2020 Updates - UQ

NEG
 Wins - Generic
Trump is close enough even without the popular vote for a 2020 win
Olsen 7-8 (7/8/19, Henry Olsen || Olsen is a Columnist focusing on politics, populism, and American conservative thought
Education: Claremont McKenna College, BA in political science; University of Chicago Law School, JD || If the latest polls are right,
Trump is favored to win reelection, The Washington Post || https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/07/08/if-latest-polls-
are-right-trump-is-favored-win-reelection/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.54a604338682)
The headline news from the most recent Post poll was that President Trump remains behind or tied with all major Democratic
contenders. The takeaway should have been that if this poll is correct, Trump is almost a lock to
win.
There are two reasons that this is the case. The first has to do with the electoral college; the second has to do with the likely
campaign dynamics over the next year and a half.
Trump won the electoral college in 2016 despite receiving roughly 46 percent of the popular
vote because his coalition is highly tilted toward non-college-educated white voters. Those voters are
shrinking as a total share of the national electorate, but they remain the largest group of voters in the electoral-vote-rich states of
the Upper Midwest that he flipped from blue to red. That means Trump will get higher shares of the vote in those states than he will
nationally.
The Post’s poll showed Trump performing nationally at levels that suggest he would get close to
or more than a majority of the vote in at least four of the five key Midwestern swing states . Take
his job approval rating: The poll showed him at 47 percent approval among registered voters. The 2018 exit polls showed Trump’s
job approval was higher than his national average by three points in Wisconsin and eight points in Ohio. By extrapolation, the Post
poll implies his job approval is at or above 50 percent in enough states for him to carry the electoral college.
Trump’s standing gets stronger when we look at the mock ballot questions. He receives between 46 and 48 percent of the vote
among registered voters against any Democrat except Joe Biden. In 2016, he ran about 1.5 to 2 points ahead of his national showing
in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. There’s no reason to think that he won’t do the same in 2020 given the nature of his
coalition. That
means the Post poll implies he will get between about 48 and 50 percent in each of
these states. If he does that, he almost surely will win at least one of them — and with that, he
wins reelection.
Democrats could point to recent polls showing Trump’s standing in these key states to be lower than he needs to win. But we should
take most of these polls with a grain of salt. In both 2016 and 2018, state-level polls in Midwestern swing states significantly
underestimated support for Republican candidates. There’s no reason to think that any of these state-level polls have worked out
their methodological kinks in the past six months.
The Morning Consult poll that tracks Trump’s job approval rating by state is also unreliable. That poll showed Trump’s net job
approval rating in November 2018 at zero in Ohio, minus-10 in Wisconsin and minus-2 in Arizona. But the exit poll, which samples
actual voters, put his net approval rating at plus-7 in Ohio, minus-four in Wisconsin and plus-2 in Arizona.
The campaign’s likely dynamics also mean these numbers are more a floor than a ceiling on his potential support. Trump is a divisive
figure, to put it mildly. But although opinions on him and his performance are fixed, his job approval rating has slowly crept up over
the past five months so that it now stands at 45 percent in the RealClearPolitics average. One can see those numbers declining in the
case of war or recession, but it’s hard to see why a normal campaign season will drive his support lower than it already is.
The opposite is true for Trump’s opponents. With the exception of Biden, his Democratic opponents are nowhere near as well
known as he is, giving him plenty of opportunity to define his opponent as that person emerges. That’s what happened in both 2004
and 2012, the last two times an incumbent ran for reelection. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both broke into
significant leads in early September as voters focused on comparing the incumbent they knew with the challenger they didn’t.
Indeed, the Post poll showed Trump leads "a Democratic candidate who you regard as a socialist” by six points. With
almost
every Democrat running as far left as they can to appeal to the party’s progressive wing, it
seems likely that 2020 will see another election-year break for the incumbent.
Trump is certainly not a shoo-in. His popularity remains low, and even a slight loss of support would keep him from winning. The
Post poll is also one sample. As noted, the current polling average shows Trump receiving slightly less support, and that if that level
is accurate, then he would narrowly lose the key states he needs to win.
Because of the composition of his coalition, Trump
But those considerations detract from the main takeaway.
does not need to win the popular vote to win reelection. All he needs to do is get close, and the
Post poll shows he’s already close enough to win.
The best polls show Trump beating every Dem nominee now
Perticone 7-9 (7/9/19, Joe Perticone || Joe is a politics reporter at Business Insider based in Washington, DC, where he
covers Congress and campaigns. Previously, he covered the Donald Trump 2016 presidential campaign and Capitol Hill for
Independent Journal Review. Joe was born in the San Francisco Bay Area and holds a bachelor's degree in political science from
Arizona State University || Trump is beating Elizabeth Warren and several other top Democratic candidates in a new 2020 poll,
Business Insider || https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-poised-to-beat-kamala-harris-elizabeth-warren-pete-buttigieg-2019-7)
President Donald Trump is poised to beat a handful of top-tier Democratic presidential
candidates in the 2020 election, while losing to others, according to a new poll of head-to-head matchups.
The latest poll from Emerson College is yet another reflecting positively for Trump, who has a
number of advantages and disadvantages going into the 2020 election as nearly two dozen
Democrats are all vying to unseat him from the White House.
Trump edges out several candidates 51-49, including rising Democratic stars such as Sen. Kamala
Harris of California, Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and South Bend, Indiana Mayor
Pete Buttigieg.
The race gets tougher for Trump when facing former Vice President Joe Biden, who according to the poll would beat the incumbent Republican 53-47. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont also wins a head-to-head
matchup 51% to Trump's 49%.

The poll also gave Trump a decisive edge over his Republican primary challenger in former
Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, leading the former Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee 91-9.
 Wins - Econ
Charts show Trump winning on the economy in 2020
Hough 6-25 (6/25/19, Jack Hough || Jack Hough is an associate editor at Barron's, writing stories with a focus on investing.
Before joining Barron's in 2012, Jack spent nine years at SmartMoney and wrote a weekly investment column for The Wall Street
Journal. Before that, he spent eight years on Wall Street as an investment advisor || The Goldman Sachs Trump Chart That Should
Scare Democrats Right Now, Barrons || https://www.barrons.com/articles/donald-trump-goldman-sachs-2020-chart-51561404147)
As 20 Democrats running for president prepare to debate each other on back-to-back nights this week, a chart from Goldman Sachs
suggests that President Donald Trump is the early favorite to win reelection in 2020.
That contrasts with most public and even private campaign polling as the Democratic primary contest heats up. Trump is the only
president never to hit 50% in the daily Gallup poll since its inception; a wide range of surveys suggest he’s trailing potential general
election opponents in key states, and Trump’s team recently denied, only to later confirm, the existence of polls conducted by his
own campaign that showed him down across the swing states. That led the campaign to part ways with a number of its pollsters.
We’ll leave it to others to guess winners, but the Goldman chart serves as a warning against overconfidence for Democrats. It uses
just two pieces of information, both of which Democrats already know: Trump is an unpopular president, and the economy is
healthy.
These are not value judgments. Popularity is measured in approval polls, and those suggest Trump is slightly less popular than Jimmy
Carter was when he lost his reelection bid to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
Economic health is measured here using average growth in gross domestic product over two years leading up to the quarter before
Goldman uses its forecast of 2.2% GDP
the election. We don’t have those numbers yet for Trump, of course, so
growth. By that metric, he’ll preside over an economy as healthy as that of Bill Clinton in 1996 or George W. Bush in 2004.
It likely doesn’t hurt that the S&P 500 index has returned 36.4% since Trump’s inauguration, or
13.7% annualized.
Plotting popularity and GDP for incumbent elections going back to Lyndon Johnson in 1964
yields a scatterplot showing how well an incumbent has to do on one measure to make up for
weakness on the other. Long story short, Trump is doing well enough on the economy to make up for
his low approval rating—and win. See the chart below.
Goldman Sachs Research
What about swing states and the electoral map? The chart is based on the popular vote. Public polling over the last couple of years
suggests Trump has done little to expand upon his base of support, making the chances of a popular-vote victory seem thin at the
But considering Trump won the 2016 election while losing the popular vote, even
moment.
keeping the popular vote close in 2020 could bode well for him.
How much credit does former President Barack Obama deserve for the economy? The analysis suggests the state of the economy
has enough predictive power on its own, without digging into credit or blame. GDP is an incomplete measure of economic well-
being, you say? Fine, but it’s complete enough to be closely correlated with election wins. The federal debt is ballooning? It sure is,
but that doesn’t appear to sway many votes.
But Goldman’s 2.2% growth estimate
More to the point is that the economy could weaken before election time.
already represents a slowdown from last year’s 2.9%. It still might be just enough.
It’s also possible that past results are a poor predictor in this case. The sample size is small, and the U.S. electorate changes over
time.
But the takeaway for Democrats should be clear. Voters in 2020 will want to know who can be a good
steward of the economy. Running on opposition to Trump might not be enough.
 Wins - Electoral College
Electoral college advantage ensures Trump 2020 reelection
Cohn 7/19/20 [Nate Cohn is an American journalist who works as a domestic correspondent
for the Upshot at the New York Times. His reporting focuses on elections, public opinion, and
demographics in the United States. “Trump’s Electoral College Edge Could Grow in 2020,
Rewarding Polarizing Campaign” https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/19/upshot/trump-
electoral-college-edge-.html]
This analysis mainly covers the opportunities available to both parties; we can’t know which side will take better advantage of them.
And it’s important to emphasize that the kind of slight difference in measuring Wisconsin is beyond our ability to discern with great
confidence, even using high-quality, calibrated data. All
of this is based on the president’s approval rating
— well ahead of the election. Most presidents manage to improve their approval rating
between this point and the election, particularly with a strong economy. But unforeseen events
could also hurt his approval rating; it is even imaginable that the president could go too far on immigration for some of his more
moderate supporters. If
the president’s ratings improve, the crucial question will be where. The
answer is likely to be influenced by the contrast he can draw with his still-undetermined
opponent. Democrats could nominate a candidate who tries to win the presidency by
mobilizing a new, diverse coalition with relative strength in Sun Belt states, while
making little or no effort to secure the support of the white working-class voters with
reservations about the president. The Democrats could certainly win in the Sun Belt
states, even in Texas. Perhaps this kind of Democrat could generate such a favorable
turnout that it helps the party even in relatively white states. But it’s also a strategy that
would tend to increase the risk of a wide gap between the Electoral College and the
national vote. It’s also hard to see how it would be the easier way forward for Democrats,
at least as long as the president’s approval rating in the Rust Belt remains so much lower
than in the Sun Belt states. Of course, the campaign season has barely begun. The election could wind up
being a simple referendum on the president, and his approval ratings suggest he could
lose, perhaps even decisively. But his relative advantage in the Electoral College could
ensure his political survival.
 Wins - Polls
Trump win is inevitable—our polls assume yours and use THE hidden poll
Sheppard 7-12 (7/12/19, M. Jospeh Sheppard || M. Joseph Sheppard is an author and columnist who writes on politics and
economics. Called "A Leading Pundit" by Newsmax, his articles have appeared and been cited on American Thinker, The Federalist,
Time Out U.K. and numerous other venues || The Hidden Poll that Points to a Trump Landslide, People's Pundit Daily ||
https://www.peoplespunditdaily.com/opinion/2019/07/12/the-hidden-poll-that-points-to-a-trump-landslide/)
With President Trump rising in the Real Clear Politics aggregate of polls, the temptation is to extrapolate his re-election chances.
Even mainstream media pollsters have grudgingly admitted as much in their latest polling, such as the ABC/Washington Post Poll
headline, Trump reaches new heights.
Of course, this would lead one down the same very large, as it encompassed the entire punditry, rabbit hole that swallowed all the
aggregators and mainstream media in 2016. It must be clear to everybody by now that four-way polling has little direct correlation
with an Electoral College result and even less so when done on a two-party basis.
It is perfectly clear third- and fourth-party polling is always inflated over the actual result. Some of their support scurries back to one
of the two major parties to prevent either from winning. But residual third and fourth party support is enough to make popular vote
predictions dubious at best, particularly those of the disastrous betting markets.
It leads to silly statements such as, “If only Johnson hadn’t run as the Libertarian candidate Hillary would have won.”
This is not to entirely discount popular vote polling in 2016. Final likely voter polls, stripped of partisan bias and meaningless “adult”
and “registered voter” responses, were more or less accurate. The aggregate of final polls were off roughly 2.5 points of Hillary
Clinton’s actual support.
Some, like the Monmouth Poll (Hillary +6), were disastrous. Others, such as Fox (Hillary 48%/Trump 44%), were excellent and off by
just 1.9 points.
The failing was in some state polling, especially Wisconsin and Michigan. Pennsylvania was well within an acceptable margin of error.
The biggest failing was pundit bias, presuppositions, and misreading of the polling.
Even the touted Nate Silver — who was lauded in some quarters for not giving Hillary an over 90% probability of winning in his final
analysis — pegged her probability of victory at 85% if she won the popular vote by 2 points or more, which she did.
On the other hand, the top five professional political scientists’ academic forecast models predicted the popular vote outcome. In
one case, Brad Lockerbie was nearly exact to within 0.1 point and astonishingly months in advance of the actual election.
This begs the question as to the value of not only polling but conventions, massive advertising, get out the vote slogging, debates
and all the other paraphernalia and rituals of presidential elections.
Before we discard all pollsters and rely entirely on the seemingly infallible political scientists — such as the famous academic Alan
there may well be an
Lichtman, who has predicted every presidential election winner for thirty years straight —
overlooked “hidden” poll that will be the best indicator of Trump’s chances.
Apart from the headline job approval aggregation, RCP also tracks an aggregate of Trump’s
“Favorable/Unfavorable” rating.
On July 15, 2015, his favorability rating stood at 22.7%. One has to admire Trump’s self-belief to seek the presidency with that rating.
By Election Day on November 6, 2016, it had climbed to 37.5%. In unison, pundits noted it was
the worst of any presidential candidate , ever.
Clinton was also underwater at 41.8%. Despite his favorability rating, and despite the pundits, Trump still received 45.9% of the
popular vote. His vote share was 8.4 points higher than his favorability rating.
Trump’s current aggregate favorability rating at RCP is 43%. His approval is around the 45%
mark. If the same formula applies, then his current approval would look more like 51.4%.
Consequently, that is right in line with the only “likely voter” approval poll conducted by
Rasmussen Reports, which gauges him at 48%-50%.
It may turn out that the chastened pollsters and pundits, if that were possible in respect of the latter, may get their act together and
the 2020 outcome correctly. It may also turn out the professionals and Professor Lichtman carry the torch for the academics so
impressively once again.
But until the favorability prediction formula is proven inaccurate, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to not include it
prominently in the mix for 2020. If
37.5% favorability ended up with 306 votes in the Electoral College,
then at this point at 43%, it indicates Trump by a landslide with Minnesota, Maine and New
Hampshire in play and 322 electoral votes.
 Wins - Racism
Trump wins 2020- racial resentment drives up polls and votes
Sheeler 19 [Andrew Sheeler specializes in covering politics and crime. He earned his BS at the
University of Alaska Fairbanks. 7/19/2019 https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-
government/capitol-alert/article232884162.html]
If the latest back-and-forth between President Donald Trump and the so-called “Squad”
— Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar and New York Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez — tells us anything, it’s that this is just the beginning of a long, nasty 2020
election cycle. That’s the warning from Carlos Algara, a political scientist from UC Davis. Algara and fellow UC
Davis political scientist Isaac Hale are co-authors of an upcoming report that showcases how
Republican candidates like Trump have relied on white racial resentment and outright
racism to win elections and mitigate electoral losses in the 2018 midterm elections. They
previously authored a similar report on white racial resentment and the 2016 election. In both studies, Algara and Hale found that
racial resentment drove white voters, even those identifying as liberal or Democrat, to
vote for Republican candidates. The effect is most pronounced among lower-educated whites,
they found. Algara said there’s no reason to expect that to change in 2020. “2020 is going
to be an absolutely brutal campaign. It’s going to be a racially charged campaign,” he
said. That’s because racial and racist appeals, such as Trump telling U.S. citizens Ocasio-
Cortez, Omar, Pressley and Tlaib to “go back” to their home countries, appeals to the
conservative base, or at the very least it doesn’t detract. A Reuters poll released after
Trump made those remarks showed his support among Republicans rose 5 percentage
points, for an approval of 72 percent. Even during the 2018 midterms, where Republicans
lost the U.S. House in a wave election, racial appeals helped to stem the losses, Algara
said. While Republicans lost districts carried by Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, they were able to hold onto the
Senate by winning in conservative-leaning states like Florida, Missouri, North Dakota and Texas. Algara called it a tradeoff, a
“Quite frankly, I think it’s a doubling down strategy. ... This
calculated risk on Republicans’ part.
(strategy of racial conservatism) is going to help them in the Senate. We saw that in 2018.
The Senate battleground is becoming smaller,” Algara said. “I think Republicans are
going hunting where the ducks are.” The 2018 midterms showed that targeting white
racial resentment is not just a winning strategy for presidential politics. “Activating
racial resentment drums up support not only for Trump, but also for Republican
candidates down the ticket,” Algara said. Don’t expect Republicans to avoid racially
charged, or racist, statements if a white candidate like former Vice President Joe Biden
gets the Democratic presidential nomination, Algara said. In voters’ minds, Democrats have become the
party of racial liberalism, while the GOP is the home of racial conservatism, he said. That said, Algara said that the comments could
be even worse if a person of color, such as California Sen. Kamala Harris gets the nomination. “It’s
a lot easier to make
these racially charged statements with Kamala Harris as your nominee,” he said. “I can
easily see this message being more effective.” Algara said there’s a strong incentive for Republicans to either
make their own racially charged statements — such as Louisiana Rep. Ralph Abraham tweeting “I’ll pay for their tickets out of this
country if they just tell me where they’d rather be” — or to avoid strongly condemning them, as most Republican Congress members
did after Trump’s tweet. “It makes rational sense to do that,” Algara said. “I think norms are being broken. You have the President of
the United States, a candidate for reelection in 2020, sending explicitly racist appeals. And you have the entire party apparatus behind
him refusing to condemn it.” As America becomes less white, how long can such a strategy remain viable? “That’s the million dollar
question,” Algara said. He said this is a subject that needs more study, but that he doesn’t expect this strategy to go away any time
soon.
 AT Swing States
Even if the plan decked the three key states, Trump would still win 2020
Wasserman 7-19 (7/19/19, David Wasserman || Wasserman is House Editor for The Cook Political Report, where he is
responsible for analyzing U.S. House Races and is recognized as one of the nation's top election forecasters. Founded in 1984, The
Cook Political Report provides analyses of Presidential, U.S. Senate, House and gubernatorial races. The New York Times has called
the Report "a newsletter both parties regard as authoritative" || How Trump could lose by 5 million votes and still win in 2020, NBC
News || https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/how-trump-could-lose-5-million-votes-still-win-2020-n1031601)
In the wake of President Donald Trump's tweets suggesting several nonwhite progressive congresswomen "go back" to their
countries — three of them were born in the U.S. — it's tempting for Democrats to believe the comments will backfire with an
increasingly diverse electorate and seriously damage his re-election prospects.
But the cold reality for Democrats?
The bulk of the nation's demographic transformation is taking place in
states that matter the least in deciding the Electoral College.
Democrats' worst nightmare came true in November 2016 when Hillary Clinton captured 2.9 million more votes than Donald Trump
but he still comfortably prevailed in the Electoral College, 306 to 232. As
much as they would like to purge that
outcome from memory, Democrats would be unwise to write it off as a fluke: In 2020, it's
possible Trump could win 5 million fewer votes than his opponent — and still win a second
term.
The nation's two most populous states, California and Texas, are at the heart of Democrats'
geography problem.
Both behemoths are growing more diverse at a much faster rate than the nation — owing to booming Asian and Latino populations
Yet neither blue California nor red Texas would play a pivotal role
— and are trending toward Democrats.
in a close 2020 election, potentially rendering millions of additional Democratic votes useless.
Over the past four years for which census estimates are available, California's population of nonwhite voting-age citizens has
exploded by 1,585,499, while its number of white voting-age citizens has declined by a net 162,715. The Golden State's GOP is in
free fall: In May 2018, the state's Republican registrants fell to third place behind "no party preference" voters for the first time. In
2016, Clinton stretched Barack Obama's 2012 margin from 3 million to 4.2 million votes. But padding that margin by another 1.2
million votes wouldn't yield the 2020 Democratic nominee a single additional Electoral vote.
Over the same time period, Texas has added a net 1,188,514 nonwhite voting-age citizens and just 200,002 white voting-age
citizens. Texas' economic boom has attracted a diverse, highly professional workforce to burgeoning urban centers of Dallas,
Houston, Austin and San Antonio and shifted the state's politics leftward — especially as GOP votes have begun to "max out" in
stagnant rural areas. In 2016, Clinton cut Obama's 2012 deficit from 1.2 million to just over 800,000. But
again, even cutting
Trump's margin by 800,000 wouldn't yield the 2020 Democratic nominee a single additional
Electoral vote.
Democrats' potential inefficiencies aren't limited to California and Texas: The list of the nation's top 15 fastest-diversifying states
also includes the sizable yet safely blue states of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Washington and Oregon.
Meanwhile, demographic transformation isn't nearly as rapid in the narrow band of states that are best-positioned to decide the
Electoral College — a factor that seriously aids Trump.
In 2016, Trump's victory hinged on three Great Lakes states he won by less than a point: Michigan (0.2 percent), Pennsylvania (0.7
percent) and Wisconsin (0.8 percent). All three of these aging, relatively white states have some of the nation's highest shares of
white voters without college degrees — a group trending away from Democrats over the long term. And the nonwhite share of the
eligible electorate in each of the three has increased at only a quarter to a half of the rate it has surged in California, Texas and
Nevada.
Democrats eagerly point out that they swept Senate and governors' races in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2018. And
they flipped two seats in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania on their way to taking back the House.
But Trump could lose Michigan and Pennsylvania and still win the Electoral College, so long as he
carries every other place he won in 2016. And Wisconsin didn't provide as clear a verdict in 2018. Even with favorable turnout in a
"blue wave," Democrats won Wisconsin's governor's race only by a point and failed to gain a House seat. If enough Trump voters
who sat out 2018 — particularly white working-class men — return to the polls in 2020, the Badger State could easily stay red.
Progressive dem party sends swing voters to the right- guarantees reelection
Gessiotto 7/22/19 [Madison Gesiotto is a commentator and journalist who graduated with
honors from The Ohio State University in 2014 with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. She
graduated from Moritz College of Law at Ohio State in 2017 with a juris doctorate degree.
“Trump Stands To Win As The Democrats Turn Off Moderates”
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/454178-trump-stands-to-win-big-as-the-democrats-turn-
off-moderates]
Democratic Party insiders are nervous about their electoral prospects in 2020 for good
reason. The tenure of Democrats in control of the House of Representatives has been
defined by infighting, extremism, and attacks on President Trump. House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi and other Democratic leaders have promised the American people meaningful
legislation and problem solving, but have instead chosen to use their power in Congress
to sow chaos and play political games. In doing so, they have empowered the radical
liberal fringe of the party, and now they stand to pay the price. Pelosi knows that she
must find a way to restrain the ascendent radicals in her party. Otherwise, the accelerating
slide toward left wing socialism will send swing voters sprinting back toward Trump
ahead of the critical 2020 election. The rest of the Democratic leadership is equally aware
of this fact. According to Axios, an internal poll is revealing that the progressive socialist
agenda driven by identity politics is poisoning the reputation of the party among the
important swing voters who decide close elections. These swing voters see the far left has
commandeered the Democratic Party, which they associate with its most unhinged
members. The internal poll found that freshman Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-
Cortez and Ilhan Omar enjoy relatively high name recognition, but also suffer from low
approval ratings, a doomsday scenario for Pelosi and the moderate Democrats who gave
the party a House majority in the 2018 midterms. While 74 percent of respondents said
they are familiar with Ocasio-Cortez, only 22 percent viewed her favorably. Omar fared
worse, as 53 percent of respondents recognize who she is, but just 9 percent view her
favorably. In fact, their approval ratings have actually decreased as their name
recognition has grown, suggesting that things will get even worse for Democrats the
longer the “squad” of radical freshman representatives in Congress keeps providing
headline fodder with their extremist rhetoric and proposals. Working Americans do not
want socialism and identity politics, and they reject such efforts to remake the United
States in the image of Venezuela. Ocasio-Cortez and her band of radicals are now the de
facto leaders of the Democratic Party, and swing voters do not like it. An internal poll
found that 69 percent of respondents view socialism unfavorably, while a solid majority
of them view capitalism positively.
 AT Shy Voters
Current Trump actions are enough to cause a 2020 loss—the shy Trump voter
factor
Geraghty 7-12 (7/12/19, Jim Geraghty || Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review || Even When
Accounting for 'Shy Trump Voters,' the President Needs His Numbers to Improve, National Review ||
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/even-when-accounting-for-shy-trump-voters-the-president-needs-his-numbers-to-
improve/)
Is there a shy Trump voter factor the way there used to be “shy Tory factor” in polls? Probably.
The final polls in Michigan in 2016 put Hillary Clinton ahead by 4 to 5 percentage points, and Trump won by three-tenths of one
percentage point. The final polls in Pennsylvania in 2016 put Hillary Clinton tied to leading by 4 points, and Trump won by seven-
tenths of one percentage point. The final polls in Wisconsin in 2016 put Hillary Clinton ahead by 6 to 8 points, and Trump won by
seven-tenths of one percentage point.
The good news for the Trump reelection campaign is that that they can feel reasonably optimistic that Trump will outperform the
final polls conducted before Election Day 2020. The
bad news is, we don’t know if this “shy Trump voter
factor” will be good for one percentage point, 5 percentage points, or 10 percentage points.
Let’s say the shy Trump voters are worth a five-point swing in favor of Trump compared to the most recent numbers in key states.
In a matchup against Joe Biden, Trump would still lose Michigan, lose Pennsylvania, and lose
Wisconsin, as well as losing the national popular vote by a slightly larger margin than in 2016. If
Biden won those three states, and kept Hillary Clinton’s states, he’s at 278 electoral votes and Trump would be a one-term
president.
If you’re wondering about the other likely swing states, with a five point swing, Trump would still win Ohio. The limited number of
polls in Florida range from a tie to nine point lead for Biden, and North Carolina has an even wider range. Iowa would probably be
close.
All of this is when the economy is rocking and rolling; there’s no guarantee that the economy will be doing as well in 15 months. To
feel good about Trump’s odds in those states, you must assume his shy supporters are worth a swing of 8 to 10 percentage points
from the current numbers.
The “shy Trump voter” effect probably varies from state to state. The point is, in most of the big battleground states ,
Trump
doesn’t need to do slightly better than his current poll numbers. He needs to do way better
than his current poll numbers, even when you give him a generous assessment of hidden support that isn’t showing up in
opinion surveys but will in show up polling places.
Will Biden, or any other Democratic nominee, be in weaker shape in autumn 2020 compared to now? Probably. Democrats look set
to have a long, bruising primary. But that primary fight would have to get awfully nasty to persuade a significant number of self-
identified Democrats to stay home and not vote. In a heavily polarized era, the vast majority of Biden supporters will end up
supporting Kamala Harris if she’s the nominee, and vice versa.
Trump can and probably will tie the Democratic nominee to the current radical policies being embraced during this primary — de
facto open borders, elimination of private health insurance, taxpayer-funded health care and education for those who cross the
border illegally. He and his team may feel confident about the potency of the message, “Even if you don’t like everything I’m doing,
electing a Democrat means empowering someone who prioritizes other country’s citizens over American citizens.”
Those positions or other flaws may well drag down Democratic candidates in head-to-head matchups against Trump — but they
haven’t done so yet.
Considering his
Coaches sometimes tell athletes, “Even if you’re ahead by ten points, play as if you’re behind by ten points.”
current ominous poll numbers, the Trump campaign should indeed work as if they’re 10 points
behind.
AFF
 Loses - Generic
Nearly every Dem nominee beats Trump
Schwab 7-14 (7/14/19, Nikki Schwab || Journalist and reporter for the New York Post || Biden, Sanders and Warren all
lead Trump in 2020 poll, New York Post || https://nypost.com/2019/07/14/biden-sanders-and-warren-all-lead-trump-in-2020-poll/)
WASHINGTON – The top three Democratic candidates cleanly beat President Trump in head-to-head match-ups, a new NBC
News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.
Former Vice President Joe Biden performs best against Trump, getting 51 percent of the vote to
Trump’s 42 percent.
Biden performs better with independents, whites and suburban voters compared to some of the more liberal candidates in the large
Democratic field.
That being said, Sen. Bernie Sanders,
the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist , beats Trump by seven
percentage points – 50 percent to 43 percent.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren also beats Trump outside the poll’s 3.5 percent margin of error. She earns 48
percent of the vote, while Trump gets 43 percent.
Sen. Kamala Harris wins against Trump too, but only by a point.
The poll has her at 45 percent to Trump’s 44 percent.
Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris are the only candidates who have a double-digit share of Democratic primary voters.
Biden leads the pack with 26 percent support, followed by Warren, who has bypassed her ideological counterpart Sanders in most
recent polling.
In the NBC News poll, Warren has the support of 19 percent of respondents, while Sanders is at 13 percent.
Harris also has 13 percent support after her strong first debate performance.
Following the top four is South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 7 percent support.
Businessman Andrew Yang and former Rep. Beto O’Rourke have 2 percent support.
All the other candidates are polling at 1 percent of less.
Candidates need to be polling at 2 percent of higher to start qualifying for the Democratic debates in September and October. Right
now just 10 of 25 candidates have met some of the polling or donor requirements to appear at the fall debates.
The poll was conducted between July 7-9 and surveyed 800 registered voters. It has a plus/margin 3.5 percentage point margin of
error.
 Loses - Models
Best predictions prove Trump will lose 2020
Perry 7/17/19 [ Douglas Perry is a journalist and writer at The Oregonian and has published
several books. “Donald Trump will lose the 2020 election, concludes unique prediction model
that nailed 2018 midterm results” https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/07/donald-trump-
will-lose-the-2020-election-concludes-unique-prediction-model-that-nailed-2018-midterm-
results.html
Data experts have tried to learn from that epic fail -- and one has proven especially
successful, so far. Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director of the Wason Center for Public
Policy at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University, created a unique prediction model
that almost perfectly foretold the results of the 2018 midterm election. (The model
concluded the Democrats would pick up 42 House seats; the Dems gained 40 seats.) Now
Bitecofer says that same model, which she says “departs significantly” from well-known
data site FiveThirtyEight’s approach, makes clear that Donald Trump will not win
reelection next year. What makes Bitecofer’s model different? “The central theoretical
tenet serving as the basis for my predictions,” she says, “is that ‘this ain’t your
granddaddy’s electorate’ anymore. That is to say, contemporary elections are largely driven by negative
partisanship.” She approaches the data with that in mind. And a full sixteen months before the 2020 election, she has chosen the
winner -- she just doesn’t know who it’s going to be. Bitecofer’s
model has concluded that it matters not
who the Democratic presidential nominee is -- “unless it ends up being a disruptor like Bernie Sanders.”
Whoever wins the Democratic nomination -- other than possibly Bernie, that is -- will
defeat Trump in the general election.

