Pollster Mark Zandi had three Electoral College projections for 2020 and Donald Trump came out on top for all three. The president clinched at least 280 Electoral College votes for every projection, though it’s incumbent on a solid economic performance, which is why liberals are quietly hoping for a market reset next year. Yes, nothing says ‘I’m a power-grubbing prostitute (I would say something else…you know the word)’ than hoping millions of Americans’ economic futures go up in smoke in order to win an election.

For The New York Times, they found that Trump’s Electoral College position might have increased. Second, Joe Biden besting Trump in battleground states isn’t a big red flag at all. Sorry, Democrats, it’s mostly due to name recognition and people seeing him as a “safe” option to run against Trump, but that can be torched if Biden struggles on the campaign trail, coupled with a booming economy, and the appearance that the former VP is aloof. Warren is the 2020 nominee that Trump and the GOP should hope is anointed because she gets rolled by Trump. There’s also no indication that the Democrats are going to win back a significant number of blue-collar workers. Also, most Trump voters who backed Democrats in the 2018 midterms said they’re all-in for Trump 2020 (via NYT)

The results suggest that Ms. Warren, who has emerged as a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, might face a number of obstacles in her pursuit of the presidency. The poll supports concerns among some Democrats that her ideology and gender — including the fraught question of “likability” — could hobble her candidacy among a crucial sliver of the electorate. And not only does she underperform her rivals, but the poll also suggests that the race could be close enough for the difference to be decisive. [...]

Democrats would probably need to win three of the six states [Michigan, N. Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, and Wisconsin] to win the White House, assuming other states voted as they did in 2016 — an outcome that is not at all assured. The Times/Siena results and other data suggest that the president’s advantage in the Electoral College relative to the nation as a whole remains intact or has even grown since 2016, raising the possibility that the Republicans could — for the third time in the past six elections — win the presidency while losing the popular vote. […] While Mr. Biden ranks as the strongest Democrat in the swing states polled, the findings are not necessarily great news for him, either. His appeal to Democrats hinges on the view that he’s a safe bet against the president, yet his lead against Mr. Trump is not nearly so comfortable that he could be considered a sure thing. […] The major demographic cleavages of the 2016 election also remain intact. Mr. Trump struggles badly among college-educated white voters and nonwhite voters, though there are signs his standing among the latter group has improved modestly since the last presidential election. He counters with a wide lead among white voters who did not graduate from a four-year college. In contrast to recent national surveys, the Times/Siena polls find that the president’s lead among white, working-class voters nearly matches his decisive advantage from 2016. This group represents nearly half of registered voters in these states, and a majority in the Northern battlegrounds that decided the last election. […] The poll offers little evidence that any Democrat, including Mr. Biden, has made substantial progress toward winning back the white working-class voters who defected to the president in 2016, at least so far. All the leading Democratic candidates trail in the precincts or counties that voted for Barack Obama and then flipped to Mr. Trump. As a result, Democrats appear to have made little progress in reclaiming their traditional advantage in the Northern battleground states, despite their sweep there in the 2018 midterms. Respondents in these states said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates by an average of six points, all but identical to their actual winning margins. Nearly two-thirds of the Trump voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they’ll back the president against all three named opponents.

So, you can digest all of this and come to the conclusion that the 2020 Democratic crop is not elite. It’s not deep. And there are areas where they remain in trouble. The same areas that cost them the election in 2016. Or there’s this take by The Washington Times’ Larry O’Connor who would just prefer to be left alone since the Times was totally wrong about the 2016 election result until those exits polls came through on Election Day.