It's not what she's saying. She isn’t really saying anything. Her aides are. She doesn't seem to have moved from progressive to centrist in reality. Vague messaging and choosing one of the most progressive VP contenders available just makes it seem like she says whatever she's told to win and will revert to far left policies if elected.
Why are Trump people posting here under he guise of some swing voter? These are MAGA talking points. Please define centrist. You mean someone who is going to implement p 2025? Or Trump's extreme agenda. Is that centrist enough for you?
Where is his endorsement EVER? Harris spewed those policies with abandon in 2019. Trump NEVER attached himself to Project 2025. It is a total invention of Harris that he is attached to it.
His VP candidate wrote the foreword to the main Project 2025 architect's new book. That's disregarding the rest of the mountain of evidence that he supports most if not all of the tenets of the project.
As Rex Tillerson said, “His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”
All that leaves him highly susceptible those who ingratiate themselves and then operate policy on topics he has no ability to understand or interest in caring about. The operators of Project 2025 are highly intelligent people, even if Trump cared to stop Project 2025, which he doesn't, they'd walk all over him the second they entered the building.
There's an awful lot of gullibility on here. He doesn't have to outright endorse it. First, its composed almost entirely of loyalists from his previous administration. Second, his speeches and policies align perfectly with project 2025. He's talked about dismantling the administrative state, and replacing independent career civil service with partisan loyalists (and tried to do so in 2020). He overturned roe v wade which was a conservative wet dream since roe was instated. He wants to deregulate everything. He's in favor of book banning and other "anti woke" "policies" even though education is planned at the local level. He has been a vocal proponent of expanded presidential powers, like directing the DOJ to do as he pleases. Those are all things clearly stipulated in project 2025.
Credible? It's his prior admin officials who are heavily involved in the Heritage Foundation policies and writings. I do not want a minority of white christian men to dictate what happens in our country. PERIOD. You would really rather have a traitor who refused to acknowledge a fair election (oh - until recently - after tons of his loyal minions were convicted of federal crimes).... or who took PUTIN'S word over our own military intelligence?
We can work with Harris on policy. But you cannot ever fix Trump's maliginant narcissism. Why do 40 of his former cabinet-level officials say he is unfit for a second term? Why is that?
Ha, I love when people say anyone disagrees with them must be socialist/nazis/commies/project2025/blm sycophants…. It’s such a tiresome rhetorical tool. Just say you disagree and think centrists think x. It’s not hard.
I voted for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but sure - call me and others like me a "Trump person" for the crime of pointing out Harris' pivot to the center is extremely non-credible. O_o
Work as a family doctor at a community health center which receives federal money to take care of Medicaid and uninsured patients . My clinic will close under Trump, in a city with a huge shortage of family doctors.
Based on her history, her move to the center is the real Kamala. The move left in 2019 was fake - based on her actual history. This is why progressive Democrats didn't support her, they didn't think it was for real.
Far left policies? Like common sense gun safety legislation? Reproductive rights for women? Acceptance of climate change as a reality? Fair taxation for bilionaires and corporations? Health care generally available to humans in our country (the "non citizen" piece can be debated) THOSE far left positions? Yet Trump can claim kids come home from school with sex change operations and Dems murder infants post-birth and that's all cool? WTF? And what about all the media coverage of the Russian influence AGAIN on our social media? WHERE is THAT coverage ???
Man, the lengths you will go to to secure your right to sexualize children. The above is the most rambling, hyperbolic drivel I've yet to set my eyes on. Calm down, honey.
You know the Heritage people - the ones behind Project 2025?
As for 2019, feel free to be specific. A career prosecutor with an understanding that there are society issues that can be addressed is not the scary monster that Fox News tells you.
If you've ever heard Tim Walz speak, he's one of the rare Dems that can still resonate with Republicans and can actually get rural votes in a time of high political polarization. To be clear, it doesn't matter much since he's not top of the ticket. But it also isn't an issue that she picked him.
Believe it or not there is more to his governorship than that one particular policy?
Also news flash, all the kids were already eating lunch.
There was no epidemic of children not getting lunches at schools this fixed. Kids in shcool were all getting lunches and school districts already generally had very permissive (to the point of basically doing nothing) for non-payers.
All it really did was cut a check from taxpayers to schools, and saved the schools a little bit of administration needing to organize a system for parents to pay them the $2/day or whatever.
Rural Republican voters want someone in whom they can see themselves — someone fat, loud, and proudly ignorant. Donald Trump was made in a lab to appeal to those characteristics and as such has an iron grip on them.
That said, I believe we should take them more at their word. They say they want self-reliance and a lack of government in their lives, so I think the Biden administration should end the agricultural protectionism and all obesity-related health subsidies to rural regions.
And yet, just did some research, a big transportation bill passed the Minnesota legislature - unanimously. All Republicans supported it. I think that makes my point.
90s liberals did not support 10% blanket tariffs or appointing conservatives opposed to Roe to SCOTUS. Trump's an odd mix of leftist trade policy, standard Republican tax policy, and social conservatism. That is very much not what 90s liberals (socially center-left and fiscally moderate) supported.
I'm not sure "appointing conservatives to SCOTUS" is a policy position -- Trump's policy position on abortion is basically pro-choice at this point. Trade policy is one of those things that has always defied the left-right spectrum (see Ross Perot), but there were plenty of pro-tariff liberals in the 90s. If anything, Trump is to the left of 90s liberals on government spending and most social issues (e.g., gay marriage and tolerating legal marijuana at the state level).
"Trump is a 90s liberal" is not literally true, but it's a close enough approximation. Maybe he's more like a 90s Blue Dog Democrat.
Appointing SCOTUS justices is one of the most important manifestations of policy positions, and one of the most long-lasting and impactful actions a President takes. And his current policy is leaving it up to the states, which is not pro-choice. Tariffs are inherently leftist policy, not liberal. Liberals generally lean towards free trade. Trump is a standard conservative on government spending, don't know what you mean about him being to the left of 90s liberals on that. Gay marriage is a low salience issue that was settled by SCOTUS and has broad approval from a supermajority of Americans; the entire American population (including conservatives) have moved left on it since the 90s.
Tax policy, abortion, and immigration are key salient issues today. 90s liberals opposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations (Trump supports this), were pro-choice (since 2016, Trump has always run as pro-life with exceptions and appointed justices hand picked to overturn Roe), and were liberal on immigrations (no explanation needed here).
He's not a blue dog, he's a conservative Republican with populist stances on trade.
"Leave it up to the states" is a federalist position, not a pro-choice or pro-life position, but I'll grant you it's right of the 90s liberals. Nevertheless, his actual policy stance is that the red state bans are too strict. Tariffs have been supported (and opposed) by people across the political spectrum, from Bernie Sanders to Pat Buchanan. They're neither left nor right, they're just stupid. Trump tried to have the most fiscally conservative member of the House primaried for opposing Covid spending, and constantly promises not to touch entitlements. A Clinton-style welfare reform is totally off the table for him.
Gay marriage no longer being a salient issue is irrelevant to whether he's a 90s liberal -- we're comparing Trump's positions to those of 90s liberals, not to modern liberals. 90s liberals were not liberal on immigration in the same sense that modern liberals are, but I'll grant that Trump is a tick right on immigration. I'll agree with tax policy too, although it's unclear to me how much that matters if spending continues at its current rate.
I wouldn't consider Bernie a 90s liberal, but regardless point taken about tariffs not being super relevant here.
Trump tries to have people primaried for all sorts of personal grievances, so I don't think that tells us much. Fair point about welfare reform being off the table, I guess I was conflating tax policy and spending. He's not really a standard Republican in that sense. Though I'd still say 90s liberals favored maintaining or expanding welfare programs, so Trump simply agreeing to not touch entitlements doesn't quite put him on their level.
It’s true that Trump is not actually as conservative as most prominent non-Trumpy republicans (including the Cheneys), but there is no way in which he is a liberal, unless you think that wanting to not cut Medicare is definitive of being a liberal.
Trump isn’t particularly “conservative” - he’s a populist. I think voters saying he’s not that conservative is a fair read. There were conservatives in the primary. He beat them. The Rs have become a populist party rather than a conservative one, at least at the presidential level.
He's a populist on two issues: trade and foreign policy. On the rest, he's a standard Republican. Hence his 2017 tax cuts, appointment of conservative justices that overturned Roe, and attempts to repeal Obamacare. He definitely uses plenty of populist rhetoric but on policy he is mostly conservative.
I’d disagree - on judges, he outsourced it to the FedSoc to win support. I doubt he’d do that again. His tax ideas - no tax on tips - aren’t conservative ones. Repealing Obamacare was a slogan not a policy - he had nothing to replace it with and without an alternative there would be no repeal. And we hear nothing about those things now.
I don't see why he wouldn't do it again. He still opposes Roe and agrees with it being overturned, and that's the main relevance of SCOTUS to abortion. If he gets a vacancy, all indications are he'll appoint another conservative that maintains the post-Dobbs paradigm.
No tax on tips is a single idea to pander to Nevadans. He supports cutting taxes for wealthy and corporations, as in his 2017 tax cuts. Standard Republican on the meat of tax policy.
I do agree with you on one thing: Trump isn't a principled conservative. He mainly wants to repeal Obamacare because he hates Obama. That doesn't make his largely conservative policies any less real.
I feel like to some extent, the word "convervative" just really changed its meaning after Trump's capture of the party, as did the word "Republican". It's true that Trump is not a conventional American conservative in a lot of ways, which is kind of tied up with him just not really having enough knowledge or conviction to hold particularly strong stances on anything, and it's true that in the primary, his opponents would often try to hit him as being not conservative enough. At the same time though, his lack of understanding and appreciation for political and consitutional norms and limits make him more extreme than people who are arguably "more conservative" because there's not really any limit on what he's willing to say or attempt to do, and I think that's why those attempts to "out-conservative" him by other Republicans fell so flat.
Voters who consider themselves conservative do not think he is insufficiently conservative at all. He's not like Biden or Clinton where there's a notable faction of more fringe element of his side who are constantly rebelling against him for being too centrist or moderate. I'd expect far more will say that people like the Cheneys or Mitt Romney are the fake-conservative RINOs.
