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Ehhhh, Trump is simply doing 2, 3, 4 points better in deep blue counties, thanks to shifts in the Hispanic vote.  She's running 3-5 points behind most all of the Dem Senate candidates.  I follow Democratic accounts like Adam Carlson and Tim Alberta, and they know the numbers and where they need to be.  The numbers are simply not there, not when Trump is running up bigger red margins in rural counties.  At this rate, I'm not sure if she'll win ANY swing state. 

I'm a realist.  She's barely up 6 points here in New Jersey with 80% vote in!  New York about 14 points.  These were 16 and 23 point wins in 2020.

I'm not a huge fan of exit polls, but CNN in Georgia was a massive independent shift for Trump, and NBC exit with indies is +6 for Trump in Pennsylvania.  Trump numbers are up in rural counties pretty much everywhere.  Biden approval terrible everywhere.  Virginia way too tight, so far.

Really nothing of what I'd consider substantial to know so far as the 7PM states close.  MAGA Twitter is absolutely going nuts about MEN voting.  They must know Trump is being trounced by female voters.  Exit polls out of Georgia not great for Kamala.  Philly turnout is through the roof, Kamala has to love that in PA.  Suburban Indianapolis showing weaker Trump margins.  Telling.

Most of the poll aggregators have Harris up in the EC, granted these people are a waste of bandwidth as their methods are about as believable as a magic trick.  Senate polling seems like GOP is looking at a few pickups, but the House is very likely to shift back to blue control.

The race has not substantively changed in almost two months, as the money and time spent on polling has been largely wasted, especially on the ones who poll non-stop.  Absolutely no point in doing this.  However, these polls in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska that I have mentioned, those were taken months apart, they show real movement towards Democrats. 

Harris Campaign feels late deciders are breaking their way, using data which reportedly does support this.  Trump and his surrogates have had a TERRIBLE close.  Between the insults and bizarre comments, it's just been dark and belligerent. 

It's difficult for the polling to get around the significant Trumper non-response bias.  i.e. Trumpers especially older ones are less likely to speak to pollsters, which will continue to skewer the results.  But that's also part of the margin of error.  My personal feeling is that Trump remains capped on support, even though I expect completely insane turnout in rural America for him, which could be an issue in PA.  Women are going gangbusters for Harris, no doubt about that.  I give Kamala the better odds, and the late deciders, but who knows if that is enough?  Again, Biden chased a lot of people off.

PS: However this goes, hats off to Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and that entire team.  To run a major Presidential campaign in just over 100 days is completely historic, it's never been done before in modern history.  It's difficult to find much to critique on their side.

Because it was primarily backstory, and nothing really happened.  Worse, they spent most of it on character backstories for characters who will not play a role in the future.  What is the point of that?  These ensemble shows just get carried away.  Focus on the main characters, and move the story along.

Agatha was entertaining, but as usual, too short.  Just as you're getting into it, cliffhanger ending.  Very frustrating.

Simply gaining the endorsements of Elon Musk, Robert Kennedy II, bribery suspect Nichole Shanahan, Tulsi Gabbard, or other fringe formerly left-leaners, I don't perceive as doing much for Trump's support.  People don't vote based on endorsements.  Musk is now being sued by the AG of Pennsylvania over his $1 million "registration" prizes. 

I still think Kamala should have gone on Joe Rogan.  Rogan lathers his guests, he doesn't like to screw them over.  He allowed Trump to babble, but also laughed when he asked Trump for proof of 2020 fraud, and he of course had none. 

The national polls, and really the state polls, are effectively unchanged for 6 weeks.  There's just no movement at all.  Fine.  I did see some whacky polls in non-swing states.  For instance, there was a state poll from Kansas that showed Trump ONLY ahead by 5!  If he barely clears double-digits in KANSAS, wow.  Won't matter nationally, but it may matter in a crazy race for Senate in Nebraska, where GOP Incumbent Deb Fischer is tied with Independent Dan Osborn!  Absolutely astounding, and given those Kansas numbers, and what we saw in 2022, hmmm.

