +1
Pennsylvania	Clinton +5	Biden +6
Wisconsin	Clinton +7	Biden +5
Average	Clinton +4	Biden +5

Anything is possible, of course.  There are no guarantees.  The current polling is a snapshot, not a prediction.

But the short answer is that a Biden collapse, while it could happen, is very unlikely.  We are living in different times; these are different candidates; and the race dynamics are completely different.  Here are seven reasons why a late Biden meltdown is far less likely than the Clinton one that shocked us all.

1.      Where is the October Surprise – and is it too late to matter? 

It was on October 28, 2016 – four years ago tomorrow, 11 days before Election Day that year – that FBI Director James Comey announced that he was re-opening the Hillary Clinton email case.  A cache of thousands of potentially relevant Clinton emails had been found on the server of disgraced Congressman Anthony Weiner, the husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin.  The story was an explosion, and it dominated the headlines as it followed its own twists and turns.  Comey said that the FBI would not be able to determine whether or not the emails were damning before Election Day, and then he reversed himself as his staff worked tirelessly to plow through the trove.  Just two days before Election Day, Comey announced that Clinton was exonerated, welcome news for her campaign, but it gave the story fresh juice in the waning hours before the polls opened.  Thus the infamous Clinton emails were the dominant “final conversation” of the pre-election news cycle – the worse possible topic for Clinton.  Clinton’s 4-point lead on average across the pivotal states that Trump would ultimately flip dwindled to +1 in November polls. 

Now in 2020, Election Day is just seven days away.  If there is going to be an anti-Biden “October Surprise” in 2020, it had better happen soon to effect the outcome.  But even that statement ignores the obvious:  65 million of the expected 150 million voters have already voted, seeking to avoid crowded polling venues that are COVID risk zones, and to ensure their mail-in votes arrive on time (44 million of those early votes are by mail.)  With a week to go in 2016, only 26 million early votes had been cast.

The magnitude of the early voting is the ultimate inoculation against bad news.  Those votes are in the bank, and every day that goes by, millions more join the count.  This is how you know the Trump campaign or any conservative media outlet – or QAnon or the Russians, for that matter – does not have an October Surprise still up its sleeve.  If they did, they would have released it by now.  There is no way they would sit on a bombshell while voters vote and Trump holds rallies.  And If their best effort was the Hunter Biden laptop, Trump is a goner. 

2.      We made up our minds long ago.

For all of the Sturm und Drang of 2020, Biden’s lead, and the overall race dynamics, have been remarkably stable.  Or perhaps not really remarkable at all; the stability undoubtedly reflects the polarization of our times, the specific polarization of our feelings toward Trump and, to a lesser extent, our familiarity with Biden. 

The Clinton-Trump battle was different, though, with Clinton’s national and swing states leads waxing and waning monthly, if not weekly, with voters on the margin actively changing their minds.  Clinton’s national lead ranged from +3 to +7 points throughout the race, and varied even more in the “flip” states, ranging from +6 points down to a single point.

In contrast, Biden’s national lead has been steady in the +7 to +9 point range, and +4 to +5 points on average in those swing states, throughout the campaign since he became the presumptive nominee. Voters have long made up their minds, and even an October Surprise would have to be of an epic magnitude to shake up this race.

Democrat Nominee versus Trump Margin
2016 National Polls	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Actual
Clinton vs Trump	6	4	6	3	7	4	2
Biden vs Trump	8	8	7	7	9	tbd	tbd
2016 Flip State Polls	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Actual
Clinton vs Trump	n/a	n/a	6	1	4	1	-3
Biden vs Trump	n/a	n/a	5	4	5	tbd	tbd

 

3.      The polling is likely better in 2020 – and there are many, many more polls in key swing states as well.

There is certainly some truth in this.  As noted, the polling did seem to show that Clinton’s momentum in those flip states slowed in the waning days before the election.  But it did not capture the full extent of Clinton’s decline.  Part of it was surely the quality of the polling itself. 

Generalizing lessons learned across pollsters is difficult, but the one clear theme that emerged in the post-mortems was the underweighting of a segment that was strong for Trump:  white voters with high school or less education.  Recent interviews with many major pollsters (conducted by Nate Silver and others) make clear that that these weighting issues have been recognized and addressed.  Whether different weighting issues will occur is hard to say.  Weighting is used, in main measure, to mimic turnout, and turnout is even harder to predict with the pandemic.

Apart from the presumably improved quality of the polls, there is also the comfort of quantity.  Somewhat contrary to expectation, given the visibility of the 2016 miss, polls are far more rampant in 2020 than in 2016.  In October, 2016, there were 49 polls in those same six “flip states” reported through October 26.  This year, in that same time frame, in those same states, there have been 80 polls, a 63% increase.  

As an example, there were 8 separate polls that had a field date ending on October 19 or 20 in Pennsylvania alone, all by reputable pollsters.  Those polls, from Rasmussen (a notoriously GOP-biased outfit) to FOX News to Quinnipiac to CNN, all had Biden ahead (by +2, +3, +4, +5, +7, +7, +8 and +10).  Obviously, the more polls, the lower the aggregated margin of error, the higher the confidence that the actual outcome will lie in that range – assuming no bombshell. 

4.      There were no popular candidates in 2016 – but now America generally likes Joe Biden.

Trump has had trouble from the outset at “defining” Joe Biden, and he has fared no better down the home stretch.  He has attempted to portray Biden as senile, corrupt and a tool of the left, and none of those attack lines have stuck.  Trump still hauls those lines out at rallies, and has added one more -- that Biden has been a Washington insider for decades and has yet to effect meaningful change. 