There's more than one type of populism. Sanders is a populist too. I agree that Trump isn't particularly conservative, especially if you look at his personal views over his life - they are all over the left/right spectrum. But, I think it's important to acknowledge the nuances of populism and differentiate between left-wing populism and ultra-nationalist populism.
The conclusion that I have come to is that the polls probably aren't going to matter the rest of the race. From a purely mathematical standpoint, the polls that have been coming in are all well within the margin of error. As an engineer, who's done a lot of data work, there's a tendency to want to make meaningful conclusions about the data that one sees. However, sometimes you can't do it and you have to report the honest conclusions. When you have margins of error of 3-4% typically, we have to realize that polls are blunt instruments, not fine precise tools. Polls are like trying to do surgery with your average kitchen knife. Not a great idea.
What's going to matter most at this point in time are the debate and then the GOTV operation. GOTV is what will make or break this race. If Harris can get the younger crowd off the couch to vote, then she will likely win. If not, Trump wins. The polls from this point forward are going to be too close from this point forward to be meaningful from a data standpoint. Just not precise enough.
“Ignore the polls man, vibes are good, just gotta get the young people out to vote.” You manage to fit all the talking points into one post.
Polling averages are actually extremely useful at this stage of the race. If she can get her (national) lead up to about 5 or 6 points, she could likely withstand a normal sized polling error in Trumps direction (like Biden did in 2020). But if she leads by just 1.5/2 points nationally she’s not in good shape even if there is almost no polling error (which is unlikely).
Getting young people to vote is not some vibes thing, it is the basics of a winning campaign when it is otherwise close. Trump says he doesn't need any more voters and his own campaign actually isn't going to do a GOTV effort, they are outsourcing it to an independent group that has never done it before (do a search on trump outsourcing gotv to turning point). I have done GOTV campaigns on a small scale. You can't pull them out of a hat. It requires lots of people, lots of training, and lots of data management. And most of it is packed into a few weeks of high stress work that is too late in the campaign for many polls to catch, though some might as 11/5 gets very close. It is not unreasonable to think it will add a minimum of one to two points to Harris' margin, and could be more.
Absolutely, but do you not think pollsters create an electorate sample based on who they think is going to turnout? “Getting young people to vote isn’t some cheat code to have your preferred candidate beat their polling average. Why do you think Harris has improved on Bidens margin from down 4 or 5 to up by 2? She shored up support among young voters, which is reflected in the polls. Having a good ground game and getting your unreliable voters to the polls on Election Day absolutely matters on the margins but it isn’t some “trick” that can be done to erase a polling deficit.
For sure, pollsters make estimates of who is going to turn out. However, it is a best guess. Nobody knows exactly who will turnout until Election Day. There are always surprises. That's why GOTV is so important. Polls are not divined from heaven.
A key thing is that polls and the electorate models they are based on are always going to be a bit behind in responding to changes. If indeed there is a strong finish to the Harris GOTV effort, it is reasonable that polls will underestimate her turnout on 11/4. But we should see some of it in late October. If her numbers are completely flat in late October, that might be a sign that it isn't so strong.
The last time polls in a presidential election underestimated Dem support was 2012. I’m open to the idea that polls won’t meaningfully underestimate Trump support (as was the case in 2016 and 2020) a third election in a row. But I wouldn’t count on Harris beating her poll numbers because of some mythical 23 year old woman in York, PA getting a knock on the door from a campaign volunteer.
But that's exactly what caused the Dem undercount in 2012 - an underestimation of young voter turnout. Many thought that the Obama magic would have faded after one term, but it didn't. Their models were wrong. And I am not _counting_ on anything, I am doing something.
Fair, but I also think besides the debate and GOTV, Harris needs to do more interviews to appear more transparent. With the amount of policy pivots she's had to do, she needs to be out there in the media gaining voters' trust.
Any individual poll is not precise enough. But when there are enough of them, they can tell you when things are moving up and when things are moving down, even if you can’t tell precisely where things are.
Trump's cognitive decline is getting progressively worse. Why is this not impacting his polling? We were all over Biden about his age and mental capabilities, but Trump seems to be getting a pass on this. WHY?
I'm strongly anti-Trump, but I don't notice a meaningful difference between him now vs 2020 vs 2016. He's been the same rambling, narcissistic speaker the whole time. It's crazy that anyone would vote for the man to become President, but it's no crazier this year than it was in the past. While Biden clearly was in decline compared to how he was in the 2020 campaign.
Also, in fairness, Trump's pace of rallies has slowed a bit, but he's still doing press conferences, interviews, and speaking regularly off script. Part of what (correctly) fed the perception that Biden was in decline was his refusal to do almost anything other than speeches.
The MAGA voters by enlarge are drawn to him by his cult personality. This has nothing to do with reality. Even if he was diagnosed with some mental deficiency and put in a psychiatric hospital his base would vote for him. He is basically an empty vessel giving them his victim speech, and they feel they are all victims of the government. He is not a politician anymore, but some sort of Jim Jones like leader. He doesn't really exist in reality for them.
Because most media aren’t asking the questions about his decline. This is especially true of main stream media. This looks like something that could be highlighted in the debate as Trump did to Biden in the last one.
He is still doing interviews but Harris is not doing any. He has also done a debate this election cycle. How are we to be sure that Harris has the necessary mental capabilities. Also i don't think we should discriminate based on age, race etc
I think this is because really, Trump has been fairly transparently clueless about almost everything since 2015. He's just not an intellectual person in any way, has no interest in learning about any kind of details, and is generally unconcerned about whether anything he says is true. He's always rambled and talked in totally incoherent sentences, and people just never really made that big a thing out of it. It's extremely clear whenver he's asked an even vaguely wonky question and responds without ever addressing it at all, and people just politely move on as if he said something normal instead of drilling down. I hypothesize that even his political enemies don't want to bash him as being stupid because it's stuff a lot of actual voters also don't know things about and they don't want to appear condescending.
I'm no Trump lover but he gets a pass because his mental decline just frankly isn't as noticeable as Bidens was. He is currently talking for HOURS on the podcast circuit with minor controversy, if Biden was capable of doing that he would still be in the race and probably be winning.
Bidens problem was he had a low volume of appearances and a high volume of flubs. Trump is just doing such a crazy volume of appearances right now that even if he flubs a few times people just don't notice.
> But they’re probably too credulous about Trump’s occasional attempts to shift to the center
The thing Democrats have yet to come to terms with is that *Trump was a Democrat* until shortly before getting serious about running for office. His stances are still far more left-leaning than many Republicans would like -- on abortion, protectivism, health care -- but the insane cliff that current Democrats have jumped from make Trump the only game in town. People like me who once reliably voted Libertarian have come to see doing so as madly irresponsible.
Trump is far from left-leaning on abortion, and in practice has been the deliverer of the biggest pro-life victory of the past 50 years. However, I think very few people, regardless of their stances on abortion, think he is sincerely pro-life in any way either, which is why he doesn't even hesitate to throw the pro-life stuff under the bus when he thinks its hurting him politically.
It frankly seems like something Trump just has no strong opinion on whatsoever. He could not articulate either side of the argument if he had to debate it, he'll go wherever the wind blows on it. It's a rare case where having no convictions at all seems to be a "heads I win, tails you lose" for him. Pro-life voters will generally still get behind him because they know he's still going to be surrounded by other Republicans who do care and will tell him what judges to appoint, and unlike a Democrat, he's not going to make any effort actively oppose anti-abortion legislation or expand access to abortion. But also a lot of swing voters who might be pro-abortion generally don't really tend to blame him personally for the anti-abortion wins and don't really buy that he's going to be the one pushing them.
I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. I also think Trump will just sign off on whatever anti-abortion measures come to him, because everyone who is close to him and that he likes will be assuring him that that is what is popular and strong and makes him smart. I don't even think he has much of an "actual opinion" on the matter. I don't think Trump personally has any issues with either abortions or restrictions on abortions. It's not like making a decision on this either way will tear him up inside.
I'd say it's kind of like a middle aged school teacher who has never played a video game needing to figure out what the most popular Fortnite weapon is among his class of 10 year old boys. He has no intuitive idea. He doesn't know what the hell Fortnite is, or how the game works, and has absolutely no interest in spending his free time playing it or learning about the mechanics, he just wants to get the answer that won't make the kids laugh at him as quickly as possible so he never has to think about this again.
Oh for Christ's sake, read the papers. Have you noticed the illegal immigrant count? Do you remember Harris posting bail for the BLM rioters? Is it the Republicans who are enabling child mutilation in the name of gender enlightenment? Have you read what Bragg's colleagues think of his manufactured charges?
1) Yup - way lower in the past year, and way lower from the countries that Harris was assigned to work with to address the year.
2) Never happened. Read some fact check sites about the claim.
3) Find a link.
4) Some agree with Bragg, some disagree. The jury convicted, Trump will be able to appeal. It is kind of how the system works. And Bragg DOESN'T speak for the Democratic Party.
> I’d mention: January 6, Roe, Obamacare, Project 2025, JD Vance and the words “convicted felon” — and not much else.
No I think your average voter would tune out with even this stuff. Trump won last time with worse scandals. I think she should focus on her positive policy instead of doing not Trump.
Right. Set aside one's /feelings/ about the 1/6 scare stories, “felon”, etc: how does it concretely affect anyone's day-to-day life? Voters are remarkably pragmatic and mercenary when they stand alone in that voting booth. The only item on Nate's list that clearly affects day-to-day life is Obamacare, with partial credit for Roe.
Why are we not talking about the RFK Jr endorsement of Trump? That seem to sap coverage from Harris and perhaps move some voters back in the trump column. Why wasn’t Harris reaching out to him about a possible position in an environmental or climate envoy role? I get that they don’t want to do health with him, but blowing him off seems like a major oversight to me.
Because he's a wackjob. I'm kinda old fashioned, I guess, but I don't think we should be handing out some of the most powerful positions in the world to crazy people who haul whale carcasses around on station wagons.
The fact that it's even on the table is evidence that this country is falling fast.
I think many of his stated positions are a bit whacky and not scientific but the line of attack doesn’t make sense given plenty of politicians have done far weirder things.
