Trump vs. Biden - the Final Showdown

[malchior]

The case for voting in person is that the polling place is walking distance from my house at a Catholic church's rec center. It's a big wide open space and I've never seen a line there in 10 years.

You're not able to vote in person in NJ any more? Have you stopped following all your hardcore GOP NJ resident friends? We're sliding in a dictatorship here in NJ - haven't you heard? Very limited in person voting. I would expect anyone trying to do so in person is going to be waiting.

Strangely that NJ.com article conflicts with the published information on the Division of Elections page and the COVID-19 information page updated...2 days ago. How could that be?!? The State is trying to confuzzle me.

[El Guapo]

https://twitter.com/dandrezner/status/1 ... 6683651072

[Vorret]

I'd guess it goes both ways... a Trump fan in a very democratic area might not want to draw attention to himself.

Ignore the polls and vote.

[Alefroth]

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'd guess it goes both ways... a Trump fan in a very democratic area might not want to draw attention to himself.

Ignore the polls and vote.

Absolutely!

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

Oh wait, I don't have to!

[Ralph-Wiggum]

As a reminder, the Villages was where the video of the dude on a golf cart yelling "white power" that Trump retweeted took place. It's full of 60+ year old, rich, white, and (supposedly) horny retired folk.

[El Guapo]

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

Two of the five "Trump wins" maps that just popped up involved Trump winning Oregon. Good luck with that.

I wonder whether the model will ever spit out a map where Trump wins MA.

[LawBeefaroni]

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

Two of the five "Trump wins" maps that just popped up involved Trump winning Oregon. Good luck with that.

Dude, it's 2020.

Swaths of the small southern Oregon cities of Phoenix and Talent now lie in ash, satellite images show, as wildfires wage unprecedented destruction across the US West.

A massive burn scar cuts through parts of Talent and Phoenix, home to about 11,000 people combined. The wounded terrain, seen in images from Maxar Technologies, abuts Interstate 5.

I wonder whether the model will ever spit out a map where Trump wins MA.

Careful what you wish for.

[Kraken]

I'd make the effort to vote in person if I lived in a swing state. As it is, I think we can call MA for Biden by >15 points. No need for anyone to vote.

The important word to hammer home is that Democrats vote on Nov. 3 and Republicans on Nov. 10.

[Alefroth]

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

Two of the five "Trump wins" maps that just popped up involved Trump winning Oregon. Good luck with that.

I wonder whether the model will ever spit out a map where Trump wins MA.

Haha... I hadn't noticed that. I've mostly been looking at FL and PA.

[Alefroth]

Dude, it's 2020.

Swaths of the small southern Oregon cities of Phoenix and Talent now lie in ash, satellite images show, as wildfires wage unprecedented destruction across the US West.

A massive burn scar cuts through parts of Talent and Phoenix, home to about 11,000 people combined. The wounded terrain, seen in images from Maxar Technologies, abuts Interstate 5.

That's where my mom lived before she died. It's weird how it seemed to rip through the built-up corridor and left many of the trees standing.

[Defiant]

538 has Biden's chances at 75% now, the best they've been in a couple of months.

Two of the five "Trump wins" maps that just popped up involved Trump winning Oregon. Good luck with that.

I wonder whether the model will ever spit out a map where Trump wins MA.

What's even crazier - according to 538, Biden has almost twice the chance of winning Mississippi (13%) as Trump has of winning Oregon (8%)

Of course, neither is very likely, but it's still in the realm of possibility.

(As far as MA, Trump wins it less than 1% of the time, so I don't think it will be one of the 100 dots it shows, and is even less likely to be one of the maps shown. Unless the race changes significantly anyway)

[Kraken]

Unless the GOP can prove in the next two months that Biden really is a senile pedophile cannibal, he'll enjoy a 20-point landslide in MA.

[Unagi]

Unless the GOP can prove in the next two months that Biden really is a senile pedophile cannibal, he'll enjoy a 20-point landslide in MA.

and an 8 point win, otherwise...

[RunningMn9]

I'd guess it goes both ways... a Trump fan in a very democratic area might not want to draw attention to himself.

Ignore the polls and vote.

What does that have to do with polling? They don’t make you answer the question in front of your friends.

[Defiant]

I'd guess it goes both ways... a Trump fan in a very democratic area might not want to draw attention to himself.

Ignore the polls and vote.

What does that have to do with polling? They don’t make you answer the question in front of your friends.

A voter may still be uncomfortable saying they're voting for Trump (or Biden or Clinton or whomever) to another human, even if that person is a stranger. That said, the issues that arose in some polling in 2020 (which weren't that much - most of the polling was reasonably accurate and in line with historical performance of polling) had more to do with things like weighting by education than to shy Trump voters. IIUC, there's not much evidence to support shy Trump voters affecting polling.

