I kind of doubt that the 2020 presidential contest will ever settle into anything that resembles a normal campaign, and regardless of what the pollsters say, I’ll be biting my nails on Election Day because I’ve already lived through one contest I thought Donald Trump would surely lose only to see him win. Yet, if there’s anything that could give me a sense of calm and confidence, it’s persistently bad polls from Florida for the president that show he’s not even competitive there.
Here’s a start on that. The University of North Florida Public Opinion Research Lab polled 3,244 registered Floridians last week and found them highly unimpressed with Trump’s performance on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Although Gov. Ron DeSantis has taken his cues in handling the state’s response to the coronavirus directly from the president, a narrow majority of Florida voters approve of the job he is doing, while most disapprove of the way President Donald Trump is handling the crisis…
…Only 45% strongly or somewhat approve of the job Trump is doing to address the pandemic, with 53% disapproving. By contrast, a narrow majority, 51%, approve of the job DeSantis is doing while 46% disapprove.
The poll also shows Trump trailing Joe Biden 40 percent to 46 percent. This is a change in public opinion. Two polls from early March, one by Univision and one by Florida Atlantic University, showed Trump beating Biden. In fact, I’ve seen no evidence throughout Trump’s first term until now that he has much to worry about in Florida at all. He’s looked consistently strong there, enough so to discourage me from the thought that the Sunshine State will be a swing state this time around.
If Florida were the only state to flip from red in 2016 to blue in 2020, Trump would still win the Electoral College by a 277-261 margin. But Florida is very unlikely to be the first (or only) state to flip. Assuming any states flip, Florida is likely to the third or fourth or fifth domino to fall. The demographics and politics of the state assure that is not the ripest target for Biden. If Pennsylvania were also to fall, Biden would win 281-257. That’s all it would take.
So, if November arrives and Trump is looking deeply underwater in Florida and I have confidence that he will lose there, I can feel even more confident that he’s on track to lose the election. There are signs that the botched handling of the coronavirus crisis has hurt the standing of not only Trump in Florida, but also Governor Ron DeSantis and Senator Rick Scott. In particular, Scott, who has the state’s governor from 2011-2019, is being blamed for making Florida’s unemployment insurance system an ungenerous and hard to navigate pain in the ass.
Privately, Republicans admit that the $77.9 million system that is now failing Florida workers is doing exactly what Scott designed it to do — lower the state’s reported number of jobless claims after the great recession.
“It’s a sh– sandwich, and it was designed that way by Scott,” said one DeSantis advisor. “It wasn’t about saving money. It was about making it harder for people to get benefits or keep benefits so that the unemployment numbers were low to give the governor something to brag about.”
It could be that Trump will bounce back, or that the polls remain close enough that I can’t have any confidence about the outcome. But if Trump isn’t competitive in Florida, it’s really hard to see how he can win reelection.
DeSantis has higher approval than Trump on handling Coronavirus? Has to be the result of people following national news way more closely than state level news.
“it’s really hard to see how he can win reelection.”
Look, Trump is a criminal. Therefore, his reelection is necessary. This is how it works all around the world. To steal the election, Trump and his lackeys will commit obvious crimes in broad daylight, and once he is reelected they will not be punished, because the justice system, including the courts, has been subverted. Do you think “I could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue” was idle boasting? It was statement of intent.
And right on time —
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/06/wisconsin-supreme-court-halts-absentee-ballot-deadline-extension.html
And it gets worse:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ruth-bader-ginsburg-wisconsin-absentee_n_5e8bc6e3c5b62459a92dc109
Yes, I think its highly unlikely Florida goes in the”D” column with a Trump sycophant as Governor and a solid R majority in the legislature. The Supreme Court just said that it’s pretty much open season for electoral theft, and I’m sure what’s left of the Republican party after Covid-19 rips through the state will be more than happy to steal yet another one.If push comes to shove, and the polling looks really bad, they can always throw out the election and just allocate their electors to Trump via a vote in the state legislature. The Roberts court would probably be perfectly fine with that.
This is probably a little off topic but I am wondering if there are any enterprising investigative journalists out there chasing down whether Trump and his “family business” have legal jeopardy for violating insider trading laws regarding the “supposed” treatment hydroxychloroquine. How much Novartis and Teva stock did they buy before he started touting it every day in the Coronavirus Task Force briefings. Sure looks like a scam to me.
I admit it is appealing to loosen the regulations so that desperate patients can give it a try (or die). But the government has bought up millions of doses… isn’t that going to give him the tool to boost the price of the pills by not releasing everything they’ve bought up except for small amounts to “favored” governors? Once the price of the pills goes up the stock skyrockets.
Perfect scam.
I think patients should be able to try it in doctor controlled settings. I don’t think anyone in the government should be allowed to hold stock in the companies that produce it.