How do you all think COVID-19 has affected Joe Biden's presidential bid? Will people even listen to his campaign ads if the lockdown is longer/shorter than we may think? Will the media focus on him? Does he even have a chance to win?
Discuss your thoughts.
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I think it has shined a light on his poor online infrastructure, strategy, and spending. The Trump campaign is very much leading in this space.
That said, he most definitely has a chance to win. Biden is beating Trump head to head both nationally and in North Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and is even tied in Florida of all places - which should be a Trump stronghold.
Meanwhile, Trump's overall approval rating, his "direction of the country" approval rating, and his COVID_19 response approval rating are all in the toilet.
People will be voting against Trump as much as they'll be voting for Biden. This will be a referendum election.
I think it largely depends on how quickly we recover from this crisis, and how the 'aftermath' so to speak is handled by Trump. My assorted thoughts below - in no particular order on this.
Of course the media will focus on him, that's going to be a given. My guess is they'll use him as a conduit to hold up whomever his female VP is - which is really what matters on the ticket. Chances are we'll have VEEP in real life, where Biden is incapacitated and she becomes the first woman president. If you are voting democrat - vote the VP, Biden is irrelevant.
I think that influences his chances the most, whomever his VP pick. I will tell you that I'm beginning to tire of partisanship - this bullshit of "I HATE TRUMP - I DON'T CARE IF I LIKE WHAT HE DOES" or "I LOVE TRUMP - HE IS THE GREATEST, LIBTARDS SUCK" are equally annoying as hell. I can't stand it. My challenge is I can't decide which narrative outweighs the other. If you follow twitter, academia, etc. you'd say that trump will lose in a landslide but I have to tell you - there's a robust sentiment within this country that will ride or die with Trump, disenfranchised and at the very least he makes them feel something or empowered in a way others don't.
It's kind of interesting thinking about what you are gonna run on in November. Trump can't with a straight face, not that it ever stopped him, run on 'fiscal conservatism' because god knows that has all gone to shit these past few weeks (even Roosevelt didn't write stimulus checks - they at least had work programs digging fake ditches... not that it's much better, but at least it gets people into shape). So really he's left with a platform that consists of not making a huge change that could destabilize a recovering economy + however he ends up handling the crisis and aftermath + absolutely shredding Biden on stage at a debate which will happen.
As far as Biden goes - he can run on this idea that he is a stable, cool hand who will restore normalcy to the presidency, who will act 'presidential' and be a good role model for our children or whatever. Maybe throw in a dash of 'I'll carry Obama's water a little longer' and offer up that opportunity to bring a female VP. And that might well be enough since so many people hate or can't stand Trump.
To some extent, Biden is missing a massive opportunity during this to get airtime - engage with people - and come out strong in defense or support of various governors. Seeing him engaged, active, working to help small businesses or laid of workers or something, anything would be helpful. I think this election reminds me of Obama's second term and Bush's second term - the burden is on the challenger to make an overwhelmingly strong case to make a change, and both parties picked absolutely uninspired candidates to run. Thus - it's not Covid, It's just him.
My last random and assorted thought is that the state of discourse in this country is absolutely pathetic. It's dogmatic. Draining. Sad. We seem to have found ourselves without a 'great challenge' (like a war) or grand purpose (Great society, manifest destiny, industrialization) which leaves us in a place where the headlines are $25 million for a dumb building in NYC or Trump yelled at a reporter who asked a stupid fucking question or Trump's a racist because or Pelosi is ugly - I don't have any answers, I really wish I did, but it's very frustrating to have this extreme polarization turning facts into fiction, fiction into facts and little in the way of constructive, open dialogue on our wants, needs and challenges as a society.
I'm done now. Not sure if any of that makes sense - but I will say November seems so trivial, and so far away at this point. It's crazy.
Curious, how did you think Trump performed in the debates against Hillary? If those are his performances in 2020 I'm struggling to see how you could think he will decisively beat Biden in a debate.
Assuming there will be a debate at all is an interesting assumption given COVID-19 and Trump's approach to politics.
Short version of the below - Trump doesn't really debate, he attacks the other person's weaknesses, bullies them aggressively and tries to fire up his base more than anything with talking points - to throw them off their game, make mistakes and make them look weak. When it works - it really works. When it doesn't - it really, really doesn't. He's not trying to win you over - he's trying to win 100% of who he has to get them to turn out. I don't think Biden has the capacity Hillary did to weather it - do you?
