Trump on defensive as electoral bush fires rage
by Joseph Simonson, Political Reporter |
| June 12, 2020 02:54 PM
he Trump campaign is frantically spending money to stave off plummeting poll numbers in a number of states the president carried in 2016, signaling trouble and a defensive posture in the months leading up to the general election.
In the past few weeks, the president's reelection team has spent more than $1 million on television ads in both Iowa and Ohio, two states he flipped from the Democrats in 2016 and where his margin of victory over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was more than 9 points. Voters in Des Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Sioux City saw more than $400,000 in television ads, while those in Ohio are beginning to see a nearly $1 million ad campaign there.
Polling in both those states shows warning signs for Trump. Losing both would make it difficult, though not impossible, to win reelection. In Ohio, a RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys has him leading by just 0.5 points over Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, with a survey conducted in June showing Biden ahead by 2 points.
Polling is sparse in Iowa, but a survey conducted in early May, before the George Floyd protests, had Trump leading by 2 points. Trump won the state in 2016 by 9.5 points, a nearly identical margin to Obama in 2008.
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