This is drag queen Pattiegonia headlining Denver Pride. As I mentioned in the comments, I have an Instagram that is about following people who love the outdoors and travel. I follow Pattie because she loves the outdoor and travel, but she’s also has been posting anti-Project 2025 stuff, because she also serves as a resource and inspiration for LGBTQ youth. I’ve been seeing some pieces about the groundswell of anti-2025 sharing by young social media content creators (here’s one piece about it). I don’t know about you, but all my nieces and nephews, and their friends, seem to get most of their “news” from social media. This, to me, is a huge unknown about the election.
Related to that, I had to LOL seeing that Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, made the announcement that Trump is off of double-secret probation on Facebook and Instagram. How fair and balanced for Zuck to choose the former Tory deputy PM under Cameron the person who determines how to treat Trump on his platforms.
Another thing I sure don’t understand is how much to trust polls. Here’s a piece rounding up all the issues with polls after the polls missed in 2022. Certainly movement around the margin of error, which is what we’re seeing now with Trump v Biden head-to-head, isn’t that significant. I really doubt that a voter who will vote for say, Reuben Gallego, will spit their ticket to vote for Trump, But I don’t doubt that voters will vote for an initiated measure allowing abortion access while at the same time voting for a Republican. Especially in red states, initiated measures are treated as a corrective for single issues where the voters disagree with their elected officials. That said, I’m super skeptical about “blacks/hispanics moving away from Biden” stories that are based on the crosstabs of 1000 respondent polls.
Also, as we all know, national polls don’t really tell the story for the Presidential race. Here’s 538’s latest analysis of post-debate polling in swing states:
This is troubling.
Finally, polling Kamala Harris v Trump and Biden v Trump and thinking that the Harris number means anything prior to months of Republican attacks is, I think, at least a little bit questionable.
I don’t really have a big point to make here — just that anyone who’s confident of their understanding of the current state of play probably doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Social media and polling are just two factors among many. Politics have changed in the past 15-20 years and I don’t think anyone has really caught up.
Climate Solutions: Rewilding and the Woolly Mammoth
Villago Delenda Est
As for the polls, well, follow the money. The MSM is in the tank for TCFFG/PAB, and they pay the bills of the pollsters. The horse race narrative must be preserved at all costs.
trollhattan
Posted below but worth repeating Bernie did a solid and NYT deigned to print it.
Ksmiami
Project 25 is the stuff of fascist nightmares. We need to hit the HOP with this over and over.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Villago Delenda Est:
There are some polls like this but there are also pollsters who are trying their best, IMO. The question is whether their best is good enough.
wu ming
minor nitpick: while clegg helped to prop cameron’s governing majority up, he was the leader of the liberal democratic party, not an actual tory.
it was absolutely egregious of clegg and the lib dems to do so, having just campaigned as a left alternative to labour in the immediately preceding election cycle.
JoyceH
Anyone posting about Project 2025 to a younger audience should point out that all high schools receiving federal funds will be required to see that all students take the ASVAB. Uh guys? ALL high school students required to take the military aptitude exam? Bringing back the draft, maybe?
$8 blue check mistermix
@wu ming: Thanks, fixed it.
zhena gogolia
I just sent Joe Biden a contribution and set up a second monthly contribution. It’s the only thing that makes me feel better.
Ishiyama
@trollhattan: “Oh, the Popular Front is the Front for Me!” (Walt Kelly)
Damien
I have felt for a while that polls have turned from semi-accurate but generally on target snapshots to just one more tool of manipulation. It feels of a piece with the press going full tilt on “content.”
That being said, I can only do everything in my power to put Biden back in the White House and Dems back in power; all the handwringing is just a great way to paralyze ourselves.
Steeplejack
With all of the other ways that Russians, crazy billionaires, GQP Christofascists, media barons and who knows who else have interfered with our electoral processes, it beggars belief to think that they haven’t gone after the polls. I think at some point we will learn that there were not only polling “flaws” but actual rigging and falsification.
Kay
I agree no one knows.
I just think Harris is a better option than Biden is – I think we need someone who can genuinely bust ass the next 50 or so days- do the 4 or 5 events a day it takes, along with fundraising and interviews. But I do realize he isn’t going to step aside so I’m resigned to that.
WaterGirl
I had a post scheduled for 3:00, but I see this from mistermix just went up, so I am pulling mine for later.
Steeplejack
@Ksmiami:
What is “HOP”?
caphilldcne
I continue to believe that get out the vote efforts, focusing on Dobbs and Project 2025 are fundamentally more important right now than anything else (eg the fundamentals haven’t really changed). The people confidently saying that Biden can’t win are 1) wrong, 2) damaging the campaign for both Biden and Harris and 3) potentially going to have to walk it all back.
guachi
I’m taking the weekend off just like Biden. Maybe I’ll bike to Rehoboth where Biden is (it’s 55 miles away and a good, flat ride) and also not campaign for President.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Steeplejack: I could see Trumpers enthusiastically answering them which might be enough of a bias to throw them off in these days of people not picking up unrecognized numbers.
