Donald Trump faces a much bigger task than he did in 2016

DONALD TRUMP’S path to re-election has never looked more difficult. In early June his deficit in the polls against Joe Biden was “just” six percentage points. That may seem large, but it is close enough for the president to conceivably gain the ground required to win an electoral-college victory, even with a minority of the popular vote. He needs to hold Mr Biden to a two- to three-point margin to do so. But nationwide protests, the growing reality of the country’s economic turmoil and a rapidly spreading rebound of covid-19 cases have pushed him even farther behind.

Today he faces a nine-point uphill climb nationally and is behind by between four and eight points in the bellwether states. The president even acknowledged his dire situation in an interview with Fox News last week, saying “Joe Biden is gonna be your president because some people don’t love me, maybe.” According to The Economist’s election-forecasting model, Mr Trump has a one-in-nine chance of winning a second term—down from a one-in-five shot last month.

The president is struggling for at least three reasons. First, he has always relied on defacing his opponents. In 2016 he succeeded in making Hillary Clinton unacceptable to a slightly bigger share of the electorate than the minority that actually liked him. His job was made...