re: #54 NO SMOCKING GUN!

The one thing Trump has going for him is that 43% approve of him no matter what, and another 2-3% will vote for him because “the Democrat is worse.” That is why the GOP and the Russians will throw as much mud at Biden as they can to try to get 5-6% of the electorate who would never vote for Trump to also decide not to vote for Biden either. It’s just going to be a lot more difficult because he only has a few months to trash Biden while they had been defaming Clinton for decades, misogyny won’t factor in, and now people know that a protest vote could help get Trump reelected, while they thought it was safe in 2016.

The other factor in 2016 was that the Libertarian Party ran a “respectable” nominee in Gary Johnson - someone who had actually held statewide office as a Republican. That gave a lot of cover for some Republicans and center-right types to not vote for Clinton while also not voting for Trump. Johnson’s 3.25% nationally was the most votes a third party nominee received since Perot in 1996.