They’d do this to own the libs and panic them, and to stroke Trump’s ego – he likes to brag about his poll numbers.
Gretchen
Something the polls don’t account for is that Biden’s ground campaign is in full swing, with hundreds of field offices already open and staffed. There are 45 offices in Wisconsin, while Trump just announced that he opened one, in Wauwatosa. Same in Pennsylvania. Biden has millions of reservations for tv ads in the fall. Does Trump? Biden has a huge warchest. Trump is spending a lot of his on lawyers and charging candidates for holding events at Mar-a-Lago. Win Red sucks off a portion of every donation and gives it to Trump or Jared. Act Blue doesn’t. These are all real advantages that aren’t reflected in polls 4 months out.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: I understand that Biden also takes time out from campaigning to shower and sleep everyday. What a lethargic geezer, am I right?
BR
@caphilldcne:
What I really don’t get is the upside for Dems to *confidently* say Biden can’t win. That’s not the kind of thing you can walk back. It’s like these folks have 30 second attention spans and can’t think even a few weeks ahead.
You can walk back equivocal statements like “I believe Harris would be a stronger nominee” or whatever. But not this definitive hair on fire stuff. Just political malpractice.
trollhattan
@Kay: As VP can she not do those very things while Biden is also on the stump? Isn’t that SOP?
rk
I got a phone call asking about my opinion on current events and I hung up. I don’t usually pick up unknown numbers and if I do pick up by mistake I hang up within 10 seconds. I have no idea who wants to talk to pollsters?
Gretchen
@Kay: I really don’t think Harris is the better option. Conservative media is already going after her as the DEI, affirmative action candidate. She hasn’t gotten that much attention as VP, but if she were suddenly thrust to the top of the ticket, she’d get all the racism Obama got and all the misogyny Clinton got, times 100, and all in a few week’s time with no time to counter it. I love her, think she’d be a great president, and am completely comfortable with her succeeding if Biden doesn’t complete his term, but I’m puzzled by the idea that she’d just skate to the election without ugly opposition.
guachi
Biden has been spending millions on ads unopposed and it’s done nothing. Maybe that will change.
If “Dobbs and Project 2025” are how Ds win then that doesn’t need Biden to give the message. And maybe the guy who butchered an abortion reference in the debate and failed at all to mention Project 2025 isn’t the best guy to make the case.
BR
@Gretchen:
I don’t think those are reasons to think Harris would do worse. But they are reasons that Harris would face different but equal negatives to Biden, plus for sure there will be demands by house GOPers for her to testify about “hiding something” related to Biden’s health, which the media will treat credulously, and the “Biden is sick and needs to go” editorials will become “What did Kamala know and when did she know it?” editorials.
Kay
@guachi:
Here’s Obama campaign schedule in 2012 on this day
3 events.
WaterGirl
Seriously, this ship has already sailed.
I would love to understand what people get out of saying this would be better or that would be better.
To me, all that seems to do is undermine THE CANDIDATE THAT HAS BEEN SELECTED BY DEMOCRATS WHO VOTED.
The ship has sailed.
I would truly love to understand. Whatever people are getting out of it, is it worth the damage that all the conversations are doing to the Democratic candidate?
Gretchen
@Kay: I’m worried that Biden will exhaust himself trying to meet the ridiculous demands of the press that he do dozens of strong events, when that’s not the norm for a sitting president who has an actual day job.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: What was Biden’s schedule yesterday? What was Obama’s schedule on July 14, 2012? IMO comparing a schedule from and Friday and a Saturday is apples to oranges.
Ksmiami
@Steeplejack: GOP, but now I call them Hitler’s Old Party because there isn’t anything grand about them
hrprogressive
Data Point 1:
All the polls prior to Election Day 2016 which gave Hillary a “>99% chance of victory”
Data Point 2:
Nearly every special election poll since which has seen Democrats generally over-perform their figures, and often lead to less-than-expected victories.
Data Point 3:
The foretold “Red Wave” of 2022 which was barely a red trickle, as Democrats generally over-performed everywhere, not leading to a total GOP takeover everywhere.
It’s tough because on one hand, I think simply claiming without evidence to the contrary “the polls are wrong, (insert Democrat isn’t really losing)” comes from a place of weakness and/or hubris.
On the other hand, there are plenty of real-life examples of the polls getting it wrong, in favor of the Dems.
Of course, the one set of polls that got it super fucking wrong for the GOP gave us President Trump in the first place.
