fivethirtyeight--2020-03-27--What Should The Government Spend To Save A Life?

The staggering economic toll of the new coronavirus is becoming abundantly , unavoidably clear .
On Thursday , a Department of Labor report showed that a record-shattering 3.3 million people applied for initial unemployment claims last week .
And with entire industries shuttered for the foreseeable future , economic output will almost certainly shrink dramatically .
As economic forecasts grow darker , talk of tradeoffs is getting louder : Is protecting Americans from COVID-19 really worth all this disruption and economic pain ?
On March 22 , before President Trump floated the idea of reopening the economy by Easter , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health experts , he tweeted , “ WE CAN NOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.
” Other politicians , meanwhile , rejected the idea that economic costs should be a factor at all .
New York Gov .
Andrew Cuomo dismissed Trump ’ s push to get the economy moving again , saying , “ No American is going to say , ‘ accelerate the economy at the cost of human life.
’ Because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.
” Cuomo ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of political rhetoric , but it ’ s not really true .
Economists might not be able to say how much an individual person ’ s existence is worth , but they have figured out a way to calculate how much the average person is willing to pay to reduce the risk of death — which allows them to put a price tag on the collective value of saving one life .
That figure , which currently hovers somewhere around $ 9 or $ 10 million , is known as the “ value @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s the basis for all kinds of high-stakes decisions that involve tradeoffs between public safety and economic cost — from food and automobile regulations to our responses to climate change .
As cold-blooded as it might seem , several economists told me that , at least in theory , a pandemic is exactly the kind of situation this metric is designed to help with .
“ Essentially , we ’ re trying to figure out what our society is willing to pay to reduce the risk of mortality , ” said W. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ University and one of the leading experts on these calculations .
“ In that sense , a pandemic isn ’ t so different from a terrorist attack or a pollutant that ’ s threatening to kill large numbers of people — it ’ s just happening very quickly and on a very large scale.
” The idea that a life could have a monetary value isn ’ t necessarily easy to swallow from an ethical perspective .
Economists and government regulators have to balance the risk of death against all kinds of other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the VSL was developed several decades ago because economists didn ’ t like the idea of assigning that value through other , more intuitive means , like our contributions to the economy as workers .
“ It ’ s fairly simple to value someone ’ s life based on how much money they make , ” said Spencer Banzhaf , an economist at Georgia State University who has written about the history of the VSL .
“ But in addition to being baldly crude , that ’ s just not reflective of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We don ’ t think a retired person is worth nothing.
” The VSL , instead of trying to sum up the value of a life , approaches the question from the other direction — how much are we willing to spend to reduce the odds of dying ?
Economists draw the numbers from multiple sources , including surveys and assumptions about our own choices , like how much additional money people earn for especially dangerous jobs , or how much a premium they ’ ll pay for a safer car .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the same basic range — the EPA ’ s valuation falls around $ 9.4 million , while Viscusi ’ s latest calculation is $ 10 million .
To put it another way , Viscusi ’ s estimate means that if a group of 10,000 people is facing a 1-in-10,000 risk of death , they ’ re willing to pay $ 1,000 per person to reduce the odds that any given member of the community will die .
These numbers show why spending trillions of dollars to combat a threat like the coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ despite the high cost .
“ Let ’ s say one of our worst-case scenarios comes to pass , and 2 million people die , ” said James Hammitt , an economist at Harvard ’ s T.H .
Chan School of Public Health and the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis .
“ Multiply that by $ 9 million or $ 10 million and we ’ re talking about up to $ 20 trillion as the value of preventing those deaths .
That suggests it ’ s worth expending a fair @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” But back-of-the-envelope calculations can obscure some of the knottier questions that plague economists who have studied this issue for decades .
The VSL varies by country , because the wealth of the average person in a rich country like the United States is much higher than that of a person in a poorer country like India , which means Americans can “ pay ” more to avoid risk .
That outcome is liable to make most people uncomfortable , and weighing the value of other types of lives — for example , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tricky , too .
For example , even though the coronavirus appears to result in a much higher mortality rate for older people — prompting some politicians to propose that they should consider sacrificing themselves to save the economy — trying to put a lower price tag on their lives hasn ’ t worked well in the past .
Joseph Aldy , a public policy professor at Harvard ’ s Kennedy School of Government , said that under President George W. Bush , the EPA tried to put a lower value on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the benefits of air quality regulations .
In their analysis , the life of a person over the age of 70 was worth 37 percent less than the life of a younger person .
“ It was a political disaster , ” Aldy said .
The policy was christened the “ senior death discount ” and in response , AARP ran ads featuring a picture of an elderly woman with a “ 37 percent OFF !
” tag hanging from her glasses .
The EPA backed off and never implemented the proposed changes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ spotlight , though , that experience hasn ’ t stopped economists from exploring whether age-based valuations are right in some circumstances .
There ’ s evidence , Aldy said , that people ’ s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of mortality starts to decrease after age 50 .
But those kinds of calculations , he added , are sometimes disconnected from the moral valuations we make collectively .
“ We spend the vast majority of our health care dollars on people over the age of 65 , and yet one might @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for that population is lower , ” Aldy said .
“ It ’ s a kind of social compact — we recognize your contributions to our society and will provide the resources to keep you healthy as you age .
So how far can this economic analysis really go when we ’ ve made that decision as a society ?
” And even accounting for age might not provide a compelling argument against the measures currently being taken in response to the pandemic .
Two economists used age-adjusted VSL in a recent analysis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — and they still found that the public health response to coronavirus had “ substantial economic benefits.
” The sheer uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis is another problem — both in terms of the potential death toll and economic impact .
Estimates of how many people might die in the U.S. are all over the place — some as low as 200,000 , others as high as 2 million .
And Banzhaf said that just as age-based calculations have their limitations , the scope of the economic costs has to go beyond earnings @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long this shutdown goes on , we ’ re talking about a huge hit to the common good and our way of life , ” he said .
“ If symphonies , hotels , art galleries , restaurants close and can ’ t come back — that ’ s a loss that goes way beyond earnings dollars .
I don ’ t know how you begin to quantify it.
” If anything , though , the uncertainty and fear of the coronavirus pandemic could drive the value of statistical life even higher .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ that because people are more afraid of flying on airplanes than driving in cars , they are willing to shell out for airplane safety measures .
“ We see the same thing with terrorism risk , ” Hammitt said .
“ When a kind of death is more dreaded or ambiguous , people are willing to pay more to avoid dying that way.
” But Aldy told me that cost-benefit analyses would have been most helpful at earlier stages of the crisis , when the government had the opportunity to invest in testing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he told me , he wasn ’ t sure why a cost-benefit analysis was needed to drive home the cost of a huge loss of life — particularly since he , like many other economists and public health experts , thinks that containing the virus is the best way to ensure the economy rebounds quickly .
“ Let ’ s say we ’ re talking about 1 million deaths or 2 million deaths , ” he said .
“ When you think about the economic damage and the damage to families and communities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t think you need an egghead like me to try to put a price on that .
It ’ s catastrophic.
” CORRECTION ( March 27 , 2020 , 12:35 p.m. ) : An earlier version of this article misstated the odds required for 10,000 people being willing to pay $ 1,000 per person to reduce the odds that any given member of the community will die .
It is 1-in-10,000 odds of dying , not 1-in-1,000 .

