PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL NOT BE RE-ELECTED

4/22/20

The 2020 presidential election is a little over six months away and, as the cliché goes, that is an eternity in politics.   However, it’s safe to say even at this early juncture that the chances of Donald J. Trump winning re-election are microscopic and the COVID-19 crisis only helps his opponent, the latter for reasons that most people miss.   Further, just as I suspected something was wrong with the polls in 2016 (See TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16), yours truly simply cannot believe any poll that shows the 2020 race as being even remotely close.

I base my confidence in former Vice-President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory on many things that can be encapsulated in two observations.  The first observation comes out of county in which I reside, DuPage, in the far western suburbs of Chicago.    DuPage County has long been Illinois’ largest GOP stronghold.   Legend has it that Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley would never report the Cook County results on election night until he saw how big a lead the Republicans had built in DuPage so that he could report enough Democratic votes to render that majority irrelevant.   While such a tale may be just another highly charged figment of our state’s rich political lore, that Richard I felt compelled to give DuPage such consideration is evidence of that county’s importance to the politics of the state of Illinois and especially to its Republican Party.

Then came 2016.    While the Republicans did relatively okay down ballot, Hillary Clinton trounced Donald Trump in DuPage, with Trump getting less than 40% of the vote, beyond unheard of for a Republican in DuPage County.   And things got worse from there for the GOP.   The Republicans took a pounding in DuPage in 2018, losing, in addition to seats in the state legislature,  the two Congressional seats that had DuPage County as their bases, including one, that of Peter Roskam, that was gerrymandered by Illinois Democratic boss Mike Madigan to be so packed with Republicans that they could neither lose the seat nor cause much mischief for the Dems in surrounding districts.   It was as if, in the case of Mr. Roskam, the GOP muffed a lay-up fed to them by the opposing team.   The GOP also lost County Board seats, emerging with an 11 to 7 majority that is slim not only by historical standards but especially by comparison to neighboring Cook County, where Democrats hold a 15-2 margin.   Can you possibly imagine the Dems holding, say, a 10 to 7, or even a 12 to 5, margin, in Cook?   Neither can I.     

It’s easy to determine why the GOP had been beaten up so badly in DuPage in the last two elections:    Donald J. Trump.  Multitudes of voters in this rock-ribbed, salt-of-the-earth, nearly stereotypically GOP County abhor Donald Trump, and this is especially true of the women voters in DuPage.    DuPage voters have expressed this, er, dissatisfaction not only by voting against Donald Trump but also by voting against the Party that has made him its standard-bearer.   This trend will only accelerate in 2020.   Back in 2016, there were plenty of voters who were uneasy with Mr. Trump but were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially against Hillary Clinton, while not being sufficiently brave to give any indication of the latter in public, or at least in polite company.  (See, again, my long classic 11/4/16 post TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, written when “everyone knew” that Secretary Clinton was going to do to Donald Trump what the Bears did to the Patriots in the ’86 Super Bowl.  (Given what both teams have done in the intervening years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the ’86 Super Bowl was as real as Mrs. Clinton’s certain victory, but I digress.  At least I do so doubly parenthetically.))   Those voters are gone; now that these traditional, moderate, upper middle-class voters have seen Mr. Trump in action, their doubts have been erased, and not in Mr. Trump’s favor.   He will thus struggle to reach even his pathetic 40% of the vote in DuPage.

One might ask who cares about DuPage County.   The County is, after all, in Illinois and there is simply no way that Mr. Trump or, in 2020, any Republican running for any office, is going to carry Illinois.  But DuPage is important not of itself but because of its similarity to so many suburban counties throughout the nation and especially in the key Midwestern states that President Trump will have to carry in order to win the election.   These relatively moderate, economically well-off while not being crazily wealthy, suburban counties are the core of the GOP’s strength.   The GOP does not win elections on the votes of the conservative true believers; it wins elections when it carries the moderate suburban districts inhabited by voters who work for a living, have accumulated at least a modicum of wealth, much of which lies in their homes, and whose primary interests lie not in politics but in maintaining the financial position they have built for themselves and in preserving the country and its system that has enabled them to do so.    And President Trump is not going to win in those counties, or at least he will not win by sufficiently large margins in those DuPagesque counties to overcome the big majorities Mr. Biden will run up in traditional Democratic bastions in both the working class and uber-rich precincts of the big cities.

One might counter that President Trump doesn’t need the traditional moderate Republican base because he has built a new base of white working-class voters, primarily, but not exclusively, male, who have not gone to college.   One would be wrong in making this contention.   The GOP wins the White House only when it carries both the traditional Republican base and the white working-class vote, and has done so since the implementation of the Nixon Southern Strategy in 1968.   The President will not be re-elected with only the votes of the white working class; he also needs the vote of the middle managers who live in places like DuPage.   And he is not going to get that second vote.  He will thus lose the election by a wide margin.

Some ardent Trump fans will also cite possible inroads Mr. Trump might make into traditional Democratic constituencies.   They argue that the President will do better than anticipated among Blacks and possibly Hispanics due to the strong Trump economy and the pre-COVID declines in minority unemployment rates.   Trump supporters further argue that Mr. Trump will do better among Jewish voters than typical GOP candidates because of his strong pro-Israel credentials.   This argument as it relates to all three of the aforementioned Democratic constituencies is a long shot, but even if Mr. Trump does marginally better among any, or all three, of these groups, the numbers will be, extending the above football analogy,  the equivalent of the Patriots’ kicking a field goal (if indeed they did) in the fourth quarter of the ’86 Super Bowl; they won’t come close to making any difference.

