Kamala vs the Orange Felon - Presidential Race 2024 - Polls, News, Etc...

[ivwshane]

In the Electoral College setup, this is simply not true.
The majority doesn't deserve the outcome just because 48% of voters want the much shittier guy.
If it was easy to educate and convince dumb people, Dems would have done it already. In reality, tribalism explains a lot of people's behaviors, including voting. This is not to absolve people of bad choices, but to explain why much of the electoral cake is already baked.

So the best you can do is try to get your folks to go out and vote, and to convince the tiny slice of people in just the right places to do the right thing. It's anything but easy to win a national election, and it's incredibly expensive in the 21th Century.

If the electoral college worked the way it was supposed to, it wouldn’t matter how dumb the electorate is as they wouldn’t be voting for a person such as Trump. Trump is exactly the type of person the founding fathers were concerned about when they decided against a direct election for President. There has been no other president who embodies this than Trump. I’m sure some will say it’s just Trump hate rhetoric, I assure you it’s not and I have over 44 presidents who peacefully transferred power without issue to prove my point.

 

[Jaskalas]

Only the best people.

Vance to attend event with evangelist who said Harris used 'witchcraft'​

The town hall with Lance Wallnau, a self-described prophet, is scheduled for Saturday in Pennsylvania.​

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Why do you think Trump is more popular now than in 2016??

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838734146752926052

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838757230763442295

Trump's gunning for young males HARD!

They’re interviewing guys wearing MAGA hats and expect them to like Kamala.
Come the fuck on. Why even air that.

 

[Dave_5k]

Rasmussen is best understood as an emotional support blanky for Trump.

Interestingly enough, Nate Silver just published today in his free newsletter his corrections for poll bias as an aside in the note - and Rasmussen is basically tied with Trafalgar as an outlier for the most extreme biased poll that he uses. On average, Rasmussen overstates Trump performance by 2.6% in his modelling:

 

[jdubs03]

In the Electoral College setup, this is simply not true.
The majority doesn't deserve the outcome just because 48% of voters want the much shittier guy.
If it was easy to educate and convince dumb people, Dems would have done it already. In reality, tribalism explains a lot of people's behaviors, including voting. This is not to absolve people of bad choices, but to explain why much of the electoral cake is already baked.

So the best you can do is try to get your folks to go out and vote, and to convince the tiny slice of people in just the right places to do the right thing. It's anything but easy to win a national election, and it's incredibly expensive in the 21th Century.

It shouldn’t be anywhere near close enough for the EC to matter in such a voting outcome. That’s why I say we should deserve it, maybe I used that phrasing a little loosely but the sentiment still remains. Objectively speaking this should be a blowout.
And as an aside, there have been rumblings that the right leaning EC advantage isn’t as significant this year.

 

[manly]

It shouldn’t be anywhere near close enough for the EC to matter in such a voting outcome. That’s why I say we should deserve it, maybe I used that phrasing a little loosely but the sentiment still remains. Objectively speaking this should be a blowout.
And as an aside, there have been rumblings that the right leaning EC advantage isn’t as significant this year.

And I'll repeat that the sentiment is just wrong. Why do we all deserve Trump if only 48% of voters choose him? It's just wrong and absurd. In 2016, Trump got just 46.1% because of third party votes. Did we deserve the outcome then?

As to the rumblings you referenced, there are a couple different layers to it. The declining EC advantage you're referring to just means that the spread between the "national PV" margin and that in key states might not be as great for (R) this cycle. I read the NYT's analysis and it's far from convincing (we won't know what the spread is until real votes are certified).

On a different layer, the unfairness is fully baked into the Electoral College. A state gets a number of electoral votes equal to its numbers of Senators (2) + House Reps. Because all states have 2 Senators*, this means the lowest population states are overrepresented in electoral votes.

Wyoming has 577k residents, and 3 electoral votes. So about 192k voters per electoral vote.
For California, it's 732k voters per electoral vote.

So a Wyoming voter has nearly 4 times as much juice as a California voter, when it comes to the Electoral College. Note that there are a few low population blue states (VT, DE, RI) too, but this is overall a disadvantage for Dems because California is deep blue in voting. So the EC disenfranchises California voters especially, but also any voters in the most populous states (TX #2, FL #3, NY #4). As we know well, it also reduces the contest to the elections in 7 battleground states. The other 43 states are essentially meaningless, unless something crazy happens (Trump +4% in FL might be the next closest to a swing state).