The staggering economic toll of the new coronavirus is becoming abundantly, unavoidably clear. On Thursday, a Department of Labor report showed that a record-shattering 3.3 million people applied for initial unemployment claims last week. And with entire industries shuttered for the foreseeable future, economic output will almost certainly shrink dramatically.
As economic forecasts grow darker, talk of tradeoffs is getting louder: Is protecting Americans from COVID-19 really worth all this disruption and economic pain?
On March 22, before President Trump floated the idea of reopening the economy by Easter, against the recommendations of his own public health experts, he tweeted, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” Other politicians, meanwhile, rejected the idea that economic costs should be a factor at all. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed Trump’s push to get the economy moving again, saying, “No American is going to say, ‘accelerate the economy at the cost of human life.’ Because no American is going to say how much a life is worth.”
Cuomo’s sentiment might be a nice bit of political rhetoric, but it’s not really true. Economists might not be able to say how much an individual person’s existence is worth, but they have figured out a way to calculate how much the average person is willing to pay to reduce the risk of death — which allows them to put a price tag on the collective value of saving one life. That figure, which currently hovers somewhere around $9 or $10 million, is known as the “value of statistical life,” and it’s the basis for all kinds of high-stakes decisions that involve tradeoffs between public safety and economic cost — from food and automobile regulations to our responses to climate change.
As cold-blooded as it might seem, several economists told me that, at least in theory, a pandemic is exactly the kind of situation this metric is designed to help with. “Essentially, we’re trying to figure out what our society is willing to pay to reduce the risk of mortality,” said W. Kip Viscusi, an economist at Vanderbilt University and one of the leading experts on these calculations. “In that sense, a pandemic isn’t so different from a terrorist attack or a pollutant that’s threatening to kill large numbers of people — it’s just happening very quickly and on a very large scale.”
The idea that a life could have a monetary value isn’t necessarily easy to swallow from an ethical perspective. Economists and government regulators have to balance the risk of death against all kinds of other factors, though, and the concept of the VSL was developed several decades ago because economists didn’t like the idea of assigning that value through other, more intuitive means, like our contributions to the economy as workers. “It’s fairly simple to value someone’s life based on how much money they make,” said Spencer Banzhaf, an economist at Georgia State University who has written about the history of the VSL. “But in addition to being baldly crude, that’s just not reflective of the way we think about people. We don’t think a retired person is worth nothing.”
The VSL, instead of trying to sum up the value of a life, approaches the question from the other direction — how much are we willing to spend to reduce the odds of dying?
Economists draw the numbers from multiple sources, including surveys and assumptions about our own choices, like how much additional money people earn for especially dangerous jobs, or how much a premium they’ll pay for a safer car. The estimates do vary, but they fall in the same basic range — the EPA’s valuation falls around $9.4 million, while Viscusi’s latest calculation is $10 million. To put it another way, Viscusi’s estimate means that if a group of 10,000 people is facing a 1-in-10,000 risk of death, they’re willing to pay $1,000 per person to reduce the odds that any given member of the community will die.
These numbers show why spending trillions of dollars to combat a threat like the coronavirus pandemic can be a good investment, despite the high cost. “Let’s say one of our worst-case scenarios comes to pass, and 2 million people die,” said James Hammitt, an economist at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the director of the Harvard Center for Risk Analysis. “Multiply that by $9 million or $10 million and we’re talking about up to $20 trillion as the value of preventing those deaths. That suggests it’s worth expending a fair amount of our resources to mitigate this.”
But back-of-the-envelope calculations can obscure some of the knottier questions that plague economists who have studied this issue for decades. The VSL varies by country, because the wealth of the average person in a rich country like the United States is much higher than that of a person in a poorer country like India, which means Americans can “pay” more to avoid risk. That outcome is liable to make most people uncomfortable, and weighing the value of other types of lives — for example, the young versus the old — is tricky, too.
For example, even though the coronavirus appears to result in a much higher mortality rate for older people — prompting some politicians to propose that they should consider sacrificing themselves to save the economy — trying to put a lower price tag on their lives hasn’t worked well in the past. Joseph Aldy, a public policy professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, said that under President George W. Bush, the EPA tried to put a lower value on the life of an older person in calculating the benefits of air quality regulations. In their analysis, the life of a person over the age of 70 was worth 37 percent less than the life of a younger person.
“It was a political disaster,” Aldy said. The policy was christened the “senior death discount” and in response, AARP ran ads featuring a picture of an elderly woman with a “37 percent OFF!” tag hanging from her glasses. The EPA backed off and never implemented the proposed changes.
Outside the glare of the political spotlight, though, that experience hasn’t stopped economists from exploring whether age-based valuations are right in some circumstances. There’s evidence, Aldy said, that people’s willingness to pay to reduce the risk of mortality starts to decrease after age 50. But those kinds of calculations, he added, are sometimes disconnected from the moral valuations we make collectively. “We spend the vast majority of our health care dollars on people over the age of 65, and yet one might say the age-adjusted value of statistical life for that population is lower,” Aldy said. “It’s a kind of social compact — we recognize your contributions to our society and will provide the resources to keep you healthy as you age. So how far can this economic analysis really go when we’ve made that decision as a society?”
And even accounting for age might not provide a compelling argument against the measures currently being taken in response to the pandemic. Two economists used age-adjusted VSL in a recent analysis of the economic cost of social distancing — and they still found that the public health response to coronavirus had “substantial economic benefits.”
The sheer uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis is another problem — both in terms of the potential death toll and economic impact. Estimates of how many people might die in the U.S. are all over the place — some as low as 200,000, others as high as 2 million. And Banzhaf said that just as age-based calculations have their limitations, the scope of the economic costs has to go beyond earnings or GDP. “Depending on how long this shutdown goes on, we’re talking about a huge hit to the common good and our way of life,” he said. “If symphonies, hotels, art galleries, restaurants close and can’t come back — that’s a loss that goes way beyond earnings dollars. I don’t know how you begin to quantify it.”
If anything, though, the uncertainty and fear of the coronavirus pandemic could drive the value of statistical life even higher. Studies have shown, Hammitt said, that because people are more afraid of flying on airplanes than driving in cars, they are willing to shell out for airplane safety measures. “We see the same thing with terrorism risk,” Hammitt said. “When a kind of death is more dreaded or ambiguous, people are willing to pay more to avoid dying that way.”
But Aldy told me that cost-benefit analyses would have been most helpful at earlier stages of the crisis, when the government had the opportunity to invest in testing and surveillance. At this point, he told me, he wasn’t sure why a cost-benefit analysis was needed to drive home the cost of a huge loss of life — particularly since he, like many other economists and public health experts, thinks that containing the virus is the best way to ensure the economy rebounds quickly.
