US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

filing that with things that make you think

>> Which I think amounts to "we're not sure yet."

As Niels Bohr (or maybe Yogi Berra) said, prediction is hard, especially about the future.

(xpost) How can we miss you if you won't go away?

(Okay, you went away, so now we miss you.)

(xpost) Right, which I think is what at least one leading pollster concedes: "So, who’s gonna win the election? Well, honestly, we don’t know — but we can give you our best probabilistic guess."

Is it okay for the Washington Post guy to offer a hedged guess about the accuracy of polls, but not for the polls to offer a hedged guess as to who'll win the election?

And anyway, isn't the Washington Post itself part of that awful media cohort you bemoan, not to be trusted about anything?

imagine if this happened? trump would lose it all. unlikely , but still...

"Vice President Kamala Harris trails former President Donald Trump by 5 percentage points in Texas, shaving off nearly half the Republican nominee’s one-time advantage over President Joe Biden from earlier this year, according to a new poll released Thursday."

"imagine there's no texas/it's easy if you try..."

uh, when a polling company offers a hedged guess about who will win it will have more real world effects on voters compared to when some Washington Post guy makes a hedged guess about the accuracy of polls. viz. confirmation bias is more strongly at play over who wins and that ensures the hedging will be widely ignored.

the day a Democrat wins Texas the GOP is over

This is a pretty weak sauce year for the Texas GOP. Most of their ghouls in Congress are locks, and Cruz is running on the Border Security bill he voted against.

Nothing like the biannual "Texas is turning purple/blue" fall delusion - only for the blobfish or evil goblin statewide GOP candidate to run up every rural county 85-15.

the day a Democrat wins Texas the GOP is over

LBJ won texas by 63.32%

jimmy carter won texas.

Henry V winning Agincourt has roughly the same relevance to 'Murrica 2024

I could almost see them sacrificing Cruz in favor of grooming new blood for 2030(!) except said prospective new blood is somehow even more embarrassing (Troy Nehls, anyone?).

The Senate is too close for the GOP to sacrifice any incumbent.

LBJ & Carter stats are void given 95% of those voters are dead.

ann richards was governor in the..late 80s?

The parties took a long time to re-align -- in the case of the Dems to shake off the remnants of the Solid South.

Ann Richards was governor from '90-'94. Jim Hightower or someone like that won a railroad commission seat in '94 and that was the last Democrat to win a statewide office.

2016 is a fresh wound

I keep thinking that was 4 years ago

women though...in texas...there are some...there...abortion?

A lot of stuff could happen. Texas could become a swing state but Minnesota could turn into Wisconsin and Wisconsin and Michigan could turn into Ohio. You just never know. Loosely speaking, I think states with big cities and cheap houses that a lot of people are moving to are going to get more Democratic (as has already happened in AZ and GA), while states that are getting older, poorer, and sparser are going to get more Republican. Admittedly my theory does not explain Florida but my other theory is that Florida is fucked up and bullshit.

its wild Trump has been a part of the daily political news cycle for nearly 9 years now I just want him to go away forever

I mean his horrible political views are just part of it, the thing I really despise is that he's just such a massive asshole about everything, all the time, his entire campaign strategy is shitting on everyone, he doesn't have a single nice thing to say about the country he wants to run. its just so exhausting, the only bigger asshole I can think of is probably his running mate

women though...in texas...there are some...there...abortion?

Yes, but like Milo pointed out there's a ton of rural areas dominated by Evangelicals and other patriarchal fucks.

not sure it'll have any real effect, but still fun to see:

Republican Voters Against Trump launched an $11.5 million ad buy in key swing states on Tuesday, marking the group’s largest ad buy so far this cycle.

The group is targeting voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Arizona. Additionally, the ad buy will also run in Nebraska’s competitive 2nd Congressional District. $4.5 million of the ad buy will be spent in Pennsylvania, while $3 million will be spent in Michigan and $2.2 million will be spent in Wisconsin. The group will spend $1.5 million in Arizona and $375,000 in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District.

I think it will have an effect. Gotta convince some people it's OK to stay home on Election Day.

yeah, I just mean that in the current political ecosphere, 11 million unfortunately ain't jack shit

11 million is OK if it's carefully spent. it's not like Republican Voters Against Trump has to finance a ground game, just plant seeds in voters' minds.

Just saw a Trump ad that was weirdly old-fashioned (and kind of lame): "The debate we've all been waiting for," followed by clips of Harris on the left detailing poor economic indicators, contrasted with Harris on the right extolling Bidenomics. Guessing they had to beg Trump to okay it. "But where's the insulting nickname?"

what might have been...

It is unclear whether Trump was genuinely considering choosing Kennedy as his running mate at that stage. Days later, at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, he announced JD Vance as the vice-presidential nominee.

But as recently as April – at a time when he was lambasting Kennedy as “a radical left Democrat” – Trump was apparently also considering him as his vice-president and musing about he liked the sound of a “Trump-Kennedy” ticket.

makes you think

Lol

Too bad about that voice

and the bear corpse and the beheaded whale

Those are pluses

his face and voice do kind of herald the end of a civilization. he's the embodiment of the rot in privilege.

Unperson, what say you

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/us/politics/tim-sheehy-native-americans-montana.html

More on North Carolina. New voter registration is up, and skews to women and younger women in particular. Combined with some terrible statewide GOP candidates, NC is going to be close this year.

Well, hello North Carolina. We have a voter reg update. In week 15 this year (July 21st), the total number of registrants was almost 50% higher than it was during the same week in 2020 (17,178 to 12,426).

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) September 4, 2024

I wonder if more people voting in person will make the counting less of a shitshow than 2020

Across a group of six key battleground states, an average of 15% of likely voters said they have yet to make up their mind on who to vote for in the upcoming general election, new CNN polls by SSRS found.

lol they really don't start paying attention until after Labor Day, do they?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/04/opinion/how-the-presidential-election-got-this-close.html?unlocked_article_code=1.IE4.AZep.71pCIGtBYhlA&smid=url-share

I guess like the last couple of elections the polls can't tell us much other than it's very close, and the outcome will depend upon enthusiasm, ground game and follow-through. It probably helps that the GOP nominee is vacuuming up all the money for himself.

The best outcome is maybe he does a Baltar on election day and flees the country for somewhere without an extradition treaty before losing at the polls

wonder where in the world wouldnt give him up russia maybe

Idi Amin’s Saudi villa is might still be unoccupied.

saudis would send him right back

He has mentioned Venezuela.

i think even venezuela would send him back if usa asked, it would need to be a country who wants to publicly antagonize america, theres just no angle there, unless youre already maxed on on americas shit list, its russia