Trump’s genie seems to be failing him
I remember as a 7-year-old kid, still living in Havana, how I loved going to the Sunday doubleheader at El Cerro (now known as Estadio Latinoamericano). My team was Almendares. I tasted my first beer, which I hated, in that stadium. My father and I would sit right behind home plate. It is where I learned to love baseball.
Looking at Donald Trump and how he acts reminded me some of my seven-year-old self. I will never forget a ballgame where Almendares was losing going into the bottom of the 9th; there was a man on base and we needed two runs to pull this off. I shut my eyes and prayed to the Virgin Mary. When I reopened them, the batter settled into his stance and on the first pitch hit the ball out of the park for a homer. My prayer had been answered: Almendares won.
Trump seems convinced that if he says something, or wishes for something to happen, it will. The difference is that back in my early days, I believed in what I was praying for, and to whom I was praying. Trump only believes in what’s good for him.
The president’s wishes have not been granted by whatever genie he prays to since the early part of the year, coinciding with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic which has helped turn our world upside down. Remember that on Jan. 22, Trump said, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. We have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.” This in reference to a virus that has now killed more than 120,000 people in the United States alone, and many expect that figure to possibly double by the end of the year.
Under control? At the start of this thing he referred to himself as a wartime president. Notice he does not use that term anymore. If he’d really been a wartime president, we would surely have to consider him a total failure. Cause if Vietnam saw less than 60,000 dead, and both Johnson and Nixon were considered failures for it… what would more than twice as many casualties be considered?
In other words, Donald Trump has things “under control” as much as the seven-year-old me had that Almendares game under my control back then…
And the poll numbers bear that out.
A little more than a month ago I played a game with you where we counted Electoral College votes based on the situation at that moment. Since I wrote that piece back in early May, Trump’s genie (yep, the one who he thinks grants him all his wishes) must have taken a vacation, or has relapsed and is drinking again.
As I wrote this on Wednesday (June 24), The New York Times was reporting that a New York Times/Siena College poll had Joseph R. Biden Jr. “ahead of the president by 14 points, leading among women and nonwhite voters and cutting into his support with white voters.”
But as we did back in May, where I had Biden winning that fictional battle with Trump in the Electoral College where presidents are elected, I again sought information about the battleground states, those that will decide who wins this pivotal election in November. Again I went to the Real Clear Politics (RCP) website where they take an average of many polls. Let me give you a picture of the race, as compared to a little more than a month ago:
- Last month, RCP had Biden up by 2.7 percent over Trump in Wisconsin. As of this writing that figure has gone up to 7 percentage points (48.7 to 41.7) with Biden in the lead.
- Biden led Trump in Pennsylvania by 6.5 percent back in May. He seems to have slipped some, and now has a 5.6 percent lead over the president.
- Florida, a key state, especially for Trump, Biden led by 3.2 percent in May. Biden has grown his lead there to 6.2 percent (50.5 to 44.3).
- Trump has widened his lead in North Carolina from 0.3 percent in May to 0.5 percent today.
- In Michigan, Biden has upped his lead from 7.0 percent to 8.0 percent currently (49.8 to 41.8).
- Finally there’s Arizona, a state where a Republican has one every election since 1952 — except in 1996 when it went with Bill Clinton — Biden last month had a lead of 9 percent, and is currently up by 4 points (47.0 to 43.0).
Finally, and this is interesting, in one of my past columns I explained that it’s illegal to bet on a presidential election in this country. And yet, there are odds on winners and losers. A couple of months back, even when things had turned bad for Trump because of the virus, Vegas had Trump as a winner. That too has changed. The latest bettors’ odds has Biden at 56.5 percent and Trump at 37.1 percent.
So for the sake of this column let’s go back to our game of a month ago and plug in numbers based on the Electoral College votes each candidate might receive. Let’s switch a few things around (just for the heck of it) and let’s give Biden Pennsylvania, Michigan, and add Florida. And last time I had Trump losing in Arizona, which I’m giving him this month, and I’m taking Wisconsin from Biden and handing it to Trump. The president also gets to keep North Carolina.
Remember in our game Biden starts out with 233 Electoral College votes (that seem set on voting for him). Trump has 204. Our final tally back then had Biden with 290 and Trump with 248. Two hundred seventy are required to become president. Based on our new projections, Biden would end up with 300 Electoral College votes compared to Trump’s 240.
Again, these are only projections based on the candidates’ performance in the most recent polls. But it’s become obvious that Biden has several roads to a possible victory, while Trump’s roadmap becomes more difficult and clogged.
The New York Times explains the situation this way: “…among a striking cross-section of voters, the distaste for Mr. Trump has deepened as his administration failed to stop a deadly disease that crippled the economy and then as he responded to a wave of racial-justice protests with angry bluster and militaristic threats. The dominant picture that emerges from the poll is of a country ready to reject a president whom a strong majority of voters regard as failing the greatest tests confronting his administration.”
