State of the race, mid September

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

 

[TitanTiger 20,472]

4 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

 

What's the story on McSally?  I haven't kept up with AZ politics.  Is it just a shift in general toward Democrats or is there something specific going on with her that makes her so unpopular?

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

4 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

What's the story on McSally?  I haven't kept up with AZ politics.  Is it just a shift in general toward Democrats or is there something specific going on with her that makes her so unpopular?

A little of both.  Democrats won the other seat in 2018 and beat McSally in that race, so it's not a surprise.  I'm mostly shocked that they nominated her again after losing once already.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Good Lord...

Quote

Joe Biden's advantage over President Donald Trump has expanded and the former vice president now holds his widest lead of the cycle with less than a month remaining before Election Day, according to a new nationwide CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.

Among likely voters, 57% say they back Biden and 41% Trump in the poll that was conducted entirely after the first debate and mostly after the President's coronavirus infection was made public.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/cnn-poll-biden-trump-2020-election/index.html

This one is the outlier right now, but merciful heavens if things are trending that way, Trump is gonna get skulldragged.  Ain't nobody squeezing out just an Electoral College win with the popular vote that far apart.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

22 minutes ago, TitanTiger said:

Good Lord...

This one is the outlier right now, but merciful heavens if things are trending that way, Trump is gonna get skulldragged.  Ain't nobody squeezing out just an Electoral College win with the popular vote that far apart.

Polls over the next few days should be real interesting.  If they come out Biden consistently +10 or more, that's just a monster gap to make up when voting has already started in many places.  Way more ballots have been cast early already than in 2016 too, which means these numbers should be pretty stable.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/ballot-returns-early-voting-2020-election/index.html

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Trump campaign dings Joe Biden for not having COVID-19.  

Quote

"In a Fox News interview on Monday, Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign's communications director, faulted Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, for not contracting the coronavirus.

"When asked whether President Donald Trump would shift his coronavirus messaging, Perrine said: "He has experience now fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences — Joe Biden, he doesn't have those.""

[channonc 466]

18 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

What's the story on McSally?  I haven't kept up with AZ politics.  Is it just a shift in general toward Democrats or is there something specific going on with her that makes her so unpopular?

After losing to Kirsten Sinema, the Governor appointed her to McCain's open seat after he passed away. Voters were not pleased that he would appoint (only a few months later) the woman that they did not vote for first time around.

Additionally, Arizona's trends before this have been headed blue-- an increase in the Latino population coupled with more moderate liberals moving there from CA.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

Tangentially related to polling with regards to POTUS walking away from stimulus negotiations.

 

[Leftfield 2,593]

 

4 hours ago, TitanTiger said:

  Quote

"In a Fox News interview on Monday, Erin Perrine, the Trump campaign's communications director, faulted Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, for not contracting the coronavirus.

"When asked whether President Donald Trump would shift his coronavirus messaging, Perrine said: "He has experience now fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences — Joe Biden, he doesn't have those.""

 

[channonc 466]

20 minutes ago, Brad_ATX said:

Tangentially related to polling with regards to POTUS walking away from stimulus negotiations.

 

I'm starting to wonder if he is purposely tanking his re-election. It's easier to be on the sidelines and whine, get paid for speeches, and go back to Trump Tower and just tweet then actually be the CIC.

Edited to add: I guess believing that would mean he has some sort of strategy. I just don't know what the hell is going on right now. It's baffling to say the least.

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Four most recent polls listed on Real Clear Politics have Biden up +16, +8, +10, and +10.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, channonc said:

I'm starting to wonder if he is purposely tanking his re-election. It's easier to be on the sidelines and whine, get paid for speeches, and go back to Trump Tower and just tweet then actually be the CIC.

Edited to add: I guess believing that would mean he has some sort of strategy. I just don't know what the hell is going on right now. It's baffling to say the least.

There's an argument to be made for that.  I don't necessarily think he's tanking on purpose.  I just think he's trying literally anything right now to move polls.  There are certain members of the far right that will love this, but legislation that has 72% support should be a slam dunk for him, especially when it involves extra stimulus checks.  He can run on that.

[homersapien 11,366]

Character is destiny.  He is who he is. A meltdown was inevitable.

