Progressives had a good night here in the New York metro area in the Democratic primaries.
In NY-14 (North Queens-East Bronx) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes comfortably saw off DINO carpetbagger Michelle Caruso-Cabrera 70-20.
Biggest upset of the night was in NY-16 (North Bronx-Lower Westchester) where Jamaal Bowman has almost certainly unseated House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel from the D nomination 60-35.
In NY-15 (South Bronx) progressive Ritchie Torres has a comfortable lead at c 30% in a split field, 10 points ahead of his nearest rival and 15 points ahead of the perceived front-runner, conservative Democrat Ruben Diaz.
In my seat of NY-17 (Upper Westchester-Rockland), Mondaire Jones has a clear plurality at c. 45%. As this is a safe Democratic seat, albeit not as "weigh the Democratic vote rather than count it" as the seats further south, it's a pretty safe bet that come January I'll be represented by the first openly-gay Black congressman.
The progressive wave has probably not quite reached NY-12 (East Side Manhattan-NW Queens-Greenpoint, Brooklyn) where moderate Democrat incumbent Caroline Maloney has a small 41-40 lead over progressive challenger Suraj Patel.
The big caveat on these results though is that up to 70% of all votes were absentee postal ballots because of the coronavirus crisis. These have another week to come in, and so won't be counted until that deadline has passed. That said, there's no compelling reason to expect the absentee ballots to split very much differently from yesterday's in-person vote, so I don't expect any of the above results are likely to be changed by the absentee ballots. The only possible exception is NY-12 where Maloney's lead is slim enough that the absentee ballots might change it.
All universal services are giving something (and spending money on it) for nothing.
Universal Basic Education, Universal Basic Healthcare, Universal Basic Law and Order, Universal Basic Defence, and so on.
Universal Basic Income is the most simple and direct provision of a safety net possible (without the detailed and arcane hoops to jump through to prove you are the "deserving" poor. It also removes considerable fear and stress at the bottom end of the scale (if you lose your job or need Universal Credit, you don't have to fill out pages and pages of forms and wait until they finally get around to supporting you - or choose for some obscure reason to judge you as "undeserving" and cut you off).
It ties in with the (surprising, to me, anyway) finding that being financially strapped for prolonged periods actually changes your brain - physically as well as psychologically. The constant stress and worry is analogous to a form of PTSD, and if you've been trapped in poverty for long enough, your decision-making is impaired (people fall towards short-term gratification rather than long-term sensibleness because: why not? You're screwed, anyway. And someone else (the person in the Government who decides whether or not your deserving and can take away your income at the stroke of a pen) has more and more power over you and you have less and less power).
Trials of UBI-like initiatives have found that mental health (and associated decision-making) improve, trust in institutions (essential for market-based solutions) increases significantly, and there is no noticeable reduction in work ethic and attempts to work (a slight INCREASE but not statistically significant).
UBI can act (at the margins, but that's where markets work best anyway) to free people up to try things and fail (also essential for markets), to move across fields and jobs (fluidity of workforce to help markets), to trust institutions (essential for markets), to make better decisions by relieving the constant stress and pressure to short-termism (empowering individuals).
It can take up most of the benefits - but not all, true. But the ideal is the enemy of the good: it can remove vast swathes of the need for administration, ensure work always pays, and provide a guaranteed safety net. There was detailed analysis at the University of Bath on affordability, and it can be introduced at low level to see how it actually does.
And it can effectively tie taxes and benefits into one whole - if you want to increase UBI, you have to shift the tax bands upwards for those in work.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them. Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024. The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg. Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
Why are you always so certain about what the Lib Dems want or will do, young HY? The Lib Dems are a democratic party, and do not necessarily always go along with what the leader says - and still less with what a Tory stooge comes up with.
One thing is clear from today's PMQs and yesterday's unlockdown briefing, Johnson is no longer serious. The Churchill of Our Day shtick is over.
There was a point when he was serious?
From the announcement of lockdown to when he fell ill, yes. Johnson clearly saw himself as Churchill standing alone against the virus, but it would be beaten. Now he doesn't care whether it gets beaten or not. He wants to change the topic.
That's probably right, the problem is that he's floundering around looking for that different topic. Despite the bedwetting of the Unwokies, statchoos is only going to last so long.
No the Lincoln project is very much the old Bush GOP, hugely rejected by the Republican support, still overwhelmingly behind Trump. Most of the US death figures have been in Democrat run states, overwhelmingly so. Blaming Trump on this is not by any means the whole picture. Where I would agree is while I expect Trump may pull through, very good bet he could lose the Senate.
