On Senate and House Maneuvers:
Senator Elizabeth Warren has explained how, if Democrats can regain even a narrow majority of the House and keep the Senate and White House, they can restore Roe v. Wade by filibuster suspension.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/477 … on-rights/
Why Polling is Off:
Individual swing state polls show Trump in the lead by 1 - 5 points.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 … ng-states/
Polls self-advertise as being within 3 - 5 points of error in either direction to begin with. But when was the last time anyone here answered a phone call from an unknown caller? Or reviewed a text from an unknown contact? What demographic even answers these polls?
Generally, it's older and more conservative respondents with a grudge to express and an axe to grind. 3 - 5 points, as a margin of error in 2024, seems far too low as a self-reported margin. The range of error is likely much higher and now weighted towards conservatism.
There's also the fact that after an event that diminishes enthusiasm for a party (like Biden's ghastly debate or Trump getting convicted), voters on one side or the other will respond less to polling queries. Then pollsters engage in some labyrinth mathematical gimcrackery to try to balance these slanted figures.
In the end, polls were repeatedly and increasingly wrong in 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022. Hilary Clinton's lead in 2016 was within the realm of a 3 - 5 point polling error. Biden's lead in 2020 was overcounted by 1 percent while Trump's support was undercounted by about 3.3 percent. Why? Because in the severely anti-Trump environment of 2020, Trump voters were under-responding.
In 2022, the midterm elections anticipated, from polling, a massive red wave to wipe Democrats out. It didn't happen. Why?
Simon Rosenberg:
In 2022, there was an effort—and this has been documented again and again—by Republicans to flood the polling averages with bad polling, to push the polling averages to the right, which was then successful.
The entire political commentary in the final month before the election settled on the red wave. Shane Goldmacher wrote one in the New York Times.
I was mocked and attacked by Nate Silver, by Dave Wasserman, and by all these other folks.
Part of the reason I got the election right when almost nobody else did was that I separated out the Republican-heavy polling from the independent polling. And what we saw consistently is that, in the independent polling and independent-media polling, the election looked close and competitive.
So, if you wanted to see a close and competitive election, there was a lot of data backing that up. If you look at the averages, you’re going to be misled. You’re going to be misled about what’s happening. If you take out these Republican-funded polls, then the rest of the polling was pretty good.
And the critical thing to recognize is that the challenge we are having with polling right now is that it isn’t acknowledging the tension in the data. Not all the polling is saying the same thing.
People are just choosing one piece of the data, or are using averages. If you have one CNN poll with Trump up six points, and one ABC poll with Biden up five, the average is Trump up by one point. But neither of the polls actually say that.
The average creates a new reality that doesn’t exist in either of the two polls. You have to be more conservative about your judgment.
What we have to get beyond is the idea that there is an actual number where there is certainty about where the race is. That is fool’s gold.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ … false-hope
Rosenberg's view in April was:
Today, Rosenberg concedes that Trump has an advantage at present, but hardly an insurmountable one:
Simon Rosenberg:
We now have a few days of polling after the events of the weekend and the race remains remarkably stable, close and competitive (all polls can be found on 538).
Biden remains 2 points down on 538’s average. The Congressional Generic is back in positive territory and has been encouraging for us these past few weeks. Senate polling continues to hold. We’ve had polls this week with Biden up in MI and WI and down just 2 in NC.
As we discussed yesterday, JD Vance may be good for Trump’s fundraising, but he is not good for him electorally. The 538 forecast this morning has Biden at 277.
Here’s the RNC Chair yesterday saying “there is no red wave.” For there isn’t, and Rs got heavily burned by their bullshit polls and wishful thinking in 2022. The election is remarkably stable, close and competitive, with Trump, perhaps, having a slight advantage.
From my read over the last few weeks the Trump campaign understands they have a lot of work to do to win. They know they are not at 270 Electoral College votes in current polling.
I am optimistic we can win this November; but if the President is going to win he is going to need to do far more to assuage the legitimate doubts many Democrats have about his candidacy, and all of us will have to come together soon, for a divided, fractious Democratic Party will lose the 2024 election.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/vote … and-france
On Biden:
Bernie Sanders is a cantankerous old crank. As a cantankerous old crank myself, Bernie is my standard bearer. Bernie is standing by Biden.
Bernie Sanders on Biden:
I think people should see as a very positive thing, is that despite the disastrous debate, my understanding in looking at these polls is he’s not any worse off today than he was before.
Which tells me that there are a lot of people who are not enthusiastic about voting for Donald Trump.
And given these really horrific several weeks that Biden has had since the debate, where Democrats are busy attacking him, the media is busy attacking him, if he’s not any worse off today than he was before the debate, I think that he has a very good chance to win.
I have been critical of the Biden campaign—above and beyond the debate, which everybody understands was a disaster.
The truth of the matter is Biden’s record, in my view, is the strongest record of any President in modern American history.
The American people are hurting. Sixty per cent of our people live paycheck to paycheck. Young people are worried, appropriately, about climate change; women are worried about their reproductive rights.
What the President has got to do is get out there and say, “You know what? You reëlect me, give me a Democratic House, give me a Democratic Senate, and let me tell you what we’re going to do.”
Did you happen to hear the speech in Detroit on Friday? I thought that was, between you and me, an excellent speech.
Biden's Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqLj917Qu3c
And I think it was the kind of speech that he needs to take all over this country.
