Yes or No: Joe Biden will win the presidency

I don’t completely disagree with this comment. It would hold a lot more weight but for 2018 and what appears to be the erosion of independent support. In a world where Texas is truly in play this will be a landslide of epic proportions.

I would be very scared right now looking at figures that suggest high %s of the electorate are already decided. I suspect 2020 will be a year with a far less malleable voter base.

The one bit ?? for me is voter turnout, COVID etc.

Though I will certainly vote for whoever the Democratic candidate is (provided that Donald Trump is the Republican candidate), I cannot give a yes/no on whether Biden will win.

In fact I believe it is almost exactly 50/50 for a Biden victory.

1) Biden may not be the Dem candidate. Things happen.

2) He might make a boneheaded VP pick--or a good pick who doesn't show well in a debate.

3) He might fail badly in a debate. That seems unlikely but certainly a possibility.

The USA is on course for something approaching 200,000 Covid-19 deaths by Election Day. The economy, which had real structural weaknesses *before* the pandemic (which exposed some of them), will be in the doldrums for the next two years at least.

So it's not looking great for DJT, but his advantage in incumbency, free publicity from the media, Electoral College edge, and enthusiastic base give him at least even odds IMO. The only question is whether enough of his voters are disaffected enough to stay home on 11/3. Very few will vote for Joe, but some might not vote.

No.

Only 2 states will flip from their 2016 result. Pennsylvania and Michigan will be won by Biden.

Trump barely holds on to Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida.

Result: Trump 270, Biden 268.

I think you are wildly overestimating Trump’s appeal and wildly underestimating Biden’s appeal. Neither appeal to educated voters/people IMHO and Biden certainLT gets the nod RE being able to form a coherent sentence. Admittedly, neither is the orator that we should expect of our commander in chief.

Trump is fine with his base at this point, they are not going anywhere. They are also well short of what he needs for a second term. He needs to win over moderately educated middle class independents who don’t fall in line with racist dog whistles and the double down he seems to be pushing at present. They came out for him in 2016, all signs indicate they will not in 2020 at present.

RuningManJumpSuit wrote:

Wouldn’t surprise me if Trump wins a very close EC vote and loses a historic popular vote. The big National polls will never be able to capture Trumps true support because his supporters will never take part in them.

They said that in 2018 when the generic ballot polling was showing a clear victory for the Democrats. We heard a lot of talk about 'shy Tory effect' and the like. Turns out the polling was spot on the Democrats won the house very comfortably.

The difference it appears this time is that there don't seem to be so many 'undecideds'. Trump's win was a surprise to many analysts because they didn't account for them breaking towards him as strongly as they did.

Biden's polling average is already over 50% and Hillary never breached 50% at all during the 2016 campaign. For Trump to win, he needs to swing some of those voters back to him, as well as do well with the non-committed voters (a number of whom will be voting 3rd party too).

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NO.

Lest we forget, approximately 4 million Gen Z kids are turning 18 prior to the election this year. They overwhelmingly hate Trump and Baby Boomers and are chomping at the bit to vote them out.

fool me once wrote:

The best thing Biden can do is keep a low profile, voters are more excited about a theoretical opponent than an actual one. The less they dig in to Biden the more votes he will get.

I think this is exactly correct. Joe's problem is that he realistically can't stay sequestered forever.

I'm gonna stay one of the wishy-washy people (for now) and call the election a toss-up at this point.

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

Lest we forget, approximately 4 million Gen Z kids are turning 18 prior to the election this year. They overwhelmingly hate Trump and Baby Boomers and are chomping at the bit to vote them out.

I really doubt that a quarter of them will vote for any candidate. I'd love to be wrong.

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Random footnote: It's actually champing at the bit. Also stamping grounds, not stomping grounds.

trollism wrote:

Biden will win this. Can't see how Trump recovers.

The polling is much much worse for Trump this time compared with 2016. Clinton never had much more than a 4-5 point lead in the months leading up and there were perhaps 20% undecided voters right up to the final week.

This time Biden is polling at around 50% with only about 10% undecided. Can't see how Trump can win back enough people who are already happy to say they've made a decision.

Latest Fox News polls have Biden up in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas (?!). Not saying it's impossible, but will need a massive turnaround for this to be even close.

And you said that about Hillary. So, you're 0-1 and that's just what we know of. Hobbyjogger and a bad guesser, keep up that great work!

