Vote. Put pressure on politicians to do better. But more than anything. Vote.
If the polls say he's 100% going to win. Vote. If you're in a state that goes blue every time for the last 100 years. Vote. If you're in a state that goes red every time for the last 100 years. Vote.
Polls always matter, you just have to understand polls.
This is with third party options and show Biden up 2% which is probably close to margin of error.
It doesn't mean Biden has it in the bag, but it means his chances are improved.
But Biden risks the same dangers Hillary did in 2016.
People don't really want to vote for them, they just don't want trump. So there's a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don't think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don't need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.
It's a dangerous game, and we wouldn't have to play it if we ran a candidate popular with Dem voters.
The margin of error for polls six months out from election, if memory serves, is about 14%.
I think people are phrasing this wrong: it’s not that the polls are worthless, it’s that it does not tell you what’s going to happen on Election Day in any real sense. They’re useful for watching trends and gauging short term changes and impact. They are useful for telling you how things are going. They do not tell you anything remotely useful about how things will be.
Nor are they even remotely reliable to gauge things in the short term.
The methodology of collecting this data can be so heavily bias that the pollers can get whatever result they're looking for, if they're pursuing a narrative. I could write a poll that leads the poll takers to just about any desired conclusion by choosing very targeted questions with bad faith multiple choice options, and by conducting the polls targeting specific demographics. It's a trivial thing to do.
Instead, you have to deep dive into the polling methodology, have a deep understanding of the quality of the poll operators, etc, to have any idea of if the poll was even trustworthy.
I, for one, dismiss polls entirely. There is too much disinformation, too many bad actors, whose entire goal is to "prove" their own biases in favor of their narrative, that the amount of shit buries the truth. So it seems a pointless exercise to sift through the shit to find the nuggets of truth, particularly when good faith polling isn't at all reliable in the first place.
Exactly, also the expert in the article says basically the same thing in more diplomatic language:
However, speaking to Newsweek Todd Landman, a professor of political science at Nottingham University in the U.K., said it was "still too far out from the election" to read much into swing state polls.
He said: "The race remains highly volatile, and it is still too far out from the election to make any firm conclusion from changing polls across these swing states."
What horseshit... you need to know the number of people polled in order to know the margin of error.
I mean Larry sabato just cited this stat days ago but I’m sure you’ll say he knows nothing.
You can average the top performing polls to get this.
Math is math. In order to calculate the margin of error you need to know the sample size. The number of months involved is not a part of the calculation.
Then it’s not margin of error, the predictive accuracy - whatever the term is - is far worse 6mo out from an election (5 now i guess) than the ones that are days or a week or so out. That’s the point. Polls now are useful but not for saying who will win in November. You may as well forget the top line numbers as soon as you see them unless you’re comparing them over time and/or looking at cross tabs for broad demographic trends, which is also limited but useful in some ways.
Fair enough... if we both agree that "margin of error" has nothing to do with number of months; I have no argument.
It's wild, but it raining on election day might have more an effect than anything that's happened recently.
Fuck.
I think I know who won't be discouraged by a little rain.
It can't rain everywhere all day though right?
Are you invoking The Crow?
Hah. No. but I get the reference. wasn't it "it can't rain all the time" ?
True, but since you refused to run this year we've had to make do with Joe.
So there’s a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don’t think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don’t need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.
That's largely how Romney lost to Obama in 2012. Republican turnout sagged in a year when both candidates' approval ratings were underwater. Mitt lost a bunch of midwestern states that a candidate like Bush or Trump could have won, thanks to his vulture capitalist career alienating blue-collar conservatives and his weird knock-off religion alienating evangelicals.
Literally all the dems have to do is not be shitbags.
Weird that Republicans are never held to such standards.
"Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love" old people (Republicans) vote, always, because they are retired. Democrats work and need to go out of their way to vote, so you have to convince them.
I see people saying their vote doesn't matter when they're in a highly partisan district, which is most of them.
News flash: Even the dumbest politicians can look at arithmetic. If they see their margins shrinking, they'll adjust. Or go full retard and double-down. And then get a worse beating.
Also local elections can be decided by one vote and can be just as important.
Typically more important for the average citizen. Federal changes may effect you in years, decades or never. Whereas your local politicians impact your day to day life.
Definitely not the case for women and queer people this year, but generally true.
You haven't been to the circus show that is my city board of ed meetings.
After trading leads several times, Simitian and Low each finished with 30,249 votes in the original tally, which was finalized earlier this month, shortly before the recount began. Liccardo finished with 38,489 votes, well ahead of the other two candidates.
So the two runners-up were competing for who gets to lose in a run-off election?
The attacks reached a fever pitch late last month, when a local prosecutor filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Liccardo’s campaign illegally coordinated with “a newly formed dark money Super PAC to do his CD-16 recount bidding.”
:-/ It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
I see people saying their vote doesn’t matter when they’re in a highly partisan district
I see people saying it when they're in heavily gerrymandered districts and deeply disenfranchised states. Dems have been playing the "Just go out and vote!" game in Florida for a quarter century, and Repubs keep finding new ways to yank the football. Even ballot initiatives don't work, as the Florida gerrymandered legislature just reverses out whatever voting rights or decriminalization laws the public passes.
Okay, then protest. And also VOTE.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying "voting doesn't work so I'm not going to do anything" is just allowing them to dictate everything that will happen.
Okay, then protest.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying “voting doesn’t work so I’m not going to do anything”
Studying the history of the electoral system and the patterns of disenfranchisement isn't equivalent to "doing nothing". And in the end, you have to be rational rather than idealistic. When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you're not going to vote him out of office.
When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you're not going to vote him out of office.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest. You have politicians that you admit want to become the next Putin but won't say anything or of fear of pepper spray.
There's an internet meme about France surrendering. French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets. American politicians try to take away your democracy and American citizens just roll over to expose their belly.
It's not the French that surrender at the slightest bit of difficulty.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest.
So do American college kids.
French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets.
French politicians have been squeezing the pension system since at least 2006, and the street protests have come and gone without discouraging new efforts to dismantle the system.
Bully to them for trying, but without material control over industry, they're all sound and fury.
I've been voting for 24 years and have never seen this happen. They double down and that gets their voters even more fired up to vote.
Well said. People also need to take steps to ensure they have not been kicked off of voter rolls (the Republican dirty tricks just never end). I think sites like vote.org can help with that.
And VOTE DOWN BALLOT. If Democrats voted down ballot as frequently as Republicans do, the Republicans would lose House and Senate by a wide margin.
I’m sorry, how many counts was it? 3? No. 4? No….somebody help me out here.
The mean number of US presidential felonies is .75.
Trump is truly an extraordinary president, since he's single handedly raised that number from zero to where it is today, and he's not even done yet.
Truly providing an excellent education in why statistical means are sometimes very misleading.
Can't wait to see someone seriously say, "what's the big deal if he's a felon? I heard that almost three quarters of presidents commit a felony."
Gonnaa be wild when he gets that mean up to 1 or higher. It'll seem like every president did at least one felony.
Yes, there was a 3 and a 4 in the number.
Actually, it was 3 AND 4! Together! 34!
edit: dang, someone already made the joke. Lol.
Say it again for the people in the back
Convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump.
Twice impeached, quadruple indicted, convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, Donald Trump!
