news 2024 US Election Megathread 🇺🇸🏛️

[Communion]

37 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

I can't speak for other states, but there being a gap between public opinion and law doesn't surprise me on this issue. The Texas state legislature meets every other year for 5 months (and usually takes ~1 month off within that timeframe), so there's really not a lot of time to legislate in that window, but some notable items they passed during the last session include an attempted total crackdown on sanctuary cities/counties (which I think is held up in court at the moment), the allocation of well over a billion dollars to border hardening and increased policing, increasing minimum sentencing for smuggling (which was written in a way that could apply to immigrants being smuggled themselves), and of course provided the legal framework for any police officer in the state to arrest anyone they assume crossed into the state illegally. I'm sure once someone reminds the esteemed members of the legislature that they provide healthcare and education benefits for undocumented immigrants they'll get right on with stripping them away. Hell, the state foster system has been essentially destroyed because legislature has been chipping away at it's funding and support through the guise of preventing immigrants from smuggling their children in to take advantage of the services (which is not something happening, but is the point of conversation on the issue).

 

And yes, Allred is running a very competitive race on a pretty thin budget (and we can have conversations about the DNC flushing money down the toilet with Jon Tester), but he will win few favors by running to the left on immigration. I mean... I would be SHOCKED to meet a voter out there whose attitude in the Senate election is "Allred is too conservative on this issue, so I'm gonna vote for Ted Cruz instead " , and I'd also be surprised to come across a voter who was willing to overlook Harris's immigration stance but not Allred's. I've said that at the presidential level, Texas is not in play this year and Democrats are right to not get distracted, but there is definitely potential in 2028 or 2032 if the giant suburban counties (Ft. Bend and Montgomery Counties outside Houston, Williamson County outside Austin, Collin and Denton Counties outside Dallas are all over 700k people, not to mention Tarrant County, home to over 2 million people and Fort Worth, which Biden won on a 1,800 vote margin) continue their trajectories. We'll have to see how the issue plays out here, but unless something changes radically, any Democratic state-wide victory will have to go through them, and that campaign will have to contend with "we want abortion but no immigrants" voters. 

Sis, I don't mean this to be dismissive, since the sarcasm may come off as so, but by the same token:

If Dems adopted the policy that whites are the true superior master race and women are the property of their husbands, we could also probably have Blyoming!

 

 

We talk about how Biden-Harris defending Israel has led to soul-rot, but this kind of electoralism also leads to this kind of brain-rot.

 

Like we're not just moving pearls around on an abacus. There must be a coherent, meaningful ideology between how voters work together.

 

If Dems want to give the 5M voters they have in Texas a voice... they just move to abolishing the EC (something Harris just attacked!). 

 

You can't fetishize gamification so much that the idea is: "we just have to tweak our campaigning algorithm this much and move our demos X points and boom, Texas swung 5 points our way!!". That theory of power only works if you somehow gaslight enough people to abandon their material needs and continue to vote for a Democratic party that *attacks* its own base of voters. I'm a proud blue state. If Harris is attacking blue states and our policies so she can win red states.. then **** Kamala Harris?

 

"There's so many untapped, potential voters!!". You're... describing racist white people. You're describing rich, largely white people who hate poor people. "If we just do x, y, and z, we can win those people over!!". I don't want to win those people. I'm a Democrat because I hate those people??

 

I don't care if there's some 53-year-old Asian mother of 2 in some dry ass Texas suburb making $245,000 a year and who votes Republican because she doesn't want anyone black or making less than $30k a year in her neighborhood. I don't care if she would vote for Dem if Harris shot Bernie Sanders on live TV. That person inherently does not work in the coalition that Democrats are meant to represent. That woman should be heavily taxed and fund others' healthcare like 70% of the country wants. Her hatred of the Democratic Party would mean the Democratic Party is actually doing good things.

[Lil Mistee]

2 minutes ago, RihRihGirrrl said:

I feel like the polls are just not reliable at this point....they're too all over the place. I belive it'll be a close race and just hoping that Kamala's ground game makes the difference.

the polls like a week before will be very telling!

