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TRUMP THOUGHT HE HAD THE ELECTION WON. AND THEN… In an Oval Office conversation Wednesday, President Trump described what he says is the strong voter enthusiasm he is seeing on campaign trips. (Up next, on Friday: New Hampshire.) “I think we’re doing much better than we did four years ago,” the president said. Things were going so well on the trail earlier this year, before coronavirus hit, that the president said he believed victory was in his hands.
I asked Trump whether, last February, he thought he had the election in the bag. “Yeah, I thought it was over,” he answered. “I saw the numbers. I thought it was over. I mean, how easy is it to campaign when you’ve established the greatest economy in history, you’ve rebuilt the military, you’ve cut taxes at the biggest rate ever, you’ve cut regulations more than any president — in three and a half years, I’ve cut regulations more than any president, however long their term — yeah, I thought it was over.”
“And we got hit with this virus,” Trump continued. “Which is not fair. It happened. And I went back to work. I had to go back to work. Because this thing was over. We were at the top of the economy, best economy ever, best economy ever in the world…”
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It wasn’t over. I asked when the time came that Trump realized the fight would be tougher than he thought six months ago. He paused for a moment and said, “You understand when I say that the race was over, no race is over. But we were very substantially in the lead, and there weren’t many people who thought he [former Vice President Joe Biden] was going to do much.” But that moment came with the worst days of the pandemic. What appeared to be a clear path to a Trump victory became a much more difficult climb.
What followed were weeks with Biden taking a big lead in the polls — both nationwide and in critical swing states. Now, however, there appears to be the beginning of a momentum shift in the president’s favor. While Biden’s lead nationally is still substantial — 7.1 points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls — it is two points smaller than a month ago. Likewise, Biden’s lead in an average of key swing states — Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — is down nearly three points.
And now, there are clear concerns among Democrats that the party may suffer from its lax, even tolerant response, to the civil unrest and violence plaguing some cities around the country. Many in the political world noticed a New York Times piece from Kenosha, Wisconsin, site of the latest violence, in which undecided voters told the paper that “the chaos in their city and the inability of elected leaders to stop it were currently nudging them toward the Republicans.”
That news comes in the context of Trump’s sense that things are moving up. “We’re doing very well in Michigan,” he said. “We’re doing very well in Pennsylvania and North Carolina. You should have seen the crowds the other day in North Carolina.” The campaign events, even though they are limited by social distancing restrictions, are giving Trump the tactile sense of connection with crowds that was so important for his 2016 victory. And now, he appears to be shifting the debate with Biden to the issue of order and public safety. For the moment at least, the campaign appears to be moving in the president’s direction.
