The NPR Politics Podcast - There Are Fewer Than 100 Days Left Till Election Day. Here's The State Of The Race.

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

Joe Biden leads in national polls by a large margin and Trump's approval ratings on key issues are sliding. Despite a term filled with scandals, from the Mueller investigation to impeachment, the president's reelection bid is defined by the pandemic. But a surprising amount can happen in a hundred days.This episode: campaign correspondent Asma Khalid, White House correspondent Tamara Keith, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, this is Tom from Cleveland, Ohio, and I am currently swinging on a swing set with my two-year-old son in the park down the street from our house. There is not another person here, so I do not have to worry about social distancing or anyone seeing a grown man swinging on a swing set. This podcast was recorded at 1.36 p.m. on Monday, July 27th. Some things have changed by the time you hear this, but I will still most likely be swinging Okay, here's the show That's such a sweet image

There is no shame in a grown man swinging on a swing Swinging was a lot easier when I was younger, that is all I can say about swings Yeah, right, like my dizziness center of gravity has totally changed. I realize the older I've gotten. Indeed. Well, hey there. It's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. So guys, we have kind of a big key timestamp marker of our own in the political

world. The 2020 presidential race has now officially entered its final 100 days. We are 99 days away from election day, if we're counting today. And so I thought it would be an appropriate moment for us to talk about where the presidential campaigns stand. You know, when you look at the polls, Joe Biden has consistently led President Trump, sometimes by 10 points, other times by eight points. But either way, he's had a fairly solid lead for a while. You know, still, you don't win elections through a national popular vote, you win by winning key competitive states. So Domenico, why don't you start by just kind of walking us through the dynamics in some of those all important battleground states?

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I think nationally, I think it's important to point out that Biden's lead has doubled since the end of February, when all of this coronavirus stuff sort of started to become a thing. He was up by about four points nationally. Now he's up on average by about eight and pretty close to 50% in those national polls. State-wise, you know, he's also increased his lead almost everywhere. Colorado, he's gained 12 points, Wisconsin, Arizona, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Michigan, Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, even Texas, Iowa, Nevada, you run down the list, Joe Biden has

increased his advantage. Now, that's not to say Trump couldn't make up some of that deficiency later on if people think he's marginally doing better. But Biden is, you know, no matter how you cut it, his lead is real. Asma, like, arguably, things can certainly change. But an important thing to point out is that in a lot of these polls, Biden is above 50%. So support for Biden is more than 50%. That's a really big difference between the leads that Hillary Clinton had in 2016 and the leads that Joe Biden has now. That means that more than 50% of people say that they will vote for him. In her case, it was not more than 50% of people who said that they would vote for her, even though she did have at times very large leads over Trump. At other times, not so large. And I think the biggest difference between 2016 and now is that I think a lot of Democrats

don't underestimate Trump this time. I think most of them under, you know, feel like the polls are something that they don't even want to look at, whether or not they show Biden leading or not. I mean, the fact is, I think that Trump is seen on the left as more of a clear and present danger. And we saw throughout the Democratic primary, Democrats feeling like Trump would win again, and the most important thing to them was to win. So the likelihood, I think, that people will register their votes as a protest, again, with third party candidates and young people and African Americans in important places won't necessarily come out to vote. I think that's less likely than it was in

2016. That is so interesting, though, Dominica, that you mentioned this, what I would call kind of anxiety amongst the Democratic voters I talked to about believing the polls. No matter what the polls say this time, it almost feels like there's a sense of denial amongst a lot of Democrats that I talked to because they don't want to believe where things are because of what happened in 2016. Well, and let me just add that there's also the same denial among Republicans and supporters of the president, including his campaign, saying those polls can't possibly be accurate. He won, even though polls showed him losing in 2016. The same thing will happen this time. They did this call with reporters last week where they spent a very long time, at least a half an hour,

just going over why they thought the polls were wrong or would be proven wrong. So I want to talk, though though more about some of the issues that the country is facing right now, because whether or not the polls are skewed or not, I think we can all agree that when we talk about key issues, the country is at a really different point than where it was in 2016. You know, I think back to how President Trump was really able to make a lot of his focus about immigration. He featured immigration really prominently. That is not something he's been able to do as much this time because a lot of voters, Republican or Democrat,

seem very concerned with the pandemic, with the economic fallout from the coronavirus, whether or not schools should reopen, racial justice issues. And these are all issues in which President Trump's handling hasn't necessarily been seen particularly favorably by a number of people. Yeah, including some Republicans. Yeah, I mean, I think you mentioned mentioning coronavirus is absolutely, you know, the top of mind for everybody. And that's sort of linked to everything else. You know, President Trump has seen a record number of people now saying that they disapprove of the job he's doing when it comes

to handling the coronavirus pandemic. An average of the polls shows about 58, 59% of people disapprove of the job he's doing. That does include some Republicans. And that's linked to school reopenings, which is going to be a huge issue in the fall, a huge issue for suburban voters. And that's also linked to the economy, which is linked to everything else. So, you know, how this president is seen as handling coronavirus, you know, even at the margins for people who might be open to his message, but right now don't think he's doing a very good job of it could be key. Yeah, I mean, I would say, Asma, that this conversation about issues that matter starts and finishes with coronavirus. You know, everything else is linked to that. And just an indication of that just today, Larry Kudlow, the president's top economic

advisor at the White House was saying, you know, I am absolutely pushing for people to wear masks, because if we don't get coronavirus under control, then we can't have the economy recover. And President Trump has been very fixated on the idea, and rightly so, that if the economy isn't doing well, then he doesn't have a great chance of being reelected. He sees the economy as his strength, and it has been. People elected a businessman. That was the mystique that he ran on. And if he ends up with an economy that is suffering and is not on the right trajectory, then he has a major problem. All right. Well, let's take a quick break. And when we get back,

