This is exactly what could bring Trump down. This information, when combined with the multiple times he disparaged war heroes, including the late Sen. John McCain, as LOSERS for getting captured, may finally undermine him with some of his supporters. May being a key word. I read the article and in particular the section about Trump’s visit to Arlington with former DNS John Kelly strikes me as repulsive.
Nothing Trump says will be his undoing. That ship sailed before he even became President. It’s the current state of the nation and how much of the negatives can be traced to Trump’s policies.
Normally I would agree but his approval numbers among members of the military have been dropping. And if these accusations stick they could do real damage to him. Shitting on the military is never a winning proposition when among conservatives. It doesn’t have to convert any of them to vote D. Just making some less likely to vote at all is enough.
Also-- and I don’t have a cite for this-- I read recently that military support is declining because members of the military don’t want to be turned into a trump police force sent into cities to crack down on their fellow citizens.
Trump will wonder why they don’t want to use their beautiful bullets. He still doesn’t understand why he can launch nukes at any one that disses him.
We’ve got Trump fatigue - what’s left that could be surprising.
Unless, maybe he shows up for a rally in a raincoat and after an hour of babbling build up flashes the crowd; bathing the faithful in his corpulent radiance and revealing that he is a natural orange.
That would be a surprise.
Well, looks like Trump got his October surprise, a few weeks early. Not sure if it works in his favor or against him though.
He could still have a semi-surprise in October if Clarence Thomas retires.
Jerry Falwell Jr. has accepted the nomination. With his recent affairs, he will continue with viewing rights of other men and women equally.
You mean, he will find other men and women to continue granting him “viewing” rights?
What’s Trump’s October Surprise?
Well, this isn’t it:
Even Big Pharma feels dirty dealing with Trump.
Almost three weeks later and it hasn’t moved the needle; arguably Trump has come up slightly since this was posted.
Some article I saw on this a few days ago suggested that Trump was demanding to have his signature on all those $100 pharma gift cards.
At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if the October Surprise involved a cake dancer.
According to 538, Trump has gone down from having close to 30 in 100 chances for winning to 22 in 100 now.
With all the Vote by Mail, the surprise better happen pretty soon.
I think that that change is primarily due to the confidence intervals shrinking as we get more polls and we get closer to the election. The polls have been very steady.
To the OP, I posted the following to the TACFITM thread but was it was immediately overshadowed by the news of RBG’s death. Perhaps it could find a better home here.
I listen to the Model Talk 538 podcast. The other reason is that the model puts more weight on the “fundamentals” (economy etc) a ways before the election and slowly gives more weight to the polls as the election gets closer.
Yes, it basically comes down to the same thing. He’s using a Bayesian modeling with a prior based on the “fundamentals” So as the level of uncertainty in the polling data decreases its weight in the model increases. The result of this is that not only will the confidence levels decrease, but the means will shift away from the fundamental assumption as well.
This is why he said at one point if the election were held that day Biden would have a 90%+ probability of victory (ignoring the effect of Covid and Republican shenanigans on voting). Given how steady the polls are, I think that vicinity is probably where his model will end up on November 3rd.
It would probably amaze you to learn how little comfort I find in that particular datum. Better than one chance in five that a sociopathic narcissist will win a second term; this one unchecked by needing to keep his reelection viable is not reassuring. One chance in five odds come in all the time.