"The August 2020 US Politics Thread is highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality. That's all."

Susan Collins losing to Sara Gideon in Maine, per Bangor Daily News poll

Down by 8 among registered voters, 5 among likely voters and 3 among certain voters

Her approval rating is 37%;49% disapproval

60% say view of her has diminished in past few yearshttps://t.co/YhRTk5zT5F

— Steven Dennis (@StevenTDennis) August 11, 2020

Omar looks like she’s fine

Huge vote drop in #MN05: with 86K ballots (> 60% of the number of ballots cast in 2018, and expect higher turnout), Reo. Ilhan Omar has a big lead, 57% to 40%.

— Taniel (@Taniel) August 12, 2020

wooooo

There it is

I've seen enough: Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) wins renomination in #MN05, defeating Antone Melton-Meaux (D).

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) August 12, 2020

YOU LOVE TO SEE IT

Posting this here because the biden thread is being used for ... other stuff and a general election (but not the rest of politics) thread seems untenable. Let’s just have a monthly thread for the newsy stuff.

This is otm. They think rice would have been good news for trump but no one cares about that stuff. But also they don’t have a plan for Harris.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/11/team-trump-assails-phony-kamala-while-privately-acknowledging-her-appeal-393983

But he and his aides focused their line of attack through the same lens they’ve used on other potential running mates, perhaps indicating after months of research on Harris they don’t have much else to criticize.

Many in Trump’s orbit had hoped Biden would tap Susan Rice, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, whom they had thought could fire up his MAGA base. Despite their eagerness for her, Rice being selected likely wouldn’t have helped Trump attract the independent voters his team has been trying to win over for years.

With less than three months until the election, Trump is lagging behind Biden in most national polls and battleground states. His standing has even fallen in traditionally red states as the coronavirus pandemic has dragged on.

Republicans, who have found little success in tarnishing Biden, will now try to damage Harris by describing her as a failed presidential candidate who didn’t generate excitement in her own party. Most of Trump’s attention on Harris during the Democratic primary was about her performance in the race, and he returned to that theme Tuesday at the White House to recall her poor showing in the campaign.

Completely incoherent attack line

In addition to attacking her for being liberal, Republicans highlighted her record as a prosecutor — which now appears out of step with the Democratic Party after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police — though that could contradict their message that she’s too soft on crime. Harris joined Black Lives Matter demonstrations this summer.

“She is now trying to bury her egregious record as a prosecutor in order to appease the anti-police extremists that are now controlling the radicalized Democrat Party,” Trump 2020 senior adviser Katrina Pierson told reporters Tuesday.

"As you all know, Joe Biden and the Democratic Party have been overtaken by the radical left,” he said. “So given their promises of higher taxes, open borders, socialized medicine and abortion on demand, it's no surprise that he chose Sen. Harris.”

Sorry that was a lot of pasting ON IPHONE

abortion on demand

Yeah, but it's on Quibi.

very happy about Omar, have been quietly nervous about her because I absolutely never get myself to remember that lawn signs is not scientific polling data

Glad caek didn't jinx it

crazy how much money is spent to unseat "The Squad" because people were convinced that they're all massively unpopular due to Facebook memes

oof that Georgia lunatic ...

Political reporters are like “oh no, the QAnon congresswoman is gonna be a huge headache for the GOP!” guys, I’m sorry but have you met the GOP

— Gabriel Roth (@gabrielroth) August 12, 2020

Glad caek didn't jinx it

I have rage fatigue and have refused to read anything about QAnon because I have a feeling it's going to be both awful and highly stupid.

Oh it is. Only marginally more awful and stupid than the GOP in general but with added jargon.

Like many things in recent years, QAnon started out hilarious and has become less so as it has gained political traction.

was driving through a rural area on saturday (on the mason-dixon line!) and saw a very official-looking and huge TRUMP JFK JR. 2020 banner planted in someone's front yard

I had to look that one up.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/qanon-jfk-jr-conspiracy-theory-854938/

Tangentially, during the spring of 2016, I took my daughter to a "fairy festival" at a farm just across the Pennsylvania border and just about every other farm in the surrounding area had numerous Trump banners lining their streets.

