The Ides of March-The 2020 Presidential Election

The Ides of March—The 2020 Presidential Election
                             Peter D. Hart

Our latest NBC-WSJ survey released Sunday, March 15th provides an
important set of insights into Americans’ attitudes and perceptions
about COVID19. This national survey of 900 registered voters was
conducted between March 11th and 13th. As you read this memo, you
may feel some of these results are stale because events and attitudes
about COVID19 may have changed. Nevertheless, this is a pretty
strong set of results that captures how things looked as of this
weekend. In addition, this survey covers the political landscape in this
new, post-Super Tuesday terrain. I have attached two documents---the
filled-in questionnaire from this survey and some 50 verbatim remarks
from the open-ended question about what was on the mind of
Americans at this moment when discussion of COVID 19 is dominating
the news.

Here are five key takeaways from this survey.

  1. As of Friday night, around the time President Trump was declaring
     a state of emergency, peoples’ concern about the disruption the
     virus had caused to their lives was minimal---Just 8% said it had
     changed their lives in a very major way and 18% in a fairly major
     way. For the rest, only in a small way (45%) or not all (29%).
     However, there is a true fear factor that tomorrow may be very
     different story as 15% are very worried, and 38% are somewhat
     worried that they or someone in their immediate family may
     contract the coronavirus. The chart below shows graphically how
     the electorate looks when we combine these two elements.

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2. National emergencies, international events, natural disasters,
   and health crises are often a time when the performance of a
   president, governor or mayor rises or falls on the basis of his or
   her performance. For now, there is no change for President
   Trump – his current job rating is 46% positive and 51% negative,
   virtually unchanged from our February survey. This leads to the
   third point.
3. As a sad sign of the times in this election year, even this health
   crisis is being filtered through a political lens. Democrats are
   more concerned (68%) about the effect of the virus than
   Republicans (41%). Predictably, 84% of Democrats are critical of
   the President’s handling of the matter, compared to just 14% of
   Republicans.
4. The Democratic nomination contest has turned into a rout. In
   February, Joe Biden was at 15%, trailing Bernie Sanders (27%) in a

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large field with 51% going to the other candidates. Today it is
     Biden 61% to Sanders at 27%. A word of caution though: Joe
     Biden’s scores on the enthusiasm scale have increased from 56%
     to 74% with Democrats, but with the total electorate the Biden
     enthusiasm/comfort score has moved only to 41%, up from 34%.
     Democrats had best not believe all of Biden’s liabilities have
     disappeared and that this set of scores represents a true
     transformation of voters’ perceptions. In the trial heat against
     Trump, the lead is 52% to 43%, which is virtually unchanged from
     February (52% to 44%), when Biden was being dismissed.
  5. The economy has been the central core to sustaining Donald
     Trump’s standing. With 60% of Americans invested in stocks or
     mutual funds, the booming economy covers a lot of shortcomings
     in his style or in his handling of specific policy issues. For all of
     2018 and 2019 (except for one survey) most Americans rated the
     economy’s performance as excellent or good. Without a strong
     economy, Trump’s shortcomings become magnified.

There are a host of other important and significant findings for you to
see in this survey, but I want to highlight something that I think
provides the best insight about how Americans are psychologically
looking at this period of time. The question was devised to probe what
was on the minds of Americans on the night when President Trump
declared the COVID 19 a national emergency.

Hidden behind these numbers is an open-ended question at the
beginning of the survey, in which respondents used their own words to
describe their feelings about what was happening in America during

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this period of time. There is no mention of the Coronavirus; we simply
phrased the question this way:

          There is a lot happening in America during this period of
          time. What is your thinking or focusing on most?

We asked this question of 100 respondents whom we interviewed
Friday night after the President had declared COVID19 a national
emergency. The superlative work of the interviewers from The Public
Opinion Strategy (the partner of Hart Research on the NBC/WSJ
surveys) got detailed responses about what people were thinking. Here
are my takeaways:

     • Fewer than half mentioned coronavirus in their answer.
       Today, Coronavirus is for most Americans a remote threat. It is
       definitely on the mind of the American voter, but it was less
       about their health concern than the effect on their lives in
       terms of job, parenting or some other consideration.

     • Importantly, at this moment there is surprisingly little mention
       of what COVID 19 means to them in personal health terms. It
       is not denial, but currently Coronavirus seems more remote
       and not that scary. Outside of toilet paper concerns, people
       mention this as almost a “time out” or detour than a true
       health scare like polio or AIDS which were seen as potentially
       life altering. For now, it is more like a detour on the highway of
       day-to-day living.

     • What people did not say may turn out to be the more
       important consideration. Instead, Coronavirus is discussed in

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terms of what it means for inconvenience or financial
       uncertainty. As of this weekend, the focus was not about the
       children or the grandparents, or even, the potential loss of life
       or the spread of the disease.

     • There is a really sharp partisan divide---Democrats train their
       fire at President Trump with real vehemence against his
       leadership style and his agenda. Climate change is also
       frequently mentioned. Republicans rarely mention President
       Trump and almost no blame is assigned to his handling of the
       virus outbreak.

     • America has been in a long period of silo politics. We usually
       come together at a time of national tragedy or crisis, but we
       are not quite there on this epidemic. What this open-ended
       question shows is a fundamental difference of philosophy
       between the two parties. In reacting to this crisis, the
       responses by Republicans are more likely to show an inward-
       looking set of concerns about how it affects me/my family. The
       responses by the Democrats tend to be looking outward ---
       how it affects us as a society.

Conclusion:

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Changes are happening with lightning speed and the current
crash in the stock market leads me to remember the words of Richard
Nixon’s press secretary Ron Ziegler, who stated: “This is the operative
statement. The others are inoperative.” The importance of the
current NBC-WSJ Survey is that it provides the baseline for where we
go from here. Like so much of the last three years, the world has
revolved first, last and always around Donald Trump. Unlike other
presidents who have seen their job approval rating soar into the 60’s
and higher during good times and dip below 40% during hard times,
Donald Trump, for the most part, has had a trading range of low 40’s
to high 40’s, with his average rating at 45%. He has been the only
president in the history of presidential polling who has never, even for
one day, had a majority job approval in the NBC-WSJ poll. These
results are no different. Donald Trump’s political trademark has been
polarization. For Republicans the support has ranged from the mid-
80s to the mid-90s and for Democrats from about 5% to 15%.
Through it all, Americans have divided along partisan lines on this
president and his leadership. At this moment, nothing has changed.
For those who believe we have seen an inflection point in the 2020
election, think again. There have been at least 20 inflection points
from the day Trump announced his candidacy to today’s current
COVID 19 emergency. In each instance, partisan Democrats were
certain this was the turning point. As dire as today’s news may seem,
it remains to be seen if this will be the breaking point.

The dynamics of 2020 are being formed, but in the end this election is
going to revolve around Donald Trump. The intensity of Democratic
turnout in the 2018 midterm elections and during the current
Democratic presidential primaries is encouraging. Yet, the 2020

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presidential election will come down to registration and turnout in
some eight key states.

The most formidable force Donald Trump may face is a presidential
candidate whose name will not be on the ballot; a man who has
pledged to spend his formidable resources and create an organization
that will be omnipresent in a massive registration effort and a turn-
out-the-vote operation. His name: Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

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