Joe Biden insists that despite conducting his campaign from his Delaware home due to the coronavirus pandemic, he is leading in the horse race against President Trump.
“We’re on the campaign trail now. And everybody says, ‘You know Biden’s hiding.’ Well, let me tell you something — we’re doing very well,” Biden told ABC News on Tuesday.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee reiterated the point in an interview with North Carolina’s Spectrum News.
“We find ourselves doing very well in the polls relative to the president. As a matter of fact, to be blunt about it, the more the president’s out, the more it seems to help,” said the former vice president and 36-year Delaware senator.
While Biden has an edge in match-up polls against Trump, analysts and the general public are not convinced that Biden will beat Trump in an election that is expected to be close. Those betting on those likeliest to win the November election through prediction market website PredictIt give Trump better odds of winning than Biden.
But the former vice president lags in other areas, including his war chest, which could make a difference in close swing states.
Here is a look at some of those metrics:
Polls
Biden has a 4.5-point lead over Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of national primary polls. That is a smaller margin than previous averages in recent months (which is based on varied pollsters because the average is compiled from the most recent polls). A month ago, Biden led by 5.5 points. In late March, Biden led by 7.4 points.
But the most important polls are those in swing states since it is possible for Trump to lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College as he did against Hillary Clinton in 2016.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has an edge in many swing states, too, but often not a lead so wide that it is outside the margin of error.
A Marquette University poll conducted May 3-7 found Biden 3 points ahead of Trump in Wisconsin, 46-43. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%.
An April Fox News Florida poll with a 3-point margin of error found Biden leading Trump by 3 points, 46 to 43.
Biden did have a lead over Trump in two recent Fox News swing state polls. Two April polls in Michigan and Pennsylvania each found Biden with an 8-point lead over Trump.
Biden bests Trump in the RealClearPolitics average of Arizona polls by 4.4%. Trump barely leads Biden in the average of North Carolina polls by 0.3%.
Polls find, however, that Trump’s supporters are much more enthusiastic about voting for him than Biden’s.
Fundraising
Trump and Biden were closely matched in April fundraising. Trump and the Republican National Committee raised $61.7 million, while Biden and the Democratic National Committee raised $60.5 million.
But each side’s ability to raise funds does not tell the whole story. Trump has a significant war chest that he has been building since he assumed office in 2017, while Biden and the DNC lag behind, softening their ability to spend money quickly on advertising, staff, voter contact, or other needs.
At the end of March, Trump and the RNC had $175.6 million in cash on hand, compared to $62.2 million for Biden and the DNC. For April, that number is $255 million for Trump and the RNC, while Biden and the DNC have not released their end-of-April fundraising number.
Biden’s new fundraising surge follows his becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. His campaign was known for being cash-strapped compared to his primary competitors, causing worries among some Democrats that he is not the best-equipped to lead the presidential ticket.
Staff
Just as Trump continued to fundraise for his reelection all through his first term, he kept on many staff members in swing states. As of the beginning of May, his campaign says it has nearly 1,000 staff members.
Biden is not only trying to catch up to Trump in filling staff roles but in matching what Hillary Clinton had at this point in the election in 2016.
While Clinton had 750 people paid more than $1,000 in March 2016, Biden had 375 in March 2020. According to the New York Times, Biden in April had the smallest campaign staff of any Democratic presidential candidate since John Kerry in 2004.
Biden is, however, adding staff even amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Messaging reach
Trump and Biden hope to rally different sets of voters in order to ensure that they vote in November, donate to their campaigns, and volunteer to contact other voters, so it is expected that the tone of each’s campaigns would be different.
But an analysis by the Washington Post on how the campaigns reach voters who sign up for their organizing apps suggested that the Biden campaign was not pursuing contacting voters as hard as the Trump campaign does. The Trump campaign and the RNC contact sign-ups multiple times within two hours of signing up, while it took the Biden campaign seven hours to make the first contact after the initial sign-up.
Adding to his messaging difficulties amid the coronavirus pandemic, Biden lags behind Trump in the number of followers on his digital platforms. Trump has 15 times the number of likes and followers that Biden has on Facebook and Twitter, and he is far outpacing Biden on YouTube.
The Trump campaign also touts its volunteer statistics, such as publicizing that it made more than 5 million phone calls in one week. As of March 13, it had 1.1 million trained volunteers and had made 21 million contacts with voters. The Biden campaign has not shared its statistics on volunteers and phone calls.
