Is there as much Trump enthusiasm now as there was in 2016?

[Progressive Pessimist]

I would say yes but only because Trump didn't actually win on enthusiasm back in 2016. He won on disillusionment. By that I mean that the voters who decided the election weren't his base but his soft-support who either held their nose for him or just hated Clinton. His base are the ones who are perpetually enthused, even still. But their continued enthusiasm isn't going to help him much electorally with how he much of his soft-support he seems to have lost and how s****y he is at appealing to new voters, at least for now. He very well may only have his base right now.

Beef basically said all this earlier, more succinctly.

I'll agree on the disillusionment take but go a step further--the people who really decided the election were the people who were simply fed up with things and didn't show up in the first place.

Good observation. Certainly those who didn't vote at all succumbed to disillusionment as well. And if it wasn't that then it was apathy, complacency, or cynicism.

[ElectionsGuy]

This is one of the areas this forum has completely deluded itself via becoming a near 100% leftwing anti-Trump echo chamber. There is MORE hard support of Trump this time but LESS soft support. That's why you have the "double haters" going to Biden but Trump's base views their vote overwhelmingly "for Trump" unlike 2016. Trump had more soft support than Hillary last time and that worked to his advantage. But this election has far less double haters, it is much more of a base turnout election than a lesser of two evils election. Trump has to exceed expectation when it comes to his base turnout and win a healthy majority of remaining undecided voters. That's how he wins. Biden wins by simply turning out Democrats like Obama did in '08 and '12 and he doesn't even need more independents/undecideds.

[TrendsareUsuallyReal]

This is one of the areas this forum has completely deluded itself via becoming a near 100% leftwing anti-Trump echo chamber. There is MORE hard support of Trump this time but LESS soft support. That's why you have the "double haters" going to Biden but Trump's base views their vote overwhelmingly "for Trump" unlike 2016. Trump had more soft support than Hillary last time and that worked to his advantage. But this election has far less double haters, it is much more of a base turnout election than a lesser of two evils election. Trump has to exceed expectation when it comes to his base turnout and win a healthy majority of remaining undecided voters. That's how he wins. Biden wins by simply turning out Democrats like Obama did in '08 and '12 and he doesn't even need more independents/undecideds.

You are certainly one for projection aren’t you? No one here denies that Trump’s base is energized. The argument is that the 40-some odd percent of them is obviously not enough to win in a 2-way race with essentially no 3rd party votes this year.

[ElectionsGuy]

This is one of the areas this forum has completely deluded itself via becoming a near 100% leftwing anti-Trump echo chamber. There is MORE hard support of Trump this time but LESS soft support. That's why you have the "double haters" going to Biden but Trump's base views their vote overwhelmingly "for Trump" unlike 2016. Trump had more soft support than Hillary last time and that worked to his advantage. But this election has far less double haters, it is much more of a base turnout election than a lesser of two evils election. Trump has to exceed expectation when it comes to his base turnout and win a healthy majority of remaining undecided voters. That's how he wins. Biden wins by simply turning out Democrats like Obama did in '08 and '12 and he doesn't even need more independents/undecideds.

You are certainly one for projection aren’t you? No one here denies that Trump’s base is energized. The argument is that the 40-some odd percent of them is obviously not enough to win in a 2-way race with essentially no 3rd party votes this year.

Huh? I never even said energized. I'm pushing back on the idea that his base is smaller and less motivated (enthusiastic) than it was in 2016. It's clearly not the case (even the polls they believe show this). Only 2-3 seem to disagree. His core base of support (what I say is 'hard support' that is showing up in the polls is larger and varies less than in 2016. What people seem to be doing is comparing current polling to the 2016 results (or relying on their surrounding anecdotes), but for the vast majority of 2016 months leading up to the election Trump polled at a lower raw percentage than he is now, and much more of his supporters in 2016 were lesser of two evils voters. That can be the case even as his electoral prospects are worse now.