"Will you shut up, man?" US Politics October 2020

3DD, the “Beach Boys”, Kid Rock


I expect a fair amount of people including some newly minted congress folk (Marjorie Taylor Greene, etc) to be all STILL MUH PRESBNIDENT

Regardless if he wins or loses I expect him to immediately start campaigning for 2024. He doesn't want the job but he's got to keep the grift going to pay his lawyers and stave off debt repayment.

honestly can’t blame him. that’s a ton of $$$ to leave on the table

Hays County is outside Austin, right?

Yep, it's got Wimberley, Dripping Springs, Buda, and Kyle. As Austin housing has become rapidly unaffordable, development in these exurbs to the southwest of Austin has ramped up. In 2016 Hayes County went for Trump by less than 1%... it was basically 50/50. The population has doubled since then, and the new residents are mostly Austin commuters... my bet is that in 2020 they go for Biden by about 15 points.

🚨October 24/Texas Counties breakdown🚨

Harris County-

As of yesterday, a total of 1,063,627 have voted with 6 days of Early Voting left.

In 2016, a total of 1,313,000 people voted in the entire General Election.

Currently at 81% of it's 2016 total.

— ET Breaking News (@breaking_et) October 25, 2020

"We're rounding the turn," the president says in New Hampshire of a virus that has caused an outbreak in the vice president's office.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) October 25, 2020

I'd put big money on him not going to a Biden inauguration. Live tweeting a bunch of seditious bullshit during the inaugural speech.

I think he will attend, he’ll sit politely and watch, and that will be the day he finally becomes president, a few minutes before he isn’t

I'm not sure anyone can predict the actual impact of a loss on Trump's psyche. This is a guy who has avoided accountability and responsibility for everything his entire life. He has powerful psychic systems of denial and deflection in place, such that it's a possible an incontestable loss will either not register at all or will completely fry the system. Anything from retaliatory nuclear strikes on Manhattan and San Francisco to zombie-like paralysis seems equally likely.

It'd be funny if Biden said Trump wasn't allowed to come

ET Breaking News suggesting 1.7 million is the increase in Texas voters compared to 2016 as the minimum required for Biden to win here.

Are we on track for that?

The thing is, it's really hard to project increased total turnout based on increased early votes, because you don't how many of the early votes are just displaced Election Day voters. It seems likely we're going to see sizable increases in total turnout, but we won't know until Election Day.

Ah, he's talking about a 1.7m increase in *Harris County* voters for Biden to win Texas... that makes more sense.

Tho I suppose it would be possible to track how many of the people who have voted so far didn't vote at all in 2016. Not sure if anyone's doing that.

Well, for Harris County it looks like 1.7 million is possible, with tipsy's caveat that we don't know how much of this early voting is people who would normally vote on Election Day going early to avoid COVID exposure. But Harris is currently at just over a million early votes, with six polling days left. The non-Saturday average is around 70k/day (and in the coming midweek they're doing extended polling hours, Thursday is 24 hours at some locations). So figure early voting hits about 1.4 million. That means you only need 300k votes on Election Day to hit that 1.7 million in Harris County. Very, very possible. And if Election Day turnout is normal, 2 milion is in the realm of possibility.

Oh yes: Election Day total for Harris County in 2016 was ~350k, in 2018 it was ~450k.

Trump winning Texas is still a longshot though. Like I really do not believe it will happen. But these numbers mean a bloodbath for Texas Republicans in state races (which includes judges in Texas) and that will in fact benefit the entire country.

Sorry, Biden winning Texas I meant obviously.

Trump email tally: 37 since Friday.

Looks like they're going all in on top of Biden's visit this week

Here we to...@KamalaHarris to TEXAS on Friday, per a Dem briefed

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 25, 2020

I guess they have to be somewhere when they're not in Pennsylvania where they should be.

if she goes to RGV or el paso you'll know they're serious and they think they can win. if she's in the dallas suburbs then they're doing it for the national coverage and donations.

God this better not backfire

We recently learned a tragically sad story of a veteran in the Rochester region.

When he stopped receiving increased unemployment assistance, he couldn't pay his mortgage and heartbreakingly committed suicide.

I just demanded we pass suicide prevention acts. pic.twitter.com/hD8LbEI96A

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) October 24, 2020

Last line actually caught me by surprise.

fucking hell

if she goes to RGV or el paso you'll know they're serious and they think they can win. if she's in the dallas suburbs then they're doing it for the national coverage and donations.

Perhaps a sign?

