Or in some other dream world someone bought Twitter and...

It certainly seems like this will be yet another way that this election will be a huge gamechanger going forward.

If the GOP loses big for lack of logistics, etc., then the takeaway will be to reinforce the importance of the party apparatus, experience, "the swamp," etc.

If the GOP wins with a social-media/litigation focused strategy and does not miss the RNC logistics, then what's the point of parties?

The thing is, if Trump wins, a lot of it won't matter anymore, because the GOP will make it so difficult to win as a Democrat in most states (utilizing everything from unconstitutional rules to gerrymandering to just making it so that GOP legislatures can overrule elections) that for most of the country there will be just one party and somewhat pointless elections.

The press is running big time with the idea that Aaron Rodgers is going to be RFK, JR. running mate. What it really looks like is the campaign purposely floated that idea out there while AR is on his psychedelic retreat and isn't available to respond. Great way to make some noise for awhile till Aaron comes back and shoots it down. I just don't see any way that Aaron wants to give up football to tilt at windmills. He is nuts but not that nuts.

Is there any rule that says you have to give up football to be the Vice President?

He can't campaign while he is playing. Football becomes a full time job right when he should be heaviest on the campaign trail. If he runs and doesn't even take the time to campaign, how could anybody take him seriously? How are the Jets going to like that kind of distraction from their starting quarterback?

Oh come on now. It's not like being US Vice President is any more time consuming or distracting than say, hosting Jeopardy.

Hey, you used one of my favorite words :)

At what point would he get secret service protection? Can you tackle a VP candidate? Seems like this could help the Jets.

Maybe the host of Jeopardy should be the VP just out of principal. Like, put it in the constitution. Or maybe the other way, that the VP has to be the host of Jeopardy to show everyone what they can do?

Either way could be fun.

Pence saying he won’t endorse Trump

Trump is trying to completely rewrite history with MAGA fanfic.

Fact check: Trump, telling a completely fictional story, falsely claims he released ‘the tape’ of his Zelensky call | CNN Politics

Oh noes, whatforever shall we do?

Talk about an endorsement that wouldn't move any needle, that might be the posterchild for uselessness.

I'm glad CNN fact checked this right away in the article. If we ever get to a trump/biden debate, Biden can ask him where this tape is along with all the documents he stole.

20% of Republicans in the Florida primary voted against Trump. This protest vote is somewhat notable because it is a closed primary and voting started after everyone had dropped out. So you can’t blame it on independent and Democratic crossovers, nor on early votes before Haley dropped out.

Of course, most protest votes come home and vote for the nominee in the general election. But that’s still a pretty high number.

That group would seem to be part of Biden's path to a victory. But, as you say, protesting in a primary is one thing. Moving them from "I always vote GOP" through "I'm voting 3rd party as a further protest" or "I'm staying home, the choice between Trump and Biden is just too depressing" to "I'm voting for Biden" seems like a tough task.

As for 3rd party options, I still have a hard time understanding RFK's base (even if it's infinitesimal) - I wouldn't think people voting as protest against Trump would think RFK is the better option. It seems like a bunch of kooks who buy into conspiracy theories and the like would be his people, but aren't most of those already in love with Trump? Where's the "vaccines are made to control my brain" and "pedophile Dems drink children's blood" voting block who have decided they can't vote for Trump? Or on the left side, is he gonna get the flower child/"I don't put anything unnatural into my body" vote just because he's anti-vaccine?

I just ran across a lefty voter type that seems to be all on RFK. She really just glosses over the snti-vac conspiracy theory nuttiest by saying "well all three are nuts."

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

What else does the guy offer? A tie to the 60s?

Early polling showed he hurt Trump but this seems to show he hurts Biden.

5 way polls

Arizona
�� Trump 46%
�� Biden 38%
�� Kennedy 7%
�� Stein 2%
�� West 1%

Nevada
�� Trump 41%
�� Biden 36%
�� Kennedy 9%
�� West 2%
�� Stein 1%

— umichvoter ��️‍�� (@umichvoter) March 20, 2024

I just don't know how much the polls can be trusted. Not only do many of them show a huge swing of youth voters towards the GOP often the same polls show a huge swing of old voters towards Dems. Maybe that's really happening, but it's hard to accept without any evidence from elections.

There's also, on both sides, a sense I am still getting of "it won't really be these two."

Even after they have locked up a majority of delegates, there seems to still be a sense that something will change the candidates.

