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Awww congrats on the new baby girl.My wife and I welcomed a new baby girl so I’ve been stretched a little thin and not following the race as closely. Saw a lot of doomsday posts on this thread so I was looking around some, and I’ll admit I didn’t realize that Trump is ahead in the RCP average for every single swing state.
Georgia: Trump +1.8%
Arizona: Trump +1.6%
Michigan: Trump +1.2%
Nevada: Trump +0.8%
Pennsylvania: Trump +0.8%
North Carolina: Trump +0.5%
Wisconsin: Trump +0.2%
Question for the board - who wins the election if Trump wins Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania but Harris wins Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin? Would Pennsylvania be the tipping point state in that fact pattern and thus Trump would win?
Correct, if Trump wins the Sun Belt then he only needs to pick off one of the Blue Wall states- doesn't matter which- to win the election.Gotcha. So basically if Trump wins the Sun Belt states, he only needs one of the blue wall states to win the election. Then where it gets complicated is if Trump loses a sun belt state or two but wins a blue wall state or two. I need to play around more with that “270 to win” website.
So with Trump leading in the consensus polling, I guess your confidence comes from some combo of a) some biased Republican polls are included in RCP, and b) maybe the pollsters as a whole have over corrected after underestimating Trump in 2016 and 2020?
I read this board so that I don’t find myself in an echo chamber on the right, but now I’m wondering if by getting a good portion of my political news here it’s caused me to be in an echo chamber of the left and now I’ve been underestimating Trump’s chances too much.
Ohh yeah, good catch for sure. Trump picking off one of the Blue Wall states could be offset by Harris keeping Georgia blue or flipping North Carolina.Flipping either NC or GA would also change the winner in that scenario.
25% Trump and 75% Harris is about where I am, so yeah maybe I’m underestimating DJT.Correct, if Trump wins the Sun Belt then he only needs to pick off one of the Blue Wall states- doesn't matter which- to win the election.
Everyone's mileage may vary, but I'm not someone who puts too much stock into the polls, so I'd say that my confidence comes from having virtually every single one of the fundamental intangibles in Harris's favor and almost none in Trump's favor. I'd feel that way whether Harris was up in the aggregate polling or down in the aggregate polling. I trust things like: grassroots volunteer efforts, fundraising totals, new voter registrations, trends in Democratic turnout over the last 8 years, overperformance of Democrats vs. underperformance of Republicans since Dobbs, the economy doing so well at present, and Trump completely unraveling on the stump before our very eyes. All of those things combine to make me believe Harris is winning, has been winning, and will ultimately win the election. I've felt that way since shortly after July 21 and nothing has occurred to change my view in the slightest. I had definitely resigned myself to Trump winning between June 27 and July 21. I haven't felt like Trump would win since around the week of the DNC, and my belief that he will win has only retreated further since then.
I'd say you've only been underestimating Trump's chances if you felt like he only had like a 25-35% chance of winning. It's much closer to 40/60 or 45/55 in my estimation.
And Nevada if PA is the oneOhh yeah, good catch for sure. Trump picking off one of the Blue Wall states could be offset by Harris keeping Georgia blue or flipping North Carolina.
Thank you nyc!Awww congrats on the new baby girl.
Oh yeah, if you've got Trump's chances at 25% you're wayyyyy underestimating him, IMO.25% Trump and 75% Harris is about where I am, so yeah maybe I’m underestimating DJT.
As to your other point, I’ve always viewed the things you mentioned as the “inputs” and the polls as the best “output” we have.
To use a basketball analogy, the items you mentioned are like a team showing crisp ball movement, high IQ plays, boxing out well, taking smart shots, etc… things that all normally lead to good outcomes in a vacuum. But if a team is doing all those things but still trialing on the scoreboard, all it means is they’d be losing by even more if not for some other subset of things, like maybe the other team is just better.