“Let’s say we’re talking about 1 million deaths or 2 million deaths,” he said. “When you think about the economic damage and the damage to families and communities all over the country, I don’t think you need an egghead like me to try to put a price on that. It’s catastrophic.”
CORRECTION (March 27, 2020, 12:35 p.m.): An earlier version of this article misstated the odds required for 10,000 people being willing to pay $1,000 per person to reduce the odds that any given member of the community will die. It is 1-in-10,000 odds of dying, not 1-in-1,000.


fivethirtyeight--2020-03-27--Americans Are Worried About The Coronavirus. They’re Even More Worried About The Economy.

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
Earlier this week , President Trump said he is considering taking steps to roll back restrictions that businesses and state governments have put in place to contain the coronavirus .
Citing the economic impact of measures like social distancing , Trump floated Easter Sunday as the date he ’ d like the nation back at work .
Already , 9 percent of Americans say they ’ ve been laid off from work due to the coronavirus and another 20 percent say a family member has been laid off in a recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million unemployment insurance claims were filed last week .
Many economists now fear a full-fledged recession .
But at the same time , public health officials caution that social distancing is crucial to stopping the spread of the coronavirus , and if we move too quickly to relax restrictions , the economic consequences could be even more devastating .
An overwhelming majority of Americans are really concerned about the economy .
Last week , Nathaniel Rakich found signs that concern was growing — in one poll , as many as 84 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impact the coronavirus would have on the economy .
And concern has continued to grow .
A Morning Consult poll conducted between March 20 and March 22 found that 90 percent of Americans said they were “ very ” or “ somewhat ” concerned that the coronavirus would impact the economy , marking a 6-point increase from the week before .
Americans are also worried about job security — 49 percent said they were worried about losing their job , according to an Economist/YouGov survey conducted between March 22 and March 24 .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence of a partisan split in concern over the economy , as most polls show similar shares of Republicans and Democrats are concerned .
In fact , that March 20-22 Morning Consult poll found that 90 percent of Republicans were concerned about the economy compared to 93 percent of Democrats .
This is different from the partisan split we found earlier in March between the share of Democrats and Republicans who said they were worried that they or someone they know will contract COVID-19 .
However , as you can see in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Democrats has narrowed as more Americans report that they are concerned .
For instance , a March 22-24 Economist/YouGov poll found that 64 percent of Americans said they were “ very ” or “ somewhat ” worried about personally experiencing the coronavirus .
This marked an 8-point jump from the March 15-17 Economist/YouGov survey .
The share of Republicans who said they are concerned rose 11 points , from 45 percent to 56 percent .
The share of Democrats who said they are concerned increased 3 points , from 71 percent to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this week found that more than three-fifths of Americans were either very or somewhat concerned that they or someone close to them would get or be exposed to the disease : Tally/Harris Poll ( 76 percent ) , SurveyMonkey/Fortune ( 76 percent ) , CBS/YouGov ( 71 percent ) and Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator ( 79 percent ) .
The fact that more Americans are worried about the effect of the coronavirus on the economy than about their own health may put pressure on politicians to kickstart the economy , making it harder for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measures like social distancing .
But Dr. Howard Koh , a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health , warned that the response to the coronavirus is complicated by the level of uncertainty that still exists around the virus ’ spread .
“ We are hampered because the data we are using to track this pandemic right now is still incomplete .
It ’ s better than it was several weeks ago , but we ’ re still not in a place where everyone agrees , ” said Koh @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up testing , only starting at the beginning of March , which means we don ’ t yet have complete information on who is infected or the rate at which the virus is spreading .
According to a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers across the U.S. , many experts agree the situation has worsened in the last few days , but there is still a wide range in the projected number of expected cases and deaths .
Koh said that we have to reach the point where we better understand the spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people back into the workforce .
Otherwise , we risk overwhelming hospitals and the health care workforce capacity , perhaps leading to even more economic hardship .
• 57 percent of Americans estimate they have lost at least some money as a result of the coronavirus , whether that ’ s from stock market losses , lost wages , money spent on nonrefundable travel or events , or something else , according to a YouGov poll conducted March 25 .
A plurality of people who lost money said they lost more than $ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fell into this group .
However , 28 percent reported that they hadn ’ t lost any money .
• According to a March 21-24 Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator poll , nearly three-quarters of Americans think the worst is yet to come when it comes to the coronavirus .
• In a recent Business Insider/SurveyMonkey survey , respondents were asked when they thought the coronavirus situation would be over ( i.e.
, when schools , restaurants and businesses would be reopened ) .
Overall , 72 percent said sometime between April 1 and July @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on June 2 , 67 days from now .
The median response among Democrats was 91 days from the time the poll was taken ( June 24 ) , while Republicans were a bit more optimistic , with a median response of 62 days ( May 26 ) .
• Last week , it was reported that Sens .
Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler sold stocks worth millions of dollars after receiving information about the coronavirus epidemic .
In an Economist/YouGov poll conducted between March 22 and March 24 , 69 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans , said senators who sold stocks after receiving briefings on the coronavirus should resign .
• In the most recent Democratic presidential primary debate , former Vice President Joe Biden said he ’ d choose a female running mate if he won the Democratic nomination .
In that same Economist/YouGov survey , 80 percent of Democratic primary voters said they approve of Biden ’ s decision .
The pollster also asked those voters who they think should be selected as Biden ’ s running mate : 27 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent said Sen. Kamala Harris , 13 percent said Sen. Bernie Sanders and 10 percent said Sen. Amy Klobuchar .
According to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential approval tracker , 45.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 50.5 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -5.2 points ) .
At this time last week , 43.3 percent approved and 52.6 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -9.3 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 43.2 percent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for a net approval rating of -9 points .
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot , Democrats currently lead by 7.5 percentage points ( 48.7 percent to 41.2 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 7.4 points ( 48.8 percent to 41.4 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points ( 47.8 percent to 41.3 percent ) .
Check out all the polls we ’ ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections .

