10 Reasons I’m Cautiously Optimistic About the Election

The polls are not predictive but these ten fundamentals of the race just might be.

U.S. President Joe Biden and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris hold hands during a ceremony to celebrate the WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images.

Another day, another bad set of battleground state polls out of the New York Times. It seems we’re barraged by media stories that Biden is losing, that young people are abandoning the Democratic Party over Gaza, that inflation matters more to swing voters than our democracy or reproductive rights.

I want to offer a different, “Big Picture” view of the election. In today’s piece, I lay out broader ways to think about likely electoral outcomes, ones that don’t all end up in some fascist dystopia. After walking you through my list of ten, I hope you’ll agree that, as Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg likes to say, “I’d rather be us than them.”

Before I dive in, let me start by reminding everyone to avoid the polls if you’re just looking for an answer to “Will Biden beat Trump?” Polls are not predictive of outcomes, especially this far out. We still have around six months to go, and believe it or not, most Americans won’t start paying attention to the election until the Fall. Remember, also, that the polls were dead wrong in 2022 when that Red Wave they told us would swamp Democrats never appeared. They were wrong all the way up through Election Day, in fact.

Think of the polls as broken thermometers, where you don’t actually know if they’re reading the outside temperature correctly. But just like a set of broken thermometers, sometimes the polls over time can provide a simple answer to the question, “Is it getting hotter or colder?” And be glad! Recent polls either show no movement or slight movement toward Biden. 

In place of polls, I want to offer some fundamentals, everything from electoral math to the big issues wedging the parties, to the economy and the state of the campaigns. And because there are a number of factors—I list 10 of them here—I’m not going to spend a lot of time on any single one. Rather, I’ll state my case and move on, because this is intended as a broad brush exercise.

When you’re feeling despondent about our chances, come back to these 10 ideas in your head, take a deep breath, and then get to work helping the Democrats win. 

1. Biden has an easier job ahead than Trump

In 2020, Biden won both the national popular vote by seven million votes and the Electoral College by 74 votes. That’s a considerable victory by either measure. I say this to make the following point: In this rematch, the two candidates have very different jobs. 

Biden’s job is to convince the people who voted for him before to vote for him again. Trump, on the other hand, must get people who didn’t vote for him before to vote for him this time around. The former task is easier than the latter, in part because the Biden Campaign knows how to reach those voters using its ground game. More on that later.

If Trump doesn’t get new voters to turn up while Biden gets his old supporters back, it becomes a repeat of 2020, which is the most likely scenario, and Biden wins. 

But Trump’s got an additional problem. He did better than Biden did among older, white voters. But since 2020, a good number of them are, shall we say, no longer in the electorate. Meanwhile, in the same four years, a number of younger voters are now of voting age. Those voters tend to skew Democratic in their voting. Biden has a demographic advantage brought on by the passage of time.

2. Biden needs to re-win just 3 of the 5 battleground states

In 2020, Biden swept the big battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona and Georgia. Trump effectively has to peel at least three of those states away from Biden (or Pennsylvania and one of the other big ones) in order to pull off an Electoral College victory. And mathematically speaking, Biden has the edge here.

He also has recent history on his side. No one has a crystal ball to predict November, but we do have the 2022 midterm results and special election results from these states, and they are not strong for Trump. In fact, Trump-backed candidates did quite poorly in these swing states, while Democrats romped.

In Pennsylvania, for example, Democrats won the governor's mansion and the Senate race, and they now control the state assembly. In Michigan, Democrats won a trifecta, meaning they now hold both the governorship and control of both chambers of the legislature. In Wisconsin, Democrats won the governor’s race in 2022, and in 2023 they defeated an extremist Republican for a key supreme court seat by a whopping 11 points. In Arizona, Democrats won all statewide races including the governor’s race and the Senate race. And in Georgia, Rafael Warnock defeated Trump’s hand-picked senate candidate, Herschel Walker.