Agreed, the Republican establishment despise Trump and want him to lose but they wanted him to lose in 2016 too, hence you had the likes of Bush Snr voting for Hillary and Romney voting to impeach Trump and now Colin Powell and Cindy McCain and John Bolton saying they will vote for Biden or want Trump defeated.
However it is not them who are the key swing voters in this election but rustbelt white working class Democrats who swung behind Trump and gave him victory in key states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan Biden must win back to be elected
Whoever wins Florida will probably prevail. That maybe crucially is GOP governed, most of the other swing states are not and seem very keen on holding back the economic re-opening. A big problem for Trump possibly as he gave the shut down the green light. A choice he may regret now.
The Florida re-opening has gone so well hasn't it?
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The 2016 election was the most I ever won betting on politics. You could get Trump at 6/1 on the day and states like Michigan for Trump at 18/1. Obviously that won't happen this time but I'm tempted by Trump in Virginia at 9/2.. Minnesota is another one.
MN seems to be trending Republican but always seems to be out of play.
NH always seems like a near miss and always seems to be below the radar.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
One thing is clear from today's PMQs and yesterday's unlockdown briefing, Johnson is no longer serious. The Churchill of Our Day shtick is over.
There was a point when he was serious?
From the announcement of lockdown to when he fell ill, yes. Johnson clearly saw himself as Churchill standing alone against the virus, but it would be beaten. Now he doesn't care whether it gets beaten or not. He wants to change the topic.
Leaving aside the profound uninterest of the virus in whether Boris wants to change to topic, what's the new shtick going to be?
The post viral experience, the baby, the extra work of being PM in a crisis, the underlying work of being PM... they're obviously taking it out of him. Today, he looked *rough*.
If he plans to relaunch his premiership with a big speech (They all do that, don't they? Does it ever work?) what can he say with enough oomph for anyone to notice?
No the Lincoln project is very much the old Bush GOP, hugely rejected by the Republican support, still overwhelmingly behind Trump. Most of the US death figures have been in Democrat run states, overwhelmingly so. Blaming Trump on this is not by any means the whole picture. Where I would agree is while I expect Trump may pull through, very good bet he could lose the Senate.
Agreed, the Republican establishment despise Trump and want him to lose but they wanted him to lose in 2016 too, hence you had the likes of Bush Snr voting for Hillary and Romney voting to impeach Trump and now Colin Powell and Cindy McCain and John Bolton saying they will vote for Biden or want Trump defeated.
However it is not them who are the key swing voters in this election but rustbelt white working class Democrats who swung behind Trump and gave him victory in key states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Michigan Biden must win back to be elected
Whoever wins Florida will probably prevail. That maybe crucially is GOP governed, most of the other swing states are not and seem very keen on holding back the economic re-opening. A big problem for Trump possibly as he gave the shut down the green light. A choice he may regret now.
The Florida re-opening has gone so well hasn't it?
Yes very well. What are you reading. Florida is a big success story, keep the vulnerable away from CCP virus. It is who get's this not how many do.
I'm having difficulty making sense oif the tables. Those are figures for GB, right, not Scotland or England alone? (though obviously the latter predominate).
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The 2016 election was the most I ever won betting on politics. You could get Trump at 6/1 on the day and states like Michigan for Trump at 18/1. Obviously that won't happen this time but I'm tempted by Trump in Virginia at 9/2.. Minnesota is another one.
What makes you tempted on Virginia for him? He lost it in 2016 and since then the Democrats have flipped the legislature from the GOP, it's also highly educated. I'd expect Rhode Island to go Trump before Virginia does
Lol, no, my wife's from Rhode Island so I know it pretty well. They do vote Republican now and again (especially for governor as the Dems have a lock on the legislature) but no way would RI go red before Virginia. Virginia is trending pretty blue these days, it is true, but it it is still fundamentally a purple state for now.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Looking forward to winning our bet
Trump is out to nearly 3 on betfair now so I'm feeling a bit guilty about evens.
Trump’s term ends at noon on 20th January. That is flat, that is final.
However, there is a loophole that if nobody has been elected president by then, Congress (in practice, the House) can nominate an acting president until such time as an election is held. While this was to deal with deadlocks in the electoral college, it seems valid for the current case as well.
So, in theory, the election could be postponed and an acting president appointed.
HOWEVER, as the House is controlled by the Dems, that would not of course be Trump. You would have thought they would nominate Pelosi, or possibly Warren.