I don’t know the specific legal terms to express this, but let’s not forget the civil fraud trial brought by Letitia James as well.
Piling on!
15 year penalty!
Well now it's starting to sound like the Shia LaBeouf song.
Actual criminal Donald Trump.
All things that just keep making him more appealing to republicans!
Nice to hear it, but yeah FUCKING VOTE!!!
Why the fuck is Trump even able to run? He's literally a fucking criminal, and was impeached. I dont understand how our political system or even judicial systems work at this point.
Disclaimer: Fuck Trump.
That being said, convicted "criminals" should still be able to run for any public office in my opinion. A tyrant CAN capture the judiciary and imprison their political opponents. This is in fact what happened in the Indian elections right now. This is in fact what happened in the US elections in the early 1900s, where a socialist candidate ran for President from prison. What was his crime? Striking when the State had deemed it illegal to do so.
Happened in Brazil too in 2016. Corrupt prosecutor (now congressman) worked with corrupt judge (who later became justice minister and is currently a senator) to imprison Lula. He couldn't run for the presidency and Bolsonaro got it. Later, the Supreme Court found that the case was based on lies and there were coordination between the prosecutor and the judge and they reinstated Lula's freedom and political rights.
But now, the tables have turned, and after Bolsonaro's actions in the failed coup on 2022, the Supreme Court took away Bolsonaro's political rights and he can't be a candidates for any office until 2030.
I'd like it if anyone convicted of fraud / criminal deceit / murder could never be president, but as our nation's common sense appears to have withered and died, the intent would eventually be twisted to suit some nefarious purpose.
Funny how 8 years ago, people kept saying "don't worry about Trump, there are checks and balances in place". None of that talk this time around!
Because there's now an infrastructure built up around him with plans on how to override those checks and balances (Project 2025).
We also saw the checks and balances do fuckall because they were captured by fellow criminals.
Those people never realized their stance is just as idiotic as "I cross the street without looking both ways because if they run me over, they'll have to pay"... or "I have the seat belt on, I can crash at top speed and nothing will happen to me"
Thought leaders have been raising this issue for years. Among those calling for barring criminals from running for office: some guy named Donald Trump.
Shouldn't you have the right to run for office when you have paid back your debt to society?
I mean if you can get an opponent convicted and it prevents them running, it feels kind of undemocratic.
BTW I'm not talking about tRump, he should be behind bars since ages already.
Yeah probably. The same logic ought to be applied to felons who currently lose their right to vote. Rights being treated as privileges...
I'm pretty sure the last guy to run for office from a cell was a socialist.
There are no hard requirements for being president beyond those listed in the Constitution:
Be a natural born US citizen
Be at least 35 years old
Have resided in the US for 14 or more years.
That's it. The framers of the Constitution presumably felt being a convicted felon would be enough for an electorate (or the electoral college, at least) to simply not vote for that person.
also this prevents a rogue prosecutor and judge from convicting a presidential candidate and blocking them from running. this way it is up to the people, whether the conviction is legitimate or not.
to be clear i am not saying trump’s conviction is illegitimate, just speaking generally. i could definitely see a world where trump pushes for this with a Democrat candidate (remember all the “lock her up” stuff?). i hope the legal system is robust enough to appeal a rogue situation but at some point it may not be.
I would like to see more requirements:
Upper age restriction
Does not lie about well known facts from scientist, like Covid-19.
Upper age restriction
instead of this I would like to see independent physical and mental acuity tests performed and released publicly. no need to bring age into it if they are fit. and if they aren't fit they shouldn't be able to run even if they're young.
Sure but I also want that the person to be able to last the whole 4 years period without running into any of those health issues with time. Might be hard to get the health measurements right and get people to accept it. Easier for people to just understand the person did not meet the age criteria.
Upper age restriction
And what happens when medical science increases life expectancy? U would have to amend the constitution to pass this. Think of how nightmarish it is to do this. Now think of amending this AGAIN when life expectancy increases every year.
Does not lie about well known facts from scientist, like Covid-19.
Who decides what "well known facts" are? A particular non-political committee? The supreme court was supposed to be this committee. It clearly became political quickly...
And what happens when medical science increases life expectancy?
Make the upper age limit be average life expectancy minus X years. This has the added bonus of motivating politicians to actually try to increase average life expectancy.
Who decides what "well known facts" are?
The scientific community, and certainly not the Supreme Court. Not sure how you came to that conclusion.
The scientific community, and certainly not the Supreme Court.
Because there are different "scientific communities" - some of them rogue and stupid. I'm not the poster you were responding to, but I would assume that the arbiter of your hypothetical of which scientific communities would be valid would go to the Supreme Court.
No. The scientific community polices* itself with peer review. The rogue and stupid communities are peer reviewed out of existence. You can submit all the falsified "research" you want, but if your published results can't be replicated, you will be labeled a quack and your "findings" will go ignored by the rest of the scientific community.
No government-affiliated judicial body is involved in verifying science, because judges are experts in law, not science.
Do you know how long it takes to replicate another's studies? Sometimes that never happens.
Are you suggesting that the United States Supreme Court weighs in on scientific studies that haven't been replicated yet?
No, I'm still commenting about Mio's suggestion upthread, that "not lying about science" is a terrible #5 criterion for president.
He IS a felon. But while he went through the impeachment process several times, he was never convicted. And there is no rule or law that says a felon can't be president.
While voting for Trump, or even entertaining his views, is a red flag warning. Like it or not, he is legally entitled to run. Perhaps the rules and laws should be changed. But to do that would require either a unified congress or a super majority of a party willing to do so. And I suspect, that as it currently stands, neither side wants to limit themselves from gaining the power and status of national or state office brings to them for any reason.
This is by design. So you can't just get some charges on your opponent and disqualify them
By the same logic felons should be allowed to vote. Instead you got the war on drugs
The serious argument about felons being allowed to vote is that voting is a civic duty, and you want felons to re-integrate into society. If they have tons of restrictions following them around for the rest of their lives, they're always going to be a little bit outside. Feeling like they're stuck outside of society makes recidivism rates higher, so restoring the right to vote is an important step in rehabilitation.
It would take a lot of people having felony convictions to be able to seriously sway an election, but given the racially polarized way that the criminal justice system is often applied, I think that's probably happened.
they should.
Wait, Trump isn't allowed to vote now? Lol if true.
Oh, I whole heartily agree. There is a lot tit for tat in politics. And rules are meant to be bent and twisted to one's own end. It could end up being a slippery slope as easily as not.
Technically he is not a felon until he is sentenced. So he will be a felon on July 11th.
That said I agree not letting people run from office because of convictions just incentives the state to go after political enemies.
it could also be an amendment to the constitution if enough states agree but that’s probably even less likely.
and i’m not sure it should be. i could definitely see a world where trump pushes for conviction of a Democrat candidate (remember all the “lock her up” stuff?). i hope the legal system is robust enough to appeal a rogue court situation but at some point it may not be. And elections are time sensitive, would the appeal even finish before the election?
flawed as it may be this could be the best solution to guard against authoritarianism.
look at the aileen cannon situation. if that's not a rogue court, i don't know what is
exactly, imagine her overseeing a BS felony trial on Biden or whatever other D candidate.
Why the fuck is Trump even able to run?
