The 2020 USA POTUS election politics, the civil war, and the world war (Part 1)

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Great news this morning for Trump haters:

Rasmussen daily tracking has him down to 44%. That is a low number and says to me Trump is losing a small portion of his base. And remember, unlike with the phony network polls for example, Rasmussen numbers are real. Trump really is losing support.

I think part of it could be his unbridled enthusiasm for all the recent borrow and spend activity. Trump cares most about winning the election and does not mind doing permanent, long term, damage to the country in the process. He does have a number of grandkids. Guess he figures they are on their own after he is long dead. But how about everyone else’s kids and grandkids who will face Trump’s absolutely crushing debt for the remainder of this century?

Sleepy Joe? Who knows. Basement seems to be working for him. Maybe he and Dr. Jill will move into the basement of the White House. The Biden underground: has a ring to it.

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All it says is that his base was too busy mainlining bleach and swallowing light bulbs to respond to a poll. :wink:

From a broader perspective, I dont take any politician’s “enthusiasm” at face value - no one wants to be the one singled out for opposing relief spending. Anyone who even implies that they think they’ve already done enough will get crucified by the masses (and the mass media). The one thing all politicians are good at is bandwagoning.

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All very true. But a portion of Trump’s base includes thoughtful, responsible, citizens who care about the future and not merely about the “here and now”. It’s a small number of people, I grant you. But among that small group Trump’s borrow and spend proclivities are alarming.

And Trump’s loss of support at Rasmussen is roughly between 2% and 4% which is, again, just a relatively small number of people . . . . but of course sufficient to deep six his prospects in November. Trump can ill afford to lose any supporters at all!!

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Look out! Something everyone agrees on! Even if for different reasons.

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What the margin of error though? Loss of 2% is often not statistically significant.

But beyond that, I don’t think his base is 45%. I’d guess it’s closer to 35-40% and I don’t think he’s losing too many from his base. Historically, nobody won the election just on their base alone. I don’t think it’ll be any different this time.

One of the things that may have been working against him is the “liberate” the States calls. Last week, I was reading on Forbes about a poll citing 87% of Americans support current restrictions or want stricter ones. And two-third (according to Gallup poll) would not resume normal activities even if all restrictions were lifted today. So in that context, the optics of protesters emboldened by POTUS and confronting healthcare workers is not a very good one. I think that’s why he backed off a bit from that stance but that may be the reason for these lower polls.

Either way, we’re 6 months from the election so this is not what people will remember assuming things improve by then.

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Not happening with “opening” without contact tracing or reduction in cases.

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I should have bolded “assuming” in my sentence. I don’t have a very good feeling about the fall honestly in terms of testing and tracing capabilities and the prospect of having simultaneous flu season and COVID-19 pandemic still present.

My point is, if the situation continues or gets worse by November, I don’t see POTUS getting reelected. The combination of depression level economy with health crisis would likely sink any incumbent.

In that context, all I was saying is that for Trump, the path to reelection is for things to improve so voters can gloss over whatever mishaps in initial response there were. He can brag about working with Congress in bipartisan fashion to get economy somewhat on track and steadying the ship through one of the worst crisis in recent history. But that is all moot if there’s a large second wave in the fall, if re-opened states have to re-enforce shutdowns, etc… In that case, whatever rights or wrongs he did will likely not matter for the outcome.

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A cynic would look at the astroturfing by trump donor groups for the recent “protests” and see another possibility.

Trump is angry, his poll numbers are crap. Ensuring the pandemic is raging in November could actually help his chances.
His minority of rabid younger supporters will show up to vote en masse (without face coverings or distancing) in the midst of a raging pandemic and will never see anything as a failure no matter how bad it gets, reasonable people will not. Over 65 is the other group that would (at least in normal circumstances) be favorable for the candidate with an R by the name, regardless of who it is, and regardless if it’s a Democrat. Most states have unequal voting rights, where ONLY over 65 get to vote by mail unless they’re disabled. Everyone else has second-class voting rights. They would have to choose between putting themselves and others at direct health risk or voting. These all add up to net “positives” to the political campaign, of course the question is whether they will be larger than the obvious negatives.

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I don’t know about that calculation. Trump’s base skews older in demographics. This is a demographic that is more vulnerable to COVID-19 than the overall population so I cannot imagine them being very happy about the crisis continuing for many months.

The absentee ballot situation is likely to change especially if things do not improve by the end of the summer.

First, it’s only 17 states where absentee ballots require an excuse, and out of those, only 6 (IN, LO, MS, SC, TN, TX) have age as a reason to get absentee ballot, still significant but “most” is definitely a bit misleading.

Second, outside of TX, all provide an excuse for being sick or disabled. Considering limitations on testing, I’d guess that a lot of people could claim to be sick. So that leaves TX - certainly a huge battleground - as the one that could see its absentee ballot laws challenged as voter suppression in case of a pandemic. Travis County Judge ruled in mid-April that fear of coronavirus would be a sufficient reason for voting by mail.

That has been mirrored in other states, in some like in Nebraska or New Hampshire, the Republican governors have already stated that absentee ballots rules will be expanded for the rest of the year.

