Though lagging in polls, Trump could pull off a win

It was the week from hell for President Donald J. Trump.

He kicked off last week at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, benched by his idiocy and COVID-19.

A stimulus bill that could boost his ailing economy stalled in Congress. The presidential debate he craved was canceled. And his despised Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, was pulling away in the polls.

The Nov. 3 election is just over 3 weeks away. Suddenly somber pundits and gleeful Democrats alike are touting a national “blue wave” of electoral success that could demolish Trump and the GOP in must-win congressional districts from Florida to Pennsylvania to Colorado.

Don’t break out the bubbly yet, says Debbie Downer.

That would be U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, a Democrat from Michigan.

Dingell should know. In the run-up to the 2016 election, she repeatedly warned that Michigan was leaning Trump.

“From the beginning, I knew the Downrivers (part of her 12th Congressional District) would support Trump both in the Republican primary and in the general,” she wrote in a Washington Post op-ed two days after the Nov. 8, 2016, election.

“I witness the emotions and passions of their residents every day, and I believe they are what elected Trump president.”

Hillary Clinton’s campaign and Democratic Party honchos blew her off. They said, “That’s Debbie, it’s hyperbole, she is nuts,” Dingell recalled.

Trump won Michigan by just over 10,000 votes. Trump’s voters turned out. Clinton’s not so much.

Now Dingell is back, a bit more optimistic, but still sounding the alarm.

In 2016, she did not believe polls that pointed to a Clinton victory, and she is worried now, she said Thursday in a Bloomberg TV interview.

“I am somebody who will not believe the election is over until the polls close on Election Day,” she said. “The only thing I know about 2020 is that the predictable is unpredictable. We’ve got to make sure that people turn out.”

There is no time for high-fiving. Biden must win big.

Just two weeks ago, the nation was gripped by the fear of a contested election. Trump has repeatedly proclaimed that any election he does not “win” will be stolen and has vowed to contest it.

Democratic turnout is even more vital down-ballot. If Democrats can win a net gain of four additional Senate seats, they will capture a majority in the U.S. Senate. If Biden wins, they need only three. (A Democratic vice-president could cast a tie-breaking vote.)

The widely followed FiveThirtyEight web prognosticator currently predicts a 68% likelihood of a Democratic Senate takeover. No sure thing.

Here in deeply blue Illinois, Biden was always expected to win handily. But there are plenty of scary scenarios to feed Democratic insomnia.

In several key congressional races, turnout is key. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s Fair Tax ballot measure depends on a massive Democratic turnout, especially in Cook County.

Meanwhile the specter of COVID-19 is jeopardizing voter engagement and participation. Some voters are leery of voting in person, others do not trust the U.S. mail to deliver their ballots. And the pandemic has crippled traditional ground game strategies to drive turnout: door-knocking, get-out-the-vote rallies and voter registration drives.

Instead of talking up a blue wave, Democrats should be guarding against complacency and putting turnout strategies into overdrive.

“People can get tired of the partisan bickering and get turned off by all politics,” Dingell told Bloomberg. “Everybody has got to make sure that the voters turn out.”

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