US Presidential Election 2020

Water John · 03-09-2020 12:24AM

Nine are red, they must be socialist republicans.

Brian? · 03-09-2020 06:38AM

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Not really

Have a look at "Clinton archipelago" and "Trumpland" from 2016

https://www.inverse.com/article/25635-map-remakes-us-trumpland-clinton-archipelago

This is why the EC is there and why it's not going anywhere
Clinton's votes were concentrated in a few of the most populated metro areas in the country and very little else .

This is fallacious at best.

Sure Trump won a lot of districts where very few people live. But the constitution of the US starts with "We the People", not "We the Fields". Electoral college votes are proportioned by population as well, not land area. The EC is going nowhere, but it seriously needs to be tweaked to mean the Dems don't have to win by 6% to win the presidency.

Gerry Hatrick · 03-09-2020 07:18AM

Water John wrote: »

It shows how dysfunctional the Electoral College is.

The electoral college kept Clinton out of the white house in 2016 so i'd say it's a far from dysfunctional system.

spacecoyote · 03-09-2020 08:04AM

I've said it before on here and so have others, but a proportional representation electoral college would strike a balance there rather than winner takes all.

It still gives weight to the smaller states, but less skewed.

Would also remove a lot of the swing state issues and would force the candidates to campaign everywhere as they could pick up votes in all states, even those that are heavily stacked against them

salmocab · 03-09-2020 08:07AM

spacecoyote wrote: »

I've said it before on here and so have others, but a proportional representation electoral college would strike a balance there rather than winner takes all.

It still gives weight to the smaller states, but less skewed.

Would also remove a lot of the swing state issues and would force the candidates to campaign everywhere as they could pick up votes in all states, even those that are heavily stacked against them

It’s a mess of a system. Your vote being worth more or less based on where you live is ridiculous.

namloc1980 · 03-09-2020 09:12AM

Gerry Hatrick wrote: »

The electoral college kept Clinton out of the white house in 2016 so i'd say it's a far from dysfunctional system.

Look at Gerry here with the hot take. :pac:

It also allowed a guy to become President despite losing the popular vote by 3m.

everlast75 · 03-09-2020 09:13AM

This is imho a smart line of attack by Biden.

https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1301316478889680897?s=19

The "What is hiding?" tagline is versatile and could be used to relate to his SAT scores, his dna sample, the reason for that visit to the clinic etc etc.

He could change the advert, but keep the consistent tagline.

TomOnBoard · 03-09-2020 10:39AM

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Not really

Have a look at "Clinton archipelago" and "Trumpland" from 2016

https://www.inverse.com/article/25635-map-remakes-us-trumpland-clinton-archipelago

This is why the EC is there and why it's not going anywhere
Clinton's votes were concentrated in a few of the most populated metro areas in the country and very little else .

These representations are "grist to the mill" for all manner of arguments and conclusions to be drawn from them. People with very different viewpoints will use them in support of very different truths. And that's fine.

For me, I see them as very clever interpretations of the 2016 election voting and certainly highlight the extent to which America is a massive place that is actually sparsely populated across much of its land area.

My only question is: Is the representation accurately done? If so, and I don't have reason to believe it's not, it adds another lens through which we can view Election 2016 and perhaps better understand it. Whether It will still apply in November is another matter.

briany · 03-09-2020 11:50AM

Brian? wrote: »

The EC is going nowhere, but it seriously needs to be tweaked to mean the Dems don't have to win by 6% to win the presidency.

I don't disagree with you, there, but changing the EC is bound to be a massively partisan issue.

Dems: We believe a change to the electoral college would more accurately, and fairly, represent population distribution.

Reps: The Democrats are trying to rig the vote in their favour. Warpaint on.

Retr0gamer · 03-09-2020 12:15PM

Could they give Puerto Rico the right to vote?

namloc1980 · 03-09-2020 12:36PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Could they give Puerto Rico the right to vote?

The Electoral College electors can only be chosen by States so for Puerto Rico to have a vote in the presidential election one of the following needs to happen:

a) Puerto Rico becomes the 51st State or,
b) change the constitution to allow States and US territories like Puerto Rico to have federal representation including at the Electoral College level.

Zubeneschamali · 03-09-2020 12:55PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Could they give Puerto Rico the right to vote?

There are moves to make Puerto Rico a state and to give DC senators, but they would all be Democrats, so the Rs are anti.

