Joe Biden is leading President Trump in just about every poll. But there’s one advantage Trump has that Biden can’t seem to touch: enthusiasm.
A total of 42% of voters who said they support Trump indicated they are excited about voting for him in November, according to a recent poll. Just 31% of Biden’s supporters said the same. These numbers confirm what Democrats have known for a while: Biden was the safe candidate and little else.
Biden has tried to bridge this enthusiasm gap by making concessions to the left-wing of the Democratic Party — to voters who supported candidates such as Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren during the primaries. He worked with Sanders to make slight changes to his healthcare plan, and he adopted Warren’s and Sanders’s student loan debt forgiveness policy.
Even so, 72% of Biden’s supporters said they are anxious about November’s results, while only 52% of Trump backers agreed.
This doesn’t necessarily spell defeat for the Biden campaign. Again, he has a strong lead in key swing states right now, which suggests that Democratic voters’ dislike of Trump is motivating, even if Biden’s candidacy is not. But the fact is that voters are indifferent toward Biden. And an indifferent voter is less likely to show up to the polls than an excited one.
Democrats don’t seem worried about Biden’s enthusiasm gap, but they should be. Democratic voter turnout throughout the primaries was abysmal, and if the party can’t fix that before November, Trump might actually win.
Biden isn’t helping his case. He’s been camped out in the basement of his Delaware home, and the few public appearances he’s made have been brief and riddled with absurdities that have raised legitimate questions about his mental fitness. Is it any wonder Democratic voters aren’t excited?
Biden’s team seems to think that keeping him out of the spotlight is a winning strategy. Perhaps they’re right. Given our chaotic current events and polarized political spectrum, voters’ indifference might actually become an advantage in November. But again, voter turnout is paramount. And if Biden can’t convince voters that he’s worth turning out for, this race might get much closer than the polls seem to indicate.