This is only beginning though but a strategy based solely on voter suppression seems very risky to me, at least currently in the US. First, it could backfire and galvanize voters against your ticket if done too obviously. If GOP states are the only ones not to allow universal absentee ballot for this election, it is not good optics, no matter how many layers of voter fraud lipstick you can lather on this pig. Nevada judge ruled last month against blocking absentee ballot for all for primaries stating that there is no evidence that it would lead to increased voter fraud. I assume every state with restrictions on absentee ballots will see the same court battles well into the summer and early fall.

And even if it worked, it’d de-legitimize any elected incoming president beyond repair IMO. Trump was already elected while losing the popular vote by a significant margin. That’s not unique but not having a convincing popular mandate contributed to a very intense resistance throughout his term. I cannot imagine how bad it’d get if he got re-elected after mass voter suppression in up to 17 states. If something could precipitate the end of the Union, that could certainly do it.

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But they all require people…gasp!..request a ballot in advance. You know full well that requiring a person to plan ahead is considered discriminatory these days. :wink:

How could there be any evidence that widespread absentee ballots would increase voter fraud, when there’s never been widespread absentee ballots? It’s not like those who are willing to write checks to buy the ballots are publishing their offers in advance.

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O RLY?
RLY?

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That is actually the same route that is being sued for in TX. The AG has put out statements after the judge’s decision threatening felonies for anyone involved in actually doing that or facilitating.
IMO, the “possibility” of getting sick isn’t that likely to fly as actually being sick or disabled. The law in TX is pretty vaguely worded though. I don’t know how appeals/levels work with that judge’s decision.

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I’m not sure that Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington offer much on the national stage, to make a vote-buying operation worthwhile.

So there is recent evidence of trying to buy/sell votes. Simple logic would state that being able to hand the buyer a blank ballot would better facilitate the attempt, and make it less likely to be uncovered.

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There were TWO links in my post. The 2nd link mentions that there are TWENTY NINE states plus DC that allow vote by mail and do not require an excuse to do so.

I don’t disagree in principle that mailed votes could potentially be sold, I was only countering your assertion that “there’s never been widespread absentee ballots”.

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Oregon has allowed for vote by mail for a long time. Even the top state Republicans say it’s been great and no fraud.

/eastern Oregon is quite red.

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I’d be surprised (but not too surprised) if those states that require attendee voting don’t find a way to implement mail voting by the Nov election. Those who don’t I deem choose not to be very progressive and are recklessly putting their voters in harms way.

If there is any election in recent history to question voter turnout and potential political agendas in intended misrepresentation this would be the one. This goes beyond allegedly miscounting votes.

I live in WA and have the convenience (privelege) of mail voting. If this pandemic continues into Nov and states are still under some sort of lockdown or distancing measure there would be lines many blocks long of voters. Even with 6ft distancing you can’t tell me that’s not putting their polulation (especially their higher risk population who wouldn’t normally stand in the same line at grocery store or Walmart) at risk to be able to vote. All but the most stalwart voters would say ‘screw it’. This also goes against the very nature of stay at home orders requested of their state.

Our founding fathers of this country risked their lives to give us a free country but I wonder if even they would see a required turnout votership to be inappropriate if it can be done in more safe ways.

I’m advocating that mail ballots be mailed to all registered voters, not even requiring an absentee registration.

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They did a great thing but let’s not exaggerate their accomplishments. Early voting rules weren’t in the Constitution and were left up to the new states, some of which had property, race, color, gender, or religion qualifications. The president and VP were elected by congress, so it was even less direct than the electoral college.

John Adams is a fun miniseries (now free on Prime).

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Pleased to see President Trump’s poll numbers improving significantly at Rasmussen. Guess those who claimed the daily press briefings were harming him . . . were RIGHT!

The above notwithstanding, I became so annoyed with Trump’s Muir interview I had to turn it off. First of all, why is he even GIVING Muir an interview!! Does he realize he is sitting directly opposite a representative of the DNC?

Second, the fact Trump is a NYC denizen, and not a genuine Conservative, shows forth virtually every time he opens his mouth. Trump does govern as a Conservative much of the time, which is why I continue to support him. I’m loving, for example, what is happening right now in the United States Senate; thank you Donald, thank you Mitch!!

But Trump sits there giving these wishy washy answers to questions any real Conservative would knock right out of the park. Trump’s NYC upbringing taught getting along with liberals, not rock-ribbed Conservatism. Liberals need to be defeated politically, squished like bugs, not tolerated. This is not something Trump ever will assimilate. Heck, his own daughter is a stupid, clueless, NYC liberal, and Trump thinks she is smart.

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Back on the topic of absentee voting, here’s something that sounds like moving in the right direction IMO. OH planning for Nov 2020 vote by mail

Sounds like the system was overwhelmed by demand for the primaries and they’re trying to correct issues that arose. Let’s hope it pans out because I’m very unlikely to go vote in person this November if I can avoid it.

One question I have about the whole thing is why is there such resistance to voting by mail from Republicans?

I was looking at a NY Times article about it (yes taking into account potential bias from the source). The fraud argument seems fairly tenuous but also studies have not shown that it would be disastrous to republican candidates. So I’m just curious why the strong reaction. What am I missing? Is it uninformed knee-jerk reaction based on gut feeling and aversion to any change or is there contrarian studies that show that vote by mail favors democrats, or yet another reason (lack of funds to implement properly which would affect red states more than blue ones)?

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Do not believe anything you read in the NY Times so-called newspaper. It is a wholly-controlled organ of the DNC.