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

Re: Trump's change of election night plan, my alarmist take is that he plans instead to hunker down while the cops and proud boys mobilize

Interesting that the famously sanguine Trump camp isn't referring to it as a victory party

Right now, he probably understands that if a victory lap is taken on the night of Nov. 3, it won't be him taking it. He must rely on a delayed result to have a shot at winning. Therefore, if he does get the indecisive results he wants, he can make his planned statements about 'many, many people are saying there was much fraud, etc.' from the impressive and official surroundings of the WH press room, or even more likely the Oval Office! Those statements claiming fraud may already be drafted by now.

remember he claimed the election HE WON was fraudulent so he's not just gonna saunter off

I just said something approaching this in the Greenwald thread but:

Cautiously, I have this sneaking suspicion that even some Republicans are feeling Trump fatigue and if he looks like a loser on Tuesday, they won't necessarily try all that hard to overturn the will of the people.

I don't mean national-level politicians, necessarily. But the apparatus of secretaries of state, state election commissioners, state legislators, state-level judges. If it's a losing battle to grind through every ballot when clearly the tide of the nation is against them, what's their incentive to fight on?

Perhaps some of them will just say "fuck it, why am I busting my ass for this out-of-touch loser maniac?"

it's basically "aw come on, Uncle Carl, why's your dick out again, it's Christmas!"

yes along those same lines I'm wondering to what extent a lot of these people have been making private-sector contingency plans, and having seen the writing on the wall are already halfway out the door.

It's probably only here, with the prospect of doing something else with their lives, that some of these people might acknowlege a little shame—not pubicly of course, but to themeselves

In September I read a Miami Herald or Politico story in which Ron DeSantis was already sending feelers out to the Biden people.

Silver's noted this before as he says but:

Gonna keep repeating this point, because it has a variety of implications for vote counting, what happens if some ballots come in after the deadline, etc.: There is lots of evidence that Democrats sent their ballots in sooner than Republicans.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 30, 2020

In Florida, for example, mail ballots received by the morning of Oct. 14 were +21 D by party registration. But ballots received in the past 48 hours were just +6 D.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 30, 2020

Particularly if Ds with outstanding mail ballots are hearing messages from the Biden campaign etc. and are also now more likely to use dropboxes, or to decide to vote in person instead, it's not clear what the partisan composition of late-arriving mail ballots will look like.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 30, 2020

not pubicly of course, but to themeselves

nice to think they might, but I guess we'd never know.

we don't really need to know so long as they get the fuck out of the way

Perhaps some of them will just say "fuck it, why am I busting my ass for this out-of-touch loser maniac?"

Well, unless they can invalidate enough votes in their state to flip a Senate race to the Republican candidate and thereby keep control of the Senate...

AZ doesn't notify you if ballot was accepted but I just checked some website and mine was accepted, phew. I'm sure that fucker Gosar will be reelected to the House but if AZ goes for Biden I'll be ecstatic.

Like, there's no way the Texas GOP doesn't fuck with the Harris County votes as much as possible if Hegar beats Cornyn by a slim margin.

lmao if the GOP court decisions end up fucking over GOP voters

not pubicly of course, but to themeselves

Pubic shame isn't what it was

They are already trying to throw out 100,000 votes in Harris County

Xxp I did have a brief freakout cause it said it didn't have my ballot. But then I removed the space in my last name (eg vandyke not van dyke). Obv I'm pretty used to that being an issue with my name.

Texas messes with itself.

Nancy Pelosi sent me this grift

I am incredibly concerned.

I was just informed we’ve fallen behind Republicans in the early vote count.

AND that I’m facing a dangerous $97,891 budget gap to fix it.

Hear me, Robert: We’ve worked too hard and shattered too many expectations to lose this election now.

If we’re going to win, I have no choice but to fill this budget gap before tomorrow’s End of Month Deadline.

so shameless

New national Opinium poll has Biden even leading with white voters:

Going into the weekend, Biden held a comfortable, nine-point national lead in polling averages, and multiple recent polls have depicted an even larger lead in the popular vote for Biden. In the latest Opinium Research/Guardian poll, released on Friday, Biden led Trump by 14 points, 55-41.

