It is, but it also doesn't mean that the entire 'gotcha' concept is fair. It's not. I hate those. I couldn't make it through the first movie because it was so cringeworthy and making fun of people in bad situations felt wrong to me. There are elements that are fair, but not a full set up. The people I know who get the most excited for those things just aren't comfortable playing on an even playing field.

Let's really break this down a bit, not that I want to defend Rudy. He was having an interview with a young woman and other people in a hotel suite. She started hitting on him. She sent everyone out of the room. She directed him to a back room to remove his mic. She seemed to have been the one to undo his pants and push him back on the bed as she did so. In the end, if they were doing more it was two consenting adults, but he was very obviously being friendly but not overly grabby or anything. She was being very touchy/grabby.

This was all supposed to be a funny setup, and it was. Nothing really untoward happened.

IMO if you have access to the POTUS and presumably a wealth of info about the POTUS you shouldn't be putting yourself in that position.

I bet she was paid a fortune to go through all that.

I mean, we know that Rudy is working with Russian intelligence through Derkach. He was a huge risk before Borat.

Took a different way to avoid some construction and saw a Jorgensen sign. It’s all on the table in 2020.

Here in Orange County, NY, I can't imagine it's really about voter suppression, but lines are crazy today. We went to two different locations, in Newburgh it was 3.5 hours and in Montgomery, it was at least 2. I know there's crazy turnout this ear, but it's an embarrassment that our voting system makes it so difficult to cast a ballot.

Joe Biden is coming to campaign in Georgia on Tuesday. Other than for a quick fundraiser, I can't think of the last time a Democratic presidential candidate has come to Georgia this late on the race.

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Agreed. As long as Rudy wasn't told before the interview that she was supposed to be 15, there's just nothing here that bothers me in the slightest.

Rudy's got a thing for being surrounded by young women. His Com person is, or at least was, a college student. Another young woman on his staff was a HS student last year. It's not criminal, but it's gross.

I don't expect it, but 2 Georgia Senate seats would look really nice in blue

SI

Whatever happened to Bloomberg promising to drop a bunch of money into the race?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/mee...846#blogHeader

He gave it to the DNC so they could organize the best places to put it

He's also putting a ton of money into F through an independent group. It's far from the 1 bil he promised, but he's supposedly spending well over 100 mil total.

He also raised about $16M to pay felon fines in Florida so they could vote (since poll taxes and all)

Bloomberg Adds $16 Million To A Fund That Helps Florida Felons Get Chance To Vote : NPR

SI

It's all about timing. Just went to the same location, and this happened...

Sunday morning at 9 AM when it’s pouring rain is the best time to vote. 😂😂😂 No line at all. Just walked right in, had my ballot in about 90 seconds, and voted. #2020election #YourVoteCountsNC pic.twitter.com/oA2m6BEoOp

— Ben Lewis (@benelou) October 25, 2020

Well done Ben! Curious did you see any Trump "poll watchers" or cops?

No one at all, but this morning isn’t exactly a litmus test. It’s the chilliest morning we’ve had in a couple of weeks or so, and it has been pouring rain since around 7am. There was no one lounging around outside at all, and as I walked up, there was no one else in the parking lot. No one walking up. No one leaving. Total ghost town. No cops inside that I noticed. No wait at all. More poll workers than voters. The location is only about eight minutes from our house, so I went, voted, went home, and then my wife also went and voted while I stayed with the kiddos, and she said her experience was the same. She couldn’t have been happier that she just left immediately when she saw that huge line past week.

I had a dream that the 538 projection had Biden down to 54% overnight.

I think I'm ready for this election to be over.

Cool!

It's a little skewed b/c most of my MAGA friends and family are from Louisiana/Texas, but the Facebook campaigning is leaning heavily on the "Biden wants to ban all petroleum and petroleum-based products, and that's bad" idea.

It was a debate gaff. And they are jumping on it.

Not sure how much it resonates outside of the base, but the base is all in on it.

I mean MAGA people on Facebook are saying Biden wants to ban private insurance, so I wouldn't take what MAGA folks are saying all that seriously (in terms of the truth or how it resonates)

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The past few days it started to creep back in the other direction. I don't need that stress

Every time I've checked it, 87%. Pennsylvania's numbers are looking bluer all the time and that's been the 'tipping point' state for some while now. Iowa and Georgia don't look as good as they did a week ago, and it might only be 90% instead of 95% or whatever on election night, but I'm still as confident as one can be for an election in modern polarized America.

Kamala Harris is going to Texas on Friday. They must be confident about the upper midwest.

Just voted. Took about an hour total.

Speaking of how good AOC is...

