RUSH: IBD/TIPP: Trump now ahead of where he was in 2016. Oh, before I get to this, there’s something I’ve gotta mention first. I need to get this out of the way. I saw a story yesterday afternoon after I got home at the end of the program, I didn’t believe it. I did not believe this, but I had to because it’s Bloomberg News.
The headline: “Trump Pulls Florida Ads As Cash Poor Campaign Enters Final Weeks.” I said, “This doesn’t make any sense to me.” It starts off by saying, “Buoyed by fundraising, Biden holds 3-to-1 edge in recent spending.” Big whoop. “President Donald Trump’s campaign has all but pulled its advertising out of Florida as it stakes its relatively small bank account on the industrial northern states that carried him to victory in 2016.” Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Well, Tim Murtaugh of the campaign was livid and put out a statement in the form of a tweet at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon saying: “The Bloomberg story about Trump campaign ad buying is horribly wrong & must be retracted. It is wrong in every aspect. Not even a call to the campaign before publishing. They used quotes from me taken from a conversation on ANOTHER TOPIC. Sloppy reporting at the highest level.”
It’s voter suppression, folks. It’s no different than reporting polling data showing Trump losing ground, hopelessly behind. It’s nothing more than voter suppression. All this COVID news is voter suppression. Rampant number of new COVID cases, all this is designed to scare you into not going to vote on Election Day. It’s designed to make you think the country’s going in the wrong direction with Trump at the helm. There is so much voter suppression going on right now, meaning attempts to depress you, dispirit you. Don’t fall for any of it.
The trend lines are actually in the other direction, as is evidenced by this. IBD/TIPP. Trump is now ahead of where he was in 2016. The prognostication problems with the 2020 election continue. To listen to the talking heads at CNN and NBC, the only question left in terms of the presidential race is what color gown Jill Biden will wear to the inauguration. That is how in the bag they are trying to make you think this is.
So why do we keep seeing news items like this from Investor’s Business Daily? The latest tracking poll from them landed yesterday, and they’re showing a continuation of the reversal of the president’s recent slippage nationally. Yeah, Biden’s still ahead, but his lead sits at just a little more than four points. Contrary to most of the headlines that we’ve been seeing, Donald Trump’s actually closer to Joe Biden in this survey now than he was to Hillary Clinton one week before the 2016 election.
In other words, Trump is performing better right now than he was in 2016 against Hillary. The latest Biden versus Trump poll from IBD/TIPP suggests the race has become competitive with just a week to go. I told you. I told you yesterday to keep a sharp eye to see if the polls started tightening, and a bunch of you snarks, “They’re not gonna tighten. You don’t know what you’re talking about. The polls aren’t gonna tighten. They’re never gonna tighten.”
Well, some of them are gonna tighten because there are some people out there that have a concern here about their reputation, and IBD would be one of them. And their latest poll suggests that this race has become competitive. I don’t think it’s ever not been competitive. But that’s another story. Trump’s support as of today has surpassed his 2016 share of the vote in the IBD/TIPP presidential poll update. Vice President Joe Bite Me appears to have lost ground among some key groups.
Now, this survey, this poll was pretty accurate four years ago. So you can take this news as you choose. But as with most races, we’re looking more at the trends and the directions than the hard numbers. The trends are what matter here. So the hard numbers are Biden is up 50.7 to 46.3 nationally. Now, that probably sounds like good news if you’re a fan of Bite Me. But if you scroll back just two days in this same poll, Biden was up seven full points, 44.7 to 51.7. That was a seven-point lead that Biden had just a couple of days ago.
Now, there’s always a bit of jitter in daily tracking polls. But something does appear to be moving things in Trump’s direction over the past week. It’s a lot of things. It’s the rallies. It is a whole bunch of stuff that’s happening out there. Now, as these people point out, this does not mean that Trump’s gonna win the popular vote. But as we saw four years ago, he doesn’t have to. He doesn’t need to win the popular vote.
And then there’s this headline from Newsweek: “If The Popular Vote Is Close, Biden’s Path To Victory Grows Increasingly Tenuous — If the popular vote between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden is nearly a tie, Trump has an 88 percent chance of re-election.”
You seeing that anywhere? You seeing that from Nate Silver and FiveThirtyEight? No, you’re not. You’re not seeing this anywhere. You’re seeing Biden has 93% chance of winning. Trump 10% chance of winning, 7% chance. That’s all you’re seeing. But if it’s nearly a tie in the popular vote, Trump’s got an 88% chance of reelection. And that, by the way, is from researchers of the Electoral College, a recent study.
“The Electoral College system has a bias which is set to favor the Republican presidential candidate in 2020 again, but the discrepancy between the popular vote and electoral votes will not be as wide as the ‘statistical outlier’ election of 2016.”
So the conclusion is, the study’s conclusion as of this week, is that if Biden carries the popular vote 52 to 48, Trump has an 88% chance of winning the Electoral College. So, bottom line: If IBD/TIPP is anywhere near the ballpark of reality, then this race is anything but over. In fact, if IBD/TIPP is in the ballpark, this race is just beginning. As I have so frequently pointed out, you get to two weeks before the election, three weeks, the events that might shape the outcome may not have even happened yet.