Because nobody is actually stopping him. Republican state level leaders all love him. Dems are too terrified to threaten him with more than a wrist slap. The police are in his corner. Big Business is bankrolling him. The Media keeps accidentally falling face first onto his dick. And 1:3 Americans still insist he's better than The Other Guy.
So he's still listed on all the ballots. He's still the GOP's nominee. And if he wins the lion's share of electoral college votes (by hook or by crook) he's going to be the President in January.
In Germany, if you're in jail you can't be elected into office. You can however always cast your vote even from jail (except for rare and extreme political crimes such as terrorism, starting a war and such)
I dont understand how our political system or even judicial systems work at this point.
With a lot of grease.
Note: "grease" is old slang for money.
I prefer "kabloingie", personally.
This is how the constitution is written. This scenario was never foreseen and our founders were naive.
I find it exceedingly hard to believe that a conservative will not vote for Trump when it really comes down to the day. I think there are plenty that will say they won't all the way up to that point though.
There are plenty of Conservatives who aren't voting for Trump, they just get drowned out by the extremely loud cultists. Just look up Republicans against Trump.
Yeah the real surprise is why they are still registered with the Republican party when the party leaders clearly have thrown their support behind him.
Because they find voting Democrat to be more distasteful, for whatever reason. I have to imagine the people who swing the swing states have to be a really interesting mix of uninformed and having close relationships with people from both major parties. Like they only know the ideas at super high levels, basically just the slogans and spokespeople. It's all vibes.
Or I could be way off, I dunno. World's a wacky place
You can only vote in the primarys if you are registered with the party having the primary.
They probably want to keep being able to vote within the Republican party.
In my state, you can be independent and vote for either.
But yeah, I voted in the Republican primary this time, to vote against Trump, even though I would have wanted Nikki to lose, but would rather risk that than Trump.
Never even occurred to me it would be state specific. But now that you said it, it's obvious. Thanks
That's something a swing voter might be likely to do, but it's not a cause of being a swing voter.
I'm not understanding. Why would a swing voter stay in one party?
Perhaps my point didn't come across. I'm not trying to explain why a swing voter would stay in one party. I was trying to understand what might cause someone in the US in today's world to be the kind of person who could feasibly vote for either party when they are wildly different on the major topics in the zeitgeist.
Republicans were gigantic pieces of shit long before Trump.
They don't even think he's guilty of any wrong doing, of course they'll vote for him.
I think a substantial number of voters are going to hold their noses and vote for the shitty candidate their party presented.
It'll be interesting to see how many people stay home compared to prior elections. People are super political and angry for a variety of reasons, but the choices are awful.
Realistically the best you can hope for is many of them opting to not vote at all.
There's definitely going to be a shift back in his direction amongst the faithful as conservative media does its work, but the thing to look for is whether than holds for low-information "undecideds" who make up about a third of the electorate. Depending on how much his case stays in the media, how much it affects his own ability to reach voters (i.e., does he get sentenced to prison pending appeals? Does he end up under house arrest with a parole officer looking over his shoulder?), and if people like the Minutemen or Proud Boys engage in violence over it, people in the middle who might have otherwise voted for him on the basis of "economy feel bad, maybe different big man make economy feel better?" might continue to peel away from him, and that's a greater risk to his chances than what the diehards will or won't do.
That's a false dichotomy.
People aren't necessarily conservative or progressive. Elections are won or lost with undecideds.
Good news is a lot of them were in bad health in 2020 and refused to wear masks
Wow, it's almost like putting the entire weight of the RNC behind a convicted felon in a rematch against the guy he already lost to once in order to control the voting power of the cult that formed around him is, dare I say it, a bad political move? Like, such a bad political move that even somebody who knows absolutely nothing about politics should have been able to see this one coming?
Imagine how detached from reality you need to be to genuinely believe that getting slapped with a felony conviction will somehow help your campaign.
Imagine how detached from reality you need to be
I agree with you. But I just want to point out that we are far, far past the "imagine if" stage. At this point in time, it is "witness in reality" how detached from reality Trump supporters are.
"Imagine if" sounds dismissive and complacent. These people are an actual threat to everyone, including themselves.
If you aren't angry about the shit these fucks are pulling, then get angry; if you are already angry, get angrier. Then go out and vote against them.
Drive people who are not voting for Trump to the polls. It’s easy to do and just requires taking a day off work.
I wouldn't exactly claim 2% polling gains as a big victory, tbh.
I check fivethirtyeight and 270towin pretty often and it hasn't changed much in the last 6 months. Still dystopian.
I wouldn’t exactly claim 2% polling gains as a big victory, tbh.
Its preferable to the 5-pt lag he was suffering a month ago. But nothing to brag about. Hillary squandered a 10-pt lead in the month before the general election, as the media turned into a "Buttery Males" feeding frenzy.
"Buttery Males" is Lindsey Graham's favorite Gentleman's Club
I can provide 5 polls in May that show him with a lead of at least 2 points.
I can also provide 6 polls with Trump leading by the same amounts.
These kind of headlines also make people feel like their vote is more/less critical.
Guess who doesn't read the news but shows up to vote anyways?
Vote!
Polls are just, like, your opinions maaaaann
Best correct
Felonious Trump has a nice ring to it.
Sounds like a Harry Potter villain.
I was thinking more like a jazz trombonist.
Please don't disparage trombonists by implying Trump is one of us
Wah-wah-waaaaah
What else could he play with those tiny hands?
Felonious Trump and the Goblet of Cocaine.
Felonious Trump and the Order of the Adderral.
It works on multiple levels, too. Thelonius Monk's style was all about embracing dissonance, and Trump is a walking, breathing, dissonance machine.
Monk's dissonance was sonic, and Trump's is cognitive, but it still works.
*Edit: it works with album titles too! "Felonious Trump: Alone in Manhattan" is fucking hilarious.
I love the fact that we can now call Trump a convicted felon
you mean, Donny J Trump, the convicted felon? I too am glad that we can officially call the convicted felon Donald Trump a convicted felon.
Also precludes him from military funeral honors, which means anything he does get is invalid.
It means a lot to us that deployed that a draft dodging bitch like Trump would lose that entitlement. Oh, and if you vote for Trump, You support a draft dodging bitch so fuck you.
According to the 538 podcast I was listening to, he isn't technically a convicted felon yet. The judge has to approve the verdict and enter the final judgement first.
This actually is an improvement for Biden who had been losing several of these.
If Trump takes either PA or MI, it's game over. He only needs one of them to win.
After that, Trump needs any 2 of the remaining 4 states to win and Biden needs 3/4.
If Biden takes Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Trump takes Arizona, that means it will all come down to New Mexico and we have ZERO useful polling out of New Mexico, absolutely none.
New Mexico is 90% going for Biden. It's not a swing state.
There's more cattle than people down there, of course it goes Red.
Now if you look at the top of the map, you'll see a sliver of dark blue, that's Multnomah County, i.e. where most of the people live.
Biden - 367,249 - 79.21%
Trump - 82,995 - 17.90%
It really doesn't matter how many square miles turn red, it's the people who do the voting.
It really doesn’t matter how many square miles turn red, it’s the people who do the voting.
Inside of states for popular elections this is true. However, that giant area of red is over-represented at just about every level of government, from the electoral college to Congress to state legislatures.
Land doesn't vote. The area means nothing.
