Shifting Winds in America’s Presidential Contest

Between the devastation of the coronavirus and the energizing effect of the George Floyd protests on minority voters, prominent American pollsters now contend that the momentum in this year’s forthcoming presidential election has shifted to Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

CORONAVIRUS AND THE ECONOMIC DOWNDRAFT

At the dawn of 2020, President Trump’s reelection campaign seemed to be riding high. Propelled by a strong economy, with the lowest unemployment and highest median income in decades, a near-consensus had developed among political analysts favoring him to win reelection. The onset of COVID-19 profoundly altered the calculation, however. Closures enacted across the country devastated the U.S. economy, knocking down a pillar of the President’s case for reelection.

The pandemic’s impact on the U.S. economy has been both harsh and swift. The unemployment rate skyrocketed from a 50-year low of 3.5 percent in February to a 90-year high of 14.7 percent in April. As a result, tax revenue has plummeted while relief spending has soared, creating an overhang of debt likely to weigh down an economy which suffered its largest contraction in a century. Nor are these effects limited to the short term. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting lockdowns will shrink the size of the American economy by nearly $8 trillion over the next decade.

#BLACKLIVESMATTER AND THE QUESTION OF AFRICAN-AMERICAN TURNOUT

In 2016, then-candidate Trump’s road to election ran through relatively narrow victories in three traditionally Democratic-leaning states: Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In all three, the African-American community had provided the highest levels of support for Democratic presidential candidates, particularly during the Obama era. However, in 2016, African-American voter mobilization declined noticeably. According to one major academic study, in highly-contested battleground states, African-American turnout declined by 5.3 percent from 2012 to 2016. And in two critical states — Wisconsin and Michigan — African-American turnout declined by over 12 percent. In the blunt assessment of Osita Nwanevu, “Low black turnout may have cost Clinton the election.”

Following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, early indications show the African-American community appearing to enter a new phase of political mobilization, one which could bring higher voter turnout in November. “The African American community is motivated to come out to have Trump removed. Unlike when Hillary was running, no one truly knew how bad Trump could be,” according to LaMar Lemmons, a former Democratic member of the Michigan State House. “The pandemic was really the last straw for many people. Of course now we’re talking about the protests, but Trump’s nonresponse to the pandemic has really alienated the African American community." In the words of one Democratic activist, “I will chew on nails dipped in acid before I vote for Donald Trump or don’t vote at all, or let my friends and colleagues vote for Trump or not vote at all.”

THE AMBIGUITIES OF PRECEDENT

Among modern American Presidents, Donald Trump’s polling has proved consistently idiosyncratic. His average approval rating has remained confined between 42-46 percent for most of his term, while his disapproval rating has stood above 50 percent for most of the same period. Although this would seem to cast Trump’s reelection hopes in a dim light, as Charles Cooke, the highly regarded political analyst, recently noted, “Trump’s approval remains higher than those of Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush, the two post-World War II elected incumbents who lost second-term bids, at this point in their presidencies.”

Indeed, the hardening of party loyalties and dwindling ranks of swing voters point toward a highly competitive election, even if the polling of this week augurs poorly for the incumbent. As Cooke puts it, “the days of 49-state landslides and 61 percent popular-vote wins are long gone.” While President Trump appears to be an underdog today, it is crucial to remember that an ever-shortening news cycle affords ample opportunity for multiple reversals of fortune.