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John Leland’s Happiness Is a Choice You Make chronicles his transformative experience interviewing six Manhattan octogenarians. Confronted with their stories of life, love, and loss, readers young and old alike will see themselves in Leland’s ensemble cast. Read or listen to key insights from Happiness Is a Choice You Make in just 9 minutes on Thinkr.
“President Donald Trump demoted his longtime campaign manager on Wednesday, a move aimed at shoring up his re-election bid as he trails Democratic candidate Joe Biden in opinion polls less than four months before the Nov. 3 vote… In a Facebook post, Trump said campaign manager Brad Parscale would be replaced by Bill Stepien, who has been the deputy campaign manager.” Reuters
Biden is ahead of Trump nationally by an average of 8.6% as of Thursday night. RealClearPolitics
Many on both sides agree that Biden is a stronger opponent than Hillary Clinton was:
“Unfortunately for Trump, there's one massive factor that puts a ceiling on his ability to change the fundamental dynamics of the election: namely, that Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton… People like and trust Biden in a way they never did with Clinton. In 2016, more voters trusted Trump, with just 37% of those polled by Quinnipiac saying they believed Clinton to be more honest. Today, Biden leads Trump by 15 points on the question of whether voters believe the candidates to be honest…
“[Trump] was on pace for a (close) reelection just five months ago, and if the economy rebounds, a more tempered Trump could reclaim his incumbency advantage once more. But a massive factor in Trump's poor performance is beyond his control. Voters' loathing of Clinton played an enormous role in 2016. Say what you will about Biden, he just doesn't inspire that kind of reaction.”
Tiana Lowe, Washington Examiner
“Polls consistently show that Trump’s supporters are more excited to vote for him than presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s supporters are to vote for him… [But] while Biden voters may not be all that excited about voting for Biden, they’re very enthusiastic about voting against Trump. And that gives Biden a pretty strong edge, because Trump supporters don’t despise Biden the way they despised Hillary Clinton in 2016…
“Registered voters with negative opinions of both Trump and Biden preferred Biden to Trump by a whopping 23-point margin in the polling Nationscape conducted in June. They also rated Biden less negatively overall, with only 33 percent of this group saying they had a very unfavorable opinion of Biden compared to 62 percent who said the same of Trump… These results, especially when combined with recent political science research on the power of negative partisanship, suggest that the public’s stronger dislike of Trump is probably the more consequential enthusiasm gap in 2020.”
Michael Tesler, FiveThirtyEight
Other opinions below.
“Thus far, Biden has not been beating Trump, Trump has been beating Trump. The campaign, at this point, needs to refocus its energy on exploiting Biden’s weaknesses. These are: a long record to attack, an inability to keep up with Trump on the campaign trail, difficulty with public speaking, and questionable mental health. The first of these is open for attack all day long. The other issues, however, are not open for direct attack but can be utilized by forcing Biden out into the open where voters will see these weaknesses first hand…
“The best opportunity for this will be the debates. Once voters actually see the two candidates side by side it will be a huge bonus for Trump. The Biden camp recognizes this too and will try to find a way out of these debates. Trump must not let this happen because it will be his best chance to reverse these poll numbers.”
Tom Searl, The Resurgent
“The problem with Trump’s campaign isn’t who’s putting out ads on TV and Facebook. The problem is Trump… Trump has tweeted small and tacky insults about Republican Sen. Mitt Romney being infected with the virus after the senator tested negative. He tried picking a fight [with NASCAR's Bubba Wallace] over a controversy everybody had moved on from. He suffered the delusion that it was somehow a good idea for him to throw himself into defending the Confederate flag… It’s not too late for Trump, but he’s choking. A new campaign manager isn’t going to change that. Only Trump can.”
