Episode 16: A Mid-April Election Update

Six weeks after the Super Tuesday start of the general election campaign, we take a look at how much has changed since early March. If things feel different today than they did in mid-winter when Trump appeared to have the advantage, it’s because they are. Every prominent development of the past six weeks has accrued to Joe Biden’s benefit. He’s moving up in the polls, benefiting from an intangible “vibe shift” that’s blunted what had been a wave of negative press, running circles around his opposition in fundraising and organization, and has seen his most high-profile third party threat evaporate. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has started the campaign as a diminished candidate struggling with an abortion issue that’s threatening to bring down his entire party while he begins life as a criminal defendant. None of these developments are particularly surprising when you consider how the frame of reference for the campaign was always going to shift to terrain where Biden held most of the advantages after the primaries ended. But it is useful to step back and look at how these factors are shaping the trajectory of the race, and how they may very well structure what’s going to happen this summer and fall.