A4 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020
election 2020
BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPATrailing badly in the polls and
with just over 95 days until the
election, President Trump is
banking on a questionable phe-
nomenon to defy conventional
wisdom and win reelection: the
“hidden” Trump voter.
The president has repeatedly
touted a “silent majority” of
Americans he expects to show up
en mass on Election Day to shock
pollsters and help him repeat his
surprising 2016 victory. His cam-
paign has developed lengthy
slide shows aimed at disproving
public polls and predicting a
swell of unexpected support that
will propel Trump past Demo-
cratic rival Joe Biden in Novem-
ber.
But researchers and political
analysts, who acknowledge that
a hidden Trump vote existed in
2016, said differences between
this year and then are stark —
making it unlikely that unexpect-
ed voters alone will be enough to
make up the significant advan-
tage Biden holds.
With Biden, the presumptive
Democratic nominee, topping
50 percent in many swing state
polls four years after Hillary
Clinton struggled to reach that
threshold, Trump will need more
than a surge in hidden support to
win in November, said David
Wasserman, House editor of the
nonpartisan Cook Political Re-
port.
“I’d expect the shy-Trump-vot-
er phenomenon to be less of a
factor than it was in 2016,” he
said. “There’s no doubt 2020 is a
much different picture than
- Biden’s lead is broad across
the battleground, and it’s more
stable than Clinton’s was in
2016.”
The polls show a drop in
support for the president be-
cause of bad marks he is receiv-
ing from voters over his manage-
ment of the government re-
sponse to a pandemic that has
killed more than 147,000 Ameri-
cans and devastated the econo-
my — creating a far different
electoral environment from
2016’s.
But Trump continues to dis-
miss public polls showing him
losing nationally and in several
states he won four years ago. He
has claimed without providing
evidence that there’s a broad
conspiracy among pollsters to
“suppress” his supporters.
“We get a lot of suppression
polls,” Trump told reporters
Monday. “We get a lot of fake
polls, just like we have fake news.
I mean, it’s a terrible thing, when
you look at it.”
A day earlier, he tweeted that
“The Silent Majority will speak
on NOVEMBER THIRD!!!”
The concept of the “silent” or
“hidden” voter, which has existed
on the fringes of political re-
search and polling for decades,
gained renewed interest after
Trump’s victory in 2016. While
national polling was largely ac-
curate in predicting Trump
would lose the popular vote to
Clinton, state-based polls in key
swing states undercounted the
level of support for him.
Trump won narrow victories
in places such as Michigan, Wis-
consin and Pennsylvania after
public polls showed him trailing
Clinton, leading some research-
ers to conclude that a large
number of voters secretly backed
him after telling pollsters other-
wise.
There’s some dispute among
political scientists about why
state-level polls underestimated
the level of support for Trump.
The American Association for
Public Opinion Research’s evalu-
ation of 2016 election polls in the
United States found that state
polls underrepresented voters
without college degrees, a group
that was particularly supportive
of Trump. The evaluation cast
doubt on the “shy Trump voter”
phenomenon, after a number of
tests to uncover such a trend
“yielded no evidence.”
Peter K. Enns, executive direc-
tor of the Roper Center for Public
Opinion Research at Cornell Uni-
versity, said a larger-than-usual
portion of the electorate told
pollsters they had not made up
their minds about their vote.
Those voters ended up voting for
Trump by a large margin, he said.
Trump’s history of “racist and
sexist” comments made some
voters reluctant to publicly ex-
press their support for him in
2016, said Enns, who studied the
“hidden voter” phenomenon be-
fore and after the election.
Though Trump has continued
to use inflammatory rhetoric in
office, Americans are less likely
to hide their views about wheth-
er he deserves a second term,
Enns said.
“Maybe for some people it’s
‘Okay I can’t vote for him again, I
can’t vote for him again,’ andthen when they walk into the
polling booth, who knows?” he
said. “But the fact that we’re
seeing a lower percentage of
undecideds and not sures now
compared to 2016 suggests that
it’s less likely to be the case.”