New model guarantees a Trump loss—it’s the most predictive and doesn’t base
on the Dem nominee
Perry 7-17 (7/17/19, Douglas Perry || Doug is a news and entertainment writer at The Oregonian. He is the author of three
books || Donald Trump will lose the 2020 election, concludes unique prediction model that nailed 2018 midterm results, The
Oregonian || https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/07/donald-trump-will-lose-the-2020-election-concludes-unique-
prediction-model-that-nailed-2018-midterm-results.html)
Pollsters famously got the 2016 presidential election wrong. HuffPost, for example, listed Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning at 99
percent right up until the race was called for Donald Trump.
Rachel Bitecofer, the
Data experts have tried to learn from that epic fail -- and one has proven especially successful, so far.
assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Virginia’s Christopher Newport
University, created a unique prediction model that almost perfectly foretold the results of the
2018 midterm election. (The model concluded the Democrats would pick up 42 House seats; the
Dems gained 40 seats.)
Now Bitecofer says that same model, which she says “departs significantly” from well-known data site FiveThirtyEight’s approach,
makes clear that Donald Trump will not win reelection next year.
What makes Bitecofer’s model different? “The central theoretical tenet serving as the basis for my
predictions,” she says, “is that ‘this ain’t your granddaddy’s electorate’ anymore. That is to say, contemporary
elections are largely driven by negative partisanship.” She approaches the data with that in
mind.
And a full sixteen months before the 2020 election, she has chosen the winner -- she just doesn’t know who it’s going to be.
Bitecofer’s model has concluded that it matters not who the Democratic presidential nominee
is -- “unless it ends up being a disruptor like Bernie Sanders.” Whoever wins the Democratic nomination -- other
than possibly Bernie, that is -- will defeat Trump in the general election.
The only unexpected factors that might make Bitecofer revisit her Trump-loses prediction: the launch of a well-funded independent
campaign by someone like Howard Schultz, the sudden onset of an economic recession, a war with Iran or a large-scale terrorist
attack. “Otherwise,” she says, “the country’s hyper-partisan and polarized environment has largely set the conditions of the 2020
election in stone.”
that the Midwest, where Trump did unexpectedly well in
The political scientist and data analyst has concluded
2016 with razor-thin victories in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, is the “only viable path
for Trump to win the White House” four years later -- and that it’s just not going to happen
again.
“The complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president,” she
writes, “has been replaced with the terrified electorate of 2020, who are convinced he’s the
Terminator and can’t be stopped. Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is
everything.”
 Loses - Swing States
Trump has already lost key Midwest states—that guarantees a 2020 loss
Martin 7-19 (7/19/19, Dan Desai Martin || Former international development advocate, communications consultant,
education advocate, and freelance writer || New Poll Show Trump Losing Georgia and North Carolina in 2020, The National Memo
|| https://www.nationalmemo.com/new-poll-shows-trump-losing-georgia-and-north-carolina-in-2020/?cn-reloaded=1)
Trump won both Georgia and North Carolina in 2016, but he now trails a generic Democrat in
both states.
Trump’s monumental unpopularity is threatening his reelection chances in two red states in the deep
south: Georgia and North Carolina. A PPP poll released Friday shows Trump losing both states to
a generic Democrat.
In Georgia, Trump trails 50 percent – 46 percent, while his numbers in North Carolina are slightly
worse, trailing 49 percent – 44 percent.
In their analysis, the pollsters note that chatter about how the Democrats could with the 2020 general election has centered on a
handful of Midwestern states — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — but these new polls “show a possible backup plan to
victory in the South as well.”
The same poll showed more voters in both states disapproving of Trump’s job performance than
approving of it. In Georgia, Trump was underwater by a 45 percent – 49 percent gap, and in North Carolina, 46 percent
approve of Trump while 49 percent disapprove.
Trump carried both Georgia and North Carolina in 2016, but if Trump continues to this unpopular in both places, PPP says both
states should be considered up for grabs in 2020.
Trump’s unpopularity could have cascading effects on control of the U.S. Senate as well. Both Georgia and North Carolina have
competitive Senate races in 2020 involving incumbent Republicans who have tied their fate to Trump.
In Georgia, Sen. David Perdue’s close ties to Trump “could make Perdue vulnerable if the election is a referendum on Trump’s
performance,” according to the Savannah Morning News. Perdue has also attacked earned benefit programs like Social Security,
which 1.8 million Georgians rely upon.
In North Carolina, Sen. Thom Tillis recently went out of his way to praise Trump after a rally where Trump continued his racist attacks
against four congresswomen. He has faced controversy in his home state for skipping a key congressional hearing about veterans to
attend fancy fundraisers and flip-flopping on his positions to appease the far-right fringe of his own party.
Trump’s stumbling popularity could have significant down-ballot impacts on Perdue and Tillis.
The pollsters from PPP noted that both states are experiencing demographic changes that could benefit Democrats. In Georgia,
“nonwhite voters — who are growing in their share of the electorate — say they will vote Democratic over Trump 84-12 next year.”
The North Carolina poll found a similar antipathy towards Trump from nonwhite votes, while a majority of white voters in both
states continue to support Trump.
It remains to be seen who the Democratic nominee will be, and 20 candidates face off in a second debate on July 30 and 31.
Whoever emerges as the nominee will likely focus their efforts on the aforementioned Midwest states.
“As all our recent Southern polls show, there’s a pretty plausible path back to power through that region as well,” PPP pollsters said.
Key states make trump lose 2020
Madonna and Young 7/10/19 [G. Terry Madonna is director of the Center for Politics and
Public Affairs at Franklin & Marshall College, director of the F&M Poll, and a professor of public
affairs at the college. Michael L. Young is a retired professor of politics and public policy at Penn
State, an author, pollster, and political analyst.]
While Democrats wade through a marathon of intra-party debates, the national punditocracy is increasingly asking two urgent
questions about the impending 2020 presidential contest: Can
President Trump win Pennsylvania, Michigan
and Wisconsin again? And can he win a second term without those three states? Both
questions reflect a stark reality in American presidential elections: The presidency is won
or lost in the Electoral College -- a body dominated by a handful of large so-called
battleground states that can determine the outcome. Donald Trump triumphed in 2016 by
winning narrowly these three Rust Belt states, which he was expected to lose.
Pennsylvania was the biggest surprise as well as the biggest prize among them. In theory,
Trump can win without these three -- either by replacing them with three other large
states -- or by picking up several smaller states that equal their combined 46 electoral
votes. But where will those replacement states come from? Presently, according to the
New York Times, Trump is far behind in Pennsylvania (16 percentage points), Wisconsin
(10 points) and Michigan (11 points). According to the Morning Consult, Trump’s
current approval rating in Pennsylvania has plummeted 19 points since Inauguration Day.
The president could go after states he narrowly lost in 2016 including New Hampshire,
Nevada and Minnesota. But combined these would not nearly make up a loss in
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.In addition, Trump may be on the defensive in
states he won in 2016 and must win again in 2020. Florida and even Texas are wobbly
while North Carolina, a Trump stronghold in 2016, is trending blue in statewide
elections. Even winning all three again won’t make up a loss in Wisconsin, Michigan and
Pennsylvania. Inarguably then, Trump almost certainly cannot win the Electoral College
without winning these three crucial Rust Belt states, which have voted as a bloc seven
elections in a row -- supporting Democrats in six consecutive elections before shifting to
Trump and the GOP in 2016. As goes Wisconsin and Michigan also goes Pennsylvania;
and in 2020, as goes Pennsylvania, so goes the election
Trump losing to Dem candidates in key states
Geraghty 7/24/19 [Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review and
author of several books. “2016 is a close election, and 2020 is likely to be another”
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/2016-was-a-close-election-and-2020-is-likely-to-be-
another/]
The big three that decided the election were Michigan (where Trump won by 10,704
votes) Wisconsin (where he won by 22,748 votes) and Pennsylvania (44,292 votes). As
many have observed since the final tally in 2016, this means about 77,744 Americans
made the difference in that election. For perspective, the average home attendance of the
Michigan Wolverines last season was 110,736. In other words, if Democrats can add less
than a full football stadium’s worth of votes to Hillary Clinton’s total in those three states
in the right proportion, they’ll win the presidency. And for what it’s worth, his approval
rating in those three key states is currently in the low-to-mid 40s and he’s losing head-to-
head matchups with Joe Biden in these states by a wide margin.
 AT Econ
The economy doesn’t do anything for Trump—he still loses 2020
Boak and Fingerhut 7-1 (7/1/19, Josh Boak and Hannah Fingerhut || They are research analysts, one for the Pew
Institute || Poll: Trump Not Boosted by Strong American Economy, NBC Washington ||
https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/politics/Poll-Trump-Strong-American-Economy-512070601.html)
The solid economy is doing little to bolster support for President Donald Trump.
Americans give Trump mixed reviews for his economic stewardship despite the growth achieved during this presidency,
according to a new survey by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Nearly two-thirds describe as "good" an economy that appears to have set a record for the longest expansion in U.S. history, with
decade-long growth that began under Barack Obama. More people consider the economy to be good today
than did at the start of the year.
But significantly fewer approve of Trump's handling of the economy, even as it remains a
relative strength compared with other issues. The survey indicates that most Americans do not believe
they're personally benefiting from his trade policies. And only 17% said they received a tax cut ,
despite government and private sector figures showing that a clear majority of taxpayers owed less after the president's tax
overhaul passed in 2017.
These doubts create a possible vulnerability as Trump highlights the economy's solid performance in his campaign for re-election in
2020. During two nights of debates last week, almost every Democratic presidential candidate found ways to criticize the president
by decrying the wealth gap .
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said it was evidence of "corruption." Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders railed against the
concentration of wealth in the three richest Americans, while former Vice President Joe Biden said Trump thinks Wall Street, not the
middle class, built America.
Christel Bastida, 39, a neuroscience researcher, was active in Democratic politics last year during the Senate race in Texas and plans
to run for Houston City Council.
"I personally don't feel more secure financially and I think that's the case for a lot of people who are middle class," she said. "A
lot
of working-class people are not comfortable now. I know there were tax breaks that were supposed to be helpful
to people, but it turns out they're helpful to billionaires and corporations and I'm neither."
his overall approval rating — 38% —
Nearly half of Americans, 47%, approve of Trump's handling of the economy, but
is low compared with what past presidents have enjoyed in strong economic conditions. Only about
4 in 10 Americans approve of his handling of taxes and trade negotiations.
The public skepticism has persisted even as the president routinely congratulates himself on the economy, including the 3.6%
unemployment rate and stock market gains.
He tweeted last week: "The Stock Market went up massively from the day after I won the Election, all the way up to the day that I
took office, because of the enthusiasm for the fact that I was going to be President. That big Stock Market increase must be credited
to me."
The 2017 tax overhaul was sold by the administration as a way to return more income to
everyday Americans. But the poll shows nearly half say they think their taxes stayed the same or
are unsure; 33% said they increased. This suggests the tax cuts may have been too modest to notice or were eaten up
by daily expenses, or that people were disappointed with their refunds.
That feeling of being left behind has energized Democrats seeking to turn out the vote next year. The tax overhaul
disproportionately favored corporations and the wealthy, allowing Democrats to say the tax cuts were fundamentally unfair.
Democrats are more likely than Republicans to say the amount they paid in taxes increased in the last year, 42% versus 25%, while
more Republicans say their taxes decreased, 25% versus 10%.
Nor are tariffs popular.
Trump has imposed a tax on roughly $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, part of an effort to force the world's second-largest
economy to trade on more favorable terms with the United States. China retaliated with their own tariffs that hit the U.S.
agricultural sector, causing the Trump administration to provide aid to farmers with lost profits.
The president has also threatened tariffs on Mexico in order to get that country to reduce the border-crossings into the United
States and has mused about hitting European autos with import taxes as well.
A mere 15% of Americans said the tariffs will help them and their family.
With regards to the national economy, just 26% said the tariffs will help, a sharp decline from 40% who said that last August. About
half said the tariffs will be harmful.
Republicans, in particular, are less optimistic: Half think Trump's tariffs will help the economy, down from 7 in 10 in August.
Ryan Brueggemann, 37, of New Berlin, Wisconsin, runs a dairy farm with his brother. He supports Trump but dislikes the tariffs,
though he understands why the president has deployed them so frequently.
"I don't believe it's a great business practice to use them," Brueggemann said. "But it came down to the point where our country is
being taken advantage of unfairly and that the only way other nations were going to listen to what we wanted to renegotiate and
even get them to the table to think about it was to get their attention by putting some tariffs on products."
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Struggles to Name Supporters[NATL] Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló Struggles to Name
Supporters
In a live interview with Fox, he falsely claims that Javier Jiménez, the Mayor of San Sebastián, Puerto Rico, supports his effort to stay
in office.(Published Tuesday, July 23, 2019)
Paul Miller, 81, a retired shoe factory foreman from Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said he still intends to vote for Trump, since he hasn't
seen anyone better yet in the Democratic field.
Living off his pension and Social Security, Miller said the tax cuts were basically irrelevant for him. And he doesn't agree with the
president's claim that China is paying for the tariffs, rather than U.S. consumers and companies.
"I sort of have mixed feelings about the tariffs," he said. "Of course, I don't believe it when Trump says we won't have to pay them.
We will."
 AT Models/Bitecofer Indict
Bitecofer’s model is still flawed—no way to predict wins right now
Hakim 7-4 (7/4/19, Elad Hakim || Hakim is a political commentator and writer who is fluent in both English and Hebrew. His
articles have been published in The Federalist, The Western Journal, American Thinker, World Net Daily, Sun-Sentinel, The Epoch
Times and other online publications. || The Polls and Models Could Be Off the Mark Again in 2020, The Epoch Times ||
https://www.theepochtimes.com/the-polls-and-models-could-once-again-be-off-the-mark-in-2020_2988568.html)
According to some polls and models, if you support President Donald Trump, you should forget about a second term. Better yet, you
should probably throw in the towel now, as the party is all but over.
As reported in the Washington Examiner: “A university election model that predicted the blue wave in the House of Representatives
in 2018 almost to the seat is predicting a big loss by President Trump next year, due to an explosion of bitter partisanship and Trump
hate.
“An election forecast model designed by Rachel Bitecofer, assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher
Newport University, predicted that Trump will lose the Electoral College, 297-197, with 270 of 538 needed to win.”
Given these dire predictions, the president should enjoy his last year in office, as his presidency will undoubtedly come to an end in
2020, right?
“The country’s hyperpartisan and polarized environment has largely set the conditions of the 2020 election in stone. … The
complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president, has been replaced with the terrified
electorate of 2020. Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is everything,” Bitecofer wrote in a release.
Whoa! Time out! Let’s not be too hasty!
If the country were dealing with a more “traditional” president in “normal” times, many Republicans and Trump supporters would
However, as we know, these are not
be justified if this forecast model was viewed with trepidation and worry.
“normal” times and Trump is no “traditional” president. As a result, there are some compelling
reasons why this model (and others like it) may not be able to accurately or definitively predict
the outcome of the 2020 election.
One factor that casts some doubt as to the results of this model stems from the extreme divergence between the two major parties,
which is very important. Unlike years past, the U.S. public is being asked to choose between a system of government revolving
around freedom, democracy, and capitalism (Republicans) and a socialist system of government.
Unlike previous elections, the policies espoused by many on left are so extreme that they could very well turn off many
independents and moderate Democrats. Bitecofer addressed this possibility in her model, stating:
“If the nominee hails from the progressive wing of the party, it will provoke massive handwringing both within the party and the
media that if not controlled could become self-reinforcing. But the Democrats are not complacent like they were in 2016 and I doubt
there is any amount of polling or favorable forecasts that will make them so. That fear will play a crucial role in their 2020 victory.
We will not see a divided Democratic Party in 2020.”
Time will tell whether Bitecofer’s analysis is correct. Of course, given that the likely Democratic nominee will promote a socialist
agenda (to some extent), moderate Democrats and independents could very well decide to vote for Trump or not to vote at all. That
would likely hurt the Democrats more than the president, whose followers and supporters will likely be very motivated to vote.
While Bitecofer asserts that the “complacent” electorate of 2016 (who seemingly opposed
Trump) has been replaced by the “terrified” electorate of 2020, this comparison isn’t entirely
accurate for several reasons. First, some of those who opposed “candidate” Trump in 2016
could have changed their position in light of Trump’s many successes. including, but not limited
to, a strong economy, a better job market, and lower taxes.
Additionally, the policies espoused by those on the left (in 2016) weren’t nearly as extreme as they
are now. Given the dangerous socialist policies promoted by many of the leading Democratic candidates, it’s highly unlikely that
all the “complacent” voters of 2016 (referenced in the model) will subsequently vote against Trump in 2020. The circumstances are
much different: Trump’s policies have helped many Americans (financially and otherwise), and the Democratic policies are
significantly more extreme.
If the 2016 election taught us anything, it’s
that polls means very little when it comes to Trump’s
“electability.” Given Trump’s many accomplishments, the strength of the U.S. economy, and the
socialist policies that are being pushed by many on the left , what reason is there to believe that the polls or
models will be any more accurate come 2020?
2020 Updates - Thumpers
AFF
 AT Abortion
Abortion isn’t a hot button topic – the DNC didn’t even mention it in the
Democratic debates
Yates 6/30 (Jason Yates, Jason Yates is CEO of My Faith Votes, a nonpartisan movement
focused on motivating Christians in America to participate in local and domestic elections.,
"Jason Yates: Why abortion wasn’t a hot topic in the Democratic debates", 6/30/19,
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jason-yates-why-abortion-wasnt-a-hot-topic-in-the-
democratic-debates)
Twenty candidates sparred over the economy, immigration, health care and racism during the
two-night Democratic debate last week. Candidates vied to highlight their differences in approaches and establish
why they are uniquely positioned to beat President Trump. On the first night, Julian Castro tried to take down Beto O’Rourke. The
second night was livelier with Kamala Harris targeting former Vice President Joe Biden, and Marianne Williamson trying to shoot
down everyone’s plans with the power of love.
Through the clamor of candidates talking over one another , Kamala Harris unified the crowd when she said,
“America does not want to witness a food fight. They want to know how we’re going to put food
on their table.”
But there’s one issue they didn’t fight over — abortion. It was barely mentioned either night.

