Trump's "'thread the needle' re-election strategy" has 4 "main elements" but only one of them is currently in place.

According to Amy Walter at the Cook Political Report.

 

The one element that's in place is "A united, enthusiastic and engaged GOP base."

The other 3 are: "A deeply flawed opponent,"  "Decent support among independent voters," and "Third-party candidates siphoning off enough votes to allow Trump to win key states."

Walter says, "Joe Biden has never been popular, but he’s also never been as unpopular as Hillary Clinton." I'd say that Biden is more like the absence of a candidate, putting the focus on Trump's flaws. And with the virus making everything bad, the badness falls more heavily, more directly on Trump. He's presiding over what's actually happening, and one can only imagine how Biden might have handled things. 

As for independents, we're told Trump trails Biden by 14 to 18 points in "the most recent national polling by Fox News, CNN and Pew." 

As for third party candidates, they're less important than in 2016.

"My son is a big fan of Japanese anime and comics. One of his favorite characters is named 'One Punch Man.'"

"He's a regular looking guy with one amazing superpower: he can defeat any man or machine or monster with just one punch. In politics, however, there is no such thing as a 'One Punch Man.' The best one can hope for is a candidate who can withstand the inevitable blows that will come, while also being able to land a couple of punches on their opponents as well."

Writes Amy Walter in the last paragraph of "2020 Democrats Face Their Stress Test" (Cook Political Report), which talks about the importance of being able to take a punch and to punch back. As different candidates come to the fore — Biden, Warren, and now Buttigieg — each faces a "stress test." I've got to say that headline caught my attention because I misread it as 2020 Democrats Fail Their Stress Test. Aren't they all failing when they come into the spotlight and face their stress test?

Oh, wait, here, at Drudge... here's Biden stepping up for another stress test:



I don't know when that photo was taken, but the viral moment was his getting all pugilistic was some old guy who had the gall to ask him a question — how DARE you ask me a question! — at some town hall in Iowa yesterday.

The link goes to "Biden finally finds social media buzz with viral Trump video, voter spat" (Reuters). Well, yeah, anybody can get buzz by doing something awful.

"You're a damn liar, man," Biden told the man.... "No one has said my son has done anything wrong," Biden said. "Get your words straight, jack."... Biden... challeng[ed]  the man to a push-up contest or an IQ test - and appeared at one point to call him "fat."... A Biden campaign aide later said online that Biden had said "facts," not "fat."

He clearly said "fat," but I believe he intended to say "facts." It's just that he was looking at a man who was fat and he made one of those horrifying slips that we all hope we never make.

Now, people are interested in the Iowa man, who, it turns out is a former Marine and he's also 83, so that's 2 more reasons it was stupid for Biden to act like he wanted beat the hell out of him. The man is quoted in The Daily Mail:

"He [Biden] didn't have the guts to explain the situation, and that's what I wanted.... He got p**ed off and stomped around … I wish he had explained in a decent tone of voice why he got his son in that position over there and in my opinion he had no business whatsoever sticking his nose over there.... I am 83 and I know damn well I don't have the mental faculties I did when I was 30 years old... I know for a fact my mental faculties have slipped since I hit the 70s. I got a friend in New Hampton who is 105 years old and he can do push-ups, so it doesn't mean anything about how smart you are."