Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Second rate reporter says what?

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Cancel the cowardly Times and Post and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Books are my comfort food!

Everybody saw this coming.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Polling Hysteria

Cold Grey Dawn Open Thread: Polling Hysteria

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Our Very Serious Media believes there is a contract, there are rules, one of which is that Democrats are required to panic into a defensive crouch whenever some GOP-supporting ‘poll’ gets pulled out of bad methodology the year before a national election. (Susan Baker, in the tweet above, is a NewYorker bigwig — and also married to Peter Baker, NYTimes‘ current top-ranked Republican promoter.)



TFG could win, given sufficient rat-f*ckery and a media willing to go along with it! Which is part of the problem, Mrs. Baker!

More polls(s)…

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52Comments

  7. 7.

    lowtechcyclist

    Good mornin’, y’all. Actually slept decently last night, so still trying to gain consciousness. About three sips into my first cup of coffee.

    Just not worrying about the polls at this point. Most people just aren’t thinking about it that much yet. The thing for Dems to do this year is tell the stories, plant them in the back of people’s minds, so that they can build on them next year. Biden’s team is doing a good job, IMHO. No surprise, they’ve been good at practically everything else.

    Meanwhile, shine a light on what a clown show the R’s have become. Anyone read C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength? Watching the GQPers reminds me of when the bad guys in that book lose the capacity to put coherent sentences together.

  8. 8.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    I saw a blurb somewhere on Twitter (I’m sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, X is a reference to a series of Elite-style space games if it’s not a reference to pornography) that the deeper purpose of all those polls showing The Former Guy in the lead is to lay the groundwork for him to claim fraud if he loses next year, and to give MAGA Nation a pretext to once again attempt to resort to violence in their rejection of the election results.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Right.  We can’t control polling. The only thing they’re useful for is course correction. And what would we have Biden correct?  His age? Seems like the media is really upset Dems, for the most part, aren’t taking the bait and are not seriously entertaining having an open primary.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    Also, too, I’m proud of libs for (mostly) learning from 2016 and its aftermath how the media operates.

  12. 12.

    JoyceH

    Not about polling, just came here to say – just how perfectly On Brand is it that the Glock that Trump either bought or pretended to buy has his ugly mug etched on the grip?

  13. 13.

    eversor

    @lowtechcyclist:

    The C.S. Lewis thing that hits home for me about the modern GOP is Tash.   Where they build a false god and it all of a sudden manages to manifest and kills everyone.  Aslan shows up and saves some people but to the rest gives a giant “nope, you summoned this up, this is what ya get” and yawns.

    They summoned up Trump and now he’s going to eat them.  That’s what they get for consorting with Christians as their base and Goldwater of all people warned them about this.

  14. 14.

    Mousebumples

    Good morning! Reminder that we’re doing most postcards and music tonight. Thread at 8pm blog time (7pm central), I believe.

    WaterGirl has addresses for Ohio (issue 1), as does Postcards to Voters, and there were a few VA postcard options in Saturday’s thread.

    Hope to see you there!

  15. 15.

    Jeffg166

    Biden won the electoral college by 42,844 votes in 2020. Forget the 8 million more popular votes. That’s the part that makes me nervous. It’s not a done deal until the day after the election in 2024.

    My hope is TFG drops dead. Most the the GQP officials and donors feel the same I am sure.

  16. 16.

    Baud

    @Jeffg166:

    Nothing is a done deal.  No one should talk in absolutes.  But 2020 was pre-Dobbs and during the pandemic where we didn’t do as much outreach.  Trump’s win in 2016 was almost as close BTW.

  19. 19.

    eversor

    @Jeffg166:

    Send him more fillet o fish.  I swear of all the heart exploding nasty ass food it’s an odd pick.  Then again ordering up 80 buck NY strip steaks and having them well done then slathering then in ketchup is also odd to me.

    Send me a ribeye, rare.

  21. 21.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    Don’t stare at the national polls…the design of the electoral college means it’s a race for every neighborhood and congressional district. Push on and win over your neighbors.

    If voting results leave media eating a buffet of crow *yet again*, may we be so fortunate that this pole-a-rama focus on shitty outliers gets shot into the sun.

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    For people triggered by a single poll ask yourself this: Are more people supporting Trump now than in 2020 after he was charged with 91 felonies, been caught committing espionage and looks even more deranged than he looked in 2020?

    I hate this type of argument. The fear isn’t that more people will support Trump. It’s that fewer will turn out for Biden.

  23. 23.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Dobbs is the wild card in the deck.

    By 2024, almost everyone will know someone who has been negatively impacted by it.

    It’ll be mostly women.

    Women won’t need the polls to know who they should be pissed at.

    And not paying attention to women will have disastrous consequences for the GOP.

  25. 25.

    Soprano2

    There was a story on “Morning Edition” earlier that made it clear the looming shutdown is the fault of Republicans in the House. No both sides crap at all. It’s encouraging to know that they can do it right. I only wish they would point out that some crazy Freedom Caucus member can try to boot McCarthy, but that doesn’t mean it will be successful!

