Former President Trump is gaining ground in key battleground states and threatening to take states once considered safe for Democrats, while President Biden is struggling to regain ground after a shaky debate performance. Cook Political Report Analysis Tuesday.
Cook editor-in-chief Amy Walter wrote that Biden’s resistance to calls for him to drop out of the presidential race after last month’s debate has only worsened his chances of winning the November election.
“Biden was losing before the debate and now he’s losing by a little bit more,” she said, adding that it was “unlikely” that Biden would drop out of the race at this point.
Citing post-debate polls, Cook announced that Minnesota, New Hampshire and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District were being changed from “Democrat-leaning” to “Democrat-leaning.” The group also changed Nevada, Arizona and Georgia from “close” to “Republican-leaning.”
Both the Biden and Trump campaigns saw the first debate as a critical turning point in the campaign, with Biden’s poor performance raising concerns among Democrats about his ability to win the election and serve a second term.
Seven House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to stop campaigning, and a growing number of lawmakers are pressuring him to quickly prove to Americans that he can be a strong nominee.
While there has been limited polling since the debate, there are indications that the debate shifted support from Biden to Trump by about 2 percentage points, Walter said.
“But given how closely divided the electorate is, even a two-point shift could mean a lot,” she wrote.
Cook predicts that three states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – remain “close races.”
Walter noted that Trump was polling highly in Pennsylvania and had a slight lead over Biden, but said it was too early to tell which candidate was truly favored.
She argued that Biden’s debate performance demonstrated just how serious a problem the presidential campaign faces: a lack of voter enthusiasm.
“The Biden campaign argues that these voters may not be interested now, but that they will eventually vote for the president once they realize how important this election is,” Walter wrote. “But Biden’s weak performance in the debates raises the question of whether he can effectively get that message across to already disenfranchised and skeptical voters.”
“Biden’s challenge isn’t just to convince voters that he can win or that his policies are better than Trump’s,” she continued. “Biden must convince voters that he is physically and mentally able to govern for another four years, including many in the anti-Trump coalition who supported him four years ago.”
Walter also cited other factors that could work in Trump’s campaign’s favor in the coming months, including a favorable media environment and a shift in attention away from Trump’s legal troubles. With the media focused on criticizing Biden’s age and Trump’s legal cases postponed until after the election, he argued, the former president is receiving less critical scrutiny.
The two candidates remain neck and neck in national polls, with Trump currently leading Biden by 1.3 percentage points in The Hill/Decision Desk polling average.
The Hill has reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