The US is mostly empty space, sparsely inhabited by republicans. Democrats are often gathered in major population centers and seem less visible in this form of representation, due to their geographic concentration, but that’s a misrepresentation.
This graphic better illustrates this, representing the 2020 presidential election (from NYT)
I prefer the XKCD map. Really illustrates that whole "empty space" thing pretty well:
Rural populations lean red. Not exactly sure why that is. I guess contributing factors are that rural people tend to be more religious, bigoted, "independent" of public infrastructure and community, and pro-gun. I think Republicans also give more lip service to rural economic conditions, and visit rural parts more often. Democrats seem to largely ignore rural America, and even sometimes express contempt for them.
Every bit of news around (which old fuck is in the lead) is complete horseshit. Real polls can no longer be done. There's an insane self selection bias and beyond that there's an inherent participation bias.
Turns out that Moderate heavy states like Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan don't want to vote for a felon that threatens to jail his enemies.
Heh let’s see who people actually vote for. Polls don’t mean shit.
I mean, you're right (see most every election before), and we shouldn't become complacent.
vote early, vote often.
You actually mean convicted felon, donald trump.
Not against the rules, so I corrected the title.
Nice to see the plain truth up there :)
This is a big deal. I'm extremely excited to get a look into these data. This would be an INCREDIBLE thing considering that Biden has been lagging Trump in the polls for over 450 days.
And whoever tells you polls don't matter has their head up their ass. Polls do matter, a lot, especially this far out. People aren't a monolith. People do change their minds and perspectives.
Apparent viability matters. Even a 2-5% hit in polling to Trump can take him from the range of viable to non-viable.
And yes, polling is flawed. In 2016 and 2020, the polling massively underestimated support for Trump. We need to keep this in mind when we look at these numbers,.
Keeping in mind that the trajectory of Bidens polling was into the carpet, pretty much since the inauguration.
If Biden can shift this towards an upward trend, he's suddenly back in the game. Thats a sea change. Thats huge.
Polls matter, until the next poll comes out. The only poll with any lasting effect is in November.
Polls matter a lot when they start moving. There are plenty of people who pay no attention at all to news or politics. and those people are slowly finding out that Trump is now a convicted felon and may soon be wearing an orange jumpsuit.
No matter how the "Law and Order" GQP attacks the American Criminal Justice System, western societies have centuries of experience dealing with convicted felons. It is a stain that won't wash out.
Agreed. I'm holding back to do any real analysis of this for about 10 more days.
People love to say polls suck, they don't mean anything, its total none-sense, etc. Interestingly its always when their candidate is losing.
Now that these polls are shifting, my guess is the dorks who can't tell up from down start shifting their stories, and soon after that, they'll be pretending it was always their view.
Polls are important, especially in terms of this far out, and especially in-terms of the 'appearance' of electability. These are the weeks and months where momentum builds. A sudden breakout, or sudden drop in polling numbers is extremely consequential.
Don’t care. Vote!
Instructions unclear. Went to my polling place to vote and they said come back in five months.
Is convicted felon now the convicted felon's nickname?
I'm all for protest votes and sending a message IF you don't live in a swing state. People who live in swing states have the privilege of their vote actually mattering in the grand scheme. Please, please hold your nose and vote for Biden. We non-swing staters can take care of sending messages from the safety of our deep reds and blues.
Good. Let's hope it keeps up. Polls this far out from the election can sometimes be... non-indicative of the eventual result.
I'm not getting my hopes up
Man, I'd love to be an American right now, they have to choose between a senile old man and a convicted criminal to be their leader. It sounds like it came straight from a comedy skit.
You're slightly off. A senile old man vs a senile old man that's also a convicted criminal.
And who flirts with nazism, abuses women, probably colluded with Russia and other autocracies and lies about everything.
It isn't really that difficult a choice if you can remember just a couple of things from his presidency.
You're forgetting the one with brain fog due to brain worms, who drove his ex wife to suicide, and is an antivaxer.
Is that the same one who is a draft dodging little bitch and raped his ex wife so much that the state of NY changes their spousal rape laws?
President Joe Biden has overtaken his Republican challenger Donald Trump in three battleground states, according to polls five months before the presidential election.
In March, the incumbent and the former president won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Democratic and Republican nominations in the 2024 presidential election.
Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys, or enjoying only marginal leads.
However, speaking to Newsweek Todd Landman, a professor of political science at Nottingham University in the U.K., said it was "still too far out from the election" to read much into swing state polls.
He said: "The race remains highly volatile, and it is still too far out from the election to make any firm conclusion from changing polls across these swing states."
"The Hunter Biden proceedings in Delaware are just underway and there is a very long time to go politically, with many unknown events that will have effects on voter preferences and choices at the national and state level," he said.
The original article contains 538 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
"The Hunter Biden proceedings in Delaware are just underway and there is a very long time to go politically, with many unknown events that will have effects on voter preferences and choices at the national and state level," he said.
And that has what to do with Joe's electability?
If Biden's son is convicted, it reflects poorly on Joe Biden. If Trump is convicted, it reflects poorly on Joe Biden.
Essentially, everything is Joe Biden's fault.
You sound suspiciously like my coworker. ( my governor as well, sadly enough)
you work for the governor?
They said coworker, not boss. So they are like the equal of a governor.
Your comment is bad for Biden in 3 ways.
Joe is like the anti-bitcoin?
It's Murc's Law. People think Democrats are responsible for everything that happens in politics. To a lot of people, Republicans are just an obstacle that if Dems fail to hurdle, it's all the Dem's fault. Republicans have been broken for so long, many people have just written their agency out of politics entirely.
What other option do we really have? If there's only one set of adults in the room, it's their job to stop the children. If they just sit while the children start killing each other, then who's responsible?
I'm not saying it's not the Republicans fault. I am saying, though, that Democrats really need to up their game if they want to save the country.
Couldn't we just vote by phone now? It's just a suggestion anyway... I mean, our vote is just a suggestion, not actually a vote. I vote Biden because the guy is not crazy. But could we also get started on looking for a person younger than 30 to be president? Maybe a woman?
You've gotta be at least 35 to be president
That's a rule that should stay. They are literally no qualified candidates under 35. There are barely any qualified candidates over 35! There needs to be an upper limit though. At 70 IRAs force you to take withdrawals; it should be the same for the president.
Yeah okay fine. But I agree with the guy below, an upper limit should happen. Something like 50 or 60 years old.
Younger than 30? No thanks. Younger than 50, yes please.
Every time you get a spam call that has spoofed "From" information, from now on, I want you to think about how stupid voting by phone would be.
As someone with decades of experience in the tech industry we should stay as far away from electronic voting as possible. I know the sort of people who work on government systems and do not trust them or their code.
It's less than 200 million votes, being counted and recounted in parallel by people all over the country. The problem of scale isn't big enough to justify the security risks. I'm willing to wait a week to make sure the count is accurate and true with paper ballots.
"suddenly"...Newsweek, you sound a little pissed?
Awww for a second I thought the title of the post was the title of the article. Way to get my hopes up 😮💨
Polls don't matter, especially this far out.
Vote. Put pressure on politicians to do better. But more than anything. Vote.
If the polls say he's 100% going to win. Vote. If you're in a state that goes blue every time for the last 100 years. Vote. If you're in a state that goes red every time for the last 100 years. Vote.
Polls always matter, you just have to understand polls.
