No Longer Pretty Early
Complete Thread
- Trump still has pretty decent winning chances (~30% in our model) but I don’t really buy that his chances are *increasing* and I don’t get why there seems to be some sentiment to that effect. In some ways, rather, this was the most reassuring week of the campaign for Biden.
- Why? If you’re behind, you only have so many chances to turn the campaign around, and Trump whiffed on a couple of chances this week. He did not get much help from his convention. Nor does his “LAW AND ORDER” focus seem to working, at least if you trust the polls.
- To put it another way, with the late conventions this year, we’re rapidly transitioning from “it’s still pretty early” to “we’re in the stretch run”. And out of that Trump went from…trailing by 8-9 points to 7-8 instead? (And that small bounce might fade anyway.) Not great.
- Underlying conditions may be getting a bit better for Trump. We did get a great jobs report this AM. COVID cases have been falling. (Though more of a plateau lately, which is a bit concerning.) Some optimism about vaccines. (Along with concern they’ll be rushed out.)
- But it’s also clear that Trump isn’t very focused on any of that. Just look at his Twitter feed this week. It’s about obscure cable news stories instead. About Nancy Pelosi going to the beauty parlor. About John McCain. About the Drudge Report. About “mini-strokes”.
- The chaotic news cycles induced by Trump can sometimes be make it hard for his opponent to drive a message. If he was ahead, they could help him to run out the clock. But now *he’s* behind and *he’s* the one who needs something to change and *he* has to drive a message.
Law and Orders Isn’t Resonating
Please consider Trump’s Law And Order Message Isn’t Resonating With Most Americans
As President Trump continues to push a “law and order” campaign message, we’ve been keeping an eye on the polls to see whether there’s any truth to the narrative that the recent unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will help Trump politically. So far, the answer is no. Polls conducted this week and late last week suggest that public attitudes aren’t really breaking in Trump’s direction, even though the Republican National Convention focused a great deal on characterizing the Democrats as the party of chaos and anarchy.
Many Americans doubt his ability to fix the problems and reduce tensions that have precipitated the demonstrations. According to a YouGov survey on Wednesday, 56 percent of adults said that the violence happening at protests would get worse if Trump were reelected this November. Fifteen percent thought the violence would stay at similar levels, while 18 percent thought it would improve (11 percent said they didn’t know). Conversely, 43 percent thought protest violence would get better if Joe Biden won, and just 23 percent thought it would worsen. Somewhat similarly, 50 percent of likely voters told Quinnipiac University this week that they felt less safe with Trump as president, compared with 35 percent who said they felt safer. These voters were more split on Biden, however: 42 percent said they’d feel safer with Biden in the White House, and 40 percent said they’d feel less safe. Regarding Trump’s and Biden’s rhetoric on the protests, ABC News/Ipsos survey found that 55 percent of Americans thought Trump’s statements made things worse, while about half the country (49 percent) thought Biden’s statements didn’t have much effect either way.
Winding Path to Victory
The lead image from 538 Election Forecast
The word “forecast” is inaccurate and 538 would agree even though that is the link title.
The accurate words are “snapshot” at the moment. But the election isn’t now.
North Carolina Back in Biden’s Column
A few days ago North Carolina was narrowly in Trump’s column. But his election bounce is fading. North Carolina is now narrowly back in Biden’s column.
The election is less than two months from now. Moreover, Trump’s key message hasn’t resonated.
Vote Twice
Vote Twice Unlocked
Trump Encouraged Election Fraud
Trump clearly encourage election fraud. A number of states issued warnings regarding those Tweets.
There is no guarantee in any state to have votes tabulated before or on election day.
It’s no longer early and Trump keeps making Tweet gaffes. The latest on McCain, and literally telling people to try to vote twice.
That’s quite a set of Tweets coupled with his primary message of “Law and Order”.
Mish
Every time there’s a BLM/Anti protest with property/people destruction, it’s helps Trump from the viewpoint of the “undecided” IMO. The Left and Right see those events differently but aren’t the swing vote. Normies watching Democrat run cities explode into lawlessness are probably smart enough to realize the implicit endorsement of such by most Democrats(or in the least excusing said actions) and it will shape their voting choice, again IMO. I think how many more we see between now and the election will have a large impact on the election outcome.
Wish has turned into one sick TDS puppy. Soon he will be singing the Horst Wessel Lied.
Trump is an egomaniac, but I think he proved a point with the vote twice tweet.
Republicans were worried that people would vote in person and by mail in ballot. Democrats and the media said that would be impossible. Trump then responds that his supporters should try it and then Democrats and the media scream bloody murder that it would be stealing the election.
Is it impossible or possible?
I got 5 ballot applications to my house earlier this summer and only 2 voters live here and at the same time Democrats pushed (unsuccessfully) to have signature verification removed from mail in ballots sent out to all.
Perhaps a gentle nudge on Trump’s part, in support of cancelling unsolicited balloting, and instead requiring voters to appear at the polling place, after all. Expect more nudges until successful?
Y’all remember this “Law and Order” BS when he’s shrieking for his trumplings to take to the streets and kill all liberals rather than concede.