While I can’t simply say “teh polls r rong!!!” with regards to how modern polling is conducted, I do believe that modern polling has two very systemic problems that it is either unable, or unwilling, to address.
“Unable” to address the fact that vast swaths of the country are just not reachable the way they used to be, whether it’s via not owning landlines phones, or ignoring all unknown calls on cell phones.
I legitimately don’t think anyone has determined the best, and statistically and scientifically valid, way to conduct “polling” that isn’t “opt-in, internet polling, which can be gamed” that accounts for a shifting technological and societal landscape.
“Unwilling” to address all the “weighting” they do that, by all accounts, seems to place a thumb on the scale for conservative, white, rural voters, to give them outsized meaning.
Further, as was noted in an earlier thread, I do believe the Nate Silvers/Cohns and other data people believe they belong to the same “club” the media types do; Real MOTU types who should be influencing and dictating who the public does and doesn’t support.
They have a vested interest in getting the results they want.
So…
TL;DR:
I think there’s legitimate reasons to be skeptical of modern polls, especially ones that seem to beggar belief about who is supporting the GOP and by how much.
But to simply place one’s fingers in their ears and not work to get Dems back on the plus side of any of those polls “because the polls are wrong” would be perilous, and could very well lead to the Trump Reich.
Keep pounding about Project 2025. That seems to be a potent point for normies when they find out how awful it is.
Jackie
FYI: At 5:00 ET, MSNBC’s Al Sharpton will be interviewing SC Rep Clyburn. It could be insightful. Or not.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: Subsole had a great comment on the Wednesday night open thread that I keep coming back to:
“
Address my concerns. Y’all are the ones who want to flip the table and set the deck on fire three quarters into the hand. I would say it is incumbent on y’all to convince us.
And I hope you have some damn good answers. Because so far, mostly I’m hearing a bunch of vague handwavey bloviating and underpants-gnomery (Seriously? That mini-convention/Dollar Tree Gong Show business Clooney proposed? Are you fucking hearing yourselves?).”
it was comment 366 on the Wednesday night open thread and I think the whole thing is worth front-paging.
zhena gogolia
Now that he’s done numerous successful appearances, the goalposts have moved swiftly again. How many is he doing per day? God, am I sick of this.
BR
@Gretchen: I think the bigger problem is that neither Biden nor Harris are political talents the level of Barack Obama or Bill Clinton — ignoring policy for a moment, those two were off the charts in terms of political ability. Biden and Harris are both ok, but neither of them blew anyone away in 2020 in the primaries or the general. I wouldn’t expect either of them to do differently this time around. And it would be ridiculous to have a freaking game show for the DNC to pick some random governor to be the nominee, so there’s nobody else. (Frankly I don’t know that there are any natural political talents in the party on the level of Obama or Clinton other than maybe AOC. I’m not a huge fan or detractor of AOC but I recognize her immense talent.)
This is a coalition election (I dunno if there’s a better term for it) — our coalition needs to beat their coalition. It’s not a “the charismatic leader leads the flock to the polls”. It’s going to be a grind.
hrprogressive
@WaterGirl:
They want the Dem to lose. Pure n simple at this point.
Anyone arguing otherwise now is doing so in extremely bad faith.
SuzieC
Here’s another factor that the media and pollsters ignore:
Two days ago Postcards to swing voters posted that more than15,400 people ordered 4.6 million postcards just in July so far. They are up to 15.7 million for the year so far. An invisible army of 250,000 grassroots activists are writing these postcards to swing states. And this does not even take into account all the Vote Forward letters, the Indivisible groups, the canvassing, door-knocking, and voter registration that is going on every day. The media and the pollsters know nothing about, or choose to ignore this grassroots activism and that’s why they will be wrong–AGAIN–in November. I am writing 5 Vote Forward letters every day to get out the D vote in Ohio. It helps to mitigate the sick horror that I feel about another Trump term of office.
zhena gogolia
@BR: Yeah, let’s run AOC. WHOM NO ONE OUTSIDE OF BJ AND THE BRONX HAS HEARD OF
Kay
@Gretchen:
I disagree Gretchen. I think Obama handled an absolutely punishing campaign schedule. It’s brutal but they’re on the tippy top level of competition. That’s what’s required. Huge country, spread out, millions of people. They have to criss cross for several months.
Trump does only 3 or 4 events a week though, so that’s a lucky break.
TBone
Off topic but I had to share. Alec Baldwin and PETA were instrumental in intervening here at a very cruel “zoo” that kept wild animals. A bear named Dillon was so badly abused and weighed so much he could no longer ambulate. That bear is now living a better life at a sanctuary.
CASE DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE! 😍💜
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/07/judge-alec-baldwin-case-rules-prosecution
The prosecution & law enforcement used a dirty trick.