But regardless of polling, you should go vote. Even if the polling (both national and state) are accurate and give Biden a safe margin of victory, were going to want as big a margin as possible.

[Defiant]

The Wisconsin Supreme Court told election officials across the state on Thursday -- a week before the deadline to mail ballots -- that they can't mail out absentee ballots until the court decides whether to add the Green Party's presidential ticket to the ballot.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/10/politics ... index.html

[Alefroth]

But regardless of polling, you should go vote.

Absolutely. The polls only work if people do what they say they are going to do.

[El Guapo]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/statu ... 4390061058

[Scraper]

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/statu ... 4390061058

My guess is that Trump can't stand the thought of losing any state that he won against Clinton. So he is ordering his staff to spend money on states like IA and GA even though those states are really meaningless when compared to PA or Mich. It's a very dumb strategy, but it's also one that a narcissist would insist on.

[Exodor]

My guess is that Trump can't stand the thought of losing any state that he won against Clinton. So he is ordering his staff to spend money on states like IA and GA even though those states are really meaningless when compared to PA or Mich. It's a very dumb strategy, but it's also one that a narcissist would insist on.

One of the replies points out that GA and IA have competitive Senate races - the spending makes sense if you've conceded the presidency and are focused on trying to preserve the Senate majority.

[Defiant]

Could be an attempt to try to help down ballot races (GA, IA have close Senate races. FL, PA, WI don't have Senate races) - if Trump had the ability of thinking about anyone other than himself.

[Scraper]

Could be an attempt to try to help down ballot races (GA, IA have close Senate races. FL, PA, WI don't have Senate races) - if Trump had the ability of thinking about anyone other than himself.

Yep that's the flaw in that line of reasoning. No way he's thinking about anyone else but himself.

[El Guapo]

Could be an attempt to try to help down ballot races (GA, IA have close Senate races. FL, PA, WI don't have Senate races) - if Trump had the ability of thinking about anyone other than himself.

He doesn't. But if McConnell and other GOP folks have influence with the Trump campaign, I suspect that they could pitch Trump on why that spending makes sense for Trump.

[Unagi]

My guess is that Trump can't stand the thought of losing any state that he won against Clinton. So he is ordering his staff to spend money on states like IA and GA even though those states are really meaningless when compared to PA or Mich. It's a very dumb strategy, but it's also one that a narcissist would insist on.

But that wouldn't explain why he isn't putting money into MI (or the others), unless I'm not following you here... He won all of those against Clinton

[malchior]

Trump is a fucking moron. He doesn't know what is happening with his campaign. He is watching Fox all night. I'd look at Stepien here. He isn't the most ethical person himself. Perhaps he is looking down the field and putting the spend in places that get *him* brownie points.

[Scraper]

My guess is that Trump can't stand the thought of losing any state that he won against Clinton. So he is ordering his staff to spend money on states like IA and GA even though those states are really meaningless when compared to PA or Mich. It's a very dumb strategy, but it's also one that a narcissist would insist on.

But that wouldn't explain why he isn't putting money into MI (or the others), unless I'm not following you here... He won all of those against Clinton

I keep forgetting that he won Michigan and PA last time. I think I try to block that out of my memory

[LawBeefaroni]

Trump is a fucking moron. He doesn't know what is happening with his campaign. He is watching Fox all night. I'd look at Stepien here. He isn't the most ethical person himself. Perhaps he is looking down the field and putting the spend in places that get *him* brownie points.

It might help to see exactly where the spend is going. Does he have a friend or big backer or someone whispering in his ear at a TV station in Iowa? Did some ridiculous spend on a small town paper benefit a FoF?

[Unagi]

LOL, well if Trump gets wind of everyone pointing out he's not spending money where he should be, and it may be because someone else is benefiting - I'd image we may see a change in campaign leadership in the weeks to come.

[malchior]

LOL, well if Trump gets wind of everyone pointing out he's not spending money where he should be, and it may be because someone else is benefiting - I'd image we may see a change in campaign leadership in the weeks to come.

He took over a failing, broken campaign, extracted some favors from the job, and then doesn't have to think up some defense about the potential loss? Heck Stepien might love it. He'll be well looked after.

[Jaymann]

Biden had a great ad during the Texans/Chiefs game on Thursday. I actually paused my recording to watch it. Nearly brought me to tears.

[Little Raven]

Forget simply drinking myself to sleep every night. If I were a Republican election consultant, I would just put myself on a liver replacement waiting list now.

Democrats are amassing an enormous lead in early voting, alarming Republicans who worry they’ll need to orchestrate a huge Election Day turnout during a deadly coronavirus outbreak to answer the surge.

