It's official: Trump Is History, Says The Prediction Professor

[AdamSmith]

2 hours ago, Buddy2 said:

Pardon me, I seem to be the only one concerning about November and the difficult tasking of defeating a sitting a sitting president.

That is exactly what we are all talking about here. And elsewhere on this board.

Nein?

[Buddy2]

You and I and many others are doing it.

 

But not the  members discussing presidential projects.  Not a new subject:

 

See:

 

Smith, Margaret Chase et al. "The Right Man  for the Big Job," The New York Times Magazine April 3, 1960, 27, 120-122.

Predicting presidential elections was very popular in the 1960 by academics and journalist

 

Neunstadt, Richard E. Presidential Power: The Politics of Leadership. New York  Signet Ed, 1964

 

Kennedy and Johnson loved Neunstadt, he is forgotten now 

[stevenkesslar]

On 8/25/2020 at 5:49 PM, stevenkesslar said:

If there is a virtue to centrism, this is it.  Clinton intentionally played to the center left.  And in so doing, he actually did move the center a little more left.  And it also meant there was a big center, and he could get a lot of shit done.  When he left office trust in government was higher than at any point since LBJ.

On 8/25/2020 at 8:52 PM, tassojunior said:

Did you really just say that ? Without an lol? LBJ who had to go on tv sobbing to agree not to run for reelection because there were millions of people (Democrats) in the streets marching and rioting over his genocide policies in Vietnam?  Do you read anything not "published by DNC"?  Have the revisionist historians already started fucking with 1968 while we're alive?  Are you pretending to be too young to remember 1968?

You really did not understand my point, which was about Clinton, not LBJ.  What I said probably wasn't clear enough.

This is the virtue of listening to historians like Lichtman, and looking at models with objective facts.  Lichtman is of course making subjective calls, as we all do.  But it helps to have objective guard rails about what happened before, what consequences it had, what may determine whether voters throw President Toxic out, and what may determine whether Biden/Harris will be thrown out in 2024, too.  We know for a fact they will start with a very bumpy ride, like Biden did in 2009.  Like I said, it's Groundhog Day for him.

My reference to LBJ was that his Presidency was when the long slide in public trust started.  So it wasn't a compliment.  I think the JFK assassination was the actual kick off.  I've seen polls that at every point since 1963 a majority of Americans have believed there was a conspiracy to assassinate JFK.  If true, that might undercut trust in government.  MLK was despised as much or more as being admired when he was alive.  So I am not necessarily surprised that the Civil Rights/Great Society part of LBJ's Presidency didn't stop the slide.  And I agree with you that the Vietnam War of course contributed to the slide.

The impact of Clinton on trust in government is unambiguous.  When he was elected it was as low as it had been - which is perhaps partly why he was elected.  Other than Reagan, no other President in my lifetime has left government where it was far more trusted than when he came in.  That's ironic, too.  Reagan was the one who demonized Big Government.  Clinton didn't.  But he did say the Era Of Big Government is over.  Yet both proved when government listens to people and delivers what they want, people trust it.  What a shocker!

Note that Obama did not do that, despite some of the optimism (at least among Democrats) in 2008.  "Trust in government" is not one of Lichtman's keys.  But I'd argue this is another measure that objectively says much the same thing.  After 8 years of Obama/Biden that did not leave people feeling much better about government, it's no great shocker that people took a crazy bet on President Toxic.  His message was kind of, "Since it ain't working for you, anyway, let me go in and flip the table.  Whatayagottalose?"  At least President Toxic has answered the question of what we could lose after four years of his incompetent leadership.  I have not checked for an update.  But I doubt people have any more trust in government in Toxic America 2020.

I thought this was worth posting because it also speaks to the monumental challenges President Biden will face.  COVID-19 and the recession (or depression) we'll endure before the plague finally ends are the obvious thing.  I think in order to be effective it is essential that Biden has a Congress he can get laws through dealing with the multiple crises we are in.  The potential good news is that it's reasonable to think that, like LBJ, Biden could be one of the most effective Presidents in dealing with Congress. 

That said, LBJ's ability to get things done didn't help LBJ if you look at the chart above.  How much the downward spiral in trust was about Vietnam and how much was other stuff, you all can decide for yourself.  I suspect that some of that slide was negative reaction to LBJ's legislative wins - particularly dealing with race - by a big chunk of Americans. 

I also don't think there's any reason to hope that the post-Trump base that is left will be much different than they were in their Tea Party and Toxic Trump's America phases.  They will just be more bitter, probably.   If you think they will have an epiphany and learn to compromise or seek unity like Kasich, dream on.  So while Biden at least speaks the language of unity, it will very hard to achieve unity, I think.   Reagan and then Clinton both did, somehow.  So I at least have hope for Biden.  His impulses about compromise and coalitions and focusing on what the center needs to go along are similar to what worked for both Reagan and Clinton.

I'm posting this interview of Stuart Stevens both here and in the "Are We Shocked?" thread, where I've commented on him already.  I've binge read lots of interviews with him in the last few days.  This interview is the best of the bunch, I think.  It is a must read. ESPECIALLY if you are one of those people who still supports President Toxic.  In the other thread, I'll focus on some of Stevens' points that absolutely trash his former party.  His comments have a lot of nuance and authenticity to me.  So here I want to mention a few of his more positive and "woulda coulda shoulda" comments.  They make his arguments all sound real.  And help explain why his soul is obviously feeling tortured.

Since the point @tassojunior reacted to was about Clinton's competent leadership of government, here's what Stevens says about the deficit and the law he personally helped punish Democrats for in 1993 and 1994.  As was mentioned earlier in this thread, several moderate Democrats were tossed out in the 94 midterms for voting for a bill that had a huge positive impact, as Stevens now describes accurately.

