President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Turnout is everything and I'm much more confident that Harris is doing better than the pollsters think. You can't watch a Harris rally not believe there's a groundswell of support for her (and an anti-Trump) that's not being reflected by the people who want this election to be closer than it really is.

This story sums up a lot of what my gut is telling me. Harris is going to win the nationwide vote by at least 3 percent and has an edge in a majority of swing states. The fact that YouGov has taken Michigan off the list of swing states is a huge tell.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4967253-kamala-harris-donald-trump-yougov-election-model/

As of this morning, more than 4 million Georgia voters have been to the polls, or close to 55 percent, with nearly 300,000 voting yesterday as early in person wraps up. The record turnout here for a presidential election is 69 percent, accomplished four years ago. What does that mean? Counties like Towns, Oconee and Dawson are over 80 percent turnout already. While those votes are overwhelmingly Trump, those counties have fewer than 20,000 total voters. There aren't that many potential Trump votes left in the rural counties.

But because the massive metro Atlanta counties are keeping pace with that 55 percent turnout number, his lead over Harris -- if you overlay the 2020 percentages -- is less than 1 percent.

My spreadsheet has it Trump 49.8, Harris 49.0, Stein 1.2. Or in real numbers, Trump is up about 35,000 votes if nothing has changed from 2020. And I think that's probably not factoring in Dobbs, Republicans for Harris and the enthusiasm shown in Georgia rallies. There's a good chance Harris is doing better than Biden did in some places, perhaps not as well in the northern suburbs.

On the other hand, Democratic strongholds like Chatham, Clarke, Clayton, DeKalb, Fulton and to a lesser extent -- Cobb and Gwinnett -- are tracking right on that 55 percent figure. What does that mean? There are still tens of thousands of people in those areas who may be waiting for Election Day to cast their ballots. And those will trend blue.

Because the rural counties will get their ballots counted quicker, watch for Trump to hold a lead early in the evening but that starts to narrow once the big Atlanta tallies roll in. The higher the total turnout, the better the odds are that Harris wins Georgia. My spreadsheet says 72 percent is the tipping point. We'll see on Tuesday night.

 

Forget platform planks....THIS is the difference between two parties:

Dems say they will certify a Trump victory — even the ones who think the 14th Amendment disqualifies him

 

I’d like to see Trump get this question.

 

Mike Johnson sure is a smug son of a bitch.

 

Expect to start seeing a lot more of these stories the next couple of days. Even Nate Silver is admitting Harris is probably going to retain the three Rust Belt states.

Kamala Harris' chances of winning Michigan in final poll

 

Trump will spend every day until the election in North Carolina, a swing state he won twice

 

For now, I'm in the camp of "SHE'S GONNA WIN". This will probably change in an hour.

 

I’ve gone from Trump a field goal favorite to a pick-em. Maybe Trump -0.5, but I’m a pessimist by nature.

 

Yeah, Bill Maher is obnoxious. He is also right. Harris and the Democrats made a big mistake. They allowed Trump to frame the argument regarding the Biden administration and the economy. Both are far better than most Americans realize. Both have serious flaws, but the trends are positive. Unemployment, inflation, and gas prices continued an upward trend at the beginning of the current administration, but all of those things are headed in the right direction and have been for a while now. If the stock market was like this under a Trump administration, people would be droning on about how great the current economy is. The Biden administration deserves credit for playing a role in all that. Harris should be doing more to take credit for that.

Would Republicans use that message to attack her? Of course. They use everything to attack her. Harris is getting tagged with every problem of the Biden administration anyway, whether those problems are real or perceived. Her plans for the economy make more sense than Trump's. We aren't hearing enough about that, either. Is the media partly to blame? Yes. Is Trump partly to blame? Of course. Despite the evidence of his many business failures, I do think he knows enough about the economy to realize this. Hell, I can see it and that certainly isn't my field.

Trump took over an economy that was already headed in a strong direction under Obama and he managed to not get in the way until COVID hit. I'm not sure anybody could have propped up the economy through that, but he did fail. Sell the message of him taking over a growing economy and leaving behind a mess. Stress how Biden took over a mess and got things back in the right direction. Now Trump wants to impose policies that will send inflation back up again so he can pay for tax breaks for billionaires. Even Elon Musk admits Trump is going to make things worse. He says it will be worth it. Of course, he does. He can afford to pay the higher prices and he's going to get that big tax break. Sure, that message is overly simplistic, but that's the sort of message that works. It's one Harris should have been pushing hard.

Don't get me wrong. Running a variation of the Biden campaign focused on claiming that her primary virtue is that she isn't Trump is a viable strategy. It is good to keep reminding Americans that Trump is weird. foolish, dishonest, corrupt, immoral, and astoundingly selfish. It is good to remind them of his many, many failures in business and as president. It is good to remind them that he is a threat to democracy. But people care about their wallets and Harris could have engaged in messaging that could have worked there, too.

 

OOP, almost every TV ad for Harris I've seen is on economic issues, mainly, Trump is for billionaires, I'm for you.

 

If you’re confident in your chances of winning, do you - as a campaign manager or senior staff - reveal some of these details?

Inside the Ruthless, Restless Final Days of Trump’s Campaign