Most mainstream news outlets have been filled with tales of former Vice President Joe Biden’s huge lead in the polls and nightmarish scenarios of President Donald Trump and the GOP committing criminal acts to cheat the election.
However, even some mainstream media outlets and experts are beginning to admit that it is entirely possible for the current President to win the 2020 election fair and square. As The Atlantic outlines, Democrats counting President Trump out could be gravely mistaken yet again.
“Reckless though it was to reopen businesses while the virus raged, states that lifted stay-at-home restrictions gave the economy an unmistakable jolt,” Atlantic writer Peter Nicholas said. “A record-setting total of 7.5 million jobs were added in May and June. The numbers might well cool off in the coming months, but Trump can spin what might turn out to be fleeting gains as a full-fledged recovery.”
An economic recovery would certainly be to President Trump’s advantage. As a recent ABC News-Washington Post survey discovered, 50% of voters like the way President Trump has handled the economy.
Additionally, the incumbent president always has an advantage, which is why it’s not common for a president to be voted out after his first term in office. Exacerbating this in 2020 is the fact that Trump has an extremely loyal support base and high approval within the GOP. Biden, on the other hand, has had to go above and beyond to win the favor of far-left progressives in his own party.
There is also the very real possibility that the polls are simply getting it wrong yet again. If a company had messed up as badly as pollsters did during the 2016 election, there would have been a huge restructuring. However, in the polling industry, nothing has changed in the last four years. The same pollsters are conducting the same types of polls they did in 2016.
The mainstream news media is hyping up the fact that most people, even those who say they intend to vote for Biden, still expect President Trump to win in November. This is a key statistic because the “expectation answer”, as it is known in the polling industry, is right 78% of the time.
Honest polling experts note that national polls tend to make political races look less competitive than they really are, and polling deficits can be overcome in the days leading up to the national election.
There are a lot of variables that could affect the outcome of the upcoming Presidential election, which is why writing Trump off could be as unwise as it was four years ago. The state of the economy, the COVID-19 pandemic, former Biden’s VP pick, and other factors could still change everything.
Given these facts, it’s clear to see that mainstream media statements proclaiming that President Trump will definitely lose is little more than wishful thinking.
