Why Trump still has a chance

(Image credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

published 27 July 2020

With fewer than 100 days until November's general election, the polls aren't looking good for President Trump. Still, The Atlantic's Peter Nicholas noted there's a chance the economy could bounce back by the fall; the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, could fail to inspire a strong turnout; or polling could simply be off the mark. Real Clear Politics election analyst Sean Trende, similarly argues that, while he considers a Trump victory unlikely, the president isn't too "far off where he needs to be" to get back in the race.

Ultimately, Trende thinks Trump probably has to make up about six points to catch Biden. Candidates have overcome worse odds than that in modern history, including George H.W. Bush, who trailed his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis by 17 points in July. Trende and others don't think the '88 election is a great comparison for a variety of reasons, including the idea that Biden's lead has been defined more by its stability.

But either way, Trump has a smaller amount of ground to cover, and Trende points to his approval rating as an indicator that it's at least possible he can. In Trende's view, Trump seems to have bottomed out at 42 percent, which suggests he can't win. But there's also a chance the current spikes in coronavirus cases will begin their descent, potentially allowing Trump to gain an extra bump to get back to 45 percent approval, which Trende has pegged as the target number for a competitive election. Tim O'Donnell

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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.

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