I understand you're saying we're stuck with a shit sandwich if DJT wins the EC, but by no means do we deserve that shit sandwich. The design of the EC makes it possible for a guy with 47-48% of the total PV to win the election.

* The Connecticut Compromise thus infiltrates all 3 branches of the federal government. Low pop states are heavily overrepresented in the Senate, and this power is amplified by the filibuster. And SCOTUS nominees must get past the Senate, so we're left with an imbalanced 6-3 SCOTUS that is far from representative of the people's will.

 

[Stokely]

As an aside, it's absolutely surreal to be on vacation here in MN and see soooo many Harris/Walz signs. Even out in the sticks I've seen very, very few Trump signs.

And I just read in the news before I left where my beloved home governor Desantis' new plan for sex "education" is not only to forbid showing any anatomy (because seeing nekkid pee-pees would be evil I guess) but to enforce that educators have to push abstinence on students. I can't get out of there fast enough, unfortunately I'm stuck there for a least a bit. I'll miss my band but that's literally it.

Going to make sure I spend any future vacation dollars in not-shit states.

 

[jdubs03]

And I'll repeat that the sentiment is just wrong. Why do we all deserve Trump if only 48% of voters choose him? It's just wrong and absurd. In 2016, Trump got just 46.1% because of third party votes. Did we deserve the outcome then?

As to the rumblings you referenced, there are a couple different layers to it. The declining EC advantage you're referring to just means that the spread between the "national PV" margin and that in key states might not be as great for (R) this cycle. I read the NYT's analysis and it's far from convincing (we won't know what the spread is until real votes are certified).

On a different layer, the unfairness is fully baked into the Electoral College. A state gets a number of electoral votes equal to its numbers of Senators (2) + House Reps. Because all states have 2 Senators*, this means the lowest population states are overrepresented in electoral votes.

Wyoming has 577k residents, and 3 electoral votes. So about 192k voters per electoral vote.
For California, it's 732k voters per electoral vote.

So a Wyoming voter has nearly 4 times as much juice as a California voter, when it comes to the Electoral College. Note that there are a few low population blue states (VT, DE, RI) too, but this is overall a disadvantage for Dems because California is deep blue in voting. So the EC disenfranchises California voters especially, but also any voters in the most populous states (TX #2, FL #3, NY #4). As we know well, it also reduces the contest to the elections in 7 battleground states. The other 43 states are essentially meaningless, unless something crazy happens (Trump +4% in FL might be the next closest to a swing state).

I understand you're saying we're stuck with a shit sandwich if DJT wins the EC, but by no means do we deserve that shit sandwich. The design of the EC makes it possible for a guy with 47-48% of the total PV to win the election.

* The Connecticut Compromise thus infiltrates all 3 branches of the federal government. Low pop states are heavily overrepresented in the Senate, and this power is amplified by the filibuster. And SCOTUS nominees must get past the Senate, so we're left with an imbalanced 6-3 SCOTUS that is far from representative of the people's will.

We’re definitely stuck with a shit sandwich if Trump wins. And I mean clearly the EC does have a considerable GOP lean to it historically. That is obvious as the 7 of the past 8 elections, the popular vote was won by the Democratic candidate and yet in two of those instances and potentially this year a third/9th election, the Republican candidate wound up becoming president.

As I said, I was using the phrasing loosely. It’s the sentiment that the election is on a knife’s edge after everything we’ve seen happen and his dumbass plans and still he has basically 46-47% of voters locked in. It’s pathetic that it could be that close overall. Unfortunately the EC is an obstacle every time we go through this and it is indeed unfair, but also unfortunately it’s not possible to fix right now. We have what we have; and it still should be an easy win for Harris.

I suppose you could say the only way we would actually deserve Trump as the president is if he won the popular vote. But yeah, unfortunately that’s not the only consideration.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Trump wants Google to be investigated and will prosecute them if he wins the election for making him look bad.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/trump-google-should-be-prosecuted-over-search-results.html

In other words Trump did a vanity search on Google and found that it didn’t match the printouts his aides had been giving him.

If I’m not mistaken Google adjusts its algorithm to users’ search histories, so if Trump is only seeing bad stories about himself and good ones about Harris, it’s probably because those are the sources he’s clicked most often. But of course he’s a solipsistic moron, so he thinks the results he’s getting are the ones everyone’s getting.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Only the best people.

