Problem? Huge problem.

Obama finalized the reinvention of the Democrats as a majority-minority party. But what happens when your candidate is an old white guy? Or an old white lady? Hillary Clinton lost, in no small part, because she couldn’t score the minority voter turnout she needed.

In 2020, the Democrats had two plans for dealing with that problem.

1. BLM. The major Black Lives Matter riots tend to happen around election years. That’s not a coincidence. The whole thing from the beginning was, among things, a scheme to boost voter turnout for the Democrats.

2. Pivot to suburban and older voters. Push to reclaim chunks of the old Democrat base. That’s why Biden ended up being the candidate. If you’re going to end up with an old white person, try one who at least (unlike Bernie and Warren) does well with black voters and has a shot with working class white voters.

How’s that going out?

Biden continues to perform poorly with Hispanics. And that’s a disaster. Black voter turnout is up in some redder states, but down in key swing states. Unless Biden can beat Hillary’s numbers there, he’s in big trouble. And all that’s left is counting on the suburban “resistance” voters, on some defecting Trump voters, and on massive voter fraud to pull it out for him. Those are all shaky strategies as the election appears to be coming down to more conventional white voters.

Outside of a few states, Democrats failed to fire up black voters. Hispanic voters are acting like swing voters. If Democrats can’t get the suburban numbers they need, all the polls in the world won’t help them. Polls, even when they’re legitimate, aren’t elections. Polls are about what people think. Elections are about what people do, and how that’s tactically useful in a bigger game.