Igotadose · 03-09-2020 01:39PM

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

There are moves to make Puerto Rico a state and to give DC senators, but they would all be Democrats, so the Rs are anti.

I don't think that the residents if Puerto Rico are themselves 100% in favor of statehood. The commonwealth would have to apply to Congress and then an Amendment proposed to the Constitution and ratified by the States. I don't believe that first step's been taken.

namloc1980 · 03-09-2020 01:43PM

Igotadose wrote: »

I don't think that the residents if Puerto Rico are themselves 100% in favor of statehood. The commonwealth would have to apply to Congress and then an Amendment proposed to the Constitution and ratified by the States. I don't believe that first step's been taken.

There's a non binding referendum on statehood there in November:

https://www.puertoricoreport.com/2020-puerto-rico-status-referendum-ballot-released/#.X1DkNchKiUk

Congress has the power to admit a state to the United States. No constitutional amendment is required.

Manic Moran · 03-09-2020 07:17PM

salmocab wrote: »

It’s a mess of a system. Your vote being worth more or less based on where you live is ridiculous.

Depends on if you're a member of one of the smaller constituencies or not. The EU has moved away from raw weights as per the Treaty of Niece (eg Malta's vote being worth something akin to 7 times the weight of Germany's per population) to the Treaty of Lisbon version, but it is still possible under current rules in the European Council for a majority of smaller countries to over-rule the minority of larger countries which have the majority of the EU population. This seems not very dissimilar to the US situation.

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

There are moves to make Puerto Rico a state and to give DC senators, but they would all be Democrats, so the Rs are anti.

That's fair. There are also moves to revert DC to Maryland like they did to Virginia and give the DC residents voting representation in the Senate, but it doesn't give Democrats additional senators, so the Ds are anti. No side is going to gain the 'pure as the driven snow ideology' laurels here. It's all about power in the Senate.

PR hasn't said it wants to be a State yet anyway, so it's a bit academic.

Carfacemandog · 03-09-2020 07:38PM

There are moves to make Puerto Rico a state and to give DC senators, but they would all be Democrats, so the Rs are anti.

Manic Moran wrote: »

That's fair. There are also moves to revert DC to Maryland like they did to Virginia and give the DC residents voting representation in the Senate, but it doesn't give Democrats additional senators, so the Ds are anti.

Which do the actual people of DC want?

Manic Moran · 03-09-2020 10:28PM

Carfacemandog wrote: »

Which do the actual people of DC want?

Oh, they support it, obviously. 86% in favour, as of 2017. Much as the residents of "Jefferson" want to be a new State. Why should they share senators with anyone else who may or may not agree with them?

The difference between DC and PR is both prior status (DC was part of a State before) and precedent (The VA part of DC retroceded, much as the proposal to retrocede the MD part to MD would do). There is also the third difference that PR is more a 'swing-state' than people realise, their current representative in Congress is from PNP (the statehood party) and aligns with Republicans, her predecessor, also from PNP aligned with Democrats.

There is, granted, precedent of making a new state where one was before: West Virginia, though the Civil War and secession of Virginia was a special case. MD is not planning any secession that I'm aware of.

The argument for DC is entirely over whether two Democrat senators will be added to the Senate. If it were just about representation, the Democrats would have approved the various proposals over the recent decades which would have resulted in enfranchisement. They are as vociferously opposed to anything which gives DC residents representation shy of Statehood as Republicans are against granting DC statehood.

everlast75 · 03-09-2020 11:03PM

Timely release of a story which will no doubt further jeopardise the military vote.

I wonder would this influence Manic in any way...

https://twitter.com/JeffreyGoldberg/status/1301639887695773697?s=19

Muahahaha · 04-09-2020 12:10AM

Department of Homeland Security uncovered a plot to spread disinformation about Bidens health. But then they withheld the report

The Department of Homeland Security in July withheld an intelligence bulletin warning of a Russian plot to spread misinformation regarding Joe Biden's mental health, according to a report from ABC News on Wednesday.
In a draft of the bulletin obtained by the network and confirmed by DHS titled "Russia Likely to Denigrate Health of US Candidates to Influence 2020 Election," analysts said with "high confidence" that "Russian malign influence actors are likely to continue denigrating presidential candidates through allegations of poor mental or physical health to influence the outcome of the 2020 election," according to ABC News. The bulletin, which was produced by the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A), also raised efforts by China and Iran to criticize President Donald Trump, the network reported.

