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Coronavirus could cost Trump 100 electoral votes

The pandemic and consequent recession could cost Trump at least 100 electoral votes—and the election—according to a new forecast by Moody’s Analytics. Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman joins Zack Guzman to discuss.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to The Ticker. I want to chat-- a new Quinnipiac Poll showing Democratic nominee Joe Biden widening his lead over President Donald Trump in a new national poll, also spelling a bad hit for President Trump on the economy and his handling of that. And for more on that, we're joined by Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman.

And Rick, obviously, a lot of people, based on the way the last election went, might not want to put too much weight on polls. But this is a pretty sizable lead.

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RICK NEWMAN: Yeah 15 points for Joe Biden nationally in the latest Quinnipiac Poll, that is more than Hillary Clinton led by at this point in 2016. And you're right to be skeptical of these polls. But since 2016-- pollsters-- they know what went wrong in 2016. They under-weighted lower educated voters in swing states in 2016. They just didn't count them enough.

They've adjusted their methodology since then. So in addition to this national poll by Quinnipiac, in a variety of other polls, Biden leads by low to mid single digits in most swing states. So, at this point, the election is Biden's to lose. But, look, we still have more than three months to go, and a lot can happen.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, a lot can always happen. That's for sure. But the one thing that we have seen kind of turn here is even President Trump's strong suit in a lot of these polls-- the handling of the economy-- also taking a hit in this one. When we look at that, his approval rating on the economy is slumping to August 2017 lows. Approval now just at 44% compared to 53% disapproval.

But on that front, Moody's Analytics also out with a new look at who's going to win this election. And that also doesn't necessarily point into the positive for President Donald Trump.

RICK NEWMAN: Right. Moody's Analytics-- they thought Trump would win in February when they did this analysis. This is not a poll. This is an election model. They look at the unemployment rate, change in the unemployment rate during the election year, and some other factors.

They thought Trump would win back in February just because the unemployment rate was so low at around 3.5%. Now at 11.1%-- and it's still going to be high on Election Day-- when this happened to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George HW Bush in 1992, they both lost. Carter got absolutely creamed in 1980 amid a recession.

And they've now-- Moody's Analytics has now-- changed their forecast. Instead of Trump winning, they think Biden could win with 308 electoral votes if turnout is average. But if turnout is high the way it was in the 2018 midterms, Biden could win in a landslide. He could win all of the six swing states-- they're really important here-- plus one or two more like Ohio. So things are not going right for President Trump right now.

ZACK GUZMAN: And you do wonder how turnout might be impacted by everyone working from home too or, perhaps, maybe not working at all. But Rick Newman bringing us the latest on that front. Appreciate you breaking that down.