2020 Presidential Election part 2

[alfaniner]

One of the the things I'm looking forward to most after tomorrow: no more campaign ads. If I hear the word "radical" one more time, I'm going to throw something through the damn TV.

OK, here's the most insane political ad I've ever seen. (I won't search for a link because I don't want to add to its hit count. Feel free if you like.)

Jason Lewis and his wife on the gun range, talking about those Radical Lefties. He even names his opponent. The ad ends with Lewis cocking his pistol and firing off three rounds into a target. ******* insane.

 

[JoeMorgue]

OK, here's the most insane political ad I've ever seen. (I won't search for a link because I don't want to add to its hit count. Feel free if you like.)

Jason Lewis and his wife on the gun range, talking about those Radical Lefties. The ad ends with Lewis cocking his pistol and firing off three rounds into a target. ******* insane.

That's every Republican ad in my area. They are all "Look I can hold a gun and I hate liberals. I literally have no other personality traits or qualities."

 

[The Don]

Fivethirtyeight has Biden up 4.6% in Pennsylvania on the eve of the election. Predicted vote share is Biden + 4.7%

ETA: And Trump won Pennsylvania with 0.7%, not 1.2%

RCP has Biden up by 2.6%.

You're right about the 0.7, not 1.2%

Nevertheless, if RCP is right and the trajectory is the same, President Trump is in for a relatively comfortable win.

 

[BobTheCoward]

In the event that President Trump gets re-elected it will be another sign that the Democratic Party have once again misjudged their candidate. Over the last 40 years, Democrats will turn out in force, in key swing states, for a "rock star" candidate who will sweep them off their feet (Bill Clinton and Obama). OTOH if they are presented with a less exciting candidate, Gore, Hillary, Dukakis, Kerry, then they'll stay at home.

Joe Biden, whose campaign was almost entirely "I may be old and bland but at least I'm not President Trump" is definitely in that latter category IMO.

But the person who wins the democratic primary is often someone that won the most votes from Democrats in those key states.

What is the alternative to that?

 

[Meadmaker]

Given that President Trump significantly outperformed the polls in swing states last time around, I'm tempted to believe the so called "skewed" polls AND give him the margin of error too.

As a result, IMO Biden +5 points is too close to call so Michigan is a Trump-leaning toss-up and Biden is just edging Wisconsin.

edited to add.....

Florida and Pennsylvania are IMO lost causes and will go to President Trump by a comfortable margin.

I'm afraid you are correct. I'm rather pessimistic today. I also think there will be a small, but measurable, effect of spoiled absentee ballots. In a close election, 0.5% matters.

On the opposite side, turnout appears to be incredibly high, which would also skew the poll results, but probably in the opposite direction, so I'm not without hope this morning.

 

[TragicMonkey]

I'm at my polling place, a school. I've never seen more than 50 people tops. The line today wraps the block. I'm at the far end of the football field! I estimate 800 or so in line ahead of me. This one is different.

 

[wareyin]

RCP has Biden up by 2.6%.

You're right about the 0.7, not 1.2%

Nevertheless, if RCP is right and the trajectory is the same, President Trump is in for a relatively comfortable win.

RCP is getting that 2.6 average by including Rasmussen who always skews 3 points towards Republicans, and Trafalgar who has been caught faking polls last week and also skews Republican.

I wouldn't trust them too far right now.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

I started to type 'If America re-elects Trump then it's finished and deservedly so' but then realised that's a bit unfair on the probably comfortably more than 1/2 of voters who'll vote for Biden and still somehow lose...

WTAF America though, this shouldn't even be close!

 

[TheSupermeerkat]

I think Trump will loose, concede badly and petulantly, and will do one of two things:

1. Stay in the US and declare himself the True POTUS, engage in a never endimg cycle of rallies for, and grifts on the MAGA crowd.

2. Flee to another country, claiming he's in fear of his life from the deepstate and form a government in exile.

In either situation, he'll support from Fox news who will strategically pivot to becoming the Democrat opposition channel, but not necessarily slavishly support Trump.

Also, he will attempt to form his own News Network.

 

[The Don]

But the person who wins the democratic primary is often someone that won the most votes from Democrats in those key states.

Well, yes and no. If all the primaries were held on the same day then you might have a case - but then again states that are safely Democratic (California, New York) or Republican (Texas, Ohio) have a large influence.

The fact that many candidates drop out so early because of the length of the primary process means that candidates who could make significant inroads later with the bigger states are already out of the race.

Also the people who vote in primaries tend to be the party faithful, not voters wanting to be wooed. In the UK Jeremy Corbyn was very popular with the Labour Party faithful, but much less so with the populace at large.