  26. 26.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    I don’t understand why people are obsessed with poles.   Poland will have no affect on this election.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: I’ve seen a surprising number of articles, op-eds, etc., with accurate framing lately, i.e., that correctly blame Repubs rather than “the current political climate,” blah blah blah. I’ve spotted real journalism in the wild mostly on the shutdown but also on some other issues, including abortion and the Dems’ response to the Menendez scandal vs. Repubs’ reaction to the Santos scam. Let’s hope it’s a trend!

  28. 28.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Soprano2:

    No both sides crap at all.

    I personally think stenography has worked in our favor this time.  The Democrats are saying it’s the Republicans’ fault for being incompetent and fractured.  On the other hand, the Republicans are saying it’s the Republicans’ fault for being incompetent and fractured.

  30. 30.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Frankensteinbeck: One component of the incumbency advatage is that incumbents typically do not face a strong primary challenge. That saves a lot of money for the general election.

    There will be a great difference between the Biden campaign’s financial position next Summer and its position in the Summer of 2020. Then, for instance, the Trump campaign had been running ads in Florida Spanish social media for many months. Democrats were sounding the alarm but the Biden campaign did not achieve fundraising parity until August, and had to play catch-up in this area.

    But now Biden is in the game, both with a White House social media operation and one in his campaign that can make more overtly political pitches.

    Also, primaries can be divisive. Democrats are now as united as I have ever seen them. That unity might not survive a primary battle, which is one reason I think that people advocating for one are either bonkers or arguing in bad faith.

    And the office of President tends to magnify the person who holds it. I think that was an advantage for Trump in 2020 and explained part of his surprising (to me at least) electoral strength. Trump won’t have that advantage next year; Joe Biden will.

  31. 31.

    hueyplong

    In a world of manufactured controversies/outrages each and every news cycle, it’s absurd to lose one’s shit more than 13 months out unless that’s just your kink.

    Looking ahead, Trump is embarking on a death march of criminal trials in which none of the damaging witnesses is going to be testifying as to Joe Biden’s accumulated birthdays.

    Trump ain’t built for a long siege playing defense. I’m confident and am looking forward to savoring the details.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @hueyplong:

    Looking ahead, Trump is embarking on a death march of criminal trials in which none of the damaging witnesses is going to be testifying as to Joe Biden’s accumulated birthdays.

    And the media will be straining for new dirt on Hunter Biden raising clouds and shadows about Joe to bothsides it.

    I don’t know, I’ve been burned by EMAILS and 2016. They turned an utterly uninteresting story into Hillary Clinton’s disturbing fatal flaw because she had to have one somewhere.

  37. 37.

    kalakal

    Polls at this point are a bad joke.

    This isn’t news, it isn’t opinion it’s just flailing looking for a target. Nobody except the people talking to their strawmen cares

     

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    but as far as I’m concerned, X is a reference to a series of Elite-style space games

    I love those games

  38. 38.

    Kent

    The Tim Hogan tweets are cope I fear.

    For some voters, yes, the election will be “Trump yay or boo?” and it’s hard to see people who said boo before saying yay now.

    But for some voters the election will be “Biden yay or boo?” and there’s a lot of people out there who said yay before and are saying boo now. Not just because they (erroneously) think the economy is bad, but because for genuinely conservative people, Biden has turned out to be way more liberal than he campaigned.

    How many of those voters are there? Are they more or fewer than those who have learned to hate Trump?

    This isn’t a slam dunk guys. I wish it were.

  39. 39.

    Ken

    I was feeling OK about this poll, but now that I’ve read some of the comments here it’s clear we are all doomed. I will cope in the only way possible, by becoming a cultist of the elder god Trump supporter in hopes that when His eternal reign begins He will destroy me last.

  40. 40.

    Quiltingfool

    I read “Why These 13 Republican Voters Don’t Want Trump Anymore” in the FTFNYT.  Yikes.  Some of them now realize that Trump is worse than a steaming pile of shit, but the amazing thing is that they have suddenly discovered that!

    As I read, I was was gobsmacked that it took them so long to figure out who and what Trump is.  Where have they been?  One guy actually thought TIFG was a great businessman because of the Apprentice.  Jesus.

    Oh, and each and every one of them thinks Biden is senile.  One referred to VP Harris as  a “nasty woman.”

    OTOH, they can’t figure out why Trump is so high in the polls, as they haven’t come across anyone in their personal life who wants to vote for him.  They don’t believe the polling.

  41. 41.

    moonbat

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     No disrespect, but I always misread your nym as Matt McMarvin because I always ‘hear’ your posts read in the voice of Marvin the depressed robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
    I’m a good catastrophic thinker too. But I try not to let my worrywart side suck the enthusiasm for the fight from me or those around me. Bad shit can always happen. Good shit can happen too, don’t forget, if we fight for it.

  42. 42.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:

    They turned an utterly uninteresting story into Hillary Clinton’s disturbing fatal flaw because she had to have one somewhere.

