Not Guaranteed

Buoyed by polls that show Joe Biden in a double-digit lead over President Trump, many Democrats are saying victory is in the bag. Willie Brown is not so sure. [bold added]

D Trump, W Brown, and others in 1999 (NY Daily News)

Those of you who think President Trump is politically dead and buried, think again.

By my reckoning, Trump still has a 50-50 shot at winning re-election come November.

Democrats are gleefully quoting a recent Quinnipiac University national poll that showed Joe Biden with a 15-point lead over Trump. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll had Biden with an 11-point lead.

Given Trump’s missteps and mistakes on everything from his handling the coronavirus pandemic to his racially charged rhetoric, however, Biden should be ahead by much more.

Plus, as we know, there is often a disparity between what people tell pollsters and what they do when they actually fill out their ballots.

So knock Biden’s lead in the polls down by half.

And Trump’s base is still firm. They voted for him in 2016 when he leaned hard on race, crime and immigration, and they will vote for him again.

Put it together and it’s still a five- to seven-point race.

In other words, a toss-up.

My opinion: impeachment, coronavirus, depression-level unemployment, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, civil unrest, cold war with China...2020 is not done with us yet.

It's a long, long way to November, and it's not even guaranteed that the President will be one of those two guys.