Elections in the United States: the 2 facts that affect Trump's re-election chances and how he could turn it around
If history is taken as a point of reference, Donald Trump should be the favorite candidate to win the November presidential election in the United States.
It is not.
The US president, who was officially nominated for re-election on Monday during the Republican Party's National Convention, consistently appears in polls behind Democratic Party presidential hopeful Joe Biden.
The historical trend in the United States indicates that a president seeking re-election is usually the favorite.
In fact, so far, only 10 presidents (out of a total of 45) have failed in this endeavor, of which only four have ruled in the last century.
In the current case, the gap in the polls between Biden and Trump has widened since the beginning of the year, when it was only about 4 points, while now it ranges between 7 and 10 points, according to the source consulted.
Being a few points behind in national polls is not necessarily a doom for defeat, much less in the United States where presidents are elected through a second-degree mechanism known as polling stations (which allowed Trump to win the presidency in 2016 despite getting fewer votes than Hillary Clinton).
However, many experts agree that Trump is now in a weaker position than in January and that, if current trends continue, it is very likely that he will be defeated in November.
What happened?
BBC Mundo explains the factors that have negatively affected the campaign for Trump's re-election.
1.- The management of the pandemic
"Like most presidential campaigns for re-election, this is a referendum on the incumbent president and his performance in office," explains Whit Ayres, an experienced Republican analyst and pollster, in conversation with BBC Mundo.
"Usually a president in power seeking re-election is the favorite to win, but not always: Jimmy Carter was not a favorite in 1980 and George H.W. Bush was not a favorite in 1992," he adds.
The expert points out that Trump was in a more favorable position to participate in this race in January, before the Sars-cov-2 pandemic broke out.
"His approval ratings for handling the pandemic were in positive territory for a few weeks in March, but since then they have been on a steady downward trend and that's what has kept him behind Biden," he says.
Ayres points out that today, 40% of Americans approve of the way Trump has handled the coronavirus crisis, while 58% disapprove.
Stuart Rothenberg, political analyst and senior editor of the specialized portal InsideElections, believes that the response to the pandemic by the government and, specifically, by Trump, generated the perception among citizens that they were not capable of recognizing what was happening.
"The rate of infections and deaths grew and the president spoke about how the pandemic was going to disappear. The worst thing that can happen to you is that there is the perception that you are not in contact with reality or that you are insensitive," he says.
The expert recalls that this happened in 1992 to George W.H. Bush because he did not know what the price of a bottle of milk was.
"By his style, this president is a cheerleader. He's always been the same. He says, 'Everything is wonderful. I'm in control. I'm going to fix it.' And that works when things are going well, because you can take credit for success. But it is more difficult to boast about how well things are going when people are dying and when the numbers indicate that we have not managed to control the virus, "he adds.
Rothenberg believes that, with this attitude, Trump weakened his position with undecided voters and even with some Republicans.
Paradoxically, the pandemic could have been an opportunity for the president to strengthen his leadership in the face of the elections, as, according to Ayres, has happened to several leaders around the world and even to several governors in the United States.
2.- Protests against racial injustice
The death in Minneapolis of African-American George Floyd, who died in May after a police officer placed his knee on his neck for several minutes while holding him down, sparked the largest wave of racial protest in the United States since the 1960s.
The demonstrations - mostly peaceful and in which citizens of different races, ages and social classes participated - took place in dozens of cities across the country, placing the issue of racial injustice at the center of the political agenda and reopening the debate on the called "structural racism" in America.
According to analysts consulted by BBC Mundo, in this case Trump erred in strategy by choosing to attack the protesters, accusing them of being looters and offering a heavy-handed response, deploying the National Guard.
"In the face of the coronavirus issue and in the face of racial problems, he seems insensitive. Without acknowledging the large racial economic gap or the problems in the way the police treat African-Americans and minorities in general," says Rothenberg.
The expert believes that those protests that turned violent gave Trump an opportunity to deliver his "law and order" speech that finds an echo among his most loyal voters but not the rest of the electorate.
"Most Americans can distinguish between looters and citizens who protest within the law," says the expert.
For Whit Ayres, the handling of the protests after the death of George Floyd is not the main source of discontent against Trump, "but it is part of a larger picture that reinforces the feeling of people that in the United States things are out. of control and that the country is going in the wrong direction ", something that the polls reflect.