Inept vote buying scheme–employed people who have mandatory buy-in on the payroll tax deferral are not all that happy about having some more money right now, but having to start to pay it back in 3 months. Federal employees and military are required to do so. Rest of the work force are not particularly interested.
The people who vote early have decided already and can’t wait to get their hands on a ballot. Who knows how much Trump’s rhetoric suppressed his own peoples votes by down-talking mail-in voting?
We have the remainder of September and October to see the effects of school re-openings and the reddest parts of the country may be in the biggest trouble with the virus. Trump’s continuing on his course of minimizing the virus and its effect and will run into areas where the mismatch of rhetoric and reality will be to big to ignore
I would suggest you look at the Georgia Tech website which handily estimates the probability of someone being infected at the event if you attend an event with 10, 25, 50 or a hundred people. There should be no surprise at the outbreaks that are yet to come.
What a stupid conclusion. It is the Mayors and Governors which control the cities. Anyone with a elementary school level of civics should know that. Trump has offered his help to them to stop the violence and they have refused it because the use of terrorism is a socialist staple. The people see what is happening, and who is responsible, and the socialists will be seen, and hated for what they are.
The violence has nothing to do with Trump. It is a direct result of Socialist liberals controlling our educational system and teaching lies and propaganda to our children. It is a result of Democratic Governors and Mayors who support domestic terror on out streets. The people are tired of seeing terrorism considered by the socialist liberal Democrats becoming the norm in America. Either the government will stop it, or the people will do it themselves. There is a reckoning coming, and the socialists will reap the whirlwind.
“As Trump Endorsers Election Fraud…” Seriously? You could at least proof your TDS titles so they’d be legible. Interestingly, TDS went through the roof with the change to Street.com. Just a coincidence?
Here we have a TDS type II sufferer, exhibiting classic prose that has an implied prefix of “Mommy…”
It really does amaze me how many ‘Trump sure is stupid’ stories are pumped out on this website every week. It has brought in a ton of new readers/commenters to this blog, which is surely the reason it is happening.
Donald Trump Has Never Explained a Mysterious $50 Million Loan. Is It Evidence of Tax Fraud?
Spot on!
57 days till the election but Mish, early voting starts in PA which allows counties to start early voting 50 days prior to the election, so people will be casting ballots in 7 days, that is indeed not a lot of time left to turn it around. Two states, MN and SD, start early voting at 46 days, and 5 more states start the following day at 45. Then there is a 40 and a rash of 30’s, so millions of votes will have been cast in the next couple weeks.
I have seen the effort to generate Trump enthusiasm on both Twitter and especially YouTube by claiming Trump is back in the lead not just catching up, and I am suspicious of their origins, they are not obviously American nor of any US based organizations, and their goal seems simple enough, generating false momentum they think will lead to the real thing.
It is my opinion though that Trump has lost many millions of his voters from 2016 when he convinced Hillary haters and a lot of indy voters to come over to his side.
Now though most of those plus a sizable chunk of regular republicans have abandoned him, if one is to judge by the tweets of hundreds of prominent republicans that say they are going to vote for Biden as a matter of national security and necessity. There is even one entire organization called the Lincoln Project that includes George Conway and former GOP head Michael Steele, among literally hundreds of prominent republicans to sign on and represent a new Never Trump wing of the GOP.
Wiki has a list of course:
This is a list of Republicans and conservatives who oppose or have declined to endorse the re-election of incumbent Donald Trump, the 2020 Republican Party nominee for President of the United States.
Former President Bush (2001-2009) is refusing to endorse Trump.
His own sister Maryanne Trump former federal judge from NJ will not endorse him.
Even Ann Coulter who would endorse a ham sandwich as long as it was both evil and republican will not endorse Trump.
What this leaves Trump with is a lot of money to generate ads that make it look like he has support, and a very loud and rabid Trump base that is disproportionately enthusiastic and use really big signs, but they only make up about 50 million of the 62.9 million votes he got in 2016. And I can guarantee on faith that not one Hillary voter ( 65,844,610 ) has changed their minds about Trump, in fact it would be fair to say they are ALL saying I TOLD YOU SO!
Now add to that a black turn out that will be a record because the African American community is exceptionally P.O.ed at what they see as borderline genocidal instincts on Trump’s part. BLM, has millions of adherents, many, possibly in the tens of millions who are as much white and angry as black.
Yes Trump will still take most of the thinly populated red states and thus retain a large base in the electoral college that is out of any proportion to the popular vote, but when a long time incumbent like Lindsey Graham is statistically tied with a black rival for his seat in the senate in a state like South Carolina, you know the GOP is in deep trouble.
And that is another thing polling gives no weight to at all but will impact states far in excess of what we are reading in the media. States like AZ (11 electoral votes) that SHOULD be safe for the GOP and which they counted upon in past elections are now going to go blue simply because of down ballot votes. McSally the GOP incumbent is as good as 20 points behind Mark Kelley the astronaut challenger and a whole lot of those voters are not going to vote Trump. If even half the people voting for Kelly also vote for Biden that state flips.
