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Biden surges ahead

The data points to Biden’s advantage among women and non-white voters.

Biden surges ahead

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden. (Photo: AFP)

It sure has been a moral defeat for Donald Trump five months before Election 2020. The downward curve in the US President’s career graph was reaffirmed on Wednesday when the Democratic contender took a commanding lead, going by the public opinion poll projections released by The New York Times and Siena College.

The societal ramifications are profound no less at a critical juncture of the country’s narrative. The data points to Biden’s advantage among women and non-white voters. No less crucially, he has made deep inroads within certain traditionally pro-Republican groups that have shifted away from Trump in the wake of his bumbling response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden is currently ahead of Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50 per cent of the vote, against 36 per cent for Trump. The margin is, therefore, convincing enough and the disconcerting message must resonate in the echo chambers of the White House. The outcome is said to be the most dismal showing of Trump’s presidency, though it is early days to write him off as an underdog as he gears up for a second term in the White House.

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Yet the fact remains that he has been quite the most unpopular President for virtually his entire term in office. Ever since 2016, there has been a steady erosion in his support base, a vital disadvantage that he has scarcely been able to address. Disenchantment with the Trump administration has deepened primarily owing to his failure to combat a deadly disease that has crippled what was once the world’s most vibrant economy.

His standing has plummeted further in the presidential stakes as he greeted the anti-racist protests with furious bluster and militaristic threats. The distressing message conveyed by the polls is that the United States of America is ready to jettison a President whom a robust majority of voters regard as having failed the greatest tests confronting his administration. Aside from Biden’s spectacular lead, quite the most critical feature is the support that he has won from the class groups and with enormous margins ~ pre-eminently the black and Hispanic voters and the younger generation.

While blacks have been the target of white fury, the Hispanics personify the migrants question. Over the past four years, Trump has managed to alienate both segments. The other psephological message must be that Biden has drawn even with Trump among male voters, whites and people in their middle age ~ specifically groups that have been the bedrock of the Republican electoral success over the years, including that of Trump four years ago. Biden is said to have a “towering advantage” among white women with college degrees.

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