Pollster's predictions for 2020: Trump exonerated; race will be close

TAMPA, Fla. - When it comes to predictions, FOX 13 pollster Matt Towery has nailed it.  His polls for us in the 2016 races ranked among the most accurate in the nation. 

Then he predicted Trump would win Florida and the White House five days before the 2016 election. 

In 2019, he called Trump’s decision to leave New York and move to Florida months before he actually did it. 

And now it’s time for the next big reveals.

“I will say my biggest projection is Trump will be exonerated,” Towery offered. “The race will be incredibly close. If it’s a Warren or a Sanders, Trump wins in perhaps a bigger landslide than before. If it’s someone like Deval Patrick, Trump could be in serious trouble.”

Towery says he believes the economy will continue to roll, with little sign of a recession.

“The president will have to deliver on some sort of accommodation for China on the trade war and tariffs. If he doesn’t do that, then we could go into a recession at some point because people get very nervous when this thing continues to linger on and on,” he explained. “But with the passage of legislation that’s coming out of Congress -- that deals with Canada for example -- with the possibility of ending the trade war with China, I see actually an injection in the economy. An even stronger economy next year going into the election. I don’t think it will require another cut in interest rates. We have cut just about as far as we need to go."

On the international front, Towery thinks Iran – not North Korea – will be a focus.

“I think North Korea is just continued gameplay. I think Trump was involved with them enough to keep this from escalating into a major problem with North Korea. This is just saber rattling. Kim Jong Un is in trouble in his own country. He needs to make sure he keeps control of his own country right now,” he added. “The economic sanctions in Iran are very substantial. I think that's a country where you could see substantial problems, because they have a tremendous inflation rate right now, a great deal of public unrest. Iran will have to be watched really closely, because if they destabilize you can’t imagine what could happen.”