FLASH: The Biden campaign is canceling TV ad schedules that had been booked in TEXAS (10/27-11/3 flight)

They are still staying up in El Paso and San Antonio markets

— Medium Buying (@MediumBuying) October 25, 2020

Holy fuck if that Schumer tweet ain’t the Democrats in a nutshell

that schumer statement is unreal

like for real on the level of "let them eat cake"

RE: Texas, is are they simply focusing the rest of their efforts on the areas with lowest turn out so far?

that schumer statement is unreal

a much longer video clip of Schumer is attached which puts the tweet into its proper context, but it is bizarre that whoever wrote the tweet (a staff member?) juxtaposes those sentences as the essence of what Schumer was saying. It comes across as grotesque, but it's not an accurate reflection of his much wordier statement or the context in which it was read.

The tweet is a powerful encouragement to never listen to Schumer speaking at all, but especially in the attached video.

RE: Texas, is are they simply focusing the rest of their efforts on the areas with lowest turn out so far?

― Darin, Sunday, October 25, 2020 4:13 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

if they do then that's how you know they're serious.

alternatively: if you see obama in texas at the end of the week then it's happening.

Small note that early vote now 59 million and more results will come in later in the day. I'll be interested in the initial total reported Monday morning with any overnight totals, allowing for the fact that there's less reporting on weekends. If it's 61 million that makes it 5 million over the weekend, which was my initial guess. If it's at/closer to 62 million, then the Friday pace continues and we'll see what goes next.

That said I half wonder if we might not see a little slowing if only because turnout has been so big already among energized voters; if it maintains or even increases, that will be striking -- then again, a lot of voters are still working through all the other races, local and statewide, regardless of their feelings on the presidency. Also, numbers will shift a bit after Friday since Texas's through-the-roof early vote wraps up on that day as noted earlier in the thread, though other voting options will increase elsewhere -- local example: up to now San Francisco has only had the Civic Center spot for ballot dropoff but that'll expand next weekend to a number of polling locations throughout the city.

And speaking of SF, my ballot dropoff yesterday was fully confirmed and accepted via the tracking site so that's a good feeling for sure.

Bold strategy Cotton, etc.

As we depart Maine for Washington, this was placed on every seat in the Air Force One press cabin pic.twitter.com/j8vkeiprP1

— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) October 25, 2020

up to now San Francisco has only had the Civic Center spot for ballot dropoff

INDEPENDENTILXFACTCHECKER.org determines this claim by Ned Raggett FALSE.

Bill Graham was one of FOUR early ballot dropoff locations in San Francisco, which also included Linda Brooks-Burton Library, the Chase Center, as well as the Excelsior Library.

source: https://caearlyvoting.sos.ca.gov/

Is it true NY has no way to confirm your ballot has been received?

xpost Amazing!

More on Texas ponderings:

expect Kamala in the big Tex metros on what is the last day of early vote. Harris Co to keep polls open *all night* thurs, not closing till 7PM fri.

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 25, 2020

A test of Biden‘s confidence/how haunted they are by 2016:

if the early vote does not pick up this week in the Rio Grande Valley, do they send Biden down on the final weekend to appeal to fellow Catholics?

— Jonathan Martin (@jmartNYT) October 25, 2020

More black voters over the age of 65 have already voted in Georgia (201,889) than voted in total in the 2016 presidential election (193,993). There are still 9 days of voting remaining.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) October 25, 2020

Welp. https://t.co/nXOH1SNdLP pic.twitter.com/GKVAzZUWlG

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 25, 2020

Still giving Biden “only” 38% due to restrictive voting laws but still, wow

If Trump only wins TX by a point or two he’s pretty much screwed right?

I heard that Kamala Harris is so popular in Texas that they are renaming the county that includes Houston in her honor.

Henceforth it will be known as Harris County.

She's THAT influential, y'all.

If Trump only wins TX by a point or two he’s pretty much screwed right?

This is a delicious read, BTW.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/business/media/hunter-biden-wall-street-journal-trump.html

This episode of 60 Minutes is hilarious — because Trump wet himself and sloshed out of the interview, and Pence had absolutely nothing to say beyond canned lines he might as well have been reading off cards from his pocket, the Biden-Harris ticket is getting 3/4 of the hour.

Hilarious article, highly recommended xp

https://i.imgur.com/qT1KAUI.jpg

Where was all this serious gatekeeping when the NYT was slobbering over every latest Trump/Russia nugget?

jfc

This was Trump's epic meltdown on 60 Minutes and it was even worse than reported. Trump literally ran away because he didn't like the questions. pic.twitter.com/48Xu2TiI1o

— Sarah Reese Jones (@PoliticusSarah) October 26, 2020