Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
Are you sure? Would Trump be able to realize by himself that he did that? And would he listen if anyone told him?
USA Politics
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
- Start date
I agree with LC, Trump was going to be looking for an out either way. That’s especially true now as he could be very weak during the debate or suffering some side effect from the steroids they have him on.
I saw speculation last night that Trump would “bait” Biden into pulling out himself. Of course we haven’t learned after 4 years that there is no strategy.
I saw speculation last night that Trump would “bait” Biden into pulling out himself. Of course we haven’t learned after 4 years that there is no strategy.
About a month ago, I put together a couple electoral maps for how I think the election might go in the event of a respective Biden or Trump victory. With two weeks out, I’m doing another one just for Biden, and I’m much more bullish on a Biden victory (but I also have evidence based reasoning for these picks). Essentially, I don’t think we’ll ever see 80s level landslides again, but I think we’re going to get about as close to that as possible. It feels very similar to 1980: a historically weak incumbent failing to define his opponent mixed with a crumbling economy.
There’s a lot of talk about hidden Trump voters and the polls being wrong again, but everything I’ve read about the polling methodology this year suggests that the polls might actually be underestimating Biden. If Biden is up by 10 points nationally* in a polling environment that is favorable to Trump, the chance of an actual double digit victory and red states flipping isn’t that far outside the realm of possibility. In fact, there are more of these scenarios on 538’s tracker than there are of full stop Trump victories.
*which btw is outside the margin where Trump could realistically still win the electoral college
A couple of notes:
- Alaska is super underpolled and the senate candidate there, an independent, is probably the best candidate running this year after Mark Kelly (check out any of his ads on YouTube). Of all the red states, Alaska has the most independent streak similar to Arizona in some ways and I could see a similar situation there where Biden rides Gross’ coattails to victory. It’s a shot in the dark though, I think there are about 5 polls there since March.
- The polls seem to be doing more education weighting, more representation of white men (underpolled in 16), and still rely heavily on phone banking (old skew). These things all benefit Trump, especially in Florida and Texas where there are heavy minority populations that might be underpolled. And yet these states are still really close (and Biden has a Florida advantage right now). I also read that Latin voters tend to stay undecided pretty late. This could torpedo him in Florida and especially Texas.
- It seems that endorsements have had less sway in recent years, but I think they still matter and Kasich’s endorsement of Biden might be enough to put him over the edge in Ohio.
Even though this is a historic landslide, I think this is actually the most boring outcome (in a good way). Florida and NC will probably be called on election night, which means you can call a Biden victory on election night even though we won’t know results in Michigan, WI, or PA for a few days. The margin is also so wide that there is very little Trump can do to get the courts to overturn the election results. He won’t have much republican support either.
There’s a lot of talk about hidden Trump voters and the polls being wrong again, but everything I’ve read about the polling methodology this year suggests that the polls might actually be underestimating Biden. If Biden is up by 10 points nationally* in a polling environment that is favorable to Trump, the chance of an actual double digit victory and red states flipping isn’t that far outside the realm of possibility. In fact, there are more of these scenarios on 538’s tracker than there are of full stop Trump victories.
*which btw is outside the margin where Trump could realistically still win the electoral college
A couple of notes:
- Alaska is super underpolled and the senate candidate there, an independent, is probably the best candidate running this year after Mark Kelly (check out any of his ads on YouTube). Of all the red states, Alaska has the most independent streak similar to Arizona in some ways and I could see a similar situation there where Biden rides Gross’ coattails to victory. It’s a shot in the dark though, I think there are about 5 polls there since March.
- The polls seem to be doing more education weighting, more representation of white men (underpolled in 16), and still rely heavily on phone banking (old skew). These things all benefit Trump, especially in Florida and Texas where there are heavy minority populations that might be underpolled. And yet these states are still really close (and Biden has a Florida advantage right now). I also read that Latin voters tend to stay undecided pretty late. This could torpedo him in Florida and especially Texas.
- It seems that endorsements have had less sway in recent years, but I think they still matter and Kasich’s endorsement of Biden might be enough to put him over the edge in Ohio.
Even though this is a historic landslide, I think this is actually the most boring outcome (in a good way). Florida and NC will probably be called on election night, which means you can call a Biden victory on election night even though we won’t know results in Michigan, WI, or PA for a few days. The margin is also so wide that there is very little Trump can do to get the courts to overturn the election results. He won’t have much republican support either.
So, here's the thing. 538 has Biden at 52.5% and Trump at 41.9%. That means 5.6% are undecided or 3rd party. In 2016, 5.73% were "other". But I don't think Howie Hawkins and whoever is running for the Libertarians are going to get anywhere close to the 4.35% that those groups shared; in addition, Evan McMullin in Utah is not running, which is another .54% of the "other" vote. If we regress to the usual "other" vote of around 2%, that indicates we have 3.6% up in the air. Traditionally, undecideds break 80-20 to the challenger. If we put that through, we get 55.4% Biden, 42.6% Trump, 2% others.
That's landslide territory. There's no way Trump loses by 12.8% and wins the electoral vote. A 12% win in the popular vote in the past has translated to 400+ electoral votes.
That's landslide territory. There's no way Trump loses by 12.8% and wins the electoral vote. A 12% win in the popular vote in the past has translated to 400+ electoral votes.
