Democratic Primary Thread: The Deuce

[CharlesOakley]

Trump supporters prove over and over again that winning is everything. Actual policy change or a coherent president or coherent presidency have no impact on their point of view.

[Pointgod]

Didn't Kamala put many people away for Marijuana related arrests?

don't get me wrong, i like her but Democratic party to me continues to make me sick and let down many progressives. the fact that loser amy and pete dropped out was proof of that. Hell I still think Buttigieg was the better moderate. Just glad as hell that Kamala was taken over abrams and warren.

Before anyone starts posting misinformation and misleading statements here are the facts.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/09/11/kamala-harris-prosecuting-marijuana-cases/

During the last presidential debate in July, Rep. Tulsi Gabbard blasted Harris over marijuana convictions, saying she “put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.” Gabbard was misleadingly citing figures for all of California while Harris was attorney general — even though the vast majority of marijuana cases in the state are prosecuted by independently elected county district attorneys.

Over Harris’ seven years as top prosecutor, her attorneys won 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale, according to data from the DA’s office. That includes people who were convicted of marijuana offenses and more serious crimes at the same time.

“Our policy was that no one with a marijuana conviction for mere possession could do any (jail time) at all,” said Paul Henderson, who led narcotics prosecutions for several years under Harris. Defendants arrested for the lowest-level possession would typically be referred to drug treatment programs instead of being charged, and weightier charges for marijuana sales would routinely be pleaded down to less serious ones, he said.

Probably the most important point here:

In recent years, newly elected district attorneys in cities like Philadelphia and St. Louis have issued blanket policies vowing not to prosecute low-level marijuana possession, even though it’s still illegal in their states.

But Harris’ supporters say it’d be unfair to compare her work more than a decade ago to today’s standards of a “progressive prosecutor.”

“You can’t look at this with historical amnesia,” said Tim Silard, her former head of policy. “The positions she took then were quite progressive and very much out of step with her colleagues around the state.”

[Pointgod]

Trump supporters prove over and over again that winning is everything. Actual policy change or a coherent president or coherent presidency have no impact on their point of view.

That’s because they’re devoid of any ideology or morals. They’re political anarchists with a crypto facist streak that operate like a cult.

[BallSacBounce]

People who get their "news" from Facebook.

No wonder the country is in trouble.

Most people are too busy running their lives and enjoying the little spare time they get. I understand. It's us political addicts that are a bit off, but necessary to nudge things.

I think the notion of "the secret Trump voter" has been heavily disproven.

These swing state voters who like Trump exist, for sure, but I'm not sure why the belief is that they are unaccounted for.

The article wasn't about unaccounted for voters. Not sure why that's relevant.

[HarthorneWingo]

I was told the same thing in 2016 when I said Trump was going to win, coworkers laughed and mocked and ridiculed me. So I said, let's bet on it. They did, later I laughed at them.

I'll never forget the stunned silence of bubble living people trying to make sense of reality. Sublime, an unbelievably delicious treat.

True but now we actually experienced the “real of the deal.” And it was pretty, pretty, pretty ugly. His complete bungling of his response to the virus, if nothing else, will sink his presidency. Also, he hasn’t accomplished very much of anything to help the middle class. His border wall is a waste of time and money and was done, like most things he pursues, just to soothe his fragile ego. Also the tax cut only served to line the pockets of the uber rich and corporations. Long Island middle class home owners got killed with his cut in the home mortgage interest deduction.

If you see an electoral path for Trump to re-election, then I’d love to it. But base it on solid poll numbers. Don’t come at me with. I Ben Shapiro BS.

This far out I don't even look at the polls. And when I do start looking at them I'll be paying attention for weighting and bias. That's what I did the last time and that was the fatal mistake for the doubters. They believed their own propaganda.

It should be no surprise at this point but sometimes others see things differently than you. Others see a vibrant economy, prosperous times which helped everyone before the virus and don't hold Trump accountable for the aftermath.

Others appreciate the wall and the sticking up for the American Worker he repeatedly does with the trade deals. Others prefer the law and order he stands for and have no stomach for the disorder and chaos allowed to run roughshod over their lives, believe it or not.

He'll lose New Yorkers? How exactly will that affect his electoral chances?