Quote

If you go and you look at the last time that the deficit got wrestled under control, it was under Clinton. In part, that was because Clinton passed a tax increase. If you go back and you look at what we all predicted, and I made a million spots, we predicted economic Armageddon after the Clinton days. Instead, we had the beginning of the greatest period of growth in American history. We were wrong. I think we have to admit that and look at what happened.

Clinton can only blame himself for fucking up the prospects of an Al Gore Presidency with his impeachment , despite a really good economic track record,  .  What's interesting to me is Stevens comments about W:

Quote

What I say about this is that we were far from perfect in Bush world. We played too much to the dark side. But we had an aspiration to be better than we were ...  Look, Bush gets elected. If you look at that picture of him signing [No Child Left Behind] with Ted Kennedy behind him, I mean, today that would be submitted in a war-crimes trial in the Republican Party. It’s unimaginable that that would happen with Trump. There was that side of Bush ... Obviously, Iraq was a debacle, and we can argue about how that happened, why it happened, what they believed when they went in—but it was a disaster, undoubtedly, one of the great disasters in American history.

One of the things that is fascinating about Stevens is that he confirms, as a leading Republican guru, things I've believed about the Republican Party for a long time.  Including their ability to believe their own bullshit.  Which of course we all do.  A related thing that is fascinating is that Stevens speaks as a man who was in deep denial, and who has now stopped denying the reality of racism and ignorance and bigotry he played to to elect Republicans.  Yet some of what he says leaves me feeling like he is still in denial.

I mention W. and this period because while it's not clear completely from that chart above, the last peak in trust in government was not quite under Bill Clinton.  It actually happened right after 9/11, when the country rallied around W.  Since 2001 as you can see it was a downward slide for the rest of the W. Presidency to lower than ever before.  Which is basically where we still are.  

In one interview, Stevens wistfully said that had W. not been forced by events to be a war President, he might have been very successful at proving "compassionate conservatism" works.  This is why I feel he still hasn't quite comes to terms with the ugliness or incompetence of the W. years.  He's half right about war President.  Doing something in Afghanistan was a necessity.  And Americans overwhelmingly supported W. on that.  Iraq was a choice.  And as we all know, it was wildly divisive - before, during, and after it was supposedly over.  It's also not clear how being a war President stopped W. from being a compassionate conservative, fiscally or otherwise.  In reality, 9/11 was what made him popular - not his competence at running a compassionate conservative government.  And whatever the woulda shoulda coulda Stevens was hoping for was, as he now admits is was one of the great disasters of US history.

I would argue that the trifecta of the Iraq War, The Great Recession, and the loss of 5 million manufacturing jobs during W.'s eight years are the only three things you really need to know to explain why Republicans who don't think like Stevens rolled the dice on Donald Trump in 2016.  And so it's clear, I include the 5 million lost factory jobs because I think the rage and despair built up over time.  Including at the inability of Obama/Biden to really reverse the loss and devastation.  It all had a lot to do with the rise of President Toxic. 

In the Rust Belt states, the recent loss of factory jobs leaves them in as bad or worse position as they were at the bottom of The Great Recession.  So President Toxic didn't fix the problem either.  Except, of course,  in his alternative reality TV show where he is the best President in the whole galaxy!  Ever!

One way to think about 2016 is that Hillary had to carry all the baggage of Bill and Barack.  And she won the popular vote by millions of votes, and almost won The Presidency.  Jeb! had to carry all the baggage of his Dad and brother.  And he couldn't come close to winning a primary in his home state.  Maybe this is a stretch, but that's hardly an endorsement by Republicans of the recent leadership of the Republican Party.  And now Stevens says the whole thing is racist and rotten to the core, and it should be burned down.

Mostly this is just meant to be a rambling reflection on stuff going on in Stuart Stevens' head and heart.  But it does underline, as I already said, the magnitude of the crisis President Biden will face.  It's not good news that as part of Obama/Biden he was not able to restore those factory jobs, or trust in government, before.  And it's not good news that just like in 2009, 40 % of America or so will not approve of whatever Biden does.  Because Biden is the one doing it.  (Same in that chart above.  Democrats trusted government more under Obama, but Republicans trusted it less.  So it was a wash.  We've just been scraping along the bottom of a government most people don't trust for a long time.)

My comments were not meant to endorse LBJ.  Whatever he did with Congress, it did not have a positive impact on Americans' trust in the government he ran.  That said, even if it was on the way down, trust in government under LBJ was still over 50 %.  Since LBJ, we've only seen that at the end of Clinton and the beginning of W. 

So I am hoping that Biden looks to what LBJ and Clinton did as models.  In different ways, they both were able to build majorities that got important things done.  I'm assuming Biden's only chance of success is if he can get important things done that make people feel government hears them and is working for them.  And that will take a Democratic Senate.  Because at least out of the gate, past performance suggests that he can't count on one Republican to work with him - even if they do actually think (as Lindsey Graham said in that Lincoln Project ad) that he's one of the nicest guys around.

Edited August 27, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[JKane]

 

 

 

 

[JKane]

 

 

 

 

 

[tassojunior]

 

Flashback 1963- Gay hosts always invite the hottest guys.

 

 

Edited August 29, 2020 by tassojunior

[AdamSmith]

19 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

 

Flashback 1963- Gay hosts always invite the hottest guys.

 

 

Your cynicism is disbelieving.

What you said factually was true.

So? How subhuman are you?

[stevenkesslar]

My reaction to the first picture was ............. WTF?  It's odd to see Heston in this context.  In terms of his political activism, I always saw him as Mr. NRA.  So this actually makes me feel a little bit better about Chuck.

Rustin was a hero.  He got lots of the shit, and (despite the intro in the video), little of the credit.  It was a known fact (by Hoover, of all people) that he was Gay.  So he had the grace to stay out of the way and organize from behind the scenes.  He is a national hero.  As history is rewritten to honor Black and Gay heroes that were always there, but that we never saw as the people they actually were, he will be remembered and honored.