Worse things, maybe, which have sadly become all too expected amongst powerful people today. But I dunno, it's kinda hard to top that story in the sheer weirdness department.
Remember, it was only a little over a decade ago that Mitt Romney putting his dog in a pet carrier on top of his car was enough to sink a presidential election. The fact that RFK upped the ante with a bloated whale carcass, simultaneously drenching his children in, quote, "whale juice" whenever the car came to a stop, and is still being promised a cabinet position and may actually get it to me signals a stunning indictment of our nation. At this point, I have little faith in America as we know it being around for much longer if this garbage keeps up.
And keep in mind, that was only one story among many.
And let's be clear - you are supporting someone who wants to put tampons into little boys. You consider slicing off teenage girls' breasts one of your most important policy positions.
I support making tampons available to little boys if they were assigned female at birth, menstruating, and using the restroom appropriate to their identified social role. I also support making tampons available to little boys if their mothers can't afford menstrual supplies, because that means the child has a private place to obtain help for their parent. I thirdly support making tampons available to little boys so they can shove them in their mouths in class and pretend to be walruses, because that's hilarious. I do not support teachers forcibly inserting tampons into their students, because that would be sexual assault.
I also support following the evidence-based best practice laid out by doctors and pediatricians whose specialty is managing gender dysphoria in minors. If a child endorses transgender identity continuously for two years in talk therapy, then there's about a 98% chance that providing them gender affirming treatment will permanently resolve their gender dysphoria. Notably, there is a higher regret rate among people who have received tattoos based on a book series written by a famous transphobe than there is among people who have received gender affirming treatment.
Why am I like this? Well for one thing, I watched my best friend in elementary school go from being a bright, happy, engaged nerdling like me, to a miserable wreck who started failing Latin and smelled horrible all the time because they couldn't stand to look at their own naked body in the shower. He's now a happy single father of two open-adopted brothers, by the way. I also dated a woman who chose to run away from home at 15 and shack up with a predator so she could get access to spiro and hormones. I think she should have been able to stay home with two loving parents and get her gender affirming medications from a pharmacy and under a doctor's care, not by bumming them off a monster.
Trans people exist whether we want them to (like me) or not (like you). Some of them are children. They all have the same patients' rights as the rest of us.
Once again we devolve into the lesser of evils logic. I don't support either party. I'm tired of endless culture war nonsense dominating our national discussions. I'm deeply tired of watching this country circle the drain while being told we can't do any better. I'm tired of morality only ever seeming to apply to sexual issues anymore (and yes, this goes both ways).
Our country is hopelessly dependant on oil to the point that we regularly have to bow down to tin-pot dictators to get our fix. Our suburbs our failing because they were never sustainable. Every year we lose 30k people to gun violence, 40k people to cars, and half a million people to abortion. And any time anyone tries to fix it, simple inconvenience trumps human life every damn time. Our people are broke, they're miserable, and they're scared to death of each other. That's no way to keep a country.
So since you're the one who brought up that nonsense, and not the actual problems facing our country, I have to ask you. Why are you like this?
The rationalizations around RFK by MAGA supporters are comical. Of course when you rationalize Trump and Vance's sheer weirdness you can rationalize anything.
Liberal media has smeared him the same way they do literally everyone not supporting the neoliberal monoparty. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, and WaPo will make RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard sound like lunatics, paid off by foreign dictators, who drown puppies, but they want to give Dick Cheney a medal and a lap dance. And their brainwashed audiences buy all of it. Even though they literally tarnished Bernie Sanders the same way when he was a threat to their power, then just pretended it never happened the second he got back in line and did as he was told, they never question a word of it.
I don't think it really did that much tbh. RFK Jr wasn't polling that high when he dropped out, and most polls and focus groups indicated a large chunk of what support he did have was basically a protest vote against the two main parties, not people actually knowing a lot about him and having any kind of loyalty to him as a candidate. Endorsements in generaly just aren't that powerful anyway though, even for extremely personality-based candidates like Trump. The bigger benefit to Trump was just getting him to drop out (or whatever you call what he did), because people who leaned RFK Jr (and who won't just either not vote or pick a different 3rd party) were probably more aligned with Trump than Harris in general, so he's not siphoning as many votes as he would.
I think Harris offering him a role to drop out would have been a huge strategic blunder. Trump can get away with that kind of transparently transactional quid-pro-quo with an opponent in a way Democrats can't, and he's a far more hated character among both party elites and base voters on the Dem side than he is on the Trump side. Additionally, she would probably have just preferred to have him stay in the race to take votes from Trump.
For those starting to get disillusioned by Nate Silver, I'd highly recommend subscribing to 538 and George Morris.
In July they had Biden up in the forecast despite Trump leading in every national and state poll. They fudged their model in such a way that it was basically all fundamentals, with Biden having practically no way to dip below 50%. After an entire month of redoing all of the hard coded rigging in their model, there is no doubt that they will now not allow Harris to go below 50% either. They have your back! Interesting option!
Yeah the Shaprio thing is really just feeling like a Nate Silver personal bugbear, rather than anything substantive. Prior to the choice being made, his commentary on it was basically that looking at his own model and the historical record, VP candidates' home-state boosts are very unlikely to make a meaningful difference, particularly focusing on Shapiro. He did say it made _some_ difference, but that there were ultimately many other things to focus on when choosing a VP and the home state should only be a last-ditch tiebreaker.
Since the choice was made though, every single article or Tweet he makes reporting on bad polling for Harris ties it back to Shapiro not being the VP nominee, usually about Pennsylvania polls specifically, now about it signaling to voters everywhere that she's trying to lean more left than centrist (which I'm not sure is even true, because it's not obvious that Walz codes as more left-wing than Shapiro to a casual observer), or that Walz is the more conventional/safe choice (which again, I'm not really buying given that Shapiro was pretty ideal on paper according to conventional wisdom).
It feels like this really just comes down to Walz happening to be preferred by the left of the party, who Nate dislikes and thinks has bad political instincts, and he wants to get an "I told you so" in against them if Harris ends up losing.
This comment section is spicy, mainly because there's now a very healthy number of Trump supporters here, which there wasn't before. I'm assuming they were attracted by Nate's forecast moving towards Trump recently.
all of them pretending to be centrist and swing voters, i literally checked one of them "swing voters" self proclaim on twitter saying they have been supporting obama-hillary-biden, only moved to trump because rfk endorsement. I search his timeline and found all maga talking point for the past 4 years or so.
Hopefully lurker who read this comment section doesn't get duped easily.
Harris has a pretty centrist history, this is why progressive Democrats did not support her in the 2020 primary. If they had the choice of a progressive woman of color, you think they would not choose her? By the standards of where she came from in the Bay Area, she was probably on the right side of Democrats, which nationally would put her in the middle of Democrats. So then she took some more progressive positions in that campaign. But her actual history in office is not that lefty. And she grew up talking about being a civil rights lawyer, and ended up a prosecutor.
Trump is kind of the opposite: his history in office is more right wing that some campaign attempts to appear more moderate, though those are pretty inconsistent.
As Nate pointed out, being a black woman is just going to stereotype Harris on this aspect of the campaign. I mean, In the end some people will just never accept any proof counter to their stereotype. But lots are - consider all the Republicans openly supporting her, and I have run into them in my own town. In order to overcome this, she is going to have to motivate other voters. We know that there has been a huge surge in voter registration for young black women, latinas, and other similar groups. She is going to be depending on these groups to tilt the tide.
Harris is firmly center left in SF - the Diane Feinstein wing of the party.
She gets flack on the national scene for SF efforts like being in favor of family intervention for low grade young offenders, but the fact is she enforced the laws at the same time.
A good example of the former is her impact on SF school truancy. Keeping kids in school is a smart way for society to keep young adults out of jail, but prior truancy is not an excuse that justifies leniency on charges for real crime.
Her actual enforcement of law is what made the SF progressives unhappy - they liked the fact that Hallinan, and later Gascón and Boudin acted more like community legal ombudsmen rather than DA.
That is something I think gets kind of under-discussed when talking about her failed 2020 campaign and it coming back to bite her. The reason she flamed out before the primaries was largely because the left faction of the party just did not buy her pivot to the left. Compared to the likes of Sanders or Warren (who had more success), she just did not have the credentials to win over the left wing of the party, and they never viewed her as a sincere ally.
"I’d mention: January 6, Roe, Obamacare, Project 2025, JD Vance and the words “convicted felon” — and not much else. " I'm sure the optimal themes will vary somewhat from state to state, but here in Arizona, where an abortion access amendment will be on the ballot, I'd go primarily with Roe. Women are ticked (as are a lot of us men, but women certainly have a right to take this more personally.)
There’s something none of the polls are asking about that may be more telling (than is she too liberal or he too conservative): do you think Harris or Trump will say one thing to get elected and do something else if elected.?
The last two Democrat Presidents have consistently done the opposite on the number one thing they were elected for: Obama (you can keep your plan) Biden (the only guy who can unify the country). This trend makes Kamala’s flip flopping very doubtful.
Trump was and is consistent. When he changes direction, it’s usually for the better and convincing because he actually thought it through.
Even if you don’t agree with him you can plan around him - when the candidate throws a curve ball and you aren’t prepared that’s irredeemable.
Obama's statement about keeping your plan was honest in the context he meant it, that the law did not outlaw the plan you had. However the law motivated some insurance companies to change your plan, so in the end you couldn't keep it. It was a technical different lost in history, but not at all a lie in the sense of hiding some intent. Biden may not have truly unified the country, but far more bipartisan laws got passed in those two years than duid during Trump's first two years.
Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall. He didn't even build most of the wall, and Mexico didn't pay for any of it.
Trump said he would get rid of the carried interest tax deduction for the wealthy. That was not in his tax plan.
Trump wanted an infrastructure bill, Biden actually delivered it.
The people who had to give up their entrepreneurial pursuits and go back to corporate because they couldn’t afford to “keep their plan” (mine more than doubled), were among the 2008 Obama voters 53% who did not vote for him in 2012, down 3 points to 50%. So you may be right, but Obama lost votes by not thinking it through and those same people aren’t going to make that mistake again - 3 points are important in this close race.