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the Week
Earlier this week, President Trump said he is considering taking steps to roll back restrictions that businesses and state governments have put in place to contain the coronavirus. Citing the economic impact of measures like social distancing, Trump floated Easter Sunday as the date he’d like the nation back at work.
Already, 9 percent of Americans say they’ve been laid off from work due to the coronavirus and another 20 percent say a family member has been laid off in a recent Economist/YouGov poll. And a record-breaking 3.3 million unemployment insurance claims were filed last week. Many economists now fear a full-fledged recession. But at the same time, public health officials caution that social distancing is crucial to stopping the spread of the coronavirus, and if we move too quickly to relax restrictions, the economic consequences could be even more devastating.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: COVID-19 broke the jobless claims chart
An overwhelming majority of Americans are really concerned about the economy. Last week, Nathaniel Rakich found signs that concern was growing — in one poll, as many as 84 percent of Americans said they were concerned about the impact the coronavirus would have on the economy. And concern has continued to grow. A Morning Consult poll conducted between March 20 and March 22 found that 90 percent of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” concerned that the coronavirus would impact the economy, marking a 6-point increase from the week before. Americans are also worried about job security — 49 percent said they were worried about losing their job, according to an Economist/YouGov survey conducted between March 22 and March 24.
There doesn’t seem to be evidence of a partisan split in concern over the economy, as most polls show similar shares of Republicans and Democrats are concerned. In fact, that March 20-22 Morning Consult poll found that 90 percent of Republicans were concerned about the economy compared to 93 percent of Democrats.
This is different from the partisan split we found earlier in March between the share of Democrats and Republicans who said they were worried that they or someone they know will contract COVID-19. However, as you can see in the chart below, the gap between Republicans and Democrats has narrowed as more Americans report that they are concerned.
For instance, a March 22-24 Economist/YouGov poll found that 64 percent of Americans said they were “very” or “somewhat” worried about personally experiencing the coronavirus. This marked an 8-point jump from the March 15-17 Economist/YouGov survey. The share of Republicans who said they are concerned rose 11 points, from 45 percent to 56 percent. The share of Democrats who said they are concerned increased 3 points, from 71 percent to 74 percent.
Four other polls released this week found that more than three-fifths of Americans were either very or somewhat concerned that they or someone close to them would get or be exposed to the disease: Harris Poll (76 percent), SurveyMonkey/Fortune (76 percent), CBS/YouGov (71 percent) and Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator (79 percent).
The fact that more Americans are worried about the effect of the coronavirus on the economy than about their own health may put pressure on politicians to kickstart the economy, making it harder for public health officials to push for preventive measures like social distancing.
But Dr. Howard Koh, a professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, warned that the response to the coronavirus is complicated by the level of uncertainty that still exists around the virus’ spread.
“We are hampered because the data we are using to track this pandemic right now is still incomplete. It’s better than it was several weeks ago, but we’re still not in a place where everyone agrees,” said Koh.
The U.S. was late to ramp up testing, only starting at the beginning of March, which means we don’t yet have complete information on who is infected or the rate at which the virus is spreading. According to a weekly survey of infectious disease researchers across the U.S., many experts agree the situation has worsened in the last few days, but there is still a wide range in the projected number of expected cases and deaths.
Koh said that we have to reach the point where we better understand the spread of the coronavirus before we can send people back into the workforce. Otherwise, we risk overwhelming hospitals and the health care workforce capacity, perhaps leading to even more economic hardship.
Other polling bites
57 percent of Americans estimate they have lost at least some money as a result of the coronavirus, whether that’s from stock market losses, lost wages, money spent on nonrefundable travel or events, or something else, according to a YouGov poll conducted March 25. A plurality of people who lost money said they lost more than $1,500 — 27 percent of all respondents fell into this group. However, 28 percent reported that they hadn’t lost any money.
According to a March 21-24 Global Strategy Group/GBAO/Navigator poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans think the worst is yet to come when it comes to the coronavirus.
In a recent Business Insider/SurveyMonkey survey, respondents were asked when they thought the coronavirus situation would be over (i.e., when schools, restaurants and businesses would be reopened). Overall, 72 percent said sometime between April 1 and July 1, with the median response falling on June 2, 67 days from now. The median response among Democrats was 91 days from the time the poll was taken (June 24), while Republicans were a bit more optimistic, with a median response of 62 days (May 26).
Last week, it was reported that Sens. Richard Burr and Kelly Loeffler sold stocks worth millions of dollars after receiving information about the coronavirus epidemic. In an Economist/YouGov poll conducted between March 22 and March 24, 69 percent of registered voters, including 68 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of Republicans, said senators who sold stocks after receiving briefings on the coronavirus should resign.
In the most recent Democratic presidential primary debate, former Vice President Joe Biden said he’d choose a female running mate if he won the Democratic nomination. In that same Economist/YouGov survey, 80 percent of Democratic primary voters said they approve of Biden’s decision. The pollster also asked those voters who they think should be selected as Biden’s running mate: 27 percent said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 18 percent said Sen. Kamala Harris, 13 percent said Sen. Bernie Sanders and 10 percent said Sen. Amy Klobuchar.
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 45.3 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 50.5 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -5.2 points). At this time last week, 43.3 percent approved and 52.6 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -9.3 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 43.2 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.2 percent, for a net approval rating of -9 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7.5 percentage points (48.7 percent to 41.2 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 7.4 points (48.8 percent to 41.4 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points (47.8 percent to 41.3 percent).
Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.


fivethirtyeight--2020-03-26--Politics Podcast: COVID-19 Has Started A New Economic Era

A stunning 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment last week , almost 5 times as many as the 695,000 who @ @ @ @ @ old record-high week .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , Ben Casselman @ @ @ @ @ The New York Times , joins Galen Druke and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux to put those numbers @ @ @ @ @ the future looks like and talk about how the government is responding .
You can @ @ @ @ @ clicking the “ play ” button in the audio player above or by downloading it @ @ @ @ @ App or your favorite podcast platform .
If you are new to podcasts , learn @ @ @ @ @ FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays .
Help new listeners discover the show by @ @ @ @ @ review on iTunes .
Have a comment , question or suggestion for “ good polling @ @ @ @ @ Get in touch by email , on Twitter or in the comments .

A stunning 3.3 million Americans filed for unemployment last week, almost 5 times as many as the 695,000 who filed initial claims in the old record-high week. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Ben Casselman, an economics reporter at The New York Times, joins Galen Druke and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux to put those numbers in context, discuss what the future looks like and talk about how the government is responding.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: COVID-19 broke the jobless claims chart
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-03-30--Politics Podcast: Why Trump’s Approval Rating Has Increased

In recent days , President Trump ’ s approval rating has hit its highest point since the early days of @ @ @ @ @ Politics Podcast team discusses why and suggests it may not be a good longterm indicator @ @ @ @ @ also discuss where exactly we are in the arc of the COVID-19 crisis and explain @ @ @ @ @ Defense Production Act .
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “ play @ @ @ @ @ player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite @ @ @ @ @ are new to podcasts , learn how to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes @ @ @ @ @ new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes .
@ @ @ @ @ or suggestion for “ good polling vs. bad polling ” ?
Get in touch by @ @ @ @ @ in the comments .

