They should go back to their Biden +4 sample, OH and IA isnt part of the blue wall. Trump will rebound in the South
Collapses happen, and the +4 sample could have easily become a +7 sample as other pollsters suggest (and I have seen worse for the President lately). Collapses usually have causes in consequences, and nobody could ever undo the effects of the President's lame and offensive response to COVID-19 fast enough to rescue any President. Had this happened to Obama in early 2012, then he would be cooked politically. (That Obama would have acted differently makes that a moot argument. Obama had a cozy relationship with the intelligence agencies that got knowledge of this long before Trump and tried to get this President's attention).
COVID-19 has drifted from the "frequent flier" profile to people who use the subways and city buses. It has started to kill at a rate reminiscent of a bad war. Americans got impatient about involvement in Vietnam when American death tolls mounted into the 200's, and Americans got unsympathetic to a war that was basically a costly stalemate. When the known death toll is about ten times as much and has no connection to any noble purpose such as stopping the spread of Communist rule, then Americans will want a change in leadership. That change is evidently not coming from within the GOP that has nearly lockstep loyalty characteristic of a commie, fascist, or Ba'athist Party.
The closest analogue to the COVID-19 plague in American history for mass death is the Civil War -- both sides.
Had Trump handled this well he would be on track to win in November for having done nothing that decisively shows him an unmitigated disaster. He has his rock-solid support from what Hillary Clinton regrettably (if accurately) called "a bucket of deplorable(s)", and he got away with an impeachable deed. He has performed well (if not perfectly) for his super-rich backers in getting tax cuts and regulatory relief. But 2000 deaths a day?
Hey, hey, Donald Trump!
How many corpses did you send to the dump?
Surely you saw the numbers from MSN; if you can dispute the last numbers from early this month, you cannot dispute the nearly-lockstep direction from March (where the numbers were not so unconventional). It is about a 6% shift in every grouping of states that I see.
I have been leery of predicting Trump losing any more than 413 electoral votes (375 to 413 is Texas, which has been shaky for Trump) with 413 (every state that Trump lost or won by fewer than 10%) as a worst-case scenario for him.
Strange things happen in collapses. In 1976 Carter won every state (five of them) bordering Georgia; in 1980 Trump lost every state bordering his own state. In 1932 Hoover lost whole regions (Great Lakes, High Plains, and Far West) then usually seen as late as 1928 as reliably Republican in Presidential elections. In 1992 George HW Bush lost a raft of states that hadn't gone D since the 1960's.
Face it:
1. Donald Trump had a total share of the popular vote lower than those of some electoral losers (Kerry, Romney) of close elections and close to some (McCain, Dukakis, Dewey) absolutely crushed in landslides. He will have to gain some to avoid having to win on a lucky distribution of the popular vote.
2. The under-40 vote is about 20% more D than R; the over-55 vote is about 5% more R than D (and I really can't make a distinction in those age groups over 55 in political orientation). About 1.5% of all people over 55 die each year, and younger voters tend to replace them in the electorate. Over four years since 2016 that suggests that Trump will be lucky to get 44.4% of the popular vote due to demographic change alone. He is absolutely not winning with that: an even swing of 1.5% causes Trump to lose Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin alone.
3. COVID-19 seems to have been ravaging elderly people, and I assume voters as much as non-voters.
4. Trump has done nothing to appeal to younger voters. Tax cuts? Young adults have been overworked and underpaid, and the tax cuts are for owners and bosses. Regulatory relief? Trump has been anti-environment in the extreme. Young adults today expect to be around to see the worst effects of global warming. Trump's ideology supports a paradise for executives, shareholders, and landlords -- not working people who get to feel such at its worst.
