Trump is in dangerous territory for an incumbent...

[Drunken Irishman]

As we head further into spring, and the campaign solidifies between Trump and, likely, Biden, Trump is going to find that he has more in common with the likes of H.W. Bush and Carter than Obama and W. Bush - the latter two who won reelection.

There are some interesting point of references that need to be addressed here that give insight into Trump's precarious polling position.

Trump should be beating Joe Biden. As an incumbent, with a rally around the flag effect, there really is no excuse for him not being ahead of Biden at this point. The initial reaction of Americans after a national crisis, or international conflict, generally lends itself favorable.

In 2011, after Obama announced bin Laden's death, he saw a surge of 11 points in his approval to 57%.

His head-to-head was even better. On the day bin Laden was killed (May 2nd, 2011), Obama led Romney by an average of 46.2 to 43.7 - or a margin of 2.5 points. By May 25th, Obama's lead was by an average of 48.6 to 41.1, or a margin of 6.5. A four-point bump in margin doesn't seem that big but on the microlevel of presidential polling, it absolutely was.

For Trump, there has been a minimal improvement in his approval and, more dire, he's actually seen only marginal gain, at best, in his head-to-head versus Biden.

Now there's one big difference here: the example I provided for Obama was a year and a half out from the 2012 presidential election. We're now months away from the presidential election.

But beyond that, Trump should be beating Biden because even incumbents who lose reelection typically have a leg up when their opponent is going through a primary - especially if they're running unopposed in their own primary.

Romney became the GOP's presumptive nominee on April 25, 2012. From January 1st to that day, Obama led Romney in nearly every poll and led on average every single day throughout that span. His narrowest lead was +1.6 on January 1st and his largest lead was 6.1 on Feb. 17th. It ebbed and flowed but Obama never trailed Romney throughout any portion of the GOP race. In fact, Romney only briefly took the lead against Obama in October, after the first debate, and it wasn't lasting. Think about that for a second. From January 1st to Oct. 7th, Obama led Romney in an average of every head-to-head poll. Romney then led from Oct. 8th to Oct. 18th, and again from Oct. 21st to Oct. 30th.

In 2004, Bush led Kerry all throughout March. As an incumbent. In fact, Kerry did not take a lead in the average of polls until March 31st, where he held an average lead of .4 (yes, POINT FOUR) over Bush. That lasted from March 31st to April 9th - and Kerry never once held an average lead of a full percentage point. His largest lead was .07. It wasn't until until May 10th that Kerry regained the national average lead - and his biggest lead was 2.6%. He lost it again on June 11th and regained it again on July 4th. Kerry actually held it for the rest of July and most of August (during the convention) but lost it when the GOP held their convention and never got it back - as he trailed Bush head-to-head in an average of polls the remainder of the race.

In a Gallup poll released on March 17th, 1996, Clinton was beating Dole 54-42. You can see that Dole only managed to lead Clinton in two early January polls from 1996 - 49-46 and 49-48. Other than that, and in polls done after this one I am linking to, Clinton would go on to lead in pretty much every poll through to November.

In June, 1992, George H.W. Bush led Perot and Clinton 32-30-24 (yes, Bill Clinton was polling THIRD nationally in the summer of '92).

But Bush, who would go on to lose in an electoral landslide, was still hanging onto a very, very narrow lead over Perot and was besting Clinton by eight-points. In just a head-to-head with Clinton, Bush led 45-40.

A badly crippled incumbent, in the summer of '92, had far better polling position than Trump does right now.

In 1980, despite very low approval, according to Gallup, Carter led Reagan from January through to July. At this point in the race in 1980, Carter's lead was 40-34 over Reagan.

We know how that election turned out.

Trump is in uncharted territories here, folks. He's not winning in any recent poll. That's unheard of for an incumbent. As even incumbents who went on to lose badly, held leads early in the race.

Biden currently holds an average lead of 6.5% nationally.

