US Election Tracker – 100 Day Countdown
- By Caroline Grady and Bilal Hafeez
- 1 min read
Yesterday marked 100 days until the 3 November US presidential election. The landmark prompted a raft of analysis on how Trump’s campaign is faring versus earlier campaigns at this stage. Unsurprisingly, the prognosis for Trump is not good. His approval ratings remain stuck in the lows 40s, and two recent polls show Biden ahead in Florida. That’s significant – as CNN points out, ‘no Republican has won the presidency without Florida since Calvin Coolidge in 1924’. The CNN/SSRS poll released on Sunday showed Biden leading in Florida by 51-46%, while a Quinnipiac poll from 23 July showed a larger 51-38% lead for Biden. Polls for Michigan and Arizona also show Biden ahead. And on a national level, polls indicate a 9-point lead for Biden, a gap not seen by any candidate since President Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996.
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Yesterday marked 100 days until the 3 November US presidential election. The landmark prompted a raft of analysis on how Trump’s campaign is faring versus earlier campaigns at this stage. Unsurprisingly, the prognosis for Trump is not good. His approval ratings remain stuck in the lows 40s, and two recent polls show Biden ahead in Florida. That’s significant – as CNN points out, ‘no Republican has won the presidency without Florida since Calvin Coolidge in 1924’. The CNN/SSRS poll released on Sunday showed Biden leading in Florida by 51-46%, while a Quinnipiac poll from 23 July showed a larger 51-38% lead for Biden. Polls for Michigan and Arizona also show Biden ahead. And on a national level, polls indicate a 9-point lead for Biden, a gap not seen by any candidate since President Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996.
Chart 1: Biden’s Current Lead is Large by Historic Standards
Source: WSJ
Chart 2: Biden is Ahead by 6 Points, on Average, in Swing States
Source: RealClearPolitics
Trump has recently adopted a more moderate approach to the US COVID situation, where nationwide cases now exceed 4mn (up 1mn in just two weeks) and daily deaths have crept back above 1,000. He has now urged people to wear face masks and has cancelled the planned Republican convention in Jacksonville. His poor handling of the COVID crisis has been one of several reasons behind his slumping popularity. And despite branding recent polls as fake, Trump looks to have finally taken note of his dwindling re-election chances.
This week’s debate on a new relief bill will be important for Trump’s campaign. The economy is the only area where Trump has remained ahead of Biden, and a rebound before November would likely be a vote winner. Another package of around $1tn is expected, but an extension of the $600/week unemployment supplement set to expire in the coming days remains unclear.
Bilal Hafeez is the CEO and Editor of Macro Hive. He spent over twenty years doing research at big banks – JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, and Nomura, where he had various “Global Head” roles and did FX, rates and cross-markets research.
Caroline Grady is a Senior Researcher at Macro Hive. Formerly, she was a Senior EM Economist at Deutsche Bank and a Leader Writer at the Financial Times.
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