Biden had a majority to pass bills, didn’t need to unify the country. But we don’t know yet how many would have voted for Trump (and will now) if they thought he promised to be in the center but veered left. Is that the same 3 points?
No question that Trump struggled to win his owns party’s support for more populist policies and had very bad press relations and couldn’t deliver them.
Both Trump and Harris claim they will fix the economy and address immigration. Past performance suggests Trump is more competent at both and he seems to have won more consensus with Republicans to get things done.
Harris economic policies don’t make sense from a business perspective. Promising tax deductions that already exist to start-ups and taxing the same (cash poor) start-up businesses for unrealized capital gains isn’t thinking this through.
What’s more many states (eg FL) have the abortion rights amendment on the November ballot so voting for that may make for fewer “one issue” Harris voters.
Honestly, Biden should have picked a VP with more experience to take over for him. Harris would’ve been a better Supreme Court pick because she has both AG and legislative experience. But Trump should’ve picked Haley for VP and called a truce with the rest of the Republicans. They all could be making better strategic decisions.
Well I know people who got the freedom to pursue entrepreneurial pursuits because Obamacare let them get off a big corporate plan that chained them to corporate health insurance. I personally know two people who were able to quit dead end jobs with decent health insurance because now they could afford to start their own business and get their own insurance on the exchange.
Past performance does not support Trump on the economy at all. He was handed a strong economy and left with one that cratered. He even blew up the deficit before pandemic spending started. Biden got us back to full employment far faster than economists expected, and with inflation lower than any other advanced economy. I know he isn't getting credit for that, but it is what the stats show. And on the border, illegal crossings are now down to where they were at the end of Trump's term, and that was during the pandemic.
The fees are based on income (it’s like a tax on anyone who makes money to benefit those who don’t). if you make more than anticipated you pay the difference plus a penalty. If you make the kind of money you’d make in corporate world you’d pay a lot more for healthcare than you would have if you stayed in the corporate world. NET the only way to benefit from ACA is to not make money. If you don’t make money you aren’t paying taxes so there is no benefit from a startup tax deduction. It all sounds nice, but it isn’t. I ran an office space for entrepreneurs and the ACA healthcare insurance cost was the biggest cost.
As far as bad economy under Trump, I’m confused, before Covid, during Trumps presidency:
1)The unemployment rate fell from 4.7% shortly after Trump’s election to 3.5% by the end of 2019, below Federal Reserve expectations of about 4.5%.
2) During the expansion under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, gross domestic product grew at an average annual rate of 2.25%. It picked up to a 2.5% rate over Trump’s first three years in office, according to Commerce Department figures.
3) During Trump’s first three years in office, median household incomes grew, inequality diminished, and the poverty rate among Black people fell below 20% for the first time in post-World War II records. The unemployment rate among Black people went under 6% for the first time in records going back to 1972.
We all realize Covid threw all of that into chaos and Biden had a lot to deal with. But 20% inflation from 2019 has changed a lot of lives. Hard to feel good about that.
Right, ACA costs were high for higher incomes until that was fixed with a more reasonable subsidy system. But millions who had no insurance got it, and many more had the freedom to not be stuck with a job they didn't want. Obamacare would not have been my first choice for fixing the health care insurance system, but it was better than what we had before it.
Unemployment was 4.2% in Mar 2020 - and Jan 2020. The 3.5% rate in Feb appears like a fluke. Basically Trump was handed a decent economy and Republican efforts to implement austerity in Obama's later years were dropped and they had a huge tax cut and it improved the economy a little bit more.
I prefer the economy we had under Biden to the one available in other advanced economies. I also prefer it to the very slow recovery under Obama. Everybody across the political spectrum complained about that, so Democrats pushed a faster recovery this time. If you are going to give Trump a pass on the pandemic recession, then Biden deserves the same for the inflation that followed. And we are close to having defeated that inflation without another recession. In any case, better to have a job and expensive eggs than no job and cheap eggs.
Interesting. Trump seems to talk extreme and play more moderate; the Dems you mention talk moderate and play more extreme.
Interesting dynamic to consider, although Trump has more than his share of extreme outliers (mostly related to the 2020 election) that really put that to the test.
If you look at it a different way: Trump talks right-wing but plays further left in the center; Democrats talk center but play further left on the left-wing. They're all doing the same thing: being further left in action than in rhetoric.
Harris is just a bad candidate. She's bad at politics, and always has been. The fact that she was better than Biden (who couldn't articulate anything) and has a lot of progressive talking points that journalists at the NYT like caused a brief sugar high over the last two months and now (similar to 2019) she is suffering the same comedown when people realize that she really is an extreme partisan who is poor at articulating her position.
I was considering voting for Harris until she put Walz on the ticket.
He strikes me as a Dem version of Sarah Palin--a patronizing, condescending attempt to grab a demo. He actually makes Harris look more moderate, which is scary.
Running almost a million votes behind the top of the ticket as a Democrat in sapphire blue California isn't exactly an endorsement of her political skills.
Running against the Republican DA for LA county, you mean. In California. She also ran hundreds of thousands of votes behind every other Democrat on the ticket, including vote totals for Federal House and state house Democratic candidates.
She got really close to not even making it into state politics in a year when Democrats cleaned up in California.
It's not what she's saying. She isn’t really saying anything. Her aides are. She doesn't seem to have moved from progressive to centrist in reality. Vague messaging and choosing one of the most progressive VP contenders available just makes it seem like she says whatever she's told to win and will revert to far left policies if elected.
100% agree
Why are Trump people posting here under he guise of some swing voter? These are MAGA talking points. Please define centrist. You mean someone who is going to implement p 2025? Or Trump's extreme agenda. Is that centrist enough for you?
Trump has denounced project 2025 multiple times. You don't have to believe him, but its about as credible as Harris's move to the center.
There's not a soul on planet Earth's whose "denouncement" of a topic has less credibility than Donald Trump's.
Where is his endorsement EVER? Harris spewed those policies with abandon in 2019. Trump NEVER attached himself to Project 2025. It is a total invention of Harris that he is attached to it.
His VP candidate wrote the foreword to the main Project 2025 architect's new book. That's disregarding the rest of the mountain of evidence that he supports most if not all of the tenets of the project.
As Rex Tillerson said, “His understanding of global events, his understanding of global history, his understanding of U.S. history was really limited. It’s really hard to have a conversation with someone who doesn’t even understand the concept for why we’re talking about this.”
All that leaves him highly susceptible those who ingratiate themselves and then operate policy on topics he has no ability to understand or interest in caring about. The operators of Project 2025 are highly intelligent people, even if Trump cared to stop Project 2025, which he doesn't, they'd walk all over him the second they entered the building.
There's an awful lot of gullibility on here. He doesn't have to outright endorse it. First, its composed almost entirely of loyalists from his previous administration. Second, his speeches and policies align perfectly with project 2025. He's talked about dismantling the administrative state, and replacing independent career civil service with partisan loyalists (and tried to do so in 2020). He overturned roe v wade which was a conservative wet dream since roe was instated. He wants to deregulate everything. He's in favor of book banning and other "anti woke" "policies" even though education is planned at the local level. He has been a vocal proponent of expanded presidential powers, like directing the DOJ to do as he pleases. Those are all things clearly stipulated in project 2025.
https://www.salon.com/2024/07/11/our-movement-in-resurfaced-speech-endorses-heritage-foundations-project-2025/
Credible? It's his prior admin officials who are heavily involved in the Heritage Foundation policies and writings. I do not want a minority of white christian men to dictate what happens in our country. PERIOD. You would really rather have a traitor who refused to acknowledge a fair election (oh - until recently - after tons of his loyal minions were convicted of federal crimes).... or who took PUTIN'S word over our own military intelligence?
We can work with Harris on policy. But you cannot ever fix Trump's maliginant narcissism. Why do 40 of his former cabinet-level officials say he is unfit for a second term? Why is that?
"I do not want a minority of white christian men to dictate what happens in our country."
Understood. But Team Red doesn't want a minority of white Feminist cat ladies to dictate what happens in our country.
The cat ladies might be your aunty or mother, but not as uninformed as you.
She's already pledged to hire a republican for a top post in her administration. Something that would never happen on the right.
Are only Democrats permitted to comment?
That’s not the issue raised, it’s the dishonesty.
Right?
Ha, I love when people say anyone disagrees with them must be socialist/nazis/commies/project2025/blm sycophants…. It’s such a tiresome rhetorical tool. Just say you disagree and think centrists think x. It’s not hard.
Who wants "Centrist? The situation is desperate. The country needs radical change!
1) Stop funding, End the Ukraine War
2) " " the Israel War
3) Comprehensive Audit of the Government (a la Elon Musk). "Zero-based budgeting" would be nice.
If you think that's desperate... bot.
ROTFLMAO
balance the budget to end money printing and inflation. $1T a year on INTEREST to the national debt
😂
I voted for Clinton in 2016 and Biden in 2020, but sure - call me and others like me a "Trump person" for the crime of pointing out Harris' pivot to the center is extremely non-credible. O_o
Why are Israelis posting here under the guise of Americans?
It’s awful for the economy. Would cut millions of jobs dependent on the federal government budget, including mine.
It would make it much harder for women to access birth control and abortions.
Work as a family doctor at a community health center which receives federal money to take care of Medicaid and uninsured patients . My clinic will close under Trump, in a city with a huge shortage of family doctors.
Its small government and anti-woke.
Troll bot, ignore.
As Nate pointed out, she aggressively moved to the center at the convention.
You mean she aggressively LIED about moving to the center at the convention, right? That's what politicians do, lie.
Based on her history, her move to the center is the real Kamala. The move left in 2019 was fake - based on her actual history. This is why progressive Democrats didn't support her, they didn't think it was for real.
Here you go. You decide how trustworthy she is...
https://substack.com/home/post/p-148582201
You really believe that??!?!? I guess her problem is that NOBODY believe wat she says is for real, then.