How does that translate into the electoral college? Well I think it means Biden likely wins the three states Trump won in 2016.

But there's something at play here that I want to mention. I brought up past incumbents for a reason. Almost always, an incumbent will win reelection by growing their support. I say almost often because there's one time the incumbent defied that expectation recently - Obama in 2012.

In fact, Obama became the first president to win reelection to a second term (not counting FDR's third and fourth, where he received diminishing returns with each win) since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 with fewer electoral votes than their first election. Wilson won 277 electoral votes in 1916, after winning 435 in 1912. And Obama won 332 electoral votes after winning 365 four years prior.

There's a reason for this.

Incumbents either grow their support or they're thrown out of office.

Bush, Clinton, Reagan and Eisenhower all saw an increase in their popular vote and electoral college margin during their reelection campaigns. Kennedy likely would have, too, had he not been assassinated.

Carter, H.W. Bush and Obama did not.

Obama defied the odds and won reelection. But he also had the solidest of footing compared to those other two incumbents. Carter and Bush saw significant evaporation of their support. Obama remained relatively popular throughout his first term.

Trump's problem is twofold. He not only won by the narrowest of narrow margins (similar to Bush in 2000), he's shown no sign of expanding his base support (unlike Bush, who, like it or not, was able to define himself successfully as a war time president). That means, he's facing a situation like Obama, H.W. Bush and Carter but without the base support that helped Obama win reelection.

Right now, Trump is polling at 44.5% against Biden. That's about 1.5 points worse than his overall popular vote total in 2016.

Again, there's no evidence of Trump expanding on his base support. That leaves him in a very vulnerable place because he didn't have strong support to begin with ... even in 2016. The reality for Trump is that 2016 was the perfect storm for him. That perfect storm might not be here for him in 2020 and, unfortunately for him, his handling of this outbreak and pandemic is NOT winning him new support.

If Trump loses this election, which, right now, I think he will, it'll be because of his handling of the COVID-19 affair. That was his moment to prove he could step up and lead. Let's be real: all Trump had to do was not parade around the country playing down the epidemic, and then the pandemic, and instead convened the governors of every state, laid out a plan and executed that plan and he would have positioned himself as very formidable.

But Trump couldn't get out of his own way and he proved every criticism of him right. It's why, at this stage in the race, despite being an incumbent, he still loses, sometimes badly, to Biden.

And that's danger territory for his reelection campaign.

Now that doesn't mean this race will be a cake walk. It won't. Trump is still an incumbent and we're doing this on a completely foreign playing field. I don't know how 100,000+ dead by end of summer will look. I don't know how things will shift and what steps Trump will take between now and the conventions. But I can guess. And my guess is that Trump's chance to turn this into a defining moment for his campaign has passed and he's now in danger of losing the narrative and losing reelection because of it.

[intrepidity]

1. I HOPE he's in dangerous territory for a human!

I hope, with every fiber of my being, that good folks like Cuomo are spared, and worthless pieces of shit like Trump, are taken instead.

And I care not one whit what kinda of person "that" makes me!

[underpants]

2. Wow. Fantastic post. Let me add something if I may

Trump HAS to show some compassion and empathy. He has to. He came close today and just couldn’t do it. I don’t it’s a superiority thing either - he can’t process negatives. He can attack sure, that shows the targets weakness. Always positive. He said so in the Rose Garden, “why can’t you people be positive?”. People like the positive. Negative implies weakness and mistakes.

His father raised him to be a “killer” and took him to Norman Vincent Peale’s Church.

[Phoenix61]

4. He can't. He's not wired for it.

He has no understanding of what that is or why it’s something he should even do. It’s like trying to explain colors to a blind person.

[abqtommy]

3. tRUMP has never faced an election yet that didn't include ratfucking to push him to a "win".

Enough already!

[nevergiveup]

5. That was very informative and enlightening.

Thanks!!