Over the past eight years, there is one scenario the Democrats have never had to confront, and that is a situation in which Trump has taken a substantial lead in the polls over the D-nominee.
Throughout 2016, Trump trailed Clinton in the polls. Throughout 2020, Trump trailed Biden. At no point has Trump ever polled ahead of a Democrat in a general election.
But suppose that, at some point in summer or autumn 2024, Trump does pull ahead substantially. What could the D’s possibly do then?
This isn’t like trailing a conventional Republican (Obama once trailed Romney by 4% at one point and still came back to win. Gore once trailed Bush by 11% but came back to battle to a virtual tie.) Trump is near-impervious to attack (if any attack were to work, it would have long since by now. Trump has taken thousands of attacks and still keeps on plugging.) Hurling intensified criticism of Trump isn’t going to have any additional effect, and it’s not like the criticism could get much more intense to begin with anyway. The guy’s supporters are absolutely baked in. Furthermore, Trump has typically outperformed his polls by 2-4% on Election Day itself.
Obviously, this scenario is not likely to happen at all. But if it does, it seems the Democrats have zero solutions at hand.
This is a hard hypothetical to work with, because a lot will depend on why the polls are what they are.
Are the polls accurate and representative of the population? Is the issue that Trump is doing better or that Biden is doing worse? What’s the reason for the increase/decline? Is it issue-based, or image-based? Are there specific false narratives to be countered? What are Biden’s perceived weaknesses and Trump’s perceived strengths, and how can they be countered?
The Democrats have already started campaigning more aggressively to promote Biden’s achievements at national and local level and highlight Trump’s weaknesses (usually just by posting videos of Trump rambling incoherently). Once the primary season and conventions are over, there’s every sign that this will ramp up.
What more do you want them to do? Send SEAL Team 6 to shoot Trump and then claim immunity?
Yep. There’s a certain point in the “What If…?” game where the only answer is, “Well, if the American electorate, collectively, really is that stupid, then we’re all screwed.” You can’t force someone to listen to your opinion, and you really can’t force them to agree with it. So if enough people decide they prefer Trump’s BS to reality, there’s literally nothing we can do about that. Well, nothing within the bounds of the law, democracy, and common decency, at least.
If it does, they’re not presently explaining all their counterattack plans to you and me. The absence of them describing plans doesn’t mean there aren’t any. It just means there aren’t any they’re sharing with us now.
Now that I’m done fighting the hypothetical …
I agree that trump’s opinion polling popularity starting a solid climb would be bad news. Absent something disastrous happening in the Biden camp or out in the world that we all can see, I’d also expect the real answer is entirely fake news, mostly of Russian origin. And gleefuly trumpeted by the US-based Reactionary Wacko Traitor media.
If my supposition is true, you keep hammering the fact that the Russians are lying to you every day. Get a bot war going. etc.
Main thing I can think of is somehow the economy going down the tubes again, or Biden appearing even frailer than before. But yes, there are a dozen possibilities.
Turnout is absolutely the path to victory. Just like it was last time around. Trump has been constantly banging on how he got more votes that anyone ever did before 2020, but he lost because Biden got even more votes than that. A whole lot of people who normally never voted came out for both sides, and Biden won that contest.
This year will be the same. Hammer on Trump’s awfulness enough that even more non-voters finally decide they’ve had enough, and get off their asses to vote against him.
They would locate voters in the group(s) that were switching to Trump and try out various messages to see which had the most appeal. They then would push the appealing messages.
The positive in your scenario is that it means a lot of voters are open to changing their mind. My worry, as a never-Trump centrist, is that almost all voters have made up their minds much earlier than in past cycles.
P.S.
And what if none of the messages appeal to the focus groups? Biden might consider focusing on his job rather than campaiging. It is impossible to campaign without continuously reminding your opponents to vote.
There were 20 million registered Democratic women who didn’t vote in the 2020 election. If Dobbs, the IVF ruling in Alabama, and the threat to ban birth control don’t motivate at least half of them to get out and vote, i don’t know what will. The polls are junk. Trump will lose by 10 million votes.
I have a SIL who falls into that group. She says she “couldn’t bring herself to vote for Hillary”, yet when pressed she couldn’t articulate a single reason. In her specific case I’m inclined to think she simply couldn’t be arsed. That’s a running theme in her life but I digress.
When I brought up the upcoming primary her and my bro’s responses were a mixture of apathy and ignorance.
Bro said he’ll vote if I research and tell him who to vote for (he does support Biden). He’s neither lazy nor stupid; politics is simply not on his daily radar.
My point is I noodged him in to voting once and I will noodge him into voting in the general if I have to.
I don’t know what else to do but encourage fellow Dems to get out and vote. And by “encourage” I mean harp, badger, cajole, weedle, guilt, and/or seduce. I keep having to remind myself that almost nobody I know IRL is politically minded, though we share mostly the same world view.
Trump’s in worse shape than he was four years ago and he lost four years ago.
He’s running against an incumbent President this time rather than being the incumbent President. And he has January 6, Dobbs, and multiple criminal investigations hanging on his neck.
And while Trump is only thinking about himself, the Republicans are looking at a bigger picture. All those people that Trump drives to the polls aren’t just going to vote against Trump. As long as they’re there, they’ll vote against some other Republicans as well.
I’m hoping you are right. Last election there was a significant anyone but Trump vote. It’s one of the reasons why there was a huge turnout. I have a bad feeling that there is a lot more apathy going around. Biden was known but not the president so things weren’t his fault. Now there are plenty of things that are his fault. Thats the price of being president, you get blamed for everything. I hear from people who would most likely have voted for Biden not being happy with him. I hear millennials and younger being disgusted and disheartened by supporting military operations in Gaza. I hear from people who feel they are much worse off financially since Biden. You can argue that the economy is doing good but it doesn’t help if the middle class isn’t feeling it.
I don’t think a lot of those people are going to be driven to Trump. I doubt there are many undecideds who are waiting to pick Trump. There may be a significant number who won’t be motivated to vote at all because of the choice. That won’t matter in my state or most states but it might become significant in battleground states
There’s a NYT poll quoted in another thread that had ten percent of Biden voters switching to Trump. I’m sorry, but I just find that hard to believe being the case on a national level, though it could very well be a problem in specific swing states. Even then, ten percent?