Top GOP Hands Brace for a Blowout
In talking to pollsters and political operatives in both parties over the past few days, I heard from nary a voice that thinks President Trump did anything other than hurt himself in last week’s debate. The only dispute is over how much.
Yet before we could even get a good read on the fallout from the debate, news of his positive coronavirus test and hospitalization threw everything up into the air again. It is unlikely that the president’s health situation will bring about much sympathy. In fact, it could cause him more political harm if any voters conclude that it was his and his staff’s disregard of the dangers of the coronavirus that contributed to his infection and those of others in the White House and his orbit.
At the very least, his positive test and trip to Walter Reed Army Medical Center effectively suspended the campaign, freezing it in what had been a very bad place for Trump. This suspension effectively locked Joe Biden’s lead into place, depriving Trump of precious days in which to chip away at his deficit.
Longtime GOP pros are expressing emotions ranging from deep concern to resignation and deep depression. One told me they were resigned to a “Reagan-Carter style blowout,” referencing the 1980 election in which the challenger beat the incumbent by nearly 10 percentage points in a 489-49 Electoral College win. (It was a bad night for downballot Democrats, too.) Others weren’t quite so expressive, but let’s just say they’re still greatly concerned. The fears among Republicans are either that the president’s political problems have metastasized to downballot candidates, or that disillusioned Republicans will opt to stay home, dooming GOP Senate and House candidates.
One set of data would seem to back that up. The U.S. Elections Project, run by University of Florida political scientist and voter-turnout expert Michael McDonald, shows that as of Sunday, 3,806,589 votes had already been cast. In Florida, Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota, the reporting states that reveal party registrations, 55 percent of the votes had been cast by Democrats, 23 percent by Republicans, seven-tenths of a point by minor-party members, and 21 percent by those with no party affiliation. In the key battleground states Florida and North Carolina, Democrats cast 54 and 53 percent of the ballots already in, respectively, while Republicans accounted for 28 percent in Florida and 17 percent in North Carolina. Whether it ends up being quite that imbalanced remains to be seen.
https://cookpolitical.com/analysis/national/national-politics/top-gop-hands-brace-blowout
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