In 2016, Trump beat Hillary in Montana 279,240 (56.17%) to 177,709 (35.75%). Trump won 50 of Montana's 56 counties. According to a just-released poll from Montana State University, no one should expect anything like that in November. Trump is leading 51-44%, which shows Trump doing much worse than he did 4 years ago and Biden doing significantly better than Hillary. But the much better news for Democrats is that Democrat Steve Bullock is leading Trumpist incumbent Steve Daines 49-47% among likely voters. The poll shows Bullock receiving 97% of support from Democrats compared to Daines’ 88% from Republicans. Another 67% of independent voters also said they preferred Bullock, compared to 29% for Daines. This is bad news for Trump, even if he wins Montana's 3 electoral votes. Biden doesn't need them nearly as much as he needs Bullock in the Senate instead of a toady like Daines. The poll shows Bullock with a 60% job approval rating compared to Daines' 55% and Trump's 51%. Moving over to Texas, it's noteworthy that despite Gov. Abbott and the GOP trying to hold down voting, the first day of early voting saw over a million Texans line up and vote, a state record. Some waited on lines for hours, part of the GOP voter suppression program. Early voting in Florida is also through the roof. "Republicans," wrote Marc Caputo, "typically hold a slight edge in absentee ballot returns in Florida elections. But this year, there’s been a stunning development.cFor the first time ever at this stage of a general election, Democrats here are outvoting Republicans-- and by a mammoth 384,000-vote margin through Tuesday... As of Tuesday, Democrats accounted for almost 51 percent of the nearly 1.8 million ballots cast so far. Republicans had cast about 520,000 ballots, or about 29 percent of the total. The remaining 20 percent of the ballots mailed in so far have been cast by independent voters who have no party affiliation or belong to minor third parties. The preference of these independent voters is harder to gauge, but polls suggest Biden is winning them. In addition, according to an internal analysis by Florida’s Democratic Party, its models show that 31 percent of those independent voters who have already cast ballots look like Democratic voters because their age and race more closely correlate with Biden voters; only 11 percent look like Trump voters." Trump is leading by a polling average of 4.4 points in Texas but he's losing Florida by 2.7 points in an average that includes a phony-baloney poll from Republican operatives pretending to be pollsters (Trafalgar). A poll from Quinnipiac last week showed Trump losing by 11 points in Florida, with Biden kicking his lard ass 51-40%. Yesterday the Washington Post reporters Amy Gardner and Elise Viebeck wrote that "With less than three weeks to go before Nov. 3, roughly 15 million Americans have already voted in the fall election, reflecting an extraordinary level of participation despite barriers erected by the coronavirus pandemic-- and setting a trajectory that could result in the majority of voters casting ballots before Election Day for the first time in U.S. history... The picture is so stark that election officials around the country are reporting record early turnout, much of it in person, meaning that more results could be available on election night than previously thought.
So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. ...[T]he early numbers are proving to be larger than even Democrats predicted. Three out of four voters in Pennsylvania who have returned their ballots, for instance, are registered Democrats. In increasingly Democratic Virginia, where early voting began in September with hours-long lines in suburban Washington, nearly 1.7 million voters had cast ballots by Wednesday, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project-- more than triple the number who voted early or by mail overall in 2016. In Kentucky, nearly 70 percent of mail ballots cast have come from registered Democrats. In Georgia, so many people were determined to vote in person at the first chance of early voting Monday that they withstood lines that lasted throughout the day. A record 242,000 people voted in the first two days. ...[N]early 40 percent of those who voted Monday in Georgia were Black, and 56 percent were women, according to state election data. Two years ago, when Democrat Stacey Abrams, who is Black, narrowly lost the race for Georgia governor, 34 percent of the electorate was Black, according to U.S. census data. In that election, the share of women who voted was 56 percent, the same as the proportion of early voters now. “Are you seeing the same thing I’m seeing?” asked one Republican strategist in Georgia who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly, when shown the numbers. “This state is blue.”
Trump came up with an idea he could buy 33 million seniors' votes with a $200 discount card for pharmacies, so he must have been crestfallen yesterday to find out that the cards-- which haven't been approved by Congress and are probably an illegal use of taxpayer money-- will mostly be mailed out after Election Day. Instead, he's openly begging for votes. At one of his super-spreader rallies in Pennsylvania yesterday he said "Suburban women, will be please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood." The answer is no. Just ask Bette Midler:
In 2016, Trump won voters who lived in the suburbs-- 49% of the total electorate-- by 2 points over Hillary Clinton, according to Pew. Two years later, the President's party was crushed in the 2018 midterms-- losing control of the House-- thanks in large part to a suburban revolt against Trump. House Democratic candidates won 52% of suburban voters as compared to just 45% for House GOPers. Unfortunately for Trump-- and down-ballot Republicans-- the 2018 midterms weren't the low ebb for the President in the eyes of suburbanites. States like Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia and Florida-- where much of the population resides in suburban areas-- have all moved away from Trump over the past few years. Colorado looks to be out of reach for the President, and his struggles will likely cost Republican Sen. Cory Gardner his seat. Pennsylvania remains a possibility for Trump but his poor performance in the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh suburbs could be too big a hole for him to dig out of.Florida, Texas and Georgia are all toss ups at this point, largely due to Trump's underperformance in the suburban areas of the state. The problem for Trump is that knowing he has a problem in the suburbs and fixing it are two very different things. Trump, as his quote on Tuesday night makes clear, has tried to scare women in the suburbs into voting for him; if Joe Biden wins, he claim with little subtlety, roving gangs of Antifa supporters will invade your suburban paradise. But female suburban voters aren't buying it. As the New York Times wrote last month, citing polling data in Minnesota and Wisconsin:"President Trump's effort to court suburban women by promising to protect their neighborhoods is encountering one sizable hitch: Most suburban women say their neighborhoods aren't particularly under threat."