Simon Rosenberg on the “Trump underperforming the polls” thing:
[Y]ou often hear commentators talk about Trump overperforming public polling in 2016 and 2020 which means we need to be up by 3-4-5 points or more in the polls to win. That may have been true in 2016 and 2020, but it is core to our understanding here that everything in American politics changed with Dobbs, it was a before and after moment, and that:
Republicans have underperforming public polls in races of all kinds all across the country since Dobbs. We’ve been overperforming public polls not them.
Trump underperformed – not overperformed – public polls in his primary elections, sometimes by a big number
The fascists underperformed public polls in the recent European and French elections, and the right got blown out in the UK.
Every election is unique, not like any other. I think comparisons to 2016 and 2020 are unhelpful, for Trump 2024 is now an insurrectionist, a rapist, fraudster, traitor, felon, and the man who stripped the rights and freedoms away from the women of America. He is far more degraded, diminished and extreme. Just as I wrote in what became a very prescient 2021 essay, 3 Reasons Why 2022 Will Not Be 2010, I believe, deeply, that 2024 will not be 2020 or 2016. I think it is far more likely that Trump underperforms than overperforms public polling, and that we end up kicking his ass this November.
The common rebuttal is that Trump hasn’t been on the ballot since Dobbs so we don’t know if he’s still got those hidden voters or not. But Rosenberg brings up one data point that refutes that: the primaries. Trump did underperform rather substantially and did so long after his rivals had already flamed out or dropped out.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Trump is personally weaker now than he was in the previous two presidential elections. He doesn’t have the swagger or the energy he once had and his campaign has not been able to adapt to changing circumstances, largely because he just doesn’t have any resilience anymore. He’s old, he’s exposed as a criminal and facing very, very serious legal jeopardy and he really has no business being in the race at all.
And yet even under Rosenberg’s rosy scenario this race is much closer than it should be under those circumstances. I would not take anything for granted.