US Politics - Poll Position

[Relic]

continue

[Relic]

That's not why...Trump is a symptom, he's not the disease. 

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

The US is basically redder than I thought, and a lot more of them came out to vote.

Speaking of polling misses, my theory is new registrations (where I presume some R-D crossover was expected but none did), and perhaps soft support for Biden among the R's wanting to switch to D who eventually broke back to Trump. Well, its a theory anyway.

[GrimTuesday]

Just now, Killjoybear said:

Why? Biden ran on the most progressive platform ever by a large margin with a black woman as a running mate. And polls were off because people voted actively for Trump by +7 points relative to the polls.

Your logic would make sense if there was less turnout, but that isn't the case. It was by all accounts a very high turnout election and people chose to go to Trump. 

 

 

Biden's platform may have been "the most progressive platform ever", but that is not actually what he ran on. Joe Biden ran on Joe Biden. The main thrust of his campaign was restoring decency and honor to the presidency and healing the soul of this nation. No one is going to Biden's site and reading the platform except people like us, the average person bases their perception on a presidential candidate on what they see on cable news. In 2018 Dems ran on healthcare, exit polls yesterday indicated that somewhere around 75% of voters (not just Democrats) support the government taking over healthcare, that is a message that resonates with people, that tells them how you are going to make their lives better.

[Relic]

1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The US is basically redder than I thought,

I just don't understand how anyone looks at America is doesn't understand just how "red" it is. Or anyone paying attention to this race not knowing that Trump generated a LOT more enthusiasm. 

[Maithanet]

Just now, IheartIheartTesla said:

The US is basically redder than I thought, and a lot more of them came out to vote.

Speaking of polling misses, my theory is new registrations (where I presume some R-D crossover was expected but none did), and perhaps soft support for Biden among the R's wanting to switch to D who eventually broke back to Trump. Well, its a theory anyway.

I think it's very possible that a small but potentially meaningful segment of Republicans think that trolling pollsters and saying they're anti-Trump is funny/worthwhile.  Right wing news talks shit about pollsters all the time, so it doesn't seem that far fetched.  Obviously not very many, but even if just 1% of all republicans surveyed did that, it would result in Biden being almost 2 points overestimated.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, GrimTuesday said:

Biden's platform may have been "the most progressive platform ever", but that is not actually what he ran on. Joe Biden ran on Joe Biden. The main thrust of his campaign was restoring decency and honor to the presidency and healing the soul of this nation. No one is going to Biden's site and reading the platform except people like us, the average person bases their perception on a presidential candidate on what they see on cable news. In 2018 Dems ran on healthcare, exit polls yesterday indicated that somewhere around 75% of voters (not just Democrats) support the government taking over healthcare, that is a message that resonates with people, that tells them how you are going to make their lives better.

The people voting for Trump are choosing to not wear masks, not social distance and are catching covid at record levels. How, precisely, do you think they're going to be reached by telling them Medicare for All works?

Furthermore, one of the things that Trump campaigned on heavily was the boogeyman of socialism. Tell me, how does campaigning on socialized medicine help there?

[tzanth]

Just now, Relic said:

I just don't understand how anyone looks at America is doesn't understand just how "red" it is. Or anyone paying attention to this race not knowing that Trump generated a LOT more enthusiasm. 

It is easy to understand intellectually, but considering the stark geographic polarization in the country it is hard to grasp emotionally...  I've lived in the US for over 30 years, in three different states (including one red state), and I honestly can't recall a single conversation I've ever had with a Republican. I certainly don't know a single republican on a personal level (and I know a lot of people). Elections are just bizarre since I simply have no frame of reference to understand who these people are or where they come from. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Thanks Kal saved me trouble of trying to put together a lengthy sarcastic post about how trying to  run on issues against that two pence strongman parody, who can't cling two coherent sentences together was surely going to work this time around.

[Chaircat Meow]

Can someone tell me how likely it is that Arizona and its 11 votes has been wrongly declared for the dems. Apologies if this has been brought up and discussed already. 

[OnionAhaiReborn]

2 minutes ago, Relic said:

I just don't understand how anyone looks at America is doesn't understand just how "red" it is. Or anyone paying attention to this race not knowing that Trump generated a LOT more enthusiasm. 

I think we're actually a slightly center-left country whose center-right voters are distributed more efficiently across states and (often deliberately gerrymandered) electoral districts.

[Trebla]

So with the Democrats looking like they might squeak out a win for the White House, fail to win the Senate, and lose some House seats...will this cause them to re-think their priorities? Does it make sense to keep drifting left when blue collar workers in battleground states appear to be VERY middle of the road or even leaning right?

I'm not hopeful. I've seen lots of rending of garments that Bernie would have cruised to victory despite all evidence. Many workers don't give a shit about the environment or the cost of higher education (even though they should), they care about jobs. I just saw it pointed out on CNN that Nevada is closer than expected because workers want the state re-opened.

