2020 Presidential Election (All Serious POVs Welcome)

[Pointgod]

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Even with some of the movement in different polls. I think it's pretty clearly Biden's race to lose right now. My bigger concern is voiced here in one of the responses to this tweet thread:

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In general, my advice on voting has been "if you're in a solid blue or red state; vote your conscience. If you vote in a swing state, think about harm reduction even if you don't like either candidate." But for this election, my advice is run up the score. Harm reduction starts at blowing Trump out as much as possible and everywhere possible; leave as little space to rationalize or game the system as possible.

Exactly. The vote your conscience bull needs to die for this election. Vote Biden and blue up and down all around the ticket. We know Trump is going to come out during election night and claim victory. The higher the tallies early on and the more in person voting the more obvious it becomes that the Republicans are trying to steal the election. The margins need to be huge and even if you live in a red state you never know the down ballot wins Democrats can pick up.

[Jeff Van Gully]

Spoiler:

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Even with some of the movement in different polls. I think it's pretty clearly Biden's race to lose right now. My bigger concern is voiced here in one of the responses to this tweet thread:

Spoiler:

Read on Twitter

In general, my advice on voting has been "if you're in a solid blue or red state; vote your conscience. If you vote in a swing state, think about harm reduction even if you don't like either candidate." But for this election, my advice is run up the score. Harm reduction starts at blowing Trump out as much as possible and everywhere possible; leave as little space to rationalize or game the system as possible.

These polls likely reflect the popular vote and not the electoral college. Hillary won the popular vote in 2016 but still lost the election. A Biden win will come down to what happens in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. If he can win 3 out of those 5 states or flip a state like Arizona (very possible), he's the next POTUS.

[Stannis]

Biden raises a record-shattering $364 million in August

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/02/election-2020-biden-raises-a-record-shattering-364-million-in-august.html

[GONYK]

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The polls coming out today are fairly significant, because I believe they are mostly conducted after the RNC, so they account for the Trump bounce

[Clyde_Style]

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Even with some of the movement in different polls. I think it's pretty clearly Biden's race to lose right now. My bigger concern is voiced here in one of the responses to this tweet thread:

Read on Twitter

In general, my advice on voting has been "if you're in a solid blue or red state; vote your conscience. If you vote in a swing state, think about harm reduction even if you don't like either candidate." But for this election, my advice is run up the score. Harm reduction starts at blowing Trump out as much as possible and everywhere possible; leave as little space to rationalize or game the system as possible.

Thank you for saying that

Yes, both to ensure the win, but also to fully capture all the blue seats in every election possible a landslide is quite important to sustain progress

[Clyde_Style]

just want to issue one quick mea culpa for an inappropriate comment I posted earlier in the thread...

back to the question... till the Far Left's finds their equivalent of Paul Ryan, I don't think they'll ever coalesce the power that's needed to take over the entire party. Sure, things are starting to seep in slowly, but some of the bigger policy goals (i.e. GND, M4A, BDS, super high tax hikes, abolishing police, etc etc etc) will probably just remain lofty goals.

Republicans care about power first, so they have no issue going all the way right if it means keeping seats and whatnot. Till the Far Left learns about power, that won't change.

As long as a significant number of people who self-identify as left operate under the delusion that playing emotional blackmail with their vote is somehow going to gain them the power they have never had they will continue to relegate themselves to the fringes.

Every bloc has to negotiate by saying we want X, Y or Z if you want our support, but the Twitter version of the left has an absolutist streak that manifests as juvenile sadism which is not strategy. It is just another vapid variation of the nihilism that is so prevalent in America these days.

I was hopeful the Democrats could build a coalition that is fairly progressive, but now I realize how soft the support will be after this particular election. The fringes of the Democrat voting spectrum will be highly susceptible to fracturing to the right and the left. The Republicans will reboot with a cleaned up front man and seduce the modern version of an American "moderate" which is now a fairly conservative and right leaning.

What I see now is a third of Americans are down with fascist white supremacy. About a third are down with working long-term with the Democratic party. And the other third is a random mix of disaffected voters that can lean in either direction, but who are not particularly inclined to collaboration of any kind. Many of those future swing voters are also prone to single issue justifications for their choices.