Michael Slepian, a Columbia
University professor who has
studied “hidden” Trump voters,
said many kept their preference
secret in 2016 to avoid “reputa-
tional damage” or heated argu-
ments. Since Trump is now the
president, it may be “less risque”
for his supporters to publicly
declare their allegiance, he said.
National polls show Biden
leading Trump by double digits
as the president underperforms
with older voters, suburban vot-
ers and other key groups that
helped him win in 2016.
State polls show Biden ahead
of Trump in places like Pennsyl-
vania and Wisconsin — key
states where the president is
banking on a surge of unexpect-
ed support from working-class
White voters who vote infre-
quently.
Trump campaign manager Bill
Stepien put together a half-hour
Zoom presentation this month in
an attempt to convince reporters
that public polls showing Trump
losing are inaccurate.
Stepien said the polls did not
include a sufficient portion of
Republican voters and failed to
capture the enthusiasm for
Trump in wide swaths of the
country.
Trump’s strong voting mar-
gins in rural counties in 2016 and
the campaign’s well-financed
ground game this year couldprove pivotal in shaping an elec-
torate that defies pollster’s ex-
pectations, he said.
“These trends are going to go
unnoticed until election night,
when we’re right and they’re
wrong,” he said.
Stepien and other Trump
aides have claimed they have
internal polling that shows
Trump in a much stronger posi-
tion, though they have declined
to share those figures. They have
highlighted the fact that Trump
supporters are more enthusiastic
about voting for him than Biden
supporters are about backing the
former vice president. Still, they
say skepticism toward pollsters
— whom Trump himself has
denigrated — is prevalent among
the president’s supporters, lead-
ing to skewed results.
“Our people don’t want to talk
to pollsters,” said a senior cam-
paign official, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity to dis-
cuss internal strategy.
The official echoed Trump’s
claims that spontaneous boat
parades with hundreds of Trump
supporters this summer high-
light a level of enthusiasm that
pollsters have not been able to
capture.
“You have thousands of boats,
and they’re all waving the Trump
sign, the Trump-Pence sign —
and they’re so proud,” Trump
told reporters Monday after dis-
missing public polls as “fake.”
Trump’s recent moves, includ-
ing thinly coded appeals to “Sub-
urban Housewives” a nd pledges
to bring “law and order” to city
streets, indicate that he is less
certain about his politicalstrength than he is willing to
admit, said Amy Walter, national
editor of the Cook Political Re-
port.
Walter said Trump is trying to
shore up his base, which has
been shrinking amid “multiple
crises,” including the pandemic
and economic downturn.
“Rather than trying to claw
back the voters they’ve already
lost, it’s really about making sure
they don’t lose any more,” she
said.
Campaign officials have said
9 million Trump voters sat out
the midterm elections in 2018,
and an army of volunteers has
prioritized reaching out to them
to ensure they return to the polls
in November.
The outcome in key swing
states could turn on whether that
effort is successful.
But the loss of support for
Trump among suburban White
voters and seniors could prove to
be the more important trend,
Wasserman said.
“For every voter that defects
from Trump to Biden, he needs to
activate two nonvoters to make
up for it,” he said.
Trump could be hamstringing
his efforts by attacking the secu-
rity of mail-in voting, turning
Republicans against a simple
way to cast their ballots during
the pandemic.
Wasserman dismissed the
Trump campaign’s claims that
voter enthusiasm boosts the
president’s chances.
“An unenthusiastic vote
counts just as much as an enthu-
siastic vote,” he said.
[email protected]Trump touts ‘hidden’ voters and ‘silent majority’ as his poll numbers falter
ment, as well as legal scholars,
historians and Democrats.
Former president Barack
Obama, speaking at the funeral
of the late civil rights icon John
Lewis in Atlanta, alluded to the
intensifying war over voting
rights, saying that “ even as we sit
here, there are those in power
who are doing their darndest to
discourage people from voting.”
Obama, who has avoided public
comments on much of Trump’s
presidency, did not specifically
cite his successor’s latest sugges-
tion or mention him by name.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) was among
many Republican senators who
quickly and unequivocally reject-
ed Trump’s idea. “Never in the
history of the country, through
wars, depressions and the Civil
War, have we ever not had a
federally scheduled election on
time,” McConnell said in a televi-
sion interview with WNKY of
Bowling Green, Ky. “We’ll find a
way to do that again this Novem-
ber 3.”
