How Trump could win again

Jonathan Chait

NYMag.com

New battleground-state polls “ought to deliver a bracing shock to Democrats,” said Jonathan Chait. Despite national polls that show several Democrats with big leads over President Trump, a New York Times poll of six critical swing states—Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona—show that Trump is “highly competitive” there. Joe Biden leads Trump by only 2 or 3 percent in these states, and Trump actually beats Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders. That’s right: “However broadly unpopular Trump may be, at the moment he is right on the cusp of victory.” He could lose the popular vote by millions and still win in the Electoral College. Democrats who think they can win over working-class, swing-state voters by making a sharp turn to the left are living in “la-la land.” About 75 percent of “those who would vote for Biden over Trump, but Trump over Warren, say they would prefer a more moderate Democratic nominee to a more liberal one.” Yet the Democrats’ primary race has elevated the far-left Warren while creating doubts about Biden, who is blocking other centrists from gaining traction. Democrats may yet beat Trump, but “the party should look at its position a year before the election with real fear.”