Edited August 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[AdamSmith]

50 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

My reaction to the first picture was ............. WTF?  It's odd to see Heston in this context.  In terms of his political activism, I always saw him as Mr. NRA.  So this actually makes me feel a little bit better about Chuck.

Rustin was a hero.  He got lots of the shit, and (despite the intro in the video), little of the credit.  It was a known fact (by Hoover, of all people) that he was Gay.  So he had the grace to stay out of the way and organize from behind the scenes.  He is a national hero.  As history is rewritten to honor Black and Gay heroes that were always there, but that we never saw as the people they actually were, he will be remembered and honored.

We have had a fair mount of behind-the-scenes societal progressives acting this anonymous way over history. Thank God.

[tassojunior]

 

The bad news today from SIlver is that Trump went up another 2%. Maybe "convention bumps" are back but I suspect it's Kenosha. Biden didn't get any poll bump from the DNC but he did a 4% personal approval bump. Kamala's pick had already dropped the Dem ticket a few points. There will be more polls tomorrow but the most worrying thing is both the Kamala dive and the Kenosha dive were heaviest in the midwest swing states. Wisconsin may be lost and Minnesota a tough get now. Worst is Biden's dropped a lot evidently in his "home" state of PA after Kamala and Kenosha. Still ahead but approaching margin-of-error. Not much word from Michigan yet. They have much bigger leads than 2016 margins in California and New York etc. which helps zero except for CA Dem coattails. With the huge amounts of money they have I would expect the Dems to go heavy in the midwest and a couple states like Florida, N. Carolina, and Arizona that could be flipped. (The Biden polls in FL surprise me but like CA, FL is an expensive state and Dem $$ may work)). Hopefully this is the low point for the Dems as +6 is still good. 

The scariest poll is that Trump is doing 2% better now than he was at this point in 2016 in the battleground states: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/trump-vs-biden-top-battleground-states-2020-vs-2016/

 

 

[stevenkesslar]

Yahoo! News Presidential Election - August 28, 2020 August 27-28, 2020 - 1,001 U.S. Adults

I think there's an interesting election preview embedded in that poll.  It's good news and bad news for both Democrats and democrats.  The bad news is that what 90 % + of America thinks is irrelevant to the outcome.  As a Californian, I'm used to that.  And the 10 % left don't know what they think, other than they mostly like "none of the above".  The good news for Democrats is that in a situation like that, it looks more likely than not that Biden will win.  If we keep our eye on the ball and send money to Democrats.

Mostly I'll refer to the favorability polls from the first 20 pages of that massive trove of data above.  The horse race number in this poll is Biden 47/Trump 41/Undecided 8/Other 4.  Biden is doing 1 point worse in this poll than in the current polling average, which has him up 6.9 %.  So I'm assuming this poll's numbers are all in the ballpark. 

I'm also assuming that most political scientists are correct.  The horse race polls have little or no predictive value.  The favorability ratings are much stickier, and have better predictive value.  That President Toxic has never come close to cracking 50 % approval has always been a bad omen for his re-election prospects.  I'm also assuming that, like in most elections, how Independents break will have a lot to do with the outcome.

So here's the percentage of Independents that have a "somewhat" or "very" unfavorable opinion of the candidates:  54 % view Biden unfavorably,  55 % view Trump unfavorably, 52 % view Harris unfavorably, and 48 % view Pence unfavorably. 

I was surprised that President Toxic is leading right now among the 30 % of voters who call themselves Independent.  Right now 44 % are for Trump, 34 % for Biden, and 20 % are undecided or want to vote for someone else.  Obviously, neither candidate is loved by the majority of Independents.  The current results are in the ballpark of where things where in May, according to this YouGov poll of Independents.  The YouGov numbers all match with the poll averages.  YouGov says by June Biden was leading among Independents, after the George Floyd killing and when the economic data was still all crashing down.  At that point, he had about a 10 point lead on President Toxic in the RCP polling averages.  So part of Biden's slide since June is Independents who are very fluid.

It's good news to me that in theory Biden could lose the Independent vote and still win the election - if Democrats turn out.  That's what this poll says.  

I'm not sure that feelings about Biden have a whole lot to do with that.  It's easy to say that it's too bad that Biden isn't as exciting as Barack Obama.  One of the worst years for Democrats was 2010.  We got "shellacked", to use Obama's word, because Democrats stayed home.  Meanwhile, the Tea Party was on a crusade.  My sense is that they are still on a crusade, as we saw this past week.  But when Black NBA sports and cultural icons are walking out and talking about using sports arenas as polling places, I get a political chub.  This is unprecedented.  The Black community and the progressive community are both on fire, as far as I can tell.

This all reinforces my feelings that the best thing Biden can do is wear his mask and mostly keep his mouth shut.  That said, I'm glad he is disagreeing with Nancy about the debates.  With Biden, a little bit goes a long way.  He will have to lacerate President Toxic about trade and NAFTA and jobs at the debates in a way Hillary just didn't.  I'm pretty confident he can do that. The good news about Trump is that he'll open his mouth every day, and tweet every night.  Unless his campaign handlers figure out how to control him in a way no one else has, so far.

If there is a monumental blue wave on the way, it's already game over.  The value of Lichtman to me is that he is essentially saying the fundamentals call for a blue wave - even if it is not quite a tidal wave. 

But even if Lichtman is wrong this time, and this is more like 2016, it likely helps Biden.  And the data in this poll explains why, I think.  In 2016, as Karl Rove pointed out on Election Night, about 18 % of voters viewed both Clinton or Trump unfavorably.  They broke heavily to Trump, according to CNN.  47 % said they voted for President Toxic,  30 % voted for Clinton, and 23 % didn't say.  Which probably meant they voted for Trump.

Of course it's possible they could do the same thing again.  But those same polls said the driver was that people who voted for Trump wanted change.  I think this is why President Toxic is trying to argue he is both the best President ever, and not really President at all.  Because you just can't be the President and the change candidate.  He's also trying to equate change to Black Armageddon.  Good luck with that, President Toxic.  

