Adam Boulton Diary: How the Democrats could lose it from here

According to what I put in my diary at the beginning of the year I would be in the United States at the moment, digesting events at the Democratic National Convention and the candidate’s choice of running mate. Joe Biden is the nominee but Covid-19 has put paid to all the rest of these plans. At best they are TBA.

No wonder the airlines are trying to get the governments to waive the prohibitive prospect of two weeks’ quarantine on each side of the Atlantic. For now it remains in place on health grounds quite reasonably because of the relatively high rates of the disease in both the US and the UK.

My travel plans aborted, it was a strange experience to be a panellist for Chatham House’s impressively organised webinar on the state of the 2020 US Presidential Election. It’s just as well that we had plenty of time to read, watch and discuss ideas remotely during lockdown.

Luckily the Chair, Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, knows what she’s talking about and my partner, Amy Walter of America’s Cook Report, “Zoomed” in from the heart of the action and was splendidly informative. The “trajectory”, she told us, is for President Biden in 2021. The Democrat has a commanding lead in opinion polls far ahead of where Hillary was, sometimes even in double figures. Donald Trump needs a near miracle to be re-elected. No incumbent has ever before gone on to win from ratings this low this close to polling day.

The polls have been swung by the events of the last three months, the fallout from Covid and Black Lives Matter. The economy is the only category in which Trump is ahead. The president has dire personal approval ratings. Biden even leads on law and order, which may explain Trump’s divisive ploy to send federal forces into protesting inner cities.

So much has changed in the past hundred days that I set my mind to what could possibly go wrong for the Democrats during the next one hundred days until the November 3 election.

This is a campaign like no other because there is no campaign as we have come to know it. There are no non-stop whistle stops across the nation, no entourages of accompanying journalists and cameras to guarantee daily coverage, and no prime-time conventions to speak of.

Biden is running his operation remotely from a basement in Delaware. Trump has the “bully pulpit” of the Presidency but that may not be the advantage it seems since around three quarters of voters, whether for and against him, agree that this election is about one thing, Trump. That’s the way he likes it, although his meeker demeanour at this week’s news conference perhaps denotes a flicker of recognition that not everyone is turned on by vintage Donald.

This means that the milestones of the campaign will have greater importance because the candidates will have less exposure to set the agenda. First up for the challenger is who he invites to share the ticket with him. The choice is due in the few days before the virtual Democratic Convention starts in mid-August.

Biden’s standing in the polls means that he doesn’t need to take a gamble on his nominal Vice President, as underdog John McCain did, for example, in his choice of Sarah Palin in 2008.

Biden has already said that he plans to select a woman as running mate. Maybe things have changed after #MeToo but so far America has never voted in a ticket with a woman on it. There is also an expectation that Biden will choose a woman of colour.

It’s a fool’s game guessing a VP. Who saw Dan Quayle, or Palin, or Mike Pence coming? More than twenty names have been canvassed. The most conventional choice among those seen as favourites would be Kamala Harris, the junior US Senator for California, in spite of her harsh words for Biden in debates when she was running against him. Harris is from an African and Indian American background. Tammy Dockworth’s mother is from Thailand. The Illinois US Congresswoman is a double amputee as a result of serving in the army in Iraq. Michelle Obama would be the most popular and spectacular choice but she has repeatedly ruled herself out. Having been Barack’s Veep Biden also has overshadowing issues with the Obamas.

In the end Biden could opt for a man, of course. Whoever he chooses, Trump respects no boundaries and can be expected to point out that Biden will turn 80 during his first term before homing in on the gap between what the Democrats were hoping for and what they have got in the form of Biden’s possible substitute. If he saw extra votes in it, Trump might yet dump Pence and go for a woman from minority background himself, such as Nikki Haley.

Never say never but it looks as if Kanye West’s bathetic run as a third-party candidate won’t get off the ground.

In September the official US General Election starts. There is general agreement that the TV debates will be more important than ever, as the predictable climaxes of the fight. But will all three scheduled debates take place? If he does well in the first encounter Trump might pull out of the next two. Conventional wisdom is that they will be challenging for Biden who is prone to the odd senior moment, but then Trump has the odd lapse into inarticulacy as well.

By definition it is impossible to predict “October surprises” which could transform the candidates’ fortunes – as FBI director Comey’s relaunched investigation into emails did for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Covid clearing up and the economy recovering fast might benefit Trump or they could get worse, strengthening the desire to replace him.

It is possible there could be a vacancy on the Supreme Court. 87-year-old Ruth Bader Ginsburg has confirmed a fifth cancer diagnosis. The Republicans have already promised to rush ahead with any new appointment. They are unlikely to succeed before the election but they would anyway inflame the culture war as a campaign issue.

As things stand Trump is uncomfortably behind in the six most vital swing states, all of which he carried last time: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. Others including Texas may come into play. Republicans are worried that unpopularity on this scale could well cost them control of the US Senate as well – which would greatly strengthen an incoming President Biden.

Trump’s base is narrowing down to a majority among white males. In polls he is dropping among the over 65s, erstwhile core supporters, who are seemingly spooked by his handling of Covid. Two out of three American voters now say they sympathize with Black Lives Matter.

Yet Trump is already complaining about being treated unfairly and repeatedly equates postal voting with voter fraud. In 2016 he lost the popular vote by nearly three million but won in the electoral college because of victories in three states by a total margin of just 78,000 out of a total 136.7 million cast nationwide.

Thanks to Covid there will be more voting by mail than ever before, meaning that the winner may not even be soon after the polls close. Donald Trump is a bad loser. If he loses and there is any doubt at all about some of the votes which defeated him, he told Fox News on Sunday that he will sit tight. A battle through the courts would then ensue.  That has been Trump’s true “Art of the Deal” many times previously in his career when things did not go his way.