Any way you look at it, the race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency will be a photo finish. In the best tradition of that country’s great horse races, the contest will be neck and neck.
Earlier in April, Trump appeared to be ahead in most of the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But last week, things were trending in favor of Biden, who now appears to be leading in the popular vote in eight of the 12 most recent polls.
At the moment, the president has 41% of the popular vote, compared to 37% in a previous Reuters/Ipsos poll. Although the decisive polls will be the ones in the six battleground states, new data suggests that the interpretation that Trump has the presidency in his pocket is wrong.
One of the issues that might explain this change in mood is the national debate on abortion. The Republican position, and Trump’s, is out of step with how the majority of women in the U.S. see the issue. Trump and the Supreme Court believe that each state should decide on abortion.
Biden, however, favors letting women decide, and has promised to restore Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court case that protected a woman’s right to seek an abortion in the U.S. Based on that promise, Biden has been bombarding Trump with ads containing testimonials by women affected by anti-abortion laws.
The impact of the abortion issue was so strong that Trump had to denounce Arizona’s decision to restore one of the country’s most restrictive anti-abortion laws. But the list of factors that could influence the outcome of the presidential race is growing, starting with the indictments Trump is facing on criminal charges.
Despite all his attempts to delay the process, Trump will sit at the defendant’s table on Monday on charges connected to making hush money payments to silence porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump is charged with conspiring to influence the 2016 presidential election by suppressing the publication of damaging information about him. In this case, the information related to an extramarital relationship with the porn star, a serious matter among a certain sector of his followers.
The polls show that, in some states, more than 10% of Republican voters will not vote for Trump if he is convicted of a single crime. The trial is expected to last about two months, so the jury could even reach a verdict before the political party conventions this summer.
But Trump has other problems. In the most recent primaries, as many as a quarter of Republican voters continued to vote for Nikki Haley even after she suspended her run for the presidency. This is the latest indication that the anti-Trump conservative movement is alive and kicking. And in a close election, it could be decisive.
So, forget about Trump’s return to the White House as manifest destiny for the United States. A Trump victory is not inevitable, nor are we witnessing a simple coronation ceremony for the Republican candidate.
Biden has his own problems. To start with, there’s declining support among Latino voters. That could be crucial in states like Arizona and Nevada. Biden has also lost support among African American voters in Georgia.
This is why he launched a new initiative to woo Latino voters, and recruited his former boss Barack Obama to win back the Black vote. Barack and Michele Obama’s charisma and eloquence make them vote-winning machines.
Truly, all the data confirms that Trump and Biden are both failing to energize their base and that the outcome of November’s election is a coin flip that will stay suspended in air until the first Tuesday of that month.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.