The poll, which surveyed 2,009 US adults online from 26-29 October, found severe deterioration for Trump among some of his most reliable supporters, including white voters, a group he won by 15 points in 2016, and which no Republican presidential candidate has lost for 50 years. Biden holds a narrow, 49-47 lead among white voters, the poll found.

The poll additionally found that a 57% majority of likely 2020 voters who did not vote in 2016 supported Biden.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/30/us-election-roundup-trump-biden-battleground-states-pandemic

joe biden: he sucks so bad even white people will vote for him

yeah my gut won't listen to anything since 2016 but my brain is screaming "Biden landslide incoming"

New national Opinium poll has Biden even leading with white voters:

This cannot POSSIBLY be good news for Republicans. New voters and previous non-voters just don't turn out to show how much they love Big Daddy Incumbent. They just fucking don't. This is a "please get this motherfucker out of our lives" election. Period.

We have exceeded 20M voters who didn't cast a ballot in '16 having already voted in this election - 20,357,512 to be exact.

That's 27.2% of all ballots cast, and more people than live in any one US state other than CA, TX, and FL.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) October 30, 2020

The poll additionally found that a 57% majority of likely 2020 voters who did not vote in 2016 supported Biden

guessing there are a lot of ‘Covington Kids’ who’ve turned 18 over the last 4 years but ngl I would have thought this particular number would be higher

You know what correlates with Democratic turnout? Republican turnout. You know how close these elections are going to be? Close. Ignore the early voting counts.

Ignore the early voting counts.

This.

You know how close these elections are going to be? Close.

the possible results range from "Trump wins by a hair" to "Biden wins in a landslide."

You know what correlates with Democratic turnout? Republican turnout.

OTMFM

didn't seem to be the case in 2018

Eh. I'm not Mr. Hope and Change, never have been, but no one here's telling themselves or voters to kick it through Tuesday night. Letting people feel good about data is salutary and necessary, especially during COVID.

and people forget about uh 2018

lol frogbs beat me

didn't seem to be the case in 2018

No offense, but to insist on reminding people REMEMBER 2016 is tiresome at this point. Adding caveats to Joe Biden's chances on the Friday before Election Day is like having to salute the flag before criticizing America.

I mean by all means have fun hitting refresh. And these numbers are good for civil society. And if I had to guess then I’d say they were good news for democrats. But I don’t understand why you’d use them to tell you what was going to happen in the election when we have actual polls where people say who they’re voting for.

No offense, but to insist on reminding people REMEMBER 2016 is tiresome at this point.

Then I didn't understand your point.

We have a ton of information that makes us confident biden is going to win. Early vote counts are not part of that.

otm re: optimism (not that I think caek is saying Remember 2016 - I get good value out of caek's posts).

I'm just tired of showing any optimism before having a friend put their fingers on my lips and launch into a Neil Simon-esque monologue about how I dare not utter a positive statement about Tuesday or Biden will be smote by Yahweh in retaliation.

also the 700th smug utterance of "the polls were wrong in 2016" as if that's a) a correct way of looking at what happened or b) an astute observation in 2020

i think some of my friends are literally in the Twilight Zone ep where they're going to see results that Biden won but be convinced that he lost and isn't President for 4 years

We have a ton of information that makes us confident biden is going to win. Early vote counts are not part of that.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, October 30, 2020

If that's your point, sure. I haven't followed early voting other than MDC's because local media needs a horse race.

I’m not advancing a minority review here. Everyone who predicts elections says the same thing except a bunch of people who are like the Democratic version of unskewers who have glommed onto a dataset that has no precedent in history to make claims about the future.

i feel like obsessive notation of early voting numbers, which may or may not be happening itt i can't say for sure, is basically just anxiety management

I think biden is going to win btw.

we did do a lot of the EV analysis in 2016 too which did kind of prove why it was pointless to hyperfocus on it, yes.

it actually turned into a thing where lots of locals in Orlando were yelling in 2018 at Democrats to "hurry up and vote" when the early voting totals in FL looked a bit weaker for Democrats, and several responded "why? does my vote count less since I'm waiting for Election Day? the fuck does it matter when I vote?"

The CW on this race race is going to end up being "Biden was consistently above 50% in swing state polls. Why did anyone think Trump had a chance?"