Voters in these states have soundly rejected MAGA extremism, and they’re ready to do it again in 2024.

3. The GOP is wedged on major issues

The media headlines have been all about campus protests and how Democrats are divided on the issue of Israel and Gaza. But this focus on Democratic splits over foreign policy in the Middle East ignores how much more strongly divided GOP voters are when it comes to key issues.

Most Republicans and independents favor protecting abortion rights, yet Trump is campaigning on having successfully killed Roe v. Wade. Abortion is a loser issue for the GOP but a strong motivator for pro-abortion rights women voters and younger voters. And restoring abortion rights will be a major factor in battleground states, especially Arizona where a constitutional amendment to enshrine Roe in the state’s constitution will likely be on the ballot.

On top of being pro-choice, many moderate voters reject January 6 extremism and radical calls to release or pardon the January 6 defendants. They correctly believe Biden was legitimately elected. And they want to see democratic principles upheld at home and around the world. But Trump is doubling down on the Big Lie while courting authoritarians and threatening our alliances abroad. 

Together, these wedge issues have the strong potential to cause moderate Republicans to refuse to cast a ballot for Trump, even if they otherwise believe in traditional Republican principles. That is precisely what happened in the 2022 election when tens of thousands of Republican voters refused to endorse Trumpism.

4. MAGA has gotten more, not less, extreme since it lost in 2022

If Republicans and Trump had learned their lessons from their poor showing in 2022, I would be more concerned than I am. But in these two years, their positions have grown even more strident, their demands for loyalty and obedience even stronger. Within the Republican National Committee, for example, applicants are screened for their belief about who won the 2020 election. Meanwhile, those auditioning for the role of Trump’s Vice President, from Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) to Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), all refuse to say unequivocally that they would accept the results of the 2024 election if Trump loses.

For his part, Trump’s rhetoric has grown more dangerous and more divisive. He now speaks openly of being a Day One dictator, calls his political opponents “vermin,” promises to be his base’s “retribution,” and warns in Nazi-like fashion that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.” While this may inflame and excite his core base, it does nothing to reach voters in the middle who are exhausted and alarmed by his increasingly aggressive and authoritarian tone.

5. Biden is presiding over a strong economy, not a recession

The biggest fear many Democrats held before this Election year was that we would be in a recession, one brought about by rapid hikes in interest rates meant to crush inflation. Instead, the economy continues to chug along well. Unemployment remains below 4 percent, which ties a historic record dating back 60 years. Meanwhile, inflation has come down from a scary 9 percent high to a much more manageable 3 percent.

The reality that the economy is actually doing well across the nation has not yet set in for some. Voters are often willing to state that their own personal economy, or even their own state’s economy, is fine, but have concerns over the rest of the country. I found this chart quite illuminating:

This is good news for the Biden campaign. In each of these critical battlegrounds, most people are saying things are getting better in their state, even if they falsely believe they are getting worse for the rest of the country. Between now and November, Democratic messaging will help bring these two concepts into alignment.

And because wages are now rising faster on average than prices, more Americans will feel they have extra money to spend, while the shock of higher prices, driven mostly by corporate profiteering, will have had more time to wear off.

Trump has no response to the good economic news, other than to claim the government statistics are fake and that he is somehow responsible for record stock market prices.

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6. The GOP is disorganized and near bankrupt in key states

In-fighting between the MAGA extremists and the “normies” within the GOP has splintered the Republican Party at a critical moment in some key states.

In Michigan, the party’s chair—an election denialist and former unsuccessful candidate for Secretary of State—was ousted recently and is fighting in court to regain her position. She left the party in dire financial straits, with missed payments on a half million dollar loan and suggestions that the party sell its headquarters to make up the shortfall.

In Georgia, the cost of defending so many officials accused of violating the state’s RICO laws in the 2020 election has brought the party to near insolvency. Per a report by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, campaign disclosures showed that “the Georgia Republican Party raised $530,000 during the final six months of 2023 and spent $1.34 million. Of that, about $850,000 went for legal fees, on top of $520,000 in the first half of the year.” Gov. Kemp has more or less abandoned the state party in order to put distance between himself and the election-overturning conspirators.

