Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. I’m Lisa Lerer, your host. |
 | | Doug Mills/The New York Times |
|
Pablo Gutierrez wanted his 16-year-old daughter to hear “the truth.” |
So Mr. Gutierrez, 38, drove with her from their home in Los Angeles to attend President Trump’s rally in Phoenix on Tuesday night. Four years ago, Mr. Gutierrez, the son of Mexican immigrants, voted for Hillary Clinton. Now, he’s backing Mr. Trump. |
“The TV is not going to tell her the truth. The newspaper is not going to tell her the truth. Her friends are not going to tell her the truth,” he said. “She can see with her own eyes, make her own judgment.” |
That “truth,” as Mr. Trump tells it, is crashing into reality. |
What’s missing is the kind of core message that defined his winning campaign — and derailed his opponent’s — four years ago. |
With Joe Biden still keeping a low profile, Mr. Trump doesn’t have easy ammunition with which to attack his Democratic opponent. But he also hasn’t really seemed to be focused: At his Tulsa rally, he threw the kitchen sink at Mr. Biden — blasting the former vice president for everything from being “silent in his basement” to being a “helpless puppet of the radical left” — in hopes of something sticking. |
There were no cries of “lock him up” in response. Rather, poll after poll shows that voters see Mr. Biden as a broadly acceptable alternative to an unpopular president. Of course, unlike Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Biden doesn’t carry the twin burdens of trying to break a historic glass ceiling after having been vilified by Republicans for decades. |
Four years ago, Mr. Trump ran on his own agenda. No, he didn’t release a 288-page book outlining his vision for the country, as Mrs. Clinton did. But there was little doubt as to what he stood for: build the wall, bring jobs back from China and drain the swamp. |
Now, as president, Mr. Trump presides over the swamp. And he doesn’t seem to have any concrete plans for his second term beyond, perhaps, personal vindication. As his poll numbers slump, Mr. Trump has become more enmeshed in the kind of personal vendettas and self-inflicted wounds he cannot seem to resist. (He spent nearly 15 minutes at his Tulsa rally ranting about the coverage of him walking down a ramp, for example.) |
None of that is a problem for his die-hard supporters, who are willing to subscribe to Mr. Trump’s version of reality. |
Mr. Gutierrez, who works in a hospital billing department, said the virus is a “hype” and a “hoax.” On Tuesday, both California, his home state, and Arizona, where he plans to spend a week, reported their highest single-day increases in coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic. |
“Just don’t touch your eyes,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “Be clean.” |
The problem for Mr. Trump is that there are fewer and fewer voters like Mr. Gutierrez. |
Our first national survey of this general election season, released today by The New York Times and Siena College, shows how Mr. Trump’s ratings have fallen among a striking cross-section of voters. Mr. Biden is either leading or running even with the president in nearly every major demographic group, and he has opened up a wide advantage among various groups of voters that were more evenly split in 2016, including independents and college-educated white women. |
With 132 days to go until the election, the dynamics of the race could certainly change. Mr. Trump retains a measure of support on economic issues, according to the poll. So, if the virus fades and the election becomes a referendum over how to restore prosperity, Mr. Trump could pick up support. |
Clearly, that’s the version of the truth Mr. Trump would prefer. It just might not be reality. |
| Laura Gómez contributed reporting from Phoenix. |
We want to hear from our readers. Have a question? We’ll try to answer it. Have a comment? We’re all ears. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. |
Coronavirus diary: On the road |
We’re sharing some of your dispatches from around the globe about life in the time of coronavirus. |
Today, we have Donald Spatz on the motor home lifestyle, which sounds pretty good right about now: |
| I live in a Winnebago motor home. I think I am one of the lucky ones who did shelter-in-place as best I could while searching for places to park in between. I was told to leave a beautiful state park (Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico) on Friday, March 13, with a knock on my door by a ranger who said the governor had ordered all state parks closed immediately. |
| Where to go? I found Lake Meredith National Recreation Area, north of Amarillo, Texas, and had a lovely campsite along the lake where I could stay in a very isolated state for four weeks till I was again told to leave. |
| On the road again to an open state park in Oklahoma, revisiting parts of New Mexico and then work-camping in Willcox, Ariz., for five weeks. |
| Back on the road for the past five weeks through Nevada, California, Oregon and now in a Mount Rainier National Park campground that reopened this month. |
| I’ve seen many different responses by folks to the pandemic and preventive measures to be taken. |
| Now there are sit-down restaurants open in Washington State. Some were open in Oregon but are now on hold. And outside Santa Rosa, Calif., my daughter and her husband could take me to their favorite winery to sample its Champagne (outdoors). |
| I am still cautious but hopeful that the worst is over despite our president’s antics and lack of leadership. |
Have you come up with a clever way to manage social distancing? What happened to that summer vacation? We want to hear about it. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. (Don’t forget to include your name and where you live. Letters are edited and condensed.) |
Sadly, this report from a Yogurtland in San Jose, Calif., is very 2020. |
| Police are looking for a woman who deliberately coughed on a baby in a stroller at a restaurant following a verbal altercation with the child’s mother. … The mother involved alleges that the incident was race related. |
Were you forwarded this newsletter? Sign up here to get it delivered to your inbox. |
Thanks for reading. On Politics is your guide to the political news cycle, delivering clarity from the chaos. |
Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. |
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home