He will get re-elected. It's not just me saying these things.

Here's what swing voters are saying about Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/opinions/swing-voters-midwest-trump-support-thau/index.html

And, each month for the past 17 months, I've had a unique window into the Americans largely responsible for giving the president his slim Electoral College victory: so-called "Obama-Trump" swing voters across the upper Midwest.

Our Swing Voter Project has uncovered that many of these people, who live in places such as Canton, Ohio; Davenport, Iowa; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Macomb County, Michigan, prefer Trump over Biden. In fact, 22 of 33 respondents in these four most recent locations feel this way.

And over the first year of the project, from March 2019 through February 2020, more than two-thirds of the "Obama-Trump" voters said they would take Trump over Obama in a hypothetical match-up.

Beyond the numbers, though, it's critical to understand why so many of them continue to support Trump.

They think a businessman is best suited to turn the country around economically. They feel Covid-19 was not Trump's fault, and he's doing the best he can to contain it. They conflate the Black Lives Matter protesters with the rioters attacking federal buildings and retail shops. They don't want historic monuments torn down. And they dismiss defunding the police as ridiculous.

These voters tell me they want America finally to be put first; they oppose immigration and trade policies they say give benefits to foreigners at their expense. And they want a non-politician who relentlessly fights back, after witnessing too many office holders fold in the face of special interests.

These voters may sound like typical Fox News watchers, but, significantly, the overwhelming majority are not. Many are, instead, people who get their news disproportionately from local television, regional websites and Facebook. Compared to the kinds of people who seek out news from national cable channels, many swing voters reside in a national politics desert.

In short, while America's political media generate a pipeline's worth of information daily, these swing voters consume merely a trickle.

Consider this: Over the past several months, most of my "Obama-Trump" voters couldn't name a single thing Biden had said or done regarding the pandemic. In bellwether Macomb County, on July 21, none of the nine voters I interviewed could name a single thing Biden had achieved in nearly 50 years in national politics.

Worse for the former vice president, several told me Biden would be a "puppet" of others if he were elected. That's because many are convinced he has "dementia," and they mocked him after seeing videos of his misstatements online.

That said, these voters are under no illusions about Trump's shortcomings. They hate the tweeting, but some tolerate it as the price for hiring the relentless fighter they want. As one woman in Edina, Minnesota, told me, Trump makes her feel "confident, but sometimes a little cringe-worthy."

In January 2016, I made a bet with a client that Trump would be the GOP nominee, when no one had yet voted. My client thought I was crazy, and even remarked, "Just to be clear, you get Trump, and I get the 16 other candidates?" After Trump won the nomination, my client thought I was a genius. I'm far from it, but I'm a pretty good listener.

What I heard was a certain candidate for president sounding exactly like the center-right focus group respondents I'd been interviewing for nearly 15 years. They and Trump shared the same grievances about America's decline and expressed them in a similarly simple and straight forward way. No other politician came close in terms of expressing what these people truly felt.

This year, Trump will not be able to vilify Biden. These swing voters do not dislike Biden the way they still dislike Hillary Clinton. And, so, Trump is taking a different approach, casting doubt on Biden by focusing on questions of his mental acuity and verbal mistakes. And he will likely get far by alleging Biden's lifetime in politics has not having yielded a single, career-defining achievement.

So there it is. Life outside your bubble.

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

[HarthorneWingo]

Kamala Harris wears less makeup than Trump.

[robillionaire]

True but now we actually experienced the “real of the deal.” And it was pretty, pretty, pretty ugly. His complete bungling of his response to the virus, if nothing else, will sink his presidency. Also, he hasn’t accomplished very much of anything to help the middle class. His border wall is a waste of time and money and was done, like most things he pursues, just to soothe his fragile ego. Also the tax cut only served to line the pockets of the uber rich and corporations. Long Island middle class home owners got killed with his cut in the home mortgage interest deduction.

If you see an electoral path for Trump to re-election, then I’d love to it. But base it on solid poll numbers. Don’t come at me with. I Ben Shapiro BS.

This far out I don't even look at the polls. And when I do start looking at them I'll be paying attention for weighting and bias. That's what I did the last time and that was the fatal mistake for the doubters. They believed their own propaganda.