In recent days, President Trump’s approval rating has hit its highest point since the early days of his presidency. The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast team discusses why and suggests it may not be a good long-term indicator for the president. They also discuss where exactly we are in the arc of the COVID-19 crisis and explain the political debate surrounding the Defense Production Act.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Why Trump’s Approval Rating Has Increased
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast publishes Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-03-31--Will Biden Choose A Running Mate Based On Electability, Ideology Or Identity?

There will likely be months of debate over who presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden should pick as his running mate — and what criteria he should use in making that decision .
We already know one such criterion : Biden has pledged to choose a woman .
But what else is he looking for in a vice presidential nominee ?
One view of the vice presidential selection process , often expressed by people who themselves work for campaigns , is that the presidential nominee is making a personal choice , opting for someone whom he or she connects with and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ governing .
Another view , according to research we ( Adler and Azari ) have done , is that the vice presidential choice often reflects broader dynamics in the party .
In this view the nominee often chooses a running mate who connects with some broader goal of the party or who helps appeal to some faction or ideological bloc in the party that is not well represented by the candidate at the top of the ticket .
It ’ s really hard for us to establish whether Biden enjoys chatting more with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so we ’ re going to take a party-centered approach to this question .
We can look at the Democratic Party and some of its goals and use those as a rubric to evaluate some of Biden ’ s potential running mates .
We have focused here on women who are either governors or senators — the traditional resumes of a vice presidential pick — but have also included a few noteworthy figures who don ’ t hold statewide office .
Goal 1 : Help with electability , real or imagined Beating @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Party ’ s main goal at the moment .
So which potential running mates would make the Democratic ticket more electable ?
Let ’ s talk about actual , factual electability first — that is , helping Biden defeat Trump by bringing voters to his coalition who wouldn ’ t otherwise be there .
The electoral effects of vice presidential choices are somewhat complicated to study because the sample size is so small — we ’ ve had only 18 presidential elections since the end of World War II .
The broad consensus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of running mates is not clear and obvious — and probably somewhat modest .
In other words , we should not assume that choosing Harris or former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams would boost Biden with black voters , that Baldwin , Klobuchar or Whitmer would attract voters in the Midwest , or that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto would help in Nevada .
Nor should we assume that any of these female politicians would particularly connect with female voters .
For example , in their upcoming book , “ Do Running Mates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ J. Devine and Kyle C. Kopko downplay a lot of the electoral effects of running mates , based on their research .
They argue that there is little evidence that picking a person from a particular region helps in that region or that choosing a person from a demographic group helps with voters in that demographic .
They also reject the idea that running mates boost the tickets in their home states , a conclusion other scholars and experts have reached as well .
Other academics are slightly more bullish on running mates @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vice presidential picks have boosted the ticket by 2-3 percentage points in their home states according to political scientists Boris Heersink and Brenton D. Peterson .
Some scholars have found that Republican Catholics are less likely to vote for the GOP ticket if the Democratic running mate is Catholic and that in 2008 then-Alaska Gov .
Sarah Palin boosted turnout among fellow conservatives .
Devine and Kopko themselves argue that vice presidential choices matter because they can affect how voters see the presidential nominee in ways that sometimes have electoral effects .
According @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s selection of Palin as his running mate caused a rise in negative views of McCain because of voters ’ perception that Palin was unqualified for the position .
“ Any time you talk about a running mate winning votes , you ’ re really talking about voters choosing a suboptimal president in order to elect their preferred vice president ; otherwise , the running mate didn ’ t actually change votes but just reinforced a preexisting preference .
So , suffice it to say , we ’ re pretty skeptical that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to a significant degree , ” Devine told us in an email message .
He added , “ By choosing a woman — or , say , an African-American woman , in particular — Biden … would be sending a message to voters about who he is — specifically , that he is someone who values diversity and the role that women — or African American women , in particular — play in American society and in the Democratic Party .
That message probably would help to win him some votes .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ‘ delivering ’ large blocs of voters.
” So let ’ s say the electoral impact of vice presidential choices is complicated .
Here ’ s what ’ s not in dispute : Party elites , presidential campaign advisers and sometimes presidential nominees themselves often believe that vice presidential candidates will have an outsize electoral impact , whatever the reality is .
For example , according to his memoirs , McCain felt that Palin might attract moderate Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary .
So @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best vice presidential nominee to help Biden electorally ?
They consistently said that Warren was weak on electability when she was running for president , so this metric won ’ t help her cause .
Abrams has an electability perception problem too .
She is nothing like Palin , but Democratic elites we have talked to are wary that voters won ’ t like pairing someone who has never held an elective office higher than state representative with a 77-year-old presidential nominee .
A wide body of research suggests that presidential nominees generally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot of political experience , usually at the national level , likely to address concerns about whether the running mate is ready to be president if necessary .
Party elites tend to indicate that the Democrats ’ path to victory is winning white voters in the Midwest — as opposed to firing up more liberal voters or increasing support among people of color .
So this metric ( party elites ’ perceptions of electability ) would likely favor Baldwin , Klobuchar and Whitmer in particular .
Goal 2 : Balance the ticket demographically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois , Sen. Kamala Harris of California , New Mexico Gov .
Michelle Lujan Grisham , Abrams , Cortez Masto Hurts : Baldwin , Klobuchar , Warren , Whitmer … basically anyone who is white Close to 40 percent of registered Democratic voters identify as Asian , black , Hispanic or something other than white .
And the Democratic Party cares deeply about racial diversity .
An all-white ticket might happen , but it would get lots of blowback .
The same is likely true of an all-male @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pledge .
Already , House Majority Whip James Clyburn , whose endorsement of Biden seemed to help the former vice president win big in South Carolina , is calling for him to name a black woman as his running mate .
This kind of demographic balancing has occurred in the past two Democratic primaries .
The major contenders to be Obama ’ s running mate in 2008 were all white men , and the top contenders to be Clinton ’ s running mate in 2016 were nearly all men .
Currently , only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( Lujan Grisham ) , and only four are U.S. senators ( Hawaii ’ s Mazie Hirono , Cortez Masto , Duckworth , Harris ) .
So it ’ s likely that Cortez Masto , Duckworth , Harris and Lujan Grisham all will get a serious look from Biden and his team and that they will also consider more nontraditional choices , like Abrams and U.S. Rep Val Demings of Florida , in part to meet the party ’ s demand for a racially diverse ticket .
( Hirono will turn 73 on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would pick a running mate who ’ s nearly his age . )
The other main balancing goal that presidential nominees typically have , in addition to demographics , is ideology .
In 1988 , the Democratic nominee , Gov .
Michael Dukakis , sought to counteract his reputation as a Massachusetts liberal by choosing one of the party ’ s more moderate figures , then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas .
In 2012 , the GOP nominee , former Massachusetts Gov .
Mitt Romney , considered insufficiently conservative by some Republicans , chose @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the GOP ’ s right wing : then-Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin .
By this metric , Klobuchar would not be an ideal running mate for Biden .
She has a somewhat centrist record , as does he , and took fairly similar positions to the former vice president during the Democratic primary , such as panning the idea of Medicare for All .
Choosing her as his running mate would intensify the criticism of Biden from the party ’ s left wing , who would likely complain that he is expecting liberals @ @ @ @ @ @ @ their wishes .
Warren , of course , is firmly on the left .
Harris is pretty left , based on her voting record in the Senate .
But as California ’ s attorney general from 2011 to 2017 , Harris took some conservative stances and as a 2020 presidential candidate didn ’ t embrace Sen. Bernie Sanders ’ s Medicare for All approach or a wealth tax .
Abrams hasn ’ t taken Sanders-style stances on economic issues , but she is well known for her work on voting rights issues , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by voters and activists as being left .
Also , some political science research suggests that black candidates are often perceived to be more liberal than they actually are .
In other words , if Biden picks Abrams or Harris , he could both appease some on the left and not annoy more centrist people in the party who may not like Warren .
This is a newer factor , without a lot of historical precedent in either party .
But control of the U.S. Senate is in play in 2020 .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the seats , Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could block much of what a new Democratic president tries to do , just as the Kentucky Republican limited Obama while he was in office .
For this reason , some Democratic activists are wary of picking a sitting Democratic senator for the vice presidency if there is any possibility that person will be replaced by a Republican .
If Duckworth or Harris became vice president , the Democratic governors of their respective states would pick their replacements , who would serve until a special @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be favored to keep those Senate seats because Illinois and California lean heavily Democratic .
Minnesota ( Klobuchar ) and Nevada ( Cortez-Masto ) also have Democratic governors who would appoint a replacement through 2022 , but they are more swing-y states , so Democrats could eventually lose those seats in 2022 .
In Massachusetts ( Warren ) and Wisconsin ( Baldwin ) , there would be a special election in 2021 .
The incumbent in the Bay State would likely be a Republican since GOP governor Charlie Baker would pick the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have some potential workarounds , however . )
This dynamic is a real problem for Baldwin , though , since Republicans might be slightly favored in a special election in Wisconsin .
This is an informal list of criteria .
You could certainly include other measures — ours are not necessarily exhaustive or even the best measures .
But the history of vice presidential selections suggests that the process is not dominated by questions that perhaps should matter the most , such as : • Is this person best qualified to run the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his term in office ?
• Is this person a great manager who can help lead the executive branch of the government ?
• Is this person well versed in policy ?
• Is this person the best choice to become the next-in-line presidential candidate for the party ?
Perhaps Biden ’ s considerations will change as a result of the novel coronavirus , which means the next president could enter office with a true national crisis on his hands .
But we ’ re skeptical that the vice presidential selection will be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In any case , looking at the party-based criteria , here ’ s how things shake out for Abrams , Harris , Klobuchar and Warren , who The New York Times recently reported are senior Democratic Party officials ’ leading choices for Biden ’ s running mate .
( We ’ ve also included Duckworth , who ’ s a more obscure senator than Warren , but we wanted to note how favorably she looks compared with her in terms of these party-based metrics ) : You might be thinking , “ Harris @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” but often that doesn ’ t matter .
And as with George H.W .
Bush , Al Gore , Dick Cheney and Biden , the person who gets elected vice president is often someone who at some point flirted with a presidential run or actually ran for the top of the ticket and lost .
What this exercise suggests is that Harris fits the party ’ s goals fairly well for a running mate alongside Biden — she ’ s to the left of him ideologically , she ’ s not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lose a Senate seat if she becomes vice president , and some people in the party will assume she helps with electablity by appealing to black voters in particular .
We ’ re not predicting that Biden will pick her — he might decide that perceived electability trumps everything else and go with Klobuchar or Whitmer or another Midwestern white woman .
He might decide that Warren ’ s policy chops are particularly useful in the midst of a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic and that placating the party ’ s left wing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Biden is a party man , and Harris is a party choice .