What other states may flip because of this? NC, Tillis has been down by more than double the margin of error the entire race in NC. Colorado has a sitting GOP senator that also has been down a consistent 10 points to former Governor Hickenlooper who is very popular in that state, that senate seat will flip and see that Biden gets the 9 EC votes there.
Maine, Suzan Collins who by the way has refused to endorse Trump thus probably costing her at least some of the Trump base voters, is wildly unpopular in ME since her confirmation vote for Kavanaugh. Her challenger Sara Gideon has a lot of cash and is up in the polls, it looks grim for Collins and that by the way would be another senate flip bring the total to 4.
Even Texas is now within the margin of error on most polling. Sure Trump may survive there in a squeaker but it is symptomatic of a deep shift in opinion.
There are four more GOP senators that are a coin flip in their races as well, in Iowa, Montana, two in Georgia, even Sullivan in Alaska was tied with his dem supported independent rival in the only poll I have seen. The only Dem who will likely lose is Jones in Alabama, so with four dem wins and one loss we have a tied senate. One more of the several close races in other states will mean a flipped senate and a serious problem for Trump and the GOP.
Final word, I would not at all be surprised to see a final vote total for Trump of 50 million. Likely it will be more like 55 but I am certain even with population growth he will not capture even as many as he had last time, and I expect turnout to be heavy. Even if Trump has done a lot more to sabotage the vote than we already know about like the effort to have USPS deliver too late ballots and especially in dem districts.
I expect Biden will get all 65.4 million HRC voters plus many millions of 2016 Trump defectors, along with the nearly 10 million net new voters that have come of age during the Trump presidency. I can see him getting at least 70 million votes, and maybe a lot more. And remember that Trump has turned off millions of average republicans who may never be able to cast a ballot for Biden, but are not enthusiastic enough to cast one for Trump either.
Trump isn’t warning of Democratic election fraud, he’s signalling to his base that he wants them to commit the fraud and asking them to vote multiple times.
I think even the right of center Republicans who were ashamed to say they voted for Trump in 2016 have now flipped to Biden. In Texas the libertarian candidate is polling high enough for Biden to win there. Trump only has a few bullets left in his arsenal – declare war against someone or call the election rigged and take it to the courts. Trump increasingly looks mentally erratic compared to people in their 80s or 90s. The stress of the job coupled with the egomaniac personality has pushed him beyond the point of no return. Hang onto your helmets.
C_O; Miles Taylor, former DHS official who worked with Trump in the WH has warned that Trump intends to challenge in ever jurisdiction he can as fraudulent, and says that Trump has an “army of lawyers” ready to go out and do that. Likely they will not try in places like California or Washington, where the vote will simply be overwhemling to the dems, but in any other place where the margin is within a few percent and were usually red there will be protracted court battles.
On the positive side though he also says that the rank and file in government has done magnificent work to make sure the election is secure and this is in spite of the little known fact that Trump has replaced hundreds of dedicated career public servents with 20 somethings whose only qualification is a MAGA hat and and a willingness to do absolutely anything the administration tells them to do.
I will see if I can post a link to his Twitter interview where he lays all this out.
That was not the vid I was trying to find, but this is an excerpt from that interview that quotes him talking about the kind of people Trump hs installed in department heads that was used in a commercial.
The new game is turnout. The winner will be based on which side shows up in greater numbers. Mo one is undecided
And how many people are unwilling to admit to a pollster that they are voting for Trump.
The polls keep saying there are few undecided so how can Trump’s chances rise?
One day, they’ll catch Sleepy Joe in the Pedo Pizza Sex Dungeon…. it’s only a matter of time.
Not as many as you think. National polls were spot on in 2016. It was the state polling that was off. Well under 2% in my opinion.
Since, in any environment with any uncertainty, two is one and one is none: If you are to provide two parallel ways of voting, it really behooves those designing and overseeing the process, to ensure it is resilient enough to deal with what is essentially just prudent belt-and-suspenders behavior.
Biden really should tell “his” voters to do the same, considering the somewhat shoddy reputation US vote counting processes have developed over the past few elections.
Why would Trump expect a bounce from the “law and order” attitude? The riots started on his shift, and have gotten worse on his shift. Clearly whatever he is doing isn’t working. He seems to make a lot of noise, but nothing happens other that for things to get worse.
So far, his idiot fans just believe whatever he says. No need to bother with consistency.
Reaction to Trump’s clever post seems overwrought.
With a lot of people new to mail-in, a question arises: What if you want to change your vote from an early mail-in? Seems like the thing to do would be to simply vote in person to override your previous vote. (Other mechanisms to handle this situation are easy to imagine.)
Do American voting systems handle this? If not, why not? A guard against double-voting and a secret ballot are key requirements of any American voting system aren’t they?
So you think it’s “clever” to advocate vote fraud while loudly trumpeting that there will be massive vote fraud in the election?
you cannot change your vote after you have already cast your ballot, in-person or mail-in. period.
If the masks work, why can’t we just vote at the booth?