Eddie Scarry, Washington Examiner
“Are there ‘secret Trump voters’ out there, Americans who are certain to vote for him but unwilling to say so to a pollster? Sure. I don’t know how many there are, and what percentage of the electorate they are. If they’re not close to ten percent, Trump’s in deep trouble. The available polling shows Trump down by a lot in states he won last time around — Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida. When you say this, Trump supporters scoff that their man won states he was trailing last time, which is true — but he didn’t jump ten points on Election Day…
“This presidency has accomplishments, but they’re on issues that aren’t at the forefront of Americans’ minds right now. It’s a better and safer world with the Islamic State smashed to pieces and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Qasem Soleimani six feet under. Conservatives will cheer Trump’s judicial selections, even if some recent decisions at the Supreme Court will frustrate them. Criminal-justice reform was the right policy, even if it didn’t solve every problem in the system. Right to Try legislation offered new hope to lots of Americans struggling with serious diseases. The president doesn’t talk about these things much.”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
“There is no doubt Mr. Trump is at risk of losing. This is in part the result of the president’s uneven response to 2020’s two big crises—the coronavirus and racial unrest. Yet as big a part is the weirdness of a campaign cycle that has so far been dominated by only two stories. The press has doggedly and daily blamed Mr. Trump for a novel pandemic and for violence in liberal cities, and to ensure that the election boils down to a referendum on only those questions…
“But this isn’t the way of elections, and there’s no reason to think this dynamic will reign through November… Americans have concerns far beyond Arizona’s hospital capacity or Seattle’s East Precinct. Polls show they remain focused on the issues that traditionally define elections—jobs, taxes, health care, energy prices, trade, Supreme Court nominees. To date, they have heard almost nothing about the candidates’ differences on these topics.”
Kimberley A. Strassel, Wall Street Journal
“Perhaps [Stepien] will persuade Trump to wear a mask more often, which would be welcome from a public-health perspective. But the political damage was done months ago, when the President effectively abdicated responsibility for the gravest national emergency in decades. Even after more than a hundred and thirty-five thousand Americans have died, there is still ‘no cohesive national strategy, apart from unenforced federal health guidelines’…
“Last weekend, researchers from Quinnipiac University asked voters which candidate would do a better job of handling the coronavirus. Thirty-five percent chose Trump. Fifty-nine percent chose Biden… As the pandemic enters its sixth month, the case numbers are rising in forty states, according to a Times tally, and figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that over the past week the number of new infections reported daily has averaged almost sixty-two thousand. This is now the coronavirus election, and Trump can’t escape it by swapping campaign managers.”
John Cassidy, New Yorker
“What is his administration doing to make his reelection more likely? They waged a campaign against top infectious-disease specialist Anthony S. Fauci (which they’re now trying to walk back). They’re calling in officials from across the government for interviews to quiz them about their loyalty to Trump. How about a new rescue package to deal with the continued economic devastation the country is suffering? Republicans in Congress are grudgingly getting around to it, with little input from the administration, which apparently can’t be bothered. These are not the actions of a group of people who think they’re in a tight battle for their political lives.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post
“Trump has in recent weeks chosen a number of political battles that polls increasingly show do nothing to move the needle in his direction — and if anything show the limitations of his unceasing base strategy… 61 percent [disapprove] of his plans to reopen schools and only 29 percent [approve]... The same Quinnipiac poll showed a startling move against the [Confederate] flag, with 56 percent calling it a symbol of racism and just 35 percent saying it was more about Southern pride…
“[He has] criticized the Black Lives Matter movement, cast aspersions about the true nature of the protesters, and played down the idea that there is a problem with police killing black people… [But] 67 percent of Americans support the movement… [and] 69 percent of Americans said George Floyd’s death was ‘a sign of broader problems in treatment of black Americans by police’ rather than an isolated incident… Trump’s decision to fight back against the mere idea that we have a problem with police treatment of black people has placed him on an island politically.”
Aaron Blake, Washington Post
Former Senator Al Franken writes, “Last month, Trump whiffed on the ultimate softball question when Sean Hannity asked him what he hoped to accomplish in a second term. Actually, he didn't whiff. He took a third strike lobbed waist high over the heart of the plate…
“Most Americans want to build on Obamacare, not abandon it. We want our government agencies run by competent professionals, not crooked cronies. We want a system of taxation that rewards work, not capital and that raises enough revenue to meet the needs of American families. We want to meaningfully address systemic racism… We want roads and bridges and trains which at least resemble those in other developed countries… Joe Biden is not Franklin Roosevelt. But he is Joe Biden, a fundamentally decent man who could begin healing some of the divisions that this President has deliberately exploited and deepened.”
Al Franken, CNN