It should be no surprise at this point but sometimes others see things differently than you. Others see a vibrant economy, prosperous times which helped everyone before the virus and don't hold Trump accountable for the aftermath.

Others appreciate the wall and the sticking up for the American Worker he repeatedly does with the trade deals. Others prefer the law and order he stands for and have no stomach for the disorder and chaos allowed to run roughshod over their lives, believe it or not.

He'll lose New Yorkers? How exactly will that affect his electoral chances?

He will get re-elected. It's not just me saying these things.

Here's what swing voters are saying about Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/opinions/swing-voters-midwest-trump-support-thau/index.html

And, each month for the past 17 months, I've had a unique window into the Americans largely responsible for giving the president his slim Electoral College victory: so-called "Obama-Trump" swing voters across the upper Midwest.

Our Swing Voter Project has uncovered that many of these people, who live in places such as Canton, Ohio; Davenport, Iowa; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Macomb County, Michigan, prefer Trump over Biden. In fact, 22 of 33 respondents in these four most recent locations feel this way.

And over the first year of the project, from March 2019 through February 2020, more than two-thirds of the "Obama-Trump" voters said they would take Trump over Obama in a hypothetical match-up.

Beyond the numbers, though, it's critical to understand why so many of them continue to support Trump.

They think a businessman is best suited to turn the country around economically. They feel Covid-19 was not Trump's fault, and he's doing the best he can to contain it. They conflate the Black Lives Matter protesters with the rioters attacking federal buildings and retail shops. They don't want historic monuments torn down. And they dismiss defunding the police as ridiculous.

These voters tell me they want America finally to be put first; they oppose immigration and trade policies they say give benefits to foreigners at their expense. And they want a non-politician who relentlessly fights back, after witnessing too many office holders fold in the face of special interests.

These voters may sound like typical Fox News watchers, but, significantly, the overwhelming majority are not. Many are, instead, people who get their news disproportionately from local television, regional websites and Facebook. Compared to the kinds of people who seek out news from national cable channels, many swing voters reside in a national politics desert.

In short, while America's political media generate a pipeline's worth of information daily, these swing voters consume merely a trickle.

Consider this: Over the past several months, most of my "Obama-Trump" voters couldn't name a single thing Biden had said or done regarding the pandemic. In bellwether Macomb County, on July 21, none of the nine voters I interviewed could name a single thing Biden had achieved in nearly 50 years in national politics.

Worse for the former vice president, several told me Biden would be a "puppet" of others if he were elected. That's because many are convinced he has "dementia," and they mocked him after seeing videos of his misstatements online.

That said, these voters are under no illusions about Trump's shortcomings. They hate the tweeting, but some tolerate it as the price for hiring the relentless fighter they want. As one woman in Edina, Minnesota, told me, Trump makes her feel "confident, but sometimes a little cringe-worthy."

In January 2016, I made a bet with a client that Trump would be the GOP nominee, when no one had yet voted. My client thought I was crazy, and even remarked, "Just to be clear, you get Trump, and I get the 16 other candidates?" After Trump won the nomination, my client thought I was a genius. I'm far from it, but I'm a pretty good listener.

What I heard was a certain candidate for president sounding exactly like the center-right focus group respondents I'd been interviewing for nearly 15 years. They and Trump shared the same grievances about America's decline and expressed them in a similarly simple and straight forward way. No other politician came close in terms of expressing what these people truly felt.

This year, Trump will not be able to vilify Biden. These swing voters do not dislike Biden the way they still dislike Hillary Clinton. And, so, Trump is taking a different approach, casting doubt on Biden by focusing on questions of his mental acuity and verbal mistakes. And he will likely get far by alleging Biden's lifetime in politics has not having yielded a single, career-defining achievement.

So there it is. Life outside your bubble.

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

Why should anybody accept polling numbers? If you accepted them in 2016 it led you to a completely false reality and conclusion where Hillary had absolutely no chance to lose. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...... you can't get fooled again!

This has "2016 all over again" written all over it

[GONYK]

There are way less undecided voters now than in 2016. That is where the volatility came from.

Hillary, even with her polling lead, never broke 50% nationally. That is not the case with Biden.