Now he's trying to making his infection a "feature" - he's a super hero who has defeated it!

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/trump-urges-americans-not-to-fear-virus-that-has-killed-over-210000

And then, he gives his justice appointment priority over providing relief to people who are literally hungry.  Channonc's thesis is rational - at least to those who are rational.

(As an aside, some of the drugs he's taking (steroids) may be kicking him up to a higher level of delusional thinking.  But it's not him alone - his family and inner circle are feeding it.)

 

 

 

[homersapien 11,366]

Interesting article re turnout:

 

The November Surprise

What if everyone showed up to vote this year?

Russell Berman

The combination of a deadly pandemic, a shaky election infrastructure, and a president—sickened by the coronavirus himself—sowing doubt about the integrity of the vote has led to fears of a plunge in turnout and widespread disenfranchisement. But what if those worries are overblown? There’s a chance the nation will wake up November 4 to at least one hopeful sign about the health of its democracy: a record number of citizens turning out to cast ballots.

There are ample reasons to think turnout might surge. Polling data and early-voting levels, along with turnout and registration numbers during the Trump era, all point to a surge at the polls unseen in decades, election experts say. “The intensity of the electorate is without recent precedent,” Tom Bonier, the CEO of TargetSmart, a Democratic political-data firm, told me. Moreover, the tens of millions of votes likely to be cast earlier than ever before could alleviate long lines at many polling places on Election Day and help the two parties focus their resources on turning out the hardest-to-reach voters. The pandemic that has threatened the election also prompted many states to adopt the most aggressive expansion of voting options in decades. And early attention to problems such as a shortage of poll watchers and tight ballot deadlines could help ensure that more votes are cast and counted.

The biggest argument in favor of a record-shattering voter surge is that it’s happened already. In 2014, turnout during the midterm congressional elections plunged to its lowest level in more than 70 years, according to Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida. Four years later, with Donald Trump in the White House, midterm turnout soared to its highest in more than a century. There were no significant overhauls in voting laws in the intervening years. “The only big factor that changed in our politics between 2014 and 2018 is Donald Trump,” McDonald said. Now Trump himself is on the ballot, and changes that have made voting easier could juice turnout even more.

Because of Trump’s impact on the electorate, political number crunchers were predicting a record turnout in 2020 before the year even began, as my colleague Ronald Brownstein reported last year. Forecasts suggested that more than 150 million Americans would vote this fall—a level that would dwarf the 139 million who cast ballots in 2016 and represent the highest voter-turnout percentage in more than a century. The onset of the pandemic this spring threw those predictions into doubt, forcing states to postpone primaries and causing a turnout plunge in a few states, such as Illinois and Ohio, that did hold elections in March and April.

But many states responded by adopting expansions to early and mail-in voting that election reformers have been pushing for years, often without success. And several states that held primary and runoff elections over the summer, including Massachusetts and the 2020 battlegrounds of Georgia, Texas, and Florida, broke turnout records. The Georgia election was particularly encouraging from a turnout perspective because voting soared and easily eclipsed the 2016 level despite widespread reports of long lines and malfunctioning voting machines, which could have suppressed the vote. “There were significant issues, don't get me wrong,” Bonier said, “but what we saw on the Democratic side was higher turnout in terms of the number of people voting than we've ever seen in the state.”

The early-voting totals so far in the general election have only bolstered the case for a record turnout. Although early voting is not a reliable predictor of election outcomes, the sheer number of votes that have been cast by mail or in person more than a month before Election Day has astonished voting experts. More than 4.7 million Americans have already voted early or mailed back their ballots, and turnout in some states, including Wisconsin and Virginia, has exceeded 15 percent of the total votes cast in 2016. In Wisconsin’s Dane County, nearly one-third of the 2016 vote is already in, with four weeks still to go. Many of these people are surely regular voters simply taking advantage of an opportunity to vote early or by mail that they didn’t have before. But in states like North Carolina, nearly one-quarter of the votes cast so far come from people who did not vote in the state four years ago, according to an early-voting database that McDonald publishes using publicly-available records. The “sky-high interest” and early-voting levels have even prompted one major, bipartisan polling team to change how it models the electorate to reflect the likelihood of higher turnout. Democratic voters have been dramatically outpacing Republicans so far, a reflection of the partisan divide that has accompanied Trump’s attacks on voting by mail.