The Democratic dominance spreads across an array of battleground states, according to absentee ballot request data compiled by state election authorities and analyzed by Democratic and Republican data experts. In North Carolina and Pennsylvania, Democrats have a roughly 3-to-1 advantage over Republicans in absentee ballot requests. In Florida — a must-win for President Donald Trump — the Democratic lead stands at more than 700,000 ballot requests, while the party also leads in New Hampshire, Ohio and Iowa.

Even more concerning for Republicans, Democrats who didn't vote in 2016 are requesting 2020 ballots at higher rates than their GOP counterparts. The most striking example is Pennsylvania, where nearly 175,000 Democrats who sat out the last race have requested ballots, more than double the number of Republicans, according to an analysis of voter rolls by the Democratic firm TargetSmart.

It's....difficult to overstate just how screwed the GOP appears to be.

[El Guapo]

I will caveat that by saying that my understanding is that the link between early voting leads and final election results is way more tenuous than you would think.

[Defiant]

Yeah. IIRC, last time Democrats had big leads (not this big, though) in early voting in most of the swing states and we saw how that turned out.

And yeah, if there's a big pandemic surge (especially in important states) that makes people more reluctant to go to the polls on Election Day that could make a major difference.

[Defiant]

While 61 percent of respondents believe Biden has more respect for the military, just 37 percent say Trump has more respect—a difference of 24 percentage points in the Democratic nominee's favor, according to new polling released Sunday by ABC News/The Washington Post/Ipsos

https://www.newsweek.com/double-digits- ... mp-1531564

[malchior]

FWIW - the Monmouth poll analysis is well worth a read. The boil down is the whole situation is a mess. There aren't clear fault lines other than Trump's people think that Trump will solve it and that the other side is lawless. Not a surprising result on that front. However, beyond that it gets really murky. I don't find these results encouraging at all across several fronts. Less about the impact of 'law and order' issues on the election since it seems...neutral. More like we have no majority that agrees on what the problem is. That means more fracturing, less support for solutions, and deepening divisions.

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1 ... 6601253890

[malchior]

Washington Post OpEd

Spoiler:

She asks us to hear her out. I tried. Lord I tried but I read only up until I clipped. It was all I could take of this bullshit. People like this are objectively bad people. Maybe not evil but they are misguided assholes and I don't have time for their blinders bullshit anymore. Worrying about democracy because of 'Biden'!? This person is a complete fool.

Danielle Pletka is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

In 2016, I never considered voting for Donald Trump. The Johnny-come-lately Republican and his nasty schoolyard jibes seemed to me the worst degradation of American politics. But in 2020, I may be forced to vote for the man.

Hear me out.

I don’t need a bumper sticker or a lawn sign to convey my distaste for Trump — his odious tweets, his chronic mendacity and general crudeness. Over the past four years, like an oil slick that besmirches all it touches, Trump himself has managed to obscure his administration’s more-substantive accomplishments, such as focusing the world’s attention on China’s threat to global security and brokering a new era of Middle East peace.

I fear Trump’s erratic, personality-driven decision-making. His contempt for NATO is alarming, as is his delusion that he can manage rogue leaders. I don’t doubt that his eagerness to withdraw U.S. troops from their stability missions in places such as Afghanistan and Iraq will encourage conflict and terrorism. And I fret that his bizarrely isolationist attitude toward international trade will hurt the U.S. economy and splinter the global trading juggernaut that over the past half-century has brought the world amazing prosperity, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of extreme poverty.

But I fear the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party even more.

What is there to be afraid of? I fear that former vice president Joe Biden would be a figurehead president, incapable of focus or leadership, who would run a teleprompter presidency with the words drafted by his party’s hard-left ideologues. I fear that a Congress with Democrats controlling both houses — almost certainly ensured by a Biden victory in November — would begin an assault on the institutions of government that preserve the nation’s small “d” democracy. That could include the abolition of the filibuster, creating an executive-legislative monolith of unlimited political power; an increase in the number of Supreme Court seats to ensure a liberal supermajority; passage of devastating economic measures such as the Green New Deal; nationalized health care; the dismantling of U.S. borders and the introduction of socialist-inspired measures that will wreck an economy still recovering from the pandemic shutdown.

[Jaymann]

And?

[YellowKing]

God how I loathe those diatribes (I see the same thing on Facebook).

"Trump is a horrible racist person who can't keep his mouth shut, is destroying the Constitution with his criminality, and can't say a single honest word, but I have to vote for him because Biden might provide healthcare for everybody."

I'd give anything to be living in the "left-wing apocalyptic hellscape" that was America under Obama's administration when Democrats were in control of Congress.

[Grifman]

Yeah. IIRC, last time Democrats had big leads (not this big, though) in early voting in most of the swing states and we saw how that turned out.

And yeah, if there's a big pandemic surge (especially in important states) that makes people more reluctant to go to the polls on Election Day that could make a major difference.

This is different this time. NC for example has over 10 times as many mail in ballots as usual. The old trends may not be relevant.