September 2020 Memo - Numbers Driving the Narrative

1.8% – Joe Biden’s average lead in Florida

• The good news for Democrats is that former Vice President Biden still leads Trump in all the key battleground states, according to polling averages tallied by Real Clear Politics.
• The bad news is that his lead in other states shrank considerably over the summer, including Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida, where his lead averaged 8.4% in late July.

WHAT IT MEANS: Tightening is inevitable in a closely contested presidential race, and national polls still show President Trump consistently falling short of the 45.9% of the national vote he won in 2016. But Trump also seems to be benefiting from a shift in media coverage away from COVID-19 and the racial-justice protests that dominated June and July.

56%  – Biden voters supporting him because he is NOT Trump

• Asked the main reason for supporting either candidate, Biden voters were definitive – he’s not the guy currently occupying the Oval Office, according to a summer survey by the Pew Research Center. Biden’s leadership was a distant second (19%).
• Conversely, 61% of Biden supporters would be angry if Trump is re-elected, compared with 37% of Trump supporters who said they would be angry if Biden wins, so this anti-Trump sentiment could be enough motivation to drive Biden voters to the polls.

WHAT IT MEANS: Reelection campaigns are always a referendum on the incumbent, and Trump is uniquely polarizing. While this number suggests relatively soft support for Biden, it may not matter if Trump’s disapproval stays north of 50%. The dynamic is reminiscent of 2016 when Trump’s top attribute was that he was NOT Hillary Clinton.

5M – Number of popular votes Trump could lose by and still win re-election 

• • Four years after Clinton tallied 2.9 million more popular votes than Trump but still fell 38 Electoral College votes short of the presidency, that gap might be even wider in November, according to an analysis by David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

WHAT IT MEANS: This is the Democrats’ ultimate doomsday scenario. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are relatively older and whiter, with a high share of white voters without college degrees, and that trend could help Trump in November, even if he loses by a bigger margin in the popular vote. Long term, the diversifying battlegrounds of Arizona, Florida, Georgia – coupled with an eventually competitive Texas – could prove a bigger problem for the GOP.

7.8M – Jump in unemployment since February

• The number of unemployed Americans dropped by another 2.8 million people in August, with 13.6 million people in the U.S. still out of work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• This is a major improvement from April, when 23.1 million people were out of work, but it is a far cry from just February, when 5.8 million were unemployed.

WHAT IT MEANS: The economy has added jobs for four straight months, but the pace has slowed dramatically. Independent voters tend to judge politicians on the direction of the job market, so the summer job surge may explain why Trump still outperforms Biden on the economy. And historically—since 1928—the incumbent party has won nearly 90% of presidential elections when the S&P 500 is in an upswing. But will this sentiment hold, if these indicators slow or reverse?

24.3% – Share of Americans working remotely 

• This is actually a decline from earlier in the year when more than 40% of the American workforce toiled from home during the height of the pandemic-related lockdown.
• And these workers are the lucky ones; in addition to having jobs, they accounted for roughly half of all wages earned, according to a Stanford study of the remote workforce.

WHAT IT MEANS: COVID has transformed the economy in ways that won’t reverse immediately. Working from home has benefits (no commute) and drawbacks (disruptive kids). Most people are not as efficient when they work from home, but a large chunk of the workforce would like the option of working from home, at least part-time, after the pandemic ends.

41% – Share of Americans who report that they only pay attention to one or two trusted news sources

• According to the Knight Foundation, more Americans say it is harder (62%) rather than easier (36%) to be well-informed because of all the sources of information available.
• Reasons cited for feeling overwhelmed include the mix of news interspersed with non-news on the web (72%), followed by the pace of reporting (63%) and the increased number of news organizations (63%).

WHAT IT MEANS: The sheer amount of news available is making it harder for Americans as they search for information they trust. Consequently, their solution is to commit to only a small number of sources with party affiliation being the primary determinant. A polarized media landscape is only deepening our political divisions with implications that will be felt well beyond the election year.