He gives several reasons for thinking that the November election is shaping up to be a Trump victory and begins his column with this:
Democrats behind the scenes are scared and getting more desperate by the day because there are so many signs of a coming Donald Trump victory. The signs are everywhere.Whether he's right or not about Democrats being scared and desperate I have no idea, but he does provide us with some interesting facts. Here are some of the signs Root thinks point to a Trump victory:
1. Polls show an overwhelming majority of Americans oppose calls to defund police, including 80 percent of black voters. This does not augur well for Joe Biden and the Democrats who have the defund anchor hanging around their necks.
2. Polls also show that 83 percent of Americans support the decision by President Trump and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson to end former President Obama's program designed to fill the suburbs with high-density, low-income housing, bringing crime and drugs to the neighborhoods of suburban families. This a good sign for Republicans.
Root asks:
Do you think these millions of suburban American homeowners who don't want to see their home value destroyed or their neighborhood turned into war zones like Chicago, Detroit or Baltimore are going to vote enthusiastically for Joe Biden when Biden's presidential platform actually puts in writing his goal to supercharge Obama's "destroy the suburbs" program?3. People are fleeing Democrat-controlled cities to escape the crime and dysfunction of those cities. According to Rasmussen, 72 percent of likely voters are concerned about the growing violent protests nationwide. Sixty-two percent say it will affect their vote.
Trump wants to protect your neighborhood. I wonder who suburban moms and dads will vote for.
This is another bad omen for Democrats who have expressed overt support for some of the radical movements responsible for the riots and who minimize or ignore the violence in our streets. The people fleeing deep-blue Democratic cities for the safety of red Republican suburbs, Root argues, aren't doing it just so they can vote for Biden and the Democrats.
4. Gun and body armor sales are up by over 80% in NYC compared to the same period in 2019, and in many cities gun stores are backlogged with orders. Those people seeking to protect themselves are unlikely to be voting for the party which refuses to condemn the riots, is in many cases coddling the rioters, and whose presidential and vice presidential candidates want to restrict their right to own the firearms they're buying.
5. Root claims that there was a 21 point shift among non-whites away from Biden when he picked Kamala Harris as his running mate. He doesn't cite where he got that statistic, nor have I seen it anywhere else, but if it's even half-true it would be a disaster for Biden and the Democrats.
6. Surprisingly, after the orgy of Trump-bashing at the Democratic convention, the president's approval rating, according to one poll (Rasmussen), actually went up from 47% to 51%.
Anyway, I'm not sure that Root's not being a bit pollyannish in this piece. It could be that all that he says is indeed happening, but it still may not be enough to produce a Trump win. Even so, Democrats would be wise not to be overconfident.
He closes his column with this reminder:
Remember when then-President Jimmy Carter led Republican nominee Ronald Reagan by 10 points during the summer of 1980? Reagan won in a historic landslide.It's not beyond imagining that we could witness a similar reversal this November.
Remember when Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was up by 17 points over Republican nominee George H.W. Bush after the Democratic convention? Bush won the electoral vote 426 to 111.