This is with third party options and show Biden up 2% which is probably close to margin of error.
It doesn't mean Biden has it in the bag, but it means his chances are improved.
But Biden risks the same dangers Hillary did in 2016.
People don't really want to vote for them, they just don't want trump. So there's a risk if Biden is polling too well (I don't think it will be an issue) people will stay home thinking they don't need to compromise their morals because trump will lose.
It's a dangerous game, and we wouldn't have to play it if we ran a candidate popular with Dem voters.
The margin of error for polls six months out from election, if memory serves, is about 14%.
I think people are phrasing this wrong: it’s not that the polls are worthless, it’s that it does not tell you what’s going to happen on Election Day in any real sense. They’re useful for watching trends and gauging short term changes and impact. They are useful for telling you how things are going. They do not tell you anything remotely useful about how things will be.
Nor are they even remotely reliable to gauge things in the short term.
The methodology of collecting this data can be so heavily bias that the pollers can get whatever result they're looking for, if they're pursuing a narrative. I could write a poll that leads the poll takers to just about any desired conclusion by choosing very targeted questions with bad faith multiple choice options, and by conducting the polls targeting specific demographics. It's a trivial thing to do.
Instead, you have to deep dive into the polling methodology, have a deep understanding of the quality of the poll operators, etc, to have any idea of if the poll was even trustworthy.
I, for one, dismiss polls entirely. There is too much disinformation, too many bad actors, whose entire goal is to "prove" their own biases in favor of their narrative, that the amount of shit buries the truth. So it seems a pointless exercise to sift through the shit to find the nuggets of truth, particularly when good faith polling isn't at all reliable in the first place.
Exactly, also the expert in the article says basically the same thing in more diplomatic language:
What horseshit... you need to know the number of people polled in order to know the margin of error.
I mean Larry sabato just cited this stat days ago but I’m sure you’ll say he knows nothing.
You can average the top performing polls to get this.
Math is math. In order to calculate the margin of error you need to know the sample size. The number of months involved is not a part of the calculation.
Then it’s not margin of error, the predictive accuracy - whatever the term is - is far worse 6mo out from an election (5 now i guess) than the ones that are days or a week or so out. That’s the point. Polls now are useful but not for saying who will win in November. You may as well forget the top line numbers as soon as you see them unless you’re comparing them over time and/or looking at cross tabs for broad demographic trends, which is also limited but useful in some ways.
Fair enough... if we both agree that "margin of error" has nothing to do with number of months; I have no argument.
It's wild, but it raining on election day might have more an effect than anything that's happened recently.
Fuck.
I think I know who won't be discouraged by a little rain.
It can't rain everywhere all day though right?
Are you invoking The Crow?
Hah. No. but I get the reference. wasn't it "it can't rain all the time" ?
True, but since you refused to run this year we've had to make do with Joe.
That's largely how Romney lost to Obama in 2012. Republican turnout sagged in a year when both candidates' approval ratings were underwater. Mitt lost a bunch of midwestern states that a candidate like Bush or Trump could have won, thanks to his vulture capitalist career alienating blue-collar conservatives and his weird knock-off religion alienating evangelicals.
Literally all the dems have to do is not be shitbags.
Weird that Republicans are never held to such standards.
"Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love" old people (Republicans) vote, always, because they are retired. Democrats work and need to go out of their way to vote, so you have to convince them.
I see people saying their vote doesn't matter when they're in a highly partisan district, which is most of them.
News flash: Even the dumbest politicians can look at arithmetic. If they see their margins shrinking, they'll adjust. Or go full retard and double-down. And then get a worse beating.
Also local elections can be decided by one vote and can be just as important.
Typically more important for the average citizen. Federal changes may effect you in years, decades or never. Whereas your local politicians impact your day to day life.
Definitely not the case for women and queer people this year, but generally true.
You haven't been to the circus show that is my city board of ed meetings.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-01/ca-16-results-recount-tk-tk
Five votes. In a district of 735,000 people.
So the two runners-up were competing for who gets to lose in a run-off election?
:-/ It's not the votes that count, but who counts the votes.
I see people saying it when they're in heavily gerrymandered districts and deeply disenfranchised states. Dems have been playing the "Just go out and vote!" game in Florida for a quarter century, and Repubs keep finding new ways to yank the football. Even ballot initiatives don't work, as the Florida gerrymandered legislature just reverses out whatever voting rights or decriminalization laws the public passes.
Okay, then protest. And also VOTE.
Throwing your hands up in the air saying "voting doesn't work so I'm not going to do anything" is just allowing them to dictate everything that will happen.
Studying the history of the electoral system and the patterns of disenfranchisement isn't equivalent to "doing nothing". And in the end, you have to be rational rather than idealistic. When Vladimir Putin is counting the votes, you're not going to vote him out of office.
Russians that literally live under Vladimir Putin risk their lives to protest. You have politicians that you admit want to become the next Putin but won't say anything or of fear of pepper spray.
There's an internet meme about France surrendering. French politicians try to increase the retirement age and the population takes to the streets. American politicians try to take away your democracy and American citizens just roll over to expose their belly.
It's not the French that surrender at the slightest bit of difficulty.
So do American college kids.
French politicians have been squeezing the pension system since at least 2006, and the street protests have come and gone without discouraging new efforts to dismantle the system.
Bully to them for trying, but without material control over industry, they're all sound and fury.
I've been voting for 24 years and have never seen this happen. They double down and that gets their voters even more fired up to vote.
Well said. People also need to take steps to ensure they have not been kicked off of voter rolls (the Republican dirty tricks just never end). I think sites like vote.org can help with that.
And VOTE DOWN BALLOT. If Democrats voted down ballot as frequently as Republicans do, the Republicans would lose House and Senate by a wide margin.
Convicted felon Donald Trump?
Convicted felon Donald Trump.
I’m sorry, how many counts was it? 3? No. 4? No….somebody help me out here.
The mean number of US presidential felonies is .75.
Trump is truly an extraordinary president, since he's single handedly raised that number from zero to where it is today, and he's not even done yet.
Truly providing an excellent education in why statistical means are sometimes very misleading.
Can't wait to see someone seriously say, "what's the big deal if he's a felon? I heard that almost three quarters of presidents commit a felony."
Gonnaa be wild when he gets that mean up to 1 or higher. It'll seem like every president did at least one felony.
Yes, there was a 3 and a 4 in the number.
Actually, it was 3 AND 4! Together! 34!
edit: dang, someone already made the joke. Lol.
Say it again for the people in the back
Convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump.
Twice impeached, quadruple indicted, convicted felon and adjudicated rapist, Donald Trump!
I don’t know the specific legal terms to express this, but let’s not forget the civil fraud trial brought by Letitia James as well.
Piling on!
15 year penalty!
Well now it's starting to sound like the Shia LaBeouf song.
Actual criminal Donald Trump.
All things that just keep making him more appealing to republicans!
Nice to hear it, but yeah FUCKING VOTE!!!
Why the fuck is Trump even able to run? He's literally a fucking criminal, and was impeached. I dont understand how our political system or even judicial systems work at this point.
Disclaimer: Fuck Trump.
That being said, convicted "criminals" should still be able to run for any public office in my opinion. A tyrant CAN capture the judiciary and imprison their political opponents. This is in fact what happened in the Indian elections right now. This is in fact what happened in the US elections in the early 1900s, where a socialist candidate ran for President from prison. What was his crime? Striking when the State had deemed it illegal to do so.