I know polling is an in exact science so it’s not really “the scoreboard” per se - we won’t know the real scoreboard until election night - or maybe a couple days after depending on how it looks for Trump - but what I’m saying is, it’s possible all the factors you mentioned are why Harris even has this thing in toss-up territory when otherwise she would be losing by more based on inflation, immigration, gender nonsense, wars breaking out, etc
Definitely agree with that. You'd much, much rather be in the D's position right now than the R's, IMO. That's not to say that the R's can't win, of course. But they are currently at a disadvantage in terms of money, volunteerism, general energy and enthusiasm, messaging, etc.He said tonight is been going very well so far in turnout, we have the far better ground game and more money, both of which are key down the stretch.
He said he's very happy to be us
Yeah I don’t disagree. If Trump wins it’ll be because people at the margins think the Biden/Harris administration was a disaster and their dollar stretched further during Trump’s presidency. It certainly won’t be because Trump ran a flawless campaign.Oh yeah, if you've got Trump's chances at 25% you're wayyyyy underestimating him, IMO.
There are enough variables that polls don't/can't capture for me to put too much stock in them either way, and like I said, I'd feel that way regardless of which side the polls showed to be "winning." It's why when the Siena/NYT polls last week that were so great for Harris came out, I didn't feel like it changed my view of where the race stands. Essentially what has happened is that Trump had a very small but very steady lead leading up to the June 27 debate, and then after the debate disaster for Biden, Trump maintained that small but steady lead up through around the first few weeks of August, when Harris assumed a very small but very steady lead, where she's been ever since, obviously with some variability allowed due to MOE.
The reason why I think that the inputs that I described are a better tell of where the race stands rather than simply going by polls is because I can't think of another presidential campaign- certainly not one in my lifetime- where one side has run such a crisp, efficient, organized campaign with almost limitless money and volunteers, and the other side has run a campaign that would be too unserious even for an SNL skit in normal times, and yet the side with less money, less grassroots efforts, and less enthusiasm wins the election. Trump won in 2016 because his campaign had the grassroots efforts, the energy and enthusiasm, the excitement, etc. and Hillary's campaign was essentially running out the clock.
Yep. I think that's right. In general, my belief for quite a while now has been simply that the only way that Trump wins is if Democrats, Democratically-inclined independents (I'd put myself in that camp), Never Trump Republicans, etc. don't get their asses out and vote. And if they don't, they have nobody to blame but themselves.Yeah I don’t disagree. If Trump wins it’ll be because people at the margins think the Biden/Harris administration was a disaster and their dollar stretched further during Trump’s presidency. It certainly won’t be because Trump ran a flawless campaign.
That's definitely the first step, for sure. Hell, I'd absolutely love to have a reason to be able to pull the lever for a Republican presidential candidate in the future. It will certainly be fascinating to watch what happens post-Trump (hopefully we can begin the process of finding that out in just a hair over two weeks). I don't think that the GOP is going to be able to seamlessly switch from MAGA to non-MAGA. It's going to take getting rid of not just Trump, but the JD Vance's, Ron DeSantis's, Ted Cruz's, MTG's, Nancy Mace's, etc. as well. None of them have the ability to command the cult following like Trump, IMO, but none of them are going to fade silently into the non-Trump night, either, IMO.And I maintain that the best way for Republicans to get good candidates back, that moderates can vote for, is to vote for Harris and we have to rid our country of maga. Do that and republicans can do very very well in coming elections.
Great link. Thanks for this.Here is a really good analysis of the importance of the gender gap in this year’s election. It essentially says that if the gender gap stays the same as 2020, Kamala Harris will have a good election. If women turnout higher than 2020- which I think we all expect- thus widening the gap, Harris could have a really damn good election.
My wife and I welcomed a new baby girl so I’ve been stretched a little thin and not following the race as closely. Saw a lot of doomsday posts on this thread so I was looking around some, and I’ll admit I didn’t realize that Trump is ahead in the RCP average for every single swing state.
Georgia: Trump +1.8%
Arizona: Trump +1.6%
Michigan: Trump +1.2%
Nevada: Trump +0.8%
Pennsylvania: Trump +0.8%
North Carolina: Trump +0.5%
Wisconsin: Trump +0.2%
Question for the board - who wins the election if Trump wins Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania but Harris wins Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin? Would Pennsylvania be the tipping point state in that fact pattern and thus Trump would win?