Once the Fall is here and it is clear that it will be Biden and Trump, I think that we will see the protest votes and wishful thinking fall away and the polls will be a more accurate snapshot.

Yeah, I don't get that at all; is it folks just not understanding how the process works? Or buying into conspiracies? (Biden is going to step down at the last minute and Michele Obama is going to run!)

One thing that I am interested in watching is if the media gets a bit more serious in its coverage of Trump. This week they've seemed to be a little more critical in covering his comments -- pardoning J6, bloodbath, "these aren't people", if you vote Democrat you're not a true Jewish/Christian/whatever, etc. where before they'd have the standard clip of him taking the stage, making some gestures, while being sure to grab a few bars of the "Proud to be an American" audio.

I also wonder if voices from his first term warning against a second term are going to get progressively louder.

I think Trump going all in on the Jan 6th people being hostages is what could really hurt him. No one outside his hard core base thinks that.

As for RFK. Most voters aren't even paying attention at this point, the see the Kennedy name and assume he would be a better choice. If he gets more of a microphone to the public people will see what a nut he is, his own family doesn't support him, and that his own wife had to apologize for statements he has made. those things still hurt politicians not named Trump.

Our neighborhood Facebook group warned us about roving RFK canvassers that are super-aggressive - like refusing to leave your property, coming back again and again if you don't talk to them or tell them you're not interested.

The swing of youth voters makes sense. Between Gaza and the TikTok ban, that's going to crush the enthusiasm and support he got in 2020 from that demographic. Not to mention his loss of minority voters which are a higher proportion of the younger voting bloc.

It could just be a strategy they view as best. He can't backtrack on Gaza now so he realizes those young voters are lost. The past month or so he's seemed to be targeting older white voters. The people that would vote for Nikki Haley. One of the more interesting polls shows him closer to Trump in North Carolina than in Georgia. That would play out as North Carolina has an older white population which Biden does well with.

I still think he's going to lose the popular vote but if he threads the needle in certain swing states, there's a chance he wins the thing again.

You think Biden loses the popular vote? The gop has lost 7 of the last 8 popular votes. I dont see Trump being the guy to buck that trend.

Yeah, I've seen a lot of pollsters and statisticians talk about how they think Trump has a good chance of winning the popular vote. The shift in minority votes (predominately Hispanic) has been very noticeable of late and young people voted at a much higher rate in 2020 which doesn't seem likely to carry over.

But I think what they are seeing is that in big blue states like California and Illinois, he's going to lose percentage points. He'll still win the state, but even a few percentage points in those big states translates to a lot of votes. Like we had a primary in Illinois yesterday and there was a considerable undervote for Biden in Chicago. There's no way he's hitting 58% again this time around in Illinois.

The concerning thing about those polls is that the Dem senate candidates are dramatically outperforming Biden, which makes me think they have a pretty decent cross section of voters.

I still think Biden will be in very good position to win in November based on the post Roe being overturned election results and the fact that Trump can't seem to get out of his own way to let this be a referendum on Biden.

Yeah, there's still a lot of variables at play. Good chance Trump says or does something completely moronic that motivates people to vote against him. Or Dems start to actually focus on abortion.

On the same token, the stuff coming out of Gaza is only going to get worse, especially when Israel goes into Rafah. Netanyahu wants Trump and is going to do everything to make Biden look weak. Videos of starving babies is not a good look and I don't think they can ban all the social media sites by the election.

They're also both old and in Trump's case, not in the best shape. So getting sick or just dying is on the table for both too.

Might as well just donate straight to Trump's bank account.

Down ballot republicans are going to get fucked and they will deserve every bit of it.

We've already reached the point where historically polls tend to be pretty indicative of what happens.

Hopefully that turns out not to be the case, but the wishful thinking I sense is more on the 'yeah right, Trump won't do this well' side. Wrongly IMO, people are still mad about inflation, they see prices being higher and that tends to end up blaming the guy in power. Pandemic is no longer in people's minds.

It's worth remembering I think the reaction to the last election. Early on people were panicking about how close Trump was and that it could really fall his way again. Even after he lost, he still got more votes after the dumpster fire - apologies to dumpster fires - that was his term as President. Afterwards there was a lot of discussion about how he could get several million more after everything that happened. The whole mindset of 'there's just no way people vote for that again' strikes me as hopium on parade.

Won't it actually just force every single one of them to swear fealty to trump? It's the only way they will get exposure otherwise.