Like Trump right
Trump is a politician now? ;)
Far left policies? Like common sense gun safety legislation? Reproductive rights for women? Acceptance of climate change as a reality? Fair taxation for bilionaires and corporations? Health care generally available to humans in our country (the "non citizen" piece can be debated) THOSE far left positions? Yet Trump can claim kids come home from school with sex change operations and Dems murder infants post-birth and that's all cool? WTF? And what about all the media coverage of the Russian influence AGAIN on our social media? WHERE is THAT coverage ???
Man, the lengths you will go to to secure your right to sexualize children. The above is the most rambling, hyperbolic drivel I've yet to set my eyes on. Calm down, honey.
Go on Tinder. Get a date. Something.
projection. Talk to your local sherriff and confess, please.
Snooze, look at this bot.
Oh come on, it's just hyperbole for Trump. None of his lies count. None of his crimes count. None of his history counts. :(
“Most progressive” among six relatively moderate democrats.
Harris isn't a progressive, except to people who think all Democrats are progressive.
She was literally the most progressive senator a handful of years ago and ran on the left in the 2019 primary.
Nope.
https://heritageaction.com/scorecard/members/H001075/116
Lifetime score 4% vs average Dem at 3%.
You know the Heritage people - the ones behind Project 2025?
As for 2019, feel free to be specific. A career prosecutor with an understanding that there are society issues that can be addressed is not the scary monster that Fox News tells you.
A San Francisco prosecutor, lol.
Lol back at you.
Are these content free weak tea zingers really the limit of your skills?
Again, I don't live in an open sewer like you do.
This is what Bernie Sanders said on Meet the Press 9/8/2024: as progressive as ever, but “pragmatically” saying whatever it takes to get elected.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/bernie-sanders-considers-harris-progressive-policy-changes-pragmatic-rcna170102
Literally no Democratic politicians are advocating for far left policies, ever.
Excuse me, she's a Black woman, she doesn't owe you anything. Frankly, we better be glad she even wants to run.
If you've ever heard Tim Walz speak, he's one of the rare Dems that can still resonate with Republicans and can actually get rural votes in a time of high political polarization. To be clear, it doesn't matter much since he's not top of the ticket. But it also isn't an issue that she picked him.
Tim Walz won no rural counties in his Minnesota reelection. Not sure what rural voters you are talking about.
He’s talking about the rural voters he’s concocted in his head that he wishes were the norm.
Walz appeals to progressives—that’s it.
He represented a rural red district in Congress for multiple terms, having defeated a Republican incumbent to get there.
And then proceeded as governor to govern as governor of the metro area. He has won absolutely zero friends in rural areas as governor.
Rural folks don't want kids to eat at lunch?
Believe it or not there is more to his governorship than that one particular policy?
Also news flash, all the kids were already eating lunch.
There was no epidemic of children not getting lunches at schools this fixed. Kids in shcool were all getting lunches and school districts already generally had very permissive (to the point of basically doing nothing) for non-payers.
All it really did was cut a check from taxpayers to schools, and saved the schools a little bit of administration needing to organize a system for parents to pay them the $2/day or whatever.
Rural Republican voters want someone in whom they can see themselves — someone fat, loud, and proudly ignorant. Donald Trump was made in a lab to appeal to those characteristics and as such has an iron grip on them.
That said, I believe we should take them more at their word. They say they want self-reliance and a lack of government in their lives, so I think the Biden administration should end the agricultural protectionism and all obesity-related health subsidies to rural regions.
And yet, just did some research, a big transportation bill passed the Minnesota legislature - unanimously. All Republicans supported it. I think that makes my point.
I feel like you try to check your Anti-Trump bias at the door, but it seeps through so obviously haha
Trump is not radically conservative. He’s more 90s Liberal - the Dems have moved so far left while he’s stayed put
Keep up the good analytical work, though
90s liberals did not support overturning roe v wade or trying to end the peaceful transfer of power to stay president.
Nor did 90s liberals support Russia in crushing smaller nations that are friendly to the west.
There's nothing liberal about maga
90s liberals did not support 10% blanket tariffs or appointing conservatives opposed to Roe to SCOTUS. Trump's an odd mix of leftist trade policy, standard Republican tax policy, and social conservatism. That is very much not what 90s liberals (socially center-left and fiscally moderate) supported.
I'm not sure "appointing conservatives to SCOTUS" is a policy position -- Trump's policy position on abortion is basically pro-choice at this point. Trade policy is one of those things that has always defied the left-right spectrum (see Ross Perot), but there were plenty of pro-tariff liberals in the 90s. If anything, Trump is to the left of 90s liberals on government spending and most social issues (e.g., gay marriage and tolerating legal marijuana at the state level).
"Trump is a 90s liberal" is not literally true, but it's a close enough approximation. Maybe he's more like a 90s Blue Dog Democrat.
Appointing SCOTUS justices is one of the most important manifestations of policy positions, and one of the most long-lasting and impactful actions a President takes. And his current policy is leaving it up to the states, which is not pro-choice. Tariffs are inherently leftist policy, not liberal. Liberals generally lean towards free trade. Trump is a standard conservative on government spending, don't know what you mean about him being to the left of 90s liberals on that. Gay marriage is a low salience issue that was settled by SCOTUS and has broad approval from a supermajority of Americans; the entire American population (including conservatives) have moved left on it since the 90s.
Tax policy, abortion, and immigration are key salient issues today. 90s liberals opposed tax cuts for the rich and corporations (Trump supports this), were pro-choice (since 2016, Trump has always run as pro-life with exceptions and appointed justices hand picked to overturn Roe), and were liberal on immigrations (no explanation needed here).
He's not a blue dog, he's a conservative Republican with populist stances on trade.
"Leave it up to the states" is a federalist position, not a pro-choice or pro-life position, but I'll grant you it's right of the 90s liberals. Nevertheless, his actual policy stance is that the red state bans are too strict. Tariffs have been supported (and opposed) by people across the political spectrum, from Bernie Sanders to Pat Buchanan. They're neither left nor right, they're just stupid. Trump tried to have the most fiscally conservative member of the House primaried for opposing Covid spending, and constantly promises not to touch entitlements. A Clinton-style welfare reform is totally off the table for him.
Gay marriage no longer being a salient issue is irrelevant to whether he's a 90s liberal -- we're comparing Trump's positions to those of 90s liberals, not to modern liberals. 90s liberals were not liberal on immigration in the same sense that modern liberals are, but I'll grant that Trump is a tick right on immigration. I'll agree with tax policy too, although it's unclear to me how much that matters if spending continues at its current rate.
That's a fair summary on abortion.
I wouldn't consider Bernie a 90s liberal, but regardless point taken about tariffs not being super relevant here.
Trump tries to have people primaried for all sorts of personal grievances, so I don't think that tells us much. Fair point about welfare reform being off the table, I guess I was conflating tax policy and spending. He's not really a standard Republican in that sense. Though I'd still say 90s liberals favored maintaining or expanding welfare programs, so Trump simply agreeing to not touch entitlements doesn't quite put him on their level.
Who you appoint is policy. He appointed people that overturned roe. That's his policy.
It’s true that Trump is not actually as conservative as most prominent non-Trumpy republicans (including the Cheneys), but there is no way in which he is a liberal, unless you think that wanting to not cut Medicare is definitive of being a liberal.
Mass surveillance is the left/right consensus at this point, as is the full funding of the war machine. Watch what they do, not what they say.
You'd be a fool to support any additional gun control at this point.
Trump isn’t particularly “conservative” - he’s a populist. I think voters saying he’s not that conservative is a fair read. There were conservatives in the primary. He beat them. The Rs have become a populist party rather than a conservative one, at least at the presidential level.
He's a populist on two issues: trade and foreign policy. On the rest, he's a standard Republican. Hence his 2017 tax cuts, appointment of conservative justices that overturned Roe, and attempts to repeal Obamacare. He definitely uses plenty of populist rhetoric but on policy he is mostly conservative.
I’d disagree - on judges, he outsourced it to the FedSoc to win support. I doubt he’d do that again. His tax ideas - no tax on tips - aren’t conservative ones. Repealing Obamacare was a slogan not a policy - he had nothing to replace it with and without an alternative there would be no repeal. And we hear nothing about those things now.
I don't see why he wouldn't do it again. He still opposes Roe and agrees with it being overturned, and that's the main relevance of SCOTUS to abortion. If he gets a vacancy, all indications are he'll appoint another conservative that maintains the post-Dobbs paradigm.
No tax on tips is a single idea to pander to Nevadans. He supports cutting taxes for wealthy and corporations, as in his 2017 tax cuts. Standard Republican on the meat of tax policy.
Repealing Obamacare is not just a slogan, as seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act#2017_repeal_effort
We hear little about repealing Obamacare because repealing it is unpopular and we're in the middle of campaign season, not because he doesn't still want to repeal it. He talked about wanting to repeal it earlier this year: https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/07/politics/obamacare-health-insurance-ending-trump/index.html.
I do agree with you on one thing: Trump isn't a principled conservative. He mainly wants to repeal Obamacare because he hates Obama. That doesn't make his largely conservative policies any less real.
“Repealing Obamacare was a slogan not a policy - he had nothing to replace it with and without an alternative there would be no repeal. “
Or there’d just be nothing to replace it with after the repeal
I feel like to some extent, the word "convervative" just really changed its meaning after Trump's capture of the party, as did the word "Republican". It's true that Trump is not a conventional American conservative in a lot of ways, which is kind of tied up with him just not really having enough knowledge or conviction to hold particularly strong stances on anything, and it's true that in the primary, his opponents would often try to hit him as being not conservative enough. At the same time though, his lack of understanding and appreciation for political and consitutional norms and limits make him more extreme than people who are arguably "more conservative" because there's not really any limit on what he's willing to say or attempt to do, and I think that's why those attempts to "out-conservative" him by other Republicans fell so flat.
Voters who consider themselves conservative do not think he is insufficiently conservative at all. He's not like Biden or Clinton where there's a notable faction of more fringe element of his side who are constantly rebelling against him for being too centrist or moderate. I'd expect far more will say that people like the Cheneys or Mitt Romney are the fake-conservative RINOs.
There's more than one type of populism. Sanders is a populist too. I agree that Trump isn't particularly conservative, especially if you look at his personal views over his life - they are all over the left/right spectrum. But, I think it's important to acknowledge the nuances of populism and differentiate between left-wing populism and ultra-nationalist populism.
