BTRTN: Trump Sprints to the Finish, Losing His Race Against the Truth

Tom and Steve collaborate on BTRTN's October month in review. It was a month that stands as a metaphor for the Trump presidency: a whole lot of crazy, a categoric rejection of reality, and no opinions budging an inch in a ferociously polarized America. All so much sound and fury, signifying that nothing is going to change at this point... and that is not good news for Donald Trump.

October was a crazy month, to be sure, but perhaps the biggest “October Surprise” of all was that none of the surprises appeared to make much difference in the race. On a relative scale of normal campaign ebbs and flows, the race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden has been most notable for its constancy… check the approval ratings and overall polling from June, and then check yesterday. It appears that minds have been made up for a very long time, and nothing – however extreme or bizarre – could alter the core dynamic of the campaign.

Donald Trump spent the month of October in a mad final dash to election day, but each day he sounded just a bit more desperate as he attempted to impose a revisionist version of his presidency onto a set of facts that refused to yield. Donald Trump spent the month in one final, frantic, frenzied race against the truth, but he could not make a dent.

Trump wanted the final weeks of the campaign to be about anything other than the global pandemic that will now forever be linked in infamy with his epic incompetence and Machiavellian disregard for human suffering.

But the coronavirus did not care what Donald Trump wanted, wished, or lied about. The month began with Trump himself contracting the disease, along with a legion of members of his administration who attended the Presidential Super-Spreader event to announce the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The coronavirus would run rampant through his White House staff and even to family members, thus giving living, breathing, flesh and blood incarnation to the sloppy, haphazard, careless, and reckless manner in which his administration has responded to the pandemic since it arrived on our shores.

Trump received the most sophisticated COVID-19 treatment known to mankind at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and managed to conclude that his successful recovery really did prove once and for all that the coronavirus was no big deal. “Don’t let it dominate your life,” Trump counseled, somehow failing to grasp that some 230,000 Americans had not had much choice in the matter.

As the month moved on, the pandemic roared back with a vengeance across the entire nation, reaching new heights of infections per day as the election approached. No aspect of American life was able to move forward without the shroud of COVID-19: the third baseman of the Los Angeles Dodgers enthusiastically participated in the on-field hugs and scrums of their World Series triumph knowing that he had just tested positive.

The visual image that overwhelmed any and all attempts at rational discourse was Trump’s insistence on holding full-scale campaign rallies just as the coronavirus reached new peaks in the very red states he desperately needed to hold. In these rallies, Trump would assure his followers that a vaccine would be available “momentarily,” and that we had “turned the corner” on the virus. It was as if the rallies were designed with the precise goal of flouting each and every public safety measure urged by the medical and scientific community: large groups of people pressed together in tight spaces, no social-distancing, a smattering of masks, people of all ages huddled together for hours, in some instances transported in packed buses. One such event in Iowa was held in freezing temperatures, perhaps to facilitate frequent sneezing so as to optimize the opportunity for community spread. Those Trump folks think of everything.

Finally, in a coda dripping with irony, five members of Mike Pence’s staff were infected, humiliating the man who has been the head of the “Coronavirus Task Force” charged with overseeing the administration’s response to the pandemic. It’s sort of like your high school sex ed instructor getting herpes, all the more so if your high school sex ed teacher was an uptight, pole-up-the-ass guy like Mike Pence.

Trump attempted to cope with the pandemic as if it were a political rival. As he had done with so many political opponents along the way, Donald Trump tried to vanquish this most unflinching opponent with insults, nicknames, lies, and all manner of verbal abuse. But calling a microorganism “The China Virus” doesn’t work quite the same way that demeaning nicknames damaged “low energy” Jeb Bush, “little” Marco Rubio,  “Lyin’” Ted Cruz, or “Crooked Hillary” Clinton. Trump seemed puzzled that he could not insult the coronavirus into submission, and he was constantly muttering “Covid, Covid, Covid” at his Super-Spreader rallies. Apparently exasperated that the virus was receiving more media attention than his campaign, Trump was left to ruefully and respectfully call this opponent by its real name.

Oh, and Trump's other opponent? For his part, Joe Biden shrewdly realized that the most effective strategy for the last month of campaigning was to sit back and let the endlessly bloviating President blow holes in his toes every time he went on the campaign trail, solidifying the growing sentiment that Trump is at best recklessly cavalier, and at worst willfully exacerbating the pandemic's toll on the lives, health, and economic well-being of the American people  Perhaps Biden simply embraced the age-old wisdom that there’s no point in shooting someone who is in the process of committing suicide.