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/dhs-bulletin-russia-joe-biden/index.html

The Iran and China angle is interesting too, whatever about Iran Id imagine China has serious cyber ops resources

spacecoyote · 04-09-2020 09:15AM

Link may be pay-walled but an interesting take on the new polling data in the FT

https://www.ft.com/content/b3297609-e63b-4161-8287-7ab1179d0c40

For those that can't read, in a nutshell, its saying that some of the tightened polling may not be as bad for Biden as it reads.

For example in Pennsylvania, polling now shows Biden with a +4 lead. Clinton had, in late polling a +6 lead over Trump, but the differences in the actual numbers may suggest that Biden's +4 is actually a stronger lead.

for Biden its:
Biden 50%
Trump 46%
Undecided 4%

For Clinton it was:
Clinton 46%
Trump 40%
Undecided 14%

Trump beat Clinton by big pick-ups in the undecided, with the Biden polling, there is very little to pick up.

It also noted that in un-decided polling, 58% favoured Biden.

As such, it could be indicative that the tightening of polling is good, but not necessarily great news for Trump.

Another point they made is the change in polling for this cycle. In the 2016 election, polling never made any distinction for education, whereas now they are making that adjustment.

It showed that, if they took out the education adjustment, it shows a move that would put Biden further ahead, so again, we could be getting more realistic polling numbers this time around.

If you take the education adjustment out the polling changes as follows:

Pennsylvania, Biden +4 goes to Biden +6
Arizona, Biden +4 goes to Biden +8
Florida, Biden +6 goes to Biden +11

Things are definitely tightening, which could still be impacted by a slight RNC bounce, but it may not be as tight as it looks

TomOnBoard · 04-09-2020 11:00AM

spacecoyote wrote: »

Link may be pay-walled but an interesting take on the new polling data in the FT

https://www.ft.com/content/b3297609-e63b-4161-8287-7ab1179d0c40

For those that can't read, in a nutshell, its saying that some of the tightened polling may not be as bad for Biden as it reads.

For example in Pennsylvania, polling now shows Biden with a +4 lead. Clinton had, in late polling a +6 lead over Trump, but the differences in the actual numbers may suggest that Biden's +4 is actually a stronger lead.

for Biden its:
Biden 50%
Trump 46%
Undecided 4%

For Clinton it was:
Clinton 46%
Trump 40%
Undecided 14%

Trump beat Clinton by big pick-ups in the undecided, with the Biden polling, there is very little to pick up.

It also noted that in un-decided polling, 58% favoured Biden.

As such, it could be indicative that the tightening of polling is good, but not necessarily great news for Trump.

Another point they made is the change in polling for this cycle. In the 2016 election, polling never made any distinction for education, whereas now they are making that adjustment.

It showed that, if they took out the education adjustment, it shows a move that would put Biden further ahead, so again, we could be getting more realistic polling numbers this time around.

If you take the education adjustment out the polling changes as follows:

Pennsylvania, Biden +4 goes to Biden +6
Arizona, Biden +4 goes to Biden +8
Florida, Biden +6 goes to Biden +11

Things are definitely tightening, which could still be impacted by a slight RNC bounce, but it may not be as tight as it looks

Good, thoughtful post and a useful analysis by FT.

The narrowing of the undecideds pool compared to 2016 is the big takeaway here for me. This is the target segment for both campaigns. The Trump campaign appears to be targeting the Caucasian cohort in swing states with its current messaging. I'd be very interested in seeing an analysis of Caucasian voting intentions in each swing state at this point. If Trump's full-on FEAR message is being successful and is winning hearts and minds among those voters, the overall national picture is less relevant for the White House, although still hugely relevant for the Senate contests. To see Mc Sally trailing by 17 points in Arizona in her bid to retain John Mc Cain's seat is an example of how bad things can get for the GOP in the Senate races. Clearly, her 'Miss a Meal' title won't help, but Mitch must surely be worried about that kind of a trailing position...

everlast75 · 04-09-2020 11:30AM

Two other publications have now confirmed the story.

Trump is out stating that he never called John McCain a loser...

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301710818267074560?s=19

The desperation is tangible.

It would be nice if Mattis and Kelly confirmed it but I strongly suspect they will keep their mouths shut.