The conclusion that I have come to is that the polls probably aren't going to matter the rest of the race. From a purely mathematical standpoint, the polls that have been coming in are all well within the margin of error. As an engineer, who's done a lot of data work, there's a tendency to want to make meaningful conclusions about the data that one sees. However, sometimes you can't do it and you have to report the honest conclusions. When you have margins of error of 3-4% typically, we have to realize that polls are blunt instruments, not fine precise tools. Polls are like trying to do surgery with your average kitchen knife. Not a great idea.
What's going to matter most at this point in time are the debate and then the GOTV operation. GOTV is what will make or break this race. If Harris can get the younger crowd off the couch to vote, then she will likely win. If not, Trump wins. The polls from this point forward are going to be too close from this point forward to be meaningful from a data standpoint. Just not precise enough.
“Ignore the polls man, vibes are good, just gotta get the young people out to vote.” You manage to fit all the talking points into one post.
Polling averages are actually extremely useful at this stage of the race. If she can get her (national) lead up to about 5 or 6 points, she could likely withstand a normal sized polling error in Trumps direction (like Biden did in 2020). But if she leads by just 1.5/2 points nationally she’s not in good shape even if there is almost no polling error (which is unlikely).
Getting young people to vote is not some vibes thing, it is the basics of a winning campaign when it is otherwise close. Trump says he doesn't need any more voters and his own campaign actually isn't going to do a GOTV effort, they are outsourcing it to an independent group that has never done it before (do a search on trump outsourcing gotv to turning point). I have done GOTV campaigns on a small scale. You can't pull them out of a hat. It requires lots of people, lots of training, and lots of data management. And most of it is packed into a few weeks of high stress work that is too late in the campaign for many polls to catch, though some might as 11/5 gets very close. It is not unreasonable to think it will add a minimum of one to two points to Harris' margin, and could be more.
I totally agree with everything you said. Well written!
Absolutely, but do you not think pollsters create an electorate sample based on who they think is going to turnout? “Getting young people to vote isn’t some cheat code to have your preferred candidate beat their polling average. Why do you think Harris has improved on Bidens margin from down 4 or 5 to up by 2? She shored up support among young voters, which is reflected in the polls. Having a good ground game and getting your unreliable voters to the polls on Election Day absolutely matters on the margins but it isn’t some “trick” that can be done to erase a polling deficit.
For sure, pollsters make estimates of who is going to turn out. However, it is a best guess. Nobody knows exactly who will turnout until Election Day. There are always surprises. That's why GOTV is so important. Polls are not divined from heaven.
A key thing is that polls and the electorate models they are based on are always going to be a bit behind in responding to changes. If indeed there is a strong finish to the Harris GOTV effort, it is reasonable that polls will underestimate her turnout on 11/4. But we should see some of it in late October. If her numbers are completely flat in late October, that might be a sign that it isn't so strong.
The last time polls in a presidential election underestimated Dem support was 2012. I’m open to the idea that polls won’t meaningfully underestimate Trump support (as was the case in 2016 and 2020) a third election in a row. But I wouldn’t count on Harris beating her poll numbers because of some mythical 23 year old woman in York, PA getting a knock on the door from a campaign volunteer.
But that's exactly what caused the Dem undercount in 2012 - an underestimation of young voter turnout. Many thought that the Obama magic would have faded after one term, but it didn't. Their models were wrong. And I am not _counting_ on anything, I am doing something.
Are you saying that you think knocking on doors doesn't work, or that it does (or can) work but that polls catch it accurately?
Fair, but I also think besides the debate and GOTV, Harris needs to do more interviews to appear more transparent. With the amount of policy pivots she's had to do, she needs to be out there in the media gaining voters' trust.
Any individual poll is not precise enough. But when there are enough of them, they can tell you when things are moving up and when things are moving down, even if you can’t tell precisely where things are.
Trump's cognitive decline is getting progressively worse. Why is this not impacting his polling? We were all over Biden about his age and mental capabilities, but Trump seems to be getting a pass on this. WHY?
I'm strongly anti-Trump, but I don't notice a meaningful difference between him now vs 2020 vs 2016. He's been the same rambling, narcissistic speaker the whole time. It's crazy that anyone would vote for the man to become President, but it's no crazier this year than it was in the past. While Biden clearly was in decline compared to how he was in the 2020 campaign.
Also, in fairness, Trump's pace of rallies has slowed a bit, but he's still doing press conferences, interviews, and speaking regularly off script. Part of what (correctly) fed the perception that Biden was in decline was his refusal to do almost anything other than speeches.
The MAGA voters by enlarge are drawn to him by his cult personality. This has nothing to do with reality. Even if he was diagnosed with some mental deficiency and put in a psychiatric hospital his base would vote for him. He is basically an empty vessel giving them his victim speech, and they feel they are all victims of the government. He is not a politician anymore, but some sort of Jim Jones like leader. He doesn't really exist in reality for them.
>by enlarge
Hahahahaha. Imagine being so smug while mastering the English language so poorly.
Because most media aren’t asking the questions about his decline. This is especially true of main stream media. This looks like something that could be highlighted in the debate as Trump did to Biden in the last one.
Trumps always rambled and said stupid things. That’s just who he is. Even if now it’s because of decline.
Because Republicans are held to a much different standard than Democrats.
He is still doing interviews but Harris is not doing any. He has also done a debate this election cycle. How are we to be sure that Harris has the necessary mental capabilities. Also i don't think we should discriminate based on age, race etc
Trump had a "press conference" yesterday where he didn't take any questions.
Harris has done several interviews, including on national news level with CNN.
As for the debate, go back and watch Trump's portions. If you think that shows Presidential mental capabilities you have a very low bar.
Are these 'several interviews' in the room with us right now?
Try Google or Bing.
You can at least pretend to know something then.
Aww, got caught lying again, did ya'.
Search works for me. Too bad you don't understand how to do one.
Because a significant portion of his base are cultists. It is what it is. Facts don't matter, we live in an upside down world.
I agree. Significant portion of Harris's bass are in a cult.
I think this is because really, Trump has been fairly transparently clueless about almost everything since 2015. He's just not an intellectual person in any way, has no interest in learning about any kind of details, and is generally unconcerned about whether anything he says is true. He's always rambled and talked in totally incoherent sentences, and people just never really made that big a thing out of it. It's extremely clear whenver he's asked an even vaguely wonky question and responds without ever addressing it at all, and people just politely move on as if he said something normal instead of drilling down. I hypothesize that even his political enemies don't want to bash him as being stupid because it's stuff a lot of actual voters also don't know things about and they don't want to appear condescending.
I suppose they think that, like his lying, it just doesn't matter. Hyperbole or something.
I'm no Trump lover but he gets a pass because his mental decline just frankly isn't as noticeable as Bidens was. He is currently talking for HOURS on the podcast circuit with minor controversy, if Biden was capable of doing that he would still be in the race and probably be winning.
Bidens problem was he had a low volume of appearances and a high volume of flubs. Trump is just doing such a crazy volume of appearances right now that even if he flubs a few times people just don't notice.
It seems hypocritical for the media to bring this up. Geez.
Excellent punditry and analysis.
Ignore your left wing readers who refuse to live in reality.
> But they’re probably too credulous about Trump’s occasional attempts to shift to the center
The thing Democrats have yet to come to terms with is that *Trump was a Democrat* until shortly before getting serious about running for office. His stances are still far more left-leaning than many Republicans would like -- on abortion, protectivism, health care -- but the insane cliff that current Democrats have jumped from make Trump the only game in town. People like me who once reliably voted Libertarian have come to see doing so as madly irresponsible.
Trump is left leaning on abortion? Have you looked at actual polling data (eg. from Pew, etc) about what self identified Republicans actually think?
On healthcare, he tried to kill Obamacare. Seems "centrist" in the Republican party. Sure Trump said he had a better plan, but he never presented it.
What are the "insane" positions the Dems have taken that bother you the most?
Besides anti-Semitism, open borders, kangaroo courts, and child mutilation, I’d have say the stagflation bothers me the most.
So Fox News fiction bothers you.
That makes sense.
I suppose you are firmly against electing vampires also.
Why did trump invite Kanye west to dinner after he said he’d go deathcon on Jews?
I don’t know. I guess you think you do.
Because Trump and his campaign court actual anti-Semites.
Hence why Vance is still palling around Carlson
Trump is far from left-leaning on abortion, and in practice has been the deliverer of the biggest pro-life victory of the past 50 years. However, I think very few people, regardless of their stances on abortion, think he is sincerely pro-life in any way either, which is why he doesn't even hesitate to throw the pro-life stuff under the bus when he thinks its hurting him politically.
It frankly seems like something Trump just has no strong opinion on whatsoever. He could not articulate either side of the argument if he had to debate it, he'll go wherever the wind blows on it. It's a rare case where having no convictions at all seems to be a "heads I win, tails you lose" for him. Pro-life voters will generally still get behind him because they know he's still going to be surrounded by other Republicans who do care and will tell him what judges to appoint, and unlike a Democrat, he's not going to make any effort actively oppose anti-abortion legislation or expand access to abortion. But also a lot of swing voters who might be pro-abortion generally don't really tend to blame him personally for the anti-abortion wins and don't really buy that he's going to be the one pushing them.
I tend to agree with your analysis, but am not on board with your forecast.
It is true that as a lame duck he could revert to his actual opinion, but I doubt he will.
He wants a place in the history books, and is only being wishy-washy to attract voters.
He will be surrounded by radical pro lifers and probably have them owning both houses.
He doesn't care so he will proceed as the limp noodle he actually is.
I think you may have misinterpreted what I was saying. I also think Trump will just sign off on whatever anti-abortion measures come to him, because everyone who is close to him and that he likes will be assuring him that that is what is popular and strong and makes him smart. I don't even think he has much of an "actual opinion" on the matter. I don't think Trump personally has any issues with either abortions or restrictions on abortions. It's not like making a decision on this either way will tear him up inside.
