Is trump closing in on biden? | thearticle

Is the race for the White House getting closer? This week normally marks the start of the final phase of campaigning, with just two months left before November’s general election. Nationwide

surveys indicate that Joe Biden still has an average lead over Donald Trump of more than 7 per cent — a margin that has remained steady since last month ’ s party conventions. The Democrats

could be forgiven for assuming that victory is in sight — except that Hillary Clinton enjoyed similar leads at this stage in the 2016 campaign. Sure enough, the Biden campaign has just been

jolted out of complacency by an opinion poll in Florida, the largest swing state, which showed the two candidates running neck and neck. It seems that Latino voters, especially Cuban

Americans, are turning to Trump. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, will make an appearance in Florida this week, but she has so far made her strongest pitch to black voters. This needs to

change. The Black Lives Matter protests over the summer may have had the doubtless intended effect of making black voters more likely to turn out in November. But they make up just over 13

per cent of the electorate, compared to the 18 per cent who identify as Latinos. If Biden is seen to have neglected the Hispanic population, he may be punished at the ballot box. Trump, who

trails far behind Biden among black voters, has presented himself as a strong supporter of the police. The President has stepped up his strategy of polarising the election in the hope that

running on a law and order ticket will create a coalition of white and Latino voters. He is even deliberately alienating so-called RINOs (“Republicans In Name Only”) by denouncing the

Republican former Governor of Michigan, Rick Snyder, who has endorsed Biden. “I’ll take the Endorsement of Law Enforcement all over the Country,” Trump tweeted yesterday, “and Joe can have

the RINO’s.” This is a high-risk strategy for a presidential campaign, but Trump needs to do something to distract attention from the steady stream of negative stories about his handling of

the coronavirus crisis. The latest comes from the journalist Bob Woodward, the veteran reporter of Watergate. His latest book, _Rage_, reveals that already in early February the President

was telling him in private that Covid-19 was “deadly stuff”, but still playing it down in public.   At that point, only one person had died in the United States, but Trump had just been told

by his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, that the new virus was five times more lethal than flu. On January 28, the President had already been warned by his National Security Adviser, Robert

O’Brien, that Covid-19 would be “the biggest national security threat you face in your presidency”. He later claimed not to recall this warning. At the time, Trump quickly banned non-US

citizens from China, but he continued to minimise the risks in public. On March 19, he told Woodward: “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.”   Also damaging

for Trump are Woodward’s testimony from Anthony Fauci, formerly the chief medical adviser to the White House during the pandemic. Dr Fauci, who has recently fallen out with the President

after criticising his handling of coronavirus, is quoted as telling others that Trump’s “attention span is like a minus number” and that “his sole purpose is to get re-elected”. The US

statistics on Covid make grim reading, with more than 25,000 new cases a day and total deaths, already at 188,000, likely to reach the symbolic 200,000 mark by November 3. Although the White

House claimed in response to the Woodward book that “the President never downplayed the virus”, Americans may remember him telling them last March that he hoped to be “a cheerleader for the

country”. If they have forgotten, Joe Biden will doubtless remind them. The best hope for the Trump campaign is to move on from gloomy talk about the pandemic to more optimistic hopes for

an economic revival. For much of the summer, Wall Street has been propped up by the astonishing rise in technology stocks. However, this boom now seems to be over and the damage to smaller

businesses is becoming clear. As the election looms, voters will be reflecting on whether their own circumstances have improved since 2016. Last February, before Covid-19 and lockdown, more

than 60 per cent of Americans told Gallup that they felt better off than four years ago — an unusually high figure. Since then, however, the feel-good factor has vanished, to be replaced by

fear of unemployment and higher taxes. The blue collar workers who voted for Trump in large numbers last time may feel bitter at his failure to protect their living standards and even their

health. Biden’s claim to speak for the “middle class” (which in American usage means a less affluent stratum than it does in Britain) will be tested, not least in the presidential TV

debates. The first one is scheduled for September 29, with two more due in October, plus one vice-presidential debate. These encounters will be Trump’s last chance to turn the tables on an

opponent who has thus far proved unexpectedly resilient. The conclusion must be that this race is still open, but Biden remains the clear favourite. Trump’s inability to generate momentum

for his campaign has hitherto had much to do with the absence of live events to fire up his supporters, but he is now holding public rallies, disregarding social distancing. The curious

phenomenon of an incumbent Republican running as though he were still the outsider, rather than his Democratic opponent, is unprecedented. The anti-establishment rhetoric that worked so well

in 2016, after eight years of Obama, might not play so well now that Trump has had four years to run the country. Outsiders sometimes win races, but there is a reason why they are

outsiders. The stakes this time are even higher than usual — especially for the President. A man who uses the word “loser” a lot tends to be less confident about his own chances than he lets

on. Trump knows that, if he does lose and is subsequently found to have committed crimes, there will be no presidential pardon from “Sleepy Joe”.