media

Reopening the Economy Now Is Donald Trump’s Last Hope of Entering the 2020 Election With Good GDP Data
By Shane Croucher and James Walker
Newsweek, Published 05/28/2020

President Donald Trump’s push for states to swiftly reopen may be the best chance he has of entering the 2020 election with positive economic data and, if the rebound is strong, some of the largest numbers on record.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its first estimate of third quarter GDP data on October 29, less than a week before America votes. June is the final month of the second quarter during which analysts expect the economy to contract by around 40 percent.

If the U.S. economy has substantially reopened by July, the quarter-on-quarter GDP growth rate could reach above 20 percent, per some of the more optimistic forecasts, offering a vital boost to the Trump campaign in what is shaping up to be a close-fought election.

“It’s probably a game-changer for the president, and I think you could see the race tighten immediately, if not Trump moving into the lead because of that,” Chris Wilson, CEO of WPA Intelligence and a Republican strategist, told Newsweek.

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Biden’s VP search puts spotlight on how long he’ll serve
By Will Weissert
The Associated Press, Published 05/17/2020

There’s also no guarantee that Biden’s running mate will be the immediate president-in-waiting he envisions. Biden has pledged to pick a woman, but virtually no one under active consideration is likely to satisfy all Democrats. That raises the prospect of a primary battle in 2024 if he steps aside.

Republican pollster Chris Wilson said Biden might elevate several younger Democrats to Cabinet positions to deliberately set up “almost a hand-picked primary pool rather than a single candidate he tries to hand things off to.”

That, Wilson said, “would still be the kind of legacy-building move he seems to be interested in.”

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Poll: Sisolak praised, but Nevadans want virus shutdown to end
By Colton Lochhead
Las Vegas Review-Journal, Published 05/07/2020

The Nevada Poll™, conducted for the Review-Journal and reviewjournal.com by WPA Intelligence, found 64 percent of Nevadans support Sisolak’s approach to the pandemic and his handling of the shutdown of nonessential businesses across the state, compared with 28 percent who disapprove.

The poll surveyed 500 likely voters in Nevada from May 2-5, with party demographics of the respondents mirroring Nevada’s voter registration breakdown of 33 percent Republican, 38 percent Democrat and 29 percent as nonpartisan or third-party voters. Its margin of error is 4.4 percentage points.

The poll was conducted after Sisolak announced the extension of his closure order to May 15, but before his Thursday announcement that the state’s first phase of reopening would occur before May 15.

Chris Wilson, CEO of WPA Intelligence, said the Nevada results were consistent with the support seen in other states for their respective governors.

“There’s support for the governor, and almost a patriotism within the state about how the state can band together,” Wilson said.

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Trump takes underdog role in campaign against Biden
By Jonathan Easley
The Hill, Published 05/06/2020

Trump’s allies acknowledge that they face an uphill climb, with polls showing Biden leading nationally and in key battleground states. If the economy does not prove to be as resilient as Trump claims, the election is all but lost, campaign insiders say.

But Republicans believe Trump may have bottomed out amid the pandemic and there will be opportunities to sell an economic recovery and to damage Biden, who has kept a low profile since the coronavirus outbreak first hit.

“The polling right now doesn’t look great, but we’re seeing a snapshot taken at the most stressful moment of COVID-19 plus economic shutdown,” said Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster and president of WPA Intelligence.

Wilson said the president’s team knows it needs to get the economy going but added that opening it up won’t guarantee activity. As for Biden, he said there are negatives there, but the twin economic and health crises create a difficult environment for the president.

“Joe Biden has enough negatives that the Trump team will have no problem finding one that works,” he said, “but the political environment needs to be there for Biden’s negatives to swing the race.”

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With fewer offerings for fun, how will Las Vegas lure visitors amid pandemic?
By Bailey Schulz
Las Vegas Review-Journal, Published 05/05/2020

“It may take some time for the fly-in market to return at a good pace, partially because of capacity constraints and how comfortable people are ready to return to air travel.”

Predictive modeling from WPA Intelligence backs this up.

The conservative research, data science and tech firm found the week of April 6, roughly 10.1 million people in California — about 26 percent of adults — would visit Las Vegas “within a few weeks or a month,” while 11.1 million would wait and eventually visit “within a few months.” Other ready-to-travel states include Texas and Utah.

Meanwhile, a vast majority of fly-in states show fewer than 5 percent of adults would be comfortable traveling to Las Vegas in the near future.

“There’s no indication that these numbers increase without some sort of massive communication effort to explain that Las Vegas is safe and open for business again,” said Christopher Wilson, CEO of WPA Intelligence.

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Trump campaign coaxing votes from Sanders populists while telling the Left it’s OK to hate Biden
By W. James Antle III
Washington Examiner, Published 04/16/2020

Democrats believe they can avoid a repeat this time around because of Trump’s incumbency and how early Sanders backed Biden. Sanders was still running against Clinton at this time in 2016, just as she was still running against Barack Obama at this point in 2008. And some Republicans are also skeptical. “We haven’t seen the same effects in our 2020 battleground polling,” warned GOP pollster Chris Wilson. “Only a handful (1-3%) of Bernie voters vote Trump in a Trump/Biden ballot.”

“It looks like a big chunk of [Sanders’s] 2016 vote was an anti-Hillary protest vote, and that explains the 2016 Bernie/Trump vote,” Wilson added.

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Democrats say dump Biden for Cuomo: Poll gives New York governor 12-point lead over presumptive nominee
By Emily Larsen
Washington Examiner, Published 04/10/2020

A nationwide poll found that 56% of likely Democratic voters said that they would like Cuomo to be the Democratic presidential nominee rather than Biden, while 44% said that the former vice president should be the nominee.

Club for Growth PAC, a conservative group that generally supports Republicans, sponsored that poll, and WPA Intelligence conducted it. The online survey was conducted among 1,000 likely voters from April 3-6, and the results for the Democratic sample have a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8%.

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