President Trump: The NEW one and only politics thread

This. The RCP final polling average was Clinton +3.2 and the actual was Clinton +2.1. One point is barely anything in terms of size of miss.

The state polls did miss the demographic makeup a bit, with non-college whites showing up more than they usually do, which helped Trump.

The reason the narrative, self included, was so confident in a Clinton win was:

1) Setting the story early and refusing to change. Clinton has a couple of disastrous polling weeks in mid-October, fueled by Comey. Her polling average lead went from as high as 8 to as low as 1 before settling in at 3.

This could happen again. Trump may be down a lot now, but Trump has 28 news cycle to fix that. I’m not sure early voting is as impactful as we think, a lot of it is just banking votes you were going to get anyway.

2) Not accounting for the fact that states don’t move independently. That was Wang’s big mistake and I still see people doing it. Trump may need to run all the close states, but that is one thing he needs to go right, not 10 separate things. His upper-Midwest strength delivered him PA, MI and Wisconsin the same way.

This could also happen again. If Trump is doing well enough to win Pennsylvania, he’s probably not losing Florida.

 

I think you are right on this, they are embarrassed to admit, even anonymously, that they support a stupid racist bully. However, I also believe the Democratic turnout will be significantly higher than it was in 2016, that many more first-time Blue voters will vote, and that if only 20 or 30 percent of the independents who voted for Fatfuck last time switch their vote or stay home, Biden can win.

 

I'm getting overrun with Jon Ossoff attack ads because the woman who had this cellphone number before me was a MAGA. So of course, not only am I getting crazy texts but that means Facebook, Google and Twitter (and interstitials) think I'm one of a lunatic fringe.

I certainly don't want to try and opt out, knowing they'll just pepper me with more, so I block two or three numbers a day.

I do find it humorous that the GOP and their PACS are spending massive amounts of money trying to salvage David Perdue's re-election bid, when I honestly don't think he's really in danger of dropping his seat. But hey, blow the money any way you want if it causes you to lose everywhere else. (And I'll definitely vote for Ossoff, just for spite's sake.)

 

I think it was mentioned upthread, but what's with the Amy Covid Barret TV commercials? The public has no say and it's not an issue where you can call your senator and sway their vote. Pretty sure it's going along party lines.

 

I took a night off from Trump last night and missed his resurrection from the dead on the third day. I just saw highlights on the morning news.

He was wincing on the balcony right before he took off the mask. IANAD but that signals to me that his lungs are filled with fluid (expected). If he has aspirated pneumonia, that's a tough one to bounce back from. My dad had it years ago and I remember the doc at the time saying he had a 50-50 chance of pulling through. He did, but he never was the same.

 

They want to keep their voters focused on that. It’s basically the only part of the news that makes Republican voters happy right now, and you want your voters happy as the incumbent

 

Of course Mass. is a lost cause for Trump, but presidential candidates almost always advertise on Boston TV stations to reach New Hampshire, which is a swing state. So far, I haven't seen any for either Biden or Trump.

 

This has nothing to do with anything, but I've just gotta say that I've never actually minded the word "bigly" -- it is a word, now, right? In fact, ever since Trump first uttered it, I've kind of even liked it.

That's because, every time I see/read it, I think of the editor and publisher of the first paper I ever worked at. He was always encouraging people to invent words. Seriously, he thought it was a good, fun thing to do, and something that said something about your intellect and inventiveness if you came up with good ones. It got to be a well-known little game around the newsroom. I don't how great a word he would've thought "bigly" was, but now, virtually any time I see it, I think of him, not Trump. And I smile.

For the record: One of my favorite words ever, to this day, remains one that actually got to be kind of a regular part of everyday lexicon in the late 80s/early 90s, I think: fantabulous. Descriptive, positive, fun and an easy-to-figure-out combination that rolls off the tongue and makes you feel good just saying it. Bravo to whoever invented that one!

 

It's a perfectly cromulent word...

 

Is it AP style for "bigly" to be in quotalics?

 

Today's Monmouth poll has Biden up 11 in Pennsylvania. We're getting into numbers where it's getting hard to imagine what events could lead to a Trump turnaround.

 

Gwen's was atypical pneumonia with sepsis. (The doctors eventually listed it as "strep" because the culture finally showed something, but the head of ICU said the real cause was probably something much rarer.) Nine days on a ventilator.

The real heroes were the ER doctor and his staff. The chuckleheads in the ambulance never started an IV or oxygen, so she was dehydrated and O2 deficient for an hour in traffic.

The ER team immediately went to work in an attempt to keep Gwen's body from attacking itself, while we were blissfully unaware of how close she came to me planning a memorial service. Our PCP called it "a coin flip." My sister, a veteran ER doc, said, "You don't want to know how close."

Three years later, she still struggles with any exertion. If we walk the slightest incline, she's out of breath within 100 feet. But she's alive.