You may remember Patty Hearst, the heiress who was kidnapped by a radical left terror organization known as the Symbionese Liberation Army back in 1974.  During her confinement, Ms. Hearst somehow became a victim of “Stockholm Syndrome” and began sympathizing with her captors.

 

So I am wondering if Joe Biden is visiting Stockholm as well.  His recently released “platform” reads like a socialist manifesto, and Bernie Sanders is running around saying Mr. Biden enthusiastically embraces the progressive agenda.  After months of confinement in his basement, “moderate” Joe has somehow morphed into Che Guevara.

 

Enter Professor Helmut Norpoth, who teaches political science at Stony Brook University on Long Island.  Despite almost every poll saying Biden is well ahead of Trump, Dr. Norpoth is predicting that the President will win re-election with a 91 percent certainty.

 

Norpoth is not a poll guy.  He uses a “model” that has successfully called five out of six presidential elections since 1996.  The model only missed the George W. Bush victory over Al Gore, which was decided by the Supreme Court.

 

Dr. Norpoth not only says Mr. Trump will win, but also predicts it will be a landslide with the President receiving 362 electoral votes. Trump won 304 in 2016.

 

With more than three months until the vote, some skepticism about Norpoth’s “model” may be appropriate but the professor, himself, is a true believer.  He says he discounts all public opinion surveys and bases his conclusions on “enthusiasm” for each candidate. 

 

We’ll see, professor.

 

But bolstering the Trump victory prognostication is a new poll done for The Sunday Express newspaper in London, England.  It asked this question: “Are you strongly or very enthusiastic about your choice of candidate?”

 

Trump voters 77 percent.

Biden voters 43 percent.

 

Now, I don’t believe the polls mean much until mid-October but this election year is bizarre, to say the least.  Covid has engendered deep fear but not as much as the social disorder spearheaded by the radical left.

 

And here is the crucial point.  Americans don’t want violent crime causing blood in the streets.  Most of us don’t support defunding the police, or approve of anarchists destroying our history and “occupying” public spaces.  Many of us despise the “cancel culture” and the assault on freedom of speech the cancel fascists embrace.

 

President Trump is making his opposition to those things a central campaign issue.

 

Joe Biden is not.

 

I believe there is a fierce backlash brewing against the radicals.  Again, most Americans loathe this crew.

 

If Mr. Biden understands that, he has made no indication of it.

 

But then again, they build those basement walls thick in Delaware.