Trump did exactly what he did to the entire republican field - he made them look small on the stage. He overpowered them. Standard bullying tactics up there - putting people in uncomfortable positions where they are reacting, getting angry and unable to articulate themselves in a meaningful way. Then he doubled down consistently on the same five talking points, with words that 'resonated' with his base and the issues at that time. Hillary's base watched that - laughed at the notion that anyone could possibly vote for such a clown - and lost the election.
He won't beat any candidate in a substantive, academic debate - which i'm assuming is your criteria - where they stand up there and discuss the issues of the country, articulate their platforms, vision, etc. He's gonna turn it into a street fight - which Biden 5 years ago might have had a chance. I'm not convinced he can quickly articulate himself when Trump is brow beating him over whatever the topic du jour is - interrupting him, chiding him, mocking his perceived mental state.
That, to me, is the marvel of the Trump campaign machine - It's a robust marketing effort, doubling down aggressively on whatever 'resonates' with his base - aggressively attacking the weakest points of whomever he is up against - and jettisoning issues, topics or people that aren't working out quickly. It's not worried about feelings, outcomes or even the issues at hand - just whatever is working and can win.
I think that COVID has diminished Biden's chances of becoming the POTUS because the virus has greatly increased the probability of Trump being reelected. The POTUS is literally on every major network every day for about 90 minutes. The daily updates are a dream come true for the POTUS, because he is getting so much free advertising.
The question of course is - Is it good advertising?
Do his rambling, nonsensical answers help him with anyone who doesn't own a MAGA hat? Do his rants against reporters?
His approval ratings for handling the virus response are dog shit.
His ramblings during the updates are no different from his ramblings in general. If you do not own a MAGA hat, you are probably not going to vote for him anyway. If you do own a MAGA hat, you might be more enthusiastic to vote. The daily updates are similar to a campaign rally, which are only used to get your base more excited to vote.
I want you to be correct. But I am not so sure about his voter base dwindling. Maybe it’s just remembering 2016 when it should’ve been an obvious loss of Trump, but it definitely wasn’t.
Again, I will be extremely sad if Trump wins again. I hope he doesn’t. But given the amount of COVID deniers and people who say Trump might as well be Moses parting the disease himself with biblical powers... I question the human brain a lot...
Covid-19 is the best thing to ever happen to Biden’s campaign. Incumbent presidents rarely lose reelection.
Biden will be challenging Trump in the middle of a tough recession, giving him the best circumstances. Pre Covid-19, I would say that Biden’s elections odds weren’t great given the strong economic backdrop.
I just hope the debates between Trump and Biden happen. i didn’t think 2016 could be topped, but seeing Trump tee off on an incoherent Biden would be hilarious
It is certainly interesting that someone could listen to Biden and Trump and have the takeaway that Trump is in any way the coherent one.
Trump thrives in debates, he is hilarious and extremely quick to come up with one liners. Biden literally has dementia.
Lmao Biden literally has dementia and touches/kisses little kids.
Trump is gonna wipe the floor with this dude lol
New Fox News state polls came out tonight. Some swing state highlights:
Michigan
Biden 49% Trump 41%
Pennsylvania
Biden 50% Trump 42%
if we've learned anything from 2016, it's that these polls mean absolutely nothing
This is an incorrect takeaway from 2016.
Another myth is that Trump’s victory represented some sort of catastrophic failure for the polls. Trump outperformed his national polls by only 1 to 2 percentage points in losing the popular vote to Clinton, making them slightly closer to the mark than they were in 2012. Meanwhile, he beat his polls by only 2 to 3 percentage points in the average swing state.3 Certainly, there were individual pollsters that had some explaining to do, especially in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Trump beat his polls by a larger amount. But the result was not some sort of massive outlier; on the contrary, the polls were pretty much as accurate as they’d been, on average, since 1968.
I'm gonna bookmark this for when Biden gets smoked
If Trump wins in November 2020, me sharing polling from April 2020 will hardly be egg on my face, but you do you.
Tons of polls from PA and MI in the last day or so.
Pennsylvania
Biden +6 (Ipsos) Biden +6 (Susquehanna) Biden +7 (PPP) Biden +8 (Fox News)
Michigian
Biden + 7 (PPP) Biden +8 (IPSOS) Biden +8 (Fox News)
With those two states, Biden would only need to flip one other 2016 state. Again, he is leading in North Carolina and Arizona and is tied in Florida.
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