Happy ending for Dillon (and other furry friends):
https://www.northcentralpa.com/life/one-year-after-dillan-the-bear-was-relocated-to-sanctuary-other-animals-remain-at-union/article_a67c75c0-60d6-11eb-972c-779ae20d4b70.html
Alec Baldwin is hated at that Sportsman Club. For that, I adore him.
I love happy endings!
Chris Johnson
@Steeplejack: It’s astonishing to me that they can’t ratfuck them any better than this. I’m convinced the real Trump numbers are around the famous 27%, and especially since the debate, large numbers of legitimate, conservative, fundie Republicans are noping out of there because they don’t trust Donald Trump.
Nor should they, he is absolutely looking to sell them all down the river. They deserve all of that, their intentions suck, but that doesn’t change the fact that Donald Trump is absolutely selling them out and they’re right not to trust him.
He’ll be lucky if they don’t take a shot at him during the convention. I’m still betting that they’ll have Russian security there, and that it will be a gun-free zone. They cannot risk a religious fundamentalist snapping as Trump reads placating stuff from a teleprompter, between diatribes.
And Trump absolutely will read pro-choice spin if he thinks it’ll save his ass, because he does not care about them, their dreams, or a damn thing other than himself. But apparently he wants to run a Veep Apprentice at the RNC. If he really does name Barron (or indeed, any family member, to be fair) as a lastminute twist, I want a pony for having called it. I don’t see anybody else predicting that, but I feel it coming in the air…
BR
@zhena gogolia:
You’re totally missing my point. I’m not suggesting AOC. I’m saying Biden and Harris are it, and really Biden is it. I’m saying that folks expecting Biden (or Harris) to have a personality transplant are setting the bar too high. They are who they are. They’re good enough. We have to win the election — they aren’t going to magically become some amazing inspirations.
Eyeroller
And what happened in those approximately two weeks? Biden was subjected to a relentless and unprecedented attack from the media and his own party. Ya think that might have had an impact?
Meanwhile there was a leak that the meeting of D Senators was “tearful” and Fetterman asked how many still wanted Biden at the top of the ticket and only a few said yes. “Tearful.” OMG now we’re not the Mommy Party, we’re the Little Baby Party. Do they have a clue how this looks to “normies”?
And the latest non-NateS 538 had Biden winning the electoral college. Barely, but there. So room for improvement and these goombas want to throw it away for Johnny Unbeatable? I am so ashamed of this party. Trump was way down in the polls for most of 2016 and I never heard about any Republican poobahs telling him he had to drop out, and if they’d tried it he would have told them to FOAD anyway.
O. Felix Culpa
@trollhattan: Yes, she can. And she is. Curiously omitted is that Joe is actively campaigning too, while also presidenting, among other things having just hosted a major NATO Summit. He followed that up with a successful press conference and a rousing rally in Detroit. I’m sure that it doesn’t meet some folks’ standards, because online goalposts are conveniently portable.
Josie
@WaterGirl:
I think they are kidding themselves that their opinion actually matters to the millions of us who voted in the primaries. Lots of ego from lots of small fry.
guachi
@Gretchen:
Biden’s job is to get more Electoral Votes than Trump. That’s it. It’s his day job and his night job. If Trump really is a threat to democracy then Biden has no other job from now until November.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
Yup. That’s the measure. There’s a measure because other people have done it – for us the only real comparison would be Obama because voting changed since Bill Clinton/Al Gore. Voting is earlier now. I suppose we could use H. Clinton also as a comparison.
BR
@guachi:
This is one of the few things you’ve written I’ve agreed with. Biden’s job going forward is to delegate all of the presidenting he can to cabinet secretaries and focus on the election.
zhena gogolia
@BR: I understood you weren’t suggesting AOC. I’m just wearying of this constant distraction.
IT’S BIDEN OR TRUMP TAKE YOUR PICK
zhena gogolia
I am done listening to people who aren’t fighting with the team. Just done. I have no interest in what you have to say.
BR
@zhena gogolia:
Sure. I guess the challenge is to get all the wishy-washy centrist Dems back on board. They’re the ones who are freaking out.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: come sit by me.
guachi
@WaterGirl:
No, it has not. If Biden is nominated then the ship will have sailed and every Democrat in a remotely competitive race will toss Biden under the bus and campaign on being a check on Trump.
Mousebumples
@Gretchen: absolutely! I also am wondering what sort of impact unions will have on the election.
Michigan, especially, it’s strong UAW territory. I know others have given commentary on that.
Also, while polls are a “snapshot in time” – they’re not indicative of the final result, necessarily. After all, how many of us thought Hillary would cruise to victory in 2016?
moonbat
@SuzieC: That’s me! I am part of those orders. :)
zhena gogolia
I notice that in fact that NYT is not approving my comment thanking Sen. Sanders for his op-ed. The approval usually comes through in minutes.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia:
Honestly, at this point, I think our best option is to get off BJ for the afternoon at least. Read a book. Watch baseball. Take a nap. Call a friend. Whatever brings goodness into your life.
