I don’t like Mitch McConnell. I think he’s a snake who puts party first.
I also don’t doubt that McConnell despises Trump. He’s not a True Republican and he is happy to change what the Republican party stands for on a whim, and somehow a huge swath of the Republican party goes right along.
If Mitch will not take a real stand against Trump, then there is no way the Republican Party will oust him. Mitch is a canary in the coalmine with the constitution of a buzzard.
Ever since he first started talking about running for President, there has been revelation after incident after situation that would have cratered any other politician’s career, but Trump has just floated right on through. Each time it’s “but this time will be worse,” only to find out out just enrages the libs and energizes the conservs.
Trump is still the GOP candidate, and he has all sorts of Republicans defending him and spouting his rhetoric.
If any of the Republican pols would acknowledge this is a real concern, you might have a point, but they don’t. They brush it off as part of a liberal plot to use the Justice system to override the will of the people. That’s the narrative. And they are trying to stir up independents to their side with the constant barrage of propaganda.
While any sane world would immediately disqualify someone convicted of fraud, on grounds that they are completely untrustworthy with the federal purse, *we aren’t living in a sane world. *
Nothing is ever bad enough, and people are saturated by the continued assumption of the demise of Trump not panning ouy.
First, in terms of the general public, the people so influenced were not “conservative.” The problem is that they liked that he was evil. That’s why he has gotten away with this shit.
They’ve doubled, tripled, quadrupled down on Trump and fascism. There is no getting off the ride at this point.
That’s what won’t work.
What’s bad enough right now is his physical and mental condition. If he were 50 right now, there would be no escape. Even if he lost, he would keep running forever. But he’s on the verge of collapse.
Because we don’t have a “Trump run-up to the election” thread, I’ll drop this here.
More reading:
Yup, the WSJ hit piece was particularly egregious.
Ouucchh.
MeidasTouch reports on brand new Fox poll that has Biden up 2 points nationally.
Keep in mind that I (and many others) think the polls have been biased against Biden and in favor of Trump, as evidenced by Trump underperforming in his primaries and Dems overperforming vis-a-vis the polls in special elections.
So this is really, really bad news for Trump. And do you think that anything going forward can help Trump get that number back up (other than the RGN involved in polling itself)?!
Trump continues to glitch, rave, and come apart in his rallies, and his sentencing is just around the corner. The ball of shit is oh-so-big and just keeps on rollin’ downhill!
The minor fluctuations within one poll taken five months before the election that still shows the lead within the margin of error doesn’t speak to anything except that this race is, has been and is likely to remain very close.
The thing is, I don’t think it’s close.* I think the polling makes it seem that way, and the polling has just gotten less favorable to Trump. Is that the biggest deal in the world? No. But it’s a trend in the wrong direction for Trump.
*Don’t get me wrong: it’s fucking madness and a disgrace that we even need to think about it. But I don’t think there is any way that Biden is going to lose.
According to the 538 rolling polling average, on June 19, 2020, Biden was ahead of Trump by 8.9 points nationally.
According to the 538 June 19, 2024 rolling polling average, Biden is now behind Trump by 0.6 points.
So we see a 9.5 swing against Biden from 2020 to 2024 as a today. This swing is higher some days, lower others, but has been in the same direction every day since heavy Biden-Trump polling began last year.
Do I know who will win in November? No. No one does. But of course there is a way Biden is going to lose. Biden is going to lose, unless a lot of voters change their mind about voting for him.
Or Biden could be ahead if 2020 Trump supporters, who then were less likely to respond to polling, are now answering pollster calls. It’s conceivable, and thus creates slight uncertainty, but there’s no real reason to think it.
We have two presumptive nominees. Both are weak candidates with low voter approval. One is weaker.
Up until the final tally I am going to presume that Biden can lose, and act accordingly.
I don’t care about 538. They lost any credibility with me after 2016, and they don’t seem to be getting much attention these days. Plus, Nate is gone.
