Biden’s Election Odds Get a Boost from Obama’s Endorsement, Trump’s Incompetence

• Joe Biden received endorsements from former President Barack Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren this week
• Biden has mostly been unscathed by the criminal sexual assault charges filed by former staffer,Tara Reade
• This race between Biden and Trump should still mostly come down to the economy

Joe Biden has seen his 2020 election odds get a boost of late. A week ago, he was at +114 on average to win the Electoral College in November. Today, he’s at +110 while the Democratic Party’s chances of winning shifted from +100 to -110.

Is he a good to win in November or is the incumbent, President Donald Trump, a better bet?

2020 US Presidential Election Odds

Odds taken April 15th.

Biden Gets Wave Of Endorsements

It’s been a good week for former Vice President Joe Biden. He’s not only avoided any major gaffes, he’s received ringing endorsements from a number of key voices in the Democratic Party. It started with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who was viewed as Biden’s last hurdle to becoming the party’s nominee.

"I'm so proud to endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States"

Former President Obama offered his formal endorsement of Joe Biden on Tuesday, urging Democrats to form a unified front to defeat President Trump in November. https://t.co/9a3lA1V1sk pic.twitter.com/DmFY1cJBm7

— CNN (@CNN) April 14, 2020

Once that became clear, good buddy and former President Barack Obama stepped in to endorse Biden. While that was mostly expected, a somewhat surprising endorsement came from Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is viewed as a progressive. Just six weeks after she shredded Biden publicly, she’s now backing him.

All of this has added some wind in Biden’s sails. That’s a big reason why he’s inching closer to Trump in the odds.

Media Protects Biden From Sexual Assault Allegation

One other big tailwind for Biden is that the mainstream media appears to be protecting him from sexual assault allegations. Reade, a former Biden staff, officially filed criminal charges against Biden but the story hasn’t gotten much attention.

By comparison, when justice Brett Kavanaugh was going through the nomination process to be approved for the Supreme Court, a similar accusation became a major, daily story.

NYT columnist on Kavanaugh accuser: Hero

NYT columnist on Biden accuser: What to do with this inconveniencehttps://t.co/Pj54qBuCu0 pic.twitter.com/t60OcqbnQz

— Robby Soave (@robbysoave) April 14, 2020

Dr. Christine Blasey Ford was put on the cover of Time magazine and was an hourly topic of conversation on CNN, MSNBC and FOX News. Actress Alyssa Milano pled with followers that women like this need to be heard. Now that a similar charge is being leveled against Biden, those same voices are not there.

Milano was excoriated by Rose McGowan for sweeping away Reade’s allegations while the same writers from the Washington Post and New York Times who criticized Kavanaugh have been very friendly to Biden. While the media appears to be protecting Biden, that hasn’t gone unnoticed by many key democratic voices.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez publicly stated that, “if we again want to have integrity, you can’t say, you know — both believe women, support all of this, until it inconveniences you, until it inconveniences us.” Meanwhile, The Hill’s Krystal Ball, who is a huge progressive voice, called out the New York Times for “covering up” the allegation.

At any rate, with the Reade story gaining little traction and Biden getting major endorsements, he’s put himself in much better shape for this race.

Trump Hurt by Narcissism and Unwillingness to Take Responsibility

While Biden had a fairly clean week, President Trump did not. Even if the coronavirus death numbers are going to come way under early model projections, his failure to accept any responsibility for the spread of the pandemic in the United States is hurting his standing as a leader. A good leader has to accept when they’ve been wrong.

Trump calls Brian Karem a "showboat", threatens to leave and has the biggest tantrum and meltdown at #TrumpPressConf today.

And he is DEFUNDING WHO.

He is out of control.

This is HORRIFYING.

People are dying & Trump's ego is crumbling fast. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/7ShIXjBjJU

— Peter Morley (@morethanmySLE) April 14, 2020

Instead, Trump has been going toe-to-toe with the media at his daily press briefings. His early briefings actually helped his approval numbers. Now it seems like it’s just wearing viewers down.

Trump’s other big mess this week came when he purposely pushed to have his name sent on out stimulus checks. Although there was some debate whether he delayed the checks solely for that purpose or whether the checks were actually not delayed, the fact that he insisted on putting his name on them was ridiculous.

When Trump publicly denied on April 3 that he wanted his signature on stimulus checks, Treasury Department officials were already secretly working on a plan to get his name on checks. Some senior IRS officials did not find out about the plan until Tuesday.https://t.co/uZQfsMncBd

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 16, 2020

In reality, Trump could easily win this election if he showed a little humility, took a little responsibility for the shortcomings with the coronavirus outbreak, and avoided narcissistic (unforced) errors like this. This is who he is, though, and he’s not going to change.

What’s The Best Bet?

At this point, I’m still siding with Trump. A poll from The Hill showed that Biden has a five-point national lead but, at this time in 2016, Hillary Clinton led by much wider margins. One month before the election, she had a double-digit lead and led Trump by 11 points among independents.

That same poll from The Hill shows that Trump has a three-point lead over Biden. Beyond that, this really comes down to the economy. Incumbents rarely lose if things are fine and, if the COVID-19 pandemic starts to recede by June (which appears somewhat likely) and the economy starts to rev back up, Trump will be hard to knock off.