One other figure from the 2016 CNN poll probably matters a lot.  72 % of voters in 2016 said their own financial situation was the same or better as it was four years ago.  They favored Clinton.  That's not a bad reflection on the Obama/Biden track record.  But the 27 % of voters who said they were worse off in 2016 voted over 3 to 1 for President Toxic. 

Unfortunately, I doubt that only 27 % of voters in America will say they are worse off in 2020 than they were four years ago.  Either way, Biden wins.  If you were better off under Obama/Biden in 2016, he's got a good argument that if you let me I will do it again.  If you were worse off under Obama/Biden in 2016, Biden can say correctly say that President Toxic just made everything worse.  The positive and hopeful reality TV myth that Donald Trump is this amazing business man who gets things done has been severely tarnished, if not destroyed.  Just don't tell that to the McCloskeys.

Here's one other fun fact that speaks to how up for grabs these Independents are.  In the Morning Consult poll, 93 % of Independents say they have made up their mind, and they will "definitely" vote for the candidate they favor.  Then when asked the horse race question, 13 % of Independents said they were "undecided" whether they'd vote for Biden or Trump.  One way to read that is that they know who they will vote for, but they just don't really want to say.  Another way to read it is that they haven't even made up their mind about whether they have made up their mind.

If there's not a blue wave, this is all going to come down to campaign-based GOTV and who actually votes.  Especially given COVID-19 and the challenges it poses to voting.   

Today is my day to send off $1000 to Democrats in swing states, like Kelly and Gideon and Ossoff and Cunnigham.  They are the ones whose campaigns will be building a lot of the turnout infrastructure at the grassroots level.  Happily, they are also the ones preaching the choir of moderation and compromise.  Because, as Sen. Sinema proved in the 2018 cycle, that's how you win in Arizona or Georgia or North Carolina or Maine. 

Michael Steele said this week we could win 4 to 7 Senate seats.  It will all come down to GOTV and finicky Independents.  And perhaps even who the last person they spoke with was.  My feeling is that the best way to nail the coffin of Toxic Trump's America shut is to send as much money as I can as soon as I can to Democrats like that.

 

 

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

The bad news today from SIlver is that Trump went up another 2%.

Wow.  I'm psychic.  Or we were separated at birth.  Third time this week I was typing something responding to what you were typing as you were typing it.  

Harry Enten, who Chris Cuomo calls the "Wizard Of Odds", actually just said this week that in recent cycles the challengers tend to get no bump, and the incumbents get a bump of a few points off conventions.  So I don't know that we know yet.  It's one poll.  But if it's a two point bump, that's less than what President Toxic needs.  And a "bump" does mean that what goes up will come down.  Frankly, I'm happy for him if President Toxic is still able to pop a mini-chub.  

If you look at the 2016 Clinton/Trump horse race chart, you'll notice that at about half a dozen points along the way, it was a tied race in the polls.  Trump did get a bump at the RNC.  And it was the only time he was one point ahead of Clinton.  That didn't last long.  I never understood why people were saying Clinton had the race in the bag, when it was obvious from polls during most of the race that she didn't.  The thing no one quite saw coming (except maybe Putin) is that even if the polls were right, and she won the popular vote by a few points, she could lose the election anyway.

Compare that to the 2020 Biden/Trump horse race chart.  Can you tell me when President Toxic has been close to tied with Biden?  Because I don't see it.  At the best of times for him, Biden is still 4 points behind.  This has been true since last year.  To me, Lichtman looks right.  Biden has the advantage, because it's the economy, stupid.  The best reason to think President Toxic will win is that Team Toxic is very good at suppressing the vote.  Or Putin somehow figures it out for him.  (Putin's strategic goal has nothing to do with Trump.  I think his goal, like Xi's,  is to undermine democracy.)

Enten also pointed out something else I didn't know.  Time if of the essence, he said.  I forget the exact numbers.  But where incumbents have been able to turn it around and win, it had to happen to by September.  The 2004 Bush/Kerry horse race would be a perfect example of Enten's point.  It was very much a toss up until right around now in 2004.  Late August is when W. "Swift-boated" Kerry and took a wide lead.  If "Destroyer Joe" just got "Swifted-boated" by Team Toxic this week, it isn't showing up in the polls. 

Finally, Enten also pointed out that time is running out because in some states people start voting in September.  Rep. Clyburn told Trevor Noah this week that his goal is to make October "Election Month", so that everybody who can votes BEFORE November.  I think he is exactly right. Again, I think sending money now is critical.  Because all these candidate-drive GOTV efforts to make sure people vote, and have ballots, and have their ballots counted is more important than ever.

Trump Approval Index History

I've made this final point a few times already.  But it's worth repeating and updating now that the RNC is done.  There's no evidence it has helped President Toxic.  At least according to Rasmussen.  Every time I have to point out that Rasmussen is a pro-Trump outlier in all these polls, by like about 10 points perhaps.  But because it models a more favorable electorate for President Toxic, it's a good place to look for a reasonable worst case scenario for Democrats.  And this is approval ratings, not horse race polls.  Again, I think that's probably better to look at, since it's a lot "stickier".

So on Friday, August 14th, right before the DNC stated, President Toxic had net - 5 % disapproval on Rasmussen (47 approve/52 disapprove).  By Friday, August 21st, right after the DNC, it flipped.  It had flipped to + 4 % net approval for President Toxic (51/47).  I actually said here last week that once President Toxic opens his mouth, it will probably shift back.  In fact, it did.  By yesterday, Friday, August 28th, Trump was at - 6 % net disapproval  (46/52).  So if anything, he's just a little bit worse off after both conventions than he was right before.  At least according to Rasmussen, which always portrays what is the best case scenario for Team Toxic.  

