The Democrats kick off their 2020 convention tonight with a complete Presidential ticket and no shortage of grievances with the Trump administration’s actions in response to the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent economic crises. To explain what to watch for this week and next when the GOP convention begins, Newell spoke to Lunchtime Politics publisher and political analyst Ron Faucheaux.
“Ron, we’ve talked many times about how candidates campaign in poetry and govern in prose,” Newell began. “I can't help but notice the Biden-Harris campaign is campaigning in stanzas. You never get to an end, it's just the same thing over and over again. Is he ever going to come out of the bunker?”“I think he will, with the convention this week, you’ll see more of him,” Faucheaux said. “But to be honest, being in the bunker has worked for him. There were four polls that came out today and yesterday that show him with an average lead of over 8 points. Most points give him a 9 or 10 point lead, so he’s doing well right now. I suspect you’ll see more of him campaigning. President Trump is in something of a bunker too, because of the inability to have those big rallies and have public events like we’re used to seeing in campaigns - that’s all very difficult to do now.”“A recent Gallup poll came out that says 25% of those polls say neither candidate would be a good President,” Newell continued. “There seems to be some ambivalence, higher than what we’ve seen in past elections, about the favorability, the good feelings you get about their own candidate. And it doesn’t even matter what party they’re in.”“I think that’s true, we’ve been seeing that going on for about 20 years, roughly,” Faucheaux said. “The negative ratings of even the winning presidential candidates tend to be really high on election day. The American people have been increasingly voting for candidates that they don’t particularly like. We certainly saw that four years ago... Donald Trump won the election because about 18% of the electorate disliked both Trump and Clinton, and ultimately broke in favor of Trump because they thought he was the candidate who would bring the most change. Those are the people who are deciding elections and Trump won with them last time. We’ll see what happens this time when the election is a referendum on the incumbent. Because of that, Biden’s role in the campaign is much different and much reduced than Clinton’s was four years ago.”“Obviously, they wanted to create some excitement and momentum going into the convention,” Newell said. “Were you surprised by the Kamala Harris pick, and do you believe they achieved what they hoped to with that choice?”
“She was always considered one of the top two or three contenders,” Faucheaux said. “It was particularly surprising, but I have to say, I’m not sure it will achieve what they need in terms of the election. It did achieve a lot of goodwill in terms of people liking the fact that a woman of color was on the national ticket, so they did achieve a lot of pride and good feelings. But politically, Biden’s path is to appeal to swing voters and independent voters who are not thrilled with either candidate. My reading of the polls so far show that the pick is not helping with those voters, so that remains a problem for Biden and I don’t think Harris is going to solve it.”