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2020 Presidential Election part 2

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It's probably not a healthy thing to do right now while killing time, but I've been following a real time FL vote tracker

It's by county, and here is the county acronym list. You can just put in the abbreviation in the URL.

The link is Pinellas county, which narrowly went to Trump in 2016. Based on the numbers and the rate of Election Day voting, if non-affiliated votes break to Biden as projected by the last poll taken there, Trump could lose this county by 30K votes this time. This in a state he won by 110K total in 2016.

The county for The Villages - that humongous retirement community that was made famous by that dude in a golf cart chanting "White Power" - is currently at 59% GOP/23% Dem/17% NPA. Trump beat Clinton 68-29 in 2016. So, it looks like he's underperforming there, as well.

Of course, a lot will depend on how the NPAs break. Miami-Dade doesn't report here, but Broward does.
 
Bob001 said:
That's certainly troubling. But a key difference between then and now is that Clinton was almost universally seen as the sure thing, the guaranteed winner, and a certain percentage of people who might have voted for her just stayed home because they didn't think their votes were needed. This time, as Ted Cruz(!) put it, Democrats will crawl over broken glass to vote against Trump. But it's extremely unlikely that Trump could attract more support than he had then.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...-will-crawl-over-broken-glass-to-win-in-2020/
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I just read an article that said there were four states where early votes exceeded the 2016 total. (Texas, Washington, Montana, and one other I forget, but it wasn't a swing state.) Eight additional states had early vote totals that were more than 90% of the 2016 vote. Florida and North Carolina were two of those. So, it's a safe bet that voter turnout will indeed be high.

Conventional wisdom is that those people are the ones that are crawling over broken glass to get out and vote against Trump, so the high turnout bodes well. But I'll be glad to see real result coming in to verify that. We should see the first real results in about 3 - 4 hours.
 
Meadmaker said:
I just read an article that said there were four states where early votes exceeded the 2016 total. (Texas, Washington, Montana, and one other I forget, but it wasn't a swing state.) Eight additional states had early vote totals that were more than 90% of the 2016 vote. Florida and North Carolina were two of those. So, it's a safe bet that voter turnout will indeed be high.

Conventional wisdom is that those people are the ones that are crawling over broken glass to get out and vote against Trump, so the high turnout bodes well. But I'll be glad to see real result coming in to verify that. We should see the first real results in about 3 - 4 hours.
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Georgia had 3.8 to 3.9 million early voters as of Friday and more mail in ballots could have come in Saturday and Monday. 4.1 million people voted in total in the 2016 election.
 
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
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I've never done it myself, but it's a thing that campaign volunteers do. If you show up at a campaign headquarters wanting to volunteer, there are a handful of jobs you are likely to get thrown at you. One of them is to hold signs on overpasses.

(I haven't worked on a campaign since 1988, and I'm sure some things have changed, but a lot is still the same. They probably don't stuff as many envelopes as they used to, and that "signs on overpasses" seems to have gotten a lot more common.)
 
portlandatheist said:
That is certainly part of it but the riots are definitely a part of the problem too, especially here in PDX. An example of this is Standard Insurance which is right next to the riots. They'll abandon much of their office space. This means less tax revenue for the city, less restaurant patronage, and so on.
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Of course, the source of that info always said "because of CIOVID19 and other matters", and never actually confirmed how many employees were already working from home before the protests presented any problems. He always mixed the two together. He also relied on vague and unspecific claims of problems.

And later in that same article:
Jonathan Bach, commercial real estate reporter for the Portland Business Journal, has been focusing on the pandemic's impact on downtown office space.

"I have not seen a mass exodus from downtown because of the protests," Bach said. "I think COVID-19 is consuming all the oxygen in the room."
...

"Less dramatic but almost more telling in this environment story is the sublease space," Bach said.

In June, The Portland Business Journal reported that vacation rental firm Vacasa put 37,000 square feet of office space in the Pearl District's RiverTec building on the sublease market. Bach said as it stands, sublease space available now still trails the dot.com bust and the 2008 financial recession.

"So those numbers may be a little more telling for offices in particularly and so far at least for the data I've seen, we're doing OK," Bach said. "Again, you’re not seeing a mass exodus."
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Which would indicate that the cause is far less protest-caused than the tone of your post would suggest. If it were protest problems, then they wouldn't be able to sub-lease the space, as the new tenants would face the same problems. If, however, it were COVID, then different tenants could use the space in a less-populated manner, and the sub-lease market would remain strong. While the sub-lease market has dipped slightly, it is far stronger than in similar economic downturns.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
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Reminds me of the overpass impeach Obama party/rallies they used to have back when we had a sane President. There would be 5-15 people with what looked like spray painted bed sheets yelling and waiving them on interstate overpasses.
 
Ambrosia said:
I still think Texas might flip blue.
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I have to say that I don't think you are right on this one. Texas is a weird State, politically. There are a few (3) major urban areas that tend to vote Blue but the rest of Texas votes Red. Look at the DFW and Houston areas. Sure, Houston and Dallas are the two biggest cities in Texas and those large counties are consistently Blue, but surrounding and outnumbering them are other suburban counties that are consistently Red.