I actually pay the most attention to the people who feel strongly.  So President Toxic can't get anywhere near having 40 % of Americans who strongly support him.  Meanwhile, it's pretty stick that about 45 % of Americans disapprove of them.  So, again, there's this small group in the middle.  And this parallel issue of which group of strong supporters is actually going to vote?

This is just further reinforcing some of the main themes I keep reading again and again.  The Republican message is toxic, and out of touch.  Their track record is not viewed well by a majority of voters.  They are trying to put pearls on a pig, and create an alternate America.  And it's not working.  If they could make this a choice between capitalism and socialism, they would.  It isn't working.  So they're left with "Destroyer Joe".   And a few good Blacks who play football (but not basketball).  But mostly Blacks who riot and loot and will destroy the suburbs if given a chance.  But no, they are not racist.  You and I are the real racists.  And, o course, Barack and Michelle Obama.

That GIF is from the good old days, when Michael Steele ran the RNC and they were going to bring in Blacks and youthful energy and ideas.

Oh well.  This is what they are left with.  Desperate people do desperate things.

Edited August 29, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[TotallyOz]

I have truly loved reading each of these posts. They are filled with insight and good information and links to check and read. I do think Biden will win if the election is held right now.But, there is still ages to go before election day. With Trump, anything can and will happen. If Biden does win and the Senate does not turn blue, we have a big problem because nothing will get done and in 4 years, we do this all over again with a big disadvantage. The Senate has a way of not being held accountable for anything and individual states often do not want to put out an incumbent. I have high hopes for Kentucky even though polls will say that isn't the case. We shall see.

[tassojunior]

@stevenkesslar It's not just the 2 pts nationally twice. It's that they're in the battleground states, all that matters, and he's within 2pts in those states. Margin of error. By itself nationally wouldn't matter. Today Trump is in the disaster relief area, and he's headed to Kenosha while Biden is in his basement. Today Vegas dropped their odds from Biden 55/44 to Biden 52/48. Not many people believe in convention bumps anymore. I think it was Kenosha this week and the midwest poll drops moved Vegas a lot. 2 months is a long time of course.

[stevenkesslar]

2 hours ago, tassojunior said:

There will be more polls tomorrow but the most worrying thing is both the Kamala dive and the Kenosha dive were heaviest in the midwest swing states.

I agree with you about Kenosha.  I started the thread explicitly about race and cops and looting because I think Democrats have to get their shit together on that. 

Biden and Harris have their shit together.  They are both on message.   But the "we're not racists" Toxic Republicans are arguing that Biden/Harris means Black Armageddon.   (Remember, though.  They're not racists.)  So images of burning police stations or cars actually does paint the picture.  Biden said it.  In that sense, Trump is rooting for violence.  And, no, this was not happening in Barack Obama's America.  Rinse, spin, and repeat.  That's what we'll be saying now through Election Day.

While policy may count for zero right now, I think Harris was the perfect choice for this moment on this issue on policy.  She is a Black woman, so she can express empathy and say this just has to stop.  If Blacks have a problem with her, it's that she threw too many Black men in jail.  So this is where President Toxic goes off the rails, I think.  So the Black woman who threw too many Black men in jail is going to tee off Black Armageddon with rampaging Black men and innocent White suburban women?   Hey!  We're back to 1915 and The Birth Of A Nation.  How cool is that?

It makes no fucking sense whatsoever.  But that's nothing new.  And this is EXACTLY what women in the suburbs DO NOT want.  Don't take my word for it.  Call up Rep. Lucy McBath, who I sent $50 to today.  She'll explain why the Atlanta suburbs - one of the most highly-educated Congressional districts in the US - elected a Black woman who wants gun control.  If you don't believe Lucy, here's a great Politico article focusing on Anna Greenberg, one of the Democratic gurus on suburban women.  It reinforces everything I've been saying about suburban woman, and also suggests that Harris is pretty much what Central Casting would send in to win their votes.

Most Americans agree we need major policing reforms.  Democrats and Independents certainly do.  They get that this is a complicated reality and there is no quick fix.  So if they stay on message, what Biden and Harris are saying trumps Black Armageddon hands down.

Poll: Voters approve Harris VP pick, Biden gets image bounce

Biden also got a fundraising bounce.  He may or may not get a turnout bounce.  Trevor Noah asked Rep. Clyburn whether picking Harris will help with Black turnout.  He said it was a big step in the right direction.  We'll see.  At the very least, I think she satisfied the "do no harm rule".  

If the polls are closing a little, we don't know why.  I'd offer these suggestions:   1)  we're recovering from the economic free fall, at least right now;  2) Kenosha/looting/violence.

This is the Lichtman thread, so I'll be broken record.  What turned him from "leaning to Trump" six months ago to "Biden will win" today is that it's the economy, stupid.  Nothing President Toxic can do now will reverse his gross incompetence and denial of COVID-19 from January, February, March, April.  Now he's trying a different form of denial, and it's working about as well.

[stevenkesslar]

43 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

Frankly, I'm happy for him if President Toxic is still able to pop a mini-chub.  

 

42 minutes ago, TotallyOz said:

I have truly loved reading each of these posts. They are filled with insight and good information and links to check and read.

Thanks, but you can be honest.

You're mostly glad, like me, that Trump can still get a mini-chub.  I commend your patriotism.

 

[tassojunior]

@stevenkesslar

1st you say you $ to Ossoff for GA Senate, then you say McBath in the same Congressional district he could not win but she did. She's a great Black candidate, he's an awful white one, in a white district more liberal than the state. He can get used to Georgia. 

Biden gained approval pts at DNC but no national poll pts. Why? BC Kamala's pick gained CA pts but they lost swingstate midwest votes. You should know from CA her approval peaks day 1 and goes down. She did indeed bring Wall Street, AIPAC and Silicon Valley big money. But Dems have more money than they can possibly spend already. Remember Bloomberg? Money only does so much. There's tremendous hatred of Trump but no enthusiasm for these 2. The enthusiasm is all with Trump, and that means a lot.

