With the Obamas endorsement, I made a decent size donation today to the Kamala Harris fund on ActBlue a short time ago.
I’m expecting Harris to obliterate Trump in November, easily. If gambling on elections were legal, I’d be betting thousands of dollars on Kamala to win just hundreds by this point.
This probably should be no surprise but it is nice to see. More importantly is this translating into getting them to the polls to vote:
Kamala Harris has leaped ahead of Donald Trump in a new poll looking at the support of America’s youngest voters, aged 18 to 34.
Respondents, which represented all Gen Z voters and younger millennials, were asked who they would vote for in a head-to-head between Harris and Trump; 60 percent opted for the vice president, while only 40 percent picked Trump.
When asked the same question if Biden were the Democratic nominee, Trump’s support among young voters increased to 47 percent, as only 53 percent supported the current president serving a second term.
The poll by Axios/Generation Lab was conducted between July 22 and July 24, just after President Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential race and publicly endorsed Harris on July 21.
Definitely good news, but I can’t believe even 40% of them would be for trump.
Surprised me too.
That’s mostly in line with 2020.
Yes. The Democratic candidate always (well, in recent history) wins the 18-34 crowd. The Dems won them 60-36 in 2020, 55-36 in 2016, 60-37 in 2012, and 66-32 (!!!) in 2008. In 2004, the last time a Republican actually got most of the votes, it was only 56-43.
This has not ALWAYS been the case; Reagan won everything in 1984.
2 posts were split to a new topic: Why 40ish Percent of the youth might support the Republican Candidate
You’re in luck. Out-of-country betting website Bovada is still showing Trump as the favorite. Trump’s odds are 4/7, while the odds for Harris are 7/5.
That’s consistent with current polling. Harris is starting to look like she’s a point or two ahead, but because of the electoral college, that’s likely insufficient.
4/7 to 7/5 is basically a tossup. The days of 1984-style massacres are over.
I think there are a few things contributing to the change. Some of it is changing circumstances and culture, and some of it is personal to the candidates, and of course that’s all interrelated.
I think consciousness of misogyny has taken a huge step forward since say, Hilary Clinton was in law school, let alone since 2015-16. Just since 2016 for example, the Me Too movement, women moving into more powerful positions, including being VP, generational . . turnover(?) I guess you might call it. I’m sure some of the people who felt free to talk about Hilary Clinton that way wouldn’t do it now. Some because they realize they shouldn’t, and some because of fear of “cancel culture”; it has changed the discourse.
I think Hilary Clinton also had the extra problems that come from being first. That combined with different personalities, ages, life experiences, etc. means how they are/were seen by the public, and how they deal with managing those perceptions have been very different.
Clinton tried to make adjustments to respond to the criticisms that were just cloaked misogyny. She lowered her voice, tried to speak with more authority, dressed differently, and I’m sure did a bunch of other stuff to try to fit the mold. After doing that, she got hit with not coming across as authentic. I’m not sure that anyone who went first would have done much better given the point in history.
Harris does come across as authentic. And she and her supporters are making the right choices about embracing the criticism when it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And people’s consciousness of misogyny has risen enough that people, on the sane side of the political spectrum at least, get it.
I think that is contributing to the enthusiasm and action that is happening around Harris. I’m very reassured that this isn’t just superficial reaction to her candidacy. People are committing money and their time.
I kinda feel a little bad for poor Joe, though. I mean, how much does that suck that dropping out of the race leads to record-level contributions, volunteers, and voter registration?
Moderating: To all, please no replies on poor Joe or specifically on Hillary unless it is compare and contrast to Harris as above. Most of that post is no problem, the final line is a bit off for the thread.
Helpful Hint: If you are responding to something in a thread that is basically off-topic or likely to lead to a hijack, try this:
How to Reply as a linked Topic:
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Choose Reply as linked topic and it starts a new thread. As an example, you can choose GD, IMHO or The Pit for it.
That is actually the best method.
I think something that’s really helping Kamala Harris is that even though she is the incumbent vice president, she can run as the candidate for change. When voters were choosing between a previous and a current president, there’s no one representing change. She is a huge contrast to both of them. Everything she does is going to feel fresh and forward-looking.
Thinking about it some more, I think the political mood now is like 1980. After Nixon scandals and then a dreary Carter presidency, Reagan offered an optimistic vision that Americans were ready for. Harris is the same.
I’m not confident, but I see a possibility of a very lopsided electoral college victory for Harris.
You know, I just had another wave of enthusiasm.
When the UK went left with their election, and then France, a lot of headlines were like “Can America do it too?” And I thought “erm…maybe?”
But now I’m super excited for America to show the rest of the world not only can we go left we can go left-female-of-color left. Lefter than before!
I’ve been embarrassed for America the past 8 years. Now I’m excited for us to get back towards being a country to look up to.
Trump is hadling this badly. I don’t think he knows what to do. He is preaching doom and gloom. The lighter material in his stand up is well worn insults.
Contrast this to Harris. I still can’t say she is super at being charismatic and I did not like her speech back in 2020 debates and primaries. But Kamala will have a pretty good chance of convincing people that we are not screwed. After the pandemic and the post pandemic jerks and fits in the running of the world, she is the first one to announce that we are done with that. Done with trump, Biden sent to retirement. We can do this!
If Trump just being visible while not in power was embarrassing to you, you may have to wait until after he’s dead. Unless you’re saying that Biden was embarrassing too.
Yeah just the existence of Trump and Trumpism. This includes MAGA congresspeople.
And I agree he/it won’t be gone until he’s dead but the first step to stopping/slowing/turning around is defeating him soundly in 2024.
I think this is a big part of it, there’s just more awareness of how a lot of “I don’t like the way she sounds” is back-door misogyny. People (like me) are a lot more willing to say yeah, she has a goofy laugh, who cares, let’s talk about what a shitawful person Donald Trump is. It does feel like we’ve turned a corner in that particular way.