Obviously, that doesn't mean its in the bag, but it's not apples to apples. I agree that Dems should absolutely treat it like we are down.

Also, the polling in 2016 was accurate. Hillary won the popular vote by 3%. Trump is president because of like 80k votes in 3 states. It just re-emphasizes that state polls are more meaningful than national ones.

[Pointgod]

This far out I don't even look at the polls. And when I do start looking at them I'll be paying attention for weighting and bias. That's what I did the last time and that was the fatal mistake for the doubters. They believed their own propaganda.

It should be no surprise at this point but sometimes others see things differently than you. Others see a vibrant economy, prosperous times which helped everyone before the virus and don't hold Trump accountable for the aftermath.

Others appreciate the wall and the sticking up for the American Worker he repeatedly does with the trade deals. Others prefer the law and order he stands for and have no stomach for the disorder and chaos allowed to run roughshod over their lives, believe it or not.

He'll lose New Yorkers? How exactly will that affect his electoral chances?

He will get re-elected. It's not just me saying these things.

Here's what swing voters are saying about Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/opinions/swing-voters-midwest-trump-support-thau/index.html


So there it is. Life outside your bubble.

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

Why should anybody accept polling numbers? If you accepted them in 2016 it led you to a completely false reality and conclusion where Hillary had absolutely no chance to lose. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...... you can't get fooled again!

This has "2016 all over again" written all over it

People who say this don’t actually understand how polling works. You do understand that the most accurate models had Trump at a 30% chance of winning right? And they correctly predicted the popular vote results. The mistake was not conducting more accurate state polls. Still polling only tells you a extrapolated trend at a point in time. Trump winning was a massive fluke that took the combined forces of James Comey, a sophisticated Russian attack, massive voter suppression, historical third party share of the vote, literally millions of people who voted in 2012 choosing to stay home. Despite all of that he only won because of 80000 votes in 3 states.

If you don’t trust the polls ask yourself a simple question. Do you think state polls have gotten better, worse or stayed the same over the last 4 years? Polls don’t predict the future but they point to a direction. If your point is that Democrats still need to show up in record numbers and vote for Biden/Harris to embarrass Donald the **** then I agree with you.

[Pointgod]

There are way less undecided voters now than in 2016. That is where the volatility came from.

Hillary, even with her polling lead, never broke 50% nationally. That is not the case with Biden.

Obviously, that doesn't mean its in the bag, but it's not apples to apples. I agree that Dems should absolutely treat it like we are down.

Also, the polling in 2016 was accurate. Hillary won the popular vote by 3%. Trump is president because of like 80k votes in 3 states. It just re-emphasizes that state polls are more meaningful than national ones.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-way-too-soon-to-count-trump-out/

Yup. Don’t get complacent. Let’s go out there and win this thing. Register people to vote, make sure they continuously check their registration, make sure they vote early if possible and if voting by mail send it early as possible. If you’re young, volunteer as a poll worker.

[robillionaire]

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

Why should anybody accept polling numbers? If you accepted them in 2016 it led you to a completely false reality and conclusion where Hillary had absolutely no chance to lose. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...... you can't get fooled again!

This has "2016 all over again" written all over it

People who say this don’t actually understand how polling works. You do understand that the most accurate models had Trump at a 30% chance of winning right? And they correctly predicted the popular vote results. The mistake was not conducting more accurate state polls. Still polling only tells you a extrapolated trend at a point in time. Trump winning was a massive fluke that took the combined forces of James Comey, a sophisticated Russian attack, massive voter suppression, historical third party share of the vote, literally millions of people who voted in 2012 choosing to stay home. Despite all of that he only won because of 80000 votes in 3 states.

If you don’t trust the polls ask yourself a simple question. Do you think state polls have gotten better, worse or stayed the same over the last 4 years? Polls don’t predict the future but they point to a direction. If your point is that Democrats still need to show up in record numbers and vote for Biden/Harris to embarrass Donald the **** then I agree with you.

What is the percentage chance of him winning now? What percentage chance do you think he has? 538 says he has a 28% chance to win. Seems pretty close to the 30% chance you are citing from 2016 when he won. This is august. Things are going to happen between now and November. The direction can change at the drop of a hat. My point is that people are acting as if it's a foregone conclusion that he is going to lose when that couldn't be further from the truth.