There will likely be months of debate over who presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden should pick as his running mate — and what criteria he should use in making that decision.
We already know one such criterion: Biden has pledged to choose a woman. But what else is he looking for in a vice presidential nominee?
One view of the vice presidential selection process, often expressed by people who themselves work for campaigns, is that the presidential nominee is making a personal choice, opting for someone whom he or she connects with and feels would be a strong partner in governing. Another view, according to research we (Adler and Azari) have done, is that the vice presidential choice often reflects broader dynamics in the party. In this view the nominee often chooses a running mate who connects with some broader goal of the party or who helps appeal to some faction or ideological bloc in the party that is not well represented by the candidate at the top of the ticket.
It’s really hard for us to establish whether Biden enjoys chatting more with Sen. Kamala Harris or Sen. Amy Klobuchar, so we’re going to take a party-centered approach to this question. We can look at the Democratic Party and some of its goals and use those as a rubric to evaluate some of Biden’s potential running mates. We have focused here on women who are either governors or senators — the traditional resumes of a vice presidential pick — but have also included a few noteworthy figures who don’t hold statewide office.
Goal 1: Help with electability, real or imagined
Helps: Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer
Hurts: Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Beating President Trump is almost certainly the Democratic Party’s main goal at the moment. So which potential running mates would make the Democratic ticket more electable?
Let’s talk about actual, factual electability first — that is, helping Biden defeat Trump by bringing voters to his coalition who wouldn’t otherwise be there. The electoral effects of vice presidential choices are somewhat complicated to study because the sample size is so small — we’ve had only 18 presidential elections since the end of World War II.
The broad consensus among scholars is that the electoral effect of running mates is not clear and obvious — and probably somewhat modest. In other words, we should not assume that choosing Harris or former Georgia House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams would boost Biden with black voters, that Baldwin, Klobuchar or Whitmer would attract voters in the Midwest, or that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto would help in Nevada. Nor should we assume that any of these female politicians would particularly connect with female voters. For example, in their upcoming book, “Do Running Mates Matter?,” political scientists Christopher J. Devine and Kyle C. Kopko downplay a lot of the electoral effects of running mates, based on their research. They argue that there is little evidence that picking a person from a particular region helps in that region or that choosing a person from a demographic group helps with voters in that demographic. They also reject the idea that running mates boost the tickets in their home states, a conclusion other scholars and experts have reached as well.
Other academics are slightly more bullish on running mates’ potential electoral impact. Historically, vice presidential picks have boosted the ticket by 2-3 percentage points in their home states according to political scientists Boris Heersink and Brenton D. Peterson. Some scholars have found that Republican Catholics are less likely to vote for the GOP ticket if the Democratic running mate is Catholic and that in 2008 then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin boosted turnout among fellow conservatives. Devine and Kopko themselves argue that vice presidential choices matter because they can affect how voters see the presidential nominee in ways that sometimes have electoral effects. According to their research, Sen. John McCain’s selection of Palin as his running mate caused a rise in negative views of McCain because of voters’ perception that Palin was unqualified for the position.
“Any time you talk about a running mate winning votes, you’re really talking about voters choosing a suboptimal president in order to elect their preferred vice president; otherwise, the running mate didn’t actually change votes but just reinforced a preexisting preference. So, suffice it to say, we’re pretty skeptical that such effects will occur very often or to a significant degree,” Devine told us in an email message.
He added, “By choosing a woman — or, say, an African-American woman, in particular — Biden … would be sending a message to voters about who he is — specifically, that he is someone who values diversity and the role that women — or African American women, in particular — play in American society and in the Democratic Party. That message probably would help to win him some votes. But we’re not exactly talking about ‘delivering’ large blocs of voters.”
So let’s say the electoral impact of vice presidential choices is complicated. Here’s what’s not in dispute: Party elites, presidential campaign advisers and sometimes presidential nominees themselves often believe that vice presidential candidates will have an outsize electoral impact, whatever the reality is. For example, according to his memoirs, McCain felt that Palin might attract moderate Democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.
So who do party elites think is the best vice presidential nominee to help Biden electorally? They consistently said that Warren was weak on electability when she was running for president, so this metric won’t help her cause.
Abrams has an electability perception problem too. She is nothing like Palin, but Democratic elites we have talked to are wary that voters won’t like pairing someone who has never held an elective office higher than state representative with a 77-year-old presidential nominee. A wide body of research suggests that presidential nominees generally pick a running mate who has a lot of political experience, usually at the national level, likely to address concerns about whether the running mate is ready to be president if necessary.
Party elites tend to indicate that the Democrats’ path to victory is winning white voters in the Midwest — as opposed to firing up more liberal voters or increasing support among people of color. So this metric (party elites’ perceptions of electability) would likely favor Baldwin, Klobuchar and Whitmer in particular.
Goal 2: Balance the ticket demographically — particularly on race and ethnicity
Helps: Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, Sen. Kamala Harris of California, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Abrams, Cortez Masto
Hurts: Baldwin, Klobuchar, Warren, Whitmer … basically anyone who is white
Close to 40 percent of registered Democratic voters identify as Asian, black, Hispanic or something other than white. And the Democratic Party cares deeply about racial diversity. An all-white ticket might happen, but it would get lots of blowback. The same is likely true of an all-male ticket — hence, Biden’s pledge. Already, House Majority Whip James Clyburn, whose endorsement of Biden seemed to help the former vice president win big in South Carolina, is calling for him to name a black woman as his running mate.
This kind of demographic balancing has occurred in the past two Democratic primaries. The major contenders to be Obama’s running mate in 2008 were all white men, and the top contenders to be Clinton’s running mate in 2016 were nearly all men.
Currently, only one woman of color is a governor (Lujan Grisham), and only four are U.S. senators (Hawaii’s Mazie Hirono, Cortez Masto, Duckworth, Harris). So it’s likely that Cortez Masto, Duckworth, Harris and Lujan Grisham all will get a serious look from Biden and his team and that they will also consider more nontraditional choices, like Abrams and U.S. Rep Val Demings of Florida, in part to meet the party’s demand for a racially diverse ticket. (Hirono will turn 73 on Election Day, and we doubt Biden would pick a running mate who’s nearly his age.)
Goal 3: Balance the ticket ideologically
Helps: Abrams, Harris, Warren
Hurts: Klobuchar
The other main balancing goal that presidential nominees typically have, in addition to demographics, is ideology. In 1988, the Democratic nominee, Gov. Michael Dukakis, sought to counteract his reputation as a Massachusetts liberal by choosing one of the party’s more moderate figures, then-Sen. Lloyd Bentsen of Texas. In 2012, the GOP nominee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, considered insufficiently conservative by some Republicans, chose as his running mate someone beloved by the GOP’s right wing: then-Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
By this metric, Klobuchar would not be an ideal running mate for Biden. She has a somewhat centrist record, as does he, and took fairly similar positions to the former vice president during the Democratic primary, such as panning the idea of Medicare for All. Choosing her as his running mate would intensify the criticism of Biden from the party’s left wing, who would likely complain that he is expecting liberals to vote for him while essentially ignoring their wishes.
Warren, of course, is firmly on the left. Harris is pretty left, based on her voting record in the Senate. But as California’s attorney general from 2011 to 2017, Harris took some conservative stances and as a 2020 presidential candidate didn’t embrace Sen. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All approach or a wealth tax. Abrams hasn’t taken Sanders-style stances on economic issues, but she is well known for her work on voting rights issues, which might lead to her being perceived by voters and activists as being left. Also, some political science research suggests that black candidates are often perceived to be more liberal than they actually are. In other words, if Biden picks Abrams or Harris, he could both appease some on the left and not annoy more centrist people in the party who may not like Warren.
Goal 4: Help Democrats gain a Senate majority
Helps: Duckworth, Harris
Hurts: Baldwin, Warren
This is a newer factor, without a lot of historical precedent in either party. But control of the U.S. Senate is in play in 2020. And if the Republicans retain the most of the seats, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell could block much of what a new Democratic president tries to do, just as the Kentucky Republican limited Obama while he was in office. For this reason, some Democratic activists are wary of picking a sitting Democratic senator for the vice presidency if there is any possibility that person will be replaced by a Republican.
If Duckworth or Harris became vice president, the Democratic governors of their respective states would pick their replacements, who would serve until a special election is held in 2022. Democrats would be favored to keep those Senate seats because Illinois and California lean heavily Democratic. Minnesota (Klobuchar) and Nevada (Cortez-Masto) also have Democratic governors who would appoint a replacement through 2022, but they are more swing-y states, so Democrats could eventually lose those seats in 2022. In Massachusetts (Warren) and Wisconsin (Baldwin), there would be a special election in 2021. The incumbent in the Bay State would likely be a Republican since GOP governor Charlie Baker would pick the person. (Democrats in Massachusetts do have some potential workarounds, however.) This dynamic is a real problem for Baldwin, though, since Republicans might be slightly favored in a special election in Wisconsin.
This is an informal list of criteria. You could certainly include other measures — ours are not necessarily exhaustive or even the best measures. But the history of vice presidential selections suggests that the process is not dominated by questions that perhaps should matter the most, such as:
Is this person best qualified to run the nation if the president cannot finish his term in office?
Is this person a great manager who can help lead the executive branch of the government?
Is this person well versed in policy?
Is this person the best choice to become the next-in-line presidential candidate for the party?
Perhaps Biden’s considerations will change as a result of the novel coronavirus, which means the next president could enter office with a true national crisis on his hands. But we’re skeptical that the vice presidential selection will be much different than in the past.
In any case, looking at the party-based criteria, here’s how things shake out for Abrams, Harris, Klobuchar and Warren, who The New York Times recently reported are senior Democratic Party officials’ leading choices for Biden’s running mate. (We’ve also included Duckworth, who’s a more obscure senator than Warren, but we wanted to note how favorably she looks compared with her in terms of these party-based metrics):
Harris: three positives, no negatives. Abrams: two positives, no negatives. Duckworth: two positives, no negatives. Klobuchar: one positive, two negatives. Warren: one positive, three negatives.
You might be thinking, “Harris was a dud as a presidential candidate,” but often that doesn’t matter. And as with George H.W. Bush, Al Gore, Dick Cheney and Biden, the person who gets elected vice president is often someone who at some point flirted with a presidential run or actually ran for the top of the ticket and lost. What this exercise suggests is that Harris fits the party’s goals fairly well for a running mate alongside Biden — she’s to the left of him ideologically, she’s not white, the party won’t lose a Senate seat if she becomes vice president, and some people in the party will assume she helps with electablity by appealing to black voters in particular. We’re not predicting that Biden will pick her — he might decide that perceived electability trumps everything else and go with Klobuchar or Whitmer or another Midwestern white woman. He might decide that Warren’s policy chops are particularly useful in the midst of a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic and that placating the party’s left wing is important for symbolic and electoral reasons. But Biden is a party man, and Harris is a party choice.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Why Trump’s Approval Rating Has Increased


