Trump — Burning Cash and Sabotaging His Re-Election
By Scott Adams
The Trump campaign keeps bragging about how many millions of doors the re-election operation has knocked on. But the President keeps throwing wrenches in the spokes. His questioning of the legitimacy of absentee voting has crippled his Get Out the Vote operation. It doesn’t help when Trump tells supporters to vote at the polls, or vote twice.
Meanwhile, the Democratic virtual field campaign is routing Republicans in the only quantitative data point that matters — turning out the vote. By a 3–1 margin, Democrats are far outpacing Republicans in getting their voters to cast absentee ballots. Democrats are not knocking on doors, but taking cues in virtual organizing from state party operations like the Wisconsin Democratic Party’s 2020 Primary Vote-By-Mail program.
GOTV is simple. It’s about getting your supporters to vote. In the time of Covid, it means getting your supporters to vote early. Democrats will be banking millions of votes in battleground states. Roughly 50% of Democrats plan to Vote-By-Mail. Less than 20% of Republicans plan to cast absentee ballots with over half of GOP voters planning to vote on November 3rd, Election Day.
There is not a noticeable difference in partisan preference for voting early in person. Approximately 20% of Democrats and Republicans plan to vote this way.
This means Democrats will be have time and resources to chase down outstanding absentee voters, register new voters and turnout remaining voters on Election Day. The vote by mail advantage directly counters Biden’s weakness on the intensity of support. Trump voters are more motivated to support their candidate than Biden’s supporters. With Biden expected to get two-thirds of his voters to vote early or by mail, the intensity gap may be rendered meaningless.
The Republicans will be spending more time and resources getting over half of their vote out during the tiny Election Day window. Their field operation will be more susceptible to bad weather, long wait times and Covid related obstacles on Election Day.
Follow the Money
Donald Trump has burned through $1 billion and his once vaunted cash advantage has vanished. After out fundraising Trump in August by $364 million to $210 million, it’s the Biden campaign dictating ad spending.
In an ominous sign for Trump’s money woes, Advertising Analytics tweeted on the drastic changes and cuts in Trump’s advertising buy for Sept 15–21:
Details on Trump’s revisions to his 9/15–9/21 flight: Complete cancellations in NV, NH, and IA. Additional money cut in MI, MN, OH, PA, and WI About $1.89M moved into AZ, FL, ME, NC, and NE.
RCP polling average show Biden maintaining or growing leads in the northern battleground states where voting has begun or will soon — Minnesota (Biden +10.2/voting started Sept 18), Wisconsin (Biden +6.7 /voting started Sept 17), Pennsylvania (Biden +4.3/voting started Sept 14–19) and Michigan (Biden +4.2 /voting starts Sept 24) as well as Arizona (Biden +4.2/voting starts Oct 7–10). Biden has a smaller lead in Ohio (Biden +2.4/voting starts Oct 5) while Florida (Biden +1.6/voting starts Sept 24-Oct 1) and North Carolina (Biden +0.9/voting started Sept 4) are tossups. Business Insider has a list of when states start voting When voting starts by state.
Partisan Divide on Casting Ballots Gives Biden Early Vote Lead
A Fox News national September 13 poll has Biden +5, 51–46. A look at how voters plan to cast their ballots reveals that Democrats have a 41% to 15% advantage over Republicans with voters planning to vote by mail. There is little difference with in person early voting where 21% of Republicans and 18% of Democrats plan to vote early. By a 56% to 29% margin, Republicans have the edge, and turnout burden, with Election Day voters. A third of Black voters plan to vote on Election Day, with 27% planning to vote early in person and 25% early by mail.
Battleground states are experiencing a record number of absentee ballot requests. Michigan has already surpassed 2 million requests, the most requests ever. Neighboring Ohio hit 1 million requests a month sooner than it did in 2016.
North Carolina
The Tar Heel State has been voting by mail for two weeks. With 48 days remaining before the election, only 62,659 had requested absentee ballots in 2016 compared to 863,052 in 2020. A majority of voters requesting absentee ballots are Democrats (51%) compared to 32% of Independents and only 17% of Republicans.
By September 17, approximately 10% of requested ballots (81,012) have been returned. Democrats are over performing and represent 55% of returned ballots compared to 29% of Independents and 15% of Republicans. Breakdowns by gender and race show 52% of women and 44% of men, and 74% of whites and 16% of blacks, have returned ballots.
A Five Thirty-Eight analysis exposes a challenge for Democrats. The findings show that black North Carolina voters have a rejection rate four times white voters, 4.7% to 1.1%. Rejected ballots can still be corrected and resubmitted, but field operations will have to track down and assist absentee voters with rejected ballots Five thirty-eight North Carolina rejected absentee ballots. Notably, more rejected absentee ballots are coming from first time absentee voters.
Florida
As of September 15, 4,276,752 requests have been made for absentee ballots. Democrats represent 46.5% (1,987,851) of requests compared to 31.2% from Republicans (1,334,429) and 21.2% of Independents (905,928). Democrats have a net advantage over Republicans of 653,422 voters who have requested absentee ballots.
A Monmouth poll (Sept 15) in the Sunshine State has Biden +5 (50–45) and winning Independents by a 50–39% margin. The 11 point difference gives Biden a net gain of roughly 100,000 Independent absentee voters. To date, Biden would bring a net lead of approximately 750,000 votes from Democratic and Independent absentee voters. Not all ballots will be returned or counted, but any way you cut it, Biden’s virtual field operation has created a very sizeable lead.
Wisconsin
A NY Times/Sienna September 10th poll shows 44% of voters plan to vote early — either by mail or in person. Of these voters, Biden is beating Trump by 59 points, 79–20. Trump has a 67–29 point lead with the 56% of voters who plan to vote on Election Day. The NY Times poll has Biden up 5 points, 48–43.
The Vote Counting Wait
The surge in absentee balloting will create delays in when votes will be counted and results announced. Politico analyzed states and found important battleground states will have delayed counting Expect long waits on results from Michigan Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Some battleground states are considering ways to pre-sort and ready returned absentee ballots in advance in order to speed up vote count reporting.
Expect President Trump to have leads in select battleground states with Election Day voters, whose votes are likely to be counted and reported on November 3rd. Those leads will narrow and could disappear when absentee ballots are counted.
Scott Adams is Executive Creative Director of Award-Winning Green Alley Strategies, www.greenalleystrategies.com