The success of polling has gone downhill overall, and it’s not clear that anyone thinks 538’s methodology has much meaning anymore. I certainly don’t see fans boosting it anywhere.
My point about the Fox poll is that the GOP is going to lose the morale they get from talking about “Trump being ahead in the polls.” It’s not because I think that particular poll is great. My gut, supported by actual election results, is that Biden is far ahead of Trump at this point.
Are you saying that Biden is behind and heading to a loss at this point in time? There’s no support for that.
There is no question that the polls have been consistently off with respect to the primary elections and special elections. Trump has underperformed all of his polls in virtually every primary.
I think “weak candidate” is a weird phrase here. Trump is not even a “candidate” per se; he is the leader of a fascist insurgency who wants to dismantle our system of government if he can win the election. His supporters do not want him to be POTUS in the normal sense, just as Hitler’s supporters didn’t want him to be a normal chancellor.
And since that’s the case, I don’t know what it means for Biden to be a “weak candidate.” These are not normal times, and this isn’t the normal US. This is madness and chaos. Biden is the incumbent and, at this point, the only one who can beat Trump.
And I hope that you think Trump, not Biden, is the “weaker” candidate, geez.
Yeah, I’ve said it about 10 times already in this thread, but YES, and, just as importantly, we need to crush the GOP in every single race so that they are fully crushed and can never rise again.
538 was correct in 2016. They said Clinton was polling slightly ahead and was slightly favored overall but that it was very close and the prediction of her victory was not assured. That was precisely the right summary.
Anyone who says 538 “got it wrong” in 2016 doesn’t understand statistical analysis. This has been repeatedly hashed out on these boards, and yet the misunderstanding stubbornly persists. Very frustrating.
Yeah, and I’ve debated it here too.
My argument was not with their statistical analysis per se but with the presentation of their information and its value. My takeaway was that the information was not valuable in the case of any election as close as the one in 2016.
I don’t remember anyone giving a shit about the site in 2020, but that could have been my own bias at that point. I sure as hell don’t see anyone giving it any particular credence in 2024, however.
People seem to recognize now that polling is broken and nearly useless in a close race.
I agree, and that is why I continue to pay attention to what 538 says. They were right then, even if a lot of people had a bad intuitive sense of odds. They made the race feel closer than any other site did. So when Trump won, I wasn’t surprised.
Trump’s final polling average in New Hampshire was 53.9% – he got 54.3% of the vote. His final polling average in SC was 61.6% and he got 59.8%. I’ll admit that he underperformed polls in some later states where the nomination was effectively over and were polled more lightly.
I’d echo @Cervaise and say that how we view polling is broken. Partisans treat any minute variance in their guy’s favor from the previous poll as “momentum.” A two-point lead is treated as ironclad proof that their guy will win, and if he doesn’t then the polls are irrefutably broken.
And I agree that polling is useless in a close race, but all “state of the race” polling is useless. What do you want polling to do? Tell you now what exactly the final vote will be five months from now? It’s just a broad sense of where things stand now, with no practical application beyond fueling campaign press releases. The useful polling is done by campaigns on a much more granular level. They use polling to identify and track how specific demographics are responding to campaign messaging and outreach.
So a result in 2016 makes you want to pay attention to them forever? Not trying to be a smartass, but past performance (a long effin’ time ago) is no guarantee of future results.
Fair enough about those two stats, but the underperformance was huge in some of those races.
Oh, all I’ve heard from the media and panickers on these boards is “Trump is ahead!” etc. So yeah.
Yes, that’s stupid.
I wouldn’t say it’s useless, but it’s a yardstick and not a micrometer. If Trump were 20 points higher than Biden right now, I would not be saying, “These polls don’t matter at all.”
Yup.
Yeppers. I trust them more than other prognosticators
I am googling to find any recent content online about them, but most is just factual news bits about Nate leaving, their shutting down their sports area, etc.
I’m not seeing the excitement or interest. That’s different from being wrong, of course.