The goalpost movers will keep moving goalposts. They ignore the voices of POC and others at risk who have consistently stated that going for fantasy candidate X will likely put them in greater danger. True, those of us who have opted to stick with Biden have no certainty about the future, but neither do the fantasists and goalpost movers. We are each taking our best bet, and I’d like to give it a rest for a while, for my own well-being.
Do you ever get into NYC by the way?
WaterGirl
@Gretchen: Was it you who sent me the comment? I plan to front-page it, I just haven’t had time to put it together.
Josie
@zhena gogolia:
I feel the same way and have for two weeks. I have followed politics for 60 years and have never seen such a terrible treatment of a good president by members of his own party. I hope you are keeping up with your list.
guachi
@BR: it’s a big reason I think Harris should get the nod. Not only does she have the energy she doesn’t even have a job. Harris can campaign 12 hours a day and not skip any of her duties as VP.
Maybe she’d be better. Maybe she’d be worse. But she could do it.
Chris Johnson
@Eyeroller: Under these circumnstances how can you trust any leak?
ANYTHING that is not the person talking directly to a camera AND the full clip of that person is suspect. There’s already one case where the guy said “I’m concerned about Joe Biden being able to beat the crap out of Trump so I will support him with anything I can” and the clip was played as “I’m concerned about Joe Biden/” CUT.
Compared to that, which did actually happen, how can you in any way take seriously ANY ‘leak’ or ‘unnamed sources’ or ‘anonymous very important and high ranking Dems we’re totally not making it the fuck up’?
moonbat
@Chris Johnson: DIBS! I said that last night. lol
sab
I had forgotten that Clegg went with Meta. That makes so much sense, so on brand.
SuzieC
@moonbat: Great! I have no idea why my posts are hidden but I think it is important that people know about this underground activism.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
All of this stuff is recorded and can be compared. It won’t be like “well, what should Joe Biden be doing?” – it’s not mystery or conjecture. They’ll compare this campaign to other campaigns.
Chris Johnson
@zhena gogolia: Shocked, shocked I am that the NYT would have its foot on the scale. Check back and see if they’ve made a point of memory-holing it! Kudos to my Senator Bernie for having even been able to get such an editorial in there at all. I’m surprised they didn’t just censor him too.
Steeplejack
@Omnes Omnibus:
Exactly! I’m about to go out, so I can’t look this up myself.
Steeplejack
@Ksmiami:
🙄
Chris Johnson
@moonbat: Then ya nailed it. But did you also say Trump was going to name a family member as Veep? If so we can share the pony :)
Mousebumples
I wonder if it’s worth sending a thank you to his Senate office. Not a constituent, but I voted for Joe in the primaries a few months back.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Kay: One of my big questions is the cost/damage of changing candidates, and how that would be done. One of the big issues here is the “dump Biden” crew is not saying “substitute Harris”. I listened to some of Pod Save America and Dan was saying “whoever gets the nomination”. WTF. So it’s not going to be a clean swap….the donors and the “professional Democrats” are starting to believe their own bullshit about open conventions and picking someone totally new.
@guachi:
I think there’s some running away from him happening already, but I am also skeptical that someone voting for a D for Senate is going to ticket split and vote for Trump.
cain
@BR:
Whatever candidate you pick, they will be ratfucked either by the GOP or by the beltway press. Plus, there will be all kinds of house investigations spurred on by Comer. Comer will put the entire Democratic party under investigations for “covering up Biden’s Dementia” and lying to their base.
It’s completely in the world of possibility because we are in crazy town land where there are no norms that can’t be broken.
guachi
@Omnes Omnibus:
When I was deployed to Iraq I worked 12 hour days, 7 days per week. There was very little downtime. Trump is more of a threat to democracy than some random insurgents. Biden can work the weekend after a good speech in MI and get some more good press in a must win state. Maybe travel to West Michigan and talk with press and get some photo ops. Taking the weekend off shows no sense of urgency.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa: Hardly ever!
moonbat
@Chris Johnson: I suggested that he would nominate Barron and then a Succession/Apprentice like show would follow with the other sons weighing in on their apparent betrayal. lol
I can only ride the pony on Fridays. You can have it every other day. :)
Eyeroller
@Chris Johnson: I know, right? Everything is spun negatively. We can’t trust anything they say. We are totally through the looking glass now. What I do know is that I’m not seeing a hint of courage from many in the party, and that is a very, very bad look to voters.
counterfactual
From 2008 to 2016 I followed the blog “The Princeton Election Consortium.” I liked it because it concentrated on the math and statistics and ignored the inside-baseball stuff.