fivethirtyeight--2020-03-31--How Will Biden Choose His Running Mate?

How Will Biden Choose His Running Mate?


fivethirtyeight--2020-04-01--So … About That Supposed Lack Of Enthusiasm For Biden?

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight ’ s weekly politics chat .
The transcript below has been lightly edited .
sarahf ( Sarah Frostenson , politics editor ) : Over the weekend , an ABC/Washington Post poll found that most Democrats now back former Vice President Joe Biden , but enthusiasm for his candidacy was , on the other hand , pretty lackluster .
Just 24 percent of his supporters said they were “ very ” enthusiastic about supporting him .
This marked the lowest level of enthusiasm for a Democratic presidential candidate that ABC/Washington Post has found in the last 20 years @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden was that nearly twice as many of President Trump ’ s supporters ( 53 percent ) said they were “ very ” enthusiastic about his candidacy .
This , of course , has sparked comparisons to 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself in a similar situation — running neck-and-neck with Trump and with only 32 percent saying they were “ very ” enthusiastic about supporting her in September 2016 .
Biden , of course , is already 8 points below that mark now .
So does Biden have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the case for why he might and the case for why we shouldn ’ t read too much into this now ?
nrakich ( Nathaniel Rakich , elections analyst ) : I don ’ t think this is something Biden should worry about , at least not right now .
We ’ ve just come off a knock-down , drag-out , 15-month-long primary fight .
And some would argue it ’ s still going on , with Sen. Bernie Sanders still contesting the nomination !
It ’ s a lot to ask for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this early juncture .
I ’ d guess that , by September , Biden will have as good or better enthusiasm numbers as Clinton did in September 2016. natesilver ( Nate Silver , editor in chief ) : It feels so quaint to be debating a horse-race question in the middle of a pandemic .
But basically : I don ’ t think enthusiasm is a terribly meaningful indicator above and beyond what is already reflected in polls .
Sanders ’ s voters were more enthusiastic than Biden ’ s in the primaries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to underperform his polls .
Sometimes higher enthusiasm means you have a narrower base , and the other candidate has more room to turn out undecideds , etc .
An important qualification to all of this is that most of the polls so far are conducted among registered voters when really we want to see likely voter polls , which won ’ t really be reliable for another several months .
nrakich : Yeah , Biden leads in most general election national polls right now , but likely-voter polls tend to be a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polls , and as Nate says , we don ’ t have a ton of these polls right now .
perry ( Perry Bacon Jr. , senior writer ) : It ’ s hard to say much about enthusiasm right now since we are still in the midst of the Demcoratic primary ending .
For instance , I think enthusiasm around him could still grow , especially after Barack and Michelle Obama have enthusiastically endorsed him , Sanders is behind him , and he has picked a running mate who perhaps excites the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair , but how do we reconcile that Trump ’ s very enthusiastic support is so much higher than Biden ’ s — 29 points ?
perry : Trump is the Republican Party ’ s candidate , and he just won his primary with overwhelming support .
The party is unified behind him .
People have voted for him once .
I ’ m not surprised his supporters are fairly enthusiastic about him .
natesilver : I don ’ t care how much higher a quality is that doesn ’ t matter .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ is premature in some ways .
The general election campaign hasn ’ t begun .
The primary campaign is in a zombie-like state between being sort of finished and sort of not .
We ’ re in the midst of a pandemic .
And we don ’ t have very many likely-voter polls , and to the extent we do , they ’ re not liable to be very reliable anyway at this early stage .
Perhaps most importantly , Democrats can be very enthusiastic about beating Trump even if they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : Right , that ’ s the most important thing .
nrakich : Yeah , I find it hard to get worked up by any general-election polling at this point .
We ’ re still so early in this massive news story that could significantly help or hurt Trump .
sarahf : But is it a bad sign for Biden — and enthusiasm for his campaign — that 15 percent of Sanders supporters in the ABC poll say they ’ ll vote for Trump ?
natesilver : Twelve percent of Sanders primary voters @ @ @ @ @ @ @ another 14 percent voted for a third-party candidate or didn ’ t vote .
So those numbers are in line with four years ago .
And there are fewer Sanders voters than there were four years ago , so if anything those numbers are better for Biden than they were for Clinton .
nrakich : Yeah , historically , that would be a totally normal number .
In addition to the numbers Nate cites for 2016 , another study found that 25 percent of Clinton voters voted for McCain over Obama in 2008 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this is something past presidential candidates haven ’ t had to overcome as well .
It can make a difference in a close election , but bigger factors ( e.g.
, the national environment , the economy ) will probably determine the outcome in the end .
sarahf : OK .
So what I ’ m hearing is that the idea that Biden has a real enthusiasm gap is — at least at this point — overrated !
But isn ’ t it at least somewhat worrisome that there now appears to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Andrew Cuomo for president ?
natesilver : Ohhhhh Sarah , this is such trollbait .
nrakich : Let ’ s be clear — that “ ooh , Andrew Cuomo should run for president !
” talk is utterly nonsensical , non-serious and half-baked .
sarahf : It is !
I ’ m not defending it .
But look at what happened when that talk took off last fall .
Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Massachusetts Gov .
Deval Patrick both entered the race as opposed to throwing their support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t understand the process .
People think you can magically wave a magic wand and that Cuomo becomes the nominee .
Look , if Biden drops out for some reason ( health , scandal , etc . )
, then , obviously , you ’ ll need a different nominee .
And I do think Cuomo might be the second-most likely nominee , after Biden .
If you need an emergency replacement nominee because Biden drops out , he ’ s fairly compatible with Biden ideologically .
And frankly , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unlikely — is still probably more likely than “ Bernie wins all remaining contests by 20 points and wins a pledged-delegate plurality ” scenario .
nrakich : I do wonder to what extent people actually believe/want Cuomo to be the nominee , and how much is just a fun daydream .
perry : I live in Kentucky .
People are suddenly talking very positively about our Gov .
Andy Beshear , who is a Democrat .
This is in part because Trump is doing press conferences in which he ignores the evidence and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is in addressing the issues .
So Cuomo comes off well in comparison , as do other governors , like Ohio ’ s Mike DeWine , a Republican .
It also helps that Cuomo is doing a lot of media and lives in the media capital of the United States .
Plenty of governors would be getting buzz if they were doing a competent job and were based in NYC , for example , Gavin Newsom ( California ) , Jay Inslee ( Washington ) , Beshear , DeWine .
nrakich : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ talk of him becoming the nominee and his role as a leader on the coronavirus in general — has been overinflated by the New York-centric media .
perry : Also , Biden has not been super-impressive in his media appearances , so there is that .
Cuomo has been better on that front , as have other governors .
sarahf : But Biden has been kind of missing from the coronavirus response , right ?
Part of that is because , as you all point out , he ’ s not a current @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his state , but it does seem as if it ’ s harder for him to have a natural place in the conversation .
natesilver : I don ’ t think anything Biden ’ s doing right now matters very much .
He ’ s also done more than the media has generally acknowledged .
perry : I think Biden is in the conversation .
But his general ideas ( Trump should listen to the medical experts , social distancing should continue ) are what basically the media , governors , experts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not trying to stand out in that conversation or be interesting , which I think is normatively good .
He is not offering weird ideas to stand out .
natesilver : The narrative is dumb .
It ’ s always dumb at this stage of the campaign , when the primary winner has in all probability been decided but it ’ s not technically over yet .
It would be a lot worse if not for coronavirus since the media would have a lot more news cycles to fill with fake drama .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hasn ’ t been as much of a presence on our TV sets , but I don ’ t think that ’ s his fault , as Nate pointed out .
I think cable news just hasn ’ t been giving him a lot of airtime .
The other day , major networks decided to air Cuomo ’ s briefing on the coronavirus instead of Biden ’ s speech .
But what Biden has to say on the coronavirus is more relevant to a majority of the country .
natesilver : It shouldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ airtime !
Biden ’ s not hugely relevant at the moment .
nrakich : I think they should give him more than Cuomo !
Biden might be president at this time next year .
Cuomo governs just 6 percent of the country .
natesilver : Cuomo is dealing with the realities on the ground in a way Biden isn ’ t .
And New York has a lot more than 6 percent of coronavirus cases .
He ’ s also doing a pretty effective job of communicating about coronavirus data and where the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the epidemic .
I don ’ t think he ’ d get as much press coverage if he hadn ’ t been doing a good job with the communication side of things .
It ’ s earned media in the truest sense of the word .
sarahf : That ’ s fair .
A lot of what ’ s happening now is outside of Biden ’ s control , and obviously , there ’ s a lot we can ’ t answer , but Americans still rate Trump really highly on the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ how he ’ s handling it , which marked a new high for him in that same ABC/WaPo poll .
What ’ s more , Trump led Biden on this metric , 50 to 42 percent .
Couldn ’ t that pose a real problem for Biden moving forward , especially if it ’ s harder for him to be a part of the conversation now ?
nrakich : I think this is Exhibit A for it being too early to say anything .
It seems like the economy is going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 30 percent or the gross domestic product growth rate is -15 percent , I don ’ t think Americans will continue to approve of Trump ’ s handling of the economy .
natesilver : No , I don ’ t think anything about the polls right now tells us very much about what the situation is likely to look like in September , or November .
People haven ’ t been living with this for very long .
A lot of the consequences haven ’ t happened yet .
And after the consequences @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a rebound , or a second wave .
You just have to be patient .
Right now , I spend a lot more time looking at , say , the number of new COVID-19 cases in Italy than at Trump ’ s approval rating .
I ’ d argue that the former tells us more about his reelection odds than the latter , since it tells us something about the extent to which a coronavirus epidemic can slow down post-peak .
sarahf : I can ’ t help but think that part of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ though , about Biden having an enthusiasm problem .
Of course , it could be that enthusiasm for Biden doesn ’ t really matter because enthusiasm to elect anyone but Trump is a bigger motivating factor , but I do wonder how that plays out in the coming months .
Even if the enthusiasm gap isn ’ t real , could the perception of one still hurt Biden ?
natesilver : Just one troll question after another .
sarahf : I know !
But I think people are thinking about this — and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — I do wonder how it takes root , even when it shouldn ’ t .
nrakich : That ’ s interesting , Sarah .
Yeah , I wouldn ’ t be surprised if cable news continually covers Biden with the implication that he is somehow inadequate or not up to the task of beating Trump .
I don ’ t know if that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy or not .
natesilver : I think if anything people tend to overlearn the lessons of the most recent election .
A lot of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 primaries to the 2020 primaries led to completely wrong predictions , like vastly understating Biden ’ s chances .
The fact that Democrats are worried about an enthusiasm gap because of 2016 could easily help Biden because it will scare Democrats into voting .
nrakich : I certainly agree that people try way too hard to retrofit the lessons of the previous election .
To many ( especially those with an anti-Sanders agenda ) , Clinton lost because Sanders voters weren ’ t united around her .
But can ’ t it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was an extremely tight election and that happens sometimes ?
perry : Biden could very well lose the general election .
And he could lose in the same way that Clinton did — a center-left Democrat wins the primary on the strength of older voters , particularly older black voters , but then loses in the general , with Trump winning in key swing states even as he loses the national popular vote .
But Clinton almost won and Biden very much could win .
I don ’ t think Biden has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ having enthusiastic supporters who are donating a lot of money , volunteering and eventually turning out to vote in large numbers always helps .
So getting as much of Sanders ’ s crowd on board as possible will be useful for Biden .
Do I think it would be better for Biden if polls showed people were excited to vote for him ?
Yes , because I do think there is the potential that “ people are holding their nose and voting for Biden ” becomes a narrative .
nrakich : I also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that no one media members or the Twitterati know personally is enthusiastic to vote for Biden .
Which of course speaks to the bubbles they live in .
But that can have real effects on the narrative , as Perry said .
perry : But it ’ s hard for me to look at these polls right now and say Biden has an actual enthusiasm problem — or really many problems at all .