I still think Trump is so bad the Democrats should win this time, but based on the lack of vision of the American public I predict the center cannot hold.

And in a country like this, Ockham's Razor says the easiest path for the fickle voter will be to turn right and permanently concede their rights to authoritarian rule sometime in the next 20 years. The death of older GOP voters will not be offset by younger more liberal voters if their alienation prevents them from supporting and working with people of a more moderate bent than themselves. Thats what can easily cede the advantage back to the right in the not too distant future.

It might not turn out that way, but I see the warning signs loud and clear. The republic is very weak now. It won't take much for America to completely fail as a democracy if the defense of democratic process and constitutational rights are not seen as the common ground between us. If they are not vigorously defended regardless of the perceived purity of the POV of your fellow voter, everyone will lose. After this election, there won't be that much time left to figure that out.

If you look at the history of Authoritarian and far right governments like Poland, Russia, Hungary, Brazil, Italy etc. there’s always a common denominator where the left wing parties weren’t united which paved the way for authoritarians to take power. In fact the two party system is probably the only reason a facist hasn’t been able to take power in America. After that it’s always the same move. Dismantling the courts, removing all checks and balances and putting political cronies in positions of power. Make no mistakes, once these steps are taken Democracy is no longer an option to get rid of an authoritarian.

People were flashing the warning signs in 2016. People who had lived under authoritarians. The US chose not to listen. Now the warning signs have already been blown through. Trump will do something blatantly illegal as using the Whitehouse for political purposes and no one bats an eye. He’s not even being subtle about it, he’s flaunting it and laughing at everyone while he does it, even his supporters.

You’d think with all this that the left would be united behind Biden. Just for one election, put petty differences aside. The Green Party should urge their voters to get behind Biden, Libertarians that supposedly love their freedoms (I don’t they would agree with turning the US into a theocracy) should urge their voters to get behind Biden. Remember this is a redistricting year. If you want to end gerrymandering, then vote blue all the way down the ticket, this is the last chance for the Supreme Court seats. Federal judges etc.

It’s like watching a slow moving train wreck I see all the signs which is why I don’t understand why some on the left insist on throwing numerous turds in the punch bowl. In fact they’re getting played. There is no “we can fix this” if Trump gets another 4 years.

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/russian-internet-trolls-hired-u-s-journalists-push-their-news-n1239000

“This looks like an attempt to target left-wing audiences on a range of issues, but the operation got taken down in its early stages and didn't score measurable impact,” Nimmo said. “The election wasn't the only focus, but to the extent that it was, it looks like the operation wanted to divide Democratic voters, the same way the IRA tried in 2016,” he said, referring to the Internet Research Agency.

Somebody gets it

Reading that brings to mind the boiling frog analogy. Sometimes I've felt like Jeremiah on this board. In 2016, I said Trump has major fascist tendencies and even people on the left mocked that notion. Fast forward four years later and a fair number of us frogs have hopped out of the pot, but there are still quite a few lolling about in the water as it gets warmer and warmer.

I mean what does it take for people to put aside their differences and unite against a true common enemy? At some point, you have to conclude some people simply have a death wish and are more in love with their rage and their opinions than they are in actual survival.

America has a good number of ahistorical people in its ranks and without a sense of real history, not a checklist of somebody's flaws you can gripe about, you can be doomed to repeat the rise of fascism.

And history tells us there are no do-overs. You botch this and there will be trains and ovens again. Anybody who votes for Trump now supports fascism. Anyone who should know better who pretends this is not a do or die moment and who actively sabotages the Democrats also supports fascism. Time to get serious and drop the petty gripes. This is America's only chance to get this right.

[Clyde_Style]

Biden raises a record-shattering $364 million in August

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/02/election-2020-biden-raises-a-record-shattering-364-million-in-august.html

98% of which came from my superpac, the rest from small donors

[Rasho Brezec]

Seems more like a promise than an opinion.

[Clyde_Style]

With that massive war chest, Biden is going to blanket the airwaves in October. Trump's campaign has already suspended their TV ads twice now because they are in such disarray. And they have done stupid things like commit ad spend to NY because of Trump's vanity.