[Blade]

1 minute ago, RihRihGirrrl said:

I feel like the polls are just not reliable at this point....they're too all over the place. I belive it'll be a close race and just hoping that Kamala's ground game makes the difference.

They're so all over the place that we already have multiple surveys that we will look back on in 27 days saying "what the **** was this poll on"

[Relampago.]

1 minute ago, Lil Mistee said:

Honestly I love when they meet the gamer crowd. A lot of gamers are a.) Disillusioned with voting and b.) Young impressionable men. I'd rather they see someone like AOC and Walz than Trump right wing grifters. They need to appeal more to young men!

That's basically the motif of my day today… messaging matters.

 

There's a reason everyone is believing stupid conspiracies and young men are flocking towards alt-right and extreme conservatives. We are now in the Information Age and they HAVE to be exposed to at least sane people.  

[GhostBox]

 

[nadiamendell]

 

 

Ok this is good. 

[Lil Mistee]

1 minute ago, Relampago. said:

That's basically the motif of my day today… messaging matters.

 

There's a reason everyone is believing stupid conspiracies and young men are flocking towards alt-right and extreme conservatives. We are now in the Information Age and they HAVE to be exposed to at least sane people.  

The information age proving to the be the disinformation age of propaganda is so

 

We have so much knowledge at our fingertips but people would rather watch propaganda algorithmic bullshit on tiktok 

[GhostBox]

Clinton was a great president but still 😂

[Blade]

1 minute ago, Lil Mistee said:

the polls like a week before will be very telling!

hmm...I don't think so. I'm going to be honest the only polls I will place a lot of weight on are these:

1. Final Selzer poll in Iowa. This will tell us the Iowa environment and the Midwest environment.
2. Final Marquette poll in WI. They're good but a little less on the point than Selzer but they can still give us a vibe. Harris was +4 in their last one, hoping she can at least be above 50% in their final one but we'll see.
3. The final PA firm state polls. There's 2 or 3 polls firms whose names I forget.

 

 

Something tells me we're gonna get more weird Georgia Trump +6 and Kamala +5 AZ polls that make no sense in the final few weeks along with the majority just herding towards a tie in all swing states.

 

[Lil Mistee]

Just now, Blade said:

hmm...I don't think so. I'm going to be honest the only polls I will place a lot of weight on are these:

1. Final Selzer poll in Iowa. This will tell us the Iowa environment and the Midwest environment.
2. Final Marquette poll in WI. They're good but a little less on the point than Selzer but they can still give us a vibe. Harris was +4 in their last one, hoping she can at least be above 50% in their final one but we'll see.
3. The final PA firm state polls. There's 2 or 3 polls firms whose names I forget.

 

 

Something tells me we're gonna get more weird Georgia Trump +6 and Kamala +5 AZ polls that make no sense in the final few weeks along with the majority just herding towards a tie in all swing states.

 

We're gonna get a Kamala +5 georgia poll from teraflagler and a trump +5 PA poll from morning consult

[Communion]

32 minutes ago, Relampago. said:

I mean all this is… true but how relevant is it? Clinton was an awful candidate, I don't think anyone besides the hardest of hardcore liberals can say that. But Harris, for all her misgivings, is not Clinton.

 

32 minutes ago, Relampago. said:

And yeah, Harris is not running on policy that's popular. But she is not actively campaigning against the policies which progressives find useful.

 

32 minutes ago, Relampago. said:

. I just.. truly do not see Democrats having that same level of opposition to these ideas. I see a path forward within that party.

 

(My point was not to convince you to vote Green, but to just remind you to that despite the orthodoxy that no individual, single vote is actually important enough to be torn over <3)

 

If Harris loses, it will be because she chose to lose. Neither I nor you nor anyone can lose sleep over her desire to lose.

