Biden’s Mission at the Convention: Turn Anti-Trump Voters into Biden Voters
Photo Credit: AFGE / CC BY (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
By: Logan Phillips
Date: August 21st
Democrats wrapped up a wholly unconventional convention and the first virtual one of its kind. Biden entered in a historically strong position for a challenger taking on an Incumbent, but he still had important work to do. His current lead in the polls is primarily built on an objection to Donald Trump – and this was arguably the best opportunity of the election cycle to build his brand and turn his new voters from anti-Trump into pro-Biden.
This is vitally important, in part because Donald Trump has made it clear that he believes his pathway to re-election is to torch Joe Biden and bring his approval ratings right down to his level – and you better believe that the Republican Convention will seek to do just that. This convention gave Biden an excellent opportunity to build his brand and highlight his strengths.
The message most consistently hammered home by the speakers at the convention was that Joe Biden is a humble man with great empathy and high integrity. These are all genuine characteristics of Biden. They also happen to reflect Donald Trump’s biggest perceived weaknesses by the American people, as is consistently represented in deep dive polling. Most Americans say Trump does not care about people like them, they think that he lies all the time, and they think he brags far too often. David Axelrod, one of the greatest political strategists of the last few decades, is fond of saying that Americans often elect Presidents that correct for the greatest perceived weaknesses of the incumbent. This is arguably the single most favorable contrast Joe Biden could have made with the current President – and it is an argument that could win him the election.
I’d argue the best means to measure the success or failure of the convention is whether Joe Biden’s’ approval rating goes up in polls over the next week – and how much those gains endure after the Republican convention. I expect that he will see significant gains among young Democrat voters that are currently supporting Biden by wide numbers but have a very low opinion of the nominee compared to past cycles. This is an important signal, because while we can be confident that these voters will support Biden, we do not know how much they will turn out.
In the next two weeks, we will be launching a new feature tracking President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, so you’ll be able to see for yourself how things have changed.
There’s a certain logic to a high risk, high reward strategy to change the contours of a race that has not been kind to Donald Trump. However, Trump could easily start looking a lot more like the arsonist gleefully pouring gasoline on the political pyre then the fireman quenching the flames .