Here's the thing to consider, as I saw this on Twitter from Adam Carlson.  If you look at Trump's vote share in the BG states in 2016 and 2020, even when he WON some of them, those shares would not get it done now.  Not with any substantive 3rd-party.  That means Trump has to maximum MAGA (ceiling reached in 2020), plus he has to flip quite a few Biden '20 voters and/or create new voters.  This is what I've been harping on.  It's possible, yes, but the demographics don't favor this, not with Harris getting monstrous DEM enthusiasm.  For instance, can Trump actually approach or surpass the 50% mark in most of these states?  That's what it's going to take.  Personally, and this is where what Carville and others have reasoned, he cannot.  He has run such a MAGA-fueled campaign, littered with weirdos that reliable voters don't know or care for.  I just go back to feeling there's a ceiling for Trump, he will hit it and it won't be enough.

Must I?  That's one sitcom we watched every week, that I don't think I could re-attempt now.  LOL

And North Korea. 

Look at the bright side, Trump will probably keel over from a heart attack or stroke, and JD Vance will be in charge...

She has the FAR better lineup of surrogates.  She has governors, Senators, ex-Presidents, popular celebrities.  Trump has losers, conspiracy-minded dopes, and basically, grifters like him. 

Stephen A. is no Republican though.  The ESPN guy?  Not a chance, but he's a great orator, and hates the Dallas Cowboys like me, ha ha.

The Trump vote will not care, doesn't matter what the "bombshell" is.  Each attack on his putrid character they take as an attack on them.  It's a waste of time.  People who vote transactional, are going to do it based on issues they judge on.  That's usually economic, and perhaps some chief executive questions around immigration or foreign policy.  These are low information, low engagement, low propensity voters.  Many are younger men, men of color.  That's who Trump has been spending nearly all his time on the last several weeks.  He is maxed out on MAGA, needs more.  The volume of pro-Trump rigged polling, the ridiculous attack ads, you name it, it all spells out a campaign that believes it's behind. 

Now, there are still challenges for Harris.  Republicans are voting big time in early voting in Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada.  The biggest complaint on her is the lack of a coherent, static, policy platform.  To me that's much less of a concern than Trump's, which is the utter chaos he will bring back.  Polls I feel like at this point, are pointless to check.  The margin of error makes anything that is retrieved in the final weeks really statistically insignificant.  Traditionally, Trump has been buoyed by the low-engagement voter.  That's the ones who rarely vote, and usually just in Presidential contests, and don't pay much attention to politics.  They tend to break to Trump, and because they are tough to get in contact with, they don't show in polling.  Why do they break Trump?  They are low information, and the sound bites which inundate their social media and TV are usually not good for Democrats.  I've gone through them 50 times, and it's too late to do much about it now. 

Here's what I will say though, I DO expect Harris to bleed a degree of support from '20 Biden on Latino/Black men, Arab-Americans, and some other groups.  It's inevitable given the Biden track record on immigration, inflation, and pro-Israel policy.  The KEY though is that despite all that, the numbers I really don't expect to wind up shifting that, that much.  It's going to make this far closer than 2020, and could go either way.  There was very little Kamala was going to do or say to change those opinions, not when those voters were effectively lost in the prior two years.  The key for Harris is going to land on moderates/independents who just simply cannot accept more Trump.  The 2022 Dobbs rejection, the Haley vote percentile in GOP primaries, and the long-term slide for Donald among the college-educated, especially older ones. 

As Rosenberg or Bonier or Carville or Maher et all have recently stated, the core of the vote favors (slightly) Harris.  Trump is going to need a substantial turnout/production from a segment of the citizenry who are traditionally the least likely to vote.  Is that a Hail Mary?  It might be.  Worse yet was that his campaign outsourced the mobilization of these voters to Elon Musk and others, who have zero track record, and audit after audit has shown that Elon's 100s of millions have been completely fleeced with little to no ROI. 