 

To me, the below strategists quoted sound exactly like the kind of people who want to lose. Elected officials can only become so diametrically opposed to their voters until the rubberband snaps, with some apparently needing to learn that the first rubberband snap wasn't just a fluke.. (And the last time the rubberband snapped, we got a socialist from Vermont changing the discourse as we know it but that's a tale for another day )

 

Edited October 10 by Communion

[Blade]

dem strategists thinking the trans stuff resonates with the median voter when so many candidates have lost since 2022 running on that

[Blade]

 

[wastedpotential]

6 minutes ago, Communion said:

You can't fetishize gamification so much that the idea is: "we just have to tweak our campaigning algorithm this much and move our demos X points and boom, Texas swung 5 points our way!!". That theory of power only works if you somehow gaslight enough people to abandon their material needs and continue to vote for a Democratic party that *attacks* its own base of voters. I'm a proud blue state. If Harris is attacking blue states and our policies so she can win red states.. then **** Kamala Harris?

 

"There's so many untapped, potential voters!!". You're... describing racist white people. You're describing rich, largely white people who hate poor people. "If we just do x, y, and z, we can win those people over!!". I don't want to win those people. I'm a Democrat because I hate those people??

 

I don't care if there's some 53-year-old Asian mother of 2 in some dry ass Texas suburb making $245,000 a year and who votes Republican because she doesn't want anyone black or making less than $30k a year in her neighborhood. I don't care if she would vote for Dem if Harris shot Bernie Sanders on live TV. That person inherently does not work in the coalition that Democrats are meant to represent. That woman should be heavily taxed and fund others' healthcare like 70% of the country wants. Her hatred of the Democratic Party would mean the Democratic Party is actually doing good things.

The thing is, you're in the process of morally purifying yourself out of the party, and thus, out of the conversation.

 

If the Democratic Party has to pick between a low income, hard line progressive in a solid Democratic state; and a high income, centrist (say right-leaning on immigration and left-leaning on abortion) voter in a swing state who lives outside Charlotte or Atlanta or Miami or Houston or Las Vegas or Phoenix or wherever else, isn't it obvious which voter they're going to pander to? Every single Democratic policy position is designed with that voter squarely in mind. Haven't you and several other progressives in this thread over the past few years literally expressed feelings that the Democrats no longer represent your interests and no longer support the needs of the working class? I would think that no longer feeling represented by a party would entail no longer feeling the need for that party to represent you, but maybe that's just me 

[Blade]

I wonder if Kamala's internals have her feeling more comfortable in MI/WI....
No visits in a while

 

[Communion]

13 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

The thing is, you're in the process of morally purifying yourself out of the party, and thus, out of the conversation

Fallacy - this isn't about me. 

 

This is about a 15 point swing in non-educated voters of color. 

 

 

Particularly working class Hispanic men who adore social welfare policies and thus are alienated by Harris despite being key demos in swing states like Nevada and Arizona. 

 

Maybe it can work. To make a party defined by affluent white and Asian suburban voters who shop at places like Whole Foods and Costco by kicking out everyone else like the people who have to work in those service industry jobs. 

 

It just didn't work in 2016. Kind of fuels the theory Dems wanna lose by rerunning failed ideas. 

Edited October 10 by Communion

[shelven]

54 minutes ago, Blade said:

They're so all over the place that we already have multiple surveys that we will look back on in 27 days saying "what the **** was this poll on"

I'm actually thinking the opposite as of now. If all the swing states end up being decided by a point or two, I can't think of too many polls that will stick out as being really bad. The odd Harris +4 in Arizona or Trump +5 in Georgia would look a bit weird, but I think they'll be considered close to accurate in the grand scheme of things.

 

The only one I can think of as being this year's ABC Wisconsin +17 poll so far is if the polling consensus of Florida being decently close ends up being right and NYT's Florida +13 was a crazy outlier. But I don't think the reverse would hold true - if NYT nails it, I think the takeaway will just be "wow NYT figured out what nobody else could in Florida, good for them" and the other pollsters won't really take much flack.

 

Of course, this assumes the swing states end up being very close. If we end up getting a final result of Harris +3 in Georgia or Trump +5 in the Rust Belt states, then yeah, a lot of pollsters will have egg on their faces for the third time in a row

[noodlelymph]

16 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

The thing is, you're in the process of morally purifying yourself out of the party, and thus, out of the conversation.

