US Politics: Locking Up the Vote!

[alguien]

15 minutes ago, Kalibear said:

No

ETA: Texas having a high turnout does not necessarily favor Dems in any way - any more than high turnout favored Sanders in WA state. 

As a fellow WA resident, I think what hurt Sanders' chances here was the fact they ditched the caucus voting. (A move I very much support.)

[Fury Resurrected]

21 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

I still feel strangely relaxed about the Presidential election right now. I still think Biden will walk this election. Trump will have another debate meltdown, giving the undecided conservatives looking for a reason to still vote for him very little, but a push towards Biden.

Don’t tempt fate, you wanna call down the wrath from high atop the thing?!

[Varysblackfyre321]

8 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

In the war for the Senate news, the polls are pretty darn good.  Some of the right-wing media is pushing that the race between Cunningham and Tillis is tightening and is neck to neck.  I don't buy it - every poll I've sign shows a clear lead for Cunningham albeit a reduced one. 

Polls show the race tightening considerably; 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/nc/north_carolina_senate_tillis_vs_cunningham-6908.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/coronavirus-concerns-factor-tied-north-carolina-poll/story?id=73670800&mc_cid=be7c246a92&mc_eid=[UNIQID]

 

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, alguien said:

As a fellow WA resident, I think what hurt Sanders' chances here was the fact they ditched the caucus voting. (A move I very much support.)

Yes! Totally, 100% - but it's also the case that it meant it gave more moderate people a chance to vote instead of the very active, very tuned in and very able to take time off crowd from voting. The notion that higher turnout favors Dems as a whole is flawed. Higher turnout in certain demographics favors Dems significantly, but higher turnout overall doesn't particularly favor Dems. 

[Martell Spy]

Judge blasts DeVos’ sweeping denials of student loan relief claims as ‘disturbingly Kafkaesque’
The judge ruled that DeVos had undermined the deal by denying large swaths of the claims without sufficient explanation.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/20/judge-blasts-devos-student-loan-relief-430341

A federal judge scrapped a settlement Tuesday over the Trump administration’s slow processing of loan forgiveness for borrowers who have accused their colleges of fraud, ruling that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos undermined the deal.

Quote

 

U.S. District Judge William Alsup said in a sharply worded decision that DeVos undercut the settlement by denying large swaths of the claims without sufficient explanation.

The class-action settlement, which was reached earlier this year and received preliminary approval from the court, was meant to force the Education Department to move faster on final decisions for roughly 160,000 of the backlogged requests for loan forgiveness, known as “borrower defense” claims. Some of the claims have languished at the department for years.

Alsup said he is alarmed that DeVos has in recent months responded by swiftly rejecting tens of thousands of the applications through “perfunctory” denial notices. Of the applications in question in the class-action lawsuit, DeVos has denied 74,000 applications and granted 4,400 applications, which the judge noted was a denial rate of 94 percent.

 

 

[Ran]

I noted what Wasserman said earlier, about the district-level polling being the best indicator of how things were going to go.

Wasserman was inteviewed by Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, and Sargent shared some details in the tweet thread about the interview:

 

It feels that like what we're really going to see is a complete blowout. Even RCP is starting to talk about reasons to believe Biden is going to run away with the election.

[Gaston de Foix]

2 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Polls show the race tightening considerably; 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/senate/nc/north_carolina_senate_tillis_vs_cunningham-6908.html

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/coronavirus-concerns-factor-tied-north-carolina-poll/story?id=73670800&mc_cid=be7c246a92&mc_eid=[UNIQID]

 

Yes, agreed but still a 2-3 point lead for Cunningham, including in two A+ polls from today.  I also hope his numbers will improve as the affair news wears off a bit.   

Added today

				DATES	POLLSTER	SAMPLE		RESULT				NET RESULT
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 15-18, 2020	B/C East Carolina University	1,155	LV	Cunningham	49%	47%	Tillis	Cunningham	+1
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 12-17, 2020	A+ ABC News/The Washington Post	646	LV	Cunningham	49%	47%	Tillis	Cunningham	+2
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 12-17, 2020	A+ ABC News/The Washington Post	706	RV	Cunningham	49%	46%	Tillis	Cunningham	+3

 

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Fury Resurrected said:

Don’t tempt fate, you wanna call down the wrath from high atop the thing?!

200 points for the West Wing reference.  @A Horse Named Stranger, you now have to go outside turn around three times and spit...and curse.  OT, but I watched The Trial of the Chicago 7 last night and Sorkin rehashed this old corny joke he used in West Wing:  "Why do they only eat one egg for breakfast in France? Because in France, one egg is un oeuf."  In fact the joke was mentioned twice!  Was pleasantly surprised with the film overall, but I don't get why Sorkin's so in love with that damn joke.

