2020 Campaign - August
By August 2020 polls indicated that public approval for the president’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic was falling to a new low — with just around one third of Americans supporting his approach which emphasized reopening. In the last two weeks of july, the president returned to making regular appearances before journalists, putting himself forward as spokesperson for his administration’s response to the pandemic. During a coronavirus press briefing on 29 July 2020, Trump said the U.S. is on track to “rapidly produce” 100 million doses as soon as a vaccine is approved “which could be very, very soon.” He said 500 million doses will be available “shortly thereafter.” An October vaccine discovery would be the ultimate October surprise.
With Black Lives Matter rallies and protests continuing in many cities across the United States, the vast majority of them peaceful, the president sharpened his attacks on what he has called “radical left anarchists” and the danger they allegedly pose to the country. “This bloodshed must end, this bloodshed will end,” Trump said. The larger standoff continued, with the Trump campaign arguing that cities with regular protests are in fact in chaos and need a “law and order” commander in chief. The gambit is part of Trump’s larger “culture war” against what he describes as a push by American political liberals to wage a “merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.”
On 13 August 2020 Trump explained why he won’t fund the US Postal Service: “Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots ... But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting.” House Democrats had proposed $25 billion over three years for the USPS as part of their relief package that passed their chamber in May 2020. Pelosi and Schumer proposed $10B over one year for the USPS in their talks with Mnuchin and Meadows, which were at a standstill. Trump said that without the Postal Service money that he's blocking, the election will be "greatest fraud in history."
US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on 18 August 2020 suspended all mail service changes until after the November election, bowing to an outcry by Democrats that the moves appeared to be an attempt to boost President Donald Trump's re-election chances. The reversal follows complaints that the cuts could slow the handling of mail-in ballots, which could account for as many as half of all votes cast in the November 3 election as the coronavirus pandemic raises fears of crowds.
US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi called DeJoy's announcement inadequate and said she would push ahead with legislation later this week to aid the Postal Service. "This pause only halts a limited number of the postmaster's changes, does not reverse damage already done, and alone is not enough to ensure voters will not be disenfranchised by the president" in the election, Pelosi said in a statement.
One of the speakers at the Republican Party convention on 24 August 2020, Republican congressional candidate Sean Parnell, said Democrats arrogantly brand their political opponents as "uneducated racists, clinging to guns and Bibles." He and the other speakers on the first night of convention then went on to reinforce this stereotype. The ammo-fueled mix of paranoia, blatant lies and race baiting on the first night of the convention was crafted to appeal to exactly this kind of person.
Speakers included Southern Methodist University of Law graduates Mark and Patricia McCloskey, who infamously brandished a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun at Black Lives Protesters who were walking down their private street. The McCloskeys had some local notoriety for taking a sledgehammer to several hives of bees being kept by students in a neighboring Jewish school, and for launching a lawsuit to force a gay couple out of their neighborhood on the grounds the couple was not married. Why the focus on guns? Because America, at least the Democrats and non-white part, is dangerous and threatens the safety of people who kneel to pray and stand for the flag. For generations, some White Americans have feared the retribution that would be meted upon them if Black people ever came to power.
Kimberly Guilfoyle, former wife of California Governor Gavin Newsom, said, "If you want to see the socialist Biden-Harris future for our country, just take a look at California. It is a place of immense wealth, immeasurable innovation, an immaculate environment, and the Democrats turned it into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets and blackouts in homes." Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida said Democrats will "disarm you, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 [a street gang] to live next door. And the defunded police aren't on the way."
In stark contrast to the roll call at the Democratic convention, a ritual in which states pledge their delegates to the winning candidate, the GOP representatives were almost all white, mostly male, and largely balding or greying. There were no black faces, and racial diversity mostly came from American Samoa, Puerto Rico and Guam.
Based only on the polls, Biden led nationally by an average of 8.0 percentage points the day before the Democratic convention began. That was the second-biggest lead for any Democratic candidate heading into the convention period since at least 1968, and the largest for any candidate since 1996, when Bill Clinton led by about 15 points. Since 1968, no incumbent president had trailed by as much as Trump heading into the first convention. Two other presidential contenders led by margins similar to Biden’s: Jimmy Carter in 1976 and George W. Bush in 2000, but by November their leads had all but evaporated.
Trump's efforts to build supportl and define his opponent at the Republican National Convention had little apparent impact on the electorate's impressions of both him and former Vice President Joe Biden, am ABC News/Ipsos poll found 30 August 2020. Trump's week of celebration did not improve his favorability, even among his own base, and the country remained widely critical of his handling of the major crisis of his presidency: COVID-19. Less than one-third (31%) of the country has a favorable view of the president in the days after he accepted the Republican nomination. In the new survey, Biden's favorability remained higher than his unfavorability, 46% to 40%, solidifying his improvement in favorability. Trump hailed a new poll 30 August 2020 giving him a clear lead over Democratic rival Joe Biden in November's election. The poll, conducted by transatlantic think-tank the Democracy Institute for the UK's Sunday Express newspaper, gave Trump a 48 to 46 percent lead over Biden nationally in the wake of the Republican National Convention. Previous polls have put Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the lead, but the new results show Donald Trump scoring heavily among "shy voters" who hide their intentions from Pollsters. The poll also put Trump in front in five key swing states - Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania - and even in New Hampshire, which backed the Democratic candidate in six of the last seven elections. The pollsters predict Trump will win by a landslide under the electoral college system of US presidential elections, gaining 309 delegates to Biden’s 229.
The latest Military Times poll based on 1,018 active-duty troops surveyed in late July and early August — nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2 percent. Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s time in office. Enlisted views of Trump’s performance in office have consistently been more favorable than those of officers in the poll over the last four years. Obama had a 36 percent favorable rating and a 52 percent unfavorable rating in a January 2017 Military Times poll. Almost 74 percent of those surveyed disagreed with Trump’s suggestion that active-duty military personnel should be used to respond to civil unrest such as the ongoing racial justice protests. Only about 22 percent supported the president’s idea.
Some Democratic speakers argued that resisting Trump should be a key part of the 2018 midterm election strategy, while others said Democrats needed to provide a clear, alternative agenda to voters in the upcoming campaign. There is also the lingering question of how to unite the Sanders and Clinton factions from the 2016 primary race and the divisions that remain to this day.
Lefty politicians Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren and Democratic stalwart Joe Biden all led the American president in head-to-head matchups in an August 2018 poll. The Politico/Morning Consult poll was conducted August 16 to 18, before former Trump attorney Michael Cohen pled guilty to tax evasion and campaign finance violations. The poll was also conducted before former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight counts of bank fraud and tax fraud by a jury in northern Virginia.
Sens. Sanders (I-VT) held the strongest advantage over US President Donald Trump with 44 percent support to 32 percent. Biden, Barack Obama's vice president, led Trump by nearly the same margin, with a 43 to 31 percent edge. Political newcomer Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who successfully reached office in 2012 on her first attempt, was ahead of Trump in the polls 34 to 30 percent.
Notably, in all these cases, extraordinarily high numbers of those polled opted for "undecided" — more than 20 percent. Since none of these margins of difference between Trump and a hypothetical Democratic opponent are greater than 20 percent, those undecideds are an unknown factor: they could flip a race either way.
Biden and Sanders were the only candidates whose matchups against Trump had numbers of undecideds fewer than 30 percent. For Warren vs. Trump, 36 percent of those polled were undecided. From there, more than two in five of those surveyed (40 percent) had no preference between Trump and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), former Attorney General Eric Holder and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY). In those head-to-head matchups, Trump had better numbers, but by very small margins and with very high percentages of undecided responders.
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