You need money to win elections. Not to mention infrastructure and data all provided by the RNC. They will now get none of that, and what they do get will be tainted with incompetence. Fealty to Trump is a requirement, but not necessarily a boost. Ask Oz, Mastriano, Walker, etc...

Hell, plenty of people have pledged fealty to them and didn't even get an endorsement.

We can disagree about pretty much all the rest you said and still simply leave room for me to agree that he's not only more popular than he was but significantly more popular. I'd caution those thinking otherwise the same way I caution the "no chance he could possibly lose" crowd, about the hazards of looking at the electorate through only the lens of "people you know".

I still don't think he'll win given the current state of elections but more votes feels almost certain to me.

I'll be in the minority of his votes come November, call it "reluctant but okay with it". Most of his votes will come from supporters that are downright fanatical about it.

And as with any situation of any sort, a "Jon rule" applies:
When I'M the voice of reason, the situation is pretty fucked.

Do we think he's more broadly popular, or more deeply popular?

A bit of the former, a ton of the latter.

But woebetide anyone who doesn't get on board because of it. And that will boost the numbers.

I'm not talking about the "never Trump" crowd. They're already pariahs.
I'm talking about the ... standard "supporter at the level of the average candidate's supporter". How to say it, just being like a "normal" amount of "yeah, I'm good with voting for this person, no problem"

I'M a borderline outcast in some circles - pretty large ones - for simply being relatively mild. And for daring to suggest that a loss is even possible, much less likely IMO, I could be a candidate for both drawing AND quartering.

There's a ... fanaticism ... -- even as closely connected as I am to those circles -- that I'm at a loss to explain.

Interesting discussion in the Bulwark today via a Forbes article (linked below) about how consumers today are at odds with modern economists in that they factor into their "cost of living" the cost of money, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics eliminated from their Consumer Price Index formula in 1983. Per the "old" formula, inflation in 2022 was 18%.

Summers: Inflation Reached 18% In 2022 Using The Government’s Previous Formula


So the gist is that no, Americans aren't crazy, inflation was worse than economists were saying because they weren't just factoring in the price of goods into how the economy felt. And that a couple of keys to Biden's campaign need to be to avoid lecturing Americans about how much better off they are than they think, and to get the Feds to cut rates - and to make a show about it so that when it happens he can take credit and appear like he understands "your pain."

The thing is that the deeply popular doesn't matter much. It's the broadly that is relevant here. It's such a unique situation; two former Presidents, who had the worst modern Presidential matchup last time and both are worse candidates than they were four years ago, but here they are again.

My hot take is that Biden has been damaged worse than Trump, in no small part due to just the fact that he's been in power the last four years. People have short memories and often vote for change when they are unhappy with the current government, even if there's no good reason to think that change will be an improvement. I think what we're seeing is most likely not people liking Trump more; his numbers are quite similar and slightly better than they were for most of his Presidency. The difference is people like Biden a lot less than they did four years ago.

At this point in 2020, Biden had a 4-point lead in the national polls, a lead that basically doubled by the time of the election, and ended up winning by 4.5%. This time it looks like Trump by 1.5-3% depending on what you are looking at. It never looked anywhere near that good for him in 2020.

I was dead wrong in 2020, I expected a historic landslide for Biden and we didn't get that; it was closer than I thought it would be. My prediction powers are not great at anything, politics included, but if I was a betting man I wouldn't pick four more years of Joe. I'm in the crowd of people very concerned about that, but it's how I see it. .02.

Interesting KSyrup, thanks for posting that.

Edit: the only point of difference I have is that it's not in Biden's power (and IMO shouldn't be) to get the Fed to cut interest rates. I do agree that there are messaging changes that can and hopefully will happen. Whenever a candidate tries to tell voters their experience is wrong it tends to backfire hard (Bush Sr. against Clinton, Dole, McCain in his doomed attempt to beat Obama, etc.).

Curious to see how well Kennedy does. I would not be surprised if he pulls in 5%+ in the election. Polls are interesting as they showed him hurting Trump early on, but now are showing hurting both equally (maybe hurting Biden a little bit more).

I think it'll depend on what he runs on. The antivax stuff will appeal to Republicans and might take some votes from Trump. But I've seen a lot of his ads recently are for "ending forever wars" which hurts both candidates in a way, but likely Biden more. Will be interesting to see which direction that campaign goes but the ending wars might be his best chance to show a different policy than the others.

Below is where I think the race is headed although I think Biden pulls out Wisconsin. I thought Georgia was his next best chance but surprised to see how far down in the polls he is in that state. Think he's cooked in Arizona, Nevada, and Michigan.