Abortion doesn’t thump – people care about the economy and love what
Trump is doing for it
Crookston 19 (Paul Crookston, Journalist at the Free Beacon, "Schultz: I Want Pro-Choice
Judges but Abortion, Cultural Issues ‘Not What’s Most Important’" 1/29/19,
https://freebeacon.com/politics/schultz-i-want-pro-choice-judges-but-abortion-cultural-issues-
not-whats-most-important/)
McCain argued against trying to dislodge the two-party system that's been in place since Reconstruction. She said it would just serve
to help President Donald Trump's reelection, which Schultz claims to want to stop.
"If you can live with the hypothetical situation that you get Trump reelected, that's fine, but no one seems terribly
convinced that this is a possible—" she said.
"You're putting words in my mouth," he retorted. "I won't live with President Trump being reelected because that's not going to
happen."
Schultz concluded by saying abortion and "cultural issues" are not important compared to fiscal
issues.
"I think the most important thing facing the country right now is not the issue of abortion or the
cultural issues that divide us," he said. "The most important thing facing the country right now is answering the
question in the affirmative and that is: Do we believe that our children and our grandchildren are going to
have a better life than we do? And most Americans believe that is not the case, and that is unacceptable to me. So I
want to do everything I can to restore a sense of financial security and a real belief in the promise
of the country."
 AT Climate
Climate change doesn’t thump – no candidate cares about it because of political
incentive
Gillis 6-7-19 Mr. Gillis, a former environmental reporter for The Times, is a contributing
opinion writer. The Democratic Party Is Trying to Downplay Climate Change. Don’t Let It.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/opinion/democrats-climate-change.html
Now we know. The Democratic Party establishment in Washington really believes it is going to get
away with running another round of presidential primaries in which the climate crisis is
basically hidden in the attic. The proof came this week, when the Democratic National Committee informed one of the
candidates, Jay Inslee, that it had turned down his call to hold a candidate debate specifically about climate change. People are
roasting alive in California towns hit by the deadliest wildfires in the state’s history. Midwestern cities are reeling from deluge upon
deluge. Coastal communities are starting to drown from a relentlessly rising sea. None
of that is enough, apparently,
for the Democratic Party to choose to put this issue front-and-center in the primary campaign.
Not only did the D.N.C. turn Mr. Inslee down; according to him, the party informed him that
he would be banned from party-sponsored debates if he took part in any unofficial
candidate debate on climate change. In a statement, the party declared it would not schedule any single-issue
debates, so that voters would “have the ability to hear from candidates on dozens of issues of importance.” That might make sense
if the D.N.C. were only planning two or three debates. It is planning 12; surely the party can afford to devote a twelfth of its debate
time to the issue that threatens to throw human civilization into crisis. Infuriating as this latest maneuver is, Democratic fecklessness
on the subject of climate change is nothing new. The party has always made that most basic of political calculations — which voters
does this issue get us that we don’t already have? — and come up with the answer: none. So while
Democrats were
nominally on the right side about climate change, they never put much fight into it. President
Barack Obama, in his first two years, put a lot of sweat into getting a health care bill, and got one; he put less energy into getting a
climate bill, and failed for lack of a handful of votes in the Senate. He turned back to climate in his second term, but at that point he
was dealing with a Republican Congress and could only adopt weak administrative measures. President Trump, of course, is trying to
roll those back. Beyond the raw political calculation, the past willingness of Democratic candidates and of the D.N.C. itself to take
campaign cash from fossil-fuel interests has no doubt influenced their priorities. Most of the fossil lucre goes to the Republicans,
certainly, but the companies are smart enough to spread just enough to the Democrats to get their attention. At long last, the 2020
election looked to be shaping up differently. Most of the Democratic candidates have recently pledged not to take money from fossil
fuel companies. For the first time, a Democrat — Mr. Inslee, the governor of Washington — is running specifically as a climate
candidate, forcing the rest of the field to take the issue more seriously and devise actual climate plans. The demands of young
Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have shaken up the party. Many of us thought we could not possibly go through another
cycle in which this issue plays little role in the Democratic primaries and no role at all in the general election. Depending on which
polls you follow, public concern about the climate crisis is at or near a high. Finally, people are seeing with their own eyes how
threatening this problem is. In California, fire risk is now so severe that in certain parts of the state, electric companies are preparing
to cut off the power, for days or even weeks, to keep wires from sparking blazes. Who says civilization cannot go backward? In
fairness to the Democrats, turning the climate issue to their advantage in a general election
is certainly going to be tricky. Only a decade ago, Republicans like John McCain took the problem seriously, but now the
Republican Party can be counted on for relentless demagogy about any solutions proposed by the Democrats. The Bolsheviks are
coming! Worse, the environmental movement, a core element of the Democratic base, is famously
fractious. When Mr. Obama was pushing a 2009 bill that would have restricted carbon emissions, some environmental groups
actively opposed it, wanting a tougher bill. We see where that got us. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, still harbors a grudge about
that opposition from the left, and rightly so. But I think there’s a way for the Democrats to run on climate in a general election. The
polls tell us that people really love clean energy; Republican voters don’t love it quite as much as