Republicans say their voters will turn out en masse on Election Day as usual, but Democratic organizers expect that their party’s ability to bank millions of votes in September and October will allow them to focus more resources on increasing turnout in November among those who tend to vote less regularly, including younger voters of color.

The turnout gains in 2018 were broad, encompassing not only a surge among Democrats that delivered them the House majority but also a surge among Trump’s base in red states that helped the GOP simultaneously expand its advantage in the Senate. A similar dynamic could play out this year, increasing the uncertainty about the outcome. Before 2016, McDonald said, Democrats were more likely to benefit from higher overall turnout because their base included constituencies that were historically least likely to vote: young people, voters of color, and lower-income white voters. But working-class white voters have shifted to the right, and though polls show Biden leading in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that Hillary Clinton lost in 2016, it is Trump who could benefit most if turnout increases across the board in the Midwest and the Rust Belt.

Polls that ask respondents about their interest in the election—often a predictor of turnout—show that Republicans are matching Democrats in intensity, but the stark divide between when and how the parties’ supporters plan to vote is creating uncertainty about turnout, and the outcome. “I am really curious to see what is the real Republican enthusiasm at the end of the day,” Alex Morgan, the executive director of the Progressive Turnout Project, told me. “Is this a Joe Biden landslide, or is this a squeaker because they showed up too?”

Morgan’s group, one of the largest non-campaign organizations in the Democratic get-out-the-vote machine, leased 70 offices in 20 states in preparation for the election, but it has entirely foregone door-to-door canvassing and shifted to phone and digital campaigning. The Trump campaign has not given up door-knocking, transforming the 2020 campaign into a massive study on the relative efficacy of in-person versus virtual canvassing.

One possible effect of the Trump campaign’s commitment to in-person canvassing during the pandemic is that Republicans have outpaced Democrats in registering new voters in several important battlegrounds over the past few months. After Morgan and I spoke, the Biden campaign announced in a late about-face that after suspending its in-person ground operations for months, it would dispatch hundreds of trained staff and volunteers to knock on doors in key swing states in an effort to engage voters it could not reach through its phone and texting efforts. For now, the Progressive Turnout Project is sticking with its plan of exclusively virtual canvassing.

For Democrats, the turnout concern is most acute for the parts of the party’s base that often vote in lower numbers. Latinos—a crucial component of the Democratic coalition in states like Nevada, Arizona, Texas, and Florida— have been particularly hard-hit by the coronavirus pandemic, and activists say the Democratic Party has yet to learn how to effectively connect with and engage potential voters. Antonio Arellano runs a Texas-based organization called the Jolt Initiative, which is trying to turn out Latinos in the state by visiting 80,000 homes and reaching half a million more potential voters digitally before the election. “I am ringing the alarm,” he told me in a phone interview last week. He said there was tremendous momentum among Latinos in the state but that, as in past years, a lack of resources devoted to turning them out risked leaving an untold number of votes on the table. “This unprecedented momentum needs to be met with an unprecedented investment, and we haven’t seen it,” Arellano said. “If you think that Google-translating your campaign website and one commercial on a Spanish-speaking news [channel] is your quote-unquote Latino outreach, you’re on your way to a massive loss.” Groups like the Texas Organizing Project, which is trying to mobilize 1.6 million Black and Latino voters this fall, have significantly expanded their operations in recent years and played a big role in helping Democrats gain state legislative seats and nearly oust Senator Ted Cruz in 2018. Whether they can reach enough potential voters amid a pandemic to turn Texas blue remains a big question, TOP’s executive director, Michelle Tremillo, told me.

