The polls are wrong again: Republicans expect Trump battleground triumphs

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Republicans are confident President Trump can once again beat expectations and outperform his poll numbers in the battleground states. A second term hinges on whether they are correct.

The public polling in the states most critical to Trump’s reelection chances has been a mixed bag. He is on track to erase Joe Biden’s lead in Florida, though a massive Michael Bloomberg expenditure on behalf of the Democratic nominee looms there, and in North Carolina. But he is still behind by an average of 4 to 7 points in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona, all states he carried in 2016.

Even here, there is variability. Some recent polls in Pennsylvania have Trump behind only 2 to 4 points, but NBC News/Marist College has him down 9 points and Quinnipiac by 8. Rasmussen has the race tied. Veteran Republican political consultant Christopher Nicholas said it is important to watch Trump’s vote share in these polls as much as the margins. “Trump can’t win any states with 43, 44, 45% of the vote,” he said.

The Trump campaign maintains its internal polling shows the president ahead or tied in all the battleground states. The RealClearPolitics polling average for the top battlegrounds has Biden up by 3.7 points, which is smaller than his national lead.

The Rust Belt, in particular, was key to Trump’s election in 2016, and it is where the polls were mostly wrong. Trump became the first Republican presidential nominee to win many of those states since 1988. Wisconsin hadn’t been in the GOP column for president since Ronald Reagan’s 49-state landslide in 1984.

“Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes, is obviously key to both teams,” said Charlie Gerow, a top Republican strategist in the state. “In the Keystone State, President Trump’s support among ‘working-class’ folks has actually increased. That’s especially true in the two geographically opposite pockets of southwestern and northeastern Pennsylvania.”

FiveThirtyEight’s election models give Trump an 84% chance of winning if he carries Pennsylvania. If he loses there, Biden’s chances improve to 96%. Some Republican insiders think Trump has a good chance to pull it off.

“It’s pretty clear to me that Donald Trump will outperform even Ronald Reagan among traditional Democrats,” Gerow said.

Wisconsin is another state where Republicans have confidence that Trump’s chances are better than the public polling suggests. Biden hurried to the state after riots broke out in Kenosha following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a young black man. The former vice president sought to get ahead of increasing criticism of his silence about the violence occurring in some cities, and a CNN poll afterward suggested a small majority was reassured by his response. But Biden’s Wisconsin trip was read by many Republicans as an acknowledgment of his vulnerability.

“The dirty little secret that the Democrats and most media outlets have declined to acknowledge is that in the past week, Joe Biden’s lead fell within the margin of error in Wisconsin,” said Brian Reisinger, a conservative operative in the state. “It was a tough summer with a trio of crises and a nonstop onslaught of attacks on President Trump, while Joe Biden campaigned safely from his basement. But Republicans and the president have steadily regained their footing.”

In each of these states, Republicans believe the Trump team, which has resumed traditional campaign activities such as rallies and door-knocking that the Biden campaign has mostly eschewed, has a superior ground game.

Biden’s campaign chief was dismissive. “We spend so much time talking about tactics,” Biden campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told Politico. “But fundamentally, knocking on a door and not reaching anyone doesn’t get you much except leaving a piece of left behind — you might as well send a piece of mail.” When Time asked Democrats how many staffers the Biden campaign had on the ground in Michigan, one replied, “What do you mean by ‘on the ground?’”

Republicans disagree. If the race is close, they think they can get their supporters to turn out at the polls in sufficient numbers to make the difference.

“In Wisconsin, the margin of error is not where a presidential front-runner wants to be,” said Reisinger. “Races in Wisconsin always tighten as the fall campaign season gets in full swing, with such an evenly divided battleground state. Numbers like this would keep me up at night if I was Joe.”

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