The thing is there were a lot of swing states that were very close , Hillary +1 or +2, but then you had all these non likely voters who became first time voters who voted for Trump because of racism. This time around those voters are considered likely or registered as they voted last election. I think there might be a number of first time voters that vote Dem this time around who aren’t included in these polls. I’m an optimist though.
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Your post mentioned strategists and pundits both of whom prognosticate mostly based on polls. I was making a slightly tangential, but clearly related point.
Strongly disagree with the first paragraph.
His base are morons and will vote for him regardless of the quantity of red meat.
His best (and probably only at this point) path to victory is to mash the voter suppression and cheating buttons as hard as possible.
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Well that’s a given. I don’t see any downside for Trump if he cheats as much as possible and refuses to leave office if he loses.
I think 99% of cheating and voter suppression’s value comes in close elections though. You can’t steal an election you lose by 2.5%+ anywhere near as easily as you can steal a squeaker. Suppression works, but it costs the winner like 25-50,000 voters in a statewide election or something. You lose an election with millions of voters by more than 2.5% and it starts to be pretty mathematically unlikely for you to win even with suppression and riggage.
There’s also a real risk with suppression which is that it can trigger a crazy backlash from the groups you’re trying to suppress. Black people in particular have a tendency to respond to oppression with large displays of solidarity, which in this case would potentially raise their turnout.
I’m not disputing that the cheating is happening, or that it works, I’m suggesting that there’s a limit to how hard you can cheat, and that there IS a point where cheating hits diminishing returns and that’s somewhere near 2.5% at the state level. The entire game IMO with the way things are trending is what happens when Trump inevitably declares that the election was rigged and refuses to leave the WH. Because that’s like 90%+ of possible outcomes right now.
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It is kind of a double-edged sword to identify so much corruption and criminality that he has nothing to lose by going all in on lying and cheating. Either he gets away with it or he goes to prison.
Trump ever going to prison has to be sub 1% probability no?
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I was thinking about this today and I agree. As someone else mentioned he is losing support for not stopping the protests. Beyond that he is losing support for not being racist enough.
If he does not turn his racism up to 11 those people can become stay at home voters. This would show in the polls to perhaps favor biden, but we all know they will still go and vote because Trump is pretty racist.
If the Dems win the election/ it isn’t rigged and he survives more than 2 years past the election I would put it quite high.
Trump never quits before the election because people fall out of buildings.
Trump is never ever ever dropping out. 1) He’s too self absorbed to believe or realize he’s going to lose. But more importantly 2) he, his family and his companies can’t afford to face actual investigations.
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There really are great reasons nobody like Donald had ever seriously run before. It’s because normally career grifter - money launderers avoid the kind of scrutiny that goes into being a national politician.
The presumption that nobody would be dumb enough to be on a first name basis with Sam “The Bull” Gravano (and very likely the person who ratted him out hilariously) and then run for president really shielded Trump from any kind of truly deep vetting before the 2016 election, and has since he became president because muh norms.
A lot of Trumps behavior makes more sense if you imagine his world view being a richer version of John Gotti Jr (who went to prison for being stupid enough to get personally involved with shaking down a strip club… this guy was supposed to be the acting boss of an organization big enough to need 500 people in middle management). He thinks like a gangster because it turns out that the skillset you needed to be Fred Trump (huge east coast homebuilder primarily) was more gangster than businessman… and his kid was never any good at business.
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I think bolded is a bit too simplistic. I mean if it were true shouldn’t he just straight up be dropping N-bombs at rallies (and everywhere else). Now that would be “as hard as he can”
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The cheat code in 2020 is literal cheating.
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I can’t listen to the Pence part of the task force briefing. Anyone let me know if he says anything that would be understandable withoit the hot dog in his mouth.
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Yup, and the 2020 electorate is not the same as the 2016 electorate. 2016 was perhaps the high water mark of the tea party. 2020 is the hangover.
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Pence says “fatalities are declining all across the country”. Maybe he means the death rate, as fatalities can’t really decline can they?
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daily or weekly fatalities can decline, obviously cumulative fatalities can’t.