I'd say it's kind of like a middle aged school teacher who has never played a video game needing to figure out what the most popular Fortnite weapon is among his class of 10 year old boys. He has no intuitive idea. He doesn't know what the hell Fortnite is, or how the game works, and has absolutely no interest in spending his free time playing it or learning about the mechanics, he just wants to get the answer that won't make the kids laugh at him as quickly as possible so he never has to think about this again.
You sound like an actual Libertarian.
Doctor Missed sounds like a sock puppet, given his list of lies that he thinks the Democratic party has advocated.
They are still careful not to advocate most of them explicitly. But judge them by their actions.
Sure. Provide some evidence of these actions.
Oh for Christ's sake, read the papers. Have you noticed the illegal immigrant count? Do you remember Harris posting bail for the BLM rioters? Is it the Republicans who are enabling child mutilation in the name of gender enlightenment? Have you read what Bragg's colleagues think of his manufactured charges?
1) Yup - way lower in the past year, and way lower from the countries that Harris was assigned to work with to address the year.
2) Never happened. Read some fact check sites about the claim.
3) Find a link.
4) Some agree with Bragg, some disagree. The jury convicted, Trump will be able to appeal. It is kind of how the system works. And Bragg DOESN'T speak for the Democratic Party.
> I’d mention: January 6, Roe, Obamacare, Project 2025, JD Vance and the words “convicted felon” — and not much else.
No I think your average voter would tune out with even this stuff. Trump won last time with worse scandals. I think she should focus on her positive policy instead of doing not Trump.
Right. Set aside one's /feelings/ about the 1/6 scare stories, “felon”, etc: how does it concretely affect anyone's day-to-day life? Voters are remarkably pragmatic and mercenary when they stand alone in that voting booth. The only item on Nate's list that clearly affects day-to-day life is Obamacare, with partial credit for Roe.
Why are we not talking about the RFK Jr endorsement of Trump? That seem to sap coverage from Harris and perhaps move some voters back in the trump column. Why wasn’t Harris reaching out to him about a possible position in an environmental or climate envoy role? I get that they don’t want to do health with him, but blowing him off seems like a major oversight to me.
Because he's a wackjob. I'm kinda old fashioned, I guess, but I don't think we should be handing out some of the most powerful positions in the world to crazy people who haul whale carcasses around on station wagons.
The fact that it's even on the table is evidence that this country is falling fast.
I think many of his stated positions are a bit whacky and not scientific but the line of attack doesn’t make sense given plenty of politicians have done far weirder things.
Worse things, maybe, which have sadly become all too expected amongst powerful people today. But I dunno, it's kinda hard to top that story in the sheer weirdness department.
Remember, it was only a little over a decade ago that Mitt Romney putting his dog in a pet carrier on top of his car was enough to sink a presidential election. The fact that RFK upped the ante with a bloated whale carcass, simultaneously drenching his children in, quote, "whale juice" whenever the car came to a stop, and is still being promised a cabinet position and may actually get it to me signals a stunning indictment of our nation. At this point, I have little faith in America as we know it being around for much longer if this garbage keeps up.
And keep in mind, that was only one story among many.
And let's be clear - you are supporting someone who wants to put tampons into little boys. You consider slicing off teenage girls' breasts one of your most important policy positions.
Why are you like this?
I support making tampons available to little boys if they were assigned female at birth, menstruating, and using the restroom appropriate to their identified social role. I also support making tampons available to little boys if their mothers can't afford menstrual supplies, because that means the child has a private place to obtain help for their parent. I thirdly support making tampons available to little boys so they can shove them in their mouths in class and pretend to be walruses, because that's hilarious. I do not support teachers forcibly inserting tampons into their students, because that would be sexual assault.
I also support following the evidence-based best practice laid out by doctors and pediatricians whose specialty is managing gender dysphoria in minors. If a child endorses transgender identity continuously for two years in talk therapy, then there's about a 98% chance that providing them gender affirming treatment will permanently resolve their gender dysphoria. Notably, there is a higher regret rate among people who have received tattoos based on a book series written by a famous transphobe than there is among people who have received gender affirming treatment.
Why am I like this? Well for one thing, I watched my best friend in elementary school go from being a bright, happy, engaged nerdling like me, to a miserable wreck who started failing Latin and smelled horrible all the time because they couldn't stand to look at their own naked body in the shower. He's now a happy single father of two open-adopted brothers, by the way. I also dated a woman who chose to run away from home at 15 and shack up with a predator so she could get access to spiro and hormones. I think she should have been able to stay home with two loving parents and get her gender affirming medications from a pharmacy and under a doctor's care, not by bumming them off a monster.
Trans people exist whether we want them to (like me) or not (like you). Some of them are children. They all have the same patients' rights as the rest of us.
Once again we devolve into the lesser of evils logic. I don't support either party. I'm tired of endless culture war nonsense dominating our national discussions. I'm deeply tired of watching this country circle the drain while being told we can't do any better. I'm tired of morality only ever seeming to apply to sexual issues anymore (and yes, this goes both ways).
Our country is hopelessly dependant on oil to the point that we regularly have to bow down to tin-pot dictators to get our fix. Our suburbs our failing because they were never sustainable. Every year we lose 30k people to gun violence, 40k people to cars, and half a million people to abortion. And any time anyone tries to fix it, simple inconvenience trumps human life every damn time. Our people are broke, they're miserable, and they're scared to death of each other. That's no way to keep a country.
So since you're the one who brought up that nonsense, and not the actual problems facing our country, I have to ask you. Why are you like this?
Ah, you just discovered urban planning youtube. How very original of you.
The rationalizations around RFK by MAGA supporters are comical. Of course when you rationalize Trump and Vance's sheer weirdness you can rationalize anything.
Liberal media has smeared him the same way they do literally everyone not supporting the neoliberal monoparty. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, and WaPo will make RFK Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard sound like lunatics, paid off by foreign dictators, who drown puppies, but they want to give Dick Cheney a medal and a lap dance. And their brainwashed audiences buy all of it. Even though they literally tarnished Bernie Sanders the same way when he was a threat to their power, then just pretended it never happened the second he got back in line and did as he was told, they never question a word of it.
The same "liberal" media that ran 3 article a day each about why Biden should drop out?
But somehow they are perfectly happy selectively editing Trump's nonsense so that it sounds like he actually answers questions.
Maybe the right question for you is how wacky can RFK Jr and Gabbard be that they can't even get the whitewash that Trump gets.
The MSM being in the tank for Trump is not a narrative I personally believe in.
Have you seen "Manufacturing Consent"?
It is the basketball court scene.
Sure there is coverage of Trump's shortcomings, but it is slanted, short, and page 5.
I don't think it really did that much tbh. RFK Jr wasn't polling that high when he dropped out, and most polls and focus groups indicated a large chunk of what support he did have was basically a protest vote against the two main parties, not people actually knowing a lot about him and having any kind of loyalty to him as a candidate. Endorsements in generaly just aren't that powerful anyway though, even for extremely personality-based candidates like Trump. The bigger benefit to Trump was just getting him to drop out (or whatever you call what he did), because people who leaned RFK Jr (and who won't just either not vote or pick a different 3rd party) were probably more aligned with Trump than Harris in general, so he's not siphoning as many votes as he would.
I think Harris offering him a role to drop out would have been a huge strategic blunder. Trump can get away with that kind of transparently transactional quid-pro-quo with an opponent in a way Democrats can't, and he's a far more hated character among both party elites and base voters on the Dem side than he is on the Trump side. Additionally, she would probably have just preferred to have him stay in the race to take votes from Trump.
1.) how he was negotiating is probably illegal.
2.) iif the conversations get leaked(probable) it’d look bad for Harris.
For those starting to get disillusioned by Nate Silver, I'd highly recommend subscribing to 538 and George Morris.
In July they had Biden up in the forecast despite Trump leading in every national and state poll. They fudged their model in such a way that it was basically all fundamentals, with Biden having practically no way to dip below 50%. After an entire month of redoing all of the hard coded rigging in their model, there is no doubt that they will now not allow Harris to go below 50% either. They have your back! Interesting option!
He truly is a GEM.
Please get over Josh Shapiro. If he's what you think he is, he should be delivering PA, whether or not he's on the ticket.
Yeah the Shaprio thing is really just feeling like a Nate Silver personal bugbear, rather than anything substantive. Prior to the choice being made, his commentary on it was basically that looking at his own model and the historical record, VP candidates' home-state boosts are very unlikely to make a meaningful difference, particularly focusing on Shapiro. He did say it made _some_ difference, but that there were ultimately many other things to focus on when choosing a VP and the home state should only be a last-ditch tiebreaker.
Since the choice was made though, every single article or Tweet he makes reporting on bad polling for Harris ties it back to Shapiro not being the VP nominee, usually about Pennsylvania polls specifically, now about it signaling to voters everywhere that she's trying to lean more left than centrist (which I'm not sure is even true, because it's not obvious that Walz codes as more left-wing than Shapiro to a casual observer), or that Walz is the more conventional/safe choice (which again, I'm not really buying given that Shapiro was pretty ideal on paper according to conventional wisdom).
It feels like this really just comes down to Walz happening to be preferred by the left of the party, who Nate dislikes and thinks has bad political instincts, and he wants to get an "I told you so" in against them if Harris ends up losing.
This comment section is spicy, mainly because there's now a very healthy number of Trump supporters here, which there wasn't before. I'm assuming they were attracted by Nate's forecast moving towards Trump recently.
all of them pretending to be centrist and swing voters, i literally checked one of them "swing voters" self proclaim on twitter saying they have been supporting obama-hillary-biden, only moved to trump because rfk endorsement. I search his timeline and found all maga talking point for the past 4 years or so.
Hopefully lurker who read this comment section doesn't get duped easily.
Yeah I noticed that too.
Or ... you know ... RT needs to fund sock puppet in new locations now that their prior channel was impacted by the FBI.
Harris has a pretty centrist history, this is why progressive Democrats did not support her in the 2020 primary. If they had the choice of a progressive woman of color, you think they would not choose her? By the standards of where she came from in the Bay Area, she was probably on the right side of Democrats, which nationally would put her in the middle of Democrats. So then she took some more progressive positions in that campaign. But her actual history in office is not that lefty. And she grew up talking about being a civil rights lawyer, and ended up a prosecutor.
