Election 2020

[pbrower2a]

Ryan Struyk

@ryanstruyk

Average presidential approval ratings through this point in term via ABC/Post and Gallup polling:

Kennedy 73%
W Bush 71%
HW Bush 70%
Johnson 69%
Eisenhower 67%
Nixon 58%
Truman 56%
Obama 55%
Reagan 55%
Carter 52%
Clinton 51%
Ford 47%
Trump 38%

8:14 AM - Apr 27, 2019

.....

Only three of these Presidents got a larger share of the popular vote in the ensuing election than this measure of approval -- Ford (by 1%. which obviously was not enough), Nixon (2%, and then against a nominee whom the Nixon campaign could cast as a dangerous rival), and Reagan (3%, and then against an inept challenger) Carter and the elder Bush both crashed, LBJ chose not to run for re-election as the Vietnam War spiraled into a disaster, no Presidential nominee ever gets more than about 61% of the popular vote, and Clinton was in a three-way race.

I am ready to concede that conservatives will get at least 45% of the popular vote, and that no Democratic nominee has a reasonable chance of topping the 52-something fraction that Obama got in 2008. But this said, Trump will need to get a gain of 8% in the popular vote from his current level of approval and win the 'right' votes to become America's first fascist dictator. (How non-neutral could I get with that smear? The truth offends anyone who still believes Trump

If I am to make my prediction, then the Democratic nominee will get 51-52% of the popular vote, third-Party nominees (including some crazy liberal and a more mainstream conservative than Trump) will combine for about 8% of the vote, and Trump will get 41% of the popular vote.

We had an election with a distribution of the popular vote similar to that. It was 1980, with Jimmy Carter winning only five states and 49 electoral votes. OK, America is polarized enough between the states that such a split would leave President Trump with 80 or so electoral votes.

I have already expressed the theme of the defeat of President Trump -- pervasive and severe corruption that Americans have never tolerated in elected officials except where machine politics dominate. Dan Rostenkowski, Rod Blagojevich, and William Jefferson exemplify that iron law. Yes, I named three Democrats.