US election 2020: Donald Trump cannot rely on late voters this year, reports say
Donald Trump
In the last US elections2016, Donald Trumpwas not leading in the initial and exit polls. However, at the end Trump came out a winner which was majorly credited to the late-deciding voters.
However, this year, that might not be the case. As per a poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos, it has been revealed that the late-deciding voters may not be able to save Trumpthis time.
Reuters conducted a poll between October 09 and 13 which showed that there are very few undecided voters this year and the opinion polls may be correct and voters might pick Biden over Trump even towards the end.
The elections are scheduled for November 03 this year and will see Donald Trump and Joe Bidenfighting for the position with Mike Pence and Kamala Harris as their respective running mates.
The polls show thatBidenis currently holding a10-percentage-point lead nationally, with a tighter margin in the battleground states that will help to decide the election.
"The candidate who is behind — Trump — needs to win undecideds at a disproportionate rate to catch up. So, if that isn’t happening, he’s not really cutting into Biden’s lead,” said Kyle Kondik, an election analyst at the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
This year the change in voting pattern has majorly been due to the fear of contracting the novel coronavirus. More and more people are now opting for early voting and mail-in voting as people want to cautiously avoid crowded spaces.
As per the unofficial figures, almost 15 million Americans have already cast their vote, which is a lot in comparison to the figure of 1.4 million early voters in the 2016 elections.
Another difference this year is that unlike the 106 elections, majority of the voters have already made up their mind, as per the opinion polls.
The Reuters/Ipsos national poll found that only about 8 per centof likely voters appear to be undecided, saying either that they do not know whom to support or that they are thinking about backing a third-party candidate. This number in the last elections was twice more than this — with55 per cent picking Trump and only 36 per cent picking Hillary Clinton, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of voters on Election Day.
The poll also found that 9 out of 10 likely Biden voters and 9 out of 10 likely Trump voters say they have locked in their decision and will not change their mind.
However, Trumpand his team has not lost hope."Our campaign is confident in the big tent, diverse coalition of support we’ve built over the last six years," said Ken Farnaso, a Trump spokesman.
(With inputs from Reuters)