Based on the already massive difference in ad quality, this gives Biden another big edge going into November. It doesn't matter if most people will already be decided. Anyone who is still wavering will be influenced by repeatedly being reminded of Putin's bounty on American troops.

And Facebook probably took several percent off of Clinton's numbers and shifted them towards Trump in 2016. Now Biden's campaign is going to be in the face's of FB users with much better strategy and targeting this time.

Plus I think we can drop some of the BS about enthusiasm if that many people are donating to Biden's campaign. It's a fantastic sign really. It is probably the thing that cheers me up the most today, because I know many of those people only gave $10-20 they probably can't afford which means they are aware of the critical nature of the crossroads we are at.

[Stannis]

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[Clyde_Style]

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Didn't we establish this pollster is no more credible than Rasmussen?

You sure seem eager to promote them

[Pointgod]

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Even with some of the movement in different polls. I think it's pretty clearly Biden's race to lose right now. My bigger concern is voiced here in one of the responses to this tweet thread:

Read on Twitter

In general, my advice on voting has been "if you're in a solid blue or red state; vote your conscience. If you vote in a swing state, think about harm reduction even if you don't like either candidate." But for this election, my advice is run up the score. Harm reduction starts at blowing Trump out as much as possible and everywhere possible; leave as little space to rationalize or game the system as possible.

These polls likely reflect the popular vote and not the electoral college. Hillary won the popular vote in 2016 but still lost the election. A Biden win will come down to what happens in Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. If he can win 3 out of those 5 states or flip a state like Arizona (very possible), he's the next POTUS.

you can go ahead and put texas on that list too. ted cruz had his balls to the bandsaw against beto in 2018.

Add North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia to that list as well. I still believe Biden can make gains in those states, if not at least make it tough for Trump and affect down ballot races.

[Pointgod]

Stolen from another politics thread.

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We have the first high quality live caller poll in a while from Ann Selzer, a national poll with Democrats +8 (49%-41%) done right after the Republican national convention ended, which should put all discussions of a tightening on ice for a while. The poll, a Likely Voter screen poll with a whiter electorate in 2020 than 2016, shows Joe Biden firmly ahead, and without any crosstab based landmines on his way to winning the White House.

Let’s start with the race data, where Joe Biden is only losing whites by 3% on route to this D+8 result. It is the second poll this week to show this kind of white support, and unlike AtlasIntel, they don’t have Trump winning 29% of Blacks and 41% of Hispanics. For Democrats worried about the fact that there is 10% not going to either Biden or Trump, fret not: 7% of whites are not voting for either major party candidate, whereas 13% of non-whites are, meaning that any expected split of undecideds should break to Biden, and any notion of a shy Trump voter should be tossed out the window.

Dig into the possible sources of polling error, and it doesn’t exist. Some pollsters are getting samples that are more diverse since 2016, and run some risk of getting a sample low on non-degree whites – but here, only 25% of the sample is non-white, as opposed to 26% in 2016. They’re not missing white voters, and their education splits for white voters (after some analysis, given what was released in the press release didn’t explicitly say it) looks quite like what the NYT/Siena had the last time they polled. And, for any claim that may arise, this poll was low on Biden in March – they only had a 4% lead when others flirted with the high single digits.

Suffolk is also out with a national poll, D+7 (50%-43%) – and both pollsters polled right after the RNC. The chances are that these numbers are artificially good for Trump, if anything, and given he’s losing badly, that’s a horrible sign for him. Could he come back? I mean, I guess anything is possible, but he is running out of time and of potential reasons he would come back. It was supposed to be the Conventions, but at this point he either got a convention bump – which means this D+8 is really a D+10 with the bump taken out – or he never got one at all, which would mean that even four nights of free airtime can’t save him. I’m not sure if either is preferable for the President, but both are horrible for him.

Nothing as of right now suggests that the result of the November election will be anything but a blowout for the former Vice President. Trump needs to shake up this race to get rid of that fundamental truth. His convention failed to do it, his law and order attacks have failed to do it, and he has lost five and a half months now in his quest to turn this ship around. Refusing to live in that reality isn’t smart punditry, it is denial of facts, and as day follows night, Donald Trump is on track to be the first one-term President of my life. After all, he’s running out of time to stop it.

