JUDY WOODRUFF: There are less than 100 days
until President Trump faces a Democratic opponent
on Election Day in November.
John Yang has this week's analysis of the
emerging political landscape.
JOHN YANG: Judy, to mark that moment, we are
joined by our Politics Monday team.
Amy Walter is the national editor of The Cook
Political Report and host of the podcast "Politics
With Amy Walter." And Tamara Keith is...
(COUGHING)
JOHN YANG: Excuse me -- a White House correspondent
for NPR.
JOHN YANG: Excuse me. And I...
TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: And host
of the "NPR Politics Podcast."
(COUGHING)
(LAUGHTER)
JOHN YANG: Thank you.
We are 100 days out. Whoa. Excuse me.
We are 100 days out. Polls show that Vice
President Biden is leading the president in
-- not only nationally, but also in the battleground
states.
I have so many Democratic voters come up to
me and ask me, given what happened in 2016,
is this time different than 2016. Tam, what
should I tell them?
TAMARA KEITH: Well, there are a lot of answers.
But one thing to say is that this has been
a very stable lead for former Vice President
Biden. And the other thing that is notable
and is different from the case in 2016 is
that a lot of these polls are showing him
above 50 percent.
That is to say that he's got a majority of
voters saying that, if the election were held
today, they would vote for him.
For Hillary Clinton, she did, at times, have
pretty significant leads over Donald Trump,
but she was at 45 percent. There was room
there, in a way that Biden has a more commanding
lead.
Of course, anything can happen. Anything can
change. The Trump campaign insists that the
polls are totally skewed.
But the other thing that is different is the
obvious thing that is different. There is
a pandemic. It is affecting everyone's lives.
And the president's leadership is a major
issue in this campaign, and is something that
is weighing heavily on voters, as relates
to the coronavirus.
JOHN YANG: Amy, Tam said things can change.
The cliche is that 100 days is an eternity
in politics.
What can change?
AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well,
I have been asking almost every single campaign
strategist that I talk with that very question.
And, first of all, it is important to recognize
that, 100 days, it is true -- it is a little
bit less than 100 days until we get to the
actual Election Day. But a lot of states start
sending out absentee ballots very soon, in
about a little over a month.
The state of North Carolina, for example,
sends out its ballots. So people are going
to actually be receiving ballots in the mail
in a lot of these states before we even hit
October. So that is a very important thing.
The number one issue in my mind is what happens
on the pandemic, on the coronavirus pandemic.
As Tam pointed out correctly, this is what
is driving everything, and it was the major
difference between now and 2016.
But even if something changes, there is a
vaccine that is clearly in the works that
maybe gets to go out early 2021. Maybe, as
schools open, things don't turn out as badly
as some people are expecting, the real question
in my mind is whether voters are going to
give Trump any credit for this.
He has lost a lot of credibility on this issue.
We have seen his numbers sink now to something
like 35 percent, 36 percent approval rating
on how he has handled the coronavirus. So,
the question is, have voters, especially those
swing voter voters, just shut the door on
Donald and say, you know what, I don't -- he
mishandled this, he mishandled the George
Floyd protests, I'm not going to give him
any credit, even if things start to go in
the right direction?
JOHN YANG: Tam, Amy talks about how the pandemic
has changed everything. It has even changed
the conventions.
I mean, the conventions are not -- are more
than just a time for funny hats and confetti
guns and balloon drops. They are a time to
get organized, a time to generate excitement.
The Democrats are saying they're going to
have virtually a 100 percent virtual convention.
The Republicans' plans are still up in the
air.
What difference is this going to make to the
campaign, to the fall campaign?
TAMARA KEITH: Traditionally, the conventions
are multiday prime-time infomercials for the
candidates to make their case for the voters,
unfiltered, right there.
And are the networks all going to carry this
in the same way? Maybe not. Are they going
to have all of these volunteers coming in,
getting excited, going back into their communities,
the strongest activists in the party? No,
that's not happening.
This is a very different situation, a very
weird situation. The other thing I would just
point out is that, in some ways, the conventions
have become a metaphor. The Democratic Party
realized early on that they likely would need
to have a virtual convention, and they have
been planning for one.
The Republican Party and President Trump were
searching for a place where they could hold
a traditional convention, so they could rub
it in the faces of Democrats that they had
an in-person convention, they weren't afraid,
they were strong, they weren't wearing masks.
And that backfired. And it is not clear that
they have a whiz-bang virtual convention in
the offing. They may well pull it off, but
it is a metaphor for how these things have
been going.
JOHN YANG: Amy, is this putting pressure on
the Republicans, now that the Democrats have
this virtual plan, this virtual convention
plan?
AMY WALTER: When you look back over the last
20 so years, what you find is, incumbent presidents
rarely get a bump from the convention. It
is usually the challengers that do. For example,
Bill Clinton got a huge bump after the convention,
his convention in 1992.
So the pressure is really on the Biden campaign.
And, quite frankly, I think that will be more
fascinating, in part because not only have
we never had a virtual convention, but never
have we gone into a convention where the presumptive
nominee has spent so little time actually
in front of voters.
This is going to be the first opportunity
for most voters to actually get a sense of
who this guy is, and to see him in a -- it's
a very different kind of environment, but
still in a public environment like we haven't
seen him before.
JOHN YANG: Amy Walter, and thanks to Tamara
Keith for the assist in the introduction.
Thanks.
That's Politics Monday.
TAMARA KEITH: Thanks.