Which means, of course, that Trump will not want to delay the election as it is the only way he can stay in power.
Edit - all this presupposes the thread header is moot and he is the nominee. I’d love for him not to be, and for Haley or Rice or Rubio, somebody sane, to appear. But I do not see it.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
There are also a disproportionate number of 'don't knows' or 'undecideds' who say they think Trump will win but will not tell pollsters they will be voting for him, I still think it will be close
This is an excellent point. I'm treating the vast mass of "Don't Knows" as Shy Trump voters.
I'm having difficulty making sense oif the tables. Those are figures for GB, right, not Scotland or England alone? (though obviously the latter predominate).
Yep, GB wide, exactly the same sample of 2,001 asked about Johnson I presume.
I'm surprised that you perceive someone who has never been a member of the SNP or voted for them as representing their base.
Trump also has his base behind him, how's that going for him?
Not at present that is why he is 10 points down, many have not forgiven him for listening to Fauci and shutting down the economy, sending 40 million to unemployment. They may come back though.
How can golf possibly affect the pandemic trajectory more than a mass protest ?!
I don’t know. Perhaps it doesn’t. But the overwhelming theme on this board, particularly posts by Mr Urquhart, is that absolutely anything young people do has to be intrinsically dodgy by definition. So it should be banned. Nice people who play golf, have street parties on VE Day etc could NEVER be accountable for such bad things.
Ah I was wondering where golf came from!
Hmmm.
That would surely be because of the two, golf is the mass, repeated activity (a million players?), and the virus is far enough suppressed than 100k-200k or so one off person-attendances (involving a lot of duplication) at a set of demonstrations is not significant enough to register in the overall scheme of things even given lack of social distance in some cases.
And because a lot of the BLM demos were actually very responsible in their behaviour.
(Credit: Lincolnite)
I'll never understand the mask round the chinners. Wear one or don't, but round the chin ?!
People just push it down outside and pull it up when they go inside a shop or something.
Excess death update from the FT: Peru and Ecuador now miles ahead of everyone else, just beyond horrendous. Lima alone might end up with 40 thousand deaths. Chile on an ugly trajectory too.
Spain looks like it'll have the highest death rate in Europe, UK or possibly Italy (figures only to end April) next.
Moscow figures suggest a massive undercount in Russia - they're greater than the official toll for the entire country.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
As with Scottish independence (which did make huge progress against similar survey figures over there), the only path to unity is to broaden the appeal far beyond the home ground and work hard on the structural issues holding it back.
Excess death update from the FT: Peru and Ecuador now miles ahead of everyone else, just beyond horrendous. Lima alone might end up with 40 thousand deaths. Chile on an ugly trajectory too.
Spain looks like it'll have the highest death rate in Europe, UK or possibly Italy (figures only to end April) next.
Moscow figures suggest a massive undercount in Russia, which probably isn't that surprising.
Argentina does not seem badly affected at the moment in comparison to its neighbours
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
AS I said, threads on here remind me of the ones I read the run up to the brexit vote. Many remainers were doing a lap of honour weeks and months before the result. Even on the eve of the vote remain were said to be a street ahead. All over bar the shouting. Farage hahahahahahah......
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
I'm having difficulty making sense oif the tables. Those are figures for GB, right, not Scotland or England alone? (though obviously the latter predominate).
Yep, GB wide, exactly the same sample of 2,001 asked about Johnson I presume.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
I would take awful if awful is generating conditions that increase employment and income. Trump did this without question. On Economic and Business matters Trumps beats any real politician and that's why he will pick up as soon as the debate moves there. Of course the opponent will do anything to stop that happening.
Gosh. I spy somebody who still thinks Donald Trump is a "smart businessman" who is "not a politician" and thus "knows how to get things done"?
People are strange sometimes.
Gosh I spy a leftist that would never say a positive word about the 45th POTUS whatever he has done. What can't be taken away he smashed the Bush and Clinton cabals and presided over an economy where the key data was unstintingly positive, before CCP virus. Trump has obvious faults but all ORANGEMAN BAD, no not having it.
You sound like a cliche. Shape up.
The US budget position pre-Covid was "unstintingly positive", was it?
His 2016 win, capturing the Republican Party, getting elected as POTUS - this was a truly stunning achievement. He is charismatic, ruthless, and possessed of street smarts and a low cunning. He has a genuine gift for pressing the buttons of supporters and opponents alike, and for communicating base sentiments to basic people in ostensibly basic but actually quite effective language. He can read people and has an instinct for their weaknesses. He is, all in all, a formidable operator. Or has been anyway.