Voters don’t care about Climate Change – they see is as a distant problem
Potenza ’18 Alessandra is the Deputy Science Editor at The Verge. She writes and edits all
sorts of science and tech stories. Alessandra is originally from Rome, Italy, and has been living in
New York since 2011. Before coming to The Verge, she wrote and edited for The New York
Times Upfront. Her stories have also appeared in Science World and The Atlantic, and a bunch of
Italian publications. https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17173166/climate-change-
perception-gallup-poll-politics-psychology
More than half of Americans seem to think that climate change won’t affect them personally, a
new poll shows. Only 45 percent think that global warming will pose a serious threat in their
lifetime, and just 43 percent say they worry a great deal about climate change. But climate change
is already affecting us — so why don’t people realize that? The reason has to do with a mixture of politics and psychology.
The poll, conducted by Gallup, shows that many Americans “perceive climate change as a distant problem ,”
says Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. A lot of people think that we
won’t bear the brunt of climate change until 2050 or 2100, and that other parts of the world
will be affected, not the US, not their state, their city, or their community . “As a result, it
becomes psychologically distant . It’s just one of thousands other issues that are out there.” If I
have to worry about paying my hospital bills, I’m less concerned about melting sea ice in the Arctic.
“IT’S JUST ONE OF THOUSANDS OTHER ISSUES THAT ARE OUT THERE.”
But temperatures are going up everywhere, not just in the Arctic; cities are especially hard-hit and heat waves are becoming more
frequent. Extreme weather events — like wildfires and hurricanes — are also becoming more extreme. These changes are consistent
with a warming world, scientists say. That sort of makes sense: though the Gallup poll found that while only 64 percent of
Americans think that global warming is caused by human activities, 97 percent of climate scientists believe that.
Though we’re starting to feel the effects of climate change, those effects are not dramatic
enough on a day-to-day basis to convince the majority of Americans that climate change
should be taken seriously, says Magali Delmas, a professor at the Institute of Environment and Sustainability at UCLA.
Human beings aren’t great at dealing with situations that are high-risk but don’t happen that often. Think of earthquake insurance,
for instance. Though there’s a 99 percent chance that there’s going to be a magnitude 6.7
earthquake in the next 30 years in California, the probability that it’s going to happen in the
next year and is going to affect me is much lower. As a result, only 13 percent of people in
California have purchased insurance from the California Earthquake Authority, Delmas says.
Now apply that kind of thinking to climate change, which is often framed as a catastrophic
event. Unfortunately, scare tactics don’t work to change people’s beliefs and behavior. For people who do accept that climate
change is real, it might feel like an insurmountable problem that’s just too big for any individual to tackle. People who don’t believe
that human-caused climate change is altering the world may feel like the catastrophe scenarios are just hype. If the problem
was that bad, wouldn’t we be putting effort into solving it? “If there’s nothing you can do about it, you disconnect, you disengage,”
Delmas says.
 AT Healthcare
Healthcare doesn’t thump – voters don’t care about Medicare-for-all
Goldstein 6-21-19 Amy Goldstein has been a staff writer at The Washington Post for 30 years.
She currently covers health-care policy, focusing on the 2010 federal law reshaping the U.S.
health-care system. Over the years, she has written widely about social policy issues, including
Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security, welfare, housing and the strains placed on the social
safety net by the Great Recession. She also has been a White House correspondent and covered
notable news events, such as the Monica Lewinsky scandal, the Columbine shootings and five of
the past six Supreme Court nominations. Voters have big health-care worries, but not the ones
Democrats are talking about https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/voters-have-big-health-
care-worries-but-not-the-ones-democrats-are-talking-about/2019/06/21/5c4a353e-8d22-11e9-
adf3-f70f78c156e8_story.html?utm_term=.be74cc862456
Medicare-for-all. Medicare for all who want it. Health care as a form of freedom. As they campaign, most of the 23
Democratic candidates for president are trumpeting bold ideas to achieve the party’s long-
held dream of ushering in health coverage for every American. The problem is that many voters are
not focused on such lofty goals. They want something simpler — to pay less for their own health care. Voters have
plenty to sort out, with nearly two dozen Democrats running, each offering a raft of proposals
on many issues. But in public opinion surveys and interviews, people rank health care as their top concern. And with
insurance deductibles, prescription drug costs and other medical charges squeezing the middle class, they consistently say they want
elected leaders to lower their out-of-pocket costs. The
disconnect between those views and candidates’
talking points has left voters such as Democrat Ron Jungling of Raleigh, N.C., eager for a nominee who can
defeat President Trump — but feeling his party is not speaking to him on a centrally important
issue. “I don’t think it’s probably the right time to push Medicare-for-all,” said Jungling, 57, an
electrical engineer whose wife, an insurance broker, has enrolled uninsured clients in Affordable Care Act health plans. His in-laws
just went into an assisted-living facility that costs $20,000 a month. “Medicare-for-all
would be great if we could
do the other side of the coin — get the cost down,” Jungling said. “I don’t see that happening
here.” Where 2020 candidates stand on Medicare-for-all and other health-care issuesVIEW GRAPHIC Such misalignment — in
candidates’ focus and, in some cases, their level of attention — is striking because surveys show that health care is the issue on
which the Democratic Party holds the greatest advantage over Republicans. In three polls this year that have asked which party
voters trust more to handle health care, Democrats have had an edge over the GOP that averages 19 percentage points. For his part,
Trump, seeking reelection, has repeatedly said he will issue his own health-care plan. For now, he is drawing attention to a series of
actions federal agencies can take, including an executive order, expected to be issued Monday, to promote greater transparency in
medical costs. According to pollsters, policy analysts and political strategists, the Democrats’ emphasis on
Medicare expansion plans is partly a missed opportunity and partly a reflection of the slice
of the electorate that participates in Democratic primaries. Candidates are failing to
recognize that “the debate is not going to be 2008 or ’16 over again. It’s going to be about the price of
insulin, hospital charges and insurance premiums, with, ‘What are you going to do about them for me?’ ” said Robert J. Blendon, a
Harvard University professor of health policy and political analysis who studies public opinion on health care.

Healthcare doesn’t thump – Voters care about long-term care but no

candidates are addressing it
Newton-Small 6-26-19 (Jay Newton-Small - Newton-Small, a TIME contributor, is the CEO of
MemoryWell and author of Broad Influence The First 2020 Democratic Primary Debate Will
Almost Certainly Skip A Key Healthcare Issue https://time.com/5614083/2020-democratic-
debate-healthcare/
Like most Americans, Robinson was shocked to discover that Medicare doesn’t pay for long-term care. “These
days we have paid assisted fertility, paid parental leave,” says Robinson. “But we really need
paid senior help, paid senior leave. How can anyone maintain job security if they can’t maintain their parents’ health?”
"How can anyone maintain job security if they can’t maintain their parents’ health?” Robinson is one of the 45% of
Americans who worry that a healthcare event could soon bankrupt them. But, like many, she
doesn’t hear any of the Democratic candidates addressing her issues. As Democratic
presidential hopefuls gather this week for the first primary debates, all the buzz about health
has been about Medicare-for-all. While nice sounding, such a program would do nothing for
the most pressing health crisis facing the nation: the millions of Baby Boomers who are in
need of, or soon will need, long-term care. As many as 70% of Boomers over retirement age will
eventually need long-term care, yet only 30% have saved anything in preparation for such
care, according to estimates from the Employee Benefit Research Institute, which tracks retirement data. “With aging parents and
still needing childcare for my children while I’m at work as a single mother, the pressure on both ends is extreme,” Robinson says. “A
lot of this is driven by immigration—there’s no one left for care at either end—but a lot is also driven by government and politicians
lacking policies to address the issues.” As the Trump Administration has moved to limit the number of immigrants, this has
exacerbated a market already short on workers. On average, senior
living communities in the U.S see a 75%
percent staff turnover annually, as frontline staff is lured away to better paying, or easier jobs
in retail or the gig economy. Every day, an estimated 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65, the traditional retirement age.
America is already short more than 1 million family caregivers—family members caring for those in need versus paid caregivers—
and as the Boomers age, that shortage is estimated to grow to 4 million by 2030. So just as the need for care will be the greatest, the
supply and, likely, quality of it will be the lowest. This will lead to a ballooning of the cost of care, threatening to bankrupt most
middle-class Americans by 2050, unless something is done to change the system. "It’s a futile whack-a-mole approach to the real
issues driving up the cost of health care.” And yet long-term care is not central to any of the candidates’ Medicare-for-all plans and
few ever mention on the campaign trail the largest driver of long-term care expenses: Alzheimer’s and dementia. Only one
candidate’s plan, Bernie Sanders’, even addresses long-term care; a plan that outside
analysts estimate could cost $30 trillion over a decade and only has 14 cosponsors in
Congress—a virtual non-starter, legislatively-speaking . “Medicare was never designed to
finance long-term care, the cost of which would instantly bankrupt an already underfunded
program,” says Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at Johns Hopkins University and the author of The Price We Pay, to be published
later this year. “Medicare for all may sound attractive but in reality, it’s a futile whack-a-mole approach to the real issues driving up
the cost of health care.” Though
polls show health care consistently is one of the top concerns for
most American voters, including Democratic primary voters, they don’t seem as interested in
getting into the details of policy. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 4% of Democratic
primary voters were interested the candidates discussing Medicare-for-all in the first
primary debates. And, according to that same poll, voters showed a very poor understanding of what
the term even means. In particular, they seemed to not understand that it implies transitioning away from private health
insurance and towards a single-payer system. “You don’t want to be elected office at the time when those funds start to run out.”
With Medicare’s key Hospital Fund, which finances Medicare services for beneficiaries through a payroll tax, set to go bankrupt by
2026 and states to start seeing Medicaid funds dry up by next year as they are no longer able to afford their share of care as the
sheer numbers of those in need overwhelm the system, the crisis is looming—even if it’s not at the forefront
of candidates’ minds. “You don’t want to be elected office at the time when those funds start
to run out,” says Bob Kramer, founder of the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care. “That will be a game of
musical chairs which won’t be pretty.” Yet the cliff is still a few years away, and without immediate impetus, the debate remains
focused on other issues. This, Kramer laments, is shortsighted. “The shorter the runway the tougher this will be to do, and the
runway keeps getting shorter,” he says. Which is why, in part, states have begun to take up the slack. Hawaii
and Washington State have become the first two states to pass long-term care plans of their
own. Maine tried and failed last year, but will try again in 2020. Last year, Congress passed the RAISE Act, which promised to
study the issue and look for solutions, but the CLASS Act, which would’ve started a similar scheme on a federal level fell out of the
Affordable Care Act during the Senate debate, deemed too expensive. Still, the debate of Medicare-for-all could be productive,
argues Anne Tumlinson, founder of Daughterhood, a blog and social platform for daughters caring for their parents, and a respected
consultant in the senior space. ““There’s no reason that [long-term care] can’t be integrated into a Medicare-for-all program,” says
Tumlinson. “It’s completely doable and there are many options to pay for it.”
Voters don’t understand Medicare for All – opinions aren’t fixed and many
don’t actually want it
Cohn 6-18-19 (Jonathan Cohn, Senior National Correspondent at HuffPost, writes about politics and policy with a focus on social
welfare. He is also the author of Sick: The Untold Story of America's Health Care Crisis -- and the People Who Pay the Price. Jonathan
worked previously at the New Republic and American Prospect, and has written for the Atlantic, New York Times Magazine, and Self.
His journalism has won awards from the Sidney Hillman Foundation, the Association of Health Care Journalists, World Hunger Year,
and the National Women's Political Caucus. Jonathan can be reached at jonathan.cohn@huffingtonpost.com. Democratic Voters
Don’t Actually Understand ‘Medicare For All,’ New Report Says https://www.huffpost.com/entry/medicare-for-all-poll-
democrats_n_5d08264de4b0886dd15db364) A
new poll about “Medicare for All” should make you think
twice before trusting polls on Medicare for All. Yes, that sounds a little weird. But it’s the
biggest takeaway from the new survey, one designed specifically to measure the public’s
understanding of how Medicare for All would actually work. It turns out that a lot of people
don’t really get it. That lack of awareness could have big implications for the debate over
Medicare for All , an idea that has already figured prominently in the Democratic 2020 presidential primaries and is sure to
get attention at next week’s candidate debates in Miami. Of course, figuring out exactly what those implications are isn’t easy. It’s
possible that, as people learn more about Medicare for All, some supporters will get skittish. Or that some skeptics will get more
enthusiastic. Or both. A lot depends on how the debate unfolds and, ultimately, whether proponents or opponents are more
successful at getting their messages across to the public. But this much is clear: Opinion about Medicare for All isn’t
at all fixed. Medicare for All is the catchphrase for a policy proposal that would enroll all Americans into a new, government-run
health insurance program. Ever since Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont senator, made Medicare for All
a cornerstone of his 2016 presidential campaign agenda , support for the idea has become
something of a litmus test for progressives. He’s running on Medicare for All again this year, and this time he has a
lot more company, with nearly a dozen other Democratic presidential candidates claiming that they support the idea too. It’s safe to
assume these Democratic candidates wouldn’t be so openly enthusiastic about Medicare for All if
surveys hadn’t shown the concept to be so popular with voters in general and with
Democratic voters in particular. But, according to a new telephone poll that the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation
published Tuesday morning, many of those voters seem to think that Medicare for All would do

