The above chart is from an interesting analysis from Nate Silver’s 538 site on the so-called enthusiasm gap between supporters for the President and his Democratic opponent. This is based on polling that those planning to vote for Trump on November 2nd are twice as likely to say they are enthusiastic about their choice than Biden backers.

Inevitably with Trump polling an average nine points behind Biden the President himself and his campaign are looking at plus points from the mass of data that is coming out – and here they are citing the enthusiasm gap.

Only problem with that analysis is that an enthusiast’s vote for a candidate counts exactly the same as the least enthusiastic backer of their opponent provided he/she actually turns out to vote. In the case of Biden voters it is getting Trump out that is a much bigger driver than just support for the 77 year old himself.

So the chart above uses another measure – how voters respond to favourability questions when generally there are two negative options unfavourable and very unfavourable. It is that latter metric that could be important.

The big issue of this whole campaign for the incumbent is that so many voters simply want him out and they outnumber by some margin those of his supporters who are very unfavourable about Biden.

A problem for Trump is that the more he brings in measures to appeal to his base these wind up even more those who want him gone.

We have only to go back to the midterm elections in November 2018 to see how the desire to oppose Trump is a huge driver of votes. We saw record turnout numbers in many of the elections on that day when the Democrats took the house back by some margin.

In the betting punters continue to rate Biden as a 65%+ chance.

Mike Smithson