Happened in Brazil too in 2016. Corrupt prosecutor (now congressman) worked with corrupt judge (who later became justice minister and is currently a senator) to imprison Lula. He couldn't run for the presidency and Bolsonaro got it. Later, the Supreme Court found that the case was based on lies and there were coordination between the prosecutor and the judge and they reinstated Lula's freedom and political rights.
But now, the tables have turned, and after Bolsonaro's actions in the failed coup on 2022, the Supreme Court took away Bolsonaro's political rights and he can't be a candidates for any office until 2030.
I'd like it if anyone convicted of fraud / criminal deceit / murder could never be president, but as our nation's common sense appears to have withered and died, the intent would eventually be twisted to suit some nefarious purpose.
Funny how 8 years ago, people kept saying "don't worry about Trump, there are checks and balances in place". None of that talk this time around!
Because there's now an infrastructure built up around him with plans on how to override those checks and balances (Project 2025).
We also saw the checks and balances do fuckall because they were captured by fellow criminals.
Those people never realized their stance is just as idiotic as "I cross the street without looking both ways because if they run me over, they'll have to pay"... or "I have the seat belt on, I can crash at top speed and nothing will happen to me"
Thought leaders have been raising this issue for years. Among those calling for barring criminals from running for office: some guy named Donald Trump.
Shouldn't you have the right to run for office when you have paid back your debt to society?
I mean if you can get an opponent convicted and it prevents them running, it feels kind of undemocratic.
BTW I'm not talking about tRump, he should be behind bars since ages already.
Yeah probably. The same logic ought to be applied to felons who currently lose their right to vote. Rights being treated as privileges...
I'm pretty sure the last guy to run for office from a cell was a socialist.
There are no hard requirements for being president beyond those listed in the Constitution:
That's it. The framers of the Constitution presumably felt being a convicted felon would be enough for an electorate (or the electoral college, at least) to simply not vote for that person.
also this prevents a rogue prosecutor and judge from convicting a presidential candidate and blocking them from running. this way it is up to the people, whether the conviction is legitimate or not.
to be clear i am not saying trump’s conviction is illegitimate, just speaking generally. i could definitely see a world where trump pushes for this with a Democrat candidate (remember all the “lock her up” stuff?). i hope the legal system is robust enough to appeal a rogue situation but at some point it may not be.
I would like to see more requirements:
instead of this I would like to see independent physical and mental acuity tests performed and released publicly. no need to bring age into it if they are fit. and if they aren't fit they shouldn't be able to run even if they're young.
Sure but I also want that the person to be able to last the whole 4 years period without running into any of those health issues with time. Might be hard to get the health measurements right and get people to accept it. Easier for people to just understand the person did not meet the age criteria.
And what happens when medical science increases life expectancy? U would have to amend the constitution to pass this. Think of how nightmarish it is to do this. Now think of amending this AGAIN when life expectancy increases every year.
Who decides what "well known facts" are? A particular non-political committee? The supreme court was supposed to be this committee. It clearly became political quickly...
Make the upper age limit be average life expectancy minus X years. This has the added bonus of motivating politicians to actually try to increase average life expectancy.
The scientific community, and certainly not the Supreme Court. Not sure how you came to that conclusion.
Because there are different "scientific communities" - some of them rogue and stupid. I'm not the poster you were responding to, but I would assume that the arbiter of your hypothetical of which scientific communities would be valid would go to the Supreme Court.
No. The scientific community polices* itself with peer review. The rogue and stupid communities are peer reviewed out of existence. You can submit all the falsified "research" you want, but if your published results can't be replicated, you will be labeled a quack and your "findings" will go ignored by the rest of the scientific community.
No government-affiliated judicial body is involved in verifying science, because judges are experts in law, not science.
Do you know how long it takes to replicate another's studies? Sometimes that never happens.
Are you suggesting that the United States Supreme Court weighs in on scientific studies that haven't been replicated yet?
No, I'm still commenting about Mio's suggestion upthread, that "not lying about science" is a terrible #5 criterion for president.
He IS a felon. But while he went through the impeachment process several times, he was never convicted. And there is no rule or law that says a felon can't be president.
While voting for Trump, or even entertaining his views, is a red flag warning. Like it or not, he is legally entitled to run. Perhaps the rules and laws should be changed. But to do that would require either a unified congress or a super majority of a party willing to do so. And I suspect, that as it currently stands, neither side wants to limit themselves from gaining the power and status of national or state office brings to them for any reason.
This is by design. So you can't just get some charges on your opponent and disqualify them
By the same logic felons should be allowed to vote. Instead you got the war on drugs
The serious argument about felons being allowed to vote is that voting is a civic duty, and you want felons to re-integrate into society. If they have tons of restrictions following them around for the rest of their lives, they're always going to be a little bit outside. Feeling like they're stuck outside of society makes recidivism rates higher, so restoring the right to vote is an important step in rehabilitation.
It would take a lot of people having felony convictions to be able to seriously sway an election, but given the racially polarized way that the criminal justice system is often applied, I think that's probably happened.
they should.
Wait, Trump isn't allowed to vote now? Lol if true.
Oh, I whole heartily agree. There is a lot tit for tat in politics. And rules are meant to be bent and twisted to one's own end. It could end up being a slippery slope as easily as not.
Technically he is not a felon until he is sentenced. So he will be a felon on July 11th.
That said I agree not letting people run from office because of convictions just incentives the state to go after political enemies.
it could also be an amendment to the constitution if enough states agree but that’s probably even less likely.
and i’m not sure it should be. i could definitely see a world where trump pushes for conviction of a Democrat candidate (remember all the “lock her up” stuff?). i hope the legal system is robust enough to appeal a rogue court situation but at some point it may not be. And elections are time sensitive, would the appeal even finish before the election?
flawed as it may be this could be the best solution to guard against authoritarianism.
look at the aileen cannon situation. if that's not a rogue court, i don't know what is
exactly, imagine her overseeing a BS felony trial on Biden or whatever other D candidate.
Because nobody is actually stopping him. Republican state level leaders all love him. Dems are too terrified to threaten him with more than a wrist slap. The police are in his corner. Big Business is bankrolling him. The Media keeps accidentally falling face first onto his dick. And 1:3 Americans still insist he's better than The Other Guy.
So he's still listed on all the ballots. He's still the GOP's nominee. And if he wins the lion's share of electoral college votes (by hook or by crook) he's going to be the President in January.
In Germany, if you're in jail you can't be elected into office. You can however always cast your vote even from jail (except for rare and extreme political crimes such as terrorism, starting a war and such)
With a lot of grease.
Note: "grease" is old slang for money.
I prefer "kabloingie", personally.
This is how the constitution is written. This scenario was never foreseen and our founders were naive.
I find it exceedingly hard to believe that a conservative will not vote for Trump when it really comes down to the day. I think there are plenty that will say they won't all the way up to that point though.
There are plenty of Conservatives who aren't voting for Trump, they just get drowned out by the extremely loud cultists. Just look up Republicans against Trump.
Yeah the real surprise is why they are still registered with the Republican party when the party leaders clearly have thrown their support behind him.
