‘Lately, our supporters are lying more about how they don’t support Donald Trump! It’s completely normal!’
“And if you don’t adjust for that and still show the President cruising to an easy reelection, you’re obviously part of the Never-Trumper Lamestream libtard media cabal!”
The current spin is ‘having COVID will make Donald Trump a better President than Joe Biden, who has never had COVID’, which makes sense in the way choosing a flight because you know the pilot has already crashed a 747 does.
‘Which doctor you want to see, Grandma?’
‘Well? Which one has been sued the most times? That guy!’
From today’s NYT Nate Cohn bit:
“Mr. Biden holds a 22-point lead among likely voters in Arizona who did not participate in the 2016 election. These voters make up a surprising 32 percent of the electorate. That’s the second-highest such group in any Times/Siena survey so far this year, trailing only nearby Nevada — the nation’s fastest-growing state.
Such a huge number of new voters might seem hard to believe, or indicative of the potential for unprecedented turnout. But it is nearly identical to the 30 percent of currently registered 2016 voters in Arizona who were not validated voters in the state in 2012, according to voter file data from L2, a nonpartisan political data firm.“
It’s one thing that Trump finally came down with COVID, which seemed inevitable given how lightly he took the situation. But that so many people have also come down with it could leave an impression with voters. It’s not a case of one guy having bad luck; it’s an entire administration that behaved recklessly, that lived and (in some cases) literally might die by that level of irresponsibility demonstrated.
I’m really curious to know how Chris Christie manages his infection. Of all those named, he is probably most at risk, even more so than Trump, considering the former governor’s problems with weight and the fact that he’s approaching 60, which is when the mortality starts to increase noticeably.
Also has Asthma as I recall. I checked and in fact that is why he is hospitalized. Extra precaution for the extra high risk.
I lived there for a couple years and my Mom did for a couple decades.
The sheer turnover rate in AZ residents has always been amazingly high. Between the elders moving out there for warmth & dying a few years later to the people who try it, but just can’t bear the heat, to the flaky economic & job situation even in good times, AZ is like a giant KOA; the neighbors just turn over so fast.
My current projections for what it’s worth:
If Biden under-performs and the polls are just way off, Biden loses. More likely, if Biden slightly under-performs, he still wins with 280 projected electors - wins back the blue wall but not much else. A good night would be Biden winning 309-320, with Biden taking the blue wall plus FL and AZ, both of which are very winnable at this point. If Biden has a great night, he gets up to 369 by winning the blue wall and sweeping the battleground states, including GA, OH, and NC.
I think at the moment Biden is stronger due to Trump’s negatives, but Trump could come out of this news cycle with one last shot to trip up Biden. We’ll see soon enough.
CNN Poll: Biden expands lead over Trump 57-41 after contentious debate and President’s Covid diagnosis
This is the point in the campaign where Trump needs to be making up ground. He needs to be close on Nov. 3 to allow the disruptions and legal maneuvers to have a chance to be effective.
Instead, the numbers are swirling around the gold toilet with each passing day. Contracting Covid has only served to vividly illustrate his hypocrisy and poor handling of the crisis instead of getting the sympathy bump he desperately needed. The most important members of his campaign team have tested positive and he has way less money to throw at competitive states.
And at the risk of being one of those boring posters who keeps harping on a subject that no one else appears to be interested in, WT-living-F is going on with Gen X voters?
The age breakdown has a MoE of almost 10%.
Previous polls have been pretty consistent in showing that, by age group, Trump’s support is strongest in the 50-64 range, whatever those actual numbers might be. It’s pretty clear that a particular age group in this country continues to support him more than others and I don’t understand why that is.
Speculation ahead. That’s the age group that would have just been too young to be adults during the civil rights and Vietnam era. They would have come of age, politically speaking, during the Reagan and Bush Sr. years. Maybe that made them more conservative?
ETA. Since that age group is approaching but not yet at retirement, there could be a “keep your government hands off my Social Security” type mindset.
Yes, I was afraid Trump might learn something from the experience and start to work on courting middle of the road voters. Maybe show some humility and make an effort to at least appear to take the health crisis seriously. But he seems determined to appeal only to the voters who are already determined to vote for him.
Agree overall.
Most significantly with this snip is that his next 4 weeks should have been an exhausting whirlwind of campaigning, etc. Every minute he can’t do that because he’s actually sick, or weakened by having been sick, leaves him less and less able to keep up the pace Joe is (or certainly should be) keeping up.
If there is one thing you can count on Trump for, it’s that he will always double down on his chosen strategy.
Along with my befuddlement is a certain amount of satisfaction. For years message boards have been filled with Gen X smugness and casual dismissals of “ok, boomer.” Now lookee hear: the self identified smart guys are voting for Trump in greater percentages than anyone else.
I have been thinking/assuming all along that he would remain at least semi-competitive with undecided or moderate right voters and that he was just amping up the jackassery for his base. This strategy allowed him to edge out Clinton in key states, and I’ve been worried he could successfully repeat that strategy. But this is a crisis that is going to be hard to spin.
Even those who want to give him the benefit of the doubt are probably questioning themselves now - they might never admit to it in a Facebook battle with friends or on a message board, but they’re quietly doubting. These are exactly the kinds of voters that will tell people they’re thinking of voting for Trump but may quietly have ‘other plans’ that day and just not vote. In fact, that’s really how Hillary Clinton ended up losing. The Comey letter to the House didn’t make Trump more popular, but it did succeed in suppressing the soft support for Clinton.
We haven’t talked very much about the absence of a strong Libertarian candidate like Gary Johnson in the race this year. I think it’s unlikely that third parties will get six million votes this year and Donald isn’t getting anywhere near a majority of those former third party voters who will now look to a major party when casting their ballot. I’ll look up the numbers later but those third party votes might, might have been critical in the Don winning Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania in '16.
Polls are showing fewer undecideds and that bodes better for Biden, imo.
Three Pennsylvania polls from Monmouth (A+ pollster per 538) just released:
Biden +8 (500 LV) Sept 30-Oct 4
Biden +11 (500 LV) Sept 30-Oct 4
Biden +12 (500 RV) Sept 30-Oct 4