DMC

Angela Alsobrooks won the Maryland Democratic primary tonight to replace Ben Cardin in the Senate. Her opponent, David Trone, spent $61 million of his own money on the campaign. Proving once again the diminishing returns of ludicrous funding.

Just to build off this, looking at the crosstabs linked above, it is plainly young people that are driving Biden losing. To be clear, this is just under registered voters, but Biden is actually losing 18 to 29 year olds to Trump, when he won that age group 60 to 36 four years ago. His net approval there is lowest among all age groups. And if you’re wondering where that ticket-splitting is coming from, 18-29 prefer the Democratic Senate candidate 50 to 29, but Trump 46 to 43. (Georgia and Michigan were not included in the Senate sample since there is no race this cycle.) Do I think this is because NYT/Siena is wrong? No. Is it a sampling or weighting issue? No.* Do I think this will be the case come November? Absolutely not. Young people are pissed right now, and rightfully so. But unless you are in that age group, I’d wager I spend more time with 18 to 29 year olds than anyone reading this. And when I do, I am literally discussing American politics with them, or monitoring discussions amongst themselves. I teach about 200 students per semester, albeit that’s nearly cut in half during the summer which started yesterday. The vast majority of them are 18 to 29 years old. That may be “anecdotal,” but I am very confident those crosstabs will look drastically different come November among that age group. *If you scroll down to the end of the crosstabs link they actually show you the weighting. Plainly the biggest “correction” they made was with uneducated voters - still clearly trying to account for the Trump underestimating. ETA/Correction: There is, of course, an open Senate seat in Michigan this cycle to replace the retiring Debbie Stabenow. I imagine NYT/Siena omitted the that because the primaries aren’t until August 6.

Again, depends on the contract details. Hurts signed his deal a year ago - and certainly was a top ten QB in 2022. Not to mention the fact his cap hits are actually significantly lower than 45 million throughout most of the contract.

A $45 million cap number is now about 17.6 percent of the salary cap. A team can absolutely build a Super Bowl caliber roster under those conditions.

Again, it depends on the details of Goff’s contract, which I honestly don’t know.

Again, 11 percent “new” voters (new registrants + those that did not vote in the previous midterm AND general) is not particularly unusual for a presidential cycle. Obviously 2020 was an outlier, but it was the only one I could quickly find data on. A full 19 percent didn’t vote in 2018 nor 2016. The numbers I saw in the aforementioned item was Biden 40, Trump 37. The numbers you cited add up to 108.

The top line looks like an overpay for Goff, but with NFL contracts, it’s all in the details. Kawakami at the Athletic had an article the other day about Purdy’s extension next year. He was hopeful - as am I - that his new contract will follow the Jalen Hurts template: That seems fair for Purdy, and - frankly - for Goff too.

They are polling from the individual states, but the samples of those individual states are relatively low - again, in the low 600s in five of the six states. Just click on the linked cross tabs page and you can check out the specifics.

I’m not sure why you find this surprising. According to the cross tabs, nine percent of their likely voter model didn’t vote in the midterm. Considering the difference in the electorates, that seems fine. Six percent are new registrants. That seems a bit high, but not outlandish. And five percent didn’t vote in the midterm or the last general. Again, that seems a bit high, but “likely voters” are measured by self-reported responses to an item - and always have been. Not sure where you’re getting this from. Annoying the crosstab page doesn’t number their items, but the one I’m looking at reports 18% of registered voters said they didn’t vote, two percent they voted third party (someone else), and three percent responded don’t know/refused. Those numbers seem just about right to me. Anyway, the main problem with these “swing state polls” is that while the overall sample looks great, it’s then split between six states. In this case, while the overall sample is a bit over four thousand, in five of the six states (except PA) are in the low 600s - and then there’s further roll off depending on the item. That’s inherently going to lead to large sampling error (i.e. margin of error).

It’s important to note that Democrats control both the governor and Secretary of State offices in four of the six swing states - Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In Nevada there’s a Republican governor but a Democratic SoS. In Georgia they’re both Republicans, but they’re also the same men that refused to cheat for Trump in 2020.

If Biden wins - surprise or not - there’s a 100 percent risk of post-election trouble.

Ironic thing for me with the prequels is they’ve grown on me over the years. Other than ROTS, I absolutely hated them as a teenager when they came out - I was 14 for TPM and turned 20 four days before ROTS. I agree that they are significantly better than the sequel trilogy, and while that may be faint praise, it’s a pretty crucial difference because I will actually rewatch them. Also I thought McGregor was pretty great as Obi Wan throughout the trilogy. I can’t say that about a single character in the sequels.

Um, the fact they agreed to a ceasefire template that included releasing hostages on Monday. The fact it doesn’t “enter the ballpark” of Israeli demands is immaterial. If you disagree with Hamas’ conditions, fine! Then publicize your own conditions for THEM to meet rather than plainly not giving a shit and being intent on the Rafah offensive. This is Diplomacy 101. No it’s not, it’s just convenient.

You’re talking in circles. Israel needs to keep the Rafah offensive on the table for negotiations, but the negotiations are not going to garner anything because Hamas won’t agree to any “concessions.” (Even though they have.). This is a rather transparent rationale to excuse further belligerent action without supporting it explicitly.