Last week it was reported Trump and Biden are neck-and-neck in polls in Florida, one of the most crucial swing states.
Considering Trump has suffered widespread criticism of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, should the Democrats not being doing better?
If Trump wins on 3 November will the Democrats look back on 2020 and reflect that the ticket was not what Americans were looking for?
Could it be 1984 all over again?
In 1980 the former Hollywood actor and Governor of California, Ronald Reagan, defeated the Democrat incumbent Jimmy Carter in a landslide.
This is the weakest Democrat ticket since Mondale/Ferraro. pic.twitter.com/J2uJpC1uaK
— J.H. (@MJonHarrell) September 10, 2020
Carter had failed to tackle economic and social problems in the United States and had also been particularly inept when it came to foreign policy.
When the pro-Washington Shah of Iran was swept out of power America was humiliated when Shia Muslim students took over the US embassy in Tehran in November 1979 and held 50 diplomats hostage with the tacit support of the new regime of Ayatollah Khomeini.
To make matters worse Operation Eagle Claw - an attempted rescue by US special forces in April 1980 - went disastrously wrong and eight American soldiers were killed when two helicopters collided in the Iranian desert.
The hostages were released a few minutes after Reagan was inaugurated as president in January 1981 and the new Republican President spent the next four years flexing US military and diplomatic muscles around the world.
Reagan was determined to wipe away the humiliation the United States had suffered in Vietnam only a few years before and he took a hawkish stance towards the Soviet Union, gave short shrift to left-wing leaders and rebels in Latin America and Africa and built a strong relationship with another conservative, British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
In many ways Reagan and Trump were similar characters - both were derided by liberals and characterised by their opponents as slow-witted and unsophisticated - but their naked patriotism and willingness to stand up to the Soviet Union and China respectively made them hugely popular with many ordinary Americans.
In the summer of 1981 Reagan fired 11,000 striking air traffic controllers. It was a move which shocked and outraged trade unionists but it discouraged strikes - which were unpopular with the average voter - and showed Reagan's strong leadership.
In October 1983 Reagan ordered US troops into the tiny Caribbean island of Grenada after a power struggle within the Cuban-backed New Jewel Movement led to the violent death of prime minister Maurice Bishop.
Mondale-Ferraro and McCain-Palin came up short. Maybe Biden-Harris will finally break through and win! #hopeful #WomenLeaders
— Kristine Metter (@KristineMetter) August 11, 2020
Unlike Operation Eagle Claw, Reagan’s invasion of Grenada - which was ostensibly to protect 600 US medical students on the island - went smoothly and the Marxist-Leninist regime was overthrown and Cuban forces expelled.
And so, going into the winter of 1983/84 the Democrats had to decide who they were going to put up against Reagan in the election.
The field originally included Gary Hart, a handsome young senator from Colorado, Jesse Jackson, an African-American civil rights activist from Illinois and John Glenn, former astronaut turned senator from Ohio.
But Hart, Jackson and Glenn were all seen as inexperienced and the party eventually picked Walter Mondale, who had been Carter’s Vice President between 1976 and 1980.
Mondale and Hart had exchanged barbs during the primary campaign.
Hart, who was 47, described Mondale, 56, as “old-fashioned” and a supporter of the “failed policies” of the past while the former Vice President famously joked that Hart’s vague ideas about policy reminded him of the Wendy’s burger chain slogan: “Where’s the beef?”
On a zoom fundraiser with Vice-President Walter Mondale and the soon-to-be-Vice-President Kamala Harris. @KamalaHarris #MNforJoe #BidenHarris pic.twitter.com/Ul2wvtzUnO
— Jerry Gale (@jerrygale) September 14, 2020
Joe Biden was the first former Vice President to be chosen by the Democrats since Mondale, 36 years earlier.
Four days before Mondale was crowned as the nominee at the Democratic Party convention in San Francisco in July 1984 he chose his running mate - Geraldine Ferraro, a Congresswoman from New York.
The choice of running mate was also eerily similar to that made by Biden.
I remember wearing my Mondale/Ferraro button in high school. #GenX pic.twitter.com/RYDbI6slxm
— Ruben J. Rocha (@RJRmassage) March 16, 2020
In 1984 there had been huge pressure from women’s groups for a female candidate to be on the ticket and this was supported by Tip O’Neill, the influential Speaker of the House of Representatives.
In 2020 the clamour for a woman candidate was even more deafening, coming as it did only four years after Hillary Clinton had been the nominee for President.
But when Biden chose Kamala Harris, a Senator from California, he arguably repeated the mistake Mondale made in choosing Ferraro.
Harris and Ferraro were both hugely popular within the Democratic Party but both came from blue states and could be painted by the Republicans as Congress insiders and members of the liberal West Coast or East Coast establishment.
Trump on the other hand portrays himself as an outsider who has nothing to do with the shabby intrigues of Washington’s Beltway and his running mate Mike Pence is a churchgoing former governor of Indiana, a solid midwestern state where liberals are thin on the ground.
The Mondale/Ferraro campaign criticised Reagan’s economic policies, the so-called Reaganomics which gave tax cuts to corporations and the rich in a bid to stimulate private enterprise and grow the economy.
But Reagan’s campaign for re-election was a masterpiece, led by the Morning In America TV ads, which were designed to appeal to middle class and aspirational working class Americans.
The President and the First Lady, Nancy Reagan, also became heavily involved with the “Just Say No” campaign against drugs - especially crack cocaine - which were beginning to ravage many US cities.
The Mondale/Ferraro ticket failed to capture the public imagination and when it came to election day the Democrats suffered one of their worst ever defeats, winning only Minnesota - Mondale’s home state - and Washington DC.
Days before start of Democratic convention that nominee announced VP choice:
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) June 3, 2020
1984: 4 (Mondale/Ferraro)
1988: 6 (Dukakis/Bentsen)
1992: 4 (Clinton/Gore)
2000: 7 (Gore/Lieberman)
2004: 20 (Kerry/Edwards)
2008: 2 (Obama/Biden)
2016: 3 (Clinton/Kaine
Days before 2020 convention: 75
Reagan was re-elected and his own Vice President George H.W. Bush would continue his policies when he won the 1988 election against another hapless opponent, Michael Dukakis.
Trump is unlikely to win a landslide like Reagan did in 1984 but it could be that the Democrats’ choice of candidates has played right into his hands?