A strategy that subtracts votes
So what is Trump doing to turn the polls around?
Anthony Zurcher, a correspondent for the BBC in North America, believes that the US president had a campaign strategy drawn up at the beginning of the year that was rendered useless by the effect of the pandemic.
"Trump started the year with a clear strategy for how he was going to win re-election. He was going to brag about his handling of a booming economy heading into its 11th year of growth. He was going to talk about his trade deals and how he kept to the nation at peace.
"I was going to present Joe Biden as a risky trade when things were going so well. But the pandemic turned that strategy upside down," says Zurcher.
The effects of the coronavirus on the US economy have been remarkable. Unemployment climbed from 3.5% in February to 14.7% in April, although then it has slowly decreased to 10.2% in July.
In the second quarter of the year, the economy contracted at a rate of 32.9%, the largest drop in recorded history.
"Now the president has to explain why the economy is in trouble, why more than 170,000 Americans have died, and why many cities were rocked by protests against racial injustice," Zurcher notes.
Analysts believe that, with the initial strategy fading after the impact of the coronavirus, Trump resorted to the same formula that gave him victory four years ago.
"His message is essentially the same as 2016. The country changed but the president's message has not," Ayres warns.
Rothenberg believes, however, that this time Trump will not have the advantage he enjoyed before, when many Democratic Party voters did not go to the polls because they bought the idea that there were no differences between the candidates and that both Hillary Clinton like him they were representatives of the interests of big business.
"Four years with Trump in the White House have changed the equation and, although the economy worked well for a while, now the situation is desperate, so I think he is in serious trouble," he says.
The expert believes that by assuming the same style and rhetoric of the past elections, Trump has alienated many voters from minority groups, young voters, men and women with higher education; and even some of his own supporters.
"Those voters expect their president to speak with a certain language, but he has remained an angry outsider, promoting complaints against the establishment," he says.
While this strategy may be effective in mobilizing Trump's toughest base, there are questions about whether that will be enough to give him victory.
Can Trump make up lost ground?
Although he is not leading the polls now, Trump's reelection options remain real.
"It would be foolish to take a Biden victory for granted because he is not a great candidate. He is a 77-year-old man, not as agile as he should be. Everyone thinks he is decent and honorable but he is not the ideal candidate against Trump. The ideal candidate for the Democratic Party would be a 45- or 50-year-old female governor, moderate and pragmatic, "says Rothenberg.
The expert expects most Republican voters to stay loyal to Trump out of party loyalty, ideology, or because they believe the Democratic Party would end up increasing the size of government or creating more taxes and regulations.
"The people who care about these things will stick with Trump and go out to vote. The problem is that he is now 10 points behind in the polls and he cannot afford to continue losing voters, so he needs to redefine the nature of the electoral race, "he says.
According to Rothenberg, the president is already trying to turn the campaign around with the search for an issue that serves to divide the votes of the Democratic Party and, in general, of all his opponents.
"He tried it with the allegations of looting and lawlessness in Minnesota. In the past, Republicans have used the call for law and order to appeal to suburban voters.
He has also said that Biden is a socialist who is going to implant socialism in the United States. There are socialists in the Democratic Party, but he is not one of them. So Trump is constantly looking for something to divide his opponents although so far he has not been successful. Will you make it? I don't know, "says the expert.
Ayres, for his part, believes that Trump's options are more linked to what happens with the pandemic since the United States has been badly hit, to the point of registering 25% of infections despite having only 4% of the world's population.
"I think their best hopes are that cases will drop significantly and the economy will start a quick recovery," he says.
In the opinion of Anthony Zurcher, this week is key for the president in that effort to reorient the campaign and increase his chances of victory.
"If Trump is to achieve victory, as he did in 2016, he will have to convince Americans that he is the one most capable of leading the nation in the midst of the current crises. Part of it is remembering how well they were doing. things before the pandemic. The other part is trying to present his opponent, Joe Biden, as an unacceptable alternative: for being too weak or for being too far to the left, "he says.
Thus, this week promises to be key to defining whether Trump will remain in the White House or whether the minority group of leaders who did not achieve reelection will join.