Ok. Now the other side of the ledger -
He is a pathological liar and narcissist, a misogynist, a dog-whistling racist, a person driven exclusively by his own personal interest and gratification, a person of shallow intellect and mean spirit and low character, a malevolent troll of zero attention span beyond that required to send a tweet, and - the biggie - he is STAGGERINGLY inept and out of his depth in the job.
Unfit for office, in other words, which enough people can now see. Of course there are still plenty of people dumb enough to still think he's a supersmart cookie who knows what he's doing - you are evidence of that - but not nearly enough this time.
As the budget is set by congress, not much Trump could do there. The American domestic presidential powers are often over estimated in the UK.
Some of the points on both sides are fair, apart from the racist, which is garbage. We will see what the American people will see, myself I don't think the map will be that much different to last time. Many close states could go either way.
Clinton was in many ways a poor choice but much tougher and cleverer than Biden, who again will be running on an unpopular platform. Late abortion, open borders, defund police, higher taxes etc.
Trump pushed through massive military spending and tax cuts favouring the wealthy over joe average. He trashed the public finances to buy a boom. Then came covid. As to him NOT dog whistling to racists, I can only assume your high frequency hearing is a little off. But, yes, we will see what happens on polling day. As I say, I'm close to certain of a Trump loss and I think it will be a big one.
And btw, the bias works the opposite way with me. I hate the idea of a 2nd term for him and so the pessimist in me - which I naturally am - is always searching for ways in which what I fear will come to pass. So I'm a natural Trump backer in betting terms. And yet I still think - I virtually know - that he's toast and have been betting that way since last year.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
If you are giving the Durham 'investigation' any credence then you are an absolute fool.
If, on the other hand you dispassionately viewing it in the context of how it will be used to form the basis of a dis-information campaign going into election season then I am all ears.
One thing is clear from today's PMQs and yesterday's unlockdown briefing, Johnson is no longer serious. The Churchill of Our Day shtick is over.
There was a point when he was serious?
From the announcement of lockdown to when he fell ill, yes. Johnson clearly saw himself as Churchill standing alone against the virus, but it would be beaten. Now he doesn't care whether it gets beaten or not. He wants to change the topic.
Thanks so much for crystallising an unarticulated but numinous feeling - and great fear.
One thing is clear from today's PMQs and yesterday's unlockdown briefing, Johnson is no longer serious. The Churchill of Our Day shtick is over.
There was a point when he was serious?
From the announcement of lockdown to when he fell ill, yes. Johnson clearly saw himself as Churchill standing alone against the virus, but it would be beaten. Now he doesn't care whether it gets beaten or not. He wants to change the topic.
Leaving aside the profound uninterest of the virus in whether Boris wants to change to topic, what's the new shtick going to be?
The post viral experience, the baby, the extra work of being PM in a crisis, the underlying work of being PM... they're obviously taking it out of him. Today, he looked *rough*.
If he plans to relaunch his premiership with a big speech (They all do that, don't they? Does it ever work?) what can he say with enough oomph for anyone to notice?
I guess Johnson's team is invested in the economic rebound. If he can point to strong growth, which is inevitable given the deepness of the Covid depression, he can hope people don't notice any Second Wave or Brexit effects. Johnson wings things and is a gambler and will go for it IMO.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
AS I said, threads on here remind me of the ones I read the run up to the brexit vote. Many remainers were doing a lap of honour weeks and months before the result. Even on the eve of the vote remain were said to be a street ahead. All over bar the shouting. Farage hahahahahahah......
For the record, I have said repeatedly that this is not over yet, by a long, long way. Trump is being written off by some and that is a huge mistake.
Apart from anything else the polls tend to narrow nearer the election when the americans actually tune in.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
One thing is clear from today's PMQs and yesterday's unlockdown briefing, Johnson is no longer serious. The Churchill of Our Day shtick is over.
There was a point when he was serious?
From the announcement of lockdown to when he fell ill, yes. Johnson clearly saw himself as Churchill standing alone against the virus, but it would be beaten. Now he doesn't care whether it gets beaten or not. He wants to change the topic.
Leaving aside the profound uninterest of the virus in whether Boris wants to change to topic, what's the new shtick going to be?
The post viral experience, the baby, the extra work of being PM in a crisis, the underlying work of being PM... they're obviously taking it out of him. Today, he looked *rough*.