[Phish Tank]

There are way less undecided voters now than in 2016. That is where the volatility came from.

Hillary, even with her polling lead, never broke 50% nationally. That is not the case with Biden.

Obviously, that doesn't mean its in the bag, but it's not apples to apples. I agree that Dems should absolutely treat it like we are down.

Also, the polling in 2016 was accurate. Hillary won the popular vote by 3%. Trump is president because of like 80k votes in 3 states. It just re-emphasizes that state polls are more meaningful than national ones.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/its-way-too-soon-to-count-trump-out/

Yup. Don’t get complacent. Let’s go out there and win this thing. Register people to vote, make sure they continuously check their registration, make sure they vote early if possible and if voting by mail send it early as possible. If you’re young, volunteer as a poll worker.

Yep to all of this. I think most people have learned and are not complacent anymore. I'm pretty sure the campaign believes the same, although they have to use some of these "polls" for purposes of grandstanding every now and then because polling is really part of a media horse race to satisfy the major networks and publications than anything.

[GONYK]

Read on Twitter

[Oscirus]

also to the myth of trump secret voters. Polls had hillary at +3 percent, she won the vote by about 2.7 percent.

[j4remi]

Read on Twitter

I feel like this isn't the first time he's said it but maybe in the past he was just alluding to it rather than flat out stating as much. This is why I wish the Dems had more mail-in focus during the early portion of the primaries; just to have even more blatant evidence that the process is effective.

On another Trump gaffe note, I know Trump heads find rationalizations for this stuff but man...how do we get a charitable reading of this one? Because the woman tweeting the clip seems to think it's a valid defense of Trump.

Read on Twitter

At the very minimum, this sounds a lot like threatening suburbia with poor people invading to me and that's if we're being as kind as possible about him bringing up the percentage of minorities in the suburbs (which would also mean he's pitting minorities against the poor and affordable housing).

[HarthorneWingo]

This far out I don't even look at the polls. And when I do start looking at them I'll be paying attention for weighting and bias. That's what I did the last time and that was the fatal mistake for the doubters. They believed their own propaganda.

It should be no surprise at this point but sometimes others see things differently than you. Others see a vibrant economy, prosperous times which helped everyone before the virus and don't hold Trump accountable for the aftermath.

Others appreciate the wall and the sticking up for the American Worker he repeatedly does with the trade deals. Others prefer the law and order he stands for and have no stomach for the disorder and chaos allowed to run roughshod over their lives, believe it or not.

He'll lose New Yorkers? How exactly will that affect his electoral chances?

He will get re-elected. It's not just me saying these things.

Here's what swing voters are saying about Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/opinions/swing-voters-midwest-trump-support-thau/index.html


So there it is. Life outside your bubble.

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

Why should anybody accept polling numbers? If you accepted them in 2016 it led you to a completely false reality and conclusion where Hillary had absolutely no chance to lose. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...... you can't get fooled again!

This has "2016 all over again" written all over it

I guess because (1) I can’t wrap my mind around another another 4 years of Trump, and (2) I would hope that these pollsters aren’t making the same damn mistakes again.

[j4remi]

Why should anybody accept polling numbers? If you accepted them in 2016 it led you to a completely false reality and conclusion where Hillary had absolutely no chance to lose. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me...... you can't get fooled again!

This has "2016 all over again" written all over it

I guess because (1) I can’t wrap my mind around another another 4 years of Trump, and (2) I would hope that these pollsters aren’t making the same damn mistakes again.

The problem imo isn't the polling numbers themselves, it's how people treat them. We oversimplify them when the value of a good poll is drilling down to contextualize the results you see. Like GONYK pointing out that this time around the voters are a lot more decided on who they're picking at this point; that makes the numbers seem more reliable at a minimum. Not that I'm saying the polls are flawless or to be complacent but the context of these polls is very different from when Hillary had her lead and poll diving can be fun but I'd compare it to playing fantasy sports or something. You're always speculating and it's just the methods to your educated guessing.

[BallSacBounce]

Images like the black guy smiling as he walked past a group of gun toting whites lined up on the side of the road in an act of intimidation will stick in the minds of suburban moms as much as any image of a burning building during the riots.