things it wouldn’t ― or, more precisely, that it wouldn’t do things it would. That’s especially true
when it comes to the future role of private insurance. Two-thirds of Democratic voters think that people with
employer coverage could hold on to their policies under Medicare for All, according to the Kaiser study,
which used a nationally representative sample of more than 1,200 adults. In reality, both the Sanders proposal and its House
counterpart, from Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), would prohibit the sale of private insurance that is “duplicative” of what the new
government plan would offer. That would effectively wipe out existing employer policies. Private insurers
could still offer supplemental plans, but only to pay for extras, like cosmetic surgery and premium hospital rooms, that the
government plan didn’t cover. Veterans of past health care policy fights, including many sympathetic to Medicare for All in principle,
have warned about this kind of disruption and its potential to alienate voters ― especially with Republicans and with advocacy
groups that represent the health care industry already making a big issue out of it. Awareness of those dangers undoubtedly helps
explain why some Democratic candidates, including Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, have
made it clear they would support incremental steps toward Medicare for All ― while others, including former Congressman Beto
O’Rourke of Texas and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, have said they prefer starting with an alternative to Medicare
for All that would preserve a role for employer coverage. Other Democrats have declined to endorse Medicare for All, even in
principle. That group includes Joe Biden, the former vice president. He has said he supports the creation of a government-run
insurance program open to all, but he would stop short of getting rid of existing arrangements.
2020 Updates - Polls
Good
 Good - Generic
Polls reliable – best methods show Trump loses now
Perry 7-17-19 (Doug is a news and entertainment writer at The Oregonian. He is the author of
three books. You can reach him at dperry@oregonian.com Donald Trump will lose the 2020
election, concludes unique prediction model that nailed 2018 midterm results
https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2019/07/donald-trump-will-lose-the-2020-election-
concludes-unique-prediction-model-that-nailed-2018-midterm-results.html)
Pollsters famously got the 2016 presidential election wrong. HuffPost, for example, listed Hillary Clinton’s
chances of winning at 99 percent right up until the race was called for Donald Trump. Data experts have tried to learn
from that epic fail -- and one has proven especially successful, so far. Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director
of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Virginia’s Christopher Newport University, created a unique prediction model that almost
perfectly foretold the results of the 2018 midterm election. (The model concluded the Democrats would pick up 42 House seats; the
Dems gained 40 seats.) Now Bitecofer
says that same model, which she says “departs significantly”
from well-known data site FiveThirtyEight’s approach, makes clear that Donald Trump will not
win reelection next year. What makes Bitecofer’s model different? “The central theoretical tenet serving as the basis for
my predictions,” she says, “is that ‘this ain’t your granddaddy’s electorate’ anymore. That is to say, contemporary elections are
largely driven by negative partisanship.” She approaches the data with that in mind. And a full sixteen months before the 2020
election, she has chosen the winner -- she just doesn’t know who it’s going to be. Bitecofer’s model has concluded that it
matters not who the Democratic presidential nominee is -- “unless it ends up being a disruptor like Bernie
Sanders.” Whoever wins the Democratic nomination -- other than possibly Bernie, that is -- will defeat Trump in the general election.
The only unexpected factors that might make Bitecofer revisit her Trump-loses prediction: the launch of a well-funded independent
campaign by someone like Howard Schultz, the sudden onset of an economic recession, a war with Iran or a large-scale terrorist
attack. “Otherwise,” she says, “the country’s hyper-partisan and polarized environment has largely set the conditions of the 2020
election in stone.” The political scientist and data analyst has concluded that the Midwest, where Trump did unexpectedly well in
2016 with razor-thin victories in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, is the “only viable path for Trump to win the White House”
four years later -- and that it’s just not going to happen again. “The
complacent electorate of 2016, who were
convinced Trump would never be president,” she writes, “has been replaced with the terrified
electorate of 2020, who are convinced he’s the Terminator and can’t be stopped. Under my model,
that distinction is not only important, it is everything.”
 Good - Recent Improvement
Polls accurate – they improved after 2016
Nather 6-23-19 (David Nather is the managing editor of Axios. AXIOS Media or Axios is a news
and information company started in 2016 by Politico co-founder Jim VandeHei, former Chief
White House correspondent at Politico, Mike Allen, and former Politico Chief Revenue Officer
Roy Schwartz. "There's no election polling makeover for 2020" https://www.axios.com/2020-
election-polling-guide-95e74faf-fcc3-4d43-8c39-49b8daa83f3a.html)
Pollsters spent a lot of time figuring out why Donald Trump's win was such a surprise in 2016 — but the reality is that there isn't
going to be a radical change in most election polling for 2020. Why it matters: Everyone should be more cautious in 2020 about what
the polls can tell us and what they can't. There will be some improvements in state polls, which is what
really mattered in 2016. But polling experts warn that state surveys in general are still a weak spot, and other aspects of
election polling are still a challenge. "The jury's out for 2020. Everyone's smarter after the fact," said
Republican pollster Glen Bolger. Context: Most pollsters agree that the national polls weren't wrong in
2016. They showed Clinton ahead by a few percentage points, and she won the popular vote by about 2
percentage points. But, of course, Trump won in the Electoral College by squeezing out victories in the
upper Midwest — which you're not going to see in national polls. You need reliable state
polls to tell you that. The three main reasons the Trump win was a surprise, according to a postmortem report on
the 2016 election polls by a committee of pollsters: Some state polls weren't weighted to get the right mix of educational levels.
(They had too many college graduates, who were more likely to support Hillary Clinton.) There was a late break for
Trump among voters in Wisconsin, Florida and Pennsylvania in the last week of the campaign. Some people
didn't identify themselves as Trump voters until after the election (which could have included some who decided late). What's
changed and what hasn't: State
polls are more likely to weight their samples for education — but it
won't be all of them. It's still hard to predict who will actually vote, and it may be getting harder. "In pre-Trumpian times,
one side would surge and the other side wouldn't. Now both sides surge," said Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. State polls are still
more likely to be underfunded than national polls. "I don't see an infusion of high-quality state-level polls that weren't there in
2016," said Courtney Kennedy of the Pew Research Center, one of the members of the committee that wrote the postmortem.
Voters can still decide at the last minute — and what we don't know yet is whether 2020 polls in the battleground states will run
later than they did in 2016. The good news, pollsters point out, is that the2018 midterm election polling was
largely right — especially on control of Congress. And not all pollsters are convinced that there were major
problems in 2016, if you knew what to look for. Their main advice for 2020: Pay attention to who did the poll . If you
haven't heard of them before, and you don't know if they have a reputation for reliable polling, watch out. Look at the sample
size and margin of error. If it's only a few hundred people, the margin of error will be too big. A thousand or more is better.
And if it's a subgroup — like Democrats only — it's a smaller group and the margin of error goes way up. They should be transparent
about what they're measuring. If you can't see breakdowns by age, gender, race, education, party identification and ideology, "that
should be a red flag," said Republican pollster David Winston.
 Good - Surveys
Polls are good – real-world event checks and government surveys
Kennedy 5-14-18 (Courtney Kennedy is director of survey research at Pew Research Center. In
this role, she serves as the chief survey methodologist for the Center, providing guidance on all
of its research and leading its methodology work. "Can we still trust polls?"
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/05/14/can-we-still-trust-polls/)
Donald Trump’s victory in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as well as the UK’s decision to leave the
European Union through “Brexit,” rattled public confidence in polls. Since these two major world events
occurred, we have been asked the same question when giving presentations, on social media, in interviews, and from our own
friends and neighbors: “Can we still trust polls?”
Our new video explains why well-designed polls can be trusted.
Those who felt led astray by surveys conducted during the 2016 U.S. presidential election may be surprised to learn that national
polling was generally quite accurate.
National pre-election polls in 2016 indicated that Hillary Clinton would win the national popular vote by a 3-point margin, and in fact
she won by 2 points. The major problem was with state-level polls, many of which missed a late
swing to Trump among undecided voters and did not correct for the fact that their responding samples contained
proportionally too many college-educated voters (who were more likely to favor Clinton). A silver lining is that both of these
problems can be overcome, to some extent, by more rigorous survey weighting and
heightened attention to the possibility of late shifts in voter preferences.
It’s also important to remember that election polls are just one kind of poll, and that they’re not the best barometer for the accuracy
of polling in general. Why not? Because an election poll has an extra hurdle to jump: It not only has to measure public opinion, it also
has to predict which of the people interviewed are going to vote and how they will vote – a notoriously difficult task.
So, if election polls aren’t a reliable measure of polling accuracy, what is? There
are a number of other ways we can
measure the health of polling. One is to look at how polling on an issue tracks with real-world
events . For example, on the issue of same-sex marriage in the United States, polls showed growing acceptance around the same
time that advocates were winning statewide referenda legalizing it. The polls, in other words, were corroborated
by real-world events.
There are also a number of high-quality, government-funded surveys that provide us with quite accurate
benchmark estimates for a range of characteristics of the U.S. population. Pollsters can ask the same
questions these government surveys do to see how their results compare. In the case of Pew Research Center polls, our trends track
very closely with those of high-quality benchmark polls on questions like religious identity and political affiliation. This gives us
additional confidence that the trends we’re recording are accurate.
So, yes, we can still trust polls. But it’s important to be realistic about the precision they can provide.
2020 Updates - Links
Plan Helps
 Drones
Drone sales hurt trumps chance of re-election especially because of iran
Boot 6/23/19 [Max Boot is a historian, best-selling author and foreign-policy analyst who has been called one of the “world’s
leading authorities on armed conflict” by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the Jeane J. Kirkpatrick senior fellow
for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a columnist for The Washington Post and a global affairs analyst for
CNN. University of California at Berkeley, BA in history; Yale University, MA in history. With Iran, Trump needs to put up or shut up.
June 23, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/06/23/with-iran-trump-needs-put-up-or-shut-up/?
utm_term=.80251ac8cf98]
President Trump is an inveterate liar, but some of his lies are more significant than others.
The lies he told about his
change of heart over attacking Iran after Iran shot down a U.S. drone are particularly telling . “We
were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights when I asked, how many will die,” Trump tweeted on Friday
morning. “150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not … proportionate to shooting
down an unmanned drone.” In fact, accounts from both The Post and the New York Times agree that, as per standard practice, the
Pentagon had provided collateral damage estimates early on Thursday along with its options for striking Iran. Moreover, as noted,
the “150 figure was on the high end of a range of possibilities”; 150 dead was the worst-case scenario if U.S. bombs and missiles had
hit the proposed Iranian targets — radars and missile batteries — in the middle of the day. The option that Trump initially approved,
however, was to attack during the night to minimize loss of life. Finally, the newspapers’ accounts agree that Trump called off the
strikes not 10 minutes beforehand but roughly two hours ahead of time, at around 7 p.m.
These lies may seem small,
but they are actually quite telling, because they go to the issue of motivation. Trump would like the
world to believe that he called off the airstrikes because he is a humanitarian and “not a warmonger.” But the evidence suggests he
was really motivated by conversations with the likes of Tucker Carlson, who told him, according to the Times, that the “hawks”
urging retaliation against Iran “did not have the president’s best interests at heart … [and ] if Mr. Trump got into a war
with Iran, he could kiss his chances of re-election goodbye .” In short, Trump refused to pull the trigger not
because he got new information but because he got cold feet. This looks a lot like President Barack Obama’s failure to carry out
threatened airstrikes in 2013 after Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons. “Red line statement was a disaster for
President Obama,” Trump tweeted at the time. His hesitations and zigzags with Iran are no less a disaster for him. This is part of a
pattern with Trump, who roars like a tiger but usually acts like a scaredy-cat. This is the same president, after all, who has repeatedly
threatened to close the border with Mexico or slap it with prohibitive tariffs unless it ended illegal immigration — and never once
made good on his threats. He’s also the president who tweeted last week, “Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the
millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States” — and then on Saturday called off raids that would
have targeted not millions of people but 2,000 families. He also threatened in 2017 to rain “fire and fury” down on North Korea but
has since gushed about how he receives “beautiful” letters from Kim Jong Un and professes to be in “love” with the North Korean
tyrant whose nuclear program continues full speed ahead. The examples are endless, and they all point to an undeniable conclusion:
Trump is a Twitter tiger whose threats cannot be taken seriously. As I wrote after he backed down from his threat to close the
Mexico border in April: “Trump is the maestro of empty threats. The pontiff of broken promises. The bard of bluster, bluff and BS.”
This is a dangerous position for a president. National security adviser John Bolton warned on Sunday: “Neither Iran nor any other
hostile actor should mistake U.S. prudence and discretion for weakness.” In fact, what has been on display is not prudence and
discretion but indecision and chaos. The message that will go out to enemy capitals is, in fact, that the president is weak. Russian
state TV is already mocking Trump for his stand-down with Iran. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing that Trump should have
attacked Iran. The proposed strike would have been worse than useless; it was so small that it would have signaled irresolution and
weakness even if it had gone ahead, but it was big enough that it could have triggered a tit-for-tat cycle of escalation leading to
much bigger hostilities. As I wrote a month ago, all-out war with Iran would be “the mother of all quagmires.” But if Trump has no
intention of attacking Iran, he should not pursue a policy of exiting the nuclear deal and imposing punishing sanctions, pushing Iran
into a corner and making conflict much more likely. He should not keep senior advisers (read: Bolton) who, he says, are “disgusting”
because they “want to push us into a war.” And he should not issue bloodcurdling threats such as: “If Iran wants to fight, that will be
the official end of Iran. Never threaten the United States again!” Trump needs to either put up or shut up. But he won’t do either. He
continues to run his mouth — or, more accurately, his Twitter account — without making good on his threats. This is the worst of all
worlds.
Continuing drones sales hurts trumps chance of being reelected
NA 6/21/19 "Iran Made 'Big Mistake' Shooting Down US DRone: Trump" https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/iran-
made-big-mistake-shooting-down-us-drone-trump-11646758
President Donald Trump told Iran on Thursday (Jun 20) it made a "big
WASHINGTON:
mistake" by shooting down a US spy drone, an incident bringing the two countries ever closer to open conflict
in the world's busiest oil shipping lane. "They made a very big mistake," Trump told reporters at the White House following the strike
near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. "This country will not stand for it, that I can tell you," said Trump .
But while one of his
top Republican allies said the downing of the drone had taken the two countries "one
step closer" to war, Trump simultaneously appeared to play down the incident saying it may not have been unintentional.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it had brought down the unmanned Global Hawk surveillance aircraft as it was "violating
Iranian airspace" over the waters of Hormozgan province. The Pentagon, however, denounced an "unprovoked attack" in
international airspace, claiming the drone was some 34 kilometres from the nearest point in Iran when it was downed by a surface-
to-air missile. Iran vowed in response to go to the United Nations to prove Washington was "lying." Crude oil prices rose more than
six per cent after the incident which marked a new peak in tensions as Tehran pushes back against surging US diplomatic, economic
and military pressure. Trump has repeatedly said he does not favour war with Iran unless it is to stop the country getting a nuclear
weapon - something Iranian leaders insist they are not pursuing. But critics of the Trump administration say that his policy of
"maximum pressure" - including crippling economic sanctions, abandonment of a complex international deal to regulate Iran's
nuclear activities, and deployment of extra sea, air and land forces to the region - make war ever more likely. The drone downing
came as Iran was already accused by Washington of having carried out explosions on oil tankers in the congested Hormuz area.
Tehran denies having been behind the attacks but has frequently threatened in the past to block the sea lanes used by shipping to
In Washington, talk of war has become part of the already
move much of the world's oil exports.
heated atmosphere as Trump's re-election fight starts to gain traction. A key Republican ally of
Trump, Senator Lindsey Graham, said the president's "options are running out." Asked if he believe the countries were edging closer
to war, he replied: "I think anybody would believe that we're one step closer." "They shot down an American asset well within
international waters trying to assess the situation. What are you supposed to do?" One of Trump's biggest opponents, the
Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, warned that "there's no appetite for wanting to go to war in our
country." Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has close relations with Iran's leadership, said that US military retaliation against
Iran "would be a disaster for the region." Tehran and Washington have been foes for decades but Trump's arrival in the White
House, alongside veteran Mideast hawks like his national security adviser John Bolton, has seen a sharp deterioration in relations.
Trump began last May by abandoning - and effectively wrecking - a 2015 international agreement on bringing Iran in from the
diplomatic cold in exchange for verified controls on its nuclear industry. Subsequent reimposition of US sanctions has badly hurt
Iran's struggling economy. In addition, Washington has deployed an aircraft carrier task force, nuclear-capable bombers, an
amphibious assault ship and a missile defence battery to the region. Trump was elected in part on promises to end US involvement
in wars in the Middle East, but the president has at the same time made clear his unquestioning support for Iran's big rivals in the
region - Israel and Saudi Arabia. Iran, meanwhile, has threatened to stop observing restrictions it had agreed to under the 2015 deal
on enrichment of uranium. This has been seen in part as an effort to pressure European governments that want to save the deal to
push back against Washington. The US State Department called that "extortion." Increasingly, that diplomatic cold war risks turning
to violence. Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Tehran would go to the UN to prove the drone had entered Iranian
airspace. "We'll take this new aggression to #UN & show that the US is lying about international waters," he tweeted. "We don't
seek war, but will zealously defend our skies, land & waters," Zarif said. Washington is also blaming Iran for mysterious explosions
that damaged two tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. Commander Sean Kido of US Naval Forces Central Command, or NAVCENT,
said a mine allegedly used in one of the attacks "is distinguishable and it is also strikingly bearing a resemblance to Iranian mines that
have already been publicly displayed in Iranian military parades". The Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, loaded with highly
flammable methanol, came under attack on Jun 13 as it passed through the Gulf of Oman along with the Norwegian-operated Front
Altair. Kido told reporters in the UAE emirate of Fujairah that the US military had also recovered "biometric information" of the
assailants on the Kokuka Courageous including fingerprints. But Iran's Defence Minister Amir Hatami flatly rejected allegations Iran
was behind the twin attacks.
 Israel
Trump’s current support of Israel’s government is losing him the election – the
plan flips that
Tibon 19 [Amir, Haaretz correspondant, 6-18-19, “Democrats With Eye on White House
Increasingly Willing to Criticize Bibi While Supporting Israel,” https://www.haaretz.com/us-
news/.premium-bipartisanship-could-be-biggest-loser-in-upcoming-u-s-israeli-elections-
1.7338943)
WASHINGTON — Democratic politicians trying to win the party’s presidential nomination for 2020
are increasingly offering a complicated message on the U.S-Israel relationship . While touting
their support for Israel, they are clearly distancing themselves from current Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, who some leading contenders have described as corrupt, racist and
extreme. Last weekend, 13 of the 24 Democrats currently seeking the presidential nomination
sent video messages to the annual gathering of the American Jewish Committee in Washington.
The policy line of supporting Israel while disagreeing with Netanyahuwas evident in several of
the videos, and the candidates offering such a message insisted that it doesn’t make them any
less “pro-Israel.” Sen. Bernie Sanders offered the strongest message. The Vermont senator described himself as “someone
who believes absolutely and unequivocally in Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, who as a young man lived in Israel for a
number of months, as someone who is deeply concerned about the global rise of anti-Semitism.” He added that “we must say loudly
and clearly that to oppose the reactionary policies of Prime Minister Netanyahu does not make anyone anti-Israel.” Sanders then
repeated that message: “I am vigorously opposed to the reactionary, racist and authoritarian policies of Donald Trump. That does
not make me anti-American. And I am not anti-Israel because I oppose Netanyahu.” Sanders distinguished himself from Hillary
Clinton during the 2016 presidential nomination race with his willingness to offer strong criticism of Netanyahu. In the current
contest, while his criticism of Netanyahu is still sharper and more forceful than that of most other nominees, he is not the only
Democrat threading the needle between supporting Israel and disagreeing with its prime minister. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said during
her video message that “good friends can disagree” and that “candid expressions of concern” are an important part of any
partnership. She maintained the importance of having an “open policy debate” — a hint at attempts to portray any criticism of Israel
and its policies as illegitimate or anti-Semitic. In March, Warren criticized Netanyahu over the corruption charges he is set to be
indicted for pending a hearing. At the time, she wrote on Twitter that “the allegations against Prime Minister Netanyahu are serious
and cut to the heart of a functioning democracy.” Based on the pending indictment, she also accused him of “manipulating a free
press, accepting bribes, and trading government favors.” Direct rebuke On
Thursday, Sanders and Warren — together
with fellow Democratic senators Jeff Merkley, Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin — submitted
a resolution to the
Senate expressing opposition to Israeli annexation of the West Bank . The resolution is a direct
rebuke to Netanyahu’s promise in April that he would annex parts of the West Bank if he got to
form the next government. “Unilateral annexation of portions of the West Bank would jeopardize prospects for a two-
state solution, harm Israel’s relationship with its Arab neighbors, threaten Israel’s Jewish and democratic identity, and undermine
Israel’s security,” the resolution states. Netanyahu has not repeated his annexation promise since the April 9 election, but he could
put it back on the agenda now that Israel has a do-over election in September. Former
Vice President Joe Biden used
his video message to tout the Obama administration’s security cooperation with Israel, which
included the signing of the largest military aid package ever provided to Israel by the United
States. He emphasized that “Israel has to be able to defend itself , by itself.” But he added: “We also have
to tell each other the truth, and that includes offering criticism on policies that are counterproductive to peace.” When Biden’s
former boss Barack Obama ran for president in 2008, he took a position that was considered bold and daring at the time. He stated
that it was possible to be “pro-Israel” without adopting “an unwavering pro-Likud approach,” referring to Netanyahu’s right-wing
party (which at the time was in the opposition). Today, that kind of statement seems like the consensus within the Democratic Party.
Two weeks ago, another Democratic presidential contender, Pete Buttigieg, met with a group of Jewish community activists and
organizational leaders in Washington. “I do not believe that the right approach is to endorse wholesale the agenda of the current
government” in Israel, Buttigieg said. He clearly differentiatedbetween “our relationship with Israel, versus our relationship with the
current Israeli government or any current government.” Another contender, former Texas Congressman Beto O’Rourke, has called
Netanyahu racist on several occasions. He has also criticized the prime minister’s involvement in crafting a political agreement with
the far-right Otzma Yehudit party during the previous Israeli election campaign. Debra
Shushan, director of policy at
American for Peace Now, told Haaretz that “Democratic presidential candidates are getting the
memo: While likely voters in the Democratic presidential primaries continue to support Israel,
they disapprove of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his anti-peace, pro-occupation policies. The
fact that Jewish Americans share this antipathy toward right-wing Israeli policies, which are
encouraged by the Trump administration, has given Democratic presidential candidates
further license to move in the direction of their primary electorate .” Making a distinction
between Israel and Netanyahu is popular not just among Democratic politicians but also many
of the party’s voters. Recent public opinion polls conducted in the United States show that while
most Democrats have a favorable or positive view of Israel, the same is not true with regard to
its leader. A Pew Research Center poll published in April found that while 56 percent of
Democrats had a favorable view of the Israeli people, only 26 percent had a positive view of the
Israeli government. And in a Gallop poll conducted the same month, only 18 percent of Democrats expressed a favorable
view of the Israeli prime minister (compared with 65 percent of Republicans).
 Saudi Arabia
The public loves the plan – it hates the way Saudi treats women and blames the
country for 9/11
Amos 18 [Deborah, covers the Middle East for NPR News, won the Edward Weintal Prize for
Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and in 2010 was awarded the Edward R.
Murrow Lifetime Achievement Award by Washington State University, 3-19-2018, accessed 7-8-
2019 "Saudi Arabia: The White House Loves It. Most Americans? Not So Much," NPR.org,
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/03/19/595018861/trump-may-love-saudi-arabia-
but-many-americans-do-not ]
It's not an easy country to like," Wisner says. "The American mind simply rebels at the way
Saudi women are treated, the way they execute criminals, the enforced religious doctrine," he
says. There are other issues that follow the prince to the United States. Members of Congress
are urging the U.S. to stop supporting the Saudi war in Yemen , which has triggered a
humanitarian crisis in the country. For all the claims of reform, the prince hasn't talked about free speech or elected
leadership. Dissident clerics and critics of the latest reforms have been jailed . But the issues that color American
public opinion come closer to home. "It goes back to the 1980s, they [the Saudis] were
perceived using their oil wealth to rip off Americans," explains Gerald Feierstein, director of
Gulf affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington and a former ambassador to Yemen. "I
see from the coverage that Saudi Arabia is a country that many liberal Americans ... [and]
many liberal Westerners love to hate." says Bernard Haykel, professor of Near Eastern studies at Princeton
University. There have been serious low points in the relationship, like when Saudi Arabia imposed an oil embargo against the
United states in the 1970s in retaliation for America's military support for Israel. More recently, last December, Saudi King Salman
bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud condemned President Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Worst of all for some Americans,
the Sept. 11 attacks still cast a long shadow over Saudi Arabia because 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals. " There
are
still lots of people who look at the Saudis and think 9/11 ," says F. Gregory Gause, a professor
of international affairs at Texas A&M. "Either they were behind it, for which there is no
evidence, or they created the conditions." For a long time there have been two things you could count on in
relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. The country has been favored by American Presidents.
But it's unpopular with the American people. " The White House is always friends with Saudi Arabia. It's largely
because the things that the Saudis do that are good for American foreign policy are seen in the White House and very few other
places." Says Gause. "The
things that the Saudis do that are good for American foreign policy are
seen in the White House and very few other places. The Saudis just do things quietly," says
Gause.
Overwhelming bipartisan support for ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia – key to
trump victory
De Luce and Windrem 6/5 (Dan de Luce is a reporter for the NBC News
Investigative unit and Robert Windrem is an investigative reporter/producer with
NBC news, specializing in international security. 5 June 2019. "Trump faces
bipartisan pushback over arms sales to Saudi Arabia, UAE". NBC news.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/trump-faces-bipartisan-pushback-
over-arms-sales-saudi-arabia-uae-n1014191)
WASHINGTON — Senators from both sides of the aisle said Wednesday they planned to block U.S.
arms sales to Saudi Arabia and other Arab states in a bipartisan rebuke of President Donald
Trump, saying they had to act to safeguard Congress's right to review weapons deals.The announcement from the bipartisan
group of senators was the first response from Congress after the Trump administration bypassed lawmakers on May 24 to push
through more than $8 billion worth of arms deals to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan. Congress by law reviews all
arms sales. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared a national security "emergency" to push through the package without
congressional approval, citing what he called an urgent threat posed by Iran. The senators are introducing 22 separate joint
resolutions of disapproval for each of the sales, setting up a possible confrontation with Trump that could play out in coming
months. If the resolutions are adopted and Trump vetoes the measures, Congress would have to secure a two-thirds majority to
override a presidential veto. It’s unclear if the legislation could secure the two-thirds majority needed to overcome a presidential
But there is growing concern across the political spectrum over the
veto.
administration’s approach to Saudi Arabia and its treatment of Congress. In a
vote in March to end U.S. military support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen and
check presidential war powers, seven Republican senators joined Democrats to
pass the bill. Trump vetoed the legislation last month. The legislative action was necessary "to
protect and reaffirm Congress' role of approving arms sales to foreign governments," said a statement from Republican Sens.
Lindsey Graham, Todd Young, Rand Paul and Democratic Sens. Bob Menendez, Patrick Leahy, Chris Murphy and Jack Reed. "The
manner in which the administration has moved forward with these sales is unprecedented and is at odds with longstanding practice
and cooperation between the Congress and the executive branch that results in the approval of billions of dollars of arms sales
The dispute over the arms sales is the latest sign of
annually," the senators' statement said.
friction over a range of issues between Trump and his fellow Republicans in
Congress, many of whom are frustrated at the administration's handling of nominations and its attempts to avoid
congressional oversight. Republican lawmakers warned the White House this week not to go ahead with threatened tariffs against
Mexico. The new arms sales faced opposition in Congress partly because of the administration's decision to
bypass lawmakers but also because of growing outrage over the Saudi-led coalition's war in
Yemen and the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi
consulate in Istanbul. Arguing against the arms sales, Graham, R-S.C., an ally of Trump on most issues, referred to Saudi
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's alleged involvement in Khashoggi's killing. The CIA has concluded that the crown prince
approved of the killing of Khashoggi, a Saudi national who resided in Virginia. "While I understand that Saudi Arabia is a strategic ally,
the behavior of Mohammed bin Salman cannot be ignored. Now is not the time to do business as usual with Saudi Arabia," said
Graham, who leads a subcommittee that oversees funding for the State Department. "Regrettably, Secretary Pompeo's abuse of this
emergency authority has broken the arms sales process," said Menendez, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. If the secretary of state fails to withdraw his emergency declaration and submit the arms sales for congressional review,
said Menendez, "I am prepared to move forward with any and all options to nullify the licenses at issue for both Saudi Arabia and
UAE and eliminate any ability for the Administration to bypass Congress in future arms sales." The planned arms sales include mortar
bombs, engines and maintenance support for F-15 fighter jets for Saudi Arabia and equipment for AH-64 helicopters, laser-guided
most
rockets, javelin anti-tank missiles, Patriot missiles and F-16 fighter jet engine parts for the United Arab Emirates. But the
controversial weapons in the deal are precision-guided bombs, which would
almost certainly be used in the Saudi-led air war in Yemen. The United States has
supplied tens of thousands of the bombs to Saudi Arabia and others in the
coalition, said William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Washington-based Center for International
Policy. The emergency package unveiled by Pompeo last month will include "a large tranche of bombs, probably thousands" of them,
Obama suspended the sale of the bombs in the
worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he said.
closing months of his administration over concerns that the Saudis were failing to
take precautions to avoid killing civilians. "It was a signal to the Saudis after
intelligence had shown they were not reducing civilian casualties," Hartung said. Human rights
advocates, aid groups and U.N. investigators have accused Riyadh of conducting
indiscriminate bombing but the kingdom insists it seeks to minimize killing
civilians. "Selling more bombs to the Saudis simply means that the famine and
cholera outbreak in Yemen will get worse, Iran will get stronger, and Al Qaeda
and ISIS will continue to flourish amidst the chaos of the civil war, " said Murphy, D-Conn. In
the House, where Democrats hold a majority, lawmakers are considering introducing legislation that would require the
administration to resubmit the arms sales for congressional approval, two Democratic congressional aides told NBC News.
 Ukraine
[Part 1] Continued arm sales to Ukraine are KEY to signal US commitments and
ties between Trump and Zelenskiy—Russia brings the relationship to the BRINK
Prince 7/19 (Todd Prince is a senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., for RFE/RL, "Zelenskiy
Won Ukrainian Voters Over With Ease; Winning Trump Over May Be Tougher", 7/9/2019,
RadioFreeEurope,https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-won-ukrainian-voters-over-with-ease-
winning-trump-over-may-be-tougher/30064299.html) SWu