Vance to attend event with evangelist who said Harris used 'witchcraft'​

The town hall with Lance Wallnau, a self-described prophet, is scheduled for Saturday in Pennsylvania.​

WTF! ... Isn't this the nutjob that said Harris is using witchcraft to emasculate Trump? Lol! this is happening because that’s where we are as a democracy right now.

Personally I think Harris should release a categorical denial: “No, I have not been using the dark arts to emasculate Donald Trump. If Donald Trump feels his pathetic male organs getting more feeble and pathetic from day to day, its not due to ancient spells and incantations emanating from the Harris 2024 campaign. I categorically deny that my supernatural powers have anything to do with the creeping sense of dread and physical impotence currently rising in the former president”

 

[cytg111]

Trump wants Google to be investigated and will prosecute them if he wins the election for making him look bad.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/trump-google-should-be-prosecuted-over-search-results.html

View attachment 108358

In other words Trump did a vanity search on Google and found that it didn’t match the printouts his aides had been giving him.

If I’m not mistaken Google adjusts its algorithm to users’ search histories, so if Trump is only seeing bad stories about himself and good ones about Harris, it’s probably because those are the sources he’s clicked most often. But of course he’s a solipsistic moron, so he thinks the results he’s getting are the ones everyone’s getting.

How very fascist of him.

 

[VRAMdemon]

Melania wants people to stop calling her husband a threat to democracy and blames the "mainstream" media for political violence. Well, maybe you should tell your "husband" to STOP being a threat to democracy. Waahh! "Stop telling truth about my husband! She'll blame everyone but the biggest offender: her fucking husband. Repeating projective lies is a right-wing fascist staple. Trump is the premier stochastic terrorist.

Melania Trump wants people to stop calling her husband a 'threat to democracy'

In her first interview in more than two years, former first lady Melania Trump said she saw her husband’s survival in two attempts on his life as “miracles” and blamed the media for “fueling a toxic atmosphere” and empowering those who “want to do harm to him.”

www.pbs.org

It's completely accurate to call the first President in US history to refuse a peaceful transfer of power and tried to overthrow an election he lost "by a lot" a threat to democracy.

Considering it's convicted felon Donald Trump's own former supporters who have tried thus far to assassinate him, logic clearly shows that it is Donald Trump's rhetoric that is causing the problem. Which will come as no surprise to anyone who has actually been paying attention for the last fifteen years.

 

[Muse]

How very fascist of him.

Google's a corporate entity, not part of any government, so they, just like Trump's Truth Social and Fox News are entitled to present the stories it wants. He wants to throw them in the clink because he thinks they are biased. Is it illegal for them to be biased? It may not be fair but it's not illegal. He's screwed up in the head. And he wants to be chief executive! A moron in chief and total catastrophe if elected.
- - - -
"There is a road from the eye to the heart that does not go through the intellect." - G.K. Chesterton

 

[pmv]

I suppose you could say the only way we would actually deserve Trump as the president is if he won the popular vote. But yeah, unfortunately that’s not the only consideration.

One could also argue that you collectively 'deserve' Trump for your failure to fix the stupid electoral college system (and the other undemocratic parts of the system, like the excessive power of the Supreme Court) over the past 200 years. Be a very harsh verdict, I admit.

 

[pmv]

Melania wants people to stop calling her husband a threat to democracy and blames the "mainstream" media for political violence. Well, maybe you should tell your "husband" to STOP being a threat to democracy. Waahh! "Stop telling truth about my husband! She'll blame everyone but the biggest offender: her fucking husband. Repeating projective lies is a right-wing fascist staple. Trump is the premier stochastic terrorist.

Melania Trump wants people to stop calling her husband a 'threat to democracy'

In her first interview in more than two years, former first lady Melania Trump said she saw her husband’s survival in two attempts on his life as “miracles” and blamed the media for “fueling a toxic atmosphere” and empowering those who “want to do harm to him.”

www.pbs.org

It's completely accurate to call the first President in US history to refuse a peaceful transfer of power and tried to overthrow an election he lost "by a lot" a threat to democracy.

Considering it's convicted felon Donald Trump's own former supporters who have tried thus far to assassinate him, logic clearly shows that it is Donald Trump's rhetoric that is causing the problem. Which will come as no surprise to anyone who has actually been paying attention for the last fifteen years.

"If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks."/"Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know."

