US Politics - A Dream of Swing

[3CityApache]

4 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

I mean, at this point, Trump could rape and murder on tv, then dance on covid victims' graves and half of the American pople would think it's ok.

They would not think it's ok, they would think it's lesser evil.

[SeanF]

9 minutes ago, Raja said:

Thanks for the link! ( I also spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out who on earth fivey fox was )

Lisa Savage ( whoever she is) getting 4 percent of the vote in that race in Maine.

As an aside, trump's twitter feed is going to go unhinged *very* quickly.

RCP has Collins on 394,346 to 329,200 for Gideon with 92% reported.

[teej6]

8 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I am getting a *little* concerned about Arizona, since only 86% of the votes have been counted (99% is an error), and 14% of Maricopa is still outstanding, but I dont know if it is ED or late absentee ballots. Thats why the call hasnt yet been made

AP made the call. So it isn’t just Fox.

[aceluby]

10 minutes ago, OnionAhaiReborn said:

Booker, Castro, or one of the many anodyne but younger than Biden white men who ran. Maybe Klobuchar.

I really wanted Castro to do better in the primaries.  He would have been a fantastic candidate.  I hope he runs again.

[Maithanet]

AZ:  If they're at 86% now, then they have ~450k votes left.  Biden is ahead 93k, so Trump would need to win about 61% of the remaining votes.  If those are election day votes from Maricopa, that does sound possible, although difficult.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

40 minutes ago, S John said:

What is with the blue bracelet of this dude on CNN. It’s like he’s trying to say, hey, even though I’m in a suit right now sometimes I wear shorts.

He could be wearing shorts if they are only showing him above the waist. It's pretty common.

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, JEORDHl said:

You know, I really thought Trump's Covid response would be the main impetus behind a big blue swing, but upon reflection I have to begrudgingly admit it could've swung the other way over economic fears, ie: more shutdowns [thinking people like Rhom, here]

Nutso.

It does seem to me that people more worried over economic damage went for Trump, despite the fact that:

1. We wouldn't have had to lock down so bad in the spring if he'd taken this fucking thing seriously.

2. Even if restaurants and other businesses are open, lots of people just won't go out until there's a widely distributed effective vaccine, so the economic damage would happen anyway.

3. Lots of people dying and hospitals getting overwhelmed would damage the economy too.

[Martell Spy]

3 minutes ago, Raja said:

If and *if* biden takes this, do we think it would have been possible without Trump's awful response to the pandemic?

I don't know that you can assume that. What shocked me is how little Covid mattered, other than delaying votes. Didn't think so many would be totally cool with another few years of pursuing a herd immunity strategy death march. Polarization trumps everything it seems, no pun intended.

[Maithanet]

Biden got another set of Michigan votes, so now he's up 0.6% in both WI and MI. 

[JGP]

56 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

It does seem to me that people more worried over economic damage went for Trump, despite the fact that:

1. We wouldn't have had to lock down so bad in the spring if he'd taken this fucking thing seriously.

2. Even if restaurants and other businesses are open, lots of people just won't go out until there's a widely distributed effective vaccine, so the economic damage would happen anyway.

3. Lots of people dying and hospitals getting overwhelmed would damage the economy too.

100%

An unholy coupling of the now and self interest.

[aceluby]

3 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

It does seem to me that people more worried over economic damage went for Trump, despite the fact that:

1. We wouldn't have had to lock down so bad in the spring if he'd taken this fucking thing seriously.

2. Even if restaurants and other businesses are open, lots of people just won't go out until there's a widely distributed effective vaccine, so the economic damage would happen anyway.

3. Lots of people dying and hospitals getting overwhelmed would damage the economy too.

And from Trump's own mouth Democrats are historically better with the economy, and even his own term showed this pre-pandemic.  The only way he kept it afloat was by putting trillions of dollars on the credit card.

The economic angle just doesn't hold water if you think about it for more than 5 seconds and the people espousing that rhetoric are either lying to themselves or are just full of shit.

[Maithanet]

NYT's votes left tracker estimates there are still 250k votes out in North Carolina?  That's a big number, is that right?  If those are mail in ballots, Biden (and maybe even Cunningham) could win that thing. 

That could easily get decided by the Supreme Court on whether to count those late arriving ballots.  And potential ballot spoilage of a disproportionate number of Dems might actually make the difference there. 

EDIT:  the current rule is that they count ballots that are postmarked by election day, so long as they arrive by Nov 10 (I think, could be some other day, but there's several days at least). 

[illrede]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

RCP has Collins on 394,346 to 329,200 for Gideon with 92% reported.