WASHINGTON -- They are political novices who tapped public discontent to win presidential elections, arguably against all odds.
They are also TV personalities with a knack for engaging their voters through social media and breaking political protocol. So, when
Volodymyr Zelenskiymeets with Donald Trump for the first time in Washington in the coming weeks, that
common background couldhelp Ukraine’s new president forge a bond with his U.S. counterpart and
elevate the bilateral relationship. Zelenskiy may come packing newfound power at home, following July 21
parliamentary elections in which polls suggest that his party – named Servant Of The People, after the TV series in which he plays a
history teacher who happens into the presidency – will outpace rivals by a large margin. The 41-year-old comedian won the
presidential election with ease, sending incumbent Petro Poroshenko packing by garnering more than 70 percent of the vote in an
April runoff. The result underscored deep dissatisfaction with the government five years after the Maidan protest movement pushed
a Moscow-friendly head of state from power and ignited the wrath of Russia, which seized control of the Crimean Peninsula and
backed separatists whose war against government forces has killed some 13,000 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014. But the
evidence suggests that Zelenskiy may have a tougher time winning over Trump than he had winning the votes of Ukrainians. Even
as the United States has moved to punish Moscow for its interference in Ukraine, among other
actions that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other U.S. officials have called “malign activity,” Trump has repeatedly
voiced hope for warmer ties with Russia and has cultivated a relationship with President Vladimir
Putin – a target of animus for many in Ukraine. Trump has said he has been “tougher” on Russia than
other U.S. presidents – and Washington has increased support for Kyiv since Trump took office in January
2017, including authorizing the shipment of lethal weapons that his predecessor, Barack Obama,
declined to send. But analysts and former officials who are critical of Trump say that U.S. policy on Ukraine has
run counter to the president’s own rhetoric, suggesting that key members of his
administration have been imposing their views . “Donald Trump has made it abundantly clear
he doesn’t care about Ukraine -- that he is either deeply skeptical or simply doesn’t think it’s
an issue that should concern the United States ,” says Andrew Weiss, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace who previously served in the State Department and the Pentagon. “ The most we can hope for [from
the meeting] is that Trump is changed from an intense Ukraine skeptic to someone who is
grudgingly willing” to maintain the current U.S. support for Kyiv. U.S. officials have called
Ukraine of crucial importance because they see it as ground zero for the standoff between the democratic West and a
revisionist, authoritarian Russia. Congress has approved more than $3 billion in assistance to Kyiv over the
past five years, in addition to sovereign loan guarantees. “I am not sure Trump appreciates what is going on in Ukraine and the
threat Russia poses” to European security, says Steven Pifer, a former ambassador to Ukraine and a nonresident fellow at the
Brookings Institution. Trump has frequently criticized member states of NATO, which Zelenskiy wants Ukraine to join – something
the Kremlin fiercely opposes. The U.S. president has also sought out meetings with Putin , and praised him,
while giving less face time to Poroshenko, who -- like Trump -- was a wealthy businessman before coming to power. The chances of
a close relationship between Trump and Poroshenko may have been damaged from the start by
reports that his government helped propagate damaging information about former Trump campaign
chairman Paul Manafort, who is now in prison, ahead of the 2016 election. Manafort quit in the wake of the
reports, which raised questions about Trump’s connections to Russia -- a topic that has repeatedly
sparked outbursts and vehement denials by the U.S. president of anything untoward. Zelenskiy, an outsider to politics and diplomacy
until his election campaign, has no connection to that baggage. That gives him a potential leg up, analysts say. “If Zelenskiy’s charm
is as real in person as it is on the TV screen, he may be able to break through with this president in a way that his predecessor could
not,” says Andrij Dobriansky, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. Another development that could alter
U.S. ties with Ukraine is the appointment of a new ambassador to Kyiv in the wake of the departure in May of Marie Yovanovich, a
career diplomat and Obama appointee who had been targeted by Ukraine’s prosecutor-general in public attacks that were amplified
by conservative U.S. media outlets.

[Part 2] Ending arm sales to Ukraine cause Zelenskiy to lash out and support
Biden instead
Prince 7/19 (Todd Prince is a senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., for RFE/RL, "Zelenskiy
Won Ukrainian Voters Over With Ease; Winning Trump Over May Be Tougher", 7/9/2019,
RadioFreeEurope,https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-won-ukrainian-voters-over-with-ease-
winning-trump-over-may-be-tougher/30064299.html) SWu

But a potential roadblock to close cooperation between Zelenskiy and the White House will be
efforts to undermine Joe Biden, who is a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination to
challenge Trump in 2020 and whose son Hunter sat on the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
Joe Biden was the point person on Ukraine while serving as vice president under Obama. “The
Zelenskiy team is going to be in this really awkward position of trying to navigate that issue --
both when they come to Washington but also on an ongoing basis,” according to Weiss, who
says the Trump administration is “looking for voices from Ukraine to validate or amplify that
bad things have happened.”

[Part 3] Trump’s support from Ukraine is key to win over Pennsylvania in the
2020 elections--coal
Prince 7/19 (Todd Prince is a senior correspondent in Washington, D.C., for RFE/RL, "Zelenskiy
Won Ukrainian Voters Over With Ease; Winning Trump Over May Be Tougher", 7/9/2019,
RadioFreeEurope,https://www.rferl.org/a/zelenskiy-won-ukrainian-voters-over-with-ease-
winning-trump-over-may-be-tougher/30064299.html) SWu

When they do meet, Trump and Zelenskiy are expected to discuss greater U.S. military assistance to
Kyiv -- such as possible deliveries of special-forces boats to the Sea of Azov, which lies between Russia and Ukraine and close to the
spot where Russia seized 24 Ukrainian sailors and their ships last November -- and prospects for ending the war in
eastern Ukraine. Like Poroshenko before him, Zelenskiy may seek to play to Trump’s desire to announce sales for American
goods or services abroad, former officials and analysts say. Shortly after Poroshenko visited the new U.S. president at the White
House in June 2017, Ukraine announced it would buy coal for the first time from Pennsylvania , a
state that Trump won in 2016 and that could be crucial to his 2020 reelection bid. Early in July,
the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv announced that Ukraine had requested for the first time to buy military
equipment from the United States. The size of the deal was not announced and a former U.S. ambassador to Kyiv, John
Herbst, said the agreement had been in the works for some time and is not tied to Zelenskiy’s meeting with Trump.
Plan Hurts
 Israel
Controversial amendments about Israel get tacked onto the plan
Adams 6/28 [Myra, Real Clear Politics Contributor, “How GOP Insiders View
Trump’s ‘Base-Only’ 2020 Strategy,”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/28/how_gop_insiders_view_
trumps_base-only_2020_strategy.html)
What we're watching: As Trump tries to build a stronger Jewish voting base, Republicans are using
Israel to make political points. House GOP lawmakers attempted to halt a recently passed
resolution to end U.S. military involvement in Yemen via an amendment that would have
added language to oppose the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement , which
promotes various forms of activism against Israel. "They wanted to kill Israel. They wanted to destroy Israel," Trump
said Saturday on the Iran Nuclear Deal, which the U.S. abandoned last year but is still adhered to by Iran. The president said in a
Mar-a-Lago speech to RNC donors last month that if he could run to be prime minister of Israel, he'd be at 98% in the polls.
Pro-Israel perception of Trump is key to Jewish vote – that’s key to reelection
Isenstadt 4/7 [Alex Isenstadt, researcher and journalist for politico. “Pro-Trump
Republicans plan big-money play for the Jewish vote in 2020,”
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/07/donald-trump-jewish-vote-2020-
1260172)
Republicans are planning a multimillion-dollar offensive aimed at fracturing the Democratic
Party’s decadeslong stranglehold on the Jewish vote. Spearheading the push is the Republican
Jewish Coalition, which receives substantial funding from casino mogul and GOP megadonor Sheldon Adelson. On Friday
morning, the group’s board members — many of them prominent Republican Party donors —
gathered in a conference room at Adelson’s Venetian resort, where they were briefed on
plans for a $10 million-plus blitz geared toward attracting Jewish support for President Donald
Trump. The investment, people familiar with the early discussions said, will far surpass what the group spent in
past presidential elections. With Democrats embroiled in a wrenching internal debate over
anti-Semitism and support for Israel, Republicans are moving to capitalize with an aggressive
campaign painting Trump — who has himself faced accusations of stoking anti-Semitism — as a fierce and
unapologetic defender of the Jewish state. “We’re at the intersection of a very unique moment
in time where we have the most pro-Israel president ever in history in Donald Trump, and we
also at the same time have the Democratic Party — because of the pressure of the progressive
left— moving away from the traditional support for Israel that has existed going back to 1948 ,”
said Matt Brooks, who has served as RJC executive director for nearly three decades . “This strain
within the Democratic Party is making those centrist and center-left Jews who care about
these issues feel more and more uncomfortable, and with the strength of Donald Trump and
the Republican Party on these issues, we believe that we’ll be able to bring those folks over to the
Republican side,” Brooks added. At a time when Trump’s approval rating remains mired in the low- to mid-40s, the
offensive shows how Republicans are taking steps to contest any votes they can. Jews only
account for about 2 percent of the U.S. population and have overwhelmingly supported
Democrats in past elections. But GOP officials believe that siphoning off even a small portion
the Jewish vote in a few battleground states could be critical in 2020. “The Jewish vote will remain and

largely loyal Democratic vote because of domestic issues largely, but if there was ever a cycle where Republicans
could make inroads, it is this cycle,” said Ari Fleischer, a former George W. Bush White House
 press secretary who now serves as an RJC board member . “If you accept that there are sizable
Jewish populations in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania [and] Michigan, the Jewish vote — if we can
make additional inroads — can be very helpful in putting you over the top. The White House
knows that.” The administration is all-in on the strategy . On Saturday, Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and
three White House officials — Jared Kushner, Jason Greenblatt, and Avi Berkowitz — all made pilgrimages to the Venetian, where
RJC members were gathered for the third day of their annual spring conference. Before a sea of supporters waving “We are Jews for
Trump” signs, the president accused Democrats of opposing Israel and “advancing by far the most extreme, anti-Semitic agenda in
history.” Before taking the stage, Trump met privately with Adelson and his wife, Miriam, who together gave more than $120 million
to Republican causes during the 2018 midterms. The 85-year-old Adelson, who’s been undergoing cancer treatment, hadn’t been
expected to be in attendance. But those close to the billionaire said he was intent on making the Trump rally, and when he entered
the auditorium on a motorized scooter and wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, he was greeted with a standing ovation.
Jewish voters are flipping Republican now in key swing states key to Trump’s
re-election due to the perception of pro-Israeli support – Plan undermines
Pinsky 19 [Mark I., Orlando-based journalist and author of A Jew Among the
Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed, “The Republicans’ Cynical Strategy to Win
the Jewish Vote,”’ 4/30, https://newrepublic.com/article/153733/republicans-
cynical-strategy-win-jewish-vote)
If, as suspected, the author and shooter were one and the same, the San Diego shooting is just the latest evidence that the singular
source of violent anti-Semitism in North America is right-wing white supremacism. But the Republicans are loath to
acknowledge as much. Instead, they have spent the past several months opportunistically attacking
Democrats who criticize Israel. They’re doing this not only to distract from the GOP’s complicity
in the rise of racist attacks, but to win over a key group of swing-state voters in the next
election. The American Jewish community has been embroiled in a debate —one fueled in no
small part by cynical Republicans—over whether the Democratic Party is insufficiently opposed
to anti-Semitism. The attention has focused on two new, outspoken Democrats in the U.S. House of
Representatives: Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar and Michigan’s Rashida Tlaib. Both politicians have made
intemperate remarks about American Jewish support for the state of Israel , for which they have
largely apologized. But it would be naïve to believe that Republicans have accused them of anti-
Semitism simply out of concern for bigotry. Omar, who is Muslim, and Tlaib, a Palestinian-American, are
supporters of the BDS movement, which advocates boycotts, divestment, and sanctions to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu and his Likud government to address the rights of Palestinians in territory occupied by Israel since 1967. The Anti-
Defamation League, along with some other Jewish groups in the U.S., charge that the BDS movement effectively “rejects Israel’s
right to exist as a Jewish state” and “is the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence.” Many Republicans agree, pushing
legislation to hobble the movement. And yet, for all their apparent concern for the Jewish people, Republicans largely are mute on
the question of how to stem rising anti-Semitic violence in America. After the shooting in San Diego, President Donald Trump offered
only a pro forma expression of sympathy: “Our entire nation mourns the loss of life, prays for the wounded and stands in solidarity
with the Jewish community. We forcefully condemn the evil of anti-Semitism and hate which must be defeated.” Weeks earlier, after
the New Zealand mosque massacre, Trump was asked whether he sees white nationalism as a rising threat in the world. “I don’t
really,” he said. “I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.” On Sunday, in an interview with White
House counselor Kellyanne Conway, CNN’s Jake Tapper resurfaced that quote, asking her, “Does President Trump think white
nationalism is a growing threat around the world?” She replied, “I think there are many growing threats. And that’s one of them.”
But then she deftly pivoted. “I think there’s anti-Christianity. That’s why the Sri Lankans were gunned down.” Why this misdirection?
Perhaps because studies show a rise in hate-motivated violence amid Trump’s rise. The ADL found that the number of anti-Semitic
incidents rose nearly 60 percent in 2017 over 2016, the second-highest total and biggest spike since the organization began tracking
such incidents four decades ago. There were nearly as many incidents in 2018, a year in which domestic extremists killed 50 people.
“Every one of the 50 murders,” the group reported, “was committed by a person or persons with ties to right-wing extremism,” and
at least 39 were committed by white supremacists specifically. Whether
or not the president panders to white
supremacists—and there’s a strong case that he does—it behooves him and his allies to
deflect, change the subject, and, perhaps most effectively, to strike first. This explains, in part,
why the GOP has focused on the rhetorical excesses of a handful of progressive Democrats . But
there’s another reason, too: the 2020 election. Jewish Republicans are pitching the idea of a
“Jexodus ,” as one new organization aimed at millennials calls itself. In a tweet in March, Trump quoted
Jexodus’ founder Elizabeth Pipko: “Jewish people are leaving the Democratic Party. We saw a
lot of anti Israel policies start under the Obama Administration, and it got worsts & worse .
There is anti-Semitism in the Democratic Party. They don’t care about Israel or the Jewish people.” Politifact found no proof that
Jewish voters are abandoning the Democratic Party: In 2016, Hillary Clinton won 71 percent of Jewish voters; in the 2018 midterms,
Democrats won 79 percent of the Jewish vote. Why such focus on Jewish voters when they represent only
2-3 percent of the national electoral mix, and are concentrated in overwhelmingly blue states
(New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California)? These voters are a potentially deciding factor in swing states
with often tiny margins of victory. In the Sunbelt, these include North Carolina, and in the
Rust Belt, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But the real target is Florida, where the estimated 470,000
Jewish voters constitute 3.4 percent of the total . A slight shift in the Jewish vote here can
determine the outcome of a presidential election or control of the U.S. Senate. So the stakes
are high. If enough Jews in these states who traditionally vote Democratic can be peeled off ,
using the canard of left-wing anti-Semitism, the results can be decisive.
 Saudi Arabia
Trump is using Saudi arms sales to help win the election in the rust belt and
Florida – plan takes away a key narrative
Norton 18 [Ben, journalist who focuses on Middle East policy, “Trump Boasts of Killer Arms
Sales in Meeting with Saudi Dictator, Using Cartoonish Charts,”
https://therealnews.com/stories/trump-boasts-of-killer-arms-sales-in-meeting-with-saudi-
dictator-using-cartoonish-charts, The Real News Network]
BEN NORTON: Within 90 seconds of their meeting , Trump then pulled out another cardboard chart,
this one showing the U.S. states that are manufacturing these weapons. The map makes it clear that
Trump is using these massive arms sales to gain support in what the chart describes as “key
states” — those that will be important in the 2020 election, including the Rust Belt states
and swing states like Florida. DONALD TRUMP: And that have been ordered and will shortly be started in construction
and delivered: the THAAD system — $13 billion; the C-130 airplanes, the Hercules, great plane — $3.8 billion. BEN NORTON: What
Trump did not acknowledge is that these billions of dollars of U.S. weapons are being used to massacre Yemeni civilians. In fact his
meeting with the Saudi crown prince came in the same week marking the third anniversary of the Saudi war on Yemen. Saudi Arabia
has used this U.S. military equipment to relentlessly bomb civilian areas in Yemen, including hospitals, schools, residential houses,
refugee camps, and even funerals. The U.S.-backed Saudi coalition has killed many thousands of Yemeni civilians, pushed millions to
the brink of famine, unleashed an unprecedented cholera outbreak, and created what the United Nations says is the largest
humanitarian catastrophe on Earth. Trump expressed no concern whatsoever over the millions of lives being crushed in Yemen. Nor
did he even mention the egregious human rights abuses committed by Saudi Arabia and its de facto leader Mohammed bin Salman,
who has been purging his political rivals, imprisoning human rights activists, and crushing all dissent. Instead, Trump made it
clear that his political strategy is to sell weapons and rely on $400 billion of Saudi investment
in key states that can help him win re-election