There was a second debate in October. In a forceful reaction to Trump’s barbaric turn as “POTUS Interruptus” in the first debate, the Commission on Presidential Debates shamed him with a “mute” button, which turned out to be a great boon to his performance. Indeed, some of Trump’s most impressive moments in the month came when the split-screen camera showed Trump with his mouth closed for a two full minutes.

Still, Trump managed to make one horrendous debate gaffe: asked to address the issue of over 450 migrant children whose parents could not be located, he attempted to justify his administration’s inhumane  policy by noting that “they are so well taken care of. They're in facilities that were so clean." Biden lustily ripped into Trump’s craven family separation policy, labeling it "criminal," which is actually more charitable than the characterizations of "government sanctioned child abuse" and "nothing short of torture" we've heard elsewhere. Trump's clumsy, clueless, callous comment that children ripped from their parents "well taken care of" revived widespread coverage of one of the most revolting policies of Trump's term, never a clever move in the final weeks before the election. CNN's instant poll declared Biden the debate winner, and it was clearly his strongest debate of the entire election cycle. Even if you tried to call this debate a tie, that’s a win for the leader.

The Vice Presidential debate was by contrast a staid affair, as Mike Pence studiously avoided answering a single direct question posed to him. It was as if he wanted to appear to be a big supporter of Donald Trump without actually ever saying anything definitive that would disqualify him from leading a post-Trump Republican Party. Pence survived the evening through a mix of pablum and nerf balls, ducking and covering, and doing precious little to move the Republican ticket forward.

The final comment on the Presidential race is perhaps the most telling of all: it is estimated that as of the end of October, a full 85,000,000 Americans had already voted. That is to say, more than half of the usual Presidential voter turn-out had already turned in their ballots. The majority of Americans didn’t need to see how every last nuance of the campaign played out. They already knew where they stood.

Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court was rammed through in a manner so transparently hypocritical that Republicans were essentially giving Democrats permission to tinker with the court should they actually capture the House, Senate, and White House in the election.

The announcement of robust GDP growth seemed to elicit a yawn as many people understood that the third quarter gain did not offset the degree of damage that the coronavirus had had on the economy in the first half of the year.

While most Republicans remained frozen in their rapt devotion to Trump, a small group did attempt the work of writing the first draft of revisionist history. John Cornyn, fighting to retain his Texas Senate seat in a surprisingly close race, announced in an interview that he frequently disagreed with the President on a range of issues, but chose to do so in private meetings with Trump. You know, the kind of meetings that are so private that you have no idea if he ever said any of the things he claimed to have said. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse allowed a recording of a phone call with supporters that contained his unvarnished opinion of Trump to be leaked to the press, which appeared to be a tactical maneuver to create space between Sasse and Trump while preserving plausible deniability. Well played, Senator.

As we turn the page on October, the political media were busily reporting on a range of efforts by Republicans to suppress the vote, intimidate voters, and sue to eliminate legitimate votes from the electoral tally based on a range of arcane technicalities. Trump has been remarkably open about his intent to push the outcome of the election into the hands of the Supreme Court… a somewhat blatant acknowledgement that he believes he is going to lose.

Now, on November 1, we are two days away from the most consequential election of our lifetime, and all signs point to a Biden victory, a flip of the Senate to Democratic control, and the Democrats increasing their stranglehold on the House.

And yet we sit on pins and needles, knowing that even if the election results hew closely to the latest polling, the Republican efforts to delegitimize the vote will begin in earnest. Buckle your seatbelt, America. Prepare for it to get still worse before it gets better.

TRUMP APPROVAL RATING

Trump’s approval rating is once again at 43% for the month of October.  This marks the 34rd consecutive month that Trump’s approval rating fell in the 40-45% range.  This level does not bode well for his re-election prospects.  Only George W. Bush won re-election with less than a 50% approval rating – a figure Trump has yet to attain – and Bush’s was 48% (also a level Trump has yet to attain).                      