Are ranked choices a thing in that?

[Centrist Simon Steele]

43 minutes ago, QuietColours said:

At a guess, it's in part because Gardner never pretended he was listening to or sympathetic to the grievances and opinions of the people he was screwing over. Collins played that game. She never actually helped them, but she pretended she might.

That's certainly true about Gardner. I only see Collins from a distance over here, so her big issues. Last night, when it was called for Hickenlooper, I went back and found an email from Cory Gardner. On November 1st, 2018, he responded to something I wrote him in late September, namely: please do not confirm Kavanaugh. I explained the serious concerns I had, explained while I hadn't liked Gorsuch, I understood the pick to some degree (I don't, honestly). His response came back after Kavanaugh was confirmed, and it was a letter that essentially dismissed everything I brought up--but not specifically to my complaints, just dismissing the dissenters as hysterical and needing cool minds to prevail. (My department chair got the same letter).

I found that response, replied to it last night, and I said: this is a great night. I hope we never hear from you again.

[SeanF]

1 minute ago, illrede said:

Are ranked choices a thing in that?

No, first preferences, but she was on 50.6%.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

38 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

You have to admit Donald Trump is very popular in many parts of the country. For those of you who were upset or even angry with Biden being chosen as the candidate, can you please tell me which one of the 20 other candidates would have done a better job? The Democrats did not take Florida because 100,000 Latinos showed up to vote against socialism, so please, don’t say Bernie Sanders.

You're clinging to a narrative from the primaries that has no relevance here. This isn't about Biden being a candidate. He was the candidate. I've seen no one call for Sanders, Warren, Harris, or anyone else. 

The strategy of the Dems seems absolutely flawed. Essentially running as "not Trump" and kind of remaining invisible until the last month or two certainly did not pay off.

[JGP]

57 minutes ago, aceluby said:

And from Trump's own mouth Democrats are historically better with the economy, and even his own term showed this pre-pandemic.  The only way he kept it afloat was by putting trillions of dollars on the credit card.

The economic angle just doesn't hold water if you think about it for more than 5 seconds and the people espousing that rhetoric are either lying to themselves or are just full of shit.

Yet to a lesser extent we're dealing with a similar thing up here where I live. Tax breaks, deregulation [or further deregulation] hoisting responsibility for spreads onto people acting irresponsibly instead of government enacting responsible stop measures, this tells your low information type who has anxiety about a layoff, and/or losing their home, etc, that they might get lucky. 

It's jarringly apparent in Alberta [where I live] and it's enough for an individual to vote for themselves instead of others, for sure.   

[Iskaral Pust]

6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

It does seem to me that people more worried over economic damage went for Trump, despite the fact that:

1. We wouldn't have had to lock down so bad in the spring if he'd taken this fucking thing seriously.

2. Even if restaurants and other businesses are open, lots of people just won't go out until there's a widely distributed effective vaccine, so the economic damage would happen anyway.

3. Lots of people dying and hospitals getting overwhelmed would damage the economy too.

The weird thing about that is everyone involved in economics and fiscal policy expected the Dems to shovel huge amounts of stimulus and support during the COVID period, e.g. more income replacement.  US consumer incomes actually increased for March-August because of the size of govt support.  It wasn’t actually spent (savings rate went up instead) because people were fearful that the support might stop (it has, but Dems would promise to sustain it) and because some common spending venues were and will be unavailable.

So if your primary fear is economic anxiety during COVID, the Dems print & spend would help a lot more than Reps re-open & hope.  I don’t think voters really internalized that though.

[teej6]

6 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

It does seem to me that people more worried over economic damage went for Trump, despite the fact that:

1. We wouldn't have had to lock down so bad in the spring if he'd taken this fucking thing seriously.

2. Even if restaurants and other businesses are open, lots of people just won't go out until there's a widely distributed effective vaccine, so the economic damage would happen anyway.

3. Lots of people dying and hospitals getting overwhelmed would damage the economy too.

The most important deciding factor based on exit polls was the economy, and somehow these mindless drones think that Trump is better for the economy. And in two years they’ll incorrectly find validation in this line of thought of theirs when obstructionist Mitch does everything in his power to make sure the Biden administration fails. 

[Maithanet]

Just now, Simon Steele said:

The strategy of the Dems seems absolutely flawed. Essentially running as "not Trump" and kind of remaining invisible until the last month or two certainly did not pay off.

It seems to be a big drag on the Dems downballot.  At the moment it feels like Biden has some huge reverse coattails.  Aside from our expectations from the polls, Biden himself didn't do that badly.  His path to 270 is clear and he has multiple backup states that are still counting.