I think more people are fed up with gun proliferation and now people brandishing their weapons to intimidate than they are with a bunch of protestors marching through their suburban neighborhood chanting BLM.

School shootings and actual acts of domestic terrorism that are often racially driven are a bigger threat to most families than a congregation of people expressing their first amendment rights even if sometimes there are people who go too far. And most of those people have probably caught on that Antifa is a right wing propaganda slogan, not an actual insurrectionary force about to overthrow the government.

I trust enough Americans now understand that the real threat is going to come from fascists who will ruin this country if they consolidate power and turn the security state into a full-time shakedown operation of anyone who opposes them staying in power. Then it will be everyone in their rifle sights regardless of race or religion. It will be just Us vs. Them, Civilians vs. Rulers.

That's the greater threat and Trump has made it very clear that's what he stands for. He is the very definition of anti-Democracy so anyone who values their freedom and the right to vote in the future will be against Trump now. Trump mocks everything soldiers pledged their lives to defend so I expect a heavy showing of angry veterans at the polls this time.

Your first paragraph nah, not a chance.

Second paragraph I think your suburban mom is way more interested in personal protection for their family than you think.

Third one, really? You think Antifa is nothing more than a right wing slogan? Who's burning down the buildings and destroying things then? There's like, photo evidence, indictments and stuff.

The fourth paragraph is pure projection. It was Trump that was attacked by security state fascists trying to consolidate their power in place of a duly elected president. I mean really now. You can agree with them if you want but how can you not see they did exactly what you accuse others of. That's hilarious.

Fifth paragraph, whatever.

Okay let’s see those indictments of Antifa members from a DOJ source. I bet you can’t produce them because like everything Trump and his administration say it’s complete bull. Why isn’t Trump and Barr talking about the white supremacists and far right presence that are causing violence in the protests and killing police? You can’t claim to be law and order but completely ignore domestic terrorists because they’re just as racist as you. Here’s a link, I know you won’t read it so I pulled out the important parts for you.

https://theintercept.com/2020/07/15/george-floyd-protests-police-far-right-antifa/

Among the steady stream of threats from the far-right were repeated encounters between law enforcement and heavily armed adherents of the so-called boogaloo movement, which welcomes armed confrontation with cops as means to trigger civil war. With much of the U.S. policing apparatus on the hunt for antifa instigators, those violent aspirations appear to have materialized in a string of targeted attacks in California that left a federal protective services officer and a sheriff’s deputy dead and several other law enforcement officials wounded.

German argued that the impulse to paint both sides of the political spectrum with the same brush, despite the fact that only the far right is actively killing people, is among the most dangerous features of modern American law enforcement. In his review of the documents produced in response to the recent protests, German said purported “threats” from antifa were routinely overblown, often framed vandalism as terrorism and were typically absent of concrete evidence of serious criminal activity.

In a separate document disseminated the following day, DHS warned its workforce that the nation’s “period of darkness” would soon worsen, as “violent protest movements” grew. Domestic extremists would capitalize on the unrest to “take over government facilities and attack law enforcement,” DHS predicted, with protests following police killings of civilians “posing a high risk of escalating to both premeditated and random attacks targeting law enforcement officers nationwide.” The document went on to describe how “users of a white supremacist extremist Telegram channel attempted to incite followers to engage in violence and start the ‘boogaloo’ — a term used by some violent extremists to refer to the start of a second Civil War — by shooting in a crowd.”

Among the developments cited in the bulletin was the May 29 assassination of a federal court security guard in Oakland. The alleged perpetrator would later be identified as Steven Carrillo, a 32-year-old sergeant in an elite Air Force security unit. According to authorities, Carrillo would go on to ambush and kill a sheriff’s deputy and wound several others in a second targeted attack days later. In court filings last month, the FBI reported that the airman had a ballistics vest bearing a boogaloo patch. Following a shootout with police, Carrillo reportedly used his own blood to scrawl phrases associated with the movement on the hood of a vehicle he had carjacked.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-protests-antifa/us-prosecutors-do-not-charge-portland-protesters-with-antifa-ties-idUSKCN2502NQ

U.S. federal prosecutors have produced no evidence linking dozens of people arrested in anti-racism protests in Portland, Oregon, to the antifa or anarchist movements, despite President Donald Trump's assertions they are fueling the unrest.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in Portland confirmed this in an email to Reuters on Tuesday.