Trump is kind of the opposite: his history in office is more right wing that some campaign attempts to appear more moderate, though those are pretty inconsistent.
As Nate pointed out, being a black woman is just going to stereotype Harris on this aspect of the campaign. I mean, In the end some people will just never accept any proof counter to their stereotype. But lots are - consider all the Republicans openly supporting her, and I have run into them in my own town. In order to overcome this, she is going to have to motivate other voters. We know that there has been a huge surge in voter registration for young black women, latinas, and other similar groups. She is going to be depending on these groups to tilt the tide.
Yes.
Harris is firmly center left in SF - the Diane Feinstein wing of the party.
She gets flack on the national scene for SF efforts like being in favor of family intervention for low grade young offenders, but the fact is she enforced the laws at the same time.
A good example of the former is her impact on SF school truancy. Keeping kids in school is a smart way for society to keep young adults out of jail, but prior truancy is not an excuse that justifies leniency on charges for real crime.
Her actual enforcement of law is what made the SF progressives unhappy - they liked the fact that Hallinan, and later Gascón and Boudin acted more like community legal ombudsmen rather than DA.
That is something I think gets kind of under-discussed when talking about her failed 2020 campaign and it coming back to bite her. The reason she flamed out before the primaries was largely because the left faction of the party just did not buy her pivot to the left. Compared to the likes of Sanders or Warren (who had more success), she just did not have the credentials to win over the left wing of the party, and they never viewed her as a sincere ally.
"I’d mention: January 6, Roe, Obamacare, Project 2025, JD Vance and the words “convicted felon” — and not much else. " I'm sure the optimal themes will vary somewhat from state to state, but here in Arizona, where an abortion access amendment will be on the ballot, I'd go primarily with Roe. Women are ticked (as are a lot of us men, but women certainly have a right to take this more personally.)
I won't matter in AZ; the uptalk girlie governor and the cartels will deliver AZ for the child mutilators aka you and your fellow Democrats.
Also, please don't call yourself a man.
There’s something none of the polls are asking about that may be more telling (than is she too liberal or he too conservative): do you think Harris or Trump will say one thing to get elected and do something else if elected.?
The last two Democrat Presidents have consistently done the opposite on the number one thing they were elected for: Obama (you can keep your plan) Biden (the only guy who can unify the country). This trend makes Kamala’s flip flopping very doubtful.
Trump was and is consistent. When he changes direction, it’s usually for the better and convincing because he actually thought it through.
Even if you don’t agree with him you can plan around him - when the candidate throws a curve ball and you aren’t prepared that’s irredeemable.
Obama's statement about keeping your plan was honest in the context he meant it, that the law did not outlaw the plan you had. However the law motivated some insurance companies to change your plan, so in the end you couldn't keep it. It was a technical different lost in history, but not at all a lie in the sense of hiding some intent. Biden may not have truly unified the country, but far more bipartisan laws got passed in those two years than duid during Trump's first two years.
Trump said Mexico would pay for the wall. He didn't even build most of the wall, and Mexico didn't pay for any of it.
Trump said he would get rid of the carried interest tax deduction for the wealthy. That was not in his tax plan.
Trump wanted an infrastructure bill, Biden actually delivered it.
I really could go on, but you get the idea.
The people who had to give up their entrepreneurial pursuits and go back to corporate because they couldn’t afford to “keep their plan” (mine more than doubled), were among the 2008 Obama voters 53% who did not vote for him in 2012, down 3 points to 50%. So you may be right, but Obama lost votes by not thinking it through and those same people aren’t going to make that mistake again - 3 points are important in this close race.
Biden had a majority to pass bills, didn’t need to unify the country. But we don’t know yet how many would have voted for Trump (and will now) if they thought he promised to be in the center but veered left. Is that the same 3 points?
No question that Trump struggled to win his owns party’s support for more populist policies and had very bad press relations and couldn’t deliver them.
Both Trump and Harris claim they will fix the economy and address immigration. Past performance suggests Trump is more competent at both and he seems to have won more consensus with Republicans to get things done.
Harris economic policies don’t make sense from a business perspective. Promising tax deductions that already exist to start-ups and taxing the same (cash poor) start-up businesses for unrealized capital gains isn’t thinking this through.
What’s more many states (eg FL) have the abortion rights amendment on the November ballot so voting for that may make for fewer “one issue” Harris voters.
Honestly, Biden should have picked a VP with more experience to take over for him. Harris would’ve been a better Supreme Court pick because she has both AG and legislative experience. But Trump should’ve picked Haley for VP and called a truce with the rest of the Republicans. They all could be making better strategic decisions.
Well I know people who got the freedom to pursue entrepreneurial pursuits because Obamacare let them get off a big corporate plan that chained them to corporate health insurance. I personally know two people who were able to quit dead end jobs with decent health insurance because now they could afford to start their own business and get their own insurance on the exchange.
Past performance does not support Trump on the economy at all. He was handed a strong economy and left with one that cratered. He even blew up the deficit before pandemic spending started. Biden got us back to full employment far faster than economists expected, and with inflation lower than any other advanced economy. I know he isn't getting credit for that, but it is what the stats show. And on the border, illegal crossings are now down to where they were at the end of Trump's term, and that was during the pandemic.
The fees are based on income (it’s like a tax on anyone who makes money to benefit those who don’t). if you make more than anticipated you pay the difference plus a penalty. If you make the kind of money you’d make in corporate world you’d pay a lot more for healthcare than you would have if you stayed in the corporate world. NET the only way to benefit from ACA is to not make money. If you don’t make money you aren’t paying taxes so there is no benefit from a startup tax deduction. It all sounds nice, but it isn’t. I ran an office space for entrepreneurs and the ACA healthcare insurance cost was the biggest cost.
As far as bad economy under Trump, I’m confused, before Covid, during Trumps presidency:
1)The unemployment rate fell from 4.7% shortly after Trump’s election to 3.5% by the end of 2019, below Federal Reserve expectations of about 4.5%.
2) During the expansion under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, gross domestic product grew at an average annual rate of 2.25%. It picked up to a 2.5% rate over Trump’s first three years in office, according to Commerce Department figures.
3) During Trump’s first three years in office, median household incomes grew, inequality diminished, and the poverty rate among Black people fell below 20% for the first time in post-World War II records. The unemployment rate among Black people went under 6% for the first time in records going back to 1972.
We all realize Covid threw all of that into chaos and Biden had a lot to deal with. But 20% inflation from 2019 has changed a lot of lives. Hard to feel good about that.
Right, ACA costs were high for higher incomes until that was fixed with a more reasonable subsidy system. But millions who had no insurance got it, and many more had the freedom to not be stuck with a job they didn't want. Obamacare would not have been my first choice for fixing the health care insurance system, but it was better than what we had before it.
Unemployment was 4.2% in Mar 2020 - and Jan 2020. The 3.5% rate in Feb appears like a fluke. Basically Trump was handed a decent economy and Republican efforts to implement austerity in Obama's later years were dropped and they had a huge tax cut and it improved the economy a little bit more.
I prefer the economy we had under Biden to the one available in other advanced economies. I also prefer it to the very slow recovery under Obama. Everybody across the political spectrum complained about that, so Democrats pushed a faster recovery this time. If you are going to give Trump a pass on the pandemic recession, then Biden deserves the same for the inflation that followed. And we are close to having defeated that inflation without another recession. In any case, better to have a job and expensive eggs than no job and cheap eggs.
Interesting. Trump seems to talk extreme and play more moderate; the Dems you mention talk moderate and play more extreme.
Interesting dynamic to consider, although Trump has more than his share of extreme outliers (mostly related to the 2020 election) that really put that to the test.
If you look at it a different way: Trump talks right-wing but plays further left in the center; Democrats talk center but play further left on the left-wing. They're all doing the same thing: being further left in action than in rhetoric.
Or even more accurately, Trump talks a right wing fascist storm, but is too incompetent to actually get anything done if it requires real work.
You're from San Francisco, which isn't even a functioning civilization at this point. Let's not listen to you.
Hahahah.
We're doing pretty well actually. Downtown has a COVID and work from home hangover, but most everything else much better than Fox News tells you.
Proof? Housing prices are driven by supply and demand, and people pay top dollar to be here.
Tourism is on track for our fourth best year ever.
GDP is growing.
Before 2016 I thought he was a crypto-fascist in a 3 piece suit. Now I know he's too dumb and selfish to do the work.
Not to go all Godwin, but at least Hitler and Mao and Stalin and Putin and Pooh Bear put in the work and hustled.
A more apt comparison might be Mussolini--talks a big game, wears designer clothes, and a permanent member of the JV.
Harris is just a bad candidate. She's bad at politics, and always has been. The fact that she was better than Biden (who couldn't articulate anything) and has a lot of progressive talking points that journalists at the NYT like caused a brief sugar high over the last two months and now (similar to 2019) she is suffering the same comedown when people realize that she really is an extreme partisan who is poor at articulating her position.
I was considering voting for Harris until she put Walz on the ticket.
He strikes me as a Dem version of Sarah Palin--a patronizing, condescending attempt to grab a demo. He actually makes Harris look more moderate, which is scary.
I'll probably write in Haley now.
I thought about voting for Haley as well. Unfortunately, her flip flopping about DT extinguished that for me.
What does "bad at politics and always has been" even mean?
Harris won statewide three times in California, the first time as a step up from a city that is only 2% of the state population.
And you may have heard that California is a big state.
Running almost a million votes behind the top of the ticket as a Democrat in sapphire blue California isn't exactly an endorsement of her political skills.
Behind whom, when?
In 2010. She got almost a million fewer votes than Jerry Brown.
OMG!
She was coming from SF with 2% of the population running against the DA for LA county at more than 10x the size.
And you might consider that Jerry Brown is something of an icon.
Harris was supposed to lose dramatically to Cooley. She didn't.
Running against the Republican DA for LA county, you mean. In California. She also ran hundreds of thousands of votes behind every other Democrat on the ticket, including vote totals for Federal House and state house Democratic candidates.
She got really close to not even making it into state politics in a year when Democrats cleaned up in California.
Why is she “bad?” Because she’s a female and you are a misogynist?