Of course any politician is going to track polls and react to them with the plan to make them meaningless by the election if they are not in their favor, or increase them if they are in their favor. Trump did a very good job of that with Hillary in 2016. I don't see why I should believe he won't attempt the same now. Your own Trump +7, Biden +1, Biden +5 is a perfect example of how meaningless any single poll or trend is at this point in any predictive manner.
At this point in 2016, Trump was only just securing the nomination and Hillary was still a month or more away. Then Hillary led by fairly wide margins until October as voters actually got serious about the election and even largely led by the margin of error on election day.
Based on what I'm seeing with waning enthusiasm of the Dems for Biden for 2020, I'm thinking we will be in for a close election but am not discounting Trump in the least to pull it off again.
I saw somewhere, I'll have to find it again that of Democrat voters supporting Biden right now only something like 25% are very enthusiastic. Not good coming out of the primaries.
Originally Posted by eccielover
I too saw the poll asking about the level of enthusiasm towards Trump and Biden. Trump's level was about double that of Biden. That has never been an issue. In 2016 Clinton had a 36% enthusiasm rate just before the election. It is difficult to raise your level of enthusiasm when you are stuck in your house. And even with the lack of enthusiasm for Biden, there is no indications it is hurting him to the extreme, or even slightly.
Since you've been following my posts you know I am not discounting Trump at all as to his ability to win again in November. Biden must win 3 states Clinton lost in 2016, or win Florida and one other. Not easy. Trump has a solid cash lead at the current time and is already using it in battleground states.
The difference between 2016 and 2020 are many but in my opinion the main difference is Trump now has a track record on which he has to run and many view his track record since January 2017 to be less than "great", a word Trump loves to use. 3rd quarter economic indicators (GDP, consumer confidence, unemployment rate, industrial production) will be released just prior to election day. If they show an economic recovery is underway after what will be a disastrous 2nd quarter, Trump will be helped immensely. If not, many may hold him accountable.