Confident Democrats Predict ‘Tsunami’ in November

President Trump’s management of this summer’s crises has triggered what Democrats detect as a tectonic shift in the political landscape, with party leaders suddenly bullish about not only taking back the White House but also wresting control of the Senate, as well as expanding their House majority.

Trump’s incumbent advantages have steadily eroded since the spring, with the president now trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in virtually every public poll nationally and in battleground states, as well as lagging behind the former vice president in fundraising for May and June.

There are essentially four forces driving Democrats’ confidence.

One is the coronavirus, which has overwhelmed governments around the world. Though the Trump administration succeeded in mobilizing American industry to meet the challenge of producing ventilators and masks, and did so without centralizing power (as in previous administration), Democrats hope to blame the president for the crisis.

Another is race relations, which began deteriorating under President Barack Obama with the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2014, but which have reached a new crisis in the wake of the death of George Floyd. Though Trump had nothing to do with that, his combative style are seen by some voters as a potential obstacle to progress.

Third is the economic slump that has resulted from the combination of the two factors above. Though the past two jobs reports have seen record surges, and there is evidence that the economy is beginning to recover, the damage has hurt what had been, until February, the president’s strongest talking point: namely, the best economy in American history.

Finally, there is the president’s own personal style. Though his pugnacious approach to politics may have been necessary for him to win in 2016 and to persevere against unprecedented opposition throughout his presidency, Democrats have targeted the president’s tweets and rhetoric as a reason to vote him out of office.

Republicans, however, still believe they can win, given the radicalism of the Democratic Party and the frailty of former Vice President Joe Biden, who was an extraordinarily weak primary candidate and who has barely left his home in Wilmington, Delaware, for months.

If they do win, Democrats have hinted at enacting the most sweeping left-wing agenda in American history: amnesty for illegal aliens, D.C. statehood, a dramatic expansion of Medicare, the packing of the Supreme Court, the elimination of the coal industry, an end to oil pipelines like the Keystone XL, new draconian gun controls, the regionalization of cities to minimize the independence of suburbs, ending the Electoral College, and reparations for slavery, among other radical ideas.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, is available for pre-order. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.