The pandemic has made voting easier in many states through the expansion of mail-in and early balloting, but it has not stopped the long-standing voter-suppression efforts that disproportionately affect Black and Latino voters. In Texas, Republicans have refused to expand mail-in voting except for people age 65 and older, who tend to be more conservative. And last week, Governor Greg Abbott issued a proclamation barring counties from having more than one ballot drop box, a change that will disadvantage counties with the largest, and most diverse, populations. Yet efforts to limit voting by Black people often have the opposite effect, noted Rashad Robinson, the spokesperson for the Color of Change PAC, another progressive group that pulled its canvassers off the streets earlier this year and is instead trying to reach more than 4 million Black voters remotely. “Recent history shows that attempts to suppress Black people’s votes have been met with higher levels of voting and enthusiasm,” Robinson said

With less than a month to go, the electorate’s intense interest in voting appears close to a sure thing, but the system’s ability to handle the coming surge is not. Doomsday scenarios abound. Will rising COVID-19 cases across the country scare voters who waited to cast their ballot, or cause last-minute disruptions in mail service or in-person voting? Will Trump’s campaign against mail-in ballots and the possibility that his supporters might intimidate voters at the polls succeed in depressing turnout? Will errors by election administrators and confusion among people voting by mail for the first time lead to a flood of rejected ballots? “One of the big wild cards will be how many people [who] set out to vote actually go through the process of voting but their votes are not counted. That number will not be zero,” Bonier told me. “Do we have the pipeline that can handle the volume? That’s been a challenge in this country, and it will continue to be a challenge.”

The experts I spoke with were cautiously optimistic that the worst fears would not come to pass and that the enthusiasm reflected in polling and early-voting data would surpass the impact of the forces working against a strong turnout this year. A big reason, they said, is the preparations that states made over the summer and the earlier-than-ever start to voting: Election officials and voters alike are able to anticipate and troubleshoot many problems now, rather than in the days immediately before or after November 3. “In the end,” Bonier told me, with perhaps a touch of wishful thinking, “we get these things right, generally.”

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/2020-election-turnout/616640/

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

Wow.  Even Rasmussen had Trump down 12.

 

[channonc 466]

2 hours ago, Brad_ATX said:

Wow.  Even Rasmussen had Trump down 12.

 

They are desperate. But it isn't over.

VOTE.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

 

[TitanTiger 20,472]

Latest Fox News poll has Biden with a 53-43 lead.

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

1 hour ago, TitanTiger said:

Latest Fox News poll has Biden with a 53-43 lead.

You're getting to a point now where it's almost, ALMOST, more about "How much will Biden win by" instead of "Who will win".

[TitanTiger 20,472]

 

Quote

Donald Trump Is Canceling TV Ads In Midwest States That Made Him President

“I don’t think the spin is in any way congruent with the reality,” one Republican strategist said of the Trump campaign's messaging.

 

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is slashing television spending in the Midwest, canceling millions of dollars in advertising in states that carried him to victory in 2016.

He’s been off the local airwaves completely in Iowa and Ohio. The campaign also has given up at least $2 million worth of reservations in both Michigan and Wisconsin since early September. And in Minnesota, a state Trump almost won four years ago and has expressed confidence in flipping, his team already has chopped about $5 million from its projected fall TV budget.

The numbers, confirmed by the media firm Advertising Analytics, reflect a race where Democrat Joe Biden has gained a fundraising advantage over Trump and where polling suggests these states are competitive toss-ups or tipping toward Biden. The Trump campaign, meanwhile, according to data shared by Democratic ad trackers, has in recent weeks boosted its TV presence in the Sun Belt battlegrounds — Arizona, Florida, and Georgia — and Nevada, a state Trump lost in 2016.

As Trump’s retreat in Iowa and Ohio became more pronounced this week, his advisers dismissed it as a sign of strength, despite polls that show him essentially tied with Biden in both states. And Biden’s campaign has accelerated its advertising in Ohio, which at the beginning of the 2020 cycle many Democrats did not believe would be a top-tier swing state.

“I don’t think the spin is in any way congruent with the reality,” Nicholas Everhart, an Ohio-based Republican ad maker, told BuzzFeed News. “There’s no reason why [Trump] would not be wanting to be on the air in those states, particularly Ohio, at this moment. Clearly there are some unpleasant financial realities impacting the strategic decisions they are making."

Biden and the Democratic National Committee outraised Trump and the Republicans by more than $150 million in August. Neither side has yet released September fundraising totals.

Trump still has millions of dollars in TV time reserved for each of the five Midwest battlegrounds through Election Day, but he could cancel those commitments in the remaining three weeks. He also could buy more time in the states, though that’s not been the trend.