If he plans to relaunch his premiership with a big speech (They all do that, don't they? Does it ever work?) what can he say with enough oomph for anyone to notice?
I guess Johnson's team is invested in the economic rebound. If he can point to strong growth, which is inevitable given the deepness of the Covid depression, he can hope people don't notice any Second Wave or Brexit effects. Johnson wings things and is a gambler and will go for it IMO.
All the numbers are heading down.
They have been heading down constantly (reporting averages) for a long period, and following the curve seen in other countries.
Just as in the rest of the world when this happens (and happened), the government is starting the journey back to some kind of normality.
Just as in the rest of the world, there will be spikes and partial returns to lock down measures.
OGH has been arguing for a while that Trump may not be the GOP Presidential candidate and Peter from Putney has also made the same case here. I agree. The ignominy of electoral defeat, as the incumbent President, will be unacceptable to the Orange Narcissist. So if he becomes convinced he’s going to lose I think he will concoct a reason for a “noble” withdrawal. On the other hand his narcissism will encourage him to believe he can win despite the polls. Which path will his narcissism take him?
I’ve been betting that he won’t be the nominee by backing Pence at 42 and Haley at 65. £100 staked to win £2400+ if its Pence or Haley.
I think it is unlikely that Trump will step down before the election. Yes he is a sore loser, but he is stubborn and the term "Quitter" is an insult he throws at others. He woud not let himself be tarred with this brush.
He doesn't use "quitter" much. On Twitter he has used "quitter" or "quitters" only four times since 2012. But he uses "loser" all the time. "Loser" is what he absolutely wants to avoid being - and if the only way to avoid losing is to walk out...
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
It still lasted four and a half years.
and even then only fell due to Walter Harrison doing the honourable thing and ensuring Alfred Broughton didn't leave his death bed and not allowing Weatherill to abstain.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
If you are giving the Durham 'investigation' any credence then you are an absolute fool.
If, on the other hand you dispassionately viewing it in the context of how it will be used to form the basis of a dis-information campaign going into election season then I am all ears.
Whatever Durham comes up with will be broadcast loud and clear by Trump. The narrative will be there WAS a plot to bring him down.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
OGH has been arguing for a while that Trump may not be the GOP Presidential candidate and Peter from Putney has also made the same case here. I agree. The ignominy of electoral defeat, as the incumbent President, will be unacceptable to the Orange Narcissist. So if he becomes convinced he’s going to lose I think he will concoct a reason for a “noble” withdrawal. On the other hand his narcissism will encourage him to believe he can win despite the polls. Which path will his narcissism take him?
I’ve been betting that he won’t be the nominee by backing Pence at 42 and Haley at 65. £100 staked to win £2400+ if its Pence or Haley.
I think it is unlikely that Trump will step down before the election. Yes he is a sore loser, but he is stubborn and the term "Quitter" is an insult he throws at others. He woud not let himself be tarred with this brush.
He doesn't use "quitter" much. On Twitter he has used "quitter" or "quitters" only four times since 2012. But he uses "loser" all the time. "Loser" is what he absolutely wants to avoid being - and if the only way to avoid losing is to walk out...
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
That's an interesting distinction between quitter and loser. How many bankruptcies is that he's been involved in? I'm absolutely sure Trump doesn't characterise them as him losing.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
It still lasted four and a half years.
and even then only fell due to Walter Harrison doing the honourable thing and ensuring Alfred Broughton didn't leave his death bed and not allowing Weatherill to abstain.
And,of course, one Tory MP - Reg Prentice - had been elected as a Labour MP in a safe seat in October 1974. His dishonourable behaviour effectively brought the Government down.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
Agree with all of this. Personally I won't be betting any money until Biden and Trump are confirmed as the candidates and we see the VP picks (is Pence a shoe in to stay as VP?). And I haven't heard much about third parties this year. Could we possibly see a Ross Perot-style situation if neither Trump or Biden are that popular?
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
Nothing disloges 'his' voters unless he departs from his theme of bigotry and racism. Who else sells that kind of snake oil? Where else will they go to buy it?
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
Nothing disloges 'his' voters unless he departs from his theme of bigotry and racism. Who else sells that kind of snake oil? Where else will they go to buy it?
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
There has been a definite step in the polls.
The voters he seems to have lost.... well saying they weren't "his" doesn't make much sense. It isn't *all* independents switching away.
yet the actual article is about loss of revenue from oil workers who have found alternative accommodation nearer the gas fields.
