American Election

Donald Trump’s re-election campaign poses the greatest threat to American democracy since World War II.

Mr. Trump’s ruinous tenure already has gravely damaged the United States at home and around the world. He has abused the power of his office and denied the legitimacy of his political opponents, shattering the norms that have bound the nation together for generations. He has subsumed the public interest to the profitability of his business and political interests. He has shown a breathtaking disregard for the lives and liberties of Americans. He is a man unworthy of the office he holds.

The editorial board does not lightly indict a duly elected president. During Mr. Trump’s term, we have called out his racism and his xenophobia. We have critiqued his vandalism of the postwar consensus, a system of alliances and relationships around the globe that cost a great many lives to establish and maintain. We have, again and again, deplored his divisive rhetoric and his malicious attacks on fellow Americans. Yet when the Senate refused to convict the president for obvious abuses of power and obstruction, we counseled his political opponents to focus their outrage on defeating him at the ballot box.

Nov. 3 can be a turning point. This is an election about the country’s future, and what path its citizens wish to choose.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing unfolded on Capitol Hill while President Trump and Joe Biden participated in dueling town hall events. Welcome to our weekly analysis of the state of the 2020 campaign.

The week in numbers

• This was the week that Joe Biden’s lead over President Trump settled firmly into the double digits, according to a range of national polling averages — including The Upshot’s calculator. Some credible polls, including one released on Friday by The Associated Press/NORC, put Mr. Biden’s lead as high as 15 points.
• Two New York Times/Siena College polls in the Carolinas showed Mr. Biden edging ahead of the president in North Carolina, 46 percent to 42 percent, while Mr. Trump held an eight-point lead in South Carolina. Winning North Carolina would be a huge boost for Mr. Biden, who is polling more strongly in a number of swing states that appear to be stronger bets. South Carolina would be icing on the cake.
• Democratic Senate candidates outpaced Republican incumbents in fund-raising in key races across the nation last week, including in Maine, where Sara Gideon announced raising $31 million more than Senator Susan Collins, the Republican incumbent.
• Nielsen figures showed 15.1 million viewers watched Joe Biden’s ABC town hall event and 13.5 million watched President Trump’s event on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC.

After several near misses, Democrats can taste victory in Georgia — and Republicans fear President Trump’s lackluster numbers may drag down the party’s Senate candidates with him.

Welcome to Poll Watch, our weekly look at polling data and survey research on the candidates, voters and issues that will shape the 2020 election. Follow our daily updates on the latest presidential election polls.

When President Trump travels to Macon, Ga., tonight for a campaign rally, Republicans will be looking for him to keep more than his own electoral fortunes alive.

There is perhaps no other state in which Mr. Trump’s recent slide in the polls has the potential to do as much collateral damage. In addition to staring down what could be their first presidential defeat in Georgia since 1992, Republicans stand to lose not one but two Senate seats if things don’t break their way. In both Senate races, the Trump-aligned Republican candidates have slipped in recent polls.

Those immediate vulnerabilities are colliding with a slow burn of demographic change that has thrown this once firmly Republican state into play. White residents now make up fewer than three in five voters in Georgia, and a wave of migration to the Atlanta area over the past decade has added roughly three quarters of a million people to the state’s major Democratic stronghold.

Which helps explain why this week Joseph R. Biden Jr. was able to nose out ahead of Mr. Trump in a range of polling averages. Surging alongside him are Jon Ossoff and the Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock, the Democratic candidates vying for the state’s two open Senate seats.

“One of the things I’m looking at is what we call the 30-30 rule,” said Trey Hood, a political scientist at the University of Georgia who directs its Survey Research Center. “Can a Democratic candidate get 30 percent of the white vote statewide, and do African-Americans constitute 30 percent of the electorate over all? If you can get to those levels as a Democrat, you’ve got a pretty good shot at winning.”

In 2016, Hillary Clinton came within five points of Mr. Trump in Georgia while winning only 21 percent of white voters, according to exit polls. But polling suggests Mr. Biden is likely to land closer to 30 percent among white voters.

The story doesn’t just play out along racial lines. Georgia’s electorate is growing younger, with 50 percent of its voting-eligible population now under the age of 45, according to the Census Bureau — ahead of the national average. And across racial lines, those younger voters trend more liberal, a fact that threatens to further shake up the longstanding electoral calculus.

In a recent University of Georgia/Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, 64 percent of voters under 30 supported Mr. Biden, not far off from his numbers nationally.