The “suburban housewife” will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!

what a racist dope

hey it worked on 53% of white women once

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkVl1zfM_G4

obv McConnell or even Graham would be bigger/ better trophies, but I’m incredibly excited to (hopefully) see Collins eat shit in November

TRUMP JESUS FUKKIN KRIST JUNIOR

Our forecast is up!!!

It gives Joe Biden a 71% chance of winning and Donald Trump a 29% chance.https://t.co/ajG88SznSA

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 12, 2020

Coincidentally, these are the exact same odds as in our final forecast in 2016!!!

(Clinton 71%, Trump 29%)

As was also the case in 2016, our model gives Trump a MUCH higher chance than other statistical models.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 12, 2020

My contribution to the current political discourse:

Kamala? More like Ka-buena!

— DJP (@djperry1973) August 12, 2020

Más allá de Kabuena y Kamala

just learned that her senate office staff's softball team is called the oxford kamalas

I am concerned by how deeply my nerdiness runs given how hard I laughed at that

who gives a fuck about etc

So, because Trump was told he was in trouble with "Suburban Women" he automatically assumes "Housewives"? Is that it? Because his brain is stuck in 1968?

I hate that we once gave Silver attention.

Silver was more right than anyone in 2016 about Trump's chances. I just hate being reminded of it.

hey it worked on 53% of white women once

― A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Chooglin (will)

i wanted to come up with the sad addendum to that (the % of white men who voted for him), and ran across this slight fact-check:

Donald Trump Didn't Really Win 52% of White Women in 2016

tl;dr - it was more like 47%. 52-53% was based on election night exit polls, but later on pew analyzed it and found it was more like 47% of white women, and 62% of white men.

Probabilities are hard!

anyway, now i can go back to my sad addendum:

...and it worked on 62% of white men as well! :)

Nate Silver is obnoxious but he's usually right

sadly

white men are basically irredeemable at this point.

that said, between a raging pandemic, the dismantling of the post office, and all sorts of economic records being set (mostly bad ones) idk how you even project this election right now

Today in transparently false email subject lines:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EfOv5wuWAAEtIRm.jpg

Hopefully his wife is near enough to ensure that they aren't impure.

kind of fascinated by the difference in how they approach fundraising emails; Dems use a lot of defeatist garbage like "it's over...Trump won....imagine waking up to that news because you didn't donate $5 + 6x match" while the GOP tends to be mostly "Strong Daddy is disappointed because you're not on his list of patriots this month"...kinda sums up the two parties honestly

mike pence locks himself into a completely masculine room before composing his emails, to avoid the chance of impurity

xps Mike's Pencées

Mike is exceedingly careful never to air his Pencées in public.

I'm starting to get almost hopeful that this USPS fuckery is going to really backfire on Trump.

Our neighborhood group email (which is 95% of the time only used by the retirees with a lot of extra time on their hands) has been really complaining about the lack of mail delivery in the past few weeks and someone shared an article about Dejoy, they are furious about their mail being fucked with. Granted, I live in a left-leaning town and there is probably 60 Biden or Sanders yard signs for every 1 Trump sign, but it's seemed to really rile up the normally politically averse.

At the same time, my mom lives in the heart of a Trump adoring rural area and she told me a lot of her friends are really getting pissed off about it too.

Some anecdotal data:

Last week a friend of mine had a small envelope mailed via USPS to him from a city 70 miles away, with tracking. The package spent 2 days in a warehouse 2800 miles away clear across the country before arriving after 5 business days.

Our nieces 400 miles away mailed us 2 stamped envelopes 3 weeks ago and they have yet to arrive.

it doesn't seem smart, given the location and demographics of the bulk of republican voters.