None of these charges stick because none of them pass the smell test.  It did not take long for Biden to dispel the myth that he is senile, through vibrant performances in town halls, at the Democratic Convention and in the two debates.  The corruption charges have long been proven baseless.  Biden is widely known as a centrist; if anything he is reviled by the progressive left of the Democratic Party.  And Trump himself undercuts the “do nothing” charge – if the Obama/Biden Administration “did nothing,” why has Trump spent the better part of the last four years their many policy accomplishments?

Hillary Clinton, though, had already been systematically vilified by the GOP for over three decades at the time of her candidacy.  All Trump had to do was add the proper moniker – “Crooked Hillary” – and lead the “lock her up” chants.  The Clinton email fiasco was a running attack point that reinforced her alleged shadiness.  And it was the gift that kept on giving, as Clinton at first refused to apologize for it and never adequately explained her actions.  When the topic roared back with less than two weeks before Election Day via the Wiener fiasco, it was all some persuadable voters needed to go for Trump. 

As of now, Joe Biden is viewed favorably by 50% of the electorate, while Trump is at 42%.  Back in 2016, Clinton held only a 42% favorable rating, while Trump was at 38%.  Biden’s likability provides stronger Teflon than Hillary; that has worked well against Trump’s attacks thus far, and that reservoir of goodwill provides protection against any further October Surprises.  It was easier for wavering voters to abandon Hillary Clinton – the group in the middle liked neither Trump nor Clinton, and polling did show that those who disliked both ultimately went overwhelmingly to Trump.  But the group in the middle now likes Biden. 

5.      The third party factor is far less significant in 2020.

In 2016, third party candidates picked off a full 6% of the vote on Election Day.  Libertarian Gary Johnson won about 3% of the vote and the Green Party’s Jill Stein received 1%, and a bunch of others managed the other 2% combined.  With two unlikable candidates, and one of them on the verge of an apparent easy win, it was easy to turn to third party candidates as a protest vote.

In 2020, only Libertarian Jo Jorgenson has hit the radar screen, polling in the 1-2% range.  Biden and Trump are more likely to corral 96-98% of the total vote.  Surely some Democratic voters are less likely to register protest votes given the 2016 experience, and those that hate Trump are more likely to end up with Biden.

This theory is supported by a recent Morning Consult poll of 2016 third party voters indicating that 53% of them plan to vote for Biden, while only 21% plan to vote for Trump.  The rest are either backing third party candidates again or are undecided.  (And for those of you wondering, polling indicates that 90% of Bernie Sanders’ supporters plan to vote for Biden, a material uptick versus the 75% that voted for Clinton in 2016). 

6.      The final conversation is all about COVID.

If the “final conversation” in 2016 was all about Hillary Clinton’s Achilles heel, her emails, then – barring an October Surprise -- the final conversation this year has been and will continue to be all about Trump’s Achilles heel, COVID-19.  Throughout the campaign, it has been clear that COVID-19 is both an enormous campaign issue and that Trump is viewed as mismanaging it.  The latest polling (from FiveThirtyEight) show that Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic by a 57% to 40% margin.  In particular, Trump is hurting among seniors, a group he carried by seven points in 2016, and Trump’s COVID management is largely their issue.

COVID has come back with a vengeance in October, in so many ways.  Trump himself contracted the virus, and spent a weekend at Walter Reed receiving all kinds of urgent care.  The virus ran amok among Trump’s inner circle, many of whom attended the “super spreader” White House event announcing Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination for the Supreme Court.  The virus itself has stormed back in the past few weeks to record breaking levels, and the death toll has mounted to over 230,000 Americans.  Five members of the staff of Mike Pence – the head of the Coronavirus Task Force – have contracted the virus.  The optics are wretched, with Trump and Pence flying across the country to lead rallies where few are wearing masks or are practicing social distancing – essentially, begging to become super spreader events themselves.  Finally, Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the obvious out loud on Sunday – that, in the Trump Administration view, “we are not going to control the virus.”  This is hardly a winning closing argument for Trump. 

7.      The Dems have the resources.

Our texting team has 45,000 members on it.  Everyone we know is calling, texting, writing postcards, getting out that vote.  Back in 2018, Indivisible was the engine behind the Democrats flipping 38 seats in the House.  Grass roots enthusiasm matters, and the Democrats have it to the max.  No stone is being left unturned.  And despite Biden’s strong numbers, no one is acting with complacency.

And money matters too.  Biden raised $383 million in September, dwarfing Trump’s haul of $248 million.  This enables Biden to play offense while Trump is on the defense, and Biden is spending his treasure in all sorts of places, torturing Trump in Texas, for example.  Trump is being forced to spend time in Georgia, Ohio and other states he won relatively easily in 2016.  Trump even spent an afternoon in Maine a few days ago, trying to nail down Maine’s Second District’s one electoral vote.

This type of enthusiasm was simply not apparent in 2016.   Clinton’s candidacy was historic, but not galvanizing. 

The bottom line?   Anything can happen.  Some things have not changed.  The Russians are still out there; voter suppression is in full force.  COVID itself is a wild card, and the impact it could have on turnout dynamics.

But the factors that appear to have led to Hillary Clinton’s swift descent from rout to defeat – the Comey email October surprise dominating that final news cycle, the waxing and waning of the race overall, the sparse and low quality polling, Clinton’s own unpopularity, the presence of protest candidates, the lack of enthusiasm – none of them are apparent this time around.  And every COVID headline puts Trump in a worse hole.

But always remember this:

WARNING:  No matter how good the numbers look at any given time, the Democrats will not win any election unless they work hard to earn it – registering voters, calling, texting, donating – throughout the fall, up to and including Election Day.