Republicans Warn Trump's Re-Election is on Shaky Ground

It is still over five months to the November, 2020, elections, but two news stories point to good news for decent, moral Americans - a group that excludes the majority of evangelicals - who are sickened by the Trump/Pence regime.  One in Politico reports on the danger signs in swing states that suggest that Trump is losing to Joe Biden.  The other is at FiveThirtyEight which suggests that older Americans, especially those over 65 are beginning to abandon Trump.  It goes without saying that Trump will shriek and whine about "fake news" even though internal Republican polling confirms the news reports.  One can only hope that the trend continues and that, as Republicans fear, Trump is irrevocably attached to his bungling of the response to the Covid-19 pandemic.  First these highlights from Politico:

Donald Trump has made clear he will attack Joe Biden unmercifully in order to ensure the election is a choice between him and Joe Biden — rather than an up-or-down vote on [Trump's] the president’s handling of the coronavirus.

Scott Walker has a different view, at least when it comes to Trump's chances in the all-important battleground of Wisconsin.

“I think it still boils down to a referendum on [Trump] the president. They’ll beat up on Biden and they’ll raise some concerns,” said the former two-term Republican governor of Wisconsin, who lost his seat in 2018. But in the end, if people felt good about their health and the state of the economy, Trump will probably carry Wisconsin. If not, Walker said, “it’s much more difficult” for [Trump] the president.

Walker is not alone among swing-state Republicans in his assessment of [Trump's] the president’s political prospects. Interviews with nearly a dozen former governors, members of Congress, and other current and former party leaders revealed widespread apprehension about Trump’s standing six months out from the election.

Many fret that Trump’s hopes are now hitched to the pandemic; others point to demographic changes in once-reliably red states and to the challenge of running against a hard-to-define Democratic opponent who appeals to a wide swath of voters. The concerns give voice to an assortment of recent battleground state polling showing Trump struggling against Biden.

[T]hroughout 2016, many Republicans thought he wouldn't win.  But that hasn’t quelled GOP fears, even in some traditionally friendly states.

Georgia hasn’t gone for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992. But last week, Republicans released two internal surveys showing a neck-and-neck race, one of which had Biden narrowly ahead. “Georgia is absolutely at risk for Republicans in 2020 — up and down the ballot, everything is in play. . . . said Republican State Leadership Committee President Austin Chambers, who has deep experience in Georgia politics and recently released a memo warning the party to take the state seriously.

It's a similar story in Arizona. Public polling over the course of the spring has consistently shown Biden ahead, and a recent private GOP survey had the former vice president with a small lead. Though Democrats haven’t won Arizona in a presidential election since Bill Clinton in 1996, the party flipped four statewide offices in 2018.

Most of the GOP’s attention is focused on a trifecta of Rust Belt states that catapulted Trump to the presidency, but where he now trails.

Republicans, including Trump’s own advisers, are most concerned about Michigan. A Fox News survey taken last month showed Biden leading by 8 percentage points; two recent internal Republican surveys similarly had Trump trailing, but by smaller margins.Democrats are unlikely to repeat their mistake of 2016, when they failed to turn out voters in liberal Wayne County, an area that encompasses the heavily black Detroit metro area.

Recent surveys have also shown Trump behind in Pennsylvania, where Republicans suffered across-the-board losses in 2018. . . . . Former Pennsylvania Rep. Phil English said the state’s Democratic governor would face backlash for his management of the coronavirus but that voters would likely focus any frustrations toward national Republicans in power.

“I think there is too much blame-mongering going on, but that is predictable and I think that is going to complicate the political landscape for Republicans in Pennsylvania because they’re the party with the White House, so all negatives are going to first be set at their direction,” said English.

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory said he was confident Trump would win the state, which he carried by less than 4 percentage points in 2016. But with multiple competitive statewide races on the ballot, the former governor was less certain that Trump's popularity would carry over to other Republicans.

Though Florida has drifted toward Republicans in recent statewide elections — Trump carried it in 2016, and the party won races for governor and Senate in 2018 — recent surveys have shown [Trump] the president trailing in his newly adopted home state.

Five ThirtyEight has equally encouraging news about the possible mass defection of older voters from Trump whose policies - as well as the GOP controlled Senate - ought to be setting off alarm bells among the over 65 voters.  Here are story excerpts:

There are different “gaps” in American politics, but one that has consistently shown up in recent presidential elections is the age gap. That is, younger voters tend to vote more Democratic and older voters tend to vote more Republican.

In 2016, for instance, President Trump performed best among voters 65 years and older. . . . . However, recent public polls — and [Trump's] the president’s own private polling — suggest that Trump may be doing worse among older voters against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee.

In national head-to-head polls conducted since April 1, Trump is barely breaking even with most older Americans — and in some age groups, he’s even trailing Biden by as much as 1.4 points (see 45- to 64-year-olds).

The most startling shift, though, is among voters age 65 and older. Four years ago, Trump bested Hillary Clinton by 13 points, 55 percent to 42 percent, . . . . But now Biden narrowly leads Trump 48 percent to 47 percent, based on an average of 48 national polls that included that age group.¹ If those figures hold until November, they would represent a seismic shift in the voting behavior of America’s oldest voters.

But it’s not just among voters 65 and older where Trump is slipping. He’s also fallen almost as far among voters 55 and older. Trump is essentially tied with Biden among that age group, even after winning these voters by 10 points in 2016, 53 percent to 43 percent, according to the CCES. Trump’s numbers have also fallen with 45- to 64-year-olds, as well as 50- to 64-year-olds . . . .

We don’t have as much state-level polling to work with, but there’s evidence that Biden is also doing better with older voters in some key swing states. Take two recent surveys from Florida, a state with one of the oldest populations in the country. A Fox News poll from mid-April found Biden with a slim 3-point lead over Trump and running even among voters 45 and older, while a Quinnipiac University survey from the same period found Biden up 4 points overall in Florida and leading Trump 52 percent to 42 percent among voters 65 and older.

Yes, things can change over five months, but the message to decent, moral Americans is that they need to do all they can to convince friends and family members to jettison Trump and ideally vote a straight Democrat ticket - especially if they live in Kentucky or South Carolina.  Moscow Mitch McConnell needs to be sent into retirement as does Lindsey Graham, the Palmetto Queen.