Trump vulnerable despite strong economy

Today’s New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper, the largest statewide newspaper, has an article entitled “Healthy NH Job Market attracting more workers, officials say.” In normal times, such an article would be a strong signal that the President Trump was well-situated to be re-elected. However, notwithstanding the strong economy, we believe Trump remains vulnerable. Trump’s approval levels have been in a narrow range, typically in the low 40s and he remains polarizing, particularly with suburban voters. Trump won the 2016 Presidential election despite losing the national popular vote by narrowly flipping rust belt states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Hillary Clinton was a historically weak candidate who ran a poor campaign in which she failed to ever set foot in the swing state of Wisconsin and collapsed during the Sept 11 commemoration. The Democrats are unlikely to repeat such mistakes in 2020. Thus, we think that a generic Democrat has an initial advantage heading into 2020. That said, elections are ultimately a choice between competing candidates and we are not sure that the leading 3 Democratic candidates (Warren, Biden and Sanders) are among the most electable individuals that Democrats could put forward in the general election. Thus, we believe that the 2020 Presidential race remains up for grabs and give Trump about a 40-50% chance of being re-elected.