From 2008 to 2014 the polls were very predictive. That was because the pollsters were very good at sorting out the likely voters and those likely voters made up their minds in September and did not change them.
In 2016, Trump was able to activate a small but decisive number of less-than-likely voters. The few polls that kept in the field until Election Day did see that.
The blog gave up after missing the 2016 election, so I’m just making guesses from them.
In 2018, the Trump voters didn’t show up, and the polls were actually decent at predicting that.
In 2020, the Trump voters did show up and in larger numbers, so he did better than expected but not enough.
I haven’t seen a good analysis of 2022, but it fits that there were a large number of late-deciding Democratic votes.
Now one reason that the Republican likely voters from 2008 to 2014 came out is because the Republicans put an enormous amount of time volunteer effort and money into it. No matter how much you loathe Karl Rove, he was good at his job. I haven’t seen that effort from Trump yet.
Random thoughts.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia:
I’m sure it’s a schlep for you. We’re heading there in August, and I was modestly hopeful. But no worries. :)
sab
@JoyceH: Yikes! My stepsons each had best friends who signed up for the Army to get veterans benefits for college when they were done. Year 2000. Instead they each went off to war in Iraq and one came home with bad PTSD. The other is career Army, probably due to retire soon.
guachi
@$8 blue check mistermix:
I would have thought this was impossible but every single poll shows this over and over. What scares Ds is that voters won’t ticket split and will just vote straight R.
CarolPW
This by Greg Sargent in the New Republic about the recent Marist poll is interesting. They asked some different questions and I found the results, and Greg’s discussion of them, heartening.
The Thin Black Duke
@zhena gogolia: Gimme an “Amen”, somebody.
moonbat
@counterfactual: I used to follow the Princeton Election Consortium too. Sam Wang kept a very low BS noise level in his analysis of data. I’ll have to go back there and see what’s going on. Thanks for the reminder.
Princess
@Kay: Yeah Biden doesn’t need to out-campaign Obama, just Trump.
i do think Obama beat Romney by sheer hard work. Romney was old — despite the make up and hair dye he seemed listless and tired to me especially in September— and couldn’t keep up.
i think we’d be sunk if de Santis had won but as it is, Trump’s louder but Biden has better endurance. And likes people so gets good energy from crowds.
If we could wave a magic wand and get Harris in some seamless easy way I’d be on board. But since we can’t and everyone will be fighting over the wand, I’ll take Biden over court challenges and lawsuits from RFKjr, and money worries etc etc
WaterGirl
@guachi: No matter what your age, running yourself ragged is very short-term thinking.
Pace yourself. That doesn’t mean you’re an old geezer.
Everybody has to sharpen the saw sometimes, it it will take forever to gut down the next tree, and the one after that, and the one after that.
Biden did a BIG PUSH this week, and deserves the weekend off.
moonbat
@The Thin Black Duke: Amen!
O. Felix Culpa
@The Thin Black Duke: @moonbat:
And again I say, Amen!
WaterGirl
@hrprogressive: Except that people like Kay and MomSense are not bad people and I don’t think they are acting in bad faith.
So it’s inexplicable to me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: That’s fine. I was just objecting to comparing a Friday schedule with a Saturday schedule.
I also doubt that no president ever took a day off from July until Election Day. Besides, I don’t that a person who has kept this schedule is phoning it in.
I understand your view that Biden can’t win, but this is a crap argument in support of it.
Kay
@$8 blue check mistermix:
I agree with that. It had to be Harris. I think swapping in Harris was both doable and the best person for the job.
It’s beautiful weather and a booming economy and just packed with people in western MI by the Lake. Perfect to barnstorm MI and replace the Arab American vote we lost in the eastern part of the state with the more Right leaning (but anti Trump) voters in the western part.
The Thin Black Duke
@moonbat: Praise the Lord and F*ck the Republicans!
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: Does an A-fucking-men count?
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s grueling. He isn’t going to get two days a week to recover. It isn’t “4 months away” either. As you well know early vote starts in about 50 days.
The Thin Black Duke
@Omnes Omnibus: More to the point, I’m damned sure there’s shit going on in the United States and the rest of the world that I’m glad Biden is paying attention to.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: That sounds like a failure of leadership to me.
sab
@Kay: Western Michigan is Evangelical central. Betsy deVos territory. Pete Hoekstra was their congressman. You are delusional if you think they would ever vote for Harris
ETA They wouldn’t vote for Romney because he was Mormon not Christian
ETA Who knows what Harris is but her husband is Jewish
ETA Western Michigan might vote for Nikki Haley but they never would vote for Kamala Harris.
geg6
@Omnes Omnibus:
Come sit by me.
guachi
@WaterGirl:
Biden only needs to live for four months.
zhena gogolia
@O. Felix Culpa: Oh, well let me know your dates and I’ll see. We have to go there some time, just no firm plans right now.
