The average poll has the net approval of Trump among voters at -9 points.
Trump's strategy is quite simple: 1. Increase the adverse ratings of his Democratic rival, as he did in 2016, in order to make up for his own weak ratings. 2. Cut out the popular vote between the constituency and the popular vote as it did in 2016. 3. Use a campaign of racial resentment to further increase the turnout of pro-president groups.
Remember, Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. He won because he tipped a congressional district in Maine (good for an electoral vote) and that the Florida states, Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin went from blue in 2012 to red in 2016. If the Democratic presidential candidate of 2020 wins all the states won by Hillary Clinton, he just needs to win the title closest to the three overthrown by Trump (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin). It seems simple enough.
The potential problem for the Democratic candidate lies in Wisconsin. Trump's net approval in that state was -4 points in exit polls in 2018. That was 5 points higher than nationwide. Taking into account the undisputed races, candidates to the House of Democrats have cumulatively won the vote in the House by 4 points less in Wisconsin than at the national level.
In other words, the potentially pivotal state in the electoral college could be 4 to 5 points more Republican than the country as a whole in 2020. This means that the possibility of a split vote electoral / popular vote for Trump remains entirely plausible.
Nevertheless, Trump would lose Wisconsin and the presidential election if the same people went out and voted for the same party in 2020 as in 2018.
This is where Trump's strategy of tackling four very progressive congressional women comes in. Trump wants to recreate the momentum of 2016 aimed at making unpopular the candidate for the 2020 Democratic presidential election. Trump would like to bind the representatives. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, lhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Mbadachusetts and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency.
Trump is betting that he can connect the Democratic candidate to this "team" – the group of women of color of the aforementioned Congress against whom he has launched attacks. Remember, it's exactly what he won in 2016: an unpopular Democratic opponent.
In Wisconsin, for example, Trump scored only 35%. He won the state because he won 37 points against 22% of the electorate against Clinton and he had an unfavorable opinion of Clinton and Trump.
Today, Trump is less unpopular, but still under water. To give himself a chance, Trump would be wise to try to make the Democratic candidate a Liberal candidate disconnected from any contact. Although the effect may not be huge, polls and studies on past elections show that a very liberal candidate is probably less eligible than a center candidate.
As I indicated last week, three of the top four candidates on the Democratic side (Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Mbadachusetts) are much more liberal than the recent Democrats in the United States. the Presidency.
Trump also hopes his methods will have the added benefit of badisting him in Wisconsin's participation service. According to New York Times' Nate Cohn badysis, whites without a university degree accounted for a much higher percentage of voters who did not vote in 2018 than those who did in the last year. Northern states like Wisconsin. Whites without a university degree are Trump's main constituency.
Nevertheless, we should realize that Trump is really trying to thread the needle here. Many things can go wrong.
His net approval rate remains negative (currently -9 points), as he has done throughout a presidency in which he has focused on the policies of the board. radical immigration and racial resentment.
In addition, Trump's Republican Party lost the mid-term elections of 2018, which took place under the same conditions as today. Trump's net approval rating was -9 points in the 2018 exit poll. As a result, Trump's Republican party lost 40 seats and the popular House vote of 9 points.
In the last few weeks of this cycle, Trump has not helped Republicans. The last weeks of the campaign in question had warned that migrants were arriving in Central America. Voters who decided in the last month of the 2018 campaign were as likely to vote Democratic as those who had decided before.
It's not clear if Trump can compensate for his unpopularity by demonizing the Democratic candidate this time around.
And remember, Trump also risks increasing the turnout of non-white voters. This does not matter in a state like Wisconsin, which is very white. This could however take the states of the sunshine belt moving to the left, like Arizona and Texas, and put them at stake for Democrats.
If Arizona or Texas become more blue, it will open many paths in the electoral universities for the eventual Democratic candidate.