Harris was criticized for campaigning with former Republicans.  Why?  These Bernie fans do not understand how you win a general election.  Each day, more and more former Trump officials, and Republicans in general, come out in favor of Kamala.  They continue to cite Trump's authoritarian beliefs, and the chaos he will unleash.  It's a trickle, but IMO it's meaningful, because it plants the thoughts that Trump = chaos.  Again, the media and left bash Harris for not concretely identifying plans.  This is true, but again, her closing argument is going to be a defense against Trump "fascism" because she's had a mere months to campaign!

https://www.cookpolitical.com/analysis/ … mains-high

From Dave Wasserman, "in key battleground states Harris leads 51-47 among voters who always show up.  Trump has a lead of 52-45 with low/mid-propensity voters."  This probably explains the Trump (and friends) strategy to try to coax these disengaged voters out of the woodwork.  Which is why I would temper the enthusiasm of the Hopium types going on the 2022 electorate, which of course, was sans-Trump.  What we ARE seeing is a clear more from 2020 even of the college grad demo towards Kamala, and those are the folks who vote in fair higher percentages.  Good for her.  Trump though is still likely to pull a greater portion of the blue collar segment, particularly with men of color.  So as I have been saying, you really cannot "pick" a winner prior, it's going to be about demographic turn out.

If you are someone who finds the accusations against Trump damning, you're not voting for him.  There's NOBODY left to persuade on that end.  Criminals have been elected before, people vote selfishly. 

The bigger story was Vance refusing to say Trump lost.  Bigger story should be the big job numbers from September.  Or Pete Buttigieg resolving the potentially disastrous longshoremen strike in just days.  Or Joe Biden and Kamala visiting the hurricane victims in Western NC.

The polls aren't right or wrong, there is the margin of error for a reason.  The cross tabs though can often better explain certain results.  Sienna might have oversampled men nationally, while going the other direction for one of the states.  For example. 

The extra counting in GA to me, is nothing but a nuisance and won't amount to anything. 

If he loses, Trump will then have to likely face one if not two Jack Smith-led prosecutions, which would be the full end of him. 

GOP isn't going anywhere.  The Democratic Party continues on a path away from blue collar issues and towards identity politics, and behemoth spending projects that have historically bad results.

Exhaustive discussions over "language" are fine and dandy, but are as actionable as me farting into the wind.  The uber-sensitivity only stifles inventive thought, and divides, it only divides.  The first amendment allows for it, as simply being crass with language is protected, and one should not fear for that.  The outrage police have soiled political discourse, particularly on the left, and driven a mass of people towards the Orange menace.  In fact, I would say that besides inflation, it's up there in 2nd place for driving left of center folk into Trump's small hands.  There has been a high level clampdown on free thought and discourse, which largely came out of the COVID paranoia, and has increasingly turned younger generations off.  Yes, we want to caution against "misinformation," but the result has been a string of justifiable accusations against the main stream media, and Democratic officials.  That combined with the Democratic Party's absurd inaction on immigration (The Fed even commented that illegals make the unemployment statistics worse), rampant crime post-lockdown, and the pro-trans movement which continues to freak out parents.  This string of foolishness is why the tree in my yard would poll better than Joe Biden on almost any issue.  And now Kamala is being tasked with trying to convince voters that she effectively either disagreed with that foolishness (and stayed silent), which few believe, or that she's willing to "change."  It's going to be a highly difficult ask.  If Trump wins, one can easily point to the breakdown of classical, actual liberalism, in favor of the un-American and idiotic ideals of the left that has submitted itself, largely through fear of being "racist" to a movement that seems to despise America's actual ideals.  It's boxed the left into this ridiculous space where antisemitism and anti-colonialism mix, and the result is toxic.

Anyway, after my rambling TED talk, the view of Northwestern University data scientist Thomas Miller is an interesting one.  He uses the betting markets, rather than polling, to conclude that Kamala Harris will still win in a landslide.

https://www.newsweek.com/data-scientist … on-1955575

What do you mean?  Think of all the "seafront" property who will have up in Canada thanks to global warming.  Trump told the good folks in Michigan about that tonight on stage.

At this point, you're not going to convince people who still cannot make up their minds.  It's a fallacy.  They either won't vote, or they're just lying to poll takers.  Trump continues to lead by a significant margin on immigration and the economy.  As humiliated as he got the other night, it may not end up mattering.  He certainly won't debate again.  It's going to continue to be an uphill fight for Democrats over the next several weeks, and they can push their supporters to vote, with emphasis on abortion and Trump's authoritarianism.  Immigration is a lost cause, everything that's been said, has been said.  Joe Biden and/or those in his administration (possibly including the VP) just simply failed on that issue.  For anyone who finds it to be a deciding factor, you lost them awhile ago.  I felt her economic proposals were good, and hopefully they can advertise those more wherever they are, and go.  Becomes a battle to see who gets more people out to vote.