The margins we are talking about are past the point where Trump could successfully steal the election. That strategy works if we’re talking about Biden in the upper 200’s or low 300’s. Trump has to successfully challenge the results in every state he loses in, which is a tall order even with a 6-3 court. He could maybe get enough votes thrown out to win PA, but it won’t matter if he also lost in Georgia and Florida.
I think Biden is starting to campaign more aggressively in these other states because he needs to win by a big margin and he needs the race to be called on election night.
I think Biden is starting to campaign more aggressively in these other states because he needs to win by a big margin and he needs the race to be called on election night.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
True. One can hope though that the Dems get enough seats, even with the skewed electoral system rigged by gerrymandering, that they can stack the SCOTUS and swiftly implement new election laws and get out of this insane situation where a minority of voters can get a majority of the seats.
Dr. Eddies Wingman
Brighter than thousand_suns
True, but any other president than Trump will hopefully take a more sane approach to solving these issues.
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For the next two years. Then the Republicans will take Congress again and... we really don't know who's waiting in the wings, taking notes on where Trump failed.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
If they adjust the election laws this might not happen.
I mean, it's never over after the election, although yeah. Look, the Republican Party has been assembling power in the executive since Reagan, and especially during the presidencies of GW Bush and Trump. You can argue if it's intentional, but I think it is - the simple fact of the matter is that since 1990, the GOP has won the popular vote once, and then barely. Mitch McConnell is pretty much ensuring that his caucus will lose its majority by confirming ACB, but he's going ahead full steam. Why? Because a 6-3 Supreme Court turns him on.
There are a number of different ways the GOP could go, depending on how this election goes and what Biden does in the next few years. There are structural reforms that could take power away from rural middle America and Republicans don’t have a lot of room to make gains in the senate in 2022. Maybe 2024, but they ousted most of the red state senators in 2018 that would’ve been up that year.
There’s also a lot of political theory on how Trump is significant to the party trajectory. Is he the beginning of a new era of GOP politics or is he the logical conclusion of Reaganism? That will also play into what happens next. I tend to think it’s more likely the latter, just because Trump is the result of Republicans quietly allowing right wing extremists in the party for years. Trump has blown that cover. I’m also skeptical that Trumpism has electoral staying power. For one thing, there’s no guarantee that the next Trump will have the same cult of personality and there might not be the same racial/economic upheaval that leads to a Trump. Also, Republicans started losing bigly in local and state elections pretty much immediately after Trump was elected. If Biden wins by taking back the blue wall plus expanding the map into the sun belt, it’ll be seen as a pretty big rebuke against Trumpian politics.
There’s also a lot of political theory on how Trump is significant to the party trajectory. Is he the beginning of a new era of GOP politics or is he the logical conclusion of Reaganism? That will also play into what happens next. I tend to think it’s more likely the latter, just because Trump is the result of Republicans quietly allowing right wing extremists in the party for years. Trump has blown that cover. I’m also skeptical that Trumpism has electoral staying power. For one thing, there’s no guarantee that the next Trump will have the same cult of personality and there might not be the same racial/economic upheaval that leads to a Trump. Also, Republicans started losing bigly in local and state elections pretty much immediately after Trump was elected. If Biden wins by taking back the blue wall plus expanding the map into the sun belt, it’ll be seen as a pretty big rebuke against Trumpian politics.
Jer
'Til Tomorrow
I think U.S. society had swallowed more cultural change than it could handle in a relatively short period of time, and it vomited up Trump as a result. A lot of people who were disengaged from politics or fed up with both parties took a chance on Trump, and many of them have buyer’s remorse now. I’m hopeful that this was an aberrant event, and now that people have seen how brown and crusty the grass is on the other side that we’ll get back to some sense of normalcy going forward, albeit with a conservative-stacked Supreme Court.
And honestly, if the SCOTUS starts undoing precedents that most Americans agreed with, it might prompt more people into action to support constitutional amendments to overrule them, or permanent changes to Senate rules to reinstate the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees to avoid this kind of railroading garbage we’ve had lately. And at least we’re likely to see a blue wave in a redistricting year for a change.
And hopefully both parties realize now that you can’t just be 100% free traders and tell the manufacturing industry to fuck off, or the Midwest may abandon you at their first opportunity.
And honestly, if the SCOTUS starts undoing precedents that most Americans agreed with, it might prompt more people into action to support constitutional amendments to overrule them, or permanent changes to Senate rules to reinstate the filibuster for SCOTUS nominees to avoid this kind of railroading garbage we’ve had lately. And at least we’re likely to see a blue wave in a redistricting year for a change.
And hopefully both parties realize now that you can’t just be 100% free traders and tell the manufacturing industry to fuck off, or the Midwest may abandon you at their first opportunity.
I am skeptical that a conservative SCOTUS will be as extreme as many speculate it will be, for the exact reasons you mention. None of the institutionalists (of which there are a few) on the court want to see democrats galvanized into court packing or instituting term limits. Typically they respect precedent and they often agree with each other. I imagine there’s a lot of will within the court system to remain legitimate and apolitical. We’ll see what happens.
I'm sure many of you will be watching the election with friends/family, but I will be watching at home alone and will likely be hosting a virtual watch with some peeps from work and stuff. If anyone's interested, lemme know.