U.S. election update: Biden leads in the race to the White House

Three months ahead of the U.S. presidential election, Trump’s chances for victory are slim, national polls show.

Photo by DAVIDCOHEN on Unsplash

There are little over 100 days until Americans go to the polls to decide who will win the race to the White House. As in 2016, the choice facing U.S. citizens is a stark one and will have profound ramifications, not just for the United States, but for the entire world. But how does the race look today?

Biden, who ran as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 and 2012, leads emphatically not just in national polls but also in crucial swing states. Recent polls give Biden an average lead of nine percentage points, in the most recent of which, Biden led Trump by 15 per cent. 

By comparison, Hillary Clinton led by around seven percentage points at the same stage of the 2016 presidential election cycle. Additionally, Biden has led in all but two of the last 60 national polls, a feat that Secretary Clinton could not muster.

However, as the result in 2016 showed, the electoral college votes are far more important in deciding who governs America than the popular vote ever is. In fact, only in one of the three last Republican presidential successes has the “Grand Old Party’s” candidate won the popular vote, and that was in George Bush’s re-election in 2004. 

So what states should we look out for? Traditional swing states like Florida and Ohio are, of course, of importance to both candidates in their campaigns; both of these states opted for Donald Trump in 2016. However, Biden now leads in both. 

Floridians and Ohioans are of significance because, more often than not, they mirror what the nation decides. In 2000, the race was so tight in Florida that the poll was taken to the Supreme Court because just 537 votes decided the race and, in that instance, the presidency. Similarly, only two presidents, FDR and JFK, have succeeded in a presidential election without winning the “Buckeye State,” Ohio, since 1900. 

In 2016, Donald Trump appealed to a new voter in the American Rust Belt. States like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan narrowly voted Republican for the first time since the 1980s. These states will be up for grabs come November. In Michigan, Trump edged to victory by a tiny margin of 11,837 votes. Again, as in Ohio and Florida, the former vice president leads in all of these seats and, given that they proved so decisive to Trump’s successful campaign in 2016, without a change of fortune, Biden could block the 45th president’s road to re-election in the Rust Belt alone. 

Polling is so bad for the Trump campaign that recently Biden has even had leads in Texas. It has been speculated that the “Lone Star State” was beginning to go from firmly red to purple in the last decade. However, this will be a monumental change to American politics as the Republicans have won Texas, even in unsuccessful presidential bids, in every election since it narrowly voted for southerner Jimmy Carter in 1976.

Can anything change this? Possibly. But it is unlikely.

Harold Wilson is said to have coined the phrase “A week is a long time in politics” in the lead-up to the 1964 general election. Such a phrase could so easily be applied to the turbulent and unpredictable politics of the last decade that it would be foolish not to take note of it this November.

Changes may come when Biden chooses his vice presidential nominee. Biden previously vowed to nominate a female candidate as his running mate and he is anticipated to make an announcement on his running mate on August 1. This is an opportunity for Biden to convert even more voters by appointing a candidate in one of the swing states. Alternatively it allows for the possibility to accommodate for the divisions within the Democratic Party, something that Clinton’s campaign found quite difficult. 

The Trump campaign has already attempted to make significant changes to their personnel. Just this week, Trump demoted his campaign manager Brad Parscale to a mere adviser and replaced him with Bill Stepien, a field director from his 2016 campaign.

The three presidential debates may play a profound part in this election cycle. The United States has hosted televised debates since Kennedy vs Nixon in 1960, and they have proved to be monumental in tripping up potential presidential candidates. This notably happened to Richard Nixon in 1960 and George HW Bush in 1992. With over 80 million viewers in 2016 it is an opportunity for both candidates to connect to the nation.

Trump previously threatened to boycott debates, but now his advisers want to utilise the encounters in what they see as an opportunity to sow doubts in the minds of American voters over whether Biden is fit enough for the presidency. According to Politico, the Trump team recently called for a fourth debate and wanted to ensure debates did not clash with key NFL fixtures in order to maximise viewing figures. Biden has however taken the challenge into his stride and sarcastically added that he could hardly wait to lock horns with the “stable genius.”

The president may also hope that the pandemic will be quickly abated. Faith in the Trump administration has nose-dived since Covid-19 engulfed the states. Trump will hope to quickly kickstart an economic recovery. Before the pandemic, polls stated that a majority of American voters viewed Trump as the best candidate to deal with the economy; however, since the economic downturn, his lead has dwindled and in some polls - collapsed.

Nonetheless, the likelihood of Trump overturning this enormous challenge facing him remains slim. Biden is obtaining immense support for his policies as much as he is for his personality. He has countered the president’s talk on jobs by promising the Rust Belt more employment by greener means. This has proved to be a great success in the bid to bring jobs back to America and in dealing with the ongoing climate crisis. The former vice president has also ensured that reforms will be implemented to the police and the judiciary. 

Both Biden’s successes in winning over voters through his bold economic policies and failures in the Trump campaign, especially during this pandemic, have prompted Matthew Goodwin, a Politics Professor at the University of Kent and one of few commentators who suggested Trump could win in 2016, to conclude that “Trump is in trouble” this November. He explained in his article for Reaction that Trump is the “underdog” and added that his lacklustre reaction to the pandemic has seriously tarnished his bid for re-election. On the current trajectory, Trump will be just the 11th president to fail to win a second term.