A month after Super Tuesday and the State of the Union speech, Joe Biden’s rating is on the rise and Donald Trump’s victory is far from being a fait accompli.
For months, Donald Trump has been trumpeting his supposedly insurmountable lead in voting intentions. With the return of good weather, however, this lead is disappearing.
One-way movement
If polls are not a good tool for forecasting more than six months before an election, they are nevertheless a good tool for measuring the movement of opinion.
While the vast majority of polls in January and February gave Trump the advantage, around fifteen recent polls by reputable houses give Biden a slim lead.
The rise in Biden’s rating is even reflected among punters. According to the betting average compiled by RealClearPolitics, Trump’s estimated victory probability remained stable at 44 percent while Biden’s increased from 27 to 39 percent.
Clarification
This movement is partly explained by the clarification of the issues at stake in the election. For a long time, polls unfavorable to Biden reflected public discontent with persistent inflation, as almost everywhere else in the world.
In the absence of a concrete electoral choice, Americans who deigned to respond to pollsters tended to express their discontent by threatening to vote against the president.
For a month, however, a reality has become apparent. The election will not be a referendum on Joe Biden, but a choice between him and a Republican opponent who has long proven to be the best motivator to rally strong majorities against him.
Warning signs
What is certain is that the election will be close, that it will be played out in a handful of key states, that a small portion of the electorate can still be persuaded to change sides and that the parties will have to compete in prowess to get the vote out.
In this sense, the Biden campaign has significant advantages. Notably, polls and elections over the past few years show that while Trump’s floor of support is higher than Biden’s, his ceiling is lower. In fact, it’s not impossible that Trump is already there and he’s making no effort to reach out to new voters beyond his partisan base.
On the contrary, the Biden campaign seems confident of being able to turn the tide, in particular thanks to a better-filled electoral fund. Even though the two campaigns have comparable fundraising capabilities, Trump’s legal fees drain a significant portion of the party’s resources, in addition to discouraging many potential donors.
Already, the Democrats have established a solid organization in key states and the Republicans are lagging behind in this area. While Biden’s campaign will multiply major events and will have considerable resources to get its message across on mobilizing issues, Trump will spend most of his time in court, in the dock.