AOC on Biden's mixed messages about a fracking ban: "It does not bother me ... I have a very strong position on fracking ... however, that is my view ... It will be a privilege to lobby him should we win the White House, but we need to focus on winning the White House first." pic.twitter.com/U9NxHXBC9g

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 25, 2020

I was just reading her opponent has raised $10 million in race he has no hope of winning. I wonder how many that have donated know anything about him.

so many judge ovals to fill in :(

Six for me, I think.

There's a real chance at flipping the Texas House and the redistricting that would entail. There's a Senate race here but Cornyn will probably win that comfortably. That said, he's been running ads during football and baseball and about half he's talking about being bipartisan so his internal numbers must be worrying him. I mean, he's the #2 GOP Senator and he's tacking to the middle. In Texas?

SI

I just saw that more 65+ African-Americans have already voted in Georgia than in all of 2016.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN27A0TA

Even Putin sees the writing on the wall as he dismisses his old chew toy.

this stat breaks my brain..."than in all of 2016"? what does that mean?

think i had like 15

meaning that not only has the vote total of that particular cross tab (65+ and African-American) beaten 2016's early voting total with 9 ish days left till election day, they have cast more votes then 65+/A-A TOTAL in that election (between early voting and election day)

Yeah, what Fozzie said.

Watched the 60 Minutes interviews. Trump came off looking like a baby, but was probably wise to release the tape (and break the story) going into the weekend so that it didn’t dominate the Monday morning cycle. There were no tough questions that he shouldn’t have a canned answer for at this point and he was especially thin skinned from the start. Missed opportunity for him to look presidential.

I thought Biden handled tough questions very well (gave a nice answer on court packing, dismissed the thought that he is in mental decline, and acknowledged his age in a nice way, I thought). He had very good answers and nonverbals, in my opinion.

Harris didn’t look great and sort of inappropriately laughed at times (looked bad in contrast with Norah O’Donnell looking quite serious. Probably nerves. She gave some warm answers and was shaky on tougher questions, in my opinion.

Pence stuck to the script and looked alright, given that he has to tote water for Trump and the coronavirus mistakes. Got to give him credit for staying loyal and keeping in line.

Saturday morning was the first weekend day for in- person early voting for my bluish Ohio County. We arrived at 7:15 and were 8th in line for the 8 AM opening. We were done by 8:10.

By the time we left, the line was out the building, out a walkway, into the parking garage and around it. 300-500 people I'm guessing. It's crazy

One thought on all of the new voters. I think a decent portion could be people who moved from one state to another. My guess is that information on who voted is state specific. I'm wondering in some areas if is isn't precinct specifc? Not sure it matters, but from a data perspective it might be less important.

Now the shear number of voters in various demographic groups is important as that gets to the make-up of the electorate.

It shows just how lazy he is. He can't even be bothered to have his team prepare canned answers for him to memorize.

I went to vote today right after lunchtime. I thought it was a good setup safety wise. All of the poll workers were wearing masks and gloves. There were disposable swab sticks for the purpose of signing the voting statement digitally. Even the "I voted" stickers were separated so you just has to grab one for yourself if you wanted one. There were only three people in the room where I voted and the whole process took about 10 minutes tops. My wife dropped her mail in ballot off last Monday.

Man charged in burning of ballot box, Boston police say

Good riddance, I hope he gets several years at least in prison.

This week we have two early voting precincts set up in our county. The wait times are still at over an hour at both.

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I was in and out in about 5 minutes last Thursday in my county. But Texas has an extra week of early voting this year and we're already at 90% of how many voted in 2016. Not 90% of how many voted in early voting, 90% of voting period. And we haven't had election day yet. To be fair, in 2016, something like 70% of people early voted.

EDIT: More notes:

https://www.brazoriacountyclerk.net/...cument?id=1466
In 2016, 121K voted: 94K early, 5K absentee, 22K election day.

https://www.brazoriacountyclerk.net/...cument?id=6149
So far this year: 101K early, 9K absentee, 1 week of early voting and election day still to come

SI

I keep seeing facebook ads so by saying ZOMG Trump leading florida by 2! Don't believe the pundits! Michigan is going Republican...etc. I gotta think these are all just ads trying to prompt more donations...right? RIGHT???

Yup.

There are risks right now for Biden: Polling errors and the GOP stealing the election. He currently leads in the 538 tipping point state (PA) by five points, which is on the bleeding edge of polling errors, but it is not inconceivable. Which is why they give Trump ~10% chance of winning. That's mostly accommodating polling error.

But, as Nate Silver, Harry Enten, etc. were saying on Twitter today, the only "good" numbers for Trump right now are sketchy GOP-affiliated pollsters. Trump has not gained ground with the real pollsters. And the election is happening right now. It is getting too late for him to really be able to change course.

If the numbers are right (or even remotely close), Biden will win.

