Looks like Donald Trump has lost the military
We’ve consistently seen that Donald Trump has lost the military top brass. One General and Admiral after another has stepped forward to condemn Trump, to call him a traitor, and to endorse his opponent Joe Biden. It’s unprecedented to see military leaders coming out swinging en masse in an election – particularly on the side of the Democrat. But has this been translating to the military rank and file?
I’m always the first one to say that you have to look at the polling averages, and not individual polls, to get a sense of what’s going on. But something as specific as military polling isn’t widely conducted, meaning it’s hard for an average to form, and you’re stuck looking at the much less reliable individual polls. That said, these new numbers from a Military Times poll are stunning.
The poll says that Joe Biden has a six point lead over Donald Trump among active-duty service members. Even if you allow for the possibility that this individual poll could be off by several points and that it’s perhaps closer to being tied, it’s still a huge deal, because the troops traditionally vote heavily Republican. For instance, at one point during the 2016 election, the Military Times poll had Trump ahead by more than twenty points with active duty military members. Now this same poll says Trump is losing among service members.
This is the latest reminder that because Donald Trump has spent four years showing us all who he really is, he’s in danger of losing voting segments that would normally be safely Republican. This gives us an opportunity to double down on things like phone banking and volunteering, and really run up the score, so Trump will lose by a large enough margin that his complaints about a “rigged” election won’t get him anywhere.
Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report