Because they find voting Democrat to be more distasteful, for whatever reason. I have to imagine the people who swing the swing states have to be a really interesting mix of uninformed and having close relationships with people from both major parties. Like they only know the ideas at super high levels, basically just the slogans and spokespeople. It's all vibes.
Or I could be way off, I dunno. World's a wacky place
You can only vote in the primarys if you are registered with the party having the primary.
They probably want to keep being able to vote within the Republican party.
In my state, you can be independent and vote for either.
But yeah, I voted in the Republican primary this time, to vote against Trump, even though I would have wanted Nikki to lose, but would rather risk that than Trump.
Never even occurred to me it would be state specific. But now that you said it, it's obvious. Thanks
That's something a swing voter might be likely to do, but it's not a cause of being a swing voter.
I'm not understanding. Why would a swing voter stay in one party?
Perhaps my point didn't come across. I'm not trying to explain why a swing voter would stay in one party. I was trying to understand what might cause someone in the US in today's world to be the kind of person who could feasibly vote for either party when they are wildly different on the major topics in the zeitgeist.
Republicans were gigantic pieces of shit long before Trump.
They don't even think he's guilty of any wrong doing, of course they'll vote for him.
I think a substantial number of voters are going to hold their noses and vote for the shitty candidate their party presented.
It'll be interesting to see how many people stay home compared to prior elections. People are super political and angry for a variety of reasons, but the choices are awful.
Realistically the best you can hope for is many of them opting to not vote at all.
There's definitely going to be a shift back in his direction amongst the faithful as conservative media does its work, but the thing to look for is whether than holds for low-information "undecideds" who make up about a third of the electorate. Depending on how much his case stays in the media, how much it affects his own ability to reach voters (i.e., does he get sentenced to prison pending appeals? Does he end up under house arrest with a parole officer looking over his shoulder?), and if people like the Minutemen or Proud Boys engage in violence over it, people in the middle who might have otherwise voted for him on the basis of "economy feel bad, maybe different big man make economy feel better?" might continue to peel away from him, and that's a greater risk to his chances than what the diehards will or won't do.
That's a false dichotomy.
People aren't necessarily conservative or progressive. Elections are won or lost with undecideds.
Good news is a lot of them were in bad health in 2020 and refused to wear masks
Wow, it's almost like putting the entire weight of the RNC behind a convicted felon in a rematch against the guy he already lost to once in order to control the voting power of the cult that formed around him is, dare I say it, a bad political move? Like, such a bad political move that even somebody who knows absolutely nothing about politics should have been able to see this one coming?
Imagine how detached from reality you need to be to genuinely believe that getting slapped with a felony conviction will somehow help your campaign.
I agree with you. But I just want to point out that we are far, far past the "imagine if" stage. At this point in time, it is "witness in reality" how detached from reality Trump supporters are.
"Imagine if" sounds dismissive and complacent. These people are an actual threat to everyone, including themselves.
If you aren't angry about the shit these fucks are pulling, then get angry; if you are already angry, get angrier. Then go out and vote against them.
Drive people who are not voting for Trump to the polls. It’s easy to do and just requires taking a day off work.
I wouldn't exactly claim 2% polling gains as a big victory, tbh.
I check fivethirtyeight and 270towin pretty often and it hasn't changed much in the last 6 months. Still dystopian.
Its preferable to the 5-pt lag he was suffering a month ago. But nothing to brag about. Hillary squandered a 10-pt lead in the month before the general election, as the media turned into a "Buttery Males" feeding frenzy.
"Buttery Males" is Lindsey Graham's favorite Gentleman's Club
I can provide 5 polls in May that show him with a lead of at least 2 points.
I can also provide 6 polls with Trump leading by the same amounts.
These kind of headlines also make people feel like their vote is more/less critical.
Guess who doesn't read the news but shows up to vote anyways?
Vote!
Polls are just, like, your opinions maaaaann
Best correct
Felonious Trump has a nice ring to it.
Sounds like a Harry Potter villain.
I was thinking more like a jazz trombonist.
Please don't disparage trombonists by implying Trump is one of us
Wah-wah-waaaaah
What else could he play with those tiny hands?
Felonious Trump and the Goblet of Cocaine.
Felonious Trump and the Order of the Adderral.
It works on multiple levels, too. Thelonius Monk's style was all about embracing dissonance, and Trump is a walking, breathing, dissonance machine. Monk's dissonance was sonic, and Trump's is cognitive, but it still works.
*Edit: it works with album titles too! "Felonious Trump: Alone in Manhattan" is fucking hilarious.
I love the fact that we can now call Trump a convicted felon
you mean, Donny J Trump, the convicted felon? I too am glad that we can officially call the convicted felon Donald Trump a convicted felon.
Also precludes him from military funeral honors, which means anything he does get is invalid.
It means a lot to us that deployed that a draft dodging bitch like Trump would lose that entitlement. Oh, and if you vote for Trump, You support a draft dodging bitch so fuck you.
According to the 538 podcast I was listening to, he isn't technically a convicted felon yet. The judge has to approve the verdict and enter the final judgement first.
They referred to him as a convicted felon-elect.
Yup, this is why we follow it over time.
It went from pro Biden, to waffling back and forth, to pro Trump, to waffling back and forth, and now, here we are!
Let's check the usual suspects:
Arizona: Tie, Biden+2, Trump+2-+4 Waffling.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/arizona/
Nevada: Trump +3
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/nevada/
New Mexico: No useful polling.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/new-mexico/
Georgia: Trump +5/+6
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/georgia/
North Carolina: Trump +8
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/north-carolina/
Pennsylvania: Biden +1/+2 to Trump +2 Waffling
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/pennsylvania/
Michigan: Tie to Trump+1 Waffling
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/michigan/
Wisconsin: Biden +2/+7 to Trump +1 Waffling
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/wisconsin/
Minnesota: Tie, Biden+2, Trump +3/+5 Waffling
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/minnesota/
What this looks like mapped out:
This actually is an improvement for Biden who had been losing several of these.
If Trump takes either PA or MI, it's game over. He only needs one of them to win.
After that, Trump needs any 2 of the remaining 4 states to win and Biden needs 3/4.
If Biden takes Wisconsin and Minnesota, and Trump takes Arizona, that means it will all come down to New Mexico and we have ZERO useful polling out of New Mexico, absolutely none.
New Mexico is 90% going for Biden. It's not a swing state.
How can most of the country be so red? Are people not paying attention?
A lot of it is low population and lots of square miles.
Take my state for example... We voted for Biden, but if you check it county by county:
You'd be right to go "Well, wait, how does that work?
See those 3 giant counties in the lower right hand corner? That's Lake, Harney, and Malheur county from left to right.
Here's how they voted in 2020:
Lake
Biden - 792 - 18.15%
Trump - 3,470 - 79.53%
Harney
Biden - 894 - 19.95%
Trump - 3,475 - 77.55%
Malheur
Biden - 3,260 - 27.62%
Trump - 8,187 - 69.36%
There's more cattle than people down there, of course it goes Red.
Now if you look at the top of the map, you'll see a sliver of dark blue, that's Multnomah County, i.e. where most of the people live.
Biden - 367,249 - 79.21%
Trump - 82,995 - 17.90%
It really doesn't matter how many square miles turn red, it's the people who do the voting.
Inside of states for popular elections this is true. However, that giant area of red is over-represented at just about every level of government, from the electoral college to Congress to state legislatures.
