Quote: Sal Paradise "October is a long way off'"
True but if the people [iFox News[/i poll are 49% for Bernie now, while the economy is doing well, it's not a good sign for Trump if there's an economic slowdown or other associated disruption falling out of coronavirus.
The bank failures in 2008 happened over the summer before the 2008 election, and that really did George W Bush and the Republicans damage, which meant Obama was in a good position to attack their record (even though he was running against McCain).
You would expect Trump to start from a position of strength against Bernie, and then Bernie close the gap during the campaign. If Fox News - which is Trump's propaganda channel, has Bernie 7 points ahead now, it's not a good sign for Trump.
Of course Trump can win again through the electoral college whilst being down on the overall vote, but if the gap becomes too big even the college looks dicey. I remember after the 2018 mid terms following the analysis from the stats site fivethirtyeight, their main takeaway was basically that if that pattern repeated in the Presidential elections, Trump would be beaten badly, and he needed to recapture a fair amount of Democrat voters from 2018 in order to win in 2020. Those 2018 mid terms were also the election that brought in all the Sanders-esque lefties in to the House of Representatives, so its not like it was a revival of the centrists.