These states are the only internal link to Trump winning the election – plan
wrecks his chances
Madonna and Young 7/10 [G. Terry, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at
Franklin and Marshall College, director of the F & M Poll, and a professor of public affirs, and
Michael L., retired professor of politics and public policy at Penn State, an author, pollster and
political analyst, “As Goes Pennsylvania, So Goes the 2020 Elections,”
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/07/10/as_goes_pennsylvania_so_goes_the_20
20_election_140738.html]
The president could go after states he narrowly lost in 2016 including New Hampshire, Nevada
and Minnesota. But combined these would not nearly make up a loss in Wisconsin, Michigan
and Pennsylvania. In addition, Trump may be on the defensive in states he won in 2016 and must
win again in 2020. Florida and even Texas are wobbly while North Carolina, a Trump stronghold in 2016, is trending blue in
statewide elections. Even winning all three again won’t make up a loss in Wisconsin, Michigan and
Pennsylvania. Inarguably then, Trump almost certainly cannot win the Electoral College without
winning these three crucial Rust Belt states , which have voted as a bloc seven elections in a
row -- supporting Democrats in six consecutive elections before shifting to Trump and the GOP
in 2016. As goes Wisconsin and Michigan also goes Pennsylvania; and in 2020, as goes
Pennsylvania, so goes the election .
Saudi arms sales are key to Trump’s rust belt and sun belt victories -plan
reverses
Bazian 17 [Hatem, Lecturer in Asian American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of
California-Berkeley and columnist, “Saudi Arabia and financing Trump’s job creation agenda,”
https://www.dailysabah.com/columns/hatem-bazian/2017/11/25/saudi-arabia-and-financing-
trumps-job-creation-agenda]
The next round of war and closing the future horizons of the Arab and Muslim world is fast approaching. Selling massive amounts of
arms to a region dripping in blood with as many as eight wars is a criminal and inhumane act to be undertaken. President Trump
needs to bring jobs to the rust belt and planning for a possible second term run, and this will
be made easier with a massive selling of arms that will produce effects on all areas of the
industrial manufacturing base and can get him re-elected in key state s. Presently, the Gulf
States are being utilized and recruited for another American election cycle and for a U.S.
domestic job creation program directed from Trump's White House . From a global north perspective,
the Arab and Muslim world, its leaders and people are good for one thing and one thing only: to be the testing ground for the
military industrial complex's new and improved weapon systems, which serve as a mainstay for financial investments in the U.S. and
European economies. Arab and Muslim persons and states are a mere statistic in the quarterly reports of the global market and
driven to sustain the growth of the military industrial complex and recycle petro-dollars in U.S. and European economies, the rest
are side commentaries!

Saudi investment through arms sales is crucial to Trump’s rust belt victory –
Plan derails
Spencer and Emanuel, 17 [Richard and Louis, reporters for The Sunday Times,
“Saudis pump $200 bn into rust belt,”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/saudis-pump-200bn-into-rust-belt-in-new-
american-alliance-ms2zjltbl]
Saudi Arabia is offering President Trump investment in America's decaying infrastructure and
industry worth tens of billions of dollars as a sweetener for arms deals and better relations
between the two countries. Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince and in effect the
prime minister, made the offer during a visit to Washington this year , sources said. Mr Trump is
hoping that the money will be invested in the "rust belt" states whose support helped to
propel him to the White House. Estimates of the sums involved range from $40 billion to $200
billion — in addition to current and future arms deals valued at $300 billion , which will be announced
during Mr Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia, which starts today. Saudi Arabia is determined to prevent any attempt to "rebalance" US
Middle East policy away from its traditional allies and towards Iran, which it saw as President Obama's goal. A financial partnership is
thought to be one way of doing this. The government in Riyadh is also attempting a widespread economic restructuring programme
and is looking to invest its oil money more aggressively abroad. "It's a classic business case," said one Saudi official. He said the aim
was to find new investments in the US that could offer higher returns than the sovereign wealth fund's previously conservative
strategies.
Saudi arms sales create an economic narrative for Trump – they help him get
votes
Bard, 19. [Mitchell Bard, foreign policy expert who specializes in U.S.-Middle East policy and
holds a Ph.D. in political science from UCLA and a master's degree in public policy from Berkeley.
Bard received his B.A. in economics from UC Santa Barbara and has written/edited 24 books.
06/25/2019. “Trump’s Saudi Arms Sale Is About Politics and Economics, Not Security”
(Algemeiner). https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/06/25/trumps-saudi-arms-sale-is-about-
politics-and-economics-not-security/.]
President Trump wants to use his emergency powers to sell billions of dollars’ worth of weapons
to Saudi Arabia on national security grounds. Congress wants to stop the sale because of lingering anger over Saudi abuses and the murder of
journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the usurpation of its legal authority to review arms sales. Both sides are ingenuous. The willingness to sell
the Saudis weapons has little to do with American national security, and everything to do with economics and
politics . Congress has looked the other way for decades as administrations of both parties have
sold some of our most sophisticated weapons to the Saudis. President Obama sold the Saudis
$112 billion in weapons over eight years, including a record $60 billion package in 2010, and reportedly was prepared to sell another $115 billion
in 2016. Both branches of government understand the Faustian bargain America made long ago with the kingdom.
The Saudis sell us oil, and we help guarantee the survival of the monarchy. By moderating the price of oil , the Saudis help
the American economy, which benefits the president. Selling arms gives the regime a sense of security, while
allowing us to get money we spend on oil back, benefiting US defense contractors, and creating
jobs in states where a president needs to collect electoral votes. In 1981, a majority of the Senate initially
disapproved of the sale of AWACS radar planes to the Saudis, partly because of the potential threat they posed to Israel. The Reagan administration
preposterously argued the planes couldn’t endanger Israel, but would allow the Saudis to defend themselves from the Soviet Union. Adding to the
absurdity, the Saudi defense minister threatened to turn to the Soviets if the US didn’t sell them the planes. More important was the fact that more
than 700 corporations in 42 states had contracts with Saudi Arabia. Each of these, in turn, had hundreds of subcontractors, all of whom shared the
principals’ interest in keeping the Saudis happy. The presidents of Boeing, the main contractor for the AWACS, and United Technologies, which had
$100 million at stake, sent out more than 6,500 telegrams to subsidiaries, vendors, and suppliers all over the country urging them to lobby for the sale.
The president of the US Chamber of Commerce wrote to every senator the day before the AWACS vote, and 860,000 recipients of the Chamber’s
newsletter were advised of the adverse consequences for US trade if the sale were not approved. The AWACS sale went through after Reagan twisted
enough Republican arms to reverse what seemed a certain defeat. How did the Saudis show their gratitude? OPEC raised the price of oil, and the Saudis
announced a production cutback. The kingdom also denounced Oman for participating in a US military exercise and offered money to the emirate if it
canceled an agreement allowing America access to its military facilities. The Saudis subsequently opposed US policy towards Israel, Lebanon, Egypt, the
PLO, Syria, and Libya. Bill Clinton shared Reagan’s economic and political motivation when he convinced
the Saudis to sign a $7
billion deal for commercial aircraft. Clinton subsequently took credit for creating an estimated 100,000 jobs.
The states benefiting from the deal were worth 122 electoral votes in the forthcoming election.
 Taiwan
Being perceived as tough on China is key to Trump winning plan reverses that
perception
Landler and Swanson, 5/10 [Mark, London bureau chief of The New York Times,
and Ana, writes about trade and international economics for the New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/us/politics/trump-china-trade-2020-
election.html)
When President Trump had finished mocking the field of Democratic presidential candidates at a
rally in Florida this week (“Sleepy Joe,” “Crazy Bernie” and “Boot-edge-edge”), he pivoted abruptly to his
intensifying trade war with China. The segue was no accident: Mr. Trump is determined to present
himself as tougher on the Chinese than any of his potential challengers in 2020.
“Representing us against President Xi of China,” a sarcastic Mr. Trump said of Pete Buttigieg, the
young mayor of South Bend, Ind. “That’d be great.” Taking aim at former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
earlier in the day, he said that China had pulled back from a trade deal because it wanted to
wait him out and negotiate with a President Biden or “one of the very weak Democrats, and
thereby continue to rip off the United States.” Election-year politics have crept into Mr.
Trump’s trade policy. For months, the prospect of a landmark trade agreement with China has
tantalized Mr. Trump. But now, according to analysts and several former aides, his political
calculus seems to have flipped. His recent statements suggest he now believes that demonstrating his
toughness with the Chinese and walking away from a deal might well put him in a better
position politically than signing one. Imposing new tariffs on China is likely to hurt American farmers, rattle the stock

market and possibly damage the economy. But signing an agreement could expose Mr. Trump to attacks
by Democrats, particularly if it is perceived as weak. A hard line, on the other hand, would
allow the president to cater to his political base while heading off any Democratic attempts
to outflank him as the great protector of American workers . “The days of being soft on China are over,”
said Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist for Mr. Trump, who shaped the economic message of his 2016
campaign and has warned repeatedly about the dangers posed by China. “Politics now drives the economics.” Bashing
China is
a well-worn election-year tactic for both Democrats and Republicans. But Mr. Trump has
upended the usual practice by pursuing actions against China that are every bit as aggressive
as his campaign messaging. His protectionist instincts defy mainstream Republican orthodoxy
and align him more with progressives like Senators Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont,
and Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts.
Trump being weak on China is seized upon by independents and Democrats –
causes loss
Landler and Swanson, 5/10 [Mark, London bureau chief of The New York Times,
and Ana, writes about trade and international economics for the New York Times,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/us/politics/trump-china-trade-2020-
election.html)
In recent weeks, however, Mr. Trump’s
campaign advisers have also started to echo the no-
compromise approach, according to a former official. That, combined with Mr. Biden’s potential
political weakness on China, has shifted Mr. Trump’s thinking away from those who urged a
deal. At his rally this week in Panama City Beach, Fla., Mr. Trump claimed that Mr. Biden was telling supporters that foreign
leaders told him they hoped he would defeat Mr. Trump in 2020. “Of course they do,” the president told his crowd, “so they can
continue to rip off the United States.” For Mr. Trump, the decision on whether to abandon trade talks with China will hinge on more
than politics. Trade is one of the few issues where he has deeply rooted ideological convictions, dating back to the 1980s. Mr. Trump
views his aggressive tactics with Beijing as a way to break a pattern of Chinese dissembling that he contends has characterized
China’s negotiations with the last three American presidents. From the earliest days of Mr. Trump’s presidency, he has viewed a deal
as a major political victory and made it one of his top priorities. By the beginning of this year, he had grown impatient with the pace
of negotiations and began pressing his advisers for a deal. In February, as negotiators were still early in the process of drawing up a
text, he broached the idea of a “signing summit” with President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, his club in Palm Beach, Fla. Mr. Trump’s
eagerness for a deal encouraged Mr. Mnuchin and Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative, to give him overly
optimistic reports about their progress, according to a person familiar with the talks, to avoid both his anger and an impulsive tweet
or statement that might complicate the talks. Last Friday evening, after yet another visit by Mr. Mnuchin and Mr. Lighthizer to
Beijing, the
Chinese sent the Americans a diplomatic cable containing a heavily redacted version
of the text that the two sides had been working on, with modifications to all seven chapters of the 150-page
document. Among other things, the changes walked back commitments to codify some parts of the agreement in Chinese law. The
administration’s hawks saw the changes as proof that China never intended to keep its
promises, and the revisions seem to have given Mr. Trump a genuine change of heart that he expressed repeatedly this week. On
Sunday, Mr. Trump fired off a pair of tweets criticizing the Chinese and pledging to increase tariffs, and by Friday he had increased
the tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports to 25 percent from 10 percent. And he said he would start a process to levy a 25
percent tariff on virtually every other Chinese export. It is not clear whether Mr. Trump has reverted from the eager deal maker to
the anti-China hawkishness of the 2016 campaign. The risks of an all-out trade war are considerable. Political analysts said voters
were likely to judge the president’s actions by how they affected their economic fortunes, not by whether he looked tougher than
the Democrats. To some extent, that is true even of Mr. Trump’s supporters. “They have been willing to give him the benefit of the
doubt because he is addressing the issue,” said David Winston, a strategist who advises Republicans. “Their attitude is, ‘We’re with
you in wanting to do this, but ultimately, it’s got to produce a positive impact for the country.’” Yet there are also
political risks for Mr. Trump in agreeing to a deal, particularly if he ends up with an
agreement that has the same lack of teeth as those of his predecessors. Democratic
candidates would most likely pounce on that as evidence that Mr. Trump’s blustering style
does not produce results . “A weak deal, including one that does not stop cybertheft by China, will be another
proof point for Democrats to say that at the end of the day, Trump just doesn’t get the job
done,” said Geoff Garin, a veteran Democratic pollster.
 Ukraine
Trump uses Ukrainian arms sales to gain leverage on Biden – ending sales leads
to loss of 2020
Smith 19 [Allan Smith, political reporter, 4-2-2019, "Schiff: Trump pushing Biden-Ukraine story
because he thinks former VP is his 'most formidable opponent'," NBC News, accessed 7-26-
2019, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/schiff-trump-pushing-biden-ukraine-
story-because-he-thinks-former-n1004726 ]
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff said Sunday that President Donald Trump and his allies are only
pushing alleged conflict of interest questions involving former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter
Biden and Ukraine because Trump thinks Biden "is his most formidable opponent ."
The alleged Biden conflict of interest questions that Giuliani and the president have referenced involves the then-vice president's
2016 call for Ukraine to crack down on corruption, including removing a Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, seen as ineffective.
Shokin had investigated energy company Burisma Holdings, where Biden's son was a board member.
"I don't know the circumstances in which [Hunter Biden] took the job, but I can say this vis-a-vis Joe Biden: We'reproviding
generous support to Ukraine; we're providing defensive weapons to Ukraine ; we want
Ukraine to be successful in its conflict against Russia ," Schiff, D-Calif., told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday. "But
part of that is having a government that the people of Ukraine are willing to fight for and protect.
And they've had a corruption problem. That's what Joe Biden was trying to address. So going
after his son is just a method of going after someone the president believes is his most formidable
opponent."
The Biden-Ukraine nexus came into focus within the past 10 days as Trump's personal attorney, Rudy
Giuliani, began discussing it. On Thursday, Giuliani told The New York Times he planned to visit Ukraine soon
to push the incoming administration there to move forward with investigations involving
Biden's son as well as inquiries related to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
campaign.

