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Joe Biden is succeeding in making the election about Trump

25 July 2020
Dan Ackermann
Data: Newswhip; Graphic: Axios Visuals

Even after emerging from his Delaware basement, Joe Biden has consumed less and less of the national conversation while his polling lead over President Trump has swelled, according to data from NewsWhip provided exclusively to Axios.

Why it matters: Trump's punches aren't landing. Biden is avoiding heightened scrutiny while Trump absorbs the blowback for his responses to national crises.

Flashback: During this period of the campaign in 2016, social media interactions (likes, comments, shares) on stories about Hillary Clinton continued to climb, nearly doubling from April to July — even before the party conventions began. Biden's have plunged.

  • It was also during this time that "Crooked Hillary" saw the most momentum, according to Google Trends data. It peaked in June and saw another spike during the DNC in Philadelphia in late July.

The big picture: The trends speak to Trump's struggles to effectively brand Biden. He has at turns tried to label Biden as corrupt, senile, toothless and a tool for the "radical left".

  • Biden has been able to grow his lead by keeping the focus on Trump — a job made easier by the nationwide surge in coronavirus cases.

By the numbers: Since emerging from his home on Memorial Day for the first time since mid-March, Biden's interactions have continued to drop while his lead in the national polling average has climbed. It jumped from 5.6 points on the holiday to 8.7 points now, per the RealClearPolitics average.

Between the lines: It's not like Biden is becoming more popular. Trump is just becoming less popular.

  • Biden's favorable ratings have held steady at 45% since March, per Quinnipiac polling.
  • Trump's have fallen from 39% to 34% since March.

The bottom line: As long as Trump remains on the defensive — parrying attacks about the health situation, a bleak economy and a backlash against his handling of race relations — the harder it will be for him to get any of his Biden attacks to stick.

Our 2020 attention trackeris based on data from NewsWhip exclusively provided to Axios as part of a project that will regularly update throughout the 2020 campaign.

See all past editions of the tracker here.

Data: Newswhip; Graphic: Axios Visuals — Note: Hover over the graphic on desktop to see weekly articles and interactions for candidates and issues.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.