I'm also scared because if this turns out close, and many votes will take over a month to count, there's going to be very little belief in the election. This could be Gore/Bush on steroids during an epidemic, with a meglomanic in power.

[AdamSmith]

1 hour ago, TotallyOz said:

I have truly loved reading each of these posts. They are filled with insight and good information and links to check and read. I do think Biden will win if the election is held right now.But, there is still ages to go before election day. With Trump, anything can and will happen. If Biden does win and the Senate does not turn blue, we have a big problem because nothing will get done and in 4 years, we do this all over again with a big disadvantage. The Senate has a way of not being held accountable for anything and individual states often do not want to put out an incumbent. I have high hopes for Kentucky even though polls will say that isn't the case. We shall see.

I don’t know. I think the Senate is still very much up for grabs. Just from talking to neighbors, Lyft drivers, etc here in pretty red-state N.C. Who seem fairly fed up with the Donald & McConnell & the rest.

North Carolina retains a lot of ‘blue-collar Democrat’ in its political DNA. Which has tended to vote Republican for some time, while that party had some common sense.

But the clear lunacy & outright incompetence of recent have made many say OK, Joe or go.

From what I observe.

[stevenkesslar]

20 minutes ago, tassojunior said:

@stevenkesslar It's not just the 2 pts nationally twice. It's that they're in the battleground states, all that matters, and he's within 2pts in those states. Margin of error. By itself nationally wouldn't matter. Today Trump is in the disaster relief area, and he's headed to Kenosha while Biden is in his basement. Today Vegas dropped their odds from Biden 55/44 to Biden 52/48. Not many people believe in convention bumps anymore. I think it was Kenosha this week and the midwest poll drops moved Vegas a lot. 2 months is a long time of course.

If there is anything to ignore, it's those odds tables.  Look at how wrong they've been.  Like the horse race polls, they are a lagging indicator.  But at least the horse race polls more or less accurately describe where things were actually at a few day ago.

The odds tables may be a good way to understand popular sentiment.  But it has nothing to do with prediction.  At one point, Warren was certain to win.  Then Bernie was.  Biden was certain not to win.  it proves nobody knows.  Lichtman thinks he knows, pretty much.  I'd call him a leading indicator, who so far has been about 100 % accurate.

Trafalgar just came out with a poll that shows President Toxic and James winning in Michigan.  Albeit by only a point of two, which is in the margin of error.  To the degree that this induces panic and gets Democrats to volunteer or donate, that's good news.

Trafalgar was the canary in the coal mine in 2016.  I'll be the angry crank who keeps lecturing on polling.  In an environment where maybe 1 in 10 voters will decide at the last minute, a poll taken on November 1 can't and won't predict what people will actually do on November 8th.  On the face of it, a poll on November 6th may be closer, just because it is closer to November 8th.  So, on November 6, 2016 Trafalgar put out a poll saying Trump would win Michigan by 2 %.  They were off by 1.7 %, within the margin of error.  They also had the last poll out in Pennsylvania in 2016, which predicted a 1 % Trump victory - only 0.3 % off the final result. 

Anyone who says the 2016 polls were wrong is wrong - both in their understanding of polls, and in terms of what the polls actually said.

Here's the similar Trafalgar polls a few days before the election from 2018, and the actual results:

Arizona:  McSally (R) will win by 2.0 %.   (Sinema won by 2.4 %)

Florida:  Scott (R) will win by 2.0 %  (Scott won by 0.1 %)   As an aside, go ahead and rub it in.  You were right.  I was wrong.  Trafalgar brags about calling the Guv race for DeSantis, which everyone - including me - thought the pretty boy would win.  At least I wasn't the one who ended up in the hotel room with Gillum.  So don't be too mad at me.

Michigan:  Stabenow (D) will win by 9.0 %.  (She won by 6.5 %)

Missouri:  Hawley (R) will win by 4.0 %  (He won by 5.8 %)

Montana:  Tester (D) will win by 1.0 %   (He won by 3.5 %)

Nevada:  Heller (R) will win by 3.0 %   (Rosen won by 5 %.  This is the one where they weren't even close.)

North Dakota:  Cramer (R) will win by 9.0 %.   (He won by 10.8 %)

Texas:  Cruz (R) will win by 9.0 %  (He won by by 2.6 %.)

In early August, Trafalgar said Donnelly (D) would win in Indiana by 12.0 %.  Had the election been in August, they might have been right.  In November, Braun (R) won by 6 %.  Shift happened.

"Color intensifier" was a great phrase Charlie Cook used to describe part of what happened.  He was specifically referring to the Justice Rapist hearings.  He said that in blue states it intensified the blue, and in red states it intensified the red.  You can see that above, which is partly why I posted each state.  I also wanted to do my own reality check and make sure  I remembered what I think know correctly.

I was sending money to North Dakota, Missouri, and Arizona in 2018, so I tracked them pretty close.  I may have sent to Nevada as well, because at some point I decided that Heitkamp was a lost cause.  I'd argue even Trafalgar underestimated the power of the red wave in the states with lots of cows, and White men with testicles that felt like they were on the chopping block.  It probably cost Claire McCaskill her job.  Men who has been okay with moderate women like them especially on health care,  abandoned them in droves in Fall 2018 when President Toxic was bleating about how no male testicle in America was safe any longer.

Meanwhile, sorry to say, with women all roads lead to the suburbs.  Sinema won, and Beto did way better than expected, because of the suburbs - more women than men, but some of both.  If we flip House seats in Texas in 2020 like we did in California in 2018, that's mostly about suburbs, too.  There were other factors, of course.  I always assumed Harry Reid's machine would pull through for Rosen in the end, and I was right.

The 30,000 foot point is that Trafalgar hit the nail on the head in 2016.  In 2018, they didn't do anywhere near as well.  It was respectable.  I think it boiled down to which electorate voted. 