    We non-Republicans allowed this to happen, because the Republican media/influence operation game in 2016 was better than that of their opposition. It was embarrassing.
    This is no longer the case. E..g. in the 2020 election, Republican operatives telegraphed their plans for a Hunter Biden late-election-cycle surprise a year in advance (i.e. 2019). By the time it arrived, the non-RW press was primed to correctly willfully ignore it as an obvious influence operation, maybe even Russia-driven. It was a close thing; but those influence operators lost, and have been complaining about it ever since.

    The media is people. A relatively small number of people, compared with the much larger general population.
    They can be worked, even by ordinarily-connected people , e.g. using social media. They have egos, biases, doubts, concerns about their chosen profession, and the human need to convince themselves that they are good people. Most of them do not like to be manipulated, and believe that they are not gullible.

  43. 43.

    wjca

    @Jeffg166: My hope is TFG drops dead.

    My biggest concern would be that he drops dead before November, and somebody lower profile gets the nomination.  Thus reducing the size of the “Good God, not him again!”

    My second biggest is that he wins in November, and then drops dead.  Leaving us with the VP, who is even worse because he cares about remaking the government and the country, not just about revenge on his enemies.

  44. 44.

    Sean

    @hueyplong:

    Trump ain’t built for a long siege playing defense. I’m confident and am looking forward to savoring the details.

    What worries me isn’t Trump’s appeal, that isn’t likely to increase. It’s the fact that third parties are a near certainty at this point, whether “No Labels” or Cornell West or whoever cons up enough money to stay on the radar. And our citizens are absolutely dumb enough to say, “both guys suck, I’ll vote third party” (the ‘don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos’ crowd, if you will). Given our electoral college realities, that’s the real scary aspect of this election. It wouldn’t take many of those types of voters to cost Biden Wisconsin or Arizona, Nevada or Georgia on the second go round.

  45. 45.

    piratedan

    The biggest unspoken about the polling bullshit is that it continues to give fascists hope to continue to do what they are doing.

    Are there more fascists being created in huge numbers…. if so, based on what?  What issue is driving this support.  What is the reason behind it… gee that information datum is nowhere to be seen as far as I can tell.  It’s like a crime of omission, we interviewed and polled more Conservatives and found out that he’s STILL popular.. well gee whiz, that’s a wonder.

    While a good many of us want to dismiss the bad faith of this bullshit, it also gives a pass as to what is the biggest issue we face, voter disenfranchisement.  We know that State lege level work at making voting tougher and the continued efforts to secure their political power is ongoing.  How about some national stories about places like Alabama and Ohio where their racism and gerrymandering are so severe that federal courts have had to step in and they’re being ignored?

  46. 46.

    Paul in KY

    @JoyceH: I’m assuming the retail clerk there had to inform one of TFG’s minions that he couldn’t buy one, or that they could not/would not sell him one. LOLing!!!

  47. 47.

    Chris Johnson

    @Bill Arnold: That’s really the key.

    When we see stuff like this it’s more of the same. It’s not a joke and not an accident: there’s practical use to spouting and normalizing this specific kind of bullshit.

    I am not claiming it will WORK: I think not.

    But what I’m claiming is that, if you get a secret army of Proud Boys and Russians (who face an existential threat by this: they need THEIR guy in power in the US as a hail mary save) who execute a coup, kill all the Democrats and leftists, and sit their butts on the throne… IF you pull that off or anything remotely like it…

    …then you must, must, must have laid the groundwork for claiming you have popular support for your fascist dictatorship, and that means you have to start lying NOW and have people take you seriously enough to argue the point as if it is worth arguing.

    You are essentially saying ‘OK, so the ground rules are we’re going to have a REAL argument over whether Donald Trump does in fact have the love of all America and the election was stolen from him. We start by re-asking that question. Should Donald Trump’s claims be taken as fact or disagreed with? We note that now he’s claiming all the judges and laws are crooked and corrupt and no fault of his can be counted as real. What if he is right? Now let’s have a serious debate about whether he leads the country and has all America on his side.’

    How about the real question is when you call bullshit on a perpetual bullshitter? Willingness to keep doubling down is not an argument. Willingness to bring in Russian hackers and political influencers to get a helpful meme is not an argument, whether it’s a fake sign saying ‘welcome, Urine’ or a poll that says hey presto, more than 50% of Americans not only trust Donald Trump more than before, but want him to rule them.

    At some point you have to stop normalizing the claims, because they aren’t claims, they’re weapons to shore up public opinion after a great, planned, crime.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    Been a registered voter since 1972 and I never missed an election except for one time when my ship was deployed to the Persian Gulf. Polls are bullshit from our horse race media.

  51. 51.

    Matt McIrvin

    @moonbat: It just drives me out of my mind to see people treating Trump vs. Biden as more “normal politics”, a choice between two crusty old guys to do boring stuff, when Trump clearly wants to have his political opposition arrested or shot and become King of America, and he’s got much of the Republican Party agreeing with him.

    Last time, there was enough of that sinister “Deep State” pushing back to keep him from doing it, but there’s no guarantee of that holding this time around. No guarantee even that the military would refuse illegal orders.

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