True, but a 10% national popular vote lead is just about guaranteed to translate into an advantage in swing states that is well nigh insurmountable. I can’t find the data but I am pretty sure no presidential candidate that lost the popular vote by 10% or more came even close to matching their opponent in the Electoral College. It would be just about impossible for Biden to beat Trump by double digits nationally and still lose MI, WI, PA, etc.
“Posturing…” Interesting choice of word. So… would you say that’s the opposite of “blowing sunshine up your own shorts,”?
You don’t see the statements above as reasonable and/or fact-based? Just curious. I want to understand where you’re coming from.
BTW, I sincerely hope you turn out to be right about 2020, and I would gladly pay you. A lot. I still haven’t gotten over the morning after the 2016 election.
No, it’s not false. Trump has a strong unified coalition that will absolutely will not turn on him for ANY reason. Biden doesn’t. The Democratic party is more fractured.
Regardless of how he’s polling now, it’s much more likely that Biden will have a fuckup between now and November that will create an enthusiam gap that keeps keeps democrats staying home.
Right, the opposite of blowing sunshine up one’s shorts.
The statements above were reasonable and fact-based, but overall I think all the data still leans heavily in favor of a Biden victory. No recent/modern U.S. president has ever won reelection in the midst of a bad recession, and certainly not one as bad as this one. Trump’s approval rating is well below the 50% threshold generally required for an incumbent to even be competitive in a race. Polls show Biden up eleven points nationally. Democratic turnout will be considerably higher this time around than in 2016, given that they aren’t complacent this time. Virtually all analyses point to a Biden win.
When the race started I thought Biden would be a sure victor over Trump if he won the primary. His health problems have greatly weakened him IMO. I still give a slight edge to Biden but it could go either way.
I think the posters are envisioning another uprising of the “invisible conservative majority” this time around. I’m doubtful; there’s much less conservative hate for Biden than there was for Clinton
I agree, and in these types of threads I try to stay as objective and dispassionate as possible. I have followed politics for 30 years now and I think I have a pretty good sense of these things. Several thoughts:
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The political season has not even started yet. Yes, I know there were some Dem primaries, but after Covid-19 and these BLM protests, we might as well wipe those out. There is just generally an election coming up in November that most people aren’t even thinking about.
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Biden is probably the single worst candidate (except for Bernie) that the Dems could run against Trump. The same flaws that are present in Trump his arrogance, lying, accused of sexual assault, old white man, etc. are present in Biden. The Dems needed to have a counterpoint to this. He doesn’t look strong and vibrant and ready to lead. As another poster said in another thread, he looks like the Crypt Keeper from Tales of the Crypt.
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Biden is a gaffe machine and will continue to do it. He hasn’t hardly been seen for 3 months, yet in one of his few statements makes a “y’all ain’t black” idiotic error. And all of these errors are unforced. How bad will it be when Trump and the GOP attack machine start pressing him?
Trump will force this. He will needle Biden with the “Sleepy Joe” comments and how he “hid in his basement” ask him how tough it was doing hard time in a South African prison after being arrested for trying to bust Nelson Mandela out of jail, etc. and Biden will bite that hook at it will bite him in the ass.
- His narrative will be positive. And I don’t want to debate these points because I really don’t believe all of them myself, but political truth is what matters and the message will be:
They want open borders. I’ve said since 2015 that we need to control them and look at what happened. A foreign virus from China and Europe, who has a terrible border record, and some very smart people say that some people crossing the southern border were carrying the virus, came into this country and infected millions. I shut the borders down when people like Sleepy Joe said I was wrong. Believe me, if Sleepy Joe were president then he would have kept them open and this would be far, far worse, I guarantee it.
I created the greatest economy in history but the blue state governors responded to the Chinese virus by shutting it all down. I said to open it back up and they didn’t. But because of me and some very fine red state governors, we opened it back up and the stock market is back at its all time high. Can you believe that? it only took us a month, folks. Sleepy Joe and others in the Democrat party would have you still hiding in your homes like he did in his basement for 3 months.
One of the reasons I was able to do that was because of the wonderful beautiful tax cut we passed. The businesses were able to weather the storm. Sleepy Joe wants to raise your taxes. Between the virus, open borders, high taxes, and business shutdowns all done by the Democrats, it is amazing that we are still here. But we are folks, and we’re not going anywhere, I promise you that.
And then George Floyd. What a terrible thing that happened there. Everyone thinks it is terrible. And those four guys that did it will be punished for it, I promise you that. But Sleepy Joe and his friends want to take away from that that only black lives matter. They say I’m divisive when I say all lives matter. I promise you that I will unite this country in saying that each and every one of your lives matter and not just some lives like the Democrat party says.
I support the right of peaceful, and let me stress that word, peaceful protests. It’s a beautiful thing. What is not beautiful is when thugs and criminals loot our cities, burn our buildings, and vandalize our historical monuments. Blue state Democrat governors have been asleep at the switch and allow criminals riot and destroy. I told them I wouldn’t let it happen anymore and then they came around but not before then.
And what does Sleepy Joe want to do? He wants to eliminate all police officers. Do you believe that, folks? Eliminate them all, it’s crazy, it’s crazy. Probably what Joe’s doctors ought to tell him he is if you want to know the truth.
ETC. ETC.