 

[HomerJS]

But it’s also not a hard sell to explain the sources of the inflation. Me and others have previous posts that have done so. What is frustrating especially with these younger voters, is a lot of them don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and just think about things surface level. Real educated students would think deeper and see through that lies being spewed, and thus never vote for Trump. For instance tariffs.

I honestly wished that I kept a running tally of all the dumbass shit Trump has said; just his own words.

For Harris, one thing that I saw as a “flip-flop” in the traditional sense was when she said that she didn’t propose banning fracking. Like there is an easy way to respond to that line of questioning for why she changed her “hardline” position (note that as we transition to a clean energy economy, natural gas will play a role in the short to medium term), but she didn’t take advantage of that. I don’t really recall other examples of a “flip-flop” though. She is hobbled by the immigration argument as well and I’m not sure she’s had a good answer for that. But she does the right thing and deflect to Trump torching the bipartisan Senate deal negotiated by Lankford, who is one of the most conservative members of the Senate.

There are ways to make a compelling arguments to neutralize the disinformation. But it’s tough when there is a firehouse of it and you’re playing whack-a-mole. Particularly with social media and the bots too.

It seems the Harris campaign has developed the axiom if you are explaining you are losing.

I think that attitude sells the public short. Example: you can't explain causes/contributors of inflation in a soundbyte/ad. I have yet to hear anyone even try to explain inflation. They only mention the current rate which is good. They don't want to entertain causation/correlation discussion because they think the people can't handle it or don't have the patience for it.

Perhaps the short campaign time doesn't allow for that but an economic expert from the Democratic Party should give an hour interview just on inflation and explain in detail. Hey public, pissed about cost of your eggs? Listen to this discussion.

I think it is the same thing when it comes to immigration. Try to explain to the public because of treaties signed by the US crossing the border on an asylum claim not at a point of entry really isn't illegal. Also try to explain why Title 42 allowed Trump to crack down on the border and not have it derailed by the courts.

 

[HomerJS]

Trump wants Google to be investigated and will prosecute them if he wins the election for making him look bad.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/27/trump-google-should-be-prosecuted-over-search-results.html

View attachment 108358

In other words Trump did a vanity search on Google and found that it didn’t match the printouts his aides had been giving him.

If I’m not mistaken Google adjusts its algorithm to users’ search histories, so if Trump is only seeing bad stories about himself and good ones about Harris, it’s probably because those are the sources he’s clicked most often. But of course he’s a solipsistic moron, so he thinks the results he’s getting are the ones everyone’s getting.

Maybe he can have a class action suit with Jeffery Dahmer and Jeffery Epstein. Too many negative stories about those guys.

 

[cytg111]

I dont think you gonna make it.

I think Harris will probably win but imagine Trump had been a gram competent...
After Trump comes Thielism.. And that is as hell bent on killing democracy as Trump was/is. Thiels is just 300x more competent... Add that to the effectiveness of conservative propaganda outlets and I dont see you dodging prj2025 in the long run.

 

[QueBert]

Only the best people.

Vance to attend event with evangelist who said Harris used 'witchcraft'​

The town hall with Lance Wallnau, a self-described prophet, is scheduled for Saturday in Pennsylvania.​

Springfield's full of Haitians who are eating pets. And Haitians are known for practicing witchcraft. And now Kamala's being accused of using witchcraft.

That's sure an odd coincidence, and she doesn't have any children - it's all starting to make sense now. We have to save America from pet-eating childless Satinists!

And Trump vowing to go after Google if he's elected is the most Trump thing I heard all week. Just imagine if he wins? I'm sure after hearing this story Yahoo's CEO is somewhere grinning and rubbing their hands together in anticipation. Kamala said she'll go after corporations that are price gouging. Trump will try to bring Google down because they're indexing mean articles about him.

 

[jdubs03]

One of the most under the radar things about a potential Trump victory would be all of the federal judges he’ll be able to nominate/force through. I forget the exact percentage of that will be up for nomination, but I’m pretty sure it’s over a third of them. That has the potential to really wreak havoc with the hard right white ethno nationalism conservative policies they want to implement.

 

[dlerious]

One of the most under the radar things about a potential Trump victory would be all of the federal judges he’ll be able to nominate/force through. I forget the exact percentage of that will be up for nomination, but I’m pretty sure it’s over a third of them. That has the potential to really wreak havoc with the hard right white ethno nationalism conservative policies they want to implement.

You should check out ALEC.

