I agree with you that Trump isn’t the favorite, but polling has Biden and Trump tied right now even after the various rounds of legal trouble. The fundamentals aren’t good for Biden, and could get a lot worse if high interest rates percipate an expanded banking crisis or if the situation in Ukraine degrades further. Trump’s floor is higher than 40%, and he’s only one or two crisises away from having a real shot.

Trump’s a piece of shit but Biden is not what anyone would call a strong contender. a lot is riding on unknowable economic trends over the next year… I wouldn’t be too sure that Donald Trump will not be president

I wish I shared your optimism, but a) the Republicans will never allow mail-in voting on that scale ever again and the Democrats will say “My good sir, have you no civility!?” and then proceed to do nothing to oppose it like they’ve done every day for the last century, b) Trump improved remarkably in 2020 compared to 2016 in a number of surprising demographics, and c) the economy might look great but in reality these benefits are only reaching the top strata of society and most people are having an increasingly miserable time with higher gas prices, inflation, working multiple shitty jobs, a lack of real wage growth above inflation, and this is reflected in the number of people who are saying that they think the economy is in bad straits.

not saying Trump is definitely going to win, truthfully I have absolutely no idea - maybe the US is in a recession this time next year and Biden gets stomped, or maybe the economic growth finally reaches the lower 90% of people and Biden wins, or maybe there’s been some other major geopolitical incident that is a complete wildcard and makes all our prior predictions irrelevant. I just caution bold predictions for American elections, especially over a year out. honestly even a month out I’d be hesitant to call anything.

and finally,

He lost the last election as an incumbent by 7 million votes

popular votes, sure, but that isn’t what wins elections. Trump lost the last election by a lot less than 7 million votes if you’re just looking at how many votes he needed in the closest states to flip enough of them to win. I did the math a while ago and have since forgotten it but I think it was under a million. might even have been less than 500,000, idk, somebody would have to go figure that out again. I do remember it being concerningly close, at least compared to, say, 2008 and 2012.