Can Trump win?

It might be a sign of addiction, but few things concern me as much nowadays, personal life included, as the result of the 2020 American presidential election. I honestly think a Trump-reelection would be a genuine disaster for America and for the world as well. The damage to American society and the world order would take a generation to heal, if ever. But the topic of this article is not doom-mongering or melodrama, but looking at the odds of a Trump-reelection. I can't resist the thrill of taking whatever I have learned in the last four years and putting it all on the red. Well, blue - I root for a Trump-defeat.

I expect Biden to win, and with very good chances, by a large margin. But I'm not sure, and neither are most of the those who root for him. Almost every pundit and expert was burnt by the combination of Trump and Brexit in 2016, and as a result, everyone is very cautious and risk-averse in predictions. 

So, with as much dispassion as I can muster, I make an attempt to list the pros and cons for the probability of a Trump-reelection. First I examine the facts that herald a Biden-victory, then those which strengthen Trump's case, and finally the factors that can push the outcome both ways.

Judging by the conventional, time-proven metrics, Trump has almost no chance of winning. It's the economy, stupid. Due to the mismanagement of the pandemic, the economy is in tatters. Unemployment is through the roof. People generally don't feel very well. They are irritated by the lockdowns, afraid of getting sick, have to deal with closed schools and dubious career-expectations, plus tired of the past four years. As far as I heard, no American president has ever won re-election under these circumstances.

Second, at almost every single poll, Biden is leading by a large, and almost unprecedently stable, margin. His lead is much stronger than Hillary's was. Whatever the fears of his opponents and the beliefs of his fans, Trump is not a wizard. He defined all expectations then, but still lost the popular vote. He snowballed to the victory thanks to a string of lucky coincidences - general discontent with the state of affairs, a widely unpopular opponent, a very divided field of Republican primaries, the last-minute announcement from the FBI to re-open the investigation into Hillary's, etc. The battle now is much more uphill for him.

In correlation with the election forecasts, his approval ratings are very bad. There is just no way to interpret his handling of the pandemic other than shockingly incompetent. By election-day, almost a quarter of a million Americans will have died in COVID. The Woodward-tapes revealed that he willfully downplayed the danger, which really is just a euphemism for the fact, that he repeatedly lied to the people and put their lives in danger. That will cost him votes, especially with the elderly.

Next point. In 2016 Trump faced an opponent the majority of the voters loathed. Biden is generally a likable character, and whatever his faults are, he just doesn't generate as much animous as Hillary did even from his detractors. In 2016 a substantial part of the voters didn't know much about Trump. Now they do more than they ever wanted. He is not a fresh new voice, the "let bring some change in"-candidate.  Plus, 4 years have passed and a new cohort of voters arrived at the scene. Among young voters, Trump was way behind Hillary. I'm not sure how many extra votes it means, but it is clearly in Biden's favor.

The final point I borrowed from Stuart Stevens, a former life-long Republican campaign strategist, who now is part of the Lincoln-project and, as a form of atonement for a life of sin, works for a Biden victory. He made the observation that Trump could win in 2016 only because of the non-white turnout was at a historical low. That certainly won't happen now, and this is the single most important decisive factor in 2020 (and by the way, for every future election as well - as more than half of the 15-year olds in America are non-white).

Now let's iterate through the facts that work for Trump. 

One of them could be if things start to get better by November. People are sensitive to the relative instead of the absolute. Even if unemployment is high, if it is moving down, and there is a hope for a soon-coming vaccine, the raising optimism will favor him.

But the only firm and reliable leverage he has is his inerodable base. It seems to be that whatever the man does (as he put it in a rare moment of honesty back in 2016, he could shoot someone on the Fifth Avenue), he wouldn't lose any voters. Blatantly obvious corruption, the pandering to white supremacists and the craziest conspiracy theories, extremely poor character, catastrophic incompetence - none of these disheartens his base. On the contrary, for many voters, he is appealing exactly because of his ugliest traits.

From here, each item in the list below can tip the scales on both sides, but each of them is much more likely to help Trump than Biden.

The riots. They are a godsend to Trump, the only reason why he can still hope for re-election. His team does everything they can to depict Sleepy Joe as secret Che Guevarra hellbent on destructing America. I honestly have no idea how it will work out. Riots and lootings never help the incumbent, but the Democrats are vulnerable to this attack, because of the far-left loonies associated to them. Biden, I think, have handled the situation well. He condemned the looting and wanton destruction swiftly, and in no uncertain terms. The jury is out.

The debates. This will be an extremely asymmetrical playing field with the odds stacked against Biden. Whatever idiotic string of word-salads Trump will blurt out on stage, he will be judged as Trump is simply being Trump. Nothing to see here. On the other hand, every slip and gaffe from Biden will be picked apart mercilessly by both the Trumpists and the undecided. However, the months-long effort of Trump to depict Biden as a vegetable can backfire in his face badly. The expectations for Biden are so low now, that if he manages to stumble to the podium with his flies zipped, he will make a good impression. And his recent performance on the Democratic Convention and in some interviews was generally surprisingly good. His convention speech was regarded by many as the best of his career. Plus, Trump is actually a very poor debater and a very predictable one even for that. The Democrats had four years to come up with a debate-strategy tailored to expose him as the malignant buffoon he is. It's expectable that someone did his or her job.

That's it. To round it up quickly and lazily, I think Biden will win decisively. If he loses, Trump will go down in history, regarded by both his fans and critics, as a raw political genius. If Trump loses badly, he will be seen as the luckiest idiot riding on an improbable wave of contingencies, and everyone will express deep disbelief that it could go on as long as it did. Such is the human tendency to see inevitability in every path taken by history in hindsight.