[HarthorneWingo]

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Didn't we establish this pollster is no more credible than Rasmussen?

You sure seem eager to promote them

No. That was a different poll.

[GONYK]

Sorry Stannis,

I deleted this tweet you posted when trying to fix the thread:

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[Stannis]

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Didn't we establish this pollster is no more credible than Rasmussen?

You sure seem eager to promote them

Not that I know of. That might have been Emerson polls.

I've been posting all kinds of polls. I'm not promoting anything. But you just don't like when I post something that isn't largely favoring Biden.

[Stannis]

Sorry Stannis,

I deleted this tweet you posted when trying to fix the thread:

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ty.

I was wondering what that was? I thought my browser was glitched lol.

[GONYK]

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Didn't we establish this pollster is no more credible than Rasmussen?

You sure seem eager to promote them

This is a different account.

It's citing the Monmouth Poll, which is a good pollster.

Biden +4 is probably fairly representative of the state of the race in PA today. I don't think Biden +13 was ever going to be a realistic outcome.

It's worth pointing out that the sample size was very small (400 people). Still, it shows tightening.

The real question is if this is Trump's peak or not. There is plenty of other polling showing Trump's bounce fading a bit. We'll know more in a week or two.

[HarthorneWingo]

Stolen from another politics thread.

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Spoiler:

We have the first high quality live caller poll in a while from Ann Selzer, a national poll with Democrats +8 (49%-41%) done right after the Republican national convention ended, which should put all discussions of a tightening on ice for a while. The poll, a Likely Voter screen poll with a whiter electorate in 2020 than 2016, shows Joe Biden firmly ahead, and without any crosstab based landmines on his way to winning the White House.

Let’s start with the race data, where Joe Biden is only losing whites by 3% on route to this D+8 result. It is the second poll this week to show this kind of white support, and unlike AtlasIntel, they don’t have Trump winning 29% of Blacks and 41% of Hispanics. For Democrats worried about the fact that there is 10% not going to either Biden or Trump, fret not: 7% of whites are not voting for either major party candidate, whereas 13% of non-whites are, meaning that any expected split of undecideds should break to Biden, and any notion of a shy Trump voter should be tossed out the window.

Dig into the possible sources of polling error, and it doesn’t exist. Some pollsters are getting samples that are more diverse since 2016, and run some risk of getting a sample low on non-degree whites – but here, only 25% of the sample is non-white, as opposed to 26% in 2016. They’re not missing white voters, and their education splits for white voters (after some analysis, given what was released in the press release didn’t explicitly say it) looks quite like what the NYT/Siena had the last time they polled. And, for any claim that may arise, this poll was low on Biden in March – they only had a 4% lead when others flirted with the high single digits.

Suffolk is also out with a national poll, D+7 (50%-43%) – and both pollsters polled right after the RNC. The chances are that these numbers are artificially good for Trump, if anything, and given he’s losing badly, that’s a horrible sign for him. Could he come back? I mean, I guess anything is possible, but he is running out of time and of potential reasons he would come back. It was supposed to be the Conventions, but at this point he either got a convention bump – which means this D+8 is really a D+10 with the bump taken out – or he never got one at all, which would mean that even four nights of free airtime can’t save him. I’m not sure if either is preferable for the President, but both are horrible for him.

Nothing as of right now suggests that the result of the November election will be anything but a blowout for the former Vice President. Trump needs to shake up this race to get rid of that fundamental truth. His convention failed to do it, his law and order attacks have failed to do it, and he has lost five and a half months now in his quest to turn this ship around. Refusing to live in that reality isn’t smart punditry, it is denial of facts, and as day follows night, Donald Trump is on track to be the first one-term President of my life. After all, he’s running out of time to stop it.

I'll believe it when I see it. I just hope you're right.

[Stannis]

So Biden basically has to win the popular vote by 5+ points to win it.

If he gets 3% like HIllary, that's still only a 74% chance to win.

Insanity!

If he wins, I hope dems first order is changing the system. It will be difficult, but if they don't, next elections will continue being 50/50 despite democrats being the true majority.