[Ran]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

In fact the joke was mentioned twice!  Was pleasantly surprised with the film overall, but I don't get why Sorkin's so in love with that damn joke.

It's good enough that I took the time repeating it to @Linda, who enjoys corny humor, especially with a linguistic bent. So this household, at least, can't blame him.

[Varysblackfyre321]

18 minutes ago, Ran said:

I noted what Wasserman said earlier, about the district-level polling being the best indicator of how things were going to go.

Wasserman was inteviewed by Greg Sargent at the Washington Post, and Sargent shared some details in the tweet thread about the interview:

 

It feels that like what we're really going to see is a complete blowout. Even RCP is starting to talk about reasons to believe Biden is going to run away with the election.

As has been previously discussed, releasing internal polling typically relies on a campaign wanting to frame something a certien way.

It could just be Dems want to enthuse people,  while Repubs want to stop complancy.

18 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Yes, agreed but still a 2-3 point lead for Cunningham, including in two A+ polls from today.  I also hope his numbers will improve as the affair news wears off a bit.   

Added today

				DATES	POLLSTER	SAMPLE		RESULT				NET RESULT
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 15-18, 2020	B/C East Carolina University	1,155	LV	Cunningham	49%	47%	Tillis	Cunningham	+1
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 12-17, 2020	A+ ABC News/The Washington Post	646	LV	Cunningham	49%	47%	Tillis	Cunningham	+2
U.S. Senate		N.C.		OCT 12-17, 2020	A+ ABC News/The Washington Post	706	RV	Cunningham	49%	46%	Tillis	Cunningham	+3

 

A two point is practically a toss up, it's well within the MOE for him to be under by a point.

[Zorral]

3 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Hillary in 2016 was barely more popular than Trump who was extremely unpopular.

He's right about that.  I was listening today to the LatinX woman who was the director of Hillary outreach to the hispanic voter.  She laid out everything she'd thought she was doing right, and it turned out she did it all wrong, right down to pretty much thinking of all of them as a block -- and she of all people should have known better than that -- and thinking of them as her father's generation, and tailoring everything she was doing that way.  It was a fracking disaster.

Man, we saw that from the gitgo. 

So now this same woman has written a book explaining to all latinos what it means to start saying LatinX.  This seems to actually show that yet again she's totally out of touch.  And of course she is.  She was mostly raised in Spain, and her father was  a highpowered news journalist on Univision. She knew nothing of the great diversity of the communities here, and after learning this with the defeat of 2016, "I would wake up in the morning and kick myself."  I don't think she had any idea even now of highly privileged economically and socially her life is in comparison to many of those who are part of the communities here in the USA. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

In the meantime with more of the godDemned Dems: Cuomo says no money to help with the election here in NY because the state's too broke; NYC's mayor goes to the Hassidim and APOLOGIZES for shutting down their hotspot neighborhoods which declared war on the US and the rest of NYC.  And they still aren't wearing masks, are still attempting enormous indoor gatherings, etc.  WTF???????

[Ran]

13 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

As has been previously discussed, releasing internal polling typically relies on a campaign wanting to frame something a certien way.

It could just be Dems want to enthuse people,  while Repubs want to stop complancy.

The MI03 polling, maybe.

But the polling Wasserman is being shown privately through his connections for the non-partisan Cook Political Report that definitely is not on the radar of 99.95% of the electorate? That's not pollsters trying to sway anybody. That's them telling a trusted reporter what they think is actually happening.

[Kalbear]

I think that the big mistake is that for a long time race equated really well to a demographical orientation because the AA population was largely uniform in voting style and leadership (and still largely is) - but that has a lot more to do with the history around the AA population in the US. Other groups of ethnicities have not nearly had that same kind of history and are significantly more diverse in voting behaviors. Heck, heard a good story about Cubans in Florida having three separate demarcations - the really old refugees who hate Cuba because they were kicked out (but are more about their current situation than Cuba), the second generation which have largely forgotten or don't care as much (or want to see Cuban restrictions lifted), and the newest refugees who hate all forms of socialism and are incredibly pro-Trump.

 

[Varysblackfyre321]

3 minutes ago, Ran said:

The MI03 polling, maybe.

But the polling Wasserman is being shown privately through his connections for the non-partisan Cook Political Report that definitely is not on the radar of 99.95% of the electorate? That's not pollsters trying to sway anybody. That's them telling a trusted reporter what they think is actually happening.

Even anonymously, even privately, nothing is said with no by campaigns.

It's not just them talking just because they want to inform people.

6 minutes ago, Killjoybear said:

Cuba because they were kicked out (but are more about their current situation than Cuba), the second generation which have largely forgotten or don't care as much (or want to see Cuban restrictions lifted), and the newest refugees who hate all forms of socialism and are incredibly pro-Trump.