we'll talk more about what the next 100 days-ish might look like. Every business has to figure out what to charge for its product and how to keep out competitors. You know who does this better than anyone else? Drug dealers. On the next episode of Planet Money Summer School, we explain pricing theory with a drug kingpin. Summer School, new classes every Wednesday. Listen now to Planet Money from NPR. And we're back. And you know, Tam, I think back to early on in the primary cycle, there was a lot of concern about Joe Biden's perceived fundraising weakness and whether or not he would be able to compete when we talk about money to President Trump. But lately, he seems to be showing some strength. So just give us a quick recap on where the money race stands at this point. So cash on hand is an important metric. That's how much money these campaigns had in the bank to be able to spend on things like ads and field staff and everything else that campaign money helps buy. And as of the end of June, the Trump campaign had $113 million

cash on hand, and the Biden campaign had $108 million cash on hand. That is not a very big advantage for the Trump campaign, given how much catching up Biden had to do. And for the past two months, the Biden campaign has actually outraised the Trump campaign, which is pretty remarkable because the Trump campaign had this fundraising machine, Well Oil, that, you know, they started raising money in 2017. They've raised more than a billion dollars combined with the Republican Party and affiliated committees. But they've burned through that cash and the Biden campaign has caught up. Now, Asma, you are sort of out in the field reporting on what the campaigns have been up to. Has the Biden campaign been able to sort of catch up with the field staff and the other things?

Yeah, you know, I will say he has been building up an operation in a number of key states, right? We look at Arizona, Florida, Michigan. And one thing I think that's worth pointing out is it's not really just Joe Biden's operation. I've been talking to Democratic leadership state parties in Michigan, Florida, and the staff numbers, the volunteer numbers they give me are astronomically larger than where they were in 2016. Part of this is that the Democratic parties in a lot of these really competitive states were just blown away by the losses that they saw in 2016 and wanted to recoup and do better in 2018. And we certainly saw that. And they say there's been a lot of energy. You know, as both of you all were saying, there is just an immense level of activism amongst Democrats

to defeat President Trump. It is not necessarily for Joe Biden. And I will say candidly, I've heard that from some Democrats. It is an energy to defeat President Trump. You know, the other notable thing here is outside spending. You know, usually Republicans do fairly well, if not dominate on outside spending and outside fundraising. And we're seeing the opposite of that this time around. Three groups that are supporting Biden, Priorities USA Action, American Bridge 21st Century, and Unite the Country have raised over $120 million this cycle. And you compare that really to who's supporting Trump. The only major group that's supporting Trump is America First Action, which has raised about $46.5 million.

And then there's the Committee to Defend the President, which has only raised about $11.4 million. So, you know, it's a really big, stunning kind of turn of events where the juggernaut was expected to be the Trump campaign mixed with the RNC and some of those, you know, victory groups that associate with the Trump campaign and the RNC together. But the Biden campaign, as well as these outside groups, Democratic donors and rank and file Democrats are showing that they're willing to open up their pockets to support this campaign. Whether there is enthusiastic for Biden versus Trump on the other side, that's not the point.

The point is, it's all about President Trump, and he's firing up both sides. Well, and I will just say that don't just look at the top line, you know, don't just look at Biden and Trump. Look at all these House races where these members of Congress won in 2018 in these really tight races that in theory, Republicans were going to try to get back from Democrats who had taken them in that 2018 wave. Well, the Democrats are out fundraising the Republicans at the House race level in a massive way. You know, there's only so much money to go around. And, you know, is the RNC going to send money to rescue Republican candidates, Republican challengers in suburban House districts? Maybe not if they're worried about the Senate or worried about the president. I'm curious if you guys see any type of, you know, what we usually call the October

surprise, right? Some huge event that could change the trajectory of this race in a way that we don't expect. What do you all think that could be, if you think there could be any kind of October surprise this year? As far as surprises, I think we should be open to any kind of surprise that could happen. I mean, look at everything that happened in October of 2016, from the Axis Hollywood tape to the Comey letter. You know, who knows what can happen? And who knows what stunts are going to try to be pulled in this campaign, especially as Trump here is up for re-election

and is going to try to throw everything at the wall to be able to win reelection. I think that there is the possibility that the narrative could change on the coronavirus. That wouldn't be like a traditional October surprise, but it certainly could have the ability to change the course of the race. It's just not clear at this point whether that will happen, whether, you know, the president has put sort of a different focus on coronavirus. He has downplayed it a little bit less in the last week. But is that enough to change the trajectory of the virus in the country or the economic

trajectory? That's not clear yet. Look, as far as surprises go, in October, we're going to be right in the middle of schools reopening. You know, there are going to be some places that open. Well, there are going to be some places that open. And you'll have the beginning of a flu season possibly too, right? Yeah, all of that, right? I mean, we're going to be right in the middle of some schools trying to reopen, some schools staying closed, and a fierce debate over whether it's going well. And I think that underneath all of it, if that's going to be the big debate about coronavirus in the fall,

in the summer, it's been about bars and restaurants reopening. In the fall, it's going to be about those schools and the safety of kids and teachers. All right, well, let's leave it there for now. You can continue the conversation in our Facebook group. It's a place to connect with other listeners and talk about what you hear in the podcast. Check out the link in the description of this episode or go to n.pr slash politics group to request to join. I'm Asma Khalid. I cover the presidential campaign. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House. And I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.