Why Analysts Won’t Write Off Trump Yet

Stephen Collinson: “Less than five months before Election Day, with the nation battling concurrent crises, every conventional political indicator is flashing red for Trump. But every conventional political indicator has always been flashing red for Trump — and he’s never been defeated.”

“If Trump loses in November, these last few weeks may come to be remembered as the moment that the Trump train finally careened off the rails for good. Yet among Democrats and those who don’t support the President, the fear that he will a second term anyway is palpable. The man who said he could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue, shoot someone and get away with it, has created a supernatural political aura exactly five years after he descended his golden escalator in Trump Tower and turned American politics on its head.”

“Part of the uncertainty about Trump’s prospects stems from the extraordinary nature of the times. The pandemic and the consequent economic disaster is unlikely to lead to predictable or necessarily logical consequences. Taking the mood of the country is even more complicated than normal since most Americans have been shut at home for weeks. Who knows who is even going to feel sufficiently safe to vote in November if it comes down to a choice between health and exercising a democratic right?”