 

If the Democratic Party has to pick between a low income, hard line progressive in a solid Democratic state; and a high income, centrist (say right-leaning on immigration and left-leaning on abortion) voter in a swing state who lives outside Charlotte or Atlanta or Miami or Houston or Las Vegas or Phoenix or wherever else, isn't it obvious which voter they're going to pander to? Every single Democratic policy position is designed with that voter squarely in mind. Haven't you and several other progressives in this thread over the past few years literally expressed feelings that the Democrats no longer represent your interests and no longer support the needs of the working class? I would think that no longer feeling represented by a party would entail no longer feeling the need for that party to represent you, but maybe that's just me 

Idgi tho because one second yall want those folks who actually care about these issues (unlike y'all who just superficially care about them when all you really want is to just win elections) to still vote for your party and then the next, you want them to just shut up and leave the party (which then jeopardizes your candidate)? You're making the case for way more people to "morally purify" themselves out of this right wing party. 

[Blade]

7 minutes ago, Communion said:

This is about a 15 point drop in non-educated voters of color. 

 

Particularly working class Hispanic men who adore social welfare policies and thus are alienated by Harris despite being key demos in swing states like Nevada and Arizona. 

 

Maybe it can work. To make a party defined by affluent white and Asian suburban voters who shop at places like Whole Foods and Costco by kicking out everyone else like the people who have to work in those service industry jobs. 

Let's be careful about treating working class Hispanic men like damsels in distress who can be saved from their right wing trending if the Dems only embraced different economic policies. Some of these guys (that I'm related to, work with, talk to in my community whether it be at the gym or grocery store) are genuinely not good people.... They hate women, they hate gay people, and they only voted Dem in the past because they thought Republicans hated Latinos. Then they discovered that they can get the upper hand when they realized the hate wasn't to Latinos but rather ... "illegals". They hate them more than they hate women and gay people. Hence why they're not just rejecting Dems or voting 3rd party, they're proudly getting behind Trump. I wish I was talking about a small group of Latino men but they're ******* everywhere now. 

[Marianah Adkins]

22 minutes ago, wastedpotential said:

The thing is, you're in the process of morally purifying yourself out of the party, and thus, out of the conversation.

 

If the Democratic Party has to pick between a low income, hard line progressive in a solid Democratic state; and a high income, centrist (say right-leaning on immigration and left-leaning on abortion) voter in a swing state who lives outside Charlotte or Atlanta or Miami or Houston or Las Vegas or Phoenix or wherever else, isn't it obvious which voter they're going to pander to? Every single Democratic policy position is designed with that voter squarely in mind. Haven't you and several other progressives in this thread over the past few years literally expressed feelings that the Democrats no longer represent your interests and no longer support the needs of the working class? I would think that no longer feeling represented by a party would entail no longer feeling the need for that party to represent you, but maybe that's just me 

If this is the case then maybe we shouldnt stop or shame progressives from abstaining/voting for Stein or whoever then?

[Blade]

6 minutes ago, shelven said:

I'm actually thinking the opposite as of now. If all the swing states end up being decided by a point or two, I can't think of too many polls that will stick out as being really bad. The odd Harris +4 in Arizona or Trump +5 in Georgia would look a bit weird, but I think they'll be considered close to accurate in the grand scheme of things.

 

The only one I can think of as being this year's ABC Wisconsin +17 poll so far is if the polling consensus of Florida being decently close ends up being right and NYT's Florida +13 was a crazy outlier. But I don't think the reverse would hold true - if NYT nails it, I think the takeaway will just be "wow NYT figured out what nobody else could in Florida, good for them" and the other pollsters won't really take much flack.

