Time for Republicans to Panic?

James Antle of the Washington Examiner focuses on Republicans’ assessments of their presidential nominee.

With former President Donald Trump trailing in the polling averages for the first time in months, Republicans are starting to panic.

Trump’s deficits as a candidate have some Republicans privately pining for the switcheroo Democrats pulled off at the top of their ticket from President Joe Biden to Vice President Kamala Harris.

As their convention approaches, Democrats appear to have breathed new life into the campaign, with a little bit of help from their friends in the media.

The Republican panic is nothing like that Democratic freakout after Biden’s June 27 debate flop, which ultimately knocked the sitting president out of the race. But it is reminiscent of the gnawing doubts Democrats had about Biden going into that debate.

Democrats were growing increasingly worried that Trump, a defeated former president they once believed was spent as a political force, had a small but consistent lead in the battleground states and looked like he might even win the popular vote.

Younger Democratic voters and a nontrivial slice of the political press had never seen a Republican presidential candidate have such an extended lead in the national polls. The last time it happened, George W. Bush’s reelection in 2004, was only the second time the GOP standard-bearer won the popular vote since 1988. And even then, John Kerry had managed to take the lead at some point by the July 4 weekend.

That was one reason many Democrats were upset that Trump was maintaining a lead that was surmountable by historical standards. The final RealClearPolitics polling average showed Trump ahead of Biden by 3.1 points. By comparison, George H.W. Bush erased a 17-point Michael Dukakis polling lead to win the White House in 1988.

Biden’s evident and growing flaws as a communicator at age 81, seen by many voters as a reflection of his broader fitness for office, wiped out whatever remaining confidence Democrats had in his ability to manage any kind of comeback.