Hard to say. I can't think of any of the 2016 Trump voters that I know that will vote for Biden, but I do think the Democrats will have a bigger turnout than 2016. Just need to get them in the swing states. Could go either way.

Trumps win was a surprise to YOU old man, a lot of us knew he'd win. She got her butt kicked except for your state, liberal California:)

This is very concerning.

Please Google "Biden 120 million". This happened, not right wing conspiracy madness, dude was off by a factor of 1000. NOTHING on CNN, MSNBC.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2020/06/25/biden_120_million_have_died_from_covid-19.html

To still believe in polls......you must be young.

THis hasnt been brought up yet. Biden is linked to the spying of the Trump campaign and he will be under federal investigation by the end of summer.

Trump could have won re-election easily without his hatred of Obama. He apparently is unable to shift course and commit himself to leadership and compassion. He could have had a profound effect on the course of COVID-19 by acting quickly and serving as an example by masking up. But he just can’t help himself. As a result, many of the states served by Republican Governers, Florida, Texas, Arizona, Georgia (rising fast) are spiking because they followed the lead of Trump. I’ve already had COVID-19. It’s nasty. The after effects which might be less noticeable to an untrained athlete are stunning. Heart rate efficiency is down 12%. Joe Biden is a middling politician but appears to be at least caring about the U.S. population. He just needs to make his positions known in a deliberative manner. The faster Trump talks, the slower you respond. Trump will always have his base but he needs more than that to win.

Portland Hobby Jogger wrote:

Lest we forget, approximately 4 million Gen Z kids are turning 18 prior to the election this year. They overwhelmingly hate Trump and Baby Boomers and are chomping at the bit to vote them out.

Will they turn out is the question.

Biden smashed Bernie and the Bernie Bros with huge turnout from old people. Old people turn out. Bernie Bros and Gen Z may not.

trollism wrote:

Giles Corey wrote:

Baloney.

Nobody in the MSM was putting Trump's odds that high.

Sorry, it was 28%, not 38%. Still a very realistic chance.

28% is NOT a realistic chance. You must be demented to a whole different level. It was suppose to be a landslide victory. Love it when liberals lie. You REALLY like to distort facts.

sbeefyk2===biased and wrong again wrote:

And you said that about Hillary. So, you're 0-1 and that's just what we know of. Hobbyjogger and a bad guesser, keep up that great work!

Hobbyjogger? Now you're just being mean.

The whole 'Hillary lost when many predicted she would win so Trump can't ever lose' is a bit silly.

Right now Biden's polling is far stronger than Hillary's ever was and she only just lost. If nothing changes, he wins the election. Things can change, but Trump needs it too and quickly.

Trump won in 2016 by flipping MI, WI, PA, and OH and by holding on to FL. The difference between Trump and Clinton in those states was less than 600k votes, 2/3rds of which were in Ohio. Clinton lost because Obama voters either switched sides or did not turn out to vote in key swing states. Trump only got 2 mil more votes than Romney in 2012. So, replicating is 2016 win is not going to be easy at all.

Biden will win. The main reason is that old people like Biden and will leave Trump to vote for Biden. Also, Biden will win for the reason that Clinton thought she would win. White suburban moms will vote for Biden. They did not come out for Hillary the way Rahm Emmanuel thought they would. But in the primaries, suburban voters came out for Biden in a very big way. They did that not because Biden is that appealing. They did it because they are very motivated to get Trump out and see Biden as a candidate that can win over independents.

The biggest problem Trump has is that he is betting it all on his base. But the issues that drive his base (immigration, trade, deregulation) have all been mooted by COVID 19, the crashing economy and BLM. Trump has no hand to play on COVID 19. His big gamble that the virus would dissipate due to summer heat like the flu failed in a big way. His only hope is an announcement that a vaccine will be available shortly after the election. There is a slight chance that could happen, but odds are we are looking at this time next year as a likely time to see a vaccine introduced. No one cares about trade anymore. Trump's phase one deal with China is on the ropes. And Trump will not be able to articulate what the US got for his China phase one and his NAFTA 2.0 other than his usual bluster about it being the best deal ever. And immigration is also moot. The border is shut down due to the virus. The wall is a joke. Trump will have to campaign on repealing DACA and deporting lots of innocent people who were brought to the US as children. Main point is that Trump is not going to be able to expand his base by more than 1 vote and may see his base contract. Trump is like the Knack. He is a one hit wonder who has no follow up album.