“If overspending on TV ads determined the outcome of elections, Hillary Clinton would be president — but it’s cute that Joe Biden and his campaign think buying ads in these states makes up for years of Democrats viewing them as flyover country," Samantha Zager, the Trump campaign's deputy national press secretary, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News. "Biden can try to buy votes, but President Trump and his campaign will continue earning them on the ground and on the airwaves — and come November, we’ll be celebrating victory while Biden binge watches his TV ads from his basement.”

Biden’s campaign, like Trump’s, has shifted money in and out of states to address the changing dynamics of the race. A Biden spokesperson said the campaign’s ad spending has increased overall and in the Midwest but did not disclose where or by how much.

"We're building the widest possible path to 270 electoral votes in November, and that includes states across the Midwest that have been battered by Trump's historic mishandling of our response to COVID-19 and by his disastrous economic policies that put manufacturing into recession, cost us millions of jobs, and have left working families falling further and further behind,” said the spokesperson, Mike Gwin, in a statement to BuzzFeed News.

Trump’s chances of a second term are trickier without two or more of the Midwest battlegrounds — he’d have to make up for losses there by holding the South and perhaps flipping states such as Nevada or New Hampshire. Losing Iowa or Ohio, in particular, could signal problems in Pennsylvania or Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which awards one electoral vote.

The tightened race in Ohio has Biden officials and their allies particularly optimistic that Democrats are well positioned to win back places Hillary Clinton lost in 2016. Sen. Sherrod Brown told BuzzFeed News this week that modest late-summer ad buys in Toledo and Youngstown — seen by many at the time as a shrewd move to also reach voters in neighboring Michigan and Pennsylvania — helped convince the Biden team to expand its effort in the state. This week, with Trump still off the air there, the campaign placed its largest Ohio ad buy of the fall.

“They did some experimental TV in Youngstown and Toledo, and I think they saw movement in polls, they saw what we were telling them is actually true — that there is great enthusiasm for Biden, and some Trump voters are regretting their vote,” Brown, who for weeks had privately been urging Biden to make a bigger play in Ohio, said in a telephone interview. “So, the experiment there worked. It gave them an indication that good things can happen.”

Republicans also see the state as a tipping point.

“I think Ohio is kind of the head and neck of the Midwest,” Michael Hartley, a Republican strategist in Ohio, told BuzzFeed News “In 2016 [Trump] won by 8, and I think there was carryover into neighboring states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. It’s the same type of folks, the demographics are similar. Western Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin have very similar people, particularly when you get into the working class. Shave a couple percentage points off that, and that could matter. If I see Trump winning Ohio by 6 to 8 points, then I think it means he’s winning nationally. Obviously if he loses Ohio, it’s Bad News Bears all around.”

Kadia Goba contributed reporting.

This story was updated to include the response from the Trump campaign.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/henrygomez/trump-campaign-ads-pulled-back-ohio-wisconsin

 

[Brad_ATX 13,654]

A thread.  Great insight into the goings on here in Texas.  Worth clicking in and reading.

 

[TitanTiger 20,472]

What’s funny is, if Biden wins by eroding GOP support in areas thought to be easily safe, Trump’s groupies here and elsewhere while whine for four years about RINOs and traitors. They will never concede that they laid the groundwork for this disaster four years ago when they not only nominated this joke of a president, but fervently and hypocritically defended him. The failure and the bill that comes due with it was baked into the terrible person they backed. 

Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. 

[McLoofus 35,182]

On 10/10/2020 at 12:38 AM, Brad_ATX said:

A thread.  Great insight into the goings on here in Texas.  Worth clicking in and reading.

 

Similar themes here in SC, although I don't think we're quite as close to fruition.

Quote

“If Graham’s in any jeopardy at all,” said Dan Carter, an emeritus professor at the University of South Carolina, “it’s because of Trump and the fact that he had to go through all these contortions to protect himself on the right in the new Trump party.”

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/10/11/nation/transformation-lindsey-graham/?event=event25&fbclid=IwAR0KD_6Vlt83mhRWgU3ABY-00YksFsMEUIPqxsccMxYDgZjr34dRy4BtD1I