The conventional wisdom is that Donald Trump is finished. He is behind in the polls, way behind. He’s losing the swing states. He’s off message. He is destined to go down to defeat in 2020.
Baloney. Frankly, we really don’t even know if he is behind at this point because we have yet to see a poll of likely voters that shows him losing to Joe Biden. Polls of registered voters are less than worthless; they are always misleading as they were in 2016. As of July 2, 2020, a Rasmussen daily tracking poll shows that 46% of likely voters approve of the performance of Donald Trump. At this very same point in 2012 that same Rasmussen Poll showed Barack Obama with 48% likely voter support. In fact, these daily tracking polls have shown Trump and Obama at the same point in the year running a little ahead or a little behind each other in day-to-day tracking. But polls don’t elect a president, actual voters do.
Right now, there is a huge enthusiasm gap between voters for Biden and voters that support Donald Trump. Even the Washington Post polls show a 69% to 34% enthusiasm gap between Trump voters and Biden supporters. That’s an enthusiasm gap of 35%, while other pollsters have the gap at 19%. Voters who are not enthusiastic do not turn out to vote. That’s the reason that polling registered voters instead of likely voters paints an entirely different picture of the current presidential race.
But there are much more serious reasons than polls that indicate Donald Trump is positioned to recapture the lead he had prior to the COVID-19 virus. All economic signs point to a V-shaped quick recovery of the economy. The stock market has already recovered dramatically from its low of 19,000 earlier this year. And, as Americans go back to work, confidence that the United States is headed in the right direction is sure to grow. Moreover, now that Joe Biden has announced he will roll-back Trump’s tax cuts dramatically raising taxes for Americans and providing a gut punch to the economy he has set himself up for defeat.
And, of course, there is also the issue of debates. Joe Biden was a very sharp-witted senator, and still had it as vice president, but clearly those days are gone. A Rasmussen poll found that 38 percent of likely voters, including 20 percent of surveyed Democrats, believe Biden has dementia. Joe Biden must get rid of this doubt if he is to win in November, yet the flubs, memory lapses, mumbling, and unintelligible statements continue even as he hides out in his basement. Ultimately, Biden has to come out of the basement and hold news conferences, be interviewed by reporters, and participate in live debates with President Trump. This will only further expose his mental decline and the American people will simply not vote for someone who is mentally weak.
Yet all these reasons - the polls, the voter enthusiasm gap, the continuing economic recovery, raising taxes, and the doubts of voters about Biden’s mental capacity - are not the reason that Donald Trump is sure to win in 2020. There is no doubt that these failings seriously wound candidate Biden, but they will not necessarily keep him from winning the White House in 2020.
The reason Biden will not win in 2020 is his failure to win more than 80% of the black vote. And, he can’t count on the riots in cities or the rage over the murder of George Floyd to dislodge enough votes to top 80% of the black vote, and if he can’t do that he loses. What political observers miss is the fact that the riots that have destroyed black stores, black businesses, and police stations, have not pushed middle class black voters in Biden’s direction. No, they have pushed these voters away from him.
As black Americans have realized that Democrats have done little to nothing for them and that the failed cities where they live have been run by liberal Democrat politicians for more than 30 years, they have moved toward Donald Trump and they are not going back. As we noted in our book, “Coming Home, How Black Americans Will Re-Elect Trump,” black Americans left the Republican Party in 1936 to vote for Franklin Roosevelt, they are leaving the Democratic Party in 2020 to vote for Donald Trump.
No, Donald Trump is not going to win anything close to a majority of the black vote in 2020, but he doesn’t have to. If he just wins 20% of the black vote he is guaranteed to win the White House, and if he wins 25% of the black vote (which is within his reach) he wins in both an electoral and a popular vote landslide. In fact, a recent Rasmussen poll of likely black voters shows that support for Trump by Black Americans has surged after the recent rioting by the left to 40%! While it is unlikely that Trump will win 40% of the black vote, it shows that his support from the black community continues to build even after the tragic murder of George Floyd.
But, will this support materialize into actual votes on Election Day? For that to happen it must be encouraged and energized and that is exactly what super PACs like Black Americans to Re-Elect the President are planning to do. Using the proven technique of radio advertising and door-to-door handouts of literature, this super PAC as well as two other super PACs will make sure that these black voters turn out to vote on Election Day 2020. And when they do it will be bye, bye for the candidacy of Joe Biden.