Just because Trump repeats the same lies over and over again doesn’t make it true. Only really stupid people believe anything from him and his administration. You’re being conned by a conman and you’re only happy to be conned. What happened to the migrant hoards at the border right before the 2018 midterms or the threats from MS13? Don’t you find it the tiniest bit convenient that all these threats disappeared once the midterms were over? I suspect that you’re a troll so I’ve just wasted my time but stop spreading this stupid bull because it makes you look like a delusional idiot.

So it's a vast right-wing conspiracy of far right agitators causing all the violence, destruction and chaos. Okey doke.

CHAZ..right wing? The kid that got shot in Atlanta by a Black BLM member, right wing? That's just freaking hilarious.

I'm not sure at this point if the DOJ would or should be saying it's an Antifa thing. I think they just arrest and charge them for what they suspect them of doing and any criminal conspiracy comes later.

EDIT: And here it is, straight from your Reuters article.

“We have not alleged defendant affiliation with any specific groups or ideologies in our cases stemming from recent Portland protests,” said Kevin Sonoff, the spokesman. “Our cases focus purely on the criminal conduct alleged.”

Anyway, here ya go...
https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2020/06/06/3-members-of-anti-government-group-antifa-arrested-after-looting-a-target-in-austin-fbi-says/

AUSTIN – Three people have been arrested for looting, burglarizing and damaging property at an Austin Target store, according to the FBI.

The three individuals are known members of the anti-government group ANTIFA, FBI officials said

.

However, I have no doubt a "boogaloo' or two are out there as well. I know "Umbrella Man" was one. But I think that's more a deflection from Democrats about the real problem here, Antifa and BLM Marxists.

[robillionaire]

antifa is only a problem for fascists and BLM is only a problem for racists

[BallSacBounce]

True but now we actually experienced the “real of the deal.” And it was pretty, pretty, pretty ugly. His complete bungling of his response to the virus, if nothing else, will sink his presidency. Also, he hasn’t accomplished very much of anything to help the middle class. His border wall is a waste of time and money and was done, like most things he pursues, just to soothe his fragile ego. Also the tax cut only served to line the pockets of the uber rich and corporations. Long Island middle class home owners got killed with his cut in the home mortgage interest deduction.

If you see an electoral path for Trump to re-election, then I’d love to it. But base it on solid poll numbers. Don’t come at me with. I Ben Shapiro BS.

This far out I don't even look at the polls. And when I do start looking at them I'll be paying attention for weighting and bias. That's what I did the last time and that was the fatal mistake for the doubters. They believed their own propaganda.

It should be no surprise at this point but sometimes others see things differently than you. Others see a vibrant economy, prosperous times which helped everyone before the virus and don't hold Trump accountable for the aftermath.

Others appreciate the wall and the sticking up for the American Worker he repeatedly does with the trade deals. Others prefer the law and order he stands for and have no stomach for the disorder and chaos allowed to run roughshod over their lives, believe it or not.

He'll lose New Yorkers? How exactly will that affect his electoral chances?

He will get re-elected. It's not just me saying these things.

Here's what swing voters are saying about Trump:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/29/opinions/swing-voters-midwest-trump-support-thau/index.html

And, each month for the past 17 months, I've had a unique window into the Americans largely responsible for giving the president his slim Electoral College victory: so-called "Obama-Trump" swing voters across the upper Midwest.

Our Swing Voter Project has uncovered that many of these people, who live in places such as Canton, Ohio; Davenport, Iowa; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Macomb County, Michigan, prefer Trump over Biden. In fact, 22 of 33 respondents in these four most recent locations feel this way.

And over the first year of the project, from March 2019 through February 2020, more than two-thirds of the "Obama-Trump" voters said they would take Trump over Obama in a hypothetical match-up.

Beyond the numbers, though, it's critical to understand why so many of them continue to support Trump.