American Legislative Exchange Council - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Indus]

Based on feels.. I think I'm convinced Trump is gonna win because..

1. We have no memory of how bad Trump actually was. Basically Trump is the devil that people think they know vs an unknown black woman.

2. Hate is stronger than hope and we revert to tribalism.

3. The states/ congress/ scotus are gonna rig it for him.

4. We seem to be in an anti-establishment mood as a country.

 

[pmv]

It seems the Harris campaign has developed the axiom if you are explaining you are losing.

I think that attitude sells the public short. Example: you can't explain causes/contributors of inflation in a soundbyte/ad. I have yet to hear anyone even try to explain inflation. They only mention the current rate which is good. They don't want to entertain causation/correlation discussion because they think the people can't handle it or don't have the patience for it.

Perhaps the short campaign time doesn't allow for that but an economic expert from the Democratic Party should give an hour interview just on inflation and explain in detail. Hey public, pissed about cost of your eggs? Listen to this discussion.

I think it is the same thing when it comes to immigration. Try to explain to the public because of treaties signed by the US crossing the border on an asylum claim not at a point of entry really isn't illegal. Also try to explain why Title 42 allowed Trump to crack down on the border and not have it derailed by the courts.

I think, maybe, at some level people don't much _care_ what the cause of the inflation is? They just want somebody to make it stop. It probably causes irrational anger that then merges with the (even more irrational) anger about immigration (at least with inflation it's obvious what it is that people don't like about it, the anxiety about immigration - here as well as there - seems much harder to pin down to specifics).

People expect the system to work, and when it doesn't seem to be working they want to lash out (and burn it all down).

In all honesty, I'm partly basing this on 'introspection'. I find myself with very limited tolerance for Starmer's vacuousness and lack of vision (his fondness for soliciting expensive gifts from billionaires really isn't a good look either) . Things are really pretty bad and if he doesn't _do_ something to improve things quickly the electorate is going to get restless.

 

[BoomerD]

Springfield's full of Haitians who are eating pets. And Haitians are known for practicing witchcraft. And now Kamala's being accused of using witchcraft.

That's sure an odd coincidence, and she doesn't have any children - it's all starting to make sense now. We have to save America from pet-eating childless Satinists!

And Trump vowing to go after Google if he's elected is the most Trump thing I heard all week. Just imagine if he wins? I'm sure after hearing this story Yahoo's CEO is somewhere grinning and rubbing their hands together in anticipation. Kamala said she'll go after corporations that are price gouging. Trump will try to bring Google down because they're indexing mean articles about him.

Would you prefer Velveteens?

View attachment 108410

Based on feels.. I think I'm convinced Trump is gonna win because..

1. We have no memory of how bad Trump actually was. Basically Trump is the devil that people think they know vs an unknown black woman.

2. Hate is stronger than hope and we revert to tribalism.

3. The states/ congress/ scotus are gonna rig it for him.

4. We seem to be in an anti-establishment mood as a country.

I will be surprised if Trump loses. Once again, he probably won’t win the popular vote…but that doesn’t matter…only the electoral college numbers count. He seems to have locked up all the red states…and mny of the “toss-up” states look to be “leaning red” as well.

I think, maybe, at some level people don't much _care_ what the cause of the inflation is? They just want somebody to make it stop. It probably causes irrational anger that then merges with the (even more irrational) anger about immigration (at least with inflation it's obvious what it is that people don't like about it, the anxiety about immigration - here as well as there - seems much harder to pin down to specifics).

People expect the system to work, and when it doesn't seem to be working they want to lash out (and burn it all down).

In all honesty, I'm partly basing this on 'introspection'. I find myself with very limited tolerance for Starmer's vacuousness and lack of vision (his fondness for soliciting expensive gifts from billionaires really isn't a good look either) . Things are really pretty bad and if he doesn't _do_ something to improve things quickly the electorate is going to get restless.

Seems like so many people forget what happened during the COVID lockdowns. Grocery store shelves were depleted because either the suppliers were shut down or operating under heavy restriction, or the farmers/food manufacturers had those problems…or just couldn’t get workers. Add to that the COVID “stimulus” checks, enhanced unemployment packages, and landlords being unable to evict ANYONE for not paying rent…even if they could afford to pay…all combined to drive prices up. Supply and demand weren’t nearly in balance.

 

[jdubs03]

Well, here’s roughly where things stand (courtesy of Adam Carlson on Twitter).