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IS TRUMP COMING BACK? It’s been a terrible summer for the president in the polls. On one day, June 23, he fell 10.2 points behind Joe Biden in the RealClearPolitics average of national polls. That matched Biden’s biggest lead at any point in the race. Yes, some of Trump’s supporters dismiss the polls as fake, but for everybody else, a 10.2-point deficit is a pretty big deal.
In recent weeks, though, Trump’s position has been improving a bit. That 10.2-point Biden lead is now a 6.4-point lead. That is still significant, but clearly better for the president. There have been fewer days when the news was filled with this or that new poll showing Biden with a 10, or 12, or 14-point lead. “We haven’t had that many super high quality polls lately, though,” tweeted polling guru Nate Silver. “Also, a bit less clear whether state polls imply much tightening. Still, we aren’t seeing as many of those double-digit leads.”
The Drudge Report, reliably anti-Trump these days, made a big deal of it with a banner headline: RACE TIGHTENING? The headline linked to a Bloomberg story based on an interview with new Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien, who attributed Trump’s improvement in the polls to his resumption of White House briefings on the coronavirus pandemic.
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“His instincts are strong and there’s no one better at the podium than him,” Stepien told Bloomberg. “That is a net positive every day of the week, polling shows it.” The briefings also show a contrast to Biden, Stepien said. “Anytime [Trump] steps behind a podium as he does every night unlike Joe Biden, it gets covered and it matters and it’s a needle mover.”
There’s something else about the briefings that Stepien did not mention. Trump has, in resuming the sessions, shown a lot more discipline than he did in the first briefings months ago, in which he talked and talked and talked — the briefings went on for well over an hour — and ended up saying something that invited negative coverage. Lately, he has shortened them considerably and stayed more on-message. And he has taken questions.
Even though the press always has complaints, Trump has been an extraordinarily accessible president. Sometimes he is so accessible that aides wish he would stop talking for a while. But the president puts himself in front of aggressive reporters and takes their questions. Beyond many, many briefings and short interactions, just look at his recent long interviews with Fox News Sunday and Axios. Trump’s accessibility creates a striking contrast with Biden, who has ducked any truly adversarial interviews.
Where is the Biden Fox News Sunday or Axios interview? It just hasn’t happened. And it’s not for want of asking; news organizations are clamoring for an in-depth Biden interview. But the Democratic candidate won’t do it. It’s a reminder that Biden, even in his younger days, was known as a “gaffe machine,” and would likely live up to his name with more exposure today. Just yesterday he had to apologize for appearing to suggest black voters all think alike. That misstatement, noted the New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin, reflected “the real/perceived risk [Biden] poses to himself, anxiety he causes in staff and why so many Dems are thrilled there is no real public campaign.”
So all that talk about Biden hiding in his basement? It’s true. What’s not clear is whether the basement strategy will be good enough to prevail over the next 90 days. Yes, President Trump appears to be gaining a bit by being as open as Biden is closed. As a matter of fact, that’s one way to contrast the two campaigns — the Open Campaign vs. the Closed Campaign. But we’ll have to see if it works.