They think a businessman is best suited to turn the country around economically. They feel Covid-19 was not Trump's fault, and he's doing the best he can to contain it. They conflate the Black Lives Matter protesters with the rioters attacking federal buildings and retail shops. They don't want historic monuments torn down. And they dismiss defunding the police as ridiculous.

These voters tell me they want America finally to be put first; they oppose immigration and trade policies they say give benefits to foreigners at their expense. And they want a non-politician who relentlessly fights back, after witnessing too many office holders fold in the face of special interests.

These voters may sound like typical Fox News watchers, but, significantly, the overwhelming majority are not. Many are, instead, people who get their news disproportionately from local television, regional websites and Facebook. Compared to the kinds of people who seek out news from national cable channels, many swing voters reside in a national politics desert.

In short, while America's political media generate a pipeline's worth of information daily, these swing voters consume merely a trickle.

Consider this: Over the past several months, most of my "Obama-Trump" voters couldn't name a single thing Biden had said or done regarding the pandemic. In bellwether Macomb County, on July 21, none of the nine voters I interviewed could name a single thing Biden had achieved in nearly 50 years in national politics.

Worse for the former vice president, several told me Biden would be a "puppet" of others if he were elected. That's because many are convinced he has "dementia," and they mocked him after seeing videos of his misstatements online.

That said, these voters are under no illusions about Trump's shortcomings. They hate the tweeting, but some tolerate it as the price for hiring the relentless fighter they want. As one woman in Edina, Minnesota, told me, Trump makes her feel "confident, but sometimes a little cringe-worthy."

In January 2016, I made a bet with a client that Trump would be the GOP nominee, when no one had yet voted. My client thought I was crazy, and even remarked, "Just to be clear, you get Trump, and I get the 16 other candidates?" After Trump won the nomination, my client thought I was a genius. I'm far from it, but I'm a pretty good listener.

What I heard was a certain candidate for president sounding exactly like the center-right focus group respondents I'd been interviewing for nearly 15 years. They and Trump shared the same grievances about America's decline and expressed them in a similarly simple and straight forward way. No other politician came close in terms of expressing what these people truly felt.

This year, Trump will not be able to vilify Biden. These swing voters do not dislike Biden the way they still dislike Hillary Clinton. And, so, Trump is taking a different approach, casting doubt on Biden by focusing on questions of his mental acuity and verbal mistakes. And he will likely get far by alleging Biden's lifetime in politics has not having yielded a single, career-defining achievement.

So there it is. Life outside your bubble.

1. I live smack dab in the middle of Trumpland so trust me when I tell you I live in no bubble.

2. Long Island was the only place where suburban voters got killed by the mortgage interest deduction in the Trump tax bill. It’s happened all over the country to middle income home-owning voters.

3. Trump has routinely and consistently hovered at 40% approval rating. It’s probably under that now.

4. The economy is going well? Is that really what you wrote? Where are you getting this information from?

5. To whatever extent that the economy was “doing well” it was more a function of Obama’s stimulus package. Job growth numbers continued on the same trajectory for Trump that it was for Obama. But you’re going to give Trump the credit for that? LOL

6. Listening to the rationales from a handpicked group of Trump supporters to say why they like him so much offers little support for why he’ll be re-elected. Yet you’ll reference them while refusing to accept any polling numbers at all. Sounds like you just have your head buried in the sand.

7. The stupid ass border wall makes Americans feel safe? It does? Where? In El Paso? LOL. Maybe if we didn’t sell so much weaponry to the Cartel, maybe they would t be trying to cross the border so much. Moreover, at least prior to the pandemic, more Mexicans were leaving the US that immigrating here. Finally, there were less costly more effective ways (high tech surveillance) that could’ve been implemented instead without all of this nonsense. Oh, and by the way, when exactly is Mexico paying for the wall?

Trump has always had a low approval rating, didn't stop him from getting elected and it won't stop him from being re-elected.

I didn't say I refuse to accept poll numbers. You're putting words in my mouth. I said I don't look at them this far out. IMO it's a waste of time right now. But you go ahead and believe them Wingo. President Dukakis was up by 15 points at this point...oh wait!!!

So the fantastic economic numbers in Trump's tenure were all Obama's doing? Let's see how that works out for ya.

You really have your head in the sand, sorry buddy.