If I'm a Democrat PAC, I might fund those ads on FB just to combat pockets of blue voter apathy.

It's like the Titanic trying to change course with it's too-small rudder.

"If the numbers turn out to be wrong, if Donald Trump is right and these pollsters are wrong about this race then people like me are going to have to find a new profession." - Frank Luntz 10/23/2000

I'll feel pretty stupid too if that happens, but I will own it. Don't see it happening though. Virtually all the evidence for literally almost four years now - and a lot more than that on the reliability of modern polling in general - points the other direction.

That's a pretty impressive prognostication 16 (or 20?) years before the election. I think Frank'll be fine with those sorts of skills.

So SCOTUS issued a ruling tonight that late arriving votes in Wisconsin, even if postmarked by election day, won't be counted.

Kavanaugh in his opinion cited Bush v. Gore, which when it was issued, was expressly stated not to be precedent, and only apply to the specific circumstance of that election.

Honestly, Barrett's acceptance speech of the SCOTUS nomination was pretty good. I think she hit the right notes.

I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt until her record demonstrates otherwise.

Or, you know, I might just be putting lipstick on a pig because I didn't get a vote in the process and just have to live with the outcome however it turns out. ;)

The "under 40" piece is definitely ringing true in my heavily under-40 FB feed. (Lots of former YL kids.) I'm seeing a ton of "never voted before...thought it didn't matter...liked being a rebel.....that was my white privilege" type stuff.

Biden at 88 today at 538. I think this is the first time he hit 88? Maybe got there for a bit then dropped back quickly.

Someone suggested that he wants to design a "sophisticated model" for election forecasting that simply takes all of the other major models and gives the underdog about a 10% greater chance of winning than they do.

That way, if the favorite wins, then you were right b/c you predicted the favorite. But if the underdog wins, then you were right b/c you gave the underdog the best chance of all the major models.

I was chuckling this morning as I read that trump tweeted out that people who want can go back to the polling place and ask for a new ballot to change their votes, because....wait for it......IT'S THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION OF YOUR LIFE!!!

It is funny to speculate as to what happens.

His people are, very gently, starting to prep him for a loss. Explaining that it isn't his fault. Your debate was awesome, sir. You did great. But it is the fault of the Democrat Party and early voting. People voted for Biden before they saw your awesome debate, sir. And now they want to change their ballots to vote for you, but they can't.

He also pulled out the 2016 line "what the hell do you have to lose" by voting for him. Probably not the line to use this year.

I've wondered that for a while about 538.

The Economist model is much more confident in a Biden victory.

I think 538 earned their reputation as the go-to when they were right on every state I think two cycles ago, or maybe it was 49, and then were basically the only model who thought Trump had a significant chance in 2016. Almost everyone was else was at 99%+ for Hillary and 538 was taking a lot of criticism by them ... until the election happened. The track record indicates to me that their approach is sounder than the others.

It is funny seeing him go back to the well for 2016 lines that really don't play well coming from an incumbent. Even MAGA, which they tried to transition to Keep America Great, they had to scrap and go back to MAGA, which sounds pretty stupid coming from someone who's already had 4 years to make us great again.

So I'm curious, is there anyone here who thinks (not wants) Trump will win? The polls are wrong and don't reflect what is really happening right now. the silent majority, more conservatives wanting to stay in power than anyone ever predicted, etc

I think there's a slim chance he gets it close enough that a stacked Supreme Court hands him the election. Check out the awful ruling Kavanaugh wrote on Wisconsin ballots. He cited research that said the exact opposite of his ruling and walked the GOP line in his statements. It's laying the ground work to stop ballot counting.

Yeah I do think he goes to the Supreme Court no matter how much he loses by. But more of what I was asking here is that basically everyone who wants Biden to win wrong about how many people are going to vote for Trumo?

And yes Kavanaugh should be ashamed he wrote that

The way Nate Silver put it:

Biden is up by about 5 points in the tipping point state (PA)

2 of the last 10 elections have had polling errors > 5 points

There's a 50/50 chance that that polling error could go Trump's way.

So half of a 20% chance is a 10% chance.

So I think that it is more likely than not that Biden will win.

But 10% is a decent chance.

Flip a coin three times. If you get three heads in a row, you've done it. Put in those terms, it does not seem that unlikely.

After an hour and a half in line, my wife and I voted. So glad to have gotten it done. I gave up on the idea it was ever going to get faster. Three weeks in, it hasn't.

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Kavanaugh proved the "originalism" and "federalist" crap they spew is complete nonsense. They don't believe in any of that shit.

Technically Kavanaugh never believed in that stuff. He's always been of the imperial Presidency mindset (which is why he appealed so much to Trump).