Polling is kind of all over the place and I'm not sure polls from January or even February are all that relevant right now.

Morning Consult's most recent poll has Biden up a point in Wisconsin, tied with Trump in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and trailing but gaining in Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina. That seems to mesh with his overall approval rating climbing about 2 points in the past 3 weeks.

There's still 7 months to go and the more Trump is on TV and getting coverage the worse his polling looks.

I don't think it's all over the place. You can get a pretty good average based on all the polling. Whether you think that will drastically change in 8 months is another story.

Trump likely gets hurt with more exposure, but Biden still has the Gaza situation which gets worse by the day (and good lord imagine what happens when they go into Rafah). Plus banning TikTok or whatever else he needs to do to appease donors is probably not going to help him with young people either.

I still think it'll be incredibly hard for him to win Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan. Maybe they think North Carolina is in play which is why they've shifted their strategy so much.

To me, it seems polls are having a difficult time capturing where we are at any given time. For example, just looking at the referenced polling in Pennsylvania in March you have the race tied, Trump up 2, Trump up 4, and Biden up 5. An aggregate paints a clearer picture, but we're still talking about a 9 point swing between 2 of the 4 polls.

Voters also tend to tire of issues. Gaza is and has hurt Biden, but those things tend to bounce back the other way the further we get from the issue. Voters have very short memories. Which is part of why Trump is polling as well as he is and has an approval rating higher than he had throughout most of his presidency.

We just gave Israel billions in weapons so I don't think the genocide is ending any time soon. And I don't think Trump is polling well as opposed to Biden doing poorly. A lot of the crosstabs on these polls show a shift with young people or certain demographics just not interested in voting in this election (Biden needs young and minority voters).

I think he's in deep shit and I think the strategy of pretending nothing is wrong is sort of the same path Hillary went down in 2016. Senate candidates across the board are outperforming Biden, so this isn't just a matter of Dems being under-reported in the polls. Biden is just uniquely unpopular.

Michigan is what is going to fuck him over and you can look at his subservient attitude toward Israel as the reason why. He was likely going to lose Arizona and Nevada due to demographic shifts. Georgia was always on the fence. But if he hung on to Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, he was set. I just don't see how he wins back those people in Michigan and it's going to cause a strategy shift it seems (why he's catering Haley voters instead of his base). Trusting Netanyahu who wants Trump badly was one of the dumbest moves we've seen politics over the last century or so.

This is normal though? There's often quite a bit of variance between different polls. The better analyses tend to look at which ones have tended to be more accurate in recent election cycles, minimize the influence of outliers, etc.

In terms of polls this far out being relevant; historically they just are. I'm with Rainmaker on Biden's unpopularity, and I don't disagree that more exposure will hurt Trump but it won't make Biden more liked.

This looked at A/B rated polls and 4 of them within 3 weeks had a 9 point swing. I don't think we're learning much there 7 months out. Especially when it's using polls going back to early January as part of the aggregate.

No one at all here disagrees that Biden is unpopular. I don't know why anyone feels the need to point it at this point. His approval rating is improving but generally bad. So is Trumps. They both suck. However, more recent polling since the state of the union, as Trump has been in the forefront more, is trending in Bidens direction, which seems to be backed up by a 2 point improvement in his approval rating.

What part of any of this is incorrect?

I think almost all of it is, though not the recent bump after the state of the union. I think that will be washed out though, just as most events that happen during the campaign are. Things vacillate some one way or another, but tend to come back to where they were - and the long-term trend for Biden's approval has been slightly negative but basically flat going back almost a year now.


These types of swings are typical is the point. Two weeks before the election we will see similar swings in various areas. I also don't think the 7 months out is that significant because again, historically it isn't. Where the polls are now strongly tends to be similar to where they end up on election day. Biden-Trump, Clinton-Trump, Obama-Romney, you can keep on going back and the story is consistently the same ... not always and it does change some throughout the race, but in the overwhelming number of modern elections it ends up about it where it is at this point.

In terms of Biden's unpopularity, the reason it matters is that it reduces the impact of Trump's. People who might leave Trump need a viable alternative or less of them leave, and it's the difference between this election and the last one. Going into 2020, Biden was +4 in favorability compared to Trump, and that is not coincidentally about the size of his popular vote margin. Right now, Trump isn't just even on that, he's ahead by 2-5 depending on whether you are just looking at approval or the net approval/disapproval. The unpopularity matters because it impacts how much room there is for these numbers to move.