What is the alternative to that?

There's no alternative per-se but having a less tortuous, expensive and lengthy primary process could help. Then again IMO there weren't that many strong candidates in any case.

 

[Distracted1]

I'm at my polling place, a school. I've never seen more than 50 people tops. The line today wraps the block. I'm at the far end of the football field! I estimate 800 or so in line ahead of me. This one is different.

I am not particularly happy to see the long lines of engaged voters this year.
Considering how many Democratic votes were cast early, I suspect that there are a lot of Trumpsters in those lines.

 

[The Don]

I'm at my polling place, a school. I've never seen more than 50 people tops. The line today wraps the block. I'm at the far end of the football field! I estimate 800 or so in line ahead of me. This one is different.

This is another bizarre thing about the US election process. It's enormously expensive to administer and still results in an exceptionally poor level of "customer service".

I wouldn't claim that the UK system is world leading but we manage to have a polling station for approximately every 800-1,000 registered voters. I've voted in cities, towns and in rural areas and have seldom had to wait, much less wait in line with hundreds of other people.

 

[Distracted1]

I started to type 'If America re-elects Trump then it's finished and deservedly so' but then realised that's a bit unfair on the probably comfortably more than 1/2 of voters who'll vote for Biden and still somehow lose...

WTAF America though, this shouldn't even be close!

At its' extreme, our system could have a candidate winning with 22% of the vote against a "loser" with 78%.

It is nuts!

 

[TragicMonkey]

I am not particularly happy to see the long lines of engaged voters this year.
Considering how many Democratic votes were cast early, I suspect that there are a lot of Trumpsters in those lines.

Maybe it's just my neighborhood, but it's mostly young white people and old black people here. If stereotypes be true that suggests this place is going for Biden. But I live in a very solidly blue city. I don't think a Republican has held office here in sixty years.

 

[JoeMorgue]

There's this vague, usually unsaid but obvious in the subtext, mentality you often see in America that it's... distasteful to make voting "too" easy because it's so important you should just... get over it being difficult.

Of course the problem with that is how easy that mentality is to shift into "Let's make voter harder than it needs to be just because" affect and the problem with that mentality is that it looks exactly like after the fact rationalization for voter suppression, which it often is.

 

[Meadmaker]

Yesterday, I predicted that Trump would win all of the states labeled as "swing states" on the 270towin.com map, plus he would win Pennsylvania. That would leave Biden with 270 electoral votes, and a victory.

Today, I see that map shifted Arizona from "leaning Biden" to "toss up".

It's going to be a long night.


Unless.....turnout. It's really all about turnout. Who are all those people that didn't bother to vote last time, but corrected that mistake this time?

 

[johnny karate]

This is really concerning in the sense that I have never seen this anticipation during an election season. Any of the international posters have any similar experiences to share? I hope this is a once in a lifetime event, even if the end result is an overreaction to nothing happening.

edit to add: The coverage of businesses in New York in regards to this are quite funny in the sense that they don't have the balls to say the obvious.. that they are scared of the reaction to a Trump re-election causing the havoc. No one with a straight face can tell me these store fronts are boarding up in case Trump supports go wild if he loses. View that however you want, but that reality should be considered.

That’s because right wingers aren’t satisfied with vandalism. They kill people and plot to kidnap elected officials.

 

[JoeMorgue]

Even in 2016 Trump didn't win every state that was close. Clinton took New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Maine.

270 has Biden at 258 safe or likely votes, Trump at 125 safe or likely votes. That means Biden just has to win one (maybe two if it's one of the really small ones) of the "maybe" states and Trump has to win pretty much literally all of them. And that didn't happen in 2016. The margin was much closer.

 

[Distracted1]

Yesterday, I predicted that Trump would win all of the states labeled as "swing states" on the 270towin.com map, plus he would win Pennsylvania. That would leave Biden with 270 electoral votes, and a victory.

Today, I see that map shifted Arizona from "leaning Biden" to "toss up".

It's going to be a long night.


Unless.....turnout. It's really all about turnout. Who are all those people that didn't bother to vote last time, but corrected that mistake this time?

Yeah, as indicate above, I am worried about a high turnout.
The anti-Trump voters (and lets face it- that is all us "Biden Supporters" are) are already as motivated as any voting block has been in a long time. That there is massive turnout may indicate that the Trumpsters are rising to the challenge.

I need a Tums.

 

[Mader Levap]

Unless.....turnout. It's really all about turnout. Who are all those people that didn't bother to vote last time, but corrected that mistake this time?

It is easier to vote against. IMO higher turnout is good sign for Biden (taking aside general view that higher turnout favors democrats on average).