Trump Now Within Striking Distance of Biden
President Donald Trump is gaining ground on Democratic nominee Joe Biden in a new Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll showing the gap between the two nationally at just over 2 percent.
Investor’s Business Daily has pointed out it was “one of only two election polls credited with predicting President Trump’s 2016 surprise showing.
“TIPP, IBD’s polling partner, succeeded in picking up on the greater enthusiasm among Republicans for their candidate.”
Its latest poll of registered and likely voters shows Biden with a 2.3 percentage point lead over Trump: 48.1 percent to 45.8 percent.
Biden’s support has fallen 3.8 percent since IBD/TIPP’s President Election Tracking Poll launched on Oct. 12.
Meanwhile, Trump’s backing has risen 2.4 percent.
Biden’s lead over Trump peaked at 8.6 percent on October 13, so the president has closed the gap by nearly 75 percent.
Notably, Biden’s advantage among independent voters has narrowed to 45 percent to Trump’s 41 percent.
“Biden’s lead had ranged from 6 points into the double digits” with these voters, Investor’s Business Daily reported.
The IBD/TIPP election poll survey included 1,197 registered and 1,046 likely voters, taken from Oct. 15 through Oct. 19.
The margin of error is +/- 3.2 percentage points among likely voters.
In 2016, Trump carried independent voters 43 to 42 percent, according to Pew Research Center.
So the president likely needs to narrow his deficit more with independents and/or make up the difference among other voting demographics.
An IBD/TIPP poll released days before the 2016 election showed Hillary Clinton with a 1 percent lead overall nationwide versus Trump.
Clinton ultimately took the popular vote by 2.1 percent.
Nearly every major poll released the week before the election gave Clinton anywhere from a 3 percent to 6 percent lead over Trump, according to RealClearPolitics.
Fox News host Jesse Watters made a compelling case over the weekend on his program “Watters World” for why the race is tightening between Trump and Biden, saying a “very similar series of events occurred in October 2016.”
Fox News’ @JesseBWatters: “The tide is turning — this was the week that changed the race. President Trump is on course for re-election if he can maintain this momentum.”
pic.twitter.com/y65v3PNgim— TV News HQ (@TVNewsHQ) October 18, 2020
One likeness he pointed to were emails found on a laptop showing that Trump’s Democratic opponent apparently had been lying to the American public.
In 2016, it was Clinton emails found on former Rep. Anthony Weiner’s laptop, with classified information the former secretary of state sent to her aide Huma Abedin, Weiner’s then-wife.
Contrary to State Department policy, Clinton used a private email account with her emails stored in an unsecured home server during her tenure as secretary of state.
She repeatedly denied sending classified information using the account before the FBI determined she had.
Similarly, Biden has repeatedly stated he was not aware of his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings with the Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma Holdings, but emails found on what is believed to Hunter’s laptop indicate that he did.
At the end of last week, both Twitter and Facebook sought to censor a New York Post story about emails retrieved from the laptop, supporting Trump’s claim that big tech is trying to hide Biden family misdeeds and to aid Joe Biden’s candidacy.
The move by Twitter and Facebook resulted in the story blowing up all the more online.
At a rally in Florida on Friday, Trump said the Bidens make “crooked Hillary Clinton look like amateur hour.”
Also akin to 2016, Trump has conducted rally after rally in battleground states making his case, while Clinton maintained a much lighter schedule, skipping states like Wisconsin in the homestretch altogether.
“Four years later, here we are again. A confluence of events is redirecting the campaign in Trump’s favor and he’s taking advantage of it,” Watters argued.
Some events the Fox News personality listed are Trump’s recovery from COVID-19, Vice President Mike Pence’s crushing defeat of Sen. Kamala Harris in their debate match-up, would-be debate presidential moderator Steve Scully’s suspension from C-Span after lying about his pro-Biden views, and Trump’s strong showing in the NBC town hall.
Watters also highlighted Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s impressive performance during her confirmation hearings.
At the same time, Biden told a reporter Americans do not deserve to know whether he would pack the Supreme Court, if elected.
The candidate is now signaling he is willing to let voters know where he stands on the issue, based on how the Barrett confirmation vote goes.
Momentum truly does seem to be shifting in Trump’s favor.
Here’s hoping 2016 will repeat itself and the president will get four more years to “Make America Great Again.”
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