 

Of course, this assumes the swing states end up being very close. If we end up getting a final result of Harris +3 in Georgia or Trump +5 in the Rust Belt states, then yeah, a lot of pollsters will have egg on their faces for the third time in a row

NYT said all their FL polls average out to about +9  
 

Is it bad that I actually want them to be right because their last polls show a Kamala EC win despite the horrific trends in the Sun Belt/FL  

[Marianah Adkins]

2 minutes ago, Blade said:

Let's be careful about treating working class Hispanic men like damsels in distress who can be saved from their right wing trending if the Dems only embraced different economic policies. Some of these guys (that I'm related to, work with, talk to in my community whether it be at the gym or grocery store) are genuinely not good people.... They hate women, they hate gay people, and they only voted Dem in the past because they thought Republicans hated Latinos. Then they discovered that they can get the upper hand when they realized the hate wasn't to Latinos but rather ... "illegals". They hate them more than they hate women and gay people. Hence why they're not just rejecting Dems or voting 3rd party, they're proudly getting behind Trump. I wish I was talking about a small group of Latino men but they're ******* everywhere now. 

Hmm shouldnt this be a redflag for the Democratic Party if anything? They used to have this male voters down as late as 2016. And quite frankly, most of these voters as you have said are primarily socially conservative (actually most immigrants are). If the GOP is already getting these votes with someone like Trump, imagine the votes they would get if they get a normie Republican candidate 

 

It is obvious that the ace for the Democrats is economic policy (always has been)  

[wastedpotential]

2 minutes ago, Communion said:

Fallacy - this isn't about me. 

 

This is about a 15 point drop in non-educated voters of color. 

 

 

Particularly working class Hispanic men who adore social welfare policies and thus are alienated by Harris despite being key demos in swing states like Nevada and Arizona. 

 

Maybe it can work. To make a party defined by affluent white and Asian suburban voters who shop at places like Whole Foods and Costco by kixking out everyone else like the people who have to work in those service industry jobs. 

 

It just didn't work in 2016. 

If Trump (or maybe Harris, who really knows how far she's willing to go on immigration) have their way, a good cohort of the working class Hispanic men will be stripped of their citizenship and deported anyway by the time the next election rolls around (surely that's where the conversation around "anchor babies" is headed), so their vote won't count in the long term 

 

For 2024, it's all a turnout game, and working class Hispanic men were sub 50% in 2020 iirc? Nationally, those abandoning the Democratic Party might be 15% or more of the total group, but you're talking a percentage of half of a minority group that's already less than 20% of the population, where another 30% of that group is under the voting age, and counted in that cohort are noncitizens, plus groups like Dominicans where the turnover doesn't seem to be particularly high, Cubans who were never Democrats, and the Puerto Ricans in Puerto Rico who can't vote. It might make a difference if they were concentrated, but the losses with Hispanic men are dispersed across the entire country, and are likely to be substituted by female suburban voters across the country.

 

The dynamics in Arizona and Nevada will be interesting to watch, but there is more room for growth in Scottsdale and Henderson than you might think (for all the population growth in both states, the demographic balance between White/Hispanic/Black/Asian voters hasn't changed all that much in either state since like 2000). 

 

In 2028/2032, the cleavage will be between those with and those without educational degrees, between men and women, and between black and non-black people. The Democrats seemingly think they'll be able to string together the college educated, female, and black votes (and probably lose a large chunk of the progressives on the way), and win. We'll have to see. 

[shelven]

4 minutes ago, Blade said:

NYT said all their FL polls average out to about +9  
 

Is it bad that I actually want them to be right because their last polls show a Kamala EC win despite the horrific trends in the Sun Belt/FL  

Yeah, I might have misread one of Nate Cohn's tweets, but at one point I think he said that NYT's Harris +4 national poll included the Florida +13 poll in it. Like they weren't two separate polls with separated samples. If that's the case, definitely a very strong poll for her EC odds.

[Blade]

1 minute ago, shelven said:

Yeah, I might have misread one of Nate Cohn's tweets, but at one point I think he said that NYT's Harris +4 national poll included the Florida +13 poll in it. Like they weren't two separate polls with separated samples. If that's the case, definitely a very strong poll for her EC odds.

Yeah I think the TX and FL polls were part of their "polls within a poll" method.