The contest will be decided by both low-information, and low-enthusiastic voters.  I think she has converted legions of "low-enthusiasm" voters into her column, and will get most of them to actually vote.  Trump has done this as well, of course.  The rest of them are mainly sick of both parties, and probably will not vote.  It's the "low-information" voters who worry me.  Some are young people, but usually those folks do not vote.  The older ones, especially women and single men, are a concern.  Many of them are lower income.  They see the rates of inflation, as well as other factors, and are not happy with the economy.  As well as immigration.  They do not view Trump as the danger he is, because again, low-information.  They are concerned over their ability to afford even the basics, and they look back pre-pandemic, and they know it was easier then.  They don't take into account the disaster Trump made out of the pandemic response, that made worldwide supply chains crippled.  Or the work that Biden's administration has done politically to ease these things.  My only hope is that these people will get the message.  Hence why I think it's important for Harris to get out there onto platforms that these folks WILL see.

I thoroughly enjoy the artwork, animation style, effects they use.  The problem is the pacing.  Everything is so dark, and ultra slow.  Often the translations don't work well with the scenes, although I could assume this one is alright considering the production value.  The pacing is kind of what has soured my viewing of most of the Star Wars saga on Disney+.

Look I think it's far simpler.  Most Americans, who are not betrothed to one side or the other, went into the debate with two ideas about the candidates.  Trump is old, off kilter, mean-spirited, and full of himself, though at "face value" his policies and complaints often ring true.  Kamala is confident, smarter, tenacious, but unproven with potentially vapid policies.  Well, in plain view of tens of millions of people, Donald Trump played the role of his own caricature to a T.  At this point, if you had ANY potential doubts about VP Harris, and still have those, I'm afraid you are just an unserious moron.  Man or Woman up and make a damn adult decision. 

Will the debate matter?  Hard to say to what extent because the polling is all within the margin of error anyway.  I do think there are continued issues economically to deal with.  Frankly, I thought the few lines which Kamala was able to make on her plans were worthwhile.  Trump's economic plans are colossally bad.  I'd only wished more time were spent on them.  Drill, cut billionaire taxes, raise tariffs on goods.  Absolutely awful, like Brazil-bad!!!  Not to mention that ABC's Muir inadvertently BAILED him out of answering how he would deport 12 million people!  What kind of chaos and travesties that would cause.

Very quick thought.  Kamala allowing Trump Show to play on primetime TV.  He's literally regurgitating every idiotic and mostly false MAGA conspiracy and social media baloney.  I can't wait to see Jon Stewart recap at 11pm live.

What I am getting at is that even this rotoscoping you're mentioning, I don't want that either.  I want the original cuts, as they were printed for theaters.  Yes, you want to clean them up solely to restore the image, nothing more.  There was a time when I kinda went, yeah, lets spruce those up with new tech and effects, because ILM was lacking or behind schedule.  However, I've gotten to the point now, well awhile ago in fact, that is actually what I do NOT want.  Adding stuff in that wasn't there, especially stuff that wasn't shot, is a bridge too far.  You are welcome to do that, as a director, but at least give us the originals!

Jerry is kind of a goofball, which is part of it.  When I mentioned to Rebecca that he'd be a hit at conventions, she just laughed hard, and said, "I don't even think he has an agent!"  It's not that important to him, I guess, and trust me the man has ZERO insecurity about meeting fans all day.  Quite the opposite, as he is a long-time talk show and game show host.  What I do find odd is that he promotes a lot of stuff, which I think he might be involved in (comics on tour), and his own jobs, all over social media.  Appearing at conventions is often a pretty good way to promote your own stuff too.  I mean, he was at Star Trek Las Vegas (the big con) with Rebecca, but he's a main cast member on Lower Decks, but really didn't participate in the programming for that.  Odd.

