We're officially headed for a 2020 rematch, and things are different this time around. Four years ago, Joe Biden had a consistent lead in the polls. Not once in the RealClearPolitics average did Trump ever top Biden.
Today? Not so much. Trump has not only led in the RCP national average since September, but he's also been leading in most battleground state polls. Pundits largely agree that if the election were held today, Trump would win.
But Team Biden thinks it has a couple of aces up its sleeve.
The first is his upcoming State of the Union address, which Biden intends to turn into a campaign speech. According to a report from The Independent, "the Biden brain trust believes he will be able to successfully harness the presidential bully pulpit by using his speech to cast the presidential contest as a choice between him and Mr. Trump – as opposed to a referendum on his presidency thus far."
Of course, the problem with that is that people can still remember how much better things were under Trump, so it's hard to see how the contrast strategy can possibly work. Whether Biden likes it or not, elections are referendums on the incumbent party, and the public hasn't bought any narrative that Biden has pushed in years.
Which brings us to the next advantage that Team Biden thinks it has: money.
Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and senior advisor Jen O’Malley Dillon released a campaign memo Wednesday citing its "historic and growing grassroots-powered war chest,” which, they say, means that the campaign heads into the general election “well-prepared and well-positioned to win."
According to the report, between Biden's current war chest and "what is expected to be $700m or more in pro-Biden spending by outside groups, Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee could be significantly outmatched both in the air and on the ground."
Tell that to Hillary Clinton, who spent roughly double what Trump did in 2016 and lost. Trump's "campaign committee spent about $238.9 million through mid-October, compared with $450.6 million by Clinton’s," explained CNBC back in 2016. "That equals about $859,538 spent per Trump electoral vote, versus about $1.97 million spent per Clinton electoral vote."
Related: ‘This Man Is Not Well.’ Is Joe Biden Getting Worse?
Does anyone believe that Biden's campaign can just spend its way to victory? Consider how much of our tax dollars the administration spent promoting Bidenomics and how badly that message failed. It truly speaks to the idea that it doesn't matter how much money you spend on digital and television ads; if the public isn't buying what you're selling, you're going to go out of business. The same people who thought promoting Bidenomics was a good idea are going to be deciding the messaging of Biden's presidential campaign, and they should probably quit their day jobs.
Another classic example of Biden's messaging failures is his attempt to flip the script on immigration. After polls showed that immigration was a top concern of voters and that Biden got the lion's share of the blame, suddenly, Biden started to pretend that he cared about border security. The problem is that after three years of pretending that the border crisis didn't exist, not even having the media push the narrative that "Trump and MAGA Republicans" are to blame for the border crisis could move the needle in his favor on this issue.
Even Biden's current fundraising advantage is a mirage. He and the DNC have been fundraising jointly. Trump can't jointly fundraise with the RNC until he secures the nomination, at which time you can expect to see the gap between the two men close.
In short, the Biden campaign won't be able to turn this election around with its war chest. In the end, its messaging has repeatedly proven to fall on deaf ears because it can't overcome the fact that voters can still remember how much better things were when Trump occupied the Oval Office.