Good thing we have proof in writing...when he tweeted it

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/622522682245033984?s=19

And video footage....

https://twitter.com/IslandGirlPRV/status/1301826769826316289?s=09

looksee · 04-09-2020 11:59AM

everlast75 wrote: »

...And video footage....

https://twitter.com/IslandGirlPRV/status/1301826769826316289?s=09

Watching that video shows that Trump has no understanding even of what is expected of him - if he had a glimmer of intelligence he would fake it, he doesn't even have the sense to pretend empathy.

He really is not absorbing the implications of the discussion, it feels 'smart' to say he prefers people who don't get captured, so he says it. That is as far as he is understanding anything.

I suppose one take away from that is that he is not as devious as he could be, as politicians usually are - and of course he is not a politician. What you see is what you get. I don't find this reassuring.

StringerBell · 04-09-2020 12:10PM

It isn't reassuring, it's deeply concerning for the future once the strategists work on and put forward a candidate along the blueprint of trump but who is actually politically capable too.

Retr0gamer · 04-09-2020 12:59PM

StringerBell wrote: »

It isn't reassuring, it's deeply concerning for the future once the strategists work on and put forward a candidate along the blueprint of trump but who is actually politically capable too.

That's the most worrying thing.

Look at how easily and absolute moron like trump and his cadre of despots has managed to get so called patriots cheering for an end to everything the american political system stands for and calling for an autocratic political system.

Now imagine it's a Putin type. Someone who wants the same autocratic system as Trump but actually has the brains to pull it off.

Trump really has shown how fragile the political system is in america and also how easy it is to tarnish the media with lies and propaganda.

Quin_Dub · 04-09-2020 01:15PM

Retr0gamer wrote: »

That's the most worrying thing.

Look at how easily and absolute moron like trump and his cadre of despots has managed to get so called patriots cheering for an end to everything the american political system stands for and calling for an autocratic political system.

Now imagine it's a Putin type. Someone who wants the same autocratic system as Trump but actually has the brains to pull it off.

Trump really has shown how fragile the political system is in america and also how easy it is to tarnish the media with lies and propaganda.

Pompeo.

People talk about Ivanka or Nicki Haley and even Mike Pence.

But Pompeo absolutely wants the gig and he would be immeasurably more dangerous as a Commander in Chief than Trump.

That's why some of the recently opened house investigations into him are quite important.

Igotadose · 04-09-2020 02:29PM

Quin_Dub wrote: »

Pompeo.

People talk about Ivanka or Nicki Haley and even Mike Pence.

But Pompeo absolutely wants the gig and he would be immeasurably more dangerous as a Commander in Chief than Trump.

That's why some of the recently opened house investigations into him are quite important.

Tom Cotten, fortunately he put his foot deeply into his mouth recently and garnered a bunch of bad pub. But, Pompeo is scarier too, evangelical rapturist trying to bring the end times. It's amusing to see him called "Trump's Evangelical Enforcer" by the UK press.

Quin_Dub · 04-09-2020 02:49PM

Igotadose wrote: »

Tom Cotten, fortunately he put his foot deeply into his mouth recently and garnered a bunch of bad pub. But, Pompeo is scarier too, evangelical rapturist trying to bring the end times. It's amusing to see him called "Trump's Evangelical Enforcer" by the UK press.

Bit early for Cotton - He's more of a 2028 possibility.. He's only in the Senate a wet week and he talks too much.

04-09-2020 02:55PM

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/georgia-voter-rolls-report/index.html

313,243 voters purged from Georgia rolls for having changed address and no longer living at registered address. Bit of analysis suggests 198k were wrongly removed.

Carfacemandog · 04-09-2020 03:11PM

Deleted User wrote: »

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/02/politics/georgia-voter-rolls-report/index.html

313,243 voters purged from Georgia rolls for having changed address and no longer living at registered address. Bit of analysis suggests 198k were wrongly removed.

Probably the right time to remind people that this is Georgia's governor, who as Secretary of State (and when running for said governorship) purged a further 340,000 from the voter rolls, and then when Governor killed the state investigation into this.

The SOS who took his place is also a hardcore Trumper it would appear. Trump has a narrow 1.4% lead on Georgia right now but it doesn't matter, that state is completely lost as republicans aren't really even trying to pretend there will be fair elections there.

US Presidential Election 2020

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