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The blue wave threatening to crush Trump's re-election chances is growing

24 July 2020
Dan Ackermann

With 102 days until Election Day, the blue wave threatening to swamp President Trump's re-election chances keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Why it matters: We all know that anything can happen. But right now, every measurable trend is going against Trump — and with each day that passes, it gets increasingly harder for him to claw his way back.

TheCook Political Report on Friday flipped Florida from "toss-up" to "leans Democratic," citing the state's spiraling coronavirus outbreak.

  • That follows aQuinnipiac poll on Thursday that showed Joe Biden leading by 13 points in the Sunshine State. For context, Trump led Hillary Clinton by 3 points in the same poll in mid-July 2016.

Our thought bubble, from Axios White House editor Margaret Talev: Trump's re-election path has to go through Florida.

  • Without it, he's done.

The tsunami flows down-ballot: Charlie Cook and his team now like Democrats' chances to reclaim the Senate, shifting races in Arizona, Georgia and Iowa in their favor this week.

  • Cook also moved20 House races toward Democrats.
  • Dave Wasserman, its House editor, said he couldn't recall a similarly sized shift for one party.

The big picture: Trump's net approval rating (-15) has remained remarkably consistent throughout his presidency, highlighting the difficulty he faces in trying to quickly turn around public opinion.

  • 538'sHarry Enten noted on CNN this morning that, since 1940, incumbent presidents who were re-elected had an average net approval rating of +23.
  • Those who lost had an average net approval rating of -14.

The bottom line: The pandemic isn't going anywhere. And no matter what the president wants, it's going to define everything from here on out.

  • 102 days ago, the U.S. had 860,000 confirmed coronavirus cases (now 4 million), and Trump claimed "total" authority over ordering states to reopen.
  • Think of everything that's happened since.

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.