Harry Enten: “President Donald Trump heads into the debate trailing former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump is the first incumbent to be losing in the polls at this point since George H.W. Bush in 1992. Trump’s obvious goal for the debate is to try and win back some of the White voters without a college degree that he’s clearly lost since 2016. In doing so, he might be able to stop Biden’s easiest paths to taking back the White House for the Democrats.”
“Trump is winning by about 21 points among Whites without a college degree in an average of those polls. That may seem like a lot, but remember that Trump led among this group by about 30 points in the final pre-election polls in 2016. Keep in mind, we’re making an apples-to-apples comparison here. Even if the polls are off by a similar margin as they were in 2016, this exercise takes that into account. There’s real movement going on here among Whites without a college degree. This 9-point or so shift is even more impressive, when you keep in mind that there’s been a change of less than 4 points overall toward Biden compared to where Hillary Clinton was at the end of 2016. In other words, there has been a disproportionate shift toward Biden among White voters without a college degree.”