A radical change in US policy towards Ukraine shifts the 2020 election

Bouchet 19 [Nicolas Bouchet is a Berlin-based fellow and senior editor at the German
Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), specialising in democracy promotion and relations
between the United States, the EU, and Russia. 3-27-2019, "The United States' Policy on
Ukraine: From Crisis to Normal," accessed 7-26-2019,
https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/united-states-policy-ukraine-crisis-normal-22652]
As Ukraine prepares to hold its second presidential election since the 2014 “Revolution of Dignity”, there is less focus on the country
in the United States now that at any point in the last five years. That is not to say that it has fallen off the radar or that US policy
circles no longer care about what is happening there, but rather that the situation in Ukraine is seen as being a fair way along the
inevitable process of moving from crisis to normalisation.
Outside of those in government agencies and the think tank world whose daily professional focus is on the region, Ukraine’s election
and more generally the state of the country are not attracting much attention in Washington. The top-level and media attention
generated by the overthrow of President Viktor Yanukovych, Russia’s military aggression in Crimea and Donbass, and the burst of
reformist energy that followed the revolution has declined steadily. Today, the US policy and political class has major international
issues on its plate — from North Korea to Iran, China, Syria, Venezuela, and trade wars — that leave little space for sustained focus
by senior decision-makers on anything else. What is going on in Ukraine has not been forgotten or downgraded, but it has been
increasingly treated as another normal international matter to handle.
The US 2020 presidential election, which is already in its opening phase, will only take more
bandwidth from foreign policy discussions on all but the most important issues. Realistically,
only a significant new military move by Russia in eastern Ukraine, or perhaps a flagrant
attempt at interference by Moscow to affect the outcome of the election, will drive the
country up near the top of the US agenda.
Continuity despite the rhetoric
The Republican Party has long accused the administration of President Barack Obama of a dangerously naïve policy towards Russia,
of neglecting Eastern Europe and of not being strongly supportive of Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Yet, the experience of
the last two years, while Republicans controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, did not show any great difference
from what was seen under the previous administration, either in US policy or in terms of results on the ground.
The Trump administration touts its decision to allow Ukraine to acquire offensive military equipment as evidence of its stronger
support. However, beyond this, the United States’ ongoing — and significant — support for the build-up in the country’s defence
capabilities and its diplomatic engagement have not been critically different from what came before. The
United States still
clearly supports Ukraine’s aspiration for greater Euro-Atlantic integration, even if there is no
illusion that NATO or EU membership are possible in the near future. To that end , the US
government, with strong guidance from Congress, has continued to invest significant sums in
assistance for Ukraine’s post-revolution political and economic reforms. Since the Revolution, the
United States has provided over $2.8 billion in assistance and three $1 billion loan guarantees to help Ukraine enhance its military
capabilities and implement key reforms.
The Ukraine-related sanctions regime against Russian individuals and entities introduced under Obama
continues under Trump and is unlikely to change soon. It has been built upon rather, alongside other measures such as
the Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017, though more as part of a general hardening of overall Russia
policy than directly in relation to what is going on in Ukraine.
The Trump administration appointed a new special representative for Ukraine negotiations ,
Kurt Volker, who engages with his Russian counterpart. Meanwhile, much as was the case under Obama, US messaging and
diplomacy has consistently and strongly supported Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and condemned Russia, while there
is an unspoken recognition that the annexation of Crimea will not be undone anytime soon (if ever) and that the situation in Donbass
is a frozen conflict. No major positive change in Eastern Ukraine is foreseen, and Russia is not seriously expected to change its policy
there. In short, the US position and understandings have not changed fundamentally since the signing of the Minsk II agreement.
And despite the rhetoric emanating from the Trump administration, there has not been a noticeable intensification in diplomatic
engagement with Ukraine at the very top. President Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in the White
House in 2017 but only on a “drop-by” basis after the Ukrainian leader had met with the US vice-president, and the two presidents
have also met briefly on the margins of international meetings. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Kiev in 2017 but his successor,
Mike Pompeo, has not travelled to Ukraine so far. By contrast, Secretary of State John Kerry made three trips to the country
between 2014 and 2016.
More of the same?
Some in the United States see the slow pace of change and many reversals in Ukraine as justifying pessimistic views of the country
sliding back from the progress made from the initial wave of post-revolution reformist energy. “Ukraine fatigue” is an enduring
phenomenon. In the current context, though, neither an abandonment of Ukraine nor its return to a priority position on the policy
agenda are likely.
Several factors continue to make Ukraine a concern for the US government and the broader
policy world in Washington. Above all, Ukraine policy is inseparable from Russia policy and Russia
is not going to move down the agenda. This also ties into broader concerns about Russia and Europe generally, and
thus different European issues occasionally serve to keep Ukraine a live concern for policymakers; for example, US opposition to the
Nord Stream 2pipeline or Russian political interference in the Balkans. At the same time, Russia’s behaviour remains one of the
primary reasons for US engagement with Ukraine, as occurred with the November 2018 incident in the Kerch Strait. More such
aggressive moves by Russia in the Sea of Azov or on land would be guaranteed to increase US attention.
At the same time, while there are several figures in Congress with a strong focus on keeping the United States committed to its
traditional support for European security and NATO, including engagement in Ukraine, there is no obvious high-profile champion for
this line of thinking among Washington politicians since the death of Senator John McCain. As for the declared and expected
candidates for the presidency in 2020, they seem to be by and large supportive of the stance taken on Ukraine since the revolution,
but at the moment none of them looks likely to make this a special foreign policy issue during their campaign.
Meanwhile, the well-documented staffing shortcomings of the administration still hamper having strong political leadership on
Ukraine and regional matters in the crucial mid-level positions in the State Department and elsewhere. The recent departure of
Wess Mitchell as assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs only adds to this.
The final factor is the president. Overall, it looks as though 2018 saw Trump hit a wall when it comes to his hopes for a
rapprochement with Russia, or at least one that is unconditional. If anything, in recent months hawkishness towards Russia has
become more constant within the administration, as seen most recently with the issue of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
Treaty. Trump no doubt still nurtures hopes for better relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which would be very unlikely
to occur without hurting Ukraine’s interests, but in recent months he has returned far less to this signature issue of his election
campaign and first two years in office. Whether that is because his attention has wandered elsewhere or he has deliberately tried to
steer clear of an issue that has brought him mostly political trouble, the president has not made the kind of Russia-friendly
statements with the same frequency and loudness in recent months. This is probably even less likely as the election nears and the
issue is not likely to be a vote winner. One of the consequences will likely be that US policy towards Ukraine will not change.
84% of voters want US intervention in Ukraine – loss of foreign policy
commitment makes Trump lose
Kyle, Kertzer, and Zeitzoff 14 (Dropp, K., Kertzer, J. D., & Zeitzoff, T. (2014). The less
Americans know about Ukraine's location, the more they want U.S. to intervene: MONKEY CAGE
| those who cannot locate Ukraine on a map are more likely to back military action, a survey
finds. Washington: WP Company LLC d/b/a The Washington Post. Retrieved from
http://ezproxy.kcls.org/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/1513293364?
accountid=46)
Since Russian troops first entered the Crimean peninsula in early March, a series of media polling outlets have asked Americans how they

want the U.S. to respond to the ongoing situation. Although two-thirds of Americans have
reported following the situation at least "somewhat closely," most Americans actually know
very little about events on the ground -- or even where the ground is.
On March 28-31, 2014, we asked a national sample of 2,066 Americans (fielded via Survey Sampling International Inc. (SSI), what action they wanted the U.S. to take in Ukraine, but with a twist: In addition to
measuring standard demographic characteristics and general foreign policy attitudes, we also asked our survey respondents to locate Ukraine on a map as part of a larger, ongoing project to study foreign policy

We found that only one

knowledge. We wanted to see where Americans think Ukraine is and to learn if this knowledge (or lack thereof) is related to their foreign policy views.

out of six Americans can find Ukraine on a map, and that this lack of knowledge is related to
preferences: The farther their guesses were from Ukraine's actual location, the more they
wanted the U.S. to intervene with military force.
Ukraine: Where is it?
Survey respondents identified Ukraine by clicking on a high-resolution world map, shown above. We then created a distance metric by comparing the coordinates they provided with the actual location of Ukraine
on the map. Other scholars, such as Markus Prior , have used pictures to measure visual knowledge, but unlike many of the traditional open-ended items political scientists use to measure knowledge , distance
enables us to measure accuracy continuously: People who believe Ukraine is in Eastern Europe clearly are more informed than those who believe it is in Brazil or in the Indian Ocean.
About one in six (16 percent) Americans correctly located Ukraine, clicking somewhere within its borders. Most thought that Ukraine was located somewhere in Europe or Asia, but the median respondent was
about 1,800 miles off -- roughly the distance from Chicago to Los Angeles -- locating Ukraine somewhere in an area bordered by Portugal on the west, Sudan on the south, Kazakhstan on the east, and Finland on
the north.
Who is more accurate?
Accuracy varies across demographic groups. In general, younger Americans tended to provide more accurate responses than their older counterparts: 27 percent of 18-24 year olds correctly identified Ukraine,
compared with 14 percent of 65+ year-olds. Men tended to do better than women, with 20 percent of men correctly identifying Ukraine and 13 percent of women. Interestingly, members of military households
were no more likely to correctly locate Ukraine (16.1 percent correct) than members of non-military households (16 percent correct), but self-identified independents (29 percent correct) outperformed both
Democrats (14 percent correct) and Republicans (15 percent correct). Unsurprisingly, college graduates (21 percent correct) were more likely to know where Ukraine was than non-college graduates (13 percent
correct), but even 77 percent of college graduates failed to correctly place Ukraine on a map; the proportion of college grads who could correctly identify Ukraine is only slightly higher than the proportion of
Americans who told Pew that President Obama was Muslim in August 2010.
Does accuracy matter?
Does it really matter whether Americans can put Ukraine on a map? Previous research would suggest yes: Information, or the absence thereof, can influence Americans' attitudes about the kind of policies they
want their government to carry out and the ability of elites to shape that agenda. Accordingly, we also asked our respondents a variety of questions about what they thought about the current situation on the
ground, and what they wanted the United States to do. Similarly to other recent polls, we found that although Americans are undecided on what to do with Ukraine, they are more likely to oppose action in
Ukraine the costlier it is -- 45 percent of Americans supported boycotting the G8 summit, for example, while only 13 percent of Americans supported using force.

However, the further our respondents thought that Ukraine was from its actual location , the more they wanted the U.S. to intervene militarily.
Even controlling for a series of demographic characteristics and participants' general foreign policy attitudes, we found that the less accurate our participants were, the more they wanted the U.S. to use force, the
greater the threat they saw Russia as posing to U.S. interests, and the more they thought that using force would advance U.S. national security interests; all of these effects are statistically significant at a 95
percent confidence level. Our results are clear, but also somewhat disconcerting: The less people know about where Ukraine is located on a map, the more they want the U.S. to intervene militarily.
2020 Updates - Key Issues
Econ
 Key
Econ determines elections
McGowan, 18 [Angela, CBI Northern Ireland Director, Irish Times, “It’s the
Economy, Stupid!,” http://www.irishnews.com/business/2018/11/27/news/it-s-
the-economy-stupid--1493812/, AC]
JAMES Carville,
the lead strategist in Bill Clinton's election campaign in the early 1990s, is
reported to have hung a message on the wall of the campaign headquarters that read “it's the
economy stupid” to keep Clinton's team on message. And indeed, in the US election of 1992, it
was the country's weak economic performance that unseated George H Bush from office and
replaced him with Bill Clinton. Carville's phrase is now frequently used to remind politicians to
not forget the consequences of ignoring the economy . Ultimately, long-term political success
comes down to sustainable economic growth - creating the right conditions for investment,
job creation and improving households' living standards.
Foreign Policy
 Key
Voters want foreign policy that isn’t interventionist and doesn’t give the US
leadership
Mulligan and Johnson 19 [Katrina Mulligan is the managing director for National Security
and International Policy at the Center for American Progress. Blaine Johnson is a former policy
analyst for National Security and International Policy at the Center. Abigail Bard is a research
associate of Asia Policy for National Security and International Policy at the Center. 6/12/19
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2019/06/12/471024/american-
foreign-policy-left-young-voters-behind/]
For younger generations, appeals to American
The lesson and message for 2020 candidates is clear:
exceptionalism and military supremacy may be less effective than other arguments for
U.S. engagement around the world. Young Americans are ready for a new vision for
American foreign policy—one that resonates with how they see the world. This vision is
neither interventionist nor isolationist; it favors collective over unilateral action and
recognizes that the United States achieves more in partnership with other nations than it
ever does alone; it focuses on investing in the American economy and the American
people, rather than only the American military, in order to be strong abroad; it isn’t
wrapped in the flag or dependent on American global dominance; and it isn’t zero sum.
America’s current foreign policy does not embody that vision. It’s up to candidates to
offer something better in 2020.
Voters will vote on foreign policy wins, empirics prove
Ferguson 19 [Niall Ferguson is a Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History at Harvard and a Senior
Research Fellow of the Hoover Institution, Stanford. He is the Author of multiple New York
Times bestsellers. “Trump’s Foreign Policy Wins Will Be His Ticket To Reelection” 4/30/18
https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/2144041/trumps-
foreign-policy-wins-will-be-his-ticket-re-election]
Foreign policy professionals would say Trump's chronic lack of preparation will doom
his Asian foreign policy to failure. Maybe so. But the domestic politics experts said the
same about his 2016 campaign. Richard Nixon did not have much of a domestic record to
campaign on in 1972. Because the Democrats controlled Congress, his legislative record
was modest. He imposed wage and price controls in a misguided attempt to suppress
inflation, and his approval rating was just over 50 per cent. But Nixon smashed the
Democratic candidate George McGovern with one foreign policy win after another. He
met Chairman Mao in China in February 1972, then went to Moscow in May and signed
two agreements to limit nuclear weapons. On October 26, Henry Kissinger declared that peace was “at hand” in
Vietnam. Trump may find himself in a similar predicament in 2020, with the difference that
his impeachment may already have started before he is up for re-election. Inflation will
be up by then. But the Democrats will nominate a progressive candidate. Trump will have
no choice but to campaign on foreign policy. He will have lost at home. But he could still
win on away goals.
Voters do not want interventionist foreign policies and to focus on problems in
the US
Bowman 19 [Karlyn Bowman is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a
Washington, D.C. based think tank. “Examining Foreign Attitudes: Do Americans Have New
Priorities?” 5/30/19 https://www.forbes.com/sites/bowmanmarsico/2019/05/30/examining-
foreign-policy-attitudes-do-americans-have-new-priorities/#315054942df7]
The CAP survey emphasizes in a way other recent surveys have not some important concerns
that animate many Americans in both parties. While most Americans want to work with our
allies where possible, a majority in the CAP survey placed themselves at points 8 to 10,
indicating strong agreement with the view that “other countries should pay more of their
security needs and stop expecting the US to be the world’s policemen .” Fifty-two percent put
themselves at points 8 to 10, indicating that we should focus more on “helping people here at
home instead of getting involved and trying to help people in other parts of the world .” In an
April Pew Research Center survey, 49% expressed a similar sentiment (44% said it was best for
our country to be active in foreign affairs). In CAP’s formulation, voters overall have “not
become isolationists nor are they unified in support of robust U.S. leadership in the world.” CAP
calls the bulk of its respondents supporters of “restrained engagement.”
 Not Key
Foreign policy not key, voters know its gaslighting
Ward 19 [Alex is the staff writer covering international security and defense issues, as well as a
co-host of Vox's "Worldly" podcast. Before joining Vox, Alex was an associate director in the
Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security where he worked on military
issues and US foreign policy. 4/1/19 https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/1/18285395/trump-
2020-foreign-policy-democrats]
When asked to describe his foreign policy, Trump campaign national press secretary
Kayleigh McEnany told me “President Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments are
vast” and that he “has undeniably put America First and exhibited strength on the world
stage.” Of course, all of these boasts would require caveats — a lot of caveats. But
there’s some truth to them, too. For example, the US-North Korea standoff is certainly at
its lowest tension point in years, ISIS did lose its territorial “caliphate,” and the as-yet-
unapproved trade deal with Mexico and Canada is better for workers. That’s not to say
Trump is bulletproof on foreign policy: He’s also cozied up to several dictators, ignored
major threats like climate change, supported the Saudi-led war on Yemen, backed Riyadh
after its de facto leader orchestrated the murder on US resident and dissident journalist
Jamal Khashoggi, slashed refugee levels, and global attitudes toward America worsened
during his presidency. And Democrats will surely try to make the case that Trump’s
foreign policy isn’t as good as he’ll say it is. “He’s going to run on a series of claims
about his foreign policy ‘achievements,’” a top Democratic presidential campaign staffer
who was not authorized to speak to press told me. “Anyone who follows this stuff knows
they’re not true, but maybe not if you’re watching Fox News. It’s like foreign policy
gaslighting.”
No matter how hard Trump pushes fopo, voters won’t buy it
Ward 19 [Alex is the staff writer covering international security and defense issues, as well as a
co-host of Vox's "Worldly" podcast. Before joining Vox, Alex was an associate director in the
Atlantic Council's Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security where he worked on military
issues and US foreign policy. 4/1/19 https://www.vox.com/world/2019/4/1/18285395/trump-
2020-foreign-policy-democrats]
Few experts I spoke to said Trump’s foreign policy has been overall successful, but some
did agree that he has a good story to tell. Yet Trump may still not be able to turn that
rhetoric into an advantage for three key reasons. The first is that Trump’s messaging on
foreign policy so far has been mostly doom and gloom: that the world has taken
advantage of the US at the expense of Americans, and only he can fix all the problems.
Heather Hurlburt, a US foreign policy expert at the New America Foundation in
Washington, says Trump will have a hard time turning that negative message into a
positive one — even if it’s to boast about his foreign policy successes. Bragging about his
global accomplishments is a “narrative that’s really good for an establishment Republican
to run on,” she told me, “but not for Trump.” Thomas Wright, the Brookings Institution
expert who tracked Trump’s foreign policy since the campaign, agrees. “His message that
the US has been taken advantage of has resonated,” he told me, “but it could be shown
that he’s the one that’s been taken advantage of.” For example, Trump claims his
friendship with Kim doesn’t require him to be as tough on North Korea, all while
Pyongyang continues to improve its nuclear program. Second, Trump has faced
opposition from his own party on foreign policy. Republicans in Congress have
consistently rebuked Trump’s desire not to place further sanctions on Russia, and they
also pushed back on his warm embrace of Saudi Arabia even after Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman apparently ordered Khashoggi’s murder last year. That’s a weak
spot, as the president’s own party usually stands firmly behind him on major foreign
policy issues. Those rebukes may weigh on the mind of voters as global affairs become
more prominent during the campaign. Finally, some Americans may see through Trump’s
rhetoric, even if he tries to brag about his foreign policy. Here’s just one example: even
though Trump keeps saying North Korea is no longer a threat, polls show the majority of
Americans still believe it is. It’s possible that his claims of total success with Kim may
fall on deaf ears as the election progresses.