USA 2024 presidential election

Looks like we've a new entry to the wall

haha well thank you for giving me a good laugh when I opened this reply. Accusing me of being Trumpian because of an opinion on this is to put it mildly hyperbolic. Adding in the childish insults to boot sounds like projection on your part when it comes to who is being Trumpian given his predilection for that type of invective.

I am well aware of how the US president is selected. The electoral college indeed is the final arbiter of who becomes president and has the ability to over turn the democratic wishes of the voters which is exactly what it did once again in 2016. It is the system they currently use and is patently undemocratic. I would also add that according to a 2023 pew poll roughly 65% of all Americans favour getting rid of it. 82% of Democrats favour getting rid of it but only 47% of Republicans which is reflective of that parties slide to authoritarianism.

As an aside I thought this was a good article on the dangers and how undemocratic the electoral college is:

Here's What Critics Say Is Wrong With The Electoral College : NPR

At no point have I disputed the outcome of the 2016 election. That is very clear. I simply made the point that to say Trump won that election with no context is to ignore the fact that Clinton despite all the Democrats hubris in selecting her did win the votes of roughly 2% more of the voters.

Yes really. I was not and am not disputing the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election. Fair enough on reflection my language could have been much more unambiguous and for that the fault is mine and apologies. All I meant by what I was saying was that Clinton won the election in the sense of she finished first in terms of winning the most votes but then the anti democratic electoral college over turned that fact and thus Trump won that election despite finishing second.

So yes it was a genuine misunderstanding due to the fact that I didn't use clear unambiguous language in making the point I was making.

Teamsters union not endorsing Harris is a strange one, always back Dems in the past but not now. Internal polling showed them favoring Trump 60-40 😐️

Citation?

And of course, agreeing with Musk that striking staff should be fired.

The hilarious (and tragic) thing here is that this guy assumes that he'd be the one doing the buying rather than the one being sold.

It appears that he's still on the ballot which is frankly good news for Harris. North Carolina is definitely a stretch for her but with a candidate that is possibly even more unqualified than Trump for high office that may swing her a few more votes from independents who just decide to vote all Blue this cycle.

Oh yeah at the end of the day NC is still a swing state but it's one that seems like if it went for Harris then a few of the others would have already gone to her so it's significance isn't as much in a way. This is the concept of the "tipping point" state as illustrated by this 538 diagram

Regarding AZ. It appears to be very much in the balance still

The bottom line is that all of these states are super close and will go right down to the wire.

Because the Teamsters President is in the tank for Trump.

He has gotten himself into a bit of trouble claiming for example that the Teamsters chapter covering AOC's district 'overwhelmingly voted for Trump' in internal polling… yet the chapter has endorsed Kamala Harris, directly contradicting his claim.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4888967-ocasio-cortez-teamsters-presidential-endorsement/

It's not alone either, many other chapters of the Teamsters have flouted O'Brien's refusal to advance a Harris-Walz endorsement by doing it themselves.

I'm unclear if any chapters have endorsed Trump. Hmm.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/09/19/teamsters-endorsement-harris-trump/

Teamsters regional councils — representing hundreds of thousands of members and retirees — in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada and western Pennsylvania — endorsed Harris hours after Teamsters President Sean O’Brien revealed Wednesday that the union would withhold its endorsement, saying, “neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union.”

Separately, powerful local Teamsters unions in Philadelphia; New York City; Long Beach, Calif.; and Miami — as well as the union’s National Black Caucus and a group of retirees — have endorsed Harris and urged members to vote for her.

Seems shenanigans are afoot:

The Teamsters released results from two internal surveys of members that they say show rank-and-file members strongly favored a Trump endorsement over one for Harris. The Teamsters reported the periods during which the polls were conducted, whether they were conducted by phone or online, and the percentages that supported Trump and Harris. But the Teamsters did not disclose how participants were selected for the surveys, the number of people who completed them, whether the samples were weighted by demographics, or the exact questions they asked.

And WaPo confirms no chapter or division has actually endorsed Trump. This all begs a lot of questions about how accurate O'Brien's polling was.

The budding relationship with Trump also spurred backlash from liberal Teamsters leadership and many rank-and-file members. After the conventions, a growing cohort of Teamsters local unions began issuing endorsements for Harris, and in some cases condemning O’Brien for not endorsing her.

As of Thursday, at least eight regional councils, covering active Teamsters members in some 14 states, as well as 10 union locals, had endorsed Harris. The regional councils alone represent more than 500,000 Teamsters members.

No regional or local Teamsters organizations have endorsed Trump.

At over 500,000+ members that's north of 38% of the teamsters total membership base representing for endorsements to Harris-Walz (1.3 M members). If that number significantly grows in the next week or so, O'Brien will have a lot of scrutiny to reckon with.

Turkeys voting for Christmas springs to mind

No… That's quite the opposite to terrible… That's democracy in action.

What is terrible is when people say that the 2 candidates they can choose from are candidates that nobody wants, why not join a party and vote for different candidates then!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/09/biden-trump-presidential-election-no-one-wants

Notably this rhetoric hasn't been heard much since Harris was made the Democrats candidate, I wonder why…

Posted my vote during lunch. €4 stamp well worth it!

They're starting the shenanigans early.

This was a surprisingly thorough piece about the 2000 election, how Republicans cheated, and there are a number of ways this could repeat itself. And it was eye opening how many of the same MAGA players like Roger Stone and Matt Schlapp were involved in the 2000 recount too - or let's call it what it really is, a coup, since we know for a fact years later that Al Gore in fact won more votes in Florida.