It is but the current environment is hardly congenial to finding alternative business is it? Few hotels in Scotland are going to avoid administration at this rate unless they have a wealthy international parent.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
OGH has been arguing for a while that Trump may not be the GOP Presidential candidate and Peter from Putney has also made the same case here. I agree. The ignominy of electoral defeat, as the incumbent President, will be unacceptable to the Orange Narcissist. So if he becomes convinced he’s going to lose I think he will concoct a reason for a “noble” withdrawal. On the other hand his narcissism will encourage him to believe he can win despite the polls. Which path will his narcissism take him?
I’ve been betting that he won’t be the nominee by backing Pence at 42 and Haley at 65. £100 staked to win £2400+ if its Pence or Haley.
I think it is unlikely that Trump will step down before the election. Yes he is a sore loser, but he is stubborn and the term "Quitter" is an insult he throws at others. He woud not let himself be tarred with this brush.
He doesn't use "quitter" much. On Twitter he has used "quitter" or "quitters" only four times since 2012. But he uses "loser" all the time. "Loser" is what he absolutely wants to avoid being - and if the only way to avoid losing is to walk out...
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
That's an interesting distinction between quitter and loser. How many bankruptcies is that he's been involved in? I'm absolutely sure Trump doesn't characterise them as him losing.
He probably regards bankruptcy as a deal in which he is the winner, and the people he owes money to are the losers.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
It still lasted four and a half years.
Thanks to David Steel and the Liberals.
Yes, the Liberals provided stability, while blocking the more extreme Labour policies. It was a good government.
Ah the bliss of being first out of the long-awaited trap
I too don't think that Trump will be disinvited from standing on the Republican ticket but there's no love lost for him within the party and the way things are going, the Democrats are rightly odds-on to win in November.
Back in the UK the Gov't have eased restrictions far too rapidly and with an already complacent and ignorant public we are heading for BIG trouble. A serious second wave is now inevitable I fear.
We can put the Nightingale hospitals into action!
The public made the decision to ease the lockdown some weeks ago. I'll let you argue amongst yourselves whether it was Cummings or the statue protests that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt nobody was paying attention to government advice any more.
So, as I predicted weeks ago, we have had a lockdown that has been utterly destructive to the economy (Telegraph yesterday suggested a cost of 165bn to save an estimated 50,000 lives - making the point some here have made that this figure was way in excess of NICE guidelines). But moreover we have had a lockdown that has not worked.
I'm not going to say all this has been for nothing (based on the above figure of it saving 50k lives) but it has been an obscenely expensive way to do it.
The question is what next. A second wave is almost certainly coming. We cannot afford a second lockdown - nor can we imagine it will be adhered to if it's implemented.
Sounds like big trouble ahead for the government.
With all due respect, that is utter horseshit.
There have been four basic responses to the CV-19 crisis:
1. Complete early travel and internal lockdown 2. Belated - but broadly complete - lockdowns 3. Belated and half-hearted lockdowns 4. No (or only targeted) lockdowns
Now, we can argue about categorisation, but New Zealand is clearly in (1), while Sweden is in (4).
Economic damage seems to be broadly consistent among the four groups. Sweden's economy has no better PMIs than the UK, and is rather worse than Germany (in group 2) or New Zealand (group 1).
Second waves, assuming that the community prevalence is relatively well contained (most of Europe, most of Asia) can be largely avoided by rules that limit only a small portion of activity: masks on public transports, restrictions on choirs and nightclubs.
Those countries that went for (3), such as the US, or (4), such as Sweden are not bouncing back better than those in (1) or (2). And - based on the fact that places like Arizona are now locking down again - seem to be in a worse position.
Why?
Because people don't just act according to government advice, they act according to whether they feel safe. If they don't feel safe, there is a de facto lockdown. Which means all the economic damage without actually getting rid of the virus.
Sweden is a good example of the latter point. They officially had no lockdown. In practice their lockdown seems to be pretty similar to ours because people are scared.
For me personally, I will be looking at the incidence of this virus in the community. If I am persuaded that there is no sign of it locally I may be fairly relaxed about going to a restaurant or café. If it is still present neither I nor my family will.
Even within the UK the week before the official lockdown saw tube usage drop to 10% of their historical average, with other public transport at 30-40% usage. Most people were already in their own form of lockdown.
Absolutely. I was "locked down" over a week before it was officially announced as were many, many others. Those claiming that the lateness of our official lockdown cost thousands of lives just ignore this.
The reason they obsess about the official lockdown date is because they don't want to mention the lack of restriction on entry to the UK in March.