Now, I don’t want to debate the substance (again because political truth) so how do the Dems and more particularly a Joe Biden counter that narrative? Personally, I don’t see how they can without becoming more unhinged.
I don’t think those posts are hoping Trump will win. Not all of them. Even if the whole thing is somehow a Republican game, it’s dangerous for Republicans to insist that Trump will win if he won’t. Republicans fooled themselves in 2012 by cherry-picking Republican leaning polls (including internal polls from the Romney campaign)* and looked like fools when Obama won easily. Of course, this bred overconfidence in Democrats, who thought that Hillary Clinton, leading with 2%, would win the election. (She did win the popular vote.) In other words, it was the Democrats’ turn to look like fools.
I recall reading state polls prior to 2016, showing Clinton winning states she ended up losing. The national polls were both far more accurate and far less important. I went to bed thinking I’d wake up to news about President Clinton. Nope.
When Trump shuts up, his support goes up to its baseline, which is just barely enough to win an election. This happened before the election and happened since the election. He might shut up. Trump hasn’t talked about COVID that much recently, but since he’s busy being a racist idiot his support isn’t increasing. It seems to take Trump at least a week to realize he needs to shut up, and frequently far longer. (Recall his “both sides” comments. He stuck to it despite the outrage, but at some point he realized he needed to zip his lips. His support eventually returned to its usual level.)
Trump’s COVID problem is fairly unique. While his “handling” of the situation has been popular with evangelicals and other Trump-supporting groups, it cost him the support of the aged (who tend to vote Republican and who turn out heavily to vote compared to younger voters). There is no guarantee that the COVID effect will last until the election though.
At present, the numbers show Biden leading in the popular vote and the electoral college. Unfortunately there are five more months to go. In that time Trump might suffer a mouth or tongue infection (causing him to shut up), Biden might suffer a scandal (unlike Trump, Biden is not immune to scandals), Democrats might become less enthusiastic and stay home or do something else stupid like voting third party, the post-COVID economy might take off like a rocket, and so forth. (Of course, it’s just as likely that things might get even better for Biden. But there’s such a thing as false confidence.)
*Mr. Newhouse did those internal polls. He has a job in politics today. Why? Failure has no consequences in politics, it seems.
Wow. You could be a speechwriter UltraVires. I’m not being sarcastic at all. I predict Trump’s next official speech will be much worse. That’s a dangerous power you’ve got there.
Both candidates will occupy their time between now and the election shooting tgemselves repeatedly in the foot. The winner will ge the one with the least amount of self-inflicted damage. And these two are super-heavyweights when it comes to the ability to say incredibly stupid things.
I agree. However, none of that has ever stuck to Trump. And that is not just a function of diehard Trump supporters. Think of all of the stupid things he said in 2016 or prior and he got swing voters and prior Obama voters.
I incorrectly thought that the weekend that the Billy Bush tape came out prior to the final Sunday night debate with Hillary that Trump was done, toast, finished, cooked. I remember the somber tones in all of the media, conservative and liberal, about how nobody could possibly come back from such an embarrassing tape and being that far down in the polls. On CNN, the implication was that Trump was so done that we will back off of the gas here and just soak in how Hillary is now guaranteed to be president.
I think this situation is very similar. There are a lot of swing voters who: 1) deplore what happened to George Floyd, 2) had their eyes open to the plight of the black community, 3) but no matter what you don’t destroy shit, and 4) when riots happen, the government needs to take charge and suppress it, yes, even by shooting them if need be.
But these people, these swing voters’ thoughts are being called into question by the media narrative criticizing Trump’s comments and are thinking, “Shit, I agree with that.”
The problem is that for every issue the Dems think that going further and further left is the popular answer. We got people to see police violence, so now we can get them to support abolishing the police. :smack: It’s an easy mistake to make, but the Dems keep making it.
The Republicans did the same thing in the 1990s. We won a single election and decided that meant that the public supported abolishing the Departments of Education, Energy, HUD, and Commerce. Also privatizing social security. The lesson is that it doesn’t matter who won the last election, the US remains a center-right country and doubling down on your own ideas and going to fast for the swing voters means you are leaving them behind for the other party.
Maybe. But I was sure the NDP wouldn’t be elected jn Alberta, and they won with a majority. I was sure Trump wouldn’t win, but he did. I really thought Trudeau would lose re-election after his terrible scandals and obvious incompetence, but he was re-elected easily.
We live in strange times. Anyone who thinks they can predict this next election is simply fooling themselves. We are in totally uncharted territory now, and the old rules don’t apply. This year has the feel of a tipping point that changes everything.
And regardless of who wins, I predict that the political state of the U.S. will be even worse in January than it is now. No matter who wins, half the country won’t accept the result while the other side thinks it has a mandate for ‘fundamental change’. Gradualism and compromise ended this year.
This year? Lol it ended a while before that.
While it’s possible that a 10% national lead would not amount to victory, because of the EC, it is extremely unlikely.
Hillary had a final lead of about 2% and Trump barely won. All the analysis I’ve seen is that a lead of over 5% is impossible for the EC to overcome for all practical purposes.
State level polls are much less accurate.
Trump had to be quite lucky to win the electoral college when losing the popular vote by that margin. If the popular vote is exactly the same this time, a slightly different vote distribution would probably result in mainstream media declaring a Biden victory.
Then it’s another Hayes-Tilden nail-biter.