A Bewitched, Bothered,
and Bewildered 2020 election forecast
Looking at public opinion polls to see where the US
electorate stands at the beginning of 2020 has left me humming the 1940 Rodgers and Hart song, “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered.” Common wisdom uttered by most pundits left
and right is that the country is closely
divided, rabidly tribal and partisan, with views so set in concrete that short
of some bombshell event, a weakening in the economy or another revelation of
earthshaking magnitude of wrongdoing, Donald Trump has a good chance of being
elected for a second term. The polls
taken during the last 30 plus days of 2019 reveal a conflicted and contradictory electorate but there are some troubling signs for Trump and a slight advantage for Democrats that are beginning to show up. I am assuming Trump will survive the Senate impeachment trial to finish his term and run for reelection. The safest forecast as we begin 2020, is that the election outcome is still close enough that no party or candidate should take
anything for granted.
These following findings are based on my favorite source of public opinion polls, Real Clear Politics. RCP calculates the average of all public polls in a given period. In this case, the polls cited here were taken in the 30 days before the last week in December. Polls are useful at this early stage of the election cycle to provide some general benchmarks for future comparisons, a starting gate, a way to measure trends. Most public polls have margins of error of at least 4% and depending upon how the pollster phrases the question, results can vary widely from individual poll to poll. Voters can find themselves bewitched with polls showing their candidate ahead while ignoring bad news polls and wake up the day after the election in shock. Campaigns like to cherry-pick the poll that puts their candidate in the best light and push their exposure in their favored media outlet. Averaging them at least puts any one poll in a more meaningful perspective.
These following findings are based on my favorite source of public opinion polls, Real Clear Politics. RCP calculates the average of all public polls in a given period. In this case, the polls cited here were taken in the 30 days before the last week in December. Polls are useful at this early stage of the election cycle to provide some general benchmarks for future comparisons, a starting gate, a way to measure trends. Most public polls have margins of error of at least 4% and depending upon how the pollster phrases the question, results can vary widely from individual poll to poll. Voters can find themselves bewitched with polls showing their candidate ahead while ignoring bad news polls and wake up the day after the election in shock. Campaigns like to cherry-pick the poll that puts their candidate in the best light and push their exposure in their favored media outlet. Averaging them at least puts any one poll in a more meaningful perspective.
In normal political years, the most telling poll is whether the public thinks the country is moving in the right or wrong direction. If the polls show the country is moving in the wrong direction, the party in power gets the blame and the red flags of alert should alarm the incumbent. The RCP average is that while 53% approve of Trump’s performance on the economy, 56% still think the country is moving in the wrong direction and only 37% see it on the right track. This is bewildering in its contradiction. That could indicate it is not just the economy that will determine the November outcome. That should deeply bother President Trump in any normal political year. The economy is definitely his strong card. Given the extreme partisanship that has marked this past year, normal may no longer exist, but factors of loyalty or disgust with his character and behavior were not separately or specifically addressed in the RCP average, and I suspect that such factors may explain or be included in some of the wrong track results. I could not find any recent polls separately measuring disgust or character factors. Consistently over the past several years, the economy and health care/ choice are at the top of any list of voters’ concerns. The environment as an issue is also rising. RCP did not specifically address health care or choice as issues, either. Foreign affairs rarely rank among top voter concerns, but the impeachment focus could change that.
Even more puzzling
and alarming to Trump supporters should be another measure: job approval. RCP shows Trump’s job approval at 44 % and
disapproval at around 52%. Approval of his
foreign policy is similar: 43% approve, and 54% disapprove. Neither of those is good news for Trump. However, offsetting these to some extent are
his polls on the economy which show a majority approve of Donald Trump’s handling of
the economy, a flip flop of the ones on job approval and foreign policy. To what extent approval of Trump's handling of the economy will be offset by other issues regarding health care, choice, environment, character, and foreign affairs is the question bothering and bewildering those of us who follow politics closely. We just do not know yet.
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