True. Literally we’re talking about people across dozens of countries with their history and culture.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

43 minutes ago, Killjoybear said:

I think that the big mistake is that for a long time race equated really well to a demographical orientation because the AA population was largely uniform in voting style and leadership (and still largely is) - but that has a lot more to do with the history around the AA population in the US. Other groups of ethnicities have not nearly had that same kind of history and are significantly more diverse in voting behaviors. Heck, heard a good story about Cubans in Florida having three separate demarcations - the really old refugees who hate Cuba because they were kicked out (but are more about their current situation than Cuba), the second generation which have largely forgotten or don't care as much (or want to see Cuban restrictions lifted), and the newest refugees who hate all forms of socialism and are incredibly pro-Trump.

 

If you're interested, a documentary is dropping on HBO tomorrow called 537. I listened to this podcast today with the director, and yo, some of the details that went on between Thanksgiving, 1999, and December, 2000, are wild. One of the points the film is going to address is how Democrats are still worse at playing hardball than Republicans. The dirty tricks the latter were willing to pull are truly off the charts.

Also, it tries to explore why Cubans in South Florida reacted they way they did when Elian Gonzalez was forced to be returned to Cuba, and how that played a role in Gore ultimately losing FL. 

[Gaston de Foix]

6 minutes ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

Even anonymously, even privately, nothing is said with no by campaigns.

It's not just them talking just because they want to inform people.

Campaigns are not autocracies, the Trump re-elect doesn't exercise control over congressional campaigns (who are generating this data), and this is private data from both R and Ds (and therefore capable of being cross-checked).  Is some of it being shared because of an agenda? Sure. 

Also trusting this data point depends not just on the credibility of the data but also Wasserman's representations about it.  But actually if you read the article you see that Wasserman says Biden is halfway between the Obama/Biden 2012 position and Clinton 2016.  Which is a sobering thought in itself.  

[Fez]

2 hours ago, GrimTuesday said:

No, no republicans. I don't care if it was standard operating procedure back in the day, we are in a new reality where gestures like this hold any meaning and can actively impede us. Biden is already going to have people like Larry Summers around him (maybe not Larry Summers himself, but people like that), we don't need any addition voices in that room.

Right now all that matters is winning the election. If this appeal to a lost age of bipartisanship gains a net 500 votes across key swing states, it's worth doing.

All that matters is defeating Trump. Nothing else can come before that.

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, Gaston de Foix said:

Campaigns are not autocracies, the Trump re-elect doesn't exercise control over congressional campaigns (who are generating this data), and this is private data from both R and Ds (and therefore capable of being cross-checked).  Is some of it being shared because of an agenda? Sure. 

Also trusting this data point depends not just on the credibility of the data but also Wasserman's representations about it.  But actually if you read the article you see that Wasserman says Biden is halfway between the Obama/Biden 2012 position and Clinton 2016.  Which is a sobering thought in itself.  

He says Biden is halfway between Obama 2012 and Clinton 2016 with white working class voters.  He also says that he's +10 of Clinton in high education suburban districts, and in many of those districts, Clinton already surpassed Obama 2012.  

Also, as for campaign motivations, house districts release polls to help win those house districts, not to help Trump win.  Plenty of Republicans are releasing polls showing them running ahead of Trump in their district because it makes them look good.  Now there's still the possibility of selective releases, but if the picture is clear across dozens of races, then it's safe to assume the trend is there.

[Ran]

First generation Cubans (my parents, aunts, uncles, great-uncles and great-aunts, grandparents) and second generation (me, some cousins but not others) are pretty much correctly described. I think the newest arrivals from Cuba are not as monolithic as hating "all forms of socialism," though. I have some relations (cousins, or cousins of my mother) who have come over more recently and my general impression from most of them is that the ideals of socialism were great and good, but it's collectivism that sucks, which has led them to being very focused on personal welfare and wealth to the exclusion of all else. My parents have expressed varying levels of aversion to the newer arrivals, suggesting that they're really true believers of the socialist revolution (one particular relation is even believed, half-seriously, to be a Cuban agent...) but are cynical enough to do anything for a buck. It's a bit weird and complicated.

Speaking of Cubans, WaPo had an op-ed yesterday specifically about what the hell is going on with Cuban Americans.

[DMC]

36 minutes ago, Killjoybear said:

Heck, heard a good story about Cubans in Florida having three separate demarcations - the really old refugees who hate Cuba because they were kicked out (but are more about their current situation than Cuba), the second generation which have largely forgotten or don't care as much (or want to see Cuban restrictions lifted)

I think this is exactly on point for the Cuban vote (too soon to tell on the newest wave), but let's not fall into the media trap of granting outsized attention to the Cuban vote in relation to the overall Hispanic vote just because of Florida.  They're only 4% of the Hispanic vote nationwide and only around 25-30% of the Hispanic vote in Florida.