The second observation behind my confidence at this point in Mr. Biden’s impending victory is really a reflection of the first:   the results in the recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election.   In that race, liberal challenger Jill Karofsky, endorsed by Joe Biden, beat conservative incumbent Daniel Kelly, endorsed by President Trump, by 11 percentage points in a surprisingly strong turnout, especially considering that the primary was run in the thick of the COVID isolation/social distancing order.   Ms. Karofsky ran well in most constituencies, but won the election primarily because she ran so well in those traditionally Republican, dare I say DuPagesque, counties around Milwaukee, Madison, and Chicago. 

Further, Wisconsin really matters in the 2020 election.  First, Wisconsin is a toss-up state that delivered a surprise victory for Donald Trump in 2016.  Second, Wisconsin is important not only of itself but also because it is so demographically similar to fellow Midwestern states like Michigan and Ohio, and even to Pennsylvania, all of which will be crucial to the 2020 election.  Simply put, if Mr. Trump’s endorsed candidate can be eviscerated so badly in Wisconsin, Mr. Trump is in deep trouble not only in Wisconsin but also in Ohio. Michigan, and Pennsylvania.   And we know what that means for the election.

So what about the coronavirus and this election?

People are arguing about whether his handling of the coronavirus is helping or hurting the President.  However, these arguments, while centering around the effectiveness of his response and its reflection on the President’s leadership, miss the major point.  

Repeatedly on this blog, I have made the point that I made most emphatically and succinctly in the title of my 1/9/20 post PRESIDENT TRUMP CANNOT WIN, BUT THE DEMOCRATS CAN LOSE, IN 2020:  while, largely for the reasons outlined in today’s post, Mr. Trump can’t win the election, the Dems could surely lose by nominating the wrong candidate or by manifesting another of those talents that repeatedly enable them to snatch proverbial defeat from the jaws of victory.  

At first, I thought the Dems might send this gift horse to the glue factory by nominating one of their more overtly looney-tune lefties.   While the Dems dodged this bullet by dispatching both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, I was not, and still am not, convinced that the swift and seemingly not sufficiently pondered nomination of Joe Biden was the wisest choice for the Party; I touched on that theme in my 3/2/20 post THE SOUTH CAROLINA PRIMARY AND THE ENSUING MAD DASH FOR THE EXITS:  ARE THE DEMOCRATS GOING TO WAKE UP AND SAY “I DID WHAT?”?   However, given the near impossibility of the Dems’ blowing it while running against Donald Trump, I have become confident that the Dems will win with Joe Biden if Mr. Biden can avoid saying enough silly and/or embarrassing things that reinforce concerns people already have regarding his capacity for the job he seeks.  

Simply put, as long as Mr. Biden can be kept from saying or doing something really astonishing, the cover the media will provide for him, combined with moderate, and especially GOP moderate, antipathy toward Donald Trump should make him our 46^th president.   And that stipulation is where the coronavirus helps Mr. Biden.  

Those who don’t understand politics, Mr. Biden, or the major issue in this race contend that COVID-19 hurts Mr. Biden by denying him a platform and/or a spotlight.   The proponents of such a view correctly contend that Mr. Biden can’t conduct a conventional campaign with big rallies and the like, the news media are devoting themselves nearly exclusively to COVID, and all the attention is focused on Mr. Trump.  But they miss the obvious, to wit, when you have a candidate who is likely to say or do something at any time that will cause eyes to roll and voters to sigh in bewilderment and frustration, you want to keep that candidate as far from the public eye as possible.    In this case, the COVID-19 crisis keeps Mr. Biden from the public eye, giving him fewer opportunities to say something or do something that will confirm people’s suspicions that he is no longer equipped to handle the responsibilities the White House entails; therefore, the travails our country is suffering right now work to the benefit of Mr. Biden.

Some who find the above argument appealing might further argue that, given Mr. Trump’s penchant for buffoonery, the exposure he is getting from the COVID crisis also works to Mr. Biden’s benefit.   This is not a bad argument until one considers that the risks involved are not symmetrical.   There are no, or few, Trump devotees out there who will abandon the man if he does or says something stupid; they have repeatedly seen the man say and do stupid things and such behavior has done little or nothing to lessen their enthusiasm for him.   However, there are plenty of people out there, in DuPage County and elsewhere, who really want to vote against Donald Trump but aren’t all that comfortable with Mr. Biden either.  The minds of such voters are capable of being changed, albeit barely so at this point, if enough doubt about Mr. Biden should arise.   The minds of Mr. Trump’s base are incapable of being changed or, more properly, if they have been willing to excuse Mr. Trump’s inanities so far, further inanities are not going to make any difference.

To put it succinctly, as long as Mr. Biden remains “not Trump” rather than “Joe Biden,” he wins because there are so many people out there who can no longer stomach Mr. Trump.   Since the COVID crisis keeps Mr. Biden under wraps, thus minimizing the chances of his metamorphosis from “not Trump” to “Joe Biden,” it works in his favor.   While Mr. Biden is far too decent a man to hope for a continuation of the crisis, such a continuation would virtually assure that the crisis will wind up in his lap come January.

Early in this post, I mentioned Richard J. Daley and the Cook/DuPage shenanigans of those long since passed times of politics of Illinois.   See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work, or rather, used to work in Chicago and Illinois politics.