$8 blue check mistermix
@guachi:
FWIW, Kate Riga, good reporter at TPM, has talked to multiple pollsters and they’re very skeptical of the people who are pro-D Senator and anti-Biden. They think it’s a frustration response. Doesn’t mean that the polls won’t bear out, but that’s not been the history.
Another point on polling is that some big percentage of Dems polled want Biden out (it’s like 60-70% in the polls I’ve seen). Does that mean anything? I don’t know.
Also, and I’m not saying this to defend lazy campaigning, my guess is that Biden’s at his beach house talking to advisors and working the phones because the pressure has been mounting on him to quit. This is why this dragging out is so terrible for him and his campaign, even if he stays in.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Who said he is going to take off every weekend from now through the election?
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: MomSense hasn’t commented here in a while that I’ve seen, except during the press conference. Her comment in its entirety? “Vice President Trump.”
That’s what she got out of the press conference.
O. Felix Culpa
@zhena gogolia: Feel free to get my email from AL or whoever. I’ll fill you in with the deets. :)
Eyeroller
A bit of information: The main funder of the donations to House Dems who come out against Biden is some NYC billionaire named Michael Novogratz. He was a big backer of Dean Phillips, and he has contributed to the “Problem Solvers Caucus” members. Steve Schmidt may also be involved in the “Pass the Torch” astroturf.
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: She turned into a complete Eeyore very early. I’m sure she was looking for errors. But Biden has fumbled around verbally like that his whole career.
zhena gogolia
@Eyeroller: So in other words, he was never going to contribute to Biden in the first place.
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: Clearly not, he’s mainly a Republican, but this seems to be a separate effort from the big donors who are withholding $90M. He was probably never among that group. So we’re literally being hit from both sides.
WaterGirl
@guachi: It feels to me like your thinking on this is flawed, and you don’t seem to have an open mind on the subject, so I am going to bow out of discussing this with you.
guachi
@sab:
Western Michigan will be my new district in the fall. Whitmer won the three big Western MI counties. She even won the small towns like Allegan, Plainwell, and Otsego. And she did it because her opponent was a nut.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia:
MomSense did ask a question in the postcard thread yesterday, and I was happy to see her here.
I don’t understand what Vice President Trump means, though. Any idea?
Ruckus
@$8 blue check mistermix:
Joe Biden is old. Now this is nothing we didn’t know a long time ago. He has a speech impediment. This is nothing we didn’t know a long time ago. The only part that a lot of people see is that he’s old. I’m old and he’s older than me. Not by a significant amount but sure, let’s go with older. I know people that are a lot older than him and they still have it together. I have a friend where I live who is 98 and she is more cognitive than some people I know – in real life and on the internet.
But. And it is a huge, round but. Many people who are say in 30-60 yrs old, still work and people they know that are old, say above 75, don’t talk like they do, don’t listen to the music they do, don’t want to purchase another car, don’t watch the same TV shows, listen to the news every day. Old retired people have an entirely different perspective. Read different books, watch different TV shows, listen to much different music. Old farts are weird. Just like old farts have been for the entire length of humanity. The only difference is that old farts now live longer so they can get even weirder than they used to – in the minds of the younger side of humanity. Life is not the same as it was, say when I was born – 3/4 of a century ago. Not in any way, shape or form. In general people live longer, are viable adults longer. Medicine, food and employment have done that.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
We’ll see. I’m saying there is a comparison so it will not be a situation of “moving the goalposts” or “being mean to Joe Biden” or whatever. I’d prefer this not become “he did a rally in Michigan – what more do you want?!”
I want him to meet the standard set by the last winning candidate in terms of urgency and work. That seems fair. Trump is lazy as shit. Outwork him!
Eyeroller
@WaterGirl: It was a verbal slip by Biden during the NATO news conference. Here’s an interesting clip (I can’t do Xitter but the Nitter link should work)
https://nitter.poast.org/MeidasTouch/status/1811998195653967917#m
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: It was a mistake Biden made early in the press conference. He meant to say Vice President Harris.
zhena gogolia
Goddamn it. Good thing I have something else to do for the next hour. I can’t stand this any more.
guachi
@WaterGirl:
I spent 21 years in the Navy willing to die for my country without a second thought. It changes you, even if I was never seriously in danger. I expect Biden to go to the mat for the US, as well. I don’t think he can.
zhena gogolia
@Eyeroller: Hilarious!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I don’t understand what Vice President Trump means, though. Any idea?
Make everyone equally unhappy?
That’s all I’ve got
And yes I do understand that it was a gaff. We are ALL entitled to them.
As someone who has spoken to large audiences wearing a Tux, believe me they are easier to make than most believe.
