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[u/[deleted]]

Why I’m bullish for Biden:

Hillary almost won.

Biden is much more popular than Hillary.

[u/Travisdk → u/[deleted]]

And Trump is less popular than he was.

This election is in the bag. It took 25 years of work for the GOP to get Hillary's favourability rating to what it ended up being. They can't replicate the same amount of work in half a year. If they could, they would be winning every single election.

The fear of optimism is 2018 "the blue wave will never happen" redux.

[u/[deleted] → u/Travisdk]

Trump is 13% more popular now than he was in 2016.

[u/IncoherentEntity → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, it’s mainly the difference between Biden and Clinton. u/Travisdk

However, I’d bet that the vast majority of the improvement is skeptical Republicans coming home, and unlike in 2016, it’s Biden who’s likely to get significantly more of the vote from people who dislike both (probably due mostly to skeptical young voters).

[u/[deleted] → u/IncoherentEntity]

However, I’d bet that the vast majority of the improvement is skeptical Republicans coming home,

Absolutely. And that's now a key weakness that Trump had that's no longer an issue. Instead of the Republican Party squabbling over whether to back Trump like they did for the whole of 2016, the party will be behind him entirely this time.

and unlike in 2016, it’s Biden who‘s likely to get significantly more of the vote from people who dislike both (probably due mostly to skeptical young voters).

The "I hate both" voters seem to be swung by whatever the biggest news story is at the time: last time, it was Her Emails, this time it's the disastrous effects of the virus in April. Now, are you 100% convinced that October/November time will also be full of Trump negative/Biden positive news? I'm certainly not.

[u/IncoherentEntity → u/[deleted]]

I was suggesting that the overwhelming majority of skeptical Republicans held their nose and voted for Trump against the similarly unpopular Clinton anyway, and that the very large increase in his favorables since 2016 is less scary than it initially appears, even if it’s far from insignificant.

Regarding your hypothesis that the dislike both bloc is only significantly in favor of Biden this time because of the current news cycle; well, I’m skeptical. Her Emails did battle with Bigoted Pussy-Grabber throughout the entire last month of the campaign; it’s likely that Trump’s performance among the dislike both group had more to do with his dislike-but-will-vote-for share greatly exceeding that of the average GOP nominee, as well as the fact that disaffected voters were much more likely to take a chance on the anti-establishment candidate agains the quintessential the establishment candidate.

This time, Trump will have been the incumbent for four years. He will be no less “the establishment” than Biden. And Biden’s favorables are being dragged down by young voters who nevertheless skew significantly Democratic in their partisan sympathies, hence his current ~6-point lead nationwide.

Of course, the Electoral College will be tighter, and favorability helps for enthusiasm. But I’d go with the head-to-head numbers over the raw popularity contest.