In 2016, President Toxic got the electorate he wanted, or needed.  Blacks stayed home, for whatever reason.  Those mythical White working class people came out in droves.  In 2018, not so much.  Although whether it was rural/small town White men or suburban women made a huge difference.   McCaskill did worse than expected.  Sinema did better than expected.

This poll stuff is fun to talk about, mostly because it's intellectual masturbation.  And masturbation is always fun. 

That said, at this point it's really about money and GOTV.  And how voting works out with COVID-19 is anyone's guess.  It is possible Trafalgar could be right again, and that President Toxic will win Michigan.  But he'd have to get the best case scenario electorate for the second time in a row. 

If there's anything Lichtman leaves out that really matters, it's the ground game.  Axelrod has said that can be worth 2 to 3 % in just about any election.  I'm not making an argument that we should take anything for granted.  The opposite.  Democrats should donate, volunteer, and be scared shitless.   Just like President Toxic's followers are.

 

 

[tassojunior]

If Biden wins the Senate will probably turn blue. NC is a case of reverse coattails where the Dems for Gov and Senate are overwhelmingly popular but Biden is just tied. and several pts lower than nationally. It voted for Obama I but not II.

[tassojunior]

 

 

[tassojunior]

14 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

If there is anything to ignore, it's those odds tables.  Look at how wrong they've been.  Like the horse race polls, they are a lagging indicator.  But at least the horse race polls more or less accurately describe where things were actually at a few day ago.

 

 

Trafalgar was right because it's a pro-Republican poller. I don't worry much about it. And I sincerely doubt the #'s are right, especially Florida I'm afraid..

All I'm looking at now is the trend. ....Kamala chosen---2 days later Trump up 2 pts (3 in swing states) even though Biden gained in personal approval at DNC. Biden gains 4 pts in personal approval but Biden/Harris drops 3 pts in swing states....hmmm..Kenosha happens and Trump up 2 more and 3 more in swing states. Biden will have to come out now and give staged speeches...which are easy. Probably have to do staged "rallies" too. Doesn't mean he'll take secret questions or actually take any policy positions though. We'll see if Trump even got a 1 pt RNC bounce (I doubt it) and if the % stabilizes this week. 2 months is a long time in elections, even with early/mail voting.. and events will happen to affect the vote too. . 

[tassojunior]

and Bingo. Here's the Guardian and Current Affairs saying almost exactly what I did above: 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/28/donald-trump-2020-election-feels-like-2016

https://news.yahoo.com/biden-seemingly-didnt-convention-polling-141300982.html

The ticket has sunk well below Clinton at this point in swing states and they're all that matter. 

 

[stevenkesslar]

 

6 hours ago, tassojunior said:

@stevenkesslar

1st you say you $ to Ossoff for GA Senate, then you say McBath in the same Congressional district he could not win but she did. She's a great Black candidate, he's an awful white one, in a white district more liberal than the state. He can get used to Georgia. 

Biden gained approval pts at DNC but no national poll pts. Why? BC Kamala's pick gained CA pts but they lost swingstate midwest votes. You should know from CA her approval peaks day 1 and goes down. She did indeed bring Wall Street, AIPAC and Silicon Valley big money. But Dems have more money than they can possibly spend already. Remember Bloomberg? Money only does so much. There's tremendous hatred of Trump but no enthusiasm for these 2. The enthusiasm is all with Trump, and that means a lot.

I'm also scared because if this turns out close, and many votes will take over a month to count, there's going to be very little belief in the election. This could be Gore/Bush on steroids during an epidemic, with a meglomanic in power.

I've loved you since we were separated at birth.  And while I was woke dreaming on Gillum,  you did sniff him out as phony.  (Thankfully, I don't mean that sniffing part literally.)    

But data isn't your strong suit.  Then again, I guess you have Czaba or his buddies, so that counts for something.

I'm not wild about Ossoff.  Then again, I sent money today to Hickenlooper, Bullock, Cunnigham, TJ Cox (toss up House seat in CA).  The final last name notwithstanding, I ain't popping a chub - political or otherwise - for any of these guys.  I really like and admire Doug Jones.  So I changed my plans today and decided instead of $100 to Ossoff like the other ones I'd send $50 to both Ossoff and Jones. 

I'm mostly just going by the data, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, anyone who thinks they know anything.  Jones is a very long shot.  Ossoff is unlikely, but possible.  To me, Kelly, Hickenlooper, Cunnigham, and Gideon are the ones who are all ahead in the polls, and the must haves - assuming Jones loses.  That's a 50/50 Senate, plus VP Kamala.  Which is about what I'd guess if it's really a razor thin Presidential race.  If you get into what Lichtman or that other model based on the economy and President Toxic's approval rating says, Michael Steele is right.  In a wave, we could win seven Senate seats.  Problem solved.  Then again, we could also lose.  I'll actually get to that in the next post.

On the House side, my big thing is I'm just a girl from Kansas.  So like Dorothy, I'm focusing on my very own back yard.  The CA House races that are toss ups are Rouda and Cox and Christy Smith, who is going for the seat Katie Hill resigned from and the Republicans took.  I just want to hold on to what we've got in the House. 

If things go well I'll add Ammar who is a House long shot.  He's the only one on my list I could actually pop a chub for.  And don't say it.  I'm obviously a threat to the suburbs and civilization.  Because I get hard ons for hot terrorists.

To be brutally honest, it's a very good thing I have porn of Czaba/Kris Evans on my computer.  Because if the goal is an orgasm, no offense to Ammar or Jon, but porn is probably the most efficient way to do it.  

I am hoping for a political orgasm in November.  That's the best way to solve your worry, which I think is everyone's worry.  Which is that this will drag on forever, and we won't know until January.  And President Toxic's position is either he won or it's a fake election.  We need to keep saying this every day.  Hopefully it gets the idea in the mind of everybody that would you please just go fucking vote so that we can get this over with quickly.