And in Arizona, the GOP state party chair Jeff DeWit was forced out after a tape recording of him leaked in which he offered Kari Lake a job if she would not run for Kirsten Sinema’s senate seat. The state party was already in tough financial straits and was dealing with significant in-fighting between MAGA election denialists and more traditional Republicans. 

7. The Biden war chest is large and its ground game is impressive

In the most recent quarter, the Biden Campaign ended with $192 million cash-on-hand after collecting $187 million in donations, 96 percent of which were under $200. That money is allowing the campaign to run major ad campaigns in key states. It raised $90 million in the month of March alone.

It is also making it possible to staff up swing state offices by the score: 24 in Pennsylvania, 30 in Michigan, and 44 in Wisconsin. The job for these staffers will be to reach the same Biden voters that delivered these states for him in 2020 and to energize new voters around their candidate and against Trump.

Because margins are razor thin in some of these states, mobilizing on the ground early will help nudge the needle, even if by just a few thousand votes, which could prove decisive in November.

8.  Trump is hurting for money and lacks a serious ground game

By contrast, the Trump Campaign has seen donor numbers fall well below what they saw in 2020, and it has raised far less than what the Biden Campaign has. 

The Trump Campaign brought in $66 million in March compared to the $90 million raised by the Biden Campaign. It also ended March with $93 million cash on hand, a full $100 million less than the Biden Campaign. It did somewhat better in April, raising $76 million, but it still lags significantly behind, and it’s unclear how much of the money will be funneled to pay for Trump’s hefty legal bills.

The cash gap has left Trump with fewer options to expand his campaign’s footprint. For example, in the critical state of Wisconsin, Trump has yet to have any campaign infrastructure to speak of, while the Biden Campaign has over 100 full-time staff working on the ground.

9. Trump faces an uncertain legal status as a criminal defendant

Within a few weeks, Donald Trump may be a convicted felon. He might even be sentenced to prison, but likely will be out while that is appealed. Such a development could shift the race a few percentage points if polls are remotely correct on the question. 

A study conducted by Politico and Ipsos found that Trump lost support among independents when asked to factor in a criminal conviction. A full 36 percent of independent respondents said they would be less likely to support him following such a conviction. 

And there is still an outside chance that the Supreme Court will issue a ruling this summer denying presidential immunity to Trump and putting the D.C. January 6 case back on track for trial. That seems unlikely given the Court’s make up, but it is within the realm of the possible. While that wouldn’t likely mean a conviction before the election, Trump will once again mostly be in a courtroom, falling asleep rather than out playing golf or campaigning. 

10. Voters have not focused on Trump yet

For those of us very up on campaign news, it can feel disconcerting to realize that a big portion of the country hasn’t seriously considered the election and how they will ultimately vote. This is reflected in the polling, which shows that likely voters are far more favorable to Biden than larger pools of registered voters or all U.S. adults.

Put another way, the more information people have and the more engaged they are, the more likely they are to vote for Biden. That also gives the Biden Campaign something to strive for between now and November.

Trump, who is not out traveling the nation as president or having to make the tough calls that come with the office, has not been scrutinized as a candidate nearly as vigorously as Biden has as the President. That is going to change come September. Along with that will come scrutiny of the third-party candidates, including RFK Jr., whose support among Democrats tends to fall the more they hear about his wacky anti-vax views and unstable behavior—two things that actually increase his appeal to lower information MAGA voters.

Once Americans realize that they must make a largely binary choice, just as they did in 2020, the same dynamics will drive much of this election. Biden isn’t perfect. He’s old. But he’s effective and things are okay to good. Meanwhile, since 2020 Trump has grown more unhinged, is also old and looking haggard, and is now threatening the end of our democracy.

And that’s a race we can win. After all, we won it before.