Donald Trump appears to be leading in most meaningful election polling. According to the authoritative Real Clear Politics, Trump leads slightly in overall polling and in every single swing state. Betting averages have him up on Biden 50% to 38%. We all must prepare ourselves for the possibility that Donald Trump will become president again.
For anyone who studies political news very closely, there are a variety of reasons, or at least theories, as to why the numbers look like they do. These include the following:
- The economy, especially the inflation rate and cost of living relative to wage growth, is depressing support for Biden, especially among working-class voters.
- Illegal immigration and the endless surge of people at our southern border worries lots of people.
- Biden’s reputation for handling foreign affairs never fully recovered from the Afghanistan pullout.
- The Israel-Gaza conflict has hurt Biden with Arab-Americans and young voters. The more he tacks toward the Palestinian side in response to events or to pressure, the more he risks losing the support of other members of the Democratic constituency. It is a no-win situation.
- Apparently, memory of the chaos of the Trump presidency is fading! People instead remember a stronger economy. They must have forgotten COVID and the bleach incident.
- Biden appears old and frail, on his own and relative to the also old Trump, and unlikely to have the energy to bring the kinds of changes people seek.
- The indictments, and now one trial of Trump, do not appear to hurt him in a significant way.
- The Kennedy candidacy is not insignificant and may hurt Biden more than Trump.
- The other two small leftist candidacies (Stein, West) could hurt Biden and won’t hurt Trump.
- The perception of lawlessness and moral chaos, fairly or not, benefits Trump and hurts Biden.
- Biden has hemorrhaged support among Black and Hispanic voters, especially among the young.
- Legislative achievements orchestrated by Biden, such as infrastructure investment, have not registered with many voters, and much of the authorized money has not yet been spent.
- A majority of voters are unhappy with rollbacks in abortion access, but unbelievably, some of them blame Biden because he is the current president, rather than Trump, who appointed the Supreme Court members who provided the votes.
The fact that Trump has threatened democratic norms since coming down the escalator in 2015, all the way to denying the results of the 2020 election and egging on an insurrection on January 6, apparently does not matter.
The fact that Trump is unstable and capricious, and that placing the presidency in his hands a second time is like juggling live nuclear weapons at halftime during a football game, apparently does not matter.
“That placing the presidency in his hands a second time is like juggling live nuclear weapons at halftime during a football game, apparently does not matter.”
The fact that Trump has been found civilly liable for sexual abuse and defamation, apparently does not matter.
The fact that he and his organization have been found guilty of business fraud and tax fraud in New York also does not matter.
I was in Great Britain recently. There, the Conservatives never recovered from what most of the population, including many Tory loyalists, viewed as the shocking norm-breaking and moral turpitude of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. That was several years ago, but no one has forgotten. All polls expect the party to get a terrible whipping in the elections just called for July 4.
Talking with lifetime Conservative voters, I learned they are shocked that a similar broad rejection is not what awaits either the Republican Party or Donald Trump himself. The role of Christians here in making this the case is not lost on people abroad. That is for sure.
This is not to say that the election results are predetermined. The numbers are too close for that. All citizens here bear responsibilities to engage in the democratic process through all legal means.
But what does it say about our country that this is where we are?
This post first appeared on Baptist News Global.