Trump gave no indication that
he would launch a serious push
for the date change, or that he
thinks he has the power to do so
without congressional approval.
But he appeared unfazed by the
criticism.
He “pinned” the tweet in
which he first floated the idea
Thursday, fixing it to the top of
his Twitter feed.
“With Universal Mail-In Vot-
ing (not Absentee Voting, which
is good), 2020 will be the most
INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT
Election in history,” he wrote in
the message. “It will be a great
embarrassment to the USA. De-
lay the Election until people can
properly, securely and safely
vote???”
At a news conference late in
the day, Trump said he does not
want to delay the election but
said the alternative is a “crooked
election” that could take months
or even years to resolve — sug-
gesting he is prepared to contest
the results if he loses.
“I want to have the election,”
he said. “But I also don’t want to
wait for three months and find
out that all the ballots are all
missing and the election won’t
mean anything. That’s what’s
going to happen, and everyone
knows it.”
Several Trump advisers said
no internal discussions were un-
derway within the White House
about moving the date. The
tweet caught aides by surprise,
said one senior adviser, who, like
others, spoke on the condition of
anonymity to describe internal
conversations. “He is just troll-
ing,” said another.
The U.S. Constitution gives the
power to regulate the “time,
place and manner” of general
elections to Congress, while
states control the dates of prima-
ry elections. Nowhere is the
president granted such power.
ELECTION FROM A
In addition, the Constitution’s
20th Amendment spells out a
hard end to a president’s and vice
president’s four-year terms on
Jan. 20, whether an election is
held or not.
“The President has no power
to change the date of the elec-
tion,” said Richard L. Hasen, a
law professor at the University of
California at Irvine. “This is yet
another statement by the Presi-
dent which undermines voter
confidence and that seeks with-
out evidence to undermine the
legitimacy of voting by mail.”
No president has ever before
tried to postpone a federal elec-
tion, said historian Michael Bes-
chloss. The idea was floated to
President Abraham Lincoln in
1864, during the Civil War, and to
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
in 1942, during World War II.
Lincoln said at the time that
postponing an election because
of the “Southern rebellion”
would mean “our system has
been defeated,” while Roosevelt
said doing so while fighting the
fascists would mean “we have
become fascists ourselves,” Bes-
chloss said.
“That tweet claims powers
that he does not have, period,” he
said. “He is not a dictator.”
One of the most dramatic
critiques of Trump’s tweet came
from Steven G. Calabrese, a co-
founder of the conservative Fed-
eralist Society, who wrote in an
opinion piece published in theNew York Times on Thursday
that the idea was “fascistic” and
“grounds for the president’s im-
mediate impeachment.”
Trump has enjoyed full-
throated support from conserva-
tives and nearly all congressional
Republicans; the Federalist Soci-
ety, for instance, has cheered on
and even helped select his Su-preme Court nominations. That
backing appeared to wobble on
Thursday, with many Republi-
cans not only alarmed by the
president’s apparent disregard
for the limits of his power, but
emboldened to say so in public.
“ Election Day is and will be
Nov 3, 2020,” tweeted Republi-
can Ari Fleischer, a former press
secretary to George W. Bush.
“Mr. President - please don’t even
pretend to mess with this. It’s a
harmful idea.”
Added Rep. Liz Cheney (R-
Wyo.) on Twitter: “We are not
moving the date of the election.
The resistance to this ideaamong Republicans is over-
whelming.” Sens. Marco Rubio
(R-Fla.) and Lindsey O. Graham
(R-S.C.) and House Minority
Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Ca-
lif.) weighed in similarly.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
(D-Calif.), meanwhile, simply
tweeted the relevant passage
from the Constitution grantingCongress the power to set elec-
tion dates. Joe Biden, the pre-
sumptive Democratic nominee,
told supporters at a virtual fund-
raiser Thursday that Trump was
probably trying to steal attention
away from Lewis’s funeral.