He talked about an agenda for the first hundred days, which speaks to the needs of a long-forgotten working class in this country. And he’s prepared to take on powerful special interests. If he does that, he’s going to win this election.
I’m not aware that anyone thinks that Joe Biden is the best candidate in the history of the world, or that he’s an ideal candidate, and nobody will argue with you that he has a... [trails off]
He admitted it. Sometimes he gets confused about names. You’re right—sometimes he doesn’t put three sentences together. It is true.
But the reality of the moment is, in my view, he is the best candidate the Democrats have for a variety of reasons, and trying, in an unprecedented way, to take him off the ticket would do a lot more harm than good.
I would much prefer to have somebody who can’t put three sentences together who is setting forth an agenda that speaks to the needs of working-class people: raising the minimum wage, making it easier for workers to join unions, dealing with the existential threat of climate change, protecting women’s reproductive rights, building millions of units of affordable housing.
The American people are not stupid and they understand that substance matters.
They understand what you have accomplished and what you want to accomplish is enormously important.
If you want to make the case that Biden is not the perfect candidate for a dozen different reasons, go ahead, and you’re right, but, tell me, you’ve got a better path forward?
I don’t think you do, because I don’t think there is a better path forward.
I think he is the best candidate, and I think if he runs a strong, effective campaign focused on the needs of the working class of this country, he will win.
And I think there’s a chance he could win big.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/ … n-the-race
Choose Your Opponent:
As a Canadian, my opinion doesn't mean much in terms of an actual vote. I am not all in on Biden. But I am all in on democracy.
Voting is not about choosing our standard bearer. More often, voting is about choosing your preferred opponent. Let's say all the leaks about Biden's diminishment are true and not weighted against him.
Who do you think is more likely to pressure into meaningful values and action when it comes to international war, manage foreign relations, respond to future pandemics, battle for a fairer tax code, advocate for women's health, relieve medical debt and resist corporate gouging in farming, pharmaceuticals, guns and technology?
What has Donald Trump ever really done for anyone in or out of office that made anyone else's life better?
I remember how in 2020, Twitter was filled with accounts of Trump settling random strangers' health and housing bills, none shared by the supposed recipients of his generosity because these stories were obviously all lies, many perpetuated by a former member of this community who clearly went insane.
President Joe Biden is good at his job. He ended the war in Afghanistan, disastrously, but it ended. He signed the American Rescue Plan that kept progress on jobs and wages. He brought child poverty to a record low by expanding the child tax credit (it's expired and he hopes to renew it permanently).
He signed $370 billion towards fighting climate change and $280 billion into US semiconductor manufacturing and an inclusive science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce. He released intelligence of Russia's invasion plans for Ukraine to prevent Russia from claiming the war was provoked and united the G7 nations in sanctions while defending Ukraine.
He mobilized the mass vaccination campaign against COVID-19 and shots became available at any pharmacy within months. The Canadian prime minister was unable to do the same with Biden's speed and drive.
Biden rebuilt America as the leader of the free world after Donald Trump turned away. He secured marriage protections for same-sex and interracial couples and ensured transgender Americans could access supports and services. He confirmed the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, decriminalized soft drugs, and four out of five people can find medical insurance now for $10 a month or less.
He spun the mangled, "Let's Go Brandon" attack into the hilarious and absurd "Dark Brandon" meme.
But Joe Biden is a problematic person and I am not in favour of hagiography. He has a lengthy and troubling history of inappropriately touching women and smelling their hair because he is from a generation that was taught to see women as commodities instead of human beings. He's confronted it. He's changed it.
As president, he supplied weapons to Israel in a war that has targeted civilians, justifying it by hoping that complicity in war will enable contributing to the peace. He permitted the murder of Jamal Khashoggi to go unchallenged and maintained friendship with Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, to maintain the oil-dependent US economy. So, he is a politician.
He was, in his youth and adulthood, a loudmouth and a bully and a plagiarist. He was a coward who refused to pursue justice for Anita Hill because he feared the Supreme Court and Clarence Thomas. Two of his children are drug addicts which speaks to a serious failure of parenting.
These are all dark and glaring flaws in a glowing career of public service. But the Joe Biden of 2020 to 2024 is an older and more measured man who has a lot to offer this world.
Joe Biden:
My son, like a lot of people you know at home, had a drug problem. He's overtaken it. He's fixed it. He's worked on it. And I'm proud of him.
I'm proud of my son.
He may mumble and he may shuffle and he may struggle to elucidate. But he has fought for unions, for working class people, for diabetics, for seniors, for veterans, for students, for the environment and he is clearly open and eager for new ideas and willing to change to face new challenges.
He has done terrible things and accepted the political and personal cost in the hopes that America would be better positioned to survive and lead the peace. He has adopted new ideas and updated his values to meet a the challenges of a changing world.
Ultimately, if you believe in democracy and that voters should choose their leaders and that the middle class is vital to America, then Joe is at the very least, the barely-tolerable option over the disastrous option.
A vote for Donald Trump is a vote to have no more voting.
That said -- I respect that Temporal Flux has the right to believe in term limits, and he has the right to write his father's name on the ballot. Some might write in Jill Stein or Andrew Yang. I would consider that a neutral act.
Joe Biden is not my standard bearer. His record is too troubled for that. I don't much care for who he used to be. But I do mostly like the Joe Biden I've seen since 2019. And if I were choosing my opponent, I would choose Joe Biden.