Anywho, I was happy to see he got a few minutes to catch up with Rhys-Davies, if anything.  I do not expect anything Sliders-related to come from that, of course.

https://x.com/MrJerryOC/status/18324981 … g&s=19

How cool is that?

Well I fret that Harris has allowed a lot of the momentum to fade, as she and Walz have been campaigning but the country doesn't see them.  The staff is obviously full of Biden personnel who are antagonistic towards the press, and it's stupid.  She should be doing every celebrity podcast there is, there's plenty of softball ones for her to do.  Even if they don't want her on TV shows, which again, is short-sighted.  Harris is barely in the news highlights anymore.  They're rolling out a pro-small business economic plan this week.  Who's covering it?  You don't see anything, because he's not directly speaking to the press.

There's I read something like 175 polls on this race being taken across the country, and most of those are dog feces.  They have little to no scientific or academic basis, without even getting into the Blue or Red-tinged pollsters who are free to apply their biases.  I personally don't care for Nate Silver, and never have.  I felt his 538 garbage was essentially just that, and really have little faith in these polling predictive models.  They act as if they are superior, but they're really not.  Furthermore, one of the newer and "hotter" ones on the web is Poly-Market, a fly by night operation owned by billionaire Peter Thiel, yes the same tech bro who basically invented J.D. Vance, and supports Trump.  So when PolyMarket shows for Trump, I just roll my eyes.  Well guess who else is on Thiel's payroll these days?  That's right, Nate Silver, who was so good at his job that ABC fired him.  I'd rather hear from a Simon Rosenberg or a Karl Rove than these entities, at least they know politics.

PS: Allan Lichtman, as many suspected, announced that Kamala will win based on his "13 keys."  She's won 8 to Trump's 3, with two remaining undetermined.  He has been "correct" in nine of the last ten Presidential contests, going back to 1984.  To be fair, the majority of those were somewhat "settled" with clear favorites going in, and though he picked Gore in 2000, that one was as much of a tie as one could get, well, maybe before this year.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol … 082875007/

Oh cool, I have been meaning to get ahold of the TN1 stuff for awhile now.  IMO those are vastly superior to the earlier work (which I have) that sourced Bluray and DVD.  Now that they have found film, each time more complete, the work is better and more authentic.  I cannot describe the disgust the repeated Lucas mutilations have caused me, ha ha ha.  Frankly, of all the re-added scenes in the OT, maybe the only one I felt "added" to any of them was the Biggs/Luke embrace prior to the Battle of Yavin in the first movie.  Every other addition or change was putrid, and should never have been made.

DVD's were fine, for about a decade.  When Blu-Ray came out, many studios began intentionally degrading their DVD releases on the same product.  Disney was notorious for this, as a way of showing off how much "better" BRD was.  In fact, it wasn't THAT much better.  The bit rate, sure, but given that 4K televisions did not become the "standard" until somewhat recently, there was often not a huge reason to have blu-ray's for close to a decade themselves, on older content.

Tell that to the NYPD, who are forced to re-arrest the same violent criminals, many migrant gang members, some who have attacked cops, over and over.  These criminals are let right back onto the street, and commit further violent crimes.  It's a complete disaster.  It started from a point of social justice, as yes, many people were held seemingly indefinitely for trial, and could not afford bail.  However, it was taken advantage of by lunatic judges from the get-go.  The rampant violent crime, played out nightly on local news, in NYC plus a failure to gerrymander, literally handed GOP most of the NY state suburb districts around Manhattan.  Including one to the ridiculous George Santos.  New Jersey remained blue, because we don't allow that shit here!  You attack a cop, you beat up a woman, or you throw someone off a subway platform, you stay in jail, in Jersey. 

BTW, one of those Bernie alums is now Trump backer Tulsi Gabbard. 