Most of the people talking about wanting entry to the UK stopped in March werent doing so at the time. Of those that did contemperaneously, the vast majority were wanting to stop flights from China, S Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy. Yet the majority of infections came from Spain and France, with only 0.1% from China. And once we locked down flight traffic was down 99% with virtually no tourists, just UK citizens and residents returning.
We were still allowing people to fly to Spain until the middle of March (I know some people who were at the airport on Saturday 14th when their flight was cancelled) even though Spain was known to have a major problem by then.
The whole flight thing is so dumb.
There should be categorisation of countries from "little or no risk" (requiring self certification and tests, such as South Korea) through medium risk (requiring quarantine) to high risk (no flights).
That will come. But it will cause serious arguments when people can't travel freely to countries such as India:
OGH has been arguing for a while that Trump may not be the GOP Presidential candidate and Peter from Putney has also made the same case here. I agree. The ignominy of electoral defeat, as the incumbent President, will be unacceptable to the Orange Narcissist. So if he becomes convinced he’s going to lose I think he will concoct a reason for a “noble” withdrawal. On the other hand his narcissism will encourage him to believe he can win despite the polls. Which path will his narcissism take him?
I’ve been betting that he won’t be the nominee by backing Pence at 42 and Haley at 65. £100 staked to win £2400+ if its Pence or Haley.
I think it is unlikely that Trump will step down before the election. Yes he is a sore loser, but he is stubborn and the term "Quitter" is an insult he throws at others. He woud not let himself be tarred with this brush.
He doesn't use "quitter" much. On Twitter he has used "quitter" or "quitters" only four times since 2012. But he uses "loser" all the time. "Loser" is what he absolutely wants to avoid being - and if the only way to avoid losing is to walk out...
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
That's an interesting distinction between quitter and loser. How many bankruptcies is that he's been involved in? I'm absolutely sure Trump doesn't characterise them as him losing.
He probably regards bankruptcy as a deal in which he is the winner, and the people he owes money to are the losers.
I wonder if some smart person can persuade Trump to see his presidency as a bankruptcy caused by the weaknesses and failings of others that he has an obligation, nay a DUTY, to extricate himself from? Much as I'd like to see Trump humiliated, the whole process is going to be such a horrorshow that a Biden v Pence/whoever would be a balm to the deep damage already done.
'A hard rain is coming': No10 chief Dominic Cummings 'vows fundamental change to civil service' after coronavirus exposed flaws in the government machine
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
'A hard rain is coming': No10 chief Dominic Cummings 'vows fundamental change to civil service' after coronavirus exposed flaws in the government machine
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
Agree with all of this. Personally I won't be betting any money until Biden and Trump are confirmed as the candidates and we see the VP picks (is Pence a shoe in to stay as VP?). And I haven't heard much about third parties this year. Could we possibly see a Ross Perot-style situation if neither Trump or Biden are that popular?
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
There's a long way to go to get 60% having had Covid-19 which should give some herd immunity. Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate. The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
R of 1.01 and R of 3 are both exponential but the time scale is very different.
And we don't need to get anywhere near 60% to get some herd immunity.
Now we can either open up society a bit more over the summer and build some more herd immunity or we can cower in our homes for the next year.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
I don't think you can attribute much to Bannon, who just rode on Trump's coat-tails.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
She did not predict Trump would win.
This is one of those bizarre PB myths that refuses to go away.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
She wanted a Trump win, but forecast a Clinton win.
OGH has been arguing for a while that Trump may not be the GOP Presidential candidate and Peter from Putney has also made the same case here. I agree. The ignominy of electoral defeat, as the incumbent President, will be unacceptable to the Orange Narcissist. So if he becomes convinced he’s going to lose I think he will concoct a reason for a “noble” withdrawal. On the other hand his narcissism will encourage him to believe he can win despite the polls. Which path will his narcissism take him?
I’ve been betting that he won’t be the nominee by backing Pence at 42 and Haley at 65. £100 staked to win £2400+ if its Pence or Haley.
I think it is unlikely that Trump will step down before the election. Yes he is a sore loser, but he is stubborn and the term "Quitter" is an insult he throws at others. He woud not let himself be tarred with this brush.
He doesn't use "quitter" much. On Twitter he has used "quitter" or "quitters" only four times since 2012. But he uses "loser" all the time. "Loser" is what he absolutely wants to avoid being - and if the only way to avoid losing is to walk out...
