I’ve kinda ducked out of this thread because the view that some posters here have of the state of the race is just incompatible with my perception of reality. Every indicator we have is that this is a close race. And I’m not saying that in a “don’t get complacent!” sense – it’s just how it is. The polling is tight, both sides are flush with cash. Whatever I may think of him, Trump has demonstrated that he has an enormous base of support in this country. Harris is better than Biden, but not some once-in-a-generation politician who has the winds of destiny at her back.
BUT, I do agree with @ArslanWilson’s point that elections that are genuinely close tend to break one way or the other in both the Presidential and Senate races. So I look at what are the factors that could put a thumb on the scale to tip the swing states one way or the other. And one thing that gives me hope is increasing state Republican alarm about the Trump campaign’s lack of a ground game. Trump has farmed out much of this GOTV effort to affiliated SuperPACs (including Elon Musk’s SuperPAC) that have little experience at organizing and motivating volunteers for the sort of block walking, phone banking and other shoe leather work to actually get your supporters to turn out to the polls.
Not to them. Not to the “USA” they believe in. Which is not about institutions of law and democracy but about “we don’t need to take shit from no one about how we’re living wrong, know your place!”
The facts are the facts, but this is about what the facts mean : To them the facts show the rightful leader refusing to yield his rightfully entitled position of power, and making anyone who crosses him sorry they did. Which to them is rightful and good, what kind of weak loser accepts losing? It was good and right to insurrect against a process that would replace a rightful leader.
On Electoral_vote.com, which is a very interesting website in any case, today they have a piece about a disinformation campaign specifically targeted to young black men:
“ A number of Democrats associated with the Harris campaign have looked at this phenomenon closely and concluded that the main culprit is a sophisticated and precisely targeted disinformation campaign on social media platforms, especially Twitch. This is crucial for people whose only source of election information is social media, The main target appears to be young Black men. Many of them feel that progress on issues they care about is much too slow and the disinformation campaign blames Joe Biden and Harris for dragging their feet. Here, Donald Trump’s image as someone who ignores rules, laws, and other barriers works for him. The pitch can be: “He can get things done because he will just trample on anyone or anything in his way.””
Yes, politicians are expected to hold news conferences, but not as candidates. How many news conferences did Biden hold in 2020- how many interviews? See, the NYT and the gOp has pushed this so much that Dems are believing it- but it is just not true.
Harris has done interviews and suck, but I guess they dont count?
Yeha, it is a big issue there, along with how horrible the economy is (Lie), that crime is out of control (lie) and that the border is open (lie).
Exactly.
Sure. But here is the thing- it is close leaning Harris- and it is getting close in states where trump should have a big lead- Florida, and maybe even Texas.
… as of this morning … Harris has a 56 percent chance of winning the Electoral College and Trump has a 44 percent chance …
I’ll grant you that a 56/44 forecast is in kind of a weird, uncomfortable zone. To be clear, the forecast is that Harris will win the Electoral College 56 percent of the time — not that she’ll beat Trump by 12 points — in other words that the race is basically a toss-up. There is a strong likelihood that this will be a close election right up through Election Day.
Still, 56 percent is meaningfully different from 50 percent. Even a somewhat nitty (i.e. risk-averse) poker player would usually take an all-in spot where they win 56 percent of the time. A baseball team that wins 56 percent of its games goes 91-71, and that’s considered a strong season. So zooming out, you’d probably take this position if you were Kamala Harris. It certainly has Democrats in a much better situation than they ever had with Biden — and it should have Republicans wondering about a series of mistakes made by Donald Trump.
I ventured into a battleground state as an outsider this weekend. I haven’t been numbed to the flood of commercials like a native. One thing I noticed was there seemed to be a lot more Trump ads than Harris, both official and PAC. I also noticed the Harris ads were fucking weak. Just a bunch of “Hi I’m Kamala” ads that should have been retired a month ago. I don’t understand the strategy. Hit him with being a traitor. Hit him with killing the immigration bill for his own benefit. Hit him with the indictments and convictions. Why are they hearing in Pennsylvania “When I was a prosecutor…”? There is so much to hit him with and it felt like they are going easy on him.
But does that analysis apply to a single roll of the dice? Sure, I’ll bet strongly if I have a 56% chance OVER TIME. But if the odds are 44-56 on a single roll, I’m not betting the house.
If I’m on a 56% chance to win, I’m not going all in early. Eventually you have to pick the spot to take the chance. Elections are an all in thing, so I don’t believe anyone who has a strong opinion on the outcome being okay with that in a series of modeled outcomes.
Or another example: The Broncos-Jets game had an “AWS Next-Gen Stat” of the Jets winning at 55% late in the fourth yesterday. The Jets lost.
I agree that it is “close” in a sense. She is not blowing Trump out of the water according to the polls. We don’t know how the polls are going to match up with the election day count. I can see her winning by a little bit; I can also see her winning by a healthy but not inordinate margin, which is what I think will happen. I see several factors that potentially boost her above the straight polling numbers: voter registrations, enthusiasm, etc. I don’t see any for Trump. Thus, I don’t see Trump winning.