Biden and the Democrats are sleepwalking into a potential Trump win

Barring an act from a God, who has seemingly forsaken the American electorate, Donald Trump and Joe Biden will, again, be the Republican and Democratic candidates for president. Tuesday’s results all but assure that, and they can’t really have been a surprise to anyone who has paid close attention to the campaign thus far.

In fairness, most Americans still haven’t tuned in, nor many Democrats, who have spent much of the last year hoping against hope that one or more verdicts against Trump in the courts might hand them the election ⁠– and perhaps even put Trump behind bars before November. That was always a risky bet, but now the supreme court has put the trial over his attempted coup in 2020 on hold, while the other cases against him have uncertain timelines.

Meanwhile, Biden’s team and Democratic officials have been telling the press that Biden’s replacement on the ticket isn’t any likelier. The race, they insist, is already on.

Who’s ahead? All but a handful of high-quality national polls taken since January say it’s Trump. A New York Times poll fairly representative of the rest that drew a significant amount of media attention over the weekend put Trump ahead by five points, 48-43%, among registered voters. That’s the largest lead Trump has held in a Times poll since he launched his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Meanwhile, Biden, more unpopular than ever, sits at an approval rating of 38%. Ten per cent of those who voted for him in 2020 now say they will vote for Trump. And the demographic picture the poll paints is dire ⁠– not only for Biden but perhaps for the Democratic party as a whole.

Biden led strongly with women in 2020 and is now evidently tied with Trump among them; Biden won an estimated 72% of minorities