If Trump wins next month there will be a slew of ‘the signs were there all along’ pieces. So perhaps it’s worth considering what those signs would be.... (quick thread) 1/?

1) The economy. Battleground state voters put the economy top or joint top of issues they are voting on. Trump continues to beat Biden on leading a US recovery - a reflection of him not getting the blame for the covid-triggered crash + the depth of his ‘business wizard’ image 2/?

... On my bits in swing states the thing that keeps coming up is the intense financial pain people are feeling from the pandemic. Yes, absolutely they want safety. They also want jobs. 7m got covid. 50m+ filed for unemployment. Trump is speaking to that pain more than Biden. 3/?

2) Enthusiasm. This is a Trump election. Back Trump vs Stop Trump. Battleground state polls back that up. The Trump campaign has a base strategy - energise the base so much that they turnout in even bigger numbers than 2016 to get the president over the line. 4/?

Is that working? There are some signs. In Nevada (a swing state) Repubs out-registered Dems in July, Aug, Sep. They hadn’t done that in a single presidential year month since 2004. If Trump wins it may well be he drove up turnout of non-college white voters, esp in Rust Belt. 5/?

3) Deligitimising Biden. The Trump camp’s attempts from top down to make Biden appear unvoteable have been ruthless. Personal stuff (suggesting dementia, he’s lining his son’s pocket). Political stuff (a radical socialist puppet). Darker stuff from right-wing groups online. 6/?

Biden is much trickier than H Clinton for this stuff to stick. He fought primaries against Bernie’s ‘revolution’, didn’t crumble in debate, etc. His favourability much better than Clinton. But among voters I’ve found that stuff keeps getting mentioned. Has been widely heard. 7/?

4) Voting process. We may not have begun to fully understand the huge changes in voting process caused by covid + how that impacts the 2020 electorate. Will certain groups vote more / less? How many will muck up their postal ballots? Will that hurt one party more? 8/?

What about big in-person queues? Does that put off some voters? Who loses out? And what about a count that could take days? Legal challenges? If the race is close, these may be v v important. We don’t know the answers but it should make anyone confidently predicting pause. 9/?

None of which is to argue Trump will win. Wide consensus among strategists + polling experts is Biden’s in a strong position a little over 2 weeks out, 9 points up nationwide + up in battlegrounds.

But it is a note of caution for anyone who thinks it’s done and dusted. 10/end