Land doesn't vote. The area means nothing.
The US is mostly empty space, sparsely inhabited by republicans. Democrats are often gathered in major population centers and seem less visible in this form of representation, due to their geographic concentration, but that’s a misrepresentation.
This graphic better illustrates this, representing the 2020 presidential election (from NYT)
I prefer the XKCD map. Really illustrates that whole "empty space" thing pretty well:
Rural populations lean red. Not exactly sure why that is. I guess contributing factors are that rural people tend to be more religious, bigoted, "independent" of public infrastructure and community, and pro-gun. I think Republicans also give more lip service to rural economic conditions, and visit rural parts more often. Democrats seem to largely ignore rural America, and even sometimes express contempt for them.
Every bit of news around (which old fuck is in the lead) is complete horseshit. Real polls can no longer be done. There's an insane self selection bias and beyond that there's an inherent participation bias.
Polls were historical accurate during the 2022 election.
Turns out that Moderate heavy states like Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan don't want to vote for a felon that threatens to jail his enemies.
Heh let’s see who people actually vote for. Polls don’t mean shit.
I mean, you're right (see most every election before), and we shouldn't become complacent.
vote early, vote often.
You actually mean convicted felon, donald trump.
Not against the rules, so I corrected the title.
Nice to see the plain truth up there :)
This is a big deal. I'm extremely excited to get a look into these data. This would be an INCREDIBLE thing considering that Biden has been lagging Trump in the polls for over 450 days.
And whoever tells you polls don't matter has their head up their ass. Polls do matter, a lot, especially this far out. People aren't a monolith. People do change their minds and perspectives.
Apparent viability matters. Even a 2-5% hit in polling to Trump can take him from the range of viable to non-viable.
And yes, polling is flawed. In 2016 and 2020, the polling massively underestimated support for Trump. We need to keep this in mind when we look at these numbers,.
Keeping in mind that the trajectory of Bidens polling was into the carpet, pretty much since the inauguration.
If Biden can shift this towards an upward trend, he's suddenly back in the game. Thats a sea change. Thats huge.
Polls matter, until the next poll comes out. The only poll with any lasting effect is in November.
Polls matter a lot when they start moving. There are plenty of people who pay no attention at all to news or politics. and those people are slowly finding out that Trump is now a convicted felon and may soon be wearing an orange jumpsuit.
No matter how the "Law and Order" GQP attacks the American Criminal Justice System, western societies have centuries of experience dealing with convicted felons. It is a stain that won't wash out.
Agreed. I'm holding back to do any real analysis of this for about 10 more days.
People love to say polls suck, they don't mean anything, its total none-sense, etc. Interestingly its always when their candidate is losing.
Now that these polls are shifting, my guess is the dorks who can't tell up from down start shifting their stories, and soon after that, they'll be pretending it was always their view.
Polls are important, especially in terms of this far out, and especially in-terms of the 'appearance' of electability. These are the weeks and months where momentum builds. A sudden breakout, or sudden drop in polling numbers is extremely consequential.
Don’t care. Vote!
Instructions unclear. Went to my polling place to vote and they said come back in five months.
Is convicted felon now the convicted felon's nickname?
I'm all for protest votes and sending a message IF you don't live in a swing state. People who live in swing states have the privilege of their vote actually mattering in the grand scheme. Please, please hold your nose and vote for Biden. We non-swing staters can take care of sending messages from the safety of our deep reds and blues.
Good. Let's hope it keeps up. Polls this far out from the election can sometimes be... non-indicative of the eventual result.
I'm not getting my hopes up
Man, I'd love to be an American right now, they have to choose between a senile old man and a convicted criminal to be their leader. It sounds like it came straight from a comedy skit.
You're slightly off. A senile old man vs a senile old man that's also a convicted criminal.
And who flirts with nazism, abuses women, probably colluded with Russia and other autocracies and lies about everything.
It isn't really that difficult a choice if you can remember just a couple of things from his presidency.
You're forgetting the one with brain fog due to brain worms, who drove his ex wife to suicide, and is an antivaxer.
Is that the same one who is a draft dodging little bitch and raped his ex wife so much that the state of NY changes their spousal rape laws?
Hey, there are some alternatives! Like senile old conspiracy theory man with brain worms.
well that's an accomplishment to be sure
This is the best summary I could come up with:
President Joe Biden has overtaken his Republican challenger Donald Trump in three battleground states, according to polls five months before the presidential election.
In March, the incumbent and the former president won enough primary races to secure, respectively, the Democratic and Republican nominations in the 2024 presidential election.
Polls have so far shown that the results will be tight as the pair are statistically tied in most surveys, or enjoying only marginal leads.
However, speaking to Newsweek Todd Landman, a professor of political science at Nottingham University in the U.K., said it was "still too far out from the election" to read much into swing state polls.
He said: "The race remains highly volatile, and it is still too far out from the election to make any firm conclusion from changing polls across these swing states."
"The Hunter Biden proceedings in Delaware are just underway and there is a very long time to go politically, with many unknown events that will have effects on voter preferences and choices at the national and state level," he said.
The original article contains 538 words, the summary contains 176 words. Saved 67%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
And that has what to do with Joe's electability?
If Biden's son is convicted, it reflects poorly on Joe Biden. If Trump is convicted, it reflects poorly on Joe Biden.
Essentially, everything is Joe Biden's fault.
You sound suspiciously like my coworker. ( my governor as well, sadly enough)
you work for the governor?
They said coworker, not boss. So they are like the equal of a governor.
Your comment is bad for Biden in 3 ways.
Joe is like the anti-bitcoin?
It's Murc's Law. People think Democrats are responsible for everything that happens in politics. To a lot of people, Republicans are just an obstacle that if Dems fail to hurdle, it's all the Dem's fault. Republicans have been broken for so long, many people have just written their agency out of politics entirely.
What other option do we really have? If there's only one set of adults in the room, it's their job to stop the children. If they just sit while the children start killing each other, then who's responsible?
I'm not saying it's not the Republicans fault. I am saying, though, that Democrats really need to up their game if they want to save the country.
Couldn't we just vote by phone now? It's just a suggestion anyway... I mean, our vote is just a suggestion, not actually a vote. I vote Biden because the guy is not crazy. But could we also get started on looking for a person younger than 30 to be president? Maybe a woman?
You've gotta be at least 35 to be president
That's a rule that should stay. They are literally no qualified candidates under 35. There are barely any qualified candidates over 35! There needs to be an upper limit though. At 70 IRAs force you to take withdrawals; it should be the same for the president.
Yeah okay fine. But I agree with the guy below, an upper limit should happen. Something like 50 or 60 years old.
Younger than 30? No thanks. Younger than 50, yes please.
Every time you get a spam call that has spoofed "From" information, from now on, I want you to think about how stupid voting by phone would be.
As someone with decades of experience in the tech industry we should stay as far away from electronic voting as possible. I know the sort of people who work on government systems and do not trust them or their code.
It's less than 200 million votes, being counted and recounted in parallel by people all over the country. The problem of scale isn't big enough to justify the security risks. I'm willing to wait a week to make sure the count is accurate and true with paper ballots.
"suddenly"...Newsweek, you sound a little pissed?
Awww for a second I thought the title of the post was the title of the article. Way to get my hopes up 😮💨
It is...