I can’t remember what I was looking for, but I stumbled on an exit poll breakdown of the vote for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in 2016, and was struck by one big number that drove Trump’s win (although, as you recall he “won” without getting a majority or even a plurality of the votes).
A lot of it was obvious. Clinton crushed Trump (by more than 50 percentage points) among non-whites, but Trump carried Caucasians by a solid 20-point margin. Clinton won (by 13 points) among women, but Trump won by 11 among voters of my own distinguished gender. Clinton won huge among the young, but Trump among the old. Clinton by solid margins among the more educated, Trump solidly among the less educated, who had also carried him to the Republican nomination, which led to his famous “I love the poorly educated” comment. I won’t go through the whole list of groups. Sadly, Trump solidly carried those who said they voted the way they did because they disliked the other candidate.
One of the relatively famous such factors (which many feel bodes well for the “likable” Joe Biden this year), is that Trump won by a solid 47-30 percent among the 18 percent of voters who said they had an unfavorable view of both candidates. I don’t think that’s going to help him this time around.
But the one that caught my eye was an exit poll question about “which candidate quality mattered most” to the voter.
Clinton crushed Trump by 90-7 among those who wanted a candidate with the “right experience” to be president, and won by solid margins among those who said the quality they wanted most was “good judgment” or “cares about me.” But Trump overcame all of those groups by crushing Clinton 82-14 among the very large group (39 percent of all respondents) who said the candidate quality that mattered most to them was “can bring change.”
Obviously, Clinton represented something like continuation of the presidency of Barack Obama, a fellow Democrat in whose Cabinet she had served as secretary of state. I could break the thesaurus listing ways, good and (to me) mostly bad, that Trump might have represented “change” from Obama. And, if we decide that for some of those who wanted “change” from Obama, the race angle may have played a role. But, still, based on all the qualities in the poll, people wanting “change” were one of Trump’s key groups.
And they got it. Trump equaled change across many factors. And how does America feel about that change? Views differ, of course, but now that Trumpism is the status quo, his pitiful approval rating, mired within a point or two either side of 40 percent is the beginning of an answer. To say the least, we’ve had the “change” that Trump represented. But he now represents the more-of-the-same choice on the ballot.
Joe Biden isn’t exactly the changiest candidate. He’s been around forever. And perhaps, to some, he represents the restoration of the status-quo-ante.
But Trump, despite losing the popular vote and benefiting from foreign interference, “won” 2016 as the candidate of “change.”
Since then, he has struggled throughout his tenure to maintain a 40 percent approval rating for the job he’s doing as president.
It’s hard to believe that he can count on the “change” vote to carry him over the top a second time. He doesn’t have any new ideas or even new party tricks. He’s unquestionably the “more of the same” candidate.
This is what I think of when I see Trump’s Dystopian Hellhole commercials. The scenes of American carnage lead inevitably to the question of who the President is, and how or why he let things get like this.
He’ll still run against the ‘deep state’, claiming that they’re the reason that he hasn’t changed as much as he wanted to. And of course he’ll claim changes that never occurred or that he had nothing to do with.
In mid 2017 Trump sat at a 39% right track / 52% wrong track (poll of polls). The negative 13% spread is his all time best ever.
As of now, 24% right track / 68% wrong track. His worst ever spread of negative 44%.
Tripling your negatives likely does not yield many:
“That’s the change I was looking for!”
Also:
A great piece by Tom Friedman that Biden should require a mandatory immediate post debate fact check and Trump’s tax returns as the price of admission for debates.
And before all our right side friends say this is just a ruse to avoid having to debate because Biden would have no shot against Trump: Take a look at Biden / Ryan 2012 debate results. Policy king Ryan did not hold up against good old “can I call you Joe” (And he did just fine against Palin too).
https://www.startribune.com/biden-should-not-debate-trump-unless/571675762/
Those debate conditions are even more critical now that the terrified Supreme Court has ruled that Congressional committees cannot subpoena a president’s tax returns, even when it is blindingly obvious that the president is operating in a way to steer public money to his business holdings, consistently defers to an adversary power that aided his election and while a number of cases alleging violation of the emoluments clause go forward.
A good deal of politics is about expectations. Most coaches are loath to be the #1 seed; it’s easier to tell the team, “No one believes in us, let’s show them how good we really are.”
Don Trump, who may have been trying to locate his pole numbers when he was “inspecting” the bunker, is foolishly taking the opposite tack. Every mention of “Sleepy Joe”, every time he runs a commercial about Biden being “diminished”, lowers the bars a little more. Come debate time, the bar will be on the floor. Biden, or “46” to some of us, will only need to step over that bar. Some voters will expect a doddering, drooling old man. It will be a case of 95% of success being just showing up.
I suspect the draft dodging POTUS will demand an unbiased moderator, such as Hannity or Tucker Carlson, or he will refuse to participate. But in the end, debates rarely change the outcome of the election.
“[Trump is] unquestionably the “more of the same” candidate.”
He’s a one-trick pony & the crowd is ready for a new act.
One of the biggest changes voters would like to see is to be done with the absolute torrent of lies and bluster that define the Trump administration. We have to turn off the TV & radio news and use print media – and even then limit our exposure to maintain our sanity. I hate to wish the summer away, but November 3rd can’t come soon enough. Vote by mail if you can; wear your mask to the polls if you can’t.
Overall I agree, but I will quibble with your point about media. The form of media is irrelevant; more important is the content. As news consumers we need to be critical viewers/listeners/readers who periodically critique and fact check our sources. If all we’re hearing is confirming or reinforcing what we already think, perhaps it’s time to challenge ouselves with new viewpoints.
I won’t count my Electoral College votes until they’ve been designated by the states, but in 1976, Jimmy Carter was elected as the Change candidate. Four years later, Reagan asked “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” and won. Just noting.
Anther thing that won’t he\p Trump in this election is the anti-Hillary vote.