WaterGirl
The interesting thing to me is that when I put up posts that are celebrating a Biden win or someone important supporting Biden, they aren’t getting nearly the same number of comments as the let’s speculate some more about Biden posts.
So love them or hate them, that’s where the energy seems to be. That seems kind of odd to me, too.
As I said, I am perplexed.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
Biden is already outworking Trump. On his worst day, Biden is outworking Trump.
Do you not see that? Do you not believe that? Do you think because Biden is taking the weekend off that he does not plan to continue to bust his behind as President and Candidate?
The well-received event in Michigan was a BIG WIN. Why not take the weekend off and leave the people with the BIG WIN in their heads – before he does another even that doesn’t gat at A++ rating like Michigan, and then the media and Biden’s detractors will be saying “see, that was a one-off, anybody can be good for one day!”
THERE IS NOTHING BIDEN CAN DO THAT IS GOOD ENOUGH for the people who are pushing a change in the nominees.
KRK
@WaterGirl:
She thinks Biden is “incompetent”.
(This is a reply to the “what does VP Trump mean?” comment.)
O. Felix Culpa
@KRK: Yeah, because Biden is the only person EVAH who has mixed up names while speaking extemporaneously. Sheesh.
WaterGirl
@Eyeroller: Ah, I have been pretty out of the coverage because I have been swamped with work.
Another Scott
Polls don’t vote. We should be fighting for every gettable vote no matter what the polls say. And I think Biden-Harris and Team D are.
Meanwhile, … (Twitter version)
[ Ooof! ]
That’s gonna leave a mark!
Well done.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: That’s what makes me think this is about more than one poor debate performance.
JoyceH
@O. Felix Culpa: that’s what irks me – anyone who watches the political panels on the news has seen reporters in their 40s say Biden when they mean Trump or vice versa at least once a day. Everybody does it!
Soprano2
The last third of the O Boys podcast was the best part, because they had good advice for the Biden campaign. They said he should admit they’re behind and run as scrappy Scranton Joe the underdog. I think that’s good advice.
Soprano2
QFT, I absolutely agree with this.
Another Scott
Speaking, yet again, about polls – ICYMI…
Nitter.poast.org. (Twitter version.)
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Sister Golden Bear
@JoyceH:
And that students attending private schools that don’t receive federal funds won’t have to take it.
Something, something creating a class of fortunate sons and a cannon fodder class.
Belafon
Tell yourself to vote. Tell your friends to vote. Tell your friends to tell their friends to vote. Donate. Help GOTV in whatever way. Spread the news about Project 2025, including figuring out how to get around Facebook’s right wing filtering of your posts. Teach people what MMXXVI means.
LAC
@WaterGirl: Thank you for those. There are people, OGs and trolls here and elsewhere who are determined to make their point over and over and over and over….etc. Some have huffed off and some persist. But keep it up, please. It is good to read.
UncleEbeneezer
@Another Scott: This was one of the key take-aways of the Black focus group after the debate. Biden spoke poorly. Trump lied. And the latter is the much bigger deal when deciding which candidate to support.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: In 2007-08, I worked my ass for Obama. I loved him and hated the mockery of his name and how people called him Osama.
But one time, Osama came out of my mouth by mistake when I was talking about Barack.
Stuff like that happens, no matter your age or mental capacity.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: Syed, it was me. I t was the best expression of my feelings that I have seen
Gretchen
@guachi: Harris is campaigning hard. The media isn’t covering it because horse race is easier/ more fun to cover. That wouldn’t change if she were the nominee except they’d have all that fun racism to cover to both sides it
trnc
@hrprogressive:
The polls for the generic congressional ballot in 2022 didn’t show a red wave. It went back and forth between repubs and dems a few times before settling on a 1.2 repub advantage.
If you’re thinking “That can’t be right. The media constantly blasted red wave stories,” you’ve probably figure out the problem before you got to the end of this sentence.
Damien
When I asked guachi what he planned to actually DO to put Biden back in the White House that wasn’t complaining to his reps about Biden being the nominee his response was that he plans to complain even harder.
So expecting anything useful or positive from him is a fool’s errand at this point.
I’m on team Dem: 500 postcards, I’m donating everything I can spare, and when it comes time to harass the shit out of voters for GOTV I’ll be driving voters to the polls. Be like me, don’t be like guachi.
Gretchen
@WaterGirl: we’ve been getting a lot of relentless doomsayers for the should Biden quit posts. I think part of the engagement is one person saying the same thing over and over 20 times. I hadn’t used the pie filter in so long I’d forgotten how to use it. I’ve given it quite a workout in the last 2 weeks.
Gretchen
@Damien: Interesting. I suspected as much.
Soprano2
@Ruckus: I’ve seen more than one singer forget the words to the National Anthem. These are people who have sung it a lot. It happens.