Numbers Driving the Narrative - key political, economic, and social metrics that are shaping the current communications environment.

1. Numbers Driving the Narrative
September 2020

2. 1MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
1.8% Joe Biden’s Average Lead in Florida
• The good news for Democrats is that former Vice President Biden still leads
Trump in all the key battleground states, according to polling averages tallied
by Real Clear Politics.
• The bad news is that his lead in other states shrank considerably over the
summer, including Michigan, North Carolina, and Florida, where his lead
averaged 8.4% in late July.
WHAT IT MEANS: Tightening is inevitable in a closely contested
presidential race, and national polls still show President Trump
consistently falling short of the 45.9% of the national vote he won in 2016.
But Trump also seems to be benefiting from a shift in media coverage
away from COVID-19 and the racial-justice protests that dominated June
and July.

3. 2MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
56% Biden voters supporting him because he is NOT Trump
• Asked the main reason for supporting either candidate, Biden voters were
definitive – he’s not the guy currently occupying the Oval Office, according to a
summer survey by the Pew Research Center. Biden’s leadership was a distant
second (19%).
• Conversely, 61% of Biden supporters would be angry if Trump is re-elected,
compared with 37% of Trump supporters who said they would be angry if
Biden wins, so this anti-Trump sentiment could be enough motivation to drive
Biden voters to the polls.
WHAT IT MEANS: Reelection campaigns are always a referendum
on the incumbent, and Trump is uniquely polarizing. While this number
suggests relatively soft support for Biden, it may not matter if Trump’s
disapproval stays north of 50%. The dynamic is reminiscent of 2016 when
Trump’s top attribute was that he was NOT Hillary Clinton.

4. 3MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
5M
Number of popular votes Trump could lose by and still
win re-election
• Four years after Clinton tallied 2.9 million more popular votes than Trump but
still fell 38 Electoral College votes short of the presidency, that gap might be
even wider in November, according to an analysis by David Wasserman of the
Cook Political Report.
• The reason: Democratic strongholds are diversifying faster than critical swing
states surrounding the Great Lakes, with a few notable exceptions.
WHAT IT MEANS: This is the Democrats’ ultimate doomsday
scenario. Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are relatively older and
whiter, with a high share of white voters without college degrees, and
that trend could help Trump in November, even if he loses by a bigger
margin in the popular vote. Long term, the diversifying battlegrounds of
Arizona, Florida, Georgia – coupled with an eventually competitive Texas –
could prove a bigger problem for the GOP.

5. 4MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
7.8M Jump in unemployment since February
• The number of unemployed Americans dropped by another 2.8 million people
in August, with 13.6 million people in the U.S. still out of work, according to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics.
• This is a major improvement from April, when 23.1 million people were out of
work, but it is a far cry from just February, when 5.8 million were unemployed.
WHAT IT MEANS: The economy has added jobs for four straight
months, but the pace has slowed dramatically. Independent voters tend
to judge politicians on the direction of the job market, so the summer job
surge may explain why Trump still outperforms Biden on the economy.
And historically—since 1928—the incumbent party has won nearly 90% of
presidential elections when the S&P 500 is in an upswing. But will this
sentiment hold, if these indicators slow or reverse?

6. 5MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
24.3% Share of Americans working remotely
• This is actually a decline from earlier in the year when more than 40% of the
American workforce toiled from home during the height of the pandemic-
related lockdown.
• And these workers are the lucky ones; in addition to having jobs, they
accounted for roughly half of all wages earned, according to a Stanford study
of the remote workforce.
WHAT IT MEANS: COVID has transformed the economy in ways that
won’t reverse immediately. Working from home has benefits (no
commute) and drawbacks (disruptive kids). Most people are not as
efficient when they work from home, but a large chunk of the workforce
would like the option of working from home, at least part-time, after the
pandemic ends.

7. 6MEMO: Numbers Driving the Narrative
41%
Share of Americans who report that they only pay
attention to one or two trusted news sources
• According to the Knight Foundation, more Americans say it is harder (62%)
rather than easier (36%) to be well-informed because of all the sources of
information available.
• Reasons cited for feeling overwhelmed include the mix of news interspersed
with non-news on the web (72%), followed by the pace of reporting (63%) and
the increased number of news organizations (63%).
WHAT IT MEANS: The sheer amount of news available is making it
harder for Americans as they search for information they trust.
Consequently, their solution is to commit to only a small number of
sources with party affiliation being the primary determinant. A polarized
media landscape is only deepening our political divisions with implications
that will be felt well beyond the election year.