Here’s some encouraging news courtesy of CNN political analyst, Harry Enten:
Poll of the week: A new national Fox News poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden with a 48% to 40% lead over President Donald Trump.
What's the point: Almost any time I explain that Biden's leading Trump, someone will inevitably bring up "but what about 2016." That's why this week marks an important milestone for the Biden campaign.
It's one of the first times during the election year that Biden was clearly running ahead of Hillary Clinton's 2016 pace in the matchup against Trump.
Four years ago, Trump closed the
national gap quickly with Clinton as he was vanquishing Republican rivals Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the presidential race. Clinton's average lead shrank from 10 points during the first half of April to 6 points in the second half in April to 4 points in the first half in May to a mere 1 point in polls completed four years ago between May 16-May 23.
In terms of individual high quality polls, you needn't look further than Fox News. Clinton trailed Trump by 3 points in a
Fox News poll out four years ago between May 16-May 23. Now, Biden's up 8 points in that same poll.
Biden notably hasn't trailed in a single live interview poll this entire year.
Although Clinton would regain some of her advantage in June 2016, the fact that the race became so close at this point four years ago was an indication that the electorate was somewhat unsettled. It showed that under the right circumstances, Clinton could lose nationally, or, at the very least, that Trump could come close enough nationally to win in the electoral college.
Enten pointed out earlier this month that Biden has maintained a steady lead over Trump:
The poll is largely in line with the average poll since April that puts Biden 6 points ahead of Trump nationally.
What's the point: Biden's lead is about as steady as it can possibly be. Not only is he up 6 points over the last month or so, but the
average of polls since the beginning of the year has him ahead by 6 points. Moreover, all the polls taken since the beginning of 2019 have him up 6 points.
The steadiness in the polls is record breaking. Biden's advantage is the steadiest in a race with an incumbent running since at least 1944. That could mean it'll be harder to change the trajectory of the race going forward, though this remains more than close enough that either candidate could easily win.
To know this, I went back and looked at how all the national polls deviated from each other during January to early May of the election year.
This year, 95% of all the individual polls so far have shown a result within 6 points of the average. That's basically what you'd expect if you took a lot of polls and the race wasn't moving (i.e. the only shifts are statistical noise from sampling). It's a ridiculously small range historically speaking.
The previous low for a similarly constructed 95% confidence interval was 8 points (2012). The median cycle featured a 95% interval of 13 points from the average of polls. In other words, about double the range of the polls we have seen so far in 2020.
Now we have over five months left until election day and we’re in the middle of a pandemic but this is still encouraging to know. That lead can also grow once President Obama hits the campaign trail for Biden:
Campaign veterans and strategists say Obama is useful less as an attack dog going head to head with Trump and more as someone who highlights a positive vision of why voters should elect Biden.
“To me, Obama is the world’s best character witness,” said Teddy Goff, who was digital director for Obama’s second presidential campaign. “Yeah, he can make the case that Trump is bad. He can certainly validate the case for Biden’s policies. But essentially he’s the most popular political figure on planet Earth and the one guy he entrusted with the single most important appointment of his life was Joe Biden.”
But Obama could also persuade more people to vote.
Meg Ansara, who was national regional director for Obama’s first presidential campaign and more recently battleground states director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, said one of the key priorities, especially in this environment, is voter registration.
“I think voter registration is a huge place,” Ansara said, adding that persuading undecided voters is important for someone like Obama as well. “I’m a big believer that you need to do both in the bulk of these battleground states.”
Until then, let’s help Biden get ready to kick Trump’s ass. Click here to donate and get involved with Biden’s campaign.