I think two or three more polls come out either today or tomorrow, which will give us a clearer indication of where they stand now that the immediate post-debate aftermath has subsided.
If the Democratic candidate wins the election by winning those states by slight margins, Trump will not leave office. Unless the election is a landslide, we’re fucked.
I think that’s totally over the top. Trump may stomp and scream about how the election was stolen, but the new Democratic President has at least the House of Representatives on his/her side. Do you really believe the White House police, the Secret Service, the U.S. Armed Forces, etc., will support Trump’s effort to declare himself President with not even a figleaf of legal justification? What can Trump do, threaten to unleash the U.S. nuclear arsenal on us? Ask his buddies in the USSR and/or North Korea to nuke us if he’s forcibly removed from the White House?
The more plausible scenario is that he whines, and moans and spends Christmas 2020 and all of January 2021 playing golf in Florida while Tweeting the election was stolen.
I think that he will sue to delay or contest every remotely close negative result. I think that in every state that has a Republican secretary of state, shenanigans with regard to delay of certification or dishonest vote-counting will be employed. I expect this election to be the ugliest election of my lifetime in every way. I hope you are correct. He does not have a history of following rules or norms or even laws.
If the Democrats can’t keep the states HRC carried then they/we are well and truly fucked. While I have been and remain very pessimistic about the chances of a Democrat winning in 2020 I do expect them to keep those states with relative ease. Minnesota could be a problem but I’m fairly confident it won’t go to Trump. As you mention PA, MI and WI are where they have the best chance to win and rid us of DJT. I’ve long thought Biden has the best chance of connecting with those voters but my confidence about that has been diminishing since the first debate.
The Economist/YouGov poll that was just released is the flip side of the polling distribution from Morning Consult. They’ve consistently had a lower number for Biden’s support than just about anybody. If you scan down the list at RCP, they had Biden at 27% at the beginning of June, and 25% right before the debates. So it’s not exactly earthshaking that they have him at 22% now. They’ve also given Warren some of her best numbers - 19% immediately before and after the debates - so 18% now isn’t as impressive as it would be from a different pollster.
Economist/YouGov:
Biden 22%
Warren 18%
Harris 15%
Sanders 12%
Buttigieg 6%
Gabbard 3% (!)
Booker 2%
Castro 2%
Everyone else 1% or less
ETA: Anyhow, the race is closer than it was, but it isn’t as close as YouGov says it is.
Well, the counterargument is that he still has lower name recognition than the other four, so a higher potential upside, and his fundraising is awesome, and he already has a track record of one impressive surge in this race (from low single digits to high single digits). It’s not a great argument, but it’s better than Beto or Booker can make. So he’s probably in fifth place, not super close to either fourth or sixth.
Couplegeneral election polls released in the last couple days.
ABC News shows all the top 5 Democrats beating Trump. As usual, Biden wins by the biggest landslide. This poll didn’t show Bernie clearly in second as most of them have, but bunched back with the pack.
Emerson College shows a more typical picture: Biden +7, Sanders +2, Warren -1, Harris and Buttigieg -3.
Most notably, PPP finds Megan Rapinoe beating Trump 44-43!
I think Biden has probably survived the beating he took from Harris in the debate - that’s the good news. The bad news is…there’s another debate later this month.
Agreed with the bottom line. Really they both show pretty much the same thing: a very modest loss pre to post debate of 2 to 4 points. For that news cycle this is nothing.
I remain though unconvinced of its small impact until I see the next Selzer.
Yes he needs to perform better in debates going forward. And Harris needs to both have other cards to play and be prepared to defend against hits herself, likely more from those others fighting to be the Biden-buster than from Biden. My guess Sanders, who is going to start to feel a bit desperate.
Agree with asahi about Biden.
I posted last month about what I think Trump will do in December and January if he loses the election: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=877271
I agree with DSeid: Biden lives, but absolutely must not appear weak in future debate performances or in interviews, and Harris can’t keep playing the race card. She’ll have to find ways to exploit something else, and she’d also better be ready for attacks from other candidates. Her, ahem, ‘evolving’ positions are going to be good debate fodder, I think.
All this agreeing with each other is going to make me sick! 
So some disagreement!
Buttigieg really is not so unknown any more. Look at the numbers in the Morning Consult poll. Only 26% haven’t heard of him. Yes that is still more than those in the top four, who go from near universal of Biden and Sanders, to 10 and 15% for Warren and Harris, but it isn’t huge any more.
And while his favorability/unfavorable is up 46 to 11, he’d need to get all of those who have never heard of him moving into favorable to be in Biden and Sanders favorable numbers. He’s also not high on the second choice list.
He has money now but, especially since his current place in the polls is after a fairly strong debate performance, he has nevertheless already fizzled, really now in the Booker and Castro range. Non-zero but close.
Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, DSeid, but I’m afraid we once again…agree.
Before the debates, the stratification of the candidates was:
- Biden
- Sanders (some would argue the 2/3 could have been reversed)
- Warren
- Harris (some would argue 4/5 could have been reversed)
- Buttigieg
Since the debate, Harris has essentially moved into the second tier of candidates, and for a brief period of time was poised to possibly catch up with Biden. Unfortunately, Buttigieg is well behind that second tier of candidates, despite getting some good fundraising totals and doing fairly well in the debate. I would still put him ahead of Booker, but at the same time, like Bernie Sanders, he’s just not moving forward. And if you’re not moving forward after having some exposure, that’s a problem in the ultimate political horse race.
I don’t think Buttigieg being gay is really the problem. I suspect if he has two major problems it’s his youth and inexperience on one hand, and his being a current mayor at a time when there are some unresolved political problems in his city. He’s likeable, but likeable won’t be enough to give his campaign the thrust it needs, I’m afraid.
I don’t think he’s “fizzled” - that suggests heading downward. He’s certainly plateaued and possibly peaked, but he’s hanging in there. (Beto, on the other hand, has properly fizzled.)
As I said before, Mayor Pete is plowing resolutely forward; even if he isn’t catching fire he is garnering a lot of positive attention for his brand. It’s unlikely to put him into the lead (although I wouldn’t completely rule out a VP slot chance) but it may put him in better stead for a later run. And the longer he can stay in the game and keep getting his face on television and in social media, the better for him (assuming no major missteps).
I’m going to further frustrate DSeid’s quest for disagreement by agreeing with asahi’s analysis here.
OK, a very mild disagreement with DSeid: the drop in Biden’s Morning Consult polling between pre- and post-debate was from 38 to 31, a drop of 7 percentage points. But I think the difference between MC’s 7-point drop and YouGov’s 3-point drop is that there’s a lot more room to drop from 38 than from 25. I’d expect to find the truth somewhere in between.
I see where you get that but I am seeing on 538 tracker the week before the debate as the results reported on 6/26 which reflected the week of 6/19 -26 (Biden 35). They then did an immediately after short collection poll reported with 538 and he was 31. Their weekly one that overlapped the debate was 33. And this week reporting data collected 7/1 - 7, he is still 31. Debate drop for MC was 4.
You are looking at the week before that, 6/17 - 23 (Biden 38). Now why he dropped 3 before the debate … likely that segregationalists in the news but not the debate itself.
MC’s site alone is opaque though, and agreed that this disagreement is very minimal.
It would be in the general.
Maybe. But being Doogie Howzer, Small City Mayor is the greater problem IMO.
I can’t imagine thinking this in say 2006, but the only non-darkhorse candidate who looks “electable” to me is the black woman who came of age in a foreign country speaking French.