I don't see those switching. The only hope is that the record turnout means there are a lot of Not Trump voters coming out of the woodwork this year. There's a shot, for sure. Could be a lot of young voters and disgruntled former Trump voters. But I fear it just means the Trump voters are also more motivated and those Red counties will just get redder.

Really hope I'm wrong -it would be a strong message for Trump and the GOP in general to lose Texas- but I am resigned to being right on this one.
 
Has Biden's refusal to go low to match Trump's vitriol helped him or hurt him? The guy, as far as I can see, has been relentlessly positive with his message - no real attempt to scaremonger in Trumpian fashion. Other entities, like the Lincoln Project, have gone down a darker route. Biden as far as I can tell isn't saying "Lock him up!" or "He's going to ruin (or has ruined) the country." I respect him for that, but does it help?
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
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...and a hitherto unknown demographic emerges...
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
Click to expand...

Yes, it's just so weird to me. Like a religious devotion to a cult figure. There are people in my city that I have respected for a long time and they are members of this cult! It's surreal. We have Trump Trains every Saturday* and every day so far this week. We have so many yards adorned with signs and flags.

One of two things: There's a real red wave in this Democratic Party stronghold OR the Trumpsters are desperate and making a show hoping to convince people to switch to their side. I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that there were 46k Trump votes in 2016 and the Trains are nowhere near that size. But I've never seen anything like it here.
 
I've been extremely anxious the past few days, some election-related and some not - yesterday I put on a YouTube "Best of Mozart" play list and it helped quite a lot, especially if I was focusing on the music, the structure, which instruments were playing etc. Just a tip. I feel like I have election apnea. I really hope it dissipates, and it might no matter what the result, because it may be the suspense causing discomfort rather than fear of another Trump term. I don't want that either though.
 
xjx388 said:
I have to say that I don't think you are right on this one. Texas is a weird State, politically. There are a few (3) major urban areas that tend to vote Blue but the rest of Texas votes Red. Look at the DFW and Houston areas. Sure, Houston and Dallas are the two biggest cities in Texas and those large counties are consistently Blue, but surrounding and outnumbering them are other suburban counties that are consistently Red.

I don't see those switching. The only hope is that the record turnout means there are a lot of Not Trump voters coming out of the woodwork this year. There's a shot, for sure. Could be a lot of young voters and disgruntled former Trump voters. But I fear it just means the Trump voters are also more motivated and those Red counties will just get redder.

Really hope I'm wrong -it would be a strong message for Trump and the GOP in general to lose Texas- but I am resigned to being right on this one.
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So what? That's geography. What you are describing is true in Washington State too. And Biden is probably going to win the state by 25 points.
 
xjx388 said:
One of two things: There's a real red wave in this Democratic Party stronghold OR the Trumpsters are desperate and making a show hoping to convince people to switch to their side. I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that there were 46k Trump votes in 2016 and the Trains are nowhere near that size. But I've never seen anything like it here.
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I keep hoping that Trump's negativity motivates some folks on the other side to cast a ballot if they haven't already.

Weird to think that in a few hours the polling will be over, if not the recounts and the lawsuits.
 
Dr. Keith said:
I was driving a bit on Sunday and saw people on highway overpasses with Trump flags. All I could think is: why?

I have never backed anything so much that I would wake up on a beautiful Sunday and think: Hey kids, let's grab some flags and head down to the overpass to cheer about _____ to the drivers below.

They just seemed unstable.
Click to expand...

Same here, marching back and forth with Trump sign, US Flag and Confederate Flag, saw him on my way home from work.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Albuquerque/comments/h8gfk6/moron_in_abq/

Also, saw a beat up old car, like early 90's Ford Taurus with a Trump flag and confederate flag on polls, like people do with lifted trucks. Just found it odd on a car, especially an old beater... like what did Trump do for you?!
 
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xjx388 said:
Yes, it's just so weird to me. Like a religious devotion to a cult figure. There are people in my city that I have respected for a long time and they are members of this cult! It's surreal. We have Trump Trains every Saturday* and every day so far this week. We have so many yards adorned with signs and flags.

One of two things: There's a real red wave in this Democratic Party stronghold OR the Trumpsters are desperate and making a show hoping to convince people to switch to their side. I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that there were 46k Trump votes in 2016 and the Trains are nowhere near that size. But I've never seen anything like it here.
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Same thing here in Vegas. Dudes in trucks with custom setups to fly 2 trump flags on the sides and a big ole American one in the middle. It's one reason people keep saying Trump is going to win here.
 
my thought is, all these people that bought the trump swag, what will they do with it if he loses? I was talking to my dad over the weekend, and we talked about how back in the day, the most a person would get would be an I LIKE IKE button to stick on your coat. now? people buy trump hats, trump flags, trump hoodies, what have you, like it's some sort of sports team. I have never had the thought " Man, I like this politician so much, i'm gonna wear his face across my chest!" just weird to me
 
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