Q&A of the Day –Why Biden’s the worst candidate for Democrats in 2020 – Part 1
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry...
In response to my segment on the Fox News Channel Sunday in which I made the statement that Joe Biden likely is the worst possible 2020 Democrat to take on President Trump. I’ve received several notes with follow up questions and the segment was picked up by the news service Grabien. Here’s their headline.
Talk Radio Host: Biden Can’t Energize New Voters as Someone Like Buttigieg
Bottom Line:If you’ve followed my Friday political updates recently, this might not come as much of a surprise. If you haven’t, given all the polling that’s running rampant showing Biden as the prohibitive favorite (and polling best head to head against Trump), you might be wondering if I’ve started to lose it. I assure you that’s not the case. As usual, in Presidential politics, conventional wisdom is anything but wise. And as always, I go where my research and the facts take me. Here’s a quick refresher...
Elections involving an incumbent president are referendums on them. It’s much less about the opponent.
- 65% of presidents who run for re-election win
The 65% is based on nearly two-thirds of all incumbent Presidents who’ve run for re-election winning. There are other numbers that come into play, based on a president’s approval ratings as we close in on Election Day. President Trump’s approval ratings have been completely consistent throughout his presidency based on sampling. He performs worst with “adult only” samples. He improves slightly with registered voters. He performs best with likely voters. There’s an average difference of about 5% in his approval based on those factors.
I can track President Trump’s reelection odds-based upon history, where we are in the cycle and approval ratings. Here’s where we stood as of Friday.
- 54% based on average polling
- 63% based on likely voters
Now, to the extent that a challenger can impact the outcome in this race next year, that disparity shows you the path. Any challenger that can effectively turn “adult only” samples into likely voters by Election Day next year will stand the best chance of impacting the race to the extent that it can be, given that it will always be mostly about President Trump. This is where I turn from my analytics into a pragmatist. I made the comment that almost anyone in the Democratic field would stand a better chance of bringing new voters than Joe Biden. Anyone care to argue that point with me? Wouldn’t anyone activated by Joe Biden already be a likely voter? He’s in his 70’s, is a former Vice-President and has spent his entire career in politics. What’s left for him to pull out of his bag of tricks to bring new people into the political process? And that’s the point. In part two.