Lucy McBath is the only House candidate outside CA I'm donating to because like you I think she's a great candidate.  I do have a hard on for her on the gun issue, and also on her personal courage and resilience.  Also my guess is that this is the cycle we can flip Arizona and Georgia and North Carolina, while holding those three blue Wall Rust Belt states.  I just saw somebody smart - I think Jeff Flake, but maybe not - who said in an interview about why he's standing up for Biden that as a conservative he realizes that Trumpism is unsustainable.  He said on the current track they'll lose Texas in the 2024 cycle. 

There's actually a very, very, very consistent analysis among all these Never Trump conservatives, I think.  But it's like getting puzzle pieces in that article or this interview that you then have to piece together.  As Flake implied, probably their biggest driver is to kill the cancer and then try to rebuild their party.  More on that in a future post.  But in terms of 2020 I think it's realistic that we can have the Blue Wall and add Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina up and down the ticket.  

I'm not sending money to Rev. Warnock in Georgia or Jamie Harrison in SC, at least not yet.  Even Fox News is saying The Divine Miss Graham may be in trouble.  I think we'll know a lot more, good or bad, in a month.  I do pop chub when I start thinking about two Black Democratic Senators from the South.

I think you're making a lot of assumptions about Kamala.  The really interesting question is if Biden/Harris wins, and for some reason Biden is not running in 2024, does that make Harris the 2024 nominee?  Or is it a battle royal between her and the progressive wing?  That's a fight for another day.  For now, I think she at the very least satisfied the "do no harm" rule, and as Rep. Clyburn says probably helps at the margin with both Blacks and suburban women.  But there's no way to objectively prove I'm right or you're right.  And let's not remember.  Feinstein lost state races before she won.  She said she regretted endorsing Harris when she found out about some liberal position Harris took.  So if the debate in 2020 among Democrats is whether Harris s too conservative, that's not a bad place to be.  Remember,  to Republican true believers she is a socialist radical who will pillage suburbs with all those other Blacks, I guess.  Unless it turns out she's not Black, or American, maybe.  Who the fuck knows anymore.

The only other thing I'd say about Ossoff is the same.  We don't know.  The thing I most disliked in that special election is that he didn't live in the district.  That alone could be seen as disqualifying.  If I donated with my heart, I'd be sending money to Rev. Warnock instead.  But it's quite possible that what Ossoff did helped pave the way for McBath to win in 2018.  And even if Ossoff and Warnock both lose, it's possible that paves the way for Stacey Abrams to be Governor.  We don't know.  This is a long slog.

And yeah, we agree that Biden is not good for popping chub either.  There is a trend here.  On top of everything else, 2020 is all about sexual frustration, I guess.  Gotta say it again.  Good thing i got plenty of porn on my computer, cause this politics stuff is all pretty much limp dick territory.

There's a few interesting tidbits about Biden ED (it stands for electoral dysfunction) in this new 5000 page Morning Consult poll, which makes me look terse.

To your point, when asked why they support their candidate, 87 % of Republicans say they are voting FOR President Toxic, and 13 % say they are voting AGAINST Biden.  With Democrats, 60 % say they are voting for Biden, and 40 % say they are voting against President Toxic.  So, yes, almost all Republicans have the true religion thing going for them.  The Democrats are just being political whores.  There's no real love there, for many of us.

Then there's a question about whether voters care who wins.  90 % of both Democrats and Republicans care "a lot" or "somewhat".  10 % of both Democrats and Republicans say they care little, or not at all.  So my read of that is that there is no difference in motivation.  Both parties are on fire, and turnout will likely be really high.  If that happens, Democrats win.  Because there are more registered Democrats.  Republicans only win big, like in 2010, when Democratic turnout sucks.  The thing that jumps out at me most is that 25 % of Indepedents care only a little or not at all who wins.

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2020 by stevenkesslar

[tassojunior]

24 minutes ago, stevenkesslar said:

I've loved you since we were separated at birth.  And while I was woke dreaming on Gillum,  you did sniff him out as phony.  (Thankfully, I don't mean that sniffing part literally.)    

But data isn't your strong suit.  Then again, I guess you have Czaba or his buddies, so that counts for something.

I'm not wild about Ossoff.  Then again, I sent money today to Hickenlooper, Bullock, Cunnigham, TJ Cox (toss up House seat in CA).  The final last name notwithstanding, I ain't popping a chub - political or otherwise - for any of these guys.  I really like and admire Doug Jones.  So I changed my plans today and decided instead of $100 to Ossoff like the other ones I'd send $50 to both Ossoff and Jones. 

I'm mostly just going by the data, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato, anyone who thinks they know anything.  Jones is a very long shot.  Ossoff is unlikely, but possible.  To me, Kelly, Hickenlooper, Cunnigham, and Gideon are the ones who are all ahead in the polls, and the must haves - assuming Jones loses.  That's a 50/50 Senate, plus VP Kamala.  Which is about what I'd guess if it's really a razor thin Presidential race.  If you get into what Lichtman or that other model based on the economy and President Toxic's approval rating says, Michael Steele is right.  In a wave, we could win seven Senate seats.  Problem solved.  Then again, we could also lose.  I'll actually get to that in the next post.

On the House side, my big thing is I'm just a girl from Kansas.  So like Dorothy, I'm focusing on my very own back yard.  The CA House races that are toss ups are Rouda and Cox and Christy Smith, who is going for the seat Katie Hill resigned from and the Republicans took.  I just want to hold on to what we've got in the House. 

If things go well I'll add Ammar who is a House long shot.  He's the only one on my list I could actually pop a chub for.  And don't say it.  I'm obviously a threat to the suburbs and civilization.  Because I get hard ons for hot terrorists.

 

 

I'd maybe help Bullock and Cunningham even though they'd be conservative. Bullock could have beaten Trump easy. No Hickenlooper fan. Kelly in AZ good shot. Ditto Maine.

OTOH...how much money can anyone spend in Montana?? lol.

I gave to the National Vote Compact and Black House insurgents after Bernie lost.