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Over the weekend, an ABC/Washington Post poll found that most Democrats now back former Vice President Joe Biden, but enthusiasm for his candidacy was, on the other hand, pretty lackluster.
Just 24 percent of his supporters said they were “very” enthusiastic about supporting him. This marked the lowest level of enthusiasm for a Democratic presidential candidate that ABC/Washington Post has found in the last 20 years. And perhaps even more troubling for Biden was that nearly twice as many of President Trump’s supporters (53 percent) said they were “very” enthusiastic about his candidacy.
This, of course, has sparked comparisons to 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton found herself in a similar situation — running neck-and-neck with Trump and with only 32 percent saying they were “very” enthusiastic about supporting her in September 2016. Biden, of course, is already 8 points below that mark now.
So does Biden have an enthusiasm problem? What’s the case for why he might and the case for why we shouldn’t read too much into this now?
nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): I don’t think this is something Biden should worry about, at least not right now. We’ve just come off a knock-down, drag-out, 15-month-long primary fight. And some would argue it’s still going on, with Sen. Bernie Sanders still contesting the nomination!
It’s a lot to ask for the party to be totally united at this early juncture. I’d guess that, by September, Biden will have as good or better enthusiasm numbers as Clinton did in September 2016.
natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): It feels so quaint to be debating a horse-race question in the middle of a pandemic.
But basically: I don’t think enthusiasm is a terribly meaningful indicator above and beyond what is already reflected in polls.
Sanders’s voters were more enthusiastic than Biden’s in the primaries. But he’s actually tended to underperform his polls. Sometimes higher enthusiasm means you have a narrower base, and the other candidate has more room to turn out undecideds, etc.
An important qualification to all of this is that most of the polls so far are conducted among registered voters when really we want to see likely voter polls, which won’t really be reliable for another several months.
nrakich: Yeah, Biden leads in most general election national polls right now, but likely-voter polls tend to be a few points better for Republicans than registered-voter polls, and as Nate says, we don’t have a ton of these polls right now.
perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): It’s hard to say much about enthusiasm right now since we are still in the midst of the Demcoratic primary ending. For instance, I think enthusiasm around him could still grow, especially after Barack and Michelle Obama have enthusiastically endorsed him, Sanders is behind him, and he has picked a running mate who perhaps excites the party.
sarahf: That’s fair, but how do we reconcile that Trump’s very enthusiastic support is so much higher than Biden’s — 29 points?
perry: Trump is the Republican Party’s candidate, and he just won his primary with overwhelming support. The party is unified behind him. People have voted for him once. I’m not surprised his supporters are fairly enthusiastic about him.
FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast: Why Trump’s Approval Rating Has Increased
natesilver: I don’t care how much higher a quality is that doesn’t matter.
But honestly, I think this discussion is premature in some ways. The general election campaign hasn’t begun. The primary campaign is in a zombie-like state between being sort of finished and sort of not.
We’re in the midst of a pandemic. And we don’t have very many likely-voter polls, and to the extent we do, they’re not liable to be very reliable anyway at this early stage.
Perhaps most importantly, Democrats can be very enthusiastic about beating Trump even if they’re not that enthusiastic about Biden.
perry: Right, that’s the most important thing.
nrakich: Yeah, I find it hard to get worked up by any general-election polling at this point. We’re still so early in this massive news story that could significantly help or hurt Trump.
sarahf: But is it a bad sign for Biden — and enthusiasm for his campaign — that 15 percent of Sanders supporters in the ABC poll say they’ll vote for Trump?
natesilver: Twelve percent of Sanders primary voters voted for Trump in 2016, and another 14 percent voted for a third-party candidate or didn’t vote. So those numbers are in line with four years ago. And there are fewer Sanders voters than there were four years ago, so if anything those numbers are better for Biden than they were for Clinton.
nrakich: Yeah, historically, that would be a totally normal number. In addition to the numbers Nate cites for 2016, another study found that 25 percent of Clinton voters voted for McCain over Obama in 2008.
So it’s not like this is something past presidential candidates haven’t had to overcome as well. It can make a difference in a close election, but bigger factors (e.g., the national environment, the economy) will probably determine the outcome in the end.
sarahf: OK. So what I’m hearing is that the idea that Biden has a real enthusiasm gap is — at least at this point — overrated! But isn’t it at least somewhat worrisome that there now appears to be an effort to draft New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for president?
natesilver: Ohhhhh Sarah, this is such trollbait.
nrakich: Let’s be clear — that “ooh, Andrew Cuomo should run for president!” talk is utterly nonsensical, non-serious and half-baked.
sarahf: It is! I’m not defending it. But look at what happened when that talk took off last fall. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick both entered the race as opposed to throwing their support behind someone else.
natesilver: People don’t understand the process. People think you can magically wave a magic wand and that Cuomo becomes the nominee.
Look, if Biden drops out for some reason (health, scandal, etc.), then, obviously, you’ll need a different nominee.
And I do think Cuomo might be the second-most likely nominee, after Biden.
If you need an emergency replacement nominee because Biden drops out, he’s fairly compatible with Biden ideologically.
And frankly, the “emergency replacement” scenario — while unlikely — is still probably more likely than “Bernie wins all remaining contests by 20 points and wins a pledged-delegate plurality” scenario.
nrakich: I do wonder to what extent people actually believe/want Cuomo to be the nominee, and how much is just a fun daydream.
perry: I live in Kentucky. People are suddenly talking very positively about our Gov. Andy Beshear, who is a Democrat. This is in part because Trump is doing press conferences in which he ignores the evidence and seems as interested in defending himself as he is in addressing the issues. So Cuomo comes off well in comparison, as do other governors, like Ohio’s Mike DeWine, a Republican.
It also helps that Cuomo is doing a lot of media and lives in the media capital of the United States. Plenty of governors would be getting buzz if they were doing a competent job and were based in NYC, for example, Gavin Newsom (California), Jay Inslee (Washington), Beshear, DeWine.
nrakich: I think the Cuomo thing — both talk of him becoming the nominee and his role as a leader on the coronavirus in general — has been overinflated by the New York-centric media.
perry: Also, Biden has not been super-impressive in his media appearances, so there is that.
Cuomo has been better on that front, as have other governors.
sarahf: But Biden has been kind of missing from the coronavirus response, right? Part of that is because, as you all point out, he’s not a current governor tasked with spearheading preventive measures in his state, but it does seem as if it’s harder for him to have a natural place in the conversation.
natesilver: I don’t think anything Biden’s doing right now matters very much.
He’s also done more than the media has generally acknowledged.
perry: I think Biden is in the conversation. But his general ideas (Trump should listen to the medical experts, social distancing should continue) are what basically the media, governors, experts, everyone else is saying. Biden is not trying to stand out in that conversation or be interesting, which I think is normatively good. He is not offering weird ideas to stand out.
natesilver: The narrative is dumb. It’s always dumb at this stage of the campaign, when the primary winner has in all probability been decided but it’s not technically over yet. It would be a lot worse if not for coronavirus since the media would have a lot more news cycles to fill with fake drama.
nrakich: Yeah, Sarah, Biden hasn’t been as much of a presence on our TV sets, but I don’t think that’s his fault, as Nate pointed out. I think cable news just hasn’t been giving him a lot of airtime. The other day, major networks decided to air Cuomo’s briefing on the coronavirus instead of Biden’s speech.
But what Biden has to say on the coronavirus is more relevant to a majority of the country.
natesilver: It shouldn’t give him a lot of airtime!
Biden’s not hugely relevant at the moment.
nrakich: I think they should give him more than Cuomo! Biden might be president at this time next year. Cuomo governs just 6 percent of the country.
natesilver: Cuomo is dealing with the realities on the ground in a way Biden isn’t. And New York has a lot more than 6 percent of coronavirus cases.
He’s also doing a pretty effective job of communicating about coronavirus data and where the state and the country is in combating the epidemic.
I don’t think he’d get as much press coverage if he hadn’t been doing a good job with the communication side of things. It’s earned media in the truest sense of the word.
sarahf: That’s fair. A lot of what’s happening now is outside of Biden’s control, and obviously, there’s a lot we can’t answer, but Americans still rate Trump really highly on the economy — 57 percent said they approve of how he’s handling it, which marked a new high for him in that same ABC/WaPo poll. What’s more, Trump led Biden on this metric, 50 to 42 percent. Couldn’t that pose a real problem for Biden moving forward, especially if it’s harder for him to be a part of the conversation now?
nrakich: I think this is Exhibit A for it being too early to say anything. It seems like the economy is going to be in real trouble. If unemployment hits 30 percent or the gross domestic product growth rate is -15 percent, I don’t think Americans will continue to approve of Trump’s handling of the economy.
natesilver: No, I don’t think anything about the polls right now tells us very much about what the situation is likely to look like in September, or November.
People haven’t been living with this for very long. A lot of the consequences haven’t happened yet. And after the consequences, there’s the opportunity for a rebound, or a second wave.
You just have to be patient. Right now, I spend a lot more time looking at, say, the number of new COVID-19 cases in Italy than at Trump’s approval rating. I’d argue that the former tells us more about his reelection odds than the latter, since it tells us something about the extent to which a coronavirus epidemic can slow down post-peak.
sarahf: I can’t help but think that part of the narrative is being set now, though, about Biden having an enthusiasm problem. Of course, it could be that enthusiasm for Biden doesn’t really matter because enthusiasm to elect anyone but Trump is a bigger motivating factor, but I do wonder how that plays out in the coming months. Even if the enthusiasm gap isn’t real, could the perception of one still hurt Biden?
natesilver: Just one troll question after another.
sarahf: I know! But I think people are thinking about this — and even if it’s premature now — I do wonder how it takes root, even when it shouldn’t.
nrakich: That’s interesting, Sarah. Yeah, I wouldn’t be surprised if cable news continually covers Biden with the implication that he is somehow inadequate or not up to the task of beating Trump. I don’t know if that could become a self-fulfilling prophecy or not.
natesilver: I think if anything people tend to overlearn the lessons of the most recent election. A lot of the templates that people applied from the 2016 primaries to the 2020 primaries led to completely wrong predictions, like vastly understating Biden’s chances.
The fact that Democrats are worried about an enthusiasm gap because of 2016 could easily help Biden because it will scare Democrats into voting.
nrakich: I certainly agree that people try way too hard to retrofit the lessons of the previous election. To many (especially those with an anti-Sanders agenda), Clinton lost because Sanders voters weren’t united around her. But can’t it just be enough that she lost because it was an extremely tight election and that happens sometimes?
perry: Biden could very well lose the general election. And he could lose in the same way that Clinton did — a center-left Democrat wins the primary on the strength of older voters, particularly older black voters, but then loses in the general, with Trump winning in key swing states even as he loses the national popular vote.
But Clinton almost won and Biden very much could win. I don’t think Biden has an enthusiasm “problem,” but having enthusiastic supporters who are donating a lot of money, volunteering and eventually turning out to vote in large numbers always helps. So getting as much of Sanders’s crowd on board as possible will be useful for Biden.
Do I think it would be better for Biden if polls showed people were excited to vote for him? Yes, because I do think there is the potential that “people are holding their nose and voting for Biden” becomes a narrative.
nrakich: I also think a lot of the problem is that no one media members or the Twitterati know personally is enthusiastic to vote for Biden. Which of course speaks to the bubbles they live in. But that can have real effects on the narrative, as Perry said.
perry: But it’s hard for me to look at these polls right now and say Biden has an actual enthusiasm problem — or really many problems at all.