TRUMP APPROVAL RATING

	2017		2018		2019		2020
	1H	2H	1H	2H	1H	2H	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O
Approve	44	39	42	43	42	43	43	44	45	45	44	41	41	43	43	43
Disappr	50	56	54	53	54	54	54	54	53	53	53	57	57	56	55	56
Net	-6	-17	-12	-10	-12	-11	-10	-11	-8	-8	-9	-15	-15	-13	-12	-13

 TRUMP’S HANDLING OF THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

Trump’s handling of the coronavirus dipped back down to 40% in October.    

TRUMP HANDLING OF CORONAVIRUS
	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct
Approve	48	46	43	41	39	40	42	40
Disapprove	47	51	54	56	58	57	56	57
Net	1	-5	-11	-15	-19	-17	-14	-16

TRUMP VERSUS BIDEN HEAD-TO-HEAD

Joe Biden now holds his largest lead over Trump in national head-to-head polls, now at +9 points.

TRUMP VS BIDEN HEAD-TO-HEAD NATIONAL POLLS
	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O
Biden	50	50	50	48	48	50	49	49	50	51
Trump	45	46	43	42	43	41	41	42	43	43
Diff	5	4	7	6	5	8	8	7	7	9

 GENERIC BALLOT

The Democrats continued to hold a healthy lead in the generic ballot, which is a very strong predictor of November election performance.  With a +9 margin, the Democrats stand to pick up roughly 20 more seats to add to their overwhelming majority in the House.

GENERIC BALLOT - LAST 12 MONTHS
	2019		2020
	N	D	J	F	M	A	M	J	J	A	S	O
Dem	47	48	45	47	49	46	48	49	48	49	49	51
GOP	39	41	41	40	40	39	40	40	40	41	43	42
Net	8	7	4	7	9	7	8	9	8	8	7	9

TRUMPOMETER

The Trumpometer remained in historically disastrous territory in October at -116.  The -116 Trumpometer reading means that, on average, our five economic measures are an astounding 116% lower than they were at the time of Trump’s Inauguration, per the chart below (and with more explanation of methodology below).  

This level is a significant improvement from the -328 index from the previous month.  This reflects the improvement due to efforts to reopen the economy.  However, in averaging the last two quarters, the net effect was still a -9% drop in the GDP versus Q1 output.

Apart from the GDP, most measures showed little movement in October.  Consumer confidence dipped slightly, as did gas prices.  The Dow though, unimpressed with the Q3 “recovery” and more concerned with the sharp rise in COVID cases, dropped 5% for the month.

The “Trumpometer” was designed to provide an objective answer to the legendary economically-driven question at the heart of the 1980 Reagan campaign:  “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”  The Trumpometer now stands at -116, which of course means things are far worse than that, even worse than the -53 recorded at the end of George W. Bush’s time in office, in the midst of the Great Recession.

 

Presidents >>>	Clinton	Bush	Obama	Trump
Measures	End Clinton  1/20/2001	End Bush 1/20/2009	End Obama 1/20/2017 (Base = 0)	Trump 9/30/2020	Trump 10/31/2020	% Chg. Vs. 1/20/2017 Inaug.  (+ = Better)
Trumpometer >>>	25	-53	0	-328	-116	-116%
Unemployment Rate	4.2	7.8	4.7	7.9	7.9	-68%
Consumer Confidence	129	38	114	102	101	-11%
Price of Gas	1.27	1.84	2.44	2.26	2.23	-8%
Dow Jones	10,588	8,281	19,732	27,782	26,502	34%
GDP	4.5	-6.2	2.1	-31.4	-9.0	-529%

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 Notes on methodology:

 BTRTN calculates our monthly approval ratings using an average of the four pollsters who conduct daily or weekly approval rating polls: Gallup Rasmussen, Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist. This provides consistent and accurate trending information and does not muddy the waters by including infrequent pollsters.  The outcome tends to mirror the RCP average but, we believe, our method gives more precise trending.

For the generic ballot (which is not polled in this post-election time period), we take an average of the only two pollsters who conduct weekly generic ballot polls, Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist, again for trending consistency.

 The Trumpometer aggregates a set of economic indicators and compares the resulting index to that same set of aggregated indicators at the time of the Trump Inaugural on January 20, 2017, on an average percentage change basis... The basic idea is to demonstrate whether the country is better off economically now versus when Trump took office.  The indicators are the unemployment rate, the Dow-Jones Industrial Average, the Consumer Confidence Index, the price of gasoline