Why Biden's a Huge Favorite: Trump's Failed to Make Biden as Unpopular as Clinton
Biden's gotten more popular during the campaign
With 24 days until the election, Joe Biden is a giant favorite to win. He’s given a 91% chance by the Economist; 538 lists him as an 86% favorite. Even betting markets—which have been more bullish on Trump and lack the usual wisdom of crowds because of betting limits imposed by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission—make Biden a -225 favorite (you’d have to bet $225 dollars to win $100).
And for those that say, “What about 2016?” the New York Times’ Nate Cohn keeps track of what would happen if the polls were as wrong as they were in 2016. Before even tackling that issue, it’s important to note that most of the error in 2016 appears to be attributable to pollsters not weighing by education. As white voters without college degrees shifted away from the Democrats, Trump notched a narrow victory in the Midwest to win. Now most pollsters weigh by education. So there are good reasons to think the polls won’t be that wrong this time. Pollsters didn’t recognize Trump’s unique appeal to white non-college voters and failed to poll enough of them. They now weigh their samples to ensure they have an adequate number of white non-college voters.
But even if the polls were as off as they were in 2016, Cohn finds Biden would win 319 electoral votes to Trump’s 219. Biden currently leads in their polling average in Ohio and Georgia (which I’ll note I had going for Biden in July).
The strength of Biden is explained by comparing his favorability with Hillary Clinton’s. Despite Clinton being incredibly unpopular on November 7, 2016, she wasn’t always so loathed. In Gallup’s survey from April 14, 2013, she was viewed favorably by 64% of people and unfavorably by only 31%. That gave her a 33% positive rating. In that poll, Biden was only +3.
In 2016, the Trump campaign moved Clinton’s numbers. On December 22, 2015, Clinton had a -5 favorability rating. She was -13 on Election Day. She dropped 8 points during the campaign and 46 points from 2013 (+33 to -13).
Trump’s campaign thought they could define Biden negatively too. In May, Trump’s campaign communications director told CBS, “We haven’t even begun to define Biden yet.” Biden was -6 in the RCP average in May. He’s up to +7 now. He’s correct that the Trump campaign has yet to define Biden. And their problem is that they still haven’t. Sleepy Joe? A Trojan Horse for the far-left? Senile? A sell-out who will betray the far-left? The father of corrupt Hunter Biden? Something else? None of those charges have worked, as evidenced by Biden’s popularity.
Here’s what’s crazy to think about: Clinton’s favorability rating swung negative 46 points from her high-mark in 2013. Biden’s approval has swung +13 points since his low in May. That’s a 59 point swing from how the GOP sunk Clinton to their failure to sink Biden. Biden is more popular today—as a man running for president and facing a barrage of attacks—than he was as an elder statesman vice president. That’s absolutely wild.
And if you think “well sure, but the election could still move away from Biden,” Clinton’s weakness was evident in October. On October 12, 2016, Clinton stood at -10. She finished at -13. Biden’s never dropped below -6 in 2015 or 2016, and his favorability rating has been positive since the DNC. In October, he’s gained four points.
Trump needed quite a few things to go his way to barely win in 2016. But one giant component was that he dominated among voters that disliked both him and Clinton. The 18% of the electorate—per the exit polls—that disliked both options went for him by 17 points. But in 2020, Biden doesn’t have enough people that hate him. Lots of people might shrug at a Biden presidency; Biden’s campaign realized that a shrug can beat Trump.
The race is not over. Even if you think Trump has about a 9% chance to win, those are about the odds an American has O- blood (shouts to us). But in an incredibly stable race, Trump has failed to make Biden unpopular. And as voting begins throughout the country, it will take a monumental change and/or catastrophic polling error for Biden to lose.
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