What Went Down On Night 2 Of The RNC

Galen, that is a tough question. On the one hand, Pence is not as an unpopular as Trump, so I could see him performing better than the president. On the other hand, the effect of COVID-19 on Pence’s standing is impossible to know (as others have mentioned).

I’d guess that Pence would be up in the polls relative to Trump, with a much tighter race between him and Biden. But like Nate said, a big factor is how the COVID-19 response would be different. My guess is probably not much (especially given the variation in responses by state governors and city mayors) and we’d still see Biden leading in the polls.

There have actually been a couple of Biden-Pence polls, Galen, one of which showed Biden ahead by 17 and another showed Biden ahead by 7. But it’s sort of a weird hypothetical because if Pence was leading the ticket, the response to COVID-19 might have been different, etc.