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It's absurd how hard it is to vote in such a supposedly great Democracy. Doubly ridiculous that one of our two parties is constantly trying to only make it harder, and frustrating that it somehow serves to convince GOP true believers that they are the repressed & silent majority.

This is where I think we should be more like the French and start having general strikes.

Yeah, if we had sane leadership I would think this pandemic would have been the perfect time to implement some kind of national vote-by-mail mandate, but somehow we're going to come out of this extended election crisis having only made the system a little bit worse.


The multitude of folks' stories waiting hours in bad weather are so frustrating (though also inspiring). I've trumpeted a dozen times that I live in Oregon, which has been voting by mail since last millennium, and it took me 10 seconds to vote, only because I chose to drop off my ballot at the nearby election office and someone walked up to the drop-box right before me.

TBH I can’t get my head around how difficult people seem to have made it to vote over there

It depends on whether your state is competitive in presidential elections or not, I think. My state is is not, I vote every election - usually a couple a year - and I've never waited in a line. Less than 5 minutes in and out. And this is one of 2 or 3 fastest growing states in the country. It's not difficult, unless there's an effort to suppress.

You have to suppress if your ideas are wildly unpopular.

The USPS delays are as bad as they've been all year.

Shocking that's how things are working out.

I wasn't thinking and I ordered some eBay stuff last week and it's still not here yet

SI

It is nuts. Closed on a house on 9/30. Put in an address forward the next day. We have received 1 piece of forwarded mail.

Th GOP is going to actively kneecap the USPS and then use the resulting inefficiencies as an excuse to tear it down entirely.

I've had something in transit since the 17th. It was shipped out on the 7th.

It was a priority package.

S&P down ~2% again.
COVID cases setting records.

The timing really isn't working out so good for the GOP.

They aren't even competent enough to artificially pump things up in October.

You know thing are bad when you can't even construct a Potemkin Village for 2 weeks.

My brain ignored the letters you put and shouted "POKEMON VILLAGE!" into my head.

Getting too anxious leading up to this election. It sucks because I never cared so much before.

If Trump wins, I am going to have to disconnect from the world except video games and softball tournaments.

I won't want to hear about all of the crazy shit he's doing after winning re-election.

And given how crazy softball is, that's saying something, lol.

Trump's gonna lose because he surrendered to the virus.

Biden was up 56-39 overall in that Washington Post Wisconsin poll. Not sure I buy that but there's another poll from Marquette law school coming out today to compare.

How to rig an election.

�� New USPS data filed in federal court this morning.

On-time first-class mail delivery 10/27 in:
- Philadelphia, 43.0%
- Detroit, 52.6%
- Northern Ohio, 56.0%
- Lakeland (Wisconsin), 60.7%
- South Florida, 62.9%

Ballot mail 10/27:
- Inbound, 95.1%
- Outbound, 89.0%

— Jacob Bogage (@jacobbogage) October 28, 2020

The hope is that word got out and people started using drop boxes and in person.

Of all of Trump's mistakes, loudly announcing "I'M GONNA BLOCK THE MAIL" instead of just doing it may be his biggest.

Looks like they are blocking it. The lawsuit posts the delivery rates in many areas and it is clear that there are certain areas they are drastically slowing the mail down to.

PA had no drop boxes that I could figure out. It was either go to the courthouse for some stupid version of early voting or it was mail in.

Pennsylvania only really comes into play if we don't have a winner on Nov. 3, right?

If Biden wins FL on Nov. 3 it's over.

Let's hope we don't get to the point of needing Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is the most important state. Florida is going to be a mess regardless.

Trump's chances of winning are something like 2% if he loses Pennsylvania while Biden would still have a 55% chance of winning if he loses it.

If Pennsylvania or Florida go to Biden the election is pretty much over and Biden has a lead just large enough to overcome a 2016 level polling error in Pennsylvania.

Biden has a number of reasonable paths to victory--some that don't include PA. Here's on where he loses PA (85% win per 538), FL (61), GA (50), IA (50), and AZ (66), but still wins.




If he loses PA, I think he's fine as long as he wins NC. He has to lose both of those to be in serious trouble imho.

Yeah, that's my take as well. If Biden gets NC/MI/WI, it's going to be difficult for Trump to win. If he gets FL or PA, he might get north of 350.

How likely is it that he wins NC though? I feel like that state has been teetering on the edge of going full blown blue like Virginia has for a few years now. But it was a fairly solid Trump state, so I feel like they're teasing me.

538 says 50.5% Biden, 48.8% Trump. So just north of a coin-flip basically, a very real possibility.

Virginia had the fast-growing DC suburbs to push it rapidly blue.

NC does not have that, so if it goes blue, it might be more of the Colorado route where it lives as purple for a while.