Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[San Bernardhinault]

How many of the 10 "serious" candidates are seriously serious, as in genuine contenders?

I think Ursus's comment is fairly accurate. But I think realistically it's just the top 4 or 5:

Biden, Bernie, Warren and Harris are serious contenders. Buttigieg is semi-serious even with Biden as a live candidate.

Booker and Klobuchar become more realistic if Biden drops out, but are makeweights until then.

Yang, Castro and Beto are not going to make serious waves.

[Tactical Genius]

I think Ursus's comment is fairly accurate. But I think realistically it's just the top 4 or 5:

Biden, Bernie, Warren and Harris are serious contenders. Buttigieg is semi-serious even with Biden as a live candidate.

Booker and Klobuchar become more realistic if Biden drops out, but are makeweights until then.

Yang, Castro and Beto are not going to make serious waves.

Isn't Harris on 5% now?

[San Bernardhinault]

Depends on the polling, but she's generally around or just under 10%. Which isn't great but is still something to work from. And only Biden is consistently above 20%, so nobody's numbers are particularly impressive.

[Tactical Genius]

Depends on the polling, but she's generally around or just under 10%. Which isn't great but is still something to work from. And only Biden is consistently above 20%, so nobody's numbers are particularly impressive.

Wasn't she previously around 15%?

[Satchmo Distel]

Harris has her hopes pinned on Biden dropping out, as per Ursus' post above.

[Etienne]

She had a very brief week between 14 and 20% at the end of June/start of July, but around or just under 10% would be accurate for the most part. You can see all the polls here: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...atic/national/

[ursus arctos]

That was the bounce she got after the debate where she went after Biden on busing at the beginning of July

[ursus arctos]

[URL="https://twitter.com/peterwallsten/status/1168144457813958657?s=21"]https://twitter.com/peterwallsten/status/1168144457813958657[/URL]

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm not sure I fully accept that thesis - you can correctly predict that the tipping point state will be probably be one of those four states; but in the previous few elections you could also make a decent guess at where the tipping point would be. It doesn't seem a big deal. But if Biden totally tanks and the economy stays strong, then Minnesota and Maine, and maybe Virginia and Colorado will be in play to increase the Republican margins. If the economy goes tits up, and Bernie has a shit-hot campaign, and Trump becomes even more visibly deranged, then North Carolina and Arizona and Iowa and maybe Ohio or even Georgia are in play for the Democrats. While the tipping point state is always going to be fairly predictable, in fact the battleground will make up 12 or 15 states.

[ursus arctos]

You sure about that "will" in your last line?

Obviously both outcomes are possible (as a range of outcomes between them), but I'd say that his his scenario is rather more likely than 12-15 states being in play.

[San Bernardhinault]

OK. 8 or 10 states will be in play, but which ones depend on the state of the economy and the candidates. But last time you could easily predict that the tipping point state was also going to be Florida or one of those midwest states. It happened to be a close election, so the tipping point was more obviously visible. In the previous elections you could probably have guessed at an obviously purple state like Colorado or Florida or Virginia, and you'd have been right.

[ursus arctos]

I guess we just see this differently.

I wouldn't use "will" w/r/t to any small range.

But if forced to bet right now, I'd say that four is more likely than "8 to 10".

As an aside, if it was so easy last time, how did Mook and HRC fail to visit the Upper Midwest?

[San Bernardhinault]

I guess we just see this differently.

I wouldn't use "will" w/r/t to any small range.

But if forced to bet right now, I'd say that four is more likely than "8 to 10".

As an aside, if it was so easy last time, how did Mook and HRC fail to visit the Upper Midwest?

Good question. The answer is clearly that they're idiots. They were trying to expand the map having already assumed that they'd won the mid-west. It didn't seem to occur to them that they might lose Pennsylvania or Michigan. The Republicans weren't so stupid and knew that they had no choice but to win those states.

[Flynnie]

The stories of union canvassers from Michigan calling HRC HQ and saying “you’re in trouble here” and being told to go away, in other words, will never fail to haunt me.

[anton pulisov]

Probably explains the Dems complete lack of action on Merrick Garland as well. They assumed that he would be appointed by the 45th president.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm sure that's partly true, Anton. But it's not clear to me what they could have done, procedurally, when McConnell controlled the Senate. They could have kicked up more of a fuss, and created more negative publicity - but that wasn't going to change McConnell's mind and would probably have driven Republican turn-out up.

[ursus arctos]

Establishment Democrats have always been queasy about making the courts a frontline issue in battleground states, largely out of fear of alienating traditional Catholics who have a history of supporting the party.

That is an essential part of how we got to where we are.

[San Bernardhinault]

Has this ever worked the other way round? Have Republicans tried (pre-Trump) to keep immigration out of the courts so that Latino catholics see a message that the judiciary is only about "conservative religious" issues like abortion and gay rights?

[ursus arctos]

I'm not sure that I really understand the question, but my answer would be no.

The emergence of Latinos as a meaningful political force in this country is a relatively new development. The reliance of urban political machines (of both parties, but mostly Democratic) on Catholic voters has a much longer history. And the fact that that context has produced families like the Kennedys, Cuomos and Bidens is very much part of why the Establishment has acted in the way that it has.

It is also essentially impossible for any "side" to keep issues out of the courts. The most one can do is to make sure that "your" issues are presented frequently and to publicise the hell out of your efforts.

[Flynnie]

It's disingenuous at this point, because any pro-life Catholic knows the Dems are a pro-choice party and have been for almost 50 years. Maybe this is what Dem strategists tell themselves, but it feels like the usual Democratic distaste for actually exercising power.

[Satchmo Distel]

I would advise the Dems to largely forget about Florida & Ohio and focus on Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wisconsin and Michigan, unless there's evidence of a shift in Florida demographics and likely turnout since last November.

I'm sure Warren and Sanders understand this, and Biden (for all his faults) is a Rust Belt campaigner, but I'd worry that someone like Harris thinks Ohio and Florida are more in play than I suspect they really are.

[Tactical Genius]

So this is how they are treating Black Americans who mention reparations around Bernie Sanders.............
https://twitter.com/jbf1982/status/1167578823921197056

I can see the left wing of the white Supremacy bird is flapping in lock step with the right.
Malcolm X was so right all those years ago.

[ursus arctos]

Ah, Williamson just put out a tweet counseling "prayer, meditation and visualization" for those in the path of the hurricane. But appears to have deleted it.

[Nefertiti2]

Whether Sanders wins or doesn’t here’s why his campaign is so important:

[URL]https://twitter.com/anandwrites/status/1169671389353263106?s=21[/URL]

[caja-dglh]

Beto is traveling from NYC to Boston on the Bolt Bus because it is environmentally better. Has his team not heard of Amtrak?