- by New Deal democrat
It’s a slow economic news week, so let me follow up with some further information about movement in the polls. My usual caution: polls are *NOT* forecasts, just nowcasts estimating what would happen if the election were today.
In the past few days, there is further evidence that Trump’s “law and order” message has resonated with at least a small subset of presumably white, probably older, voters. Below are some graphs from Nate Silver’s site of a few swing and swing-ish States. Note his graphs take into account national, as well as State-specific polls, but the net result is typically within 1% of what my average of State-only polling shows.
There has been considerable narrowing of the race in Florida:
And also, to a bit lesser extent, in Pennsylvania:
Trump has opened up a small lead in Ohio:
There has also been some subdued movement in Georgia and in Iowa:
Michigan has narrowed slightly, although Biden’s lead remains pretty wide there:
On the other hand, there’s been no perceptible change in North Carolina:
And interestingly, in the two States that have been the epicenter of “Black Lives Matter” incidents, Minnesota and Wisconsin, Biden’s lead may actually have expanded slightly:
It is *way* overstating the case to say that “Biden’s in trouble.” He still has leads in all of the important swing States. And Trump is completely incapable of staying “on message.” He will inevitably rise to any bait that is immediately in front of him, and generate new controversies (like disparaging the military).
But, with “law and order,” telegraphing to conservative, older Whites that “the animals are loose,” he has found his *relatively* most resonant issue, and it shows in the polling.