You're going to drive yourself mad with these dumb polls.  Here's something, Gallup just released a poll where enthusiasm, however they're measuring that, is now at 78% among Democrats, an unheard of number, and 46% with Republicans.  In general, the polls are very close to 2020 in the swing states.  The national average is not, but that's because RCP for instance takes forever to roll recent polls into the avg.  My feeling is that Harris is ahead of Clinton '16, but trailing Biden '20.  One factor in those races were third parties.  They received nearly 6% of the vote in 2016, which was a killer for Hillary, and then just 1.5% which greatly helped Biden.  Trump in now a third election, remains marooned at the 46-47% mark.  With RFK Jr. basically out, I think the "other" vote total could be as low as 2% now.  That could allow Harris to get into the 50.5% range, with Trump "growing" to 47-47.5%.  That would make many of these battleground states insanely razor thin.  I still like her polling in MI, WI, and yes NV, a notoriously difficult state to poll.  Demographics give Harris a chance in NC and GA, but I'm not confident there at all.  I think she has a better chance with AZ.  That leaves PA, which I fear is absurdly close, and could be decided by hundreds of votes.  Have I driven you madder?

Harris and Walz first interview sit down with CNN is coming soon.  She was of course attacked by GOP for having a dual sit down, when EVERY OTHER campaign including Trump Pence did the same thing. 

Harris agenda is all over the place, even I can't keep up.  Still, I feel like she's taking a page out of Trump's book, and just pandering.  And why not?  Worked for him.

BTW, Harris strategy to campaign in rural areas is terrific.  You need to cut down the red margins in those places!  This is the Obama strategy, and of course, the opposite of what Hillary did and paid for.

None of that bothers me, you have to see the group texts I have with "MAGA" friends of mine!  The old saying goes, to know one's enemy, blah blah blah, from Sun Tzu's Art of War.  I purposely seek out what the other side are saying, as well as independent sources.  If you ignore their opinions and viewpoints, then you become something like the Hillary campaign, which was caught entirely flat-footed and lost.  That's why I keep harping on inflation and immigration, because there are issues that people who don't have a ton in common with conservatives, yet they value those and will vote for them.  One cannot simply disregard them, because after you've lost, and you're wondering what the hell just happened, it's better to sniff these things out, and adjust. 

The Democratic Party, as the great James Carville says, has a "male problem."  Just as Trump is disgusted by 2/3 of the women in the country, Democrats continue to be unable to "speak to men," particularly those aged 25-44 and older.  They're too preachy, too in your face with, "you can't say this, you can't do that," and men don't like it.  Too late for this election, but it's something they need to do an about face on.  The young female-led, almost nonstop, social media cancel police from the left is completely un-American, and has chased so many from the party.  It's why, even if Harris wins, it will be by the skin of her teeth.  She's going to get clobbered with male voters, pray not as badly as Clinton did.

Kamala gave a speech that Reagan would have enjoyed.  In turn, RFK Jr. did in fact suspend his campaign.  He's pulling his name from 10 "battleground states," but keeping him on the rest.  He endorsed Trump for three main reasons.  First, how he was treated by the media and the DNC as well as the courts.  There's no question that, despite what Kennedy's positions were, he was given no quarter by the Democratic Party, and the media largely blocked him.  Granted he had low support percentage wise, but it's a continued problem with both parties.  They purposely craft rules to keep only the select candidates from running.  Granted, the other guy Dean whatever his name was, he was able to get on the ballot for DNC.  Biden was never going to debate him, but he also got almost no votes, and the media barely gave him the time of day.

The 2nd reason were the "forever wars," in particular Ukraine and Israel.  One can debate that till we're green in the face, but there's no doubt that Donald Trump is a rampant isolationist.  And so they are compatible on that.

The 3rd reason, Kennedy said, was that his long time cause for removing chemicals from the food supply (and of course vaccines).  Now this is the one that makes no sense.  Granted I am 100000% with him on food processing, a completely unnecessary process that involves additives which are making people obese and sick and do NOT happen in most of the rest of the world, as they don't allow this.  The vaccines are another story, but to pretend that Trump is going to stick a knife into the food corporations is completely comical.  He won't do squat, nor would he ever challenge big pharma.

Anyway, as I stated the other day, I do not believe RFK's endorsement will do much of anything.  If Ukraine is THAT much of a problem for you, you're already with Trump.  Nobody cares about who the DNC or RNC allows to get onto primary ballots.  However, the "free speech" aka anti-woke crowd is again, already converted to Trump.  Food processing and forced vaccinations, regardless where one stands on those, are not major issues.  The food one should be, but this is America after all.