Other Democrats s uggested
that Trump’s suggestion reflect-
ed a realization that he could lose
to Biden, who has been leading
in national and many battle-
ground-state polls.
“Donald Trump is terrified,”
tweeted Sen. Kamala D. Harris
(D-Calif.), who is among those
being considered as a running
mate for Biden. “He knows he’sgoing to lose to @JoeBiden. It
will require every single one of us
to make that happen. We will see
you at the ballot box on Novem-
ber 3rd, @realDonaldTrump.”
Some Democrats used the oc-
casion to promote how-to in-
structions on mail balloting.
“President Trump is talking
about delaying the November
election because he is afraid of
people voting by mail,” Rep.
Donna Shalala (D-Fla.) said in a
tweet, in which she included a
link to a Florida government
website with instructions on
how to do so. “You know what to
do,” she added.
The president of the American
Postal Workers Union, Mark Di-
mondstein, also rebuked the
president for undermining confi-
dence in the U.S. Postal Service.
He noted that there is “essential-
ly no fraud” in mail balloting.
“It’s a tremendous insult for
the president be railing against
vote by mail over and over and
over and over, railing against the
post office,” Dimondstein said.
“It’s an insult to every postal
worker and every customer who
trusts the post office.”
Ronna McDaniel, chairwom-
an of the Republican National
Committee, said on Fox Business
that “obviously” the president
understands that he doesn’t have
the authority to move the elec-
tion.
A Justice Department spokes-
woman declined to comment onTrump’s tweet. Earlier this week
at a House Judiciary Committee
hearing, however, Attorney Gen-
eral William P. Barr told Rep.
Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.) he
had not studied the question of
whether the president could
move the election date.
“I’ve never been asked the
question before. I’ve never
looked into it,” Barr said.
Biden suggested in April that
Trump might try to move the
election date. At the time, Trump
campaign spokesman Tim Mur-
taugh accused Biden of “incoher-
ent, conspiracy-theory ram-
blings” and said the president
“has been clear” that the election
will happen on Nov. 3.
Another Trump campaign
spokesman, Hogan Gidley, said
in a statement Thursday that
the president was merely “rais-
ing a question about the chaos
Democrats have created with
their insistence on all mail-in
voting.”
In fact, most Democrats are
pushing for mail balloting in
addition to early in-person and
Election Day voting — not uni-
versal mail balloting, as Trump
has alleged — because even
though many voters have ex-
pressed a new preference for
voting by mail because of fear of
infection, many other voters re-
main more comfortable casting
their ballots in person.
Trump has argued that mail-in
voting tends to hurt Republicans
at the ballot box, but some
Republicans worry that the pres-
ident’s own rhetoric is what’s
turning their own voters off from
mail balloting.
A Washington P ost-ABC News
poll conducted this month found
that 51 percent of Democrats
prefer voting by mail this fall,
compared with 20 percent of
Republicans. A recent study by
Stanford University researchers
found no partisan impact of
expanding voting by mail.
At the congressional hearing,
Barr repeated his concern that
he felt there was a “high risk”
that mail-in voting would lead to
fraud but said he did not believe
the election would be rigged —
seeming to break with Trump.
“I have no reason to think it
will be,” Barr said.
Even if Congress voted to
delay the general election, the
electoral college is still required
to elect a president under federal
law. If lawmakers changed that,
too, Trump and Vice President
Pence would still be required to
leave office by noon on Jan. 20.
With no successor, the speaker of
the House of Representatives,
currently Pelosi, would be next in
line.
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]Elise Viebeck, Scott Clement, Matt
Zapotosky, Erica Werner, Jacob
Bogage, Seung Min Kim, Annie
Linskey and Devlin Barrett
contributed to this report.L awmakers blast Trump’s suggestion of delayed election
JABIN BOTSFORD/THE WASHINGTON POST
President Trump speaks during a coronavirus briefing at the White House on Thursday. Since late March, the president has gone after
mail voting nearly 70 times in interviews, remarks and tweets, including at least 17 times this month, according to a Washington Post tally.“Never in the history of the country, through wars,
depressions and the Civil War, have we ever not
had a federally scheduled election on time. We’ll
find a way to do that again this November 3.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)