How the president destroyed his own campaign.

Donald Trump can be denied about who won the 2020 election, but his polls are not. Two of them performed autopsies over his defeat, and those autopsies are now public. One of his pollsters, John McLaughlin, published an analysis in Newsmax in November. Another report, written by consultant Tony Fabrizio, was posted by Politico on Monday. No pollster blames the former president, but their numbers tell the story: Trump destroyed himself.

The autopsies identified two reasons why Trump had to win. First, based on self-identification, the electorate was significantly more Republican in 2020 than the electorate in 2016. Second, the population’s satisfaction with the economy was favored. Both polls found that people who voted in 2020 thought Trump would handle the economy better than Joe Biden would. McLaughlin’s analysis, based on his post-election survey of people who voted in 2020, noted that 61 percent of these voters said they were better off than four years earlier. Despite this, Trump managed to lose one-third of the 61 percent. ‘A total of 20% of all voters thought they were better off today than they were four years ago not vote for President Trump, “McLaughlin wrote.

Fabrizio analyzed exit polls from ten battlefield states that Trump won in 2016. Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas stayed with Trump in 2020; Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin turned to Biden. Collectively, Fabrizio calculates in the ten states a “massive swing” against Trump among independents (by 17 to 19 percentage points) and a similar shift among college-educated white voters (by 14 to 18 percentage points). In his national sample, McLaughlin also found that Biden won moderates, 62 percent to 36 percent.

What killed Trump were the new voters. Biden won them by 14 points in the five decisive state.

Trump repelled these voters, even those who were happy with the economy. In McLaughlin’s national sample, Biden was considered more favorable than Trump. Among voters who did not like both candidates, the pollster noted that “Trump’s disgust was more prevalent.” Three-quarters of Biden voters cited character or personality traits as reasons for their voting decisions, and the reasons they gave were “mostly anti-Trump,” McLaughlin wrote. Seven percent of respondents said they mostly voted “against Biden,” but 19 percent said they mostly voted against Trump.

Fabrizio found similar results. In the battlefields, voters with four points said Biden was not ‘honest and trustworthy’. Trump’s deficit on the same question was much larger: 14 to 18 points. The exit polls also show that Trump has inspired millions of new voters to show up in person or by mail to get rid of him. Fabrizio noted that in the five states that flew to Biden, Trump surpassed Biden among people who voted in 2016. What killed Trump were the new voters. Biden won them by 14 points in the five deciding states.

Trump also misjudged the policies of COVID-19. During the campaign, he focused on reopening the economy quickly, often with the danger of rekindling the pandemic. It appears to be disastrous for the country but also for its candidacy. Fabrizio found that ‘majority of voters in the ten warring states’ had stopped prioritizing the distribution of [the virus] on the reopening of the economy. The forecaster said the virus “was the biggest problem in these states” and Biden carried the voters almost 3 to 1. ” In the polls and in the McLaughlin poll, voters with significant margins said Biden would handle the virus better than Trump.

Fabrizio noted two particularly foolish mistakes in Trump’s response to the virus. The one made the masks ridiculous. In the ten warring states, the voters who favor the mask mandates (Biden’s position) outnumbered those who opposed the mask mandates (Trump’s position) by three to one. The huge pro-mask constituency went on average about 30 points to Biden in the five states that skipped to him. Trump’s other dumb step was his persistent slander against Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. In the five countries that switched to Biden, 72 percent of voters approved of Fauci’s performance, and 63 percent of voters went to Biden.

Any incumbent would have wrestled with a pandemic in an election year. But Trump had everything else going on. Despite setbacks, the economy he inherited was still strong. Congress and the Federal Reserve have pumped in trillions of dollars to promote households and businesses. Republicans apparently voted in better numbers than in 2016. And yet Trump managed to lose. He lost because he chose his job, chose stupid battles and opposed most of the country. His own polls confirmed this.