That leads into another thing: The Coronavirus hasn't hurt Trump nearly as much as it should have. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

I was curious, I had to look it up. His opponent was basically a Michigan GOP version of Maura Healey, who lost to Scott Brown in Massachusetts.

Heh.  Coakley ran against Brown, but that's a very understandable mistake in multiple ways.

20 minutes ago, SeanF said:

Yes.  Disraeli was one of the first Conservatives to realise that many working class voters were right wing.

You really need to start frequenting these threads more so we can get more Benjamin Disraeli references.  (That sounds sarcastic but I swear it's not.)

19 minutes ago, Killjoybear said:

It's not just that they're right-wing - it's that they're socially conservative. And there's only one party that offers that person anything. Whether you think that's good or not is immaterial - but the US is as a whole a lot more socially conservative than progressives wish it was. 

I really don't see the point in looking at "how to elect the next Dem nominee" from an ideological perspective.  If Trump has taught us anything it's that ideology doesn't really matter.  Now, I know, the Republican and Democratic party are fundamentally different so the comparison isn't the greatest (and indeed inherently flawed), but Trump wasn't able to co-opt one of the two major parties due to any policy message - including immigration.  He was able to do so by connecting and exciting a large part of the constituencies that compose the coalition that is the Republican party.  That's what the next Dem nominee needs to do.  I know it's much easier said than done and is admittedly basically a cop-out, but I really wanna emphasize I don't think ideology or some certain set of policies is ever gonna be some magical key.

6 minutes ago, GrimTuesday said:

Way to learn the wrong lesson from this election.

I don't mean to single you out GT, this was just the most recent example, but this really encapsulates the differences between the GOP-leaning and Dem-leaning voter.  If a Republican challenger beat a Democratic incumbent for president, every single last damn one of the GOP voters would be spiking the football, pounding brews, and "owning the libs."  Here we are, Biden's almost assuredly won, and all of our's first inclination is to wonder "what did we do wrong?"  I don't really have a point here, but it's simultaneously head-shaking and amusing.

4 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

I think it's very possible that a small but potentially meaningful segment of Republicans think that trolling pollsters and saying they're anti-Trump is funny/worthwhile.

Heh, when I first read this I read it as posters instead of pollsters.  I was like "well yeah, but what does that have to do with anything?"

[Reny of Storms End]

I wonder how much of Trump's support was just the power of being the incumbent. For instance in NC the govs race was called for Cooper before midnight, and last I checked he had more votes than Trump. Obviously we've seen states that vote red for Pres and then blue for Gov and visa versa, but it makes me wonder exactly how many votes an incumbent gains just for being the incumbent. 

[DanteGabriel]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

Heh.  Coakley ran against Brown, but that's a very understandable mistake in multiple ways.

Ugh, thanks for catching that. Healey is the current Mass AG. Their names are too similar.

[Martell Spy]

Gideon conceded in Maine.

[Kalbear]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

I really don't see the point in looking at "how to elect the next Dem nominee" from an ideological perspective.  If Trump has taught us anything it's that ideology doesn't really matter.  Now, I know, the Republican and Democratic party are fundamentally different so the comparison isn't the greatest (and indeed inherently flawed), but Trump wasn't able to co-opt one of the two major parties due to any policy message - including immigration.  He was able to do so by connecting and exciting a large part of the constituencies that compose the coalition that is the Republican party.  That's what the next Dem nominee needs to do.  I know it's much easier said than done and is admittedly basically a cop-out, but I really wanna emphasize I don't think ideology or some certain set of policies is ever gonna be some magical key.

I was thinking less about the dem POTUS and more about the Dem system as a whole, and how to elect more senators. For that, ideology certainly is going to matter to at least some of the states. It's not going to be a major win, because partisanship is basically all that there is, but if there is any hope at all you've got to make those smaller states sweat a bit and flip one or two. 

And ideology for that state probably matters. 

It does mean you have to start winning state elections early and often and have a big buildup of good candidates. But it also means you have to allow those candidates some room to go away from the general platform and likely be more socially conservative. 

[IheartIheartTesla]

11 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

Can someone tell me how likely it is that Arizona and its 11 votes has been wrongly declared for the dems. Apologies if this has been brought up and discussed already. 

Unfortunately no one knows because the outstanding votes are a mixture of late mail-in, ED day votes, provisionals and some rurals. the entirety of which may have a different make up than what have arrived so far.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

College friends on Facebook are starting to share bullshit rumors about 100,000 votes being “found” in Wisconsin that are all in favor of Biden.  

Trump is rilling up his cohorts for extra-judicial action...

[DaveSumm]

So after staying up all night, and watching all day, probably catching no more than 2 hours sleep sprinkled amongst that time ... Biden will cross the line while I’m asleep tonight I think. FFS.