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
That's an interesting distinction between quitter and loser. How many bankruptcies is that he's been involved in? I'm absolutely sure Trump doesn't characterise them as him losing.
He probably regards bankruptcy as a deal in which he is the winner, and the people he owes money to are the losers.
To be fair, there are many in the world of business, since bankruptcy was invented who see it that way.
Also to be fair, Trump treats bankruptcy the way he treats everything else - breaking all the norms in as egregious a fashion as possible
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
Some of Biden's current support clearly voted Libertarian in 2016, assuming Biden wins virtually all the Hillary vote, Trump will need to get his 2016 vote back for him and win those Libertarian voters over, not impossible if Biden picks a leftist like Warren for VP.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
Nothing disloges 'his' voters unless he departs from his theme of bigotry and racism. Who else sells that kind of snake oil? Where else will they go to buy it?
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
There has been a definite step in the polls.
The voters he seems to have lost.... well saying they weren't "his" doesn't make much sense. It isn't *all* independents switching away.
It's a big mistake to think that all Trump supporters are Republicans, or all Republicans are Trump supporters; nor are all Independents and Democrats necessarily inimical to the idea of voting for Trump.
He draws his support from those who feel the conventional parties and the political establishment will not publicly express their views and give vent to their frustrations. These included enough Indies and Dems last time to get him over the line. He seems since to have narrowed that base. I guess he could extend it again between now and the election but it isn't looking likely.
Voters for Biden definitely aren't voting for the actual 78 year old man that's standing. More of a vote for an idealised America in the voter's eye. That's what carried Trump in 2016, "MAGA" and it's what will win it for Biden in 2020.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
Some of Biden's current support clearly voted Libertarian in 2016, assuming Biden wins virtually all the Hillary vote, Trump will need to get his 2016 vote back for him and win those Libertarian voters over, not impossible if Biden picks a leftist like Warren for VP.
Biden and Warren are great friends, but pick her for VP? I'd be less surprised if he picked me.
I don't think these adverts will have a huge amount of impact with the Republican vote although they are very punchy. If you were Republican and voted for Trump in 2016 knowing all what you did about him, I'm not sure what exactly persuades you not to vote for him in 2020 - yes, he's awful, is a slob etc but you know what you were getting already.
As have mentioned before, one of the least commented facts is that Trump probably does have a base of extra votes that he can eat into from 2016 namely the 3.8% combined vote of the Libertarians and McMullin, or 4.8m extra votes compared with 2012. Given the latters' stances, it is a fair assumption to say that most of their votes were ex-Republicans. Some will stay away but there may be some that see the rioting on the streets, statues being tore down etc and decide to hold their noses and vote for Trump.
The other thing it always pays to pay attention to in this situation is what people are actually doing. The Politico article that interviewed various GOP executives across the country made it very clear that they do not see Trump as a liability and are genuinely positive about their prospects in November. The same goes for the GOP in Congress: apart from Romney and Murkowski, who each uniquely have alternative power bases in their states (Mormons i Utah, family dominance in Alaska) none of the other GOP Senators (even Collins fighting a tough re-election battle) have publicly disvowed him. That suggests they don't see him as a liability either.
One final point. Much has been said of Biden's basement strategy and how clever it is to let Trump make his mistakes. However, the longer this goes on, the longer the Democrats risk being branded as the party of left wing activists who take down statues and defund the Police. Nor would it be right to assume that an anti-Police stance guarantees extra Black votes when many Black neighbourhoods are seeing a sharp rise in shootings. Biden needs to come out and define exactly what he is for. Otherwise he risks being seen as just an anti-Trump vote which might not be enough.
You go wrong from the get-go in the 1st para. Trump voters in 2016 did not know what they were getting. They had not seen him in office. Amongst their number was a sizeable proportion who voted for him reluctantly with an attitude of "OK, don't really love the guy, but it'll be something different, he might be good in the job, and I don't want Hillary, so let's give him a shot." It was an experiment. A punt.
They have now had an eyeful of the reality over the last 4 years and a sizeable proportion of that sizeable proportion, be they Republicans or otherwise, are thinking, "Nope. Jerk. Not again." This is what is driving the polls right now and it is what will drive the result. Given the 2016 start point of a freakish EC win from a PV deficit it spells landslide defeat this time. Any other outcome is vanishingly unlikely unless voter suppression reaches ridiculous levels and I have enough faith in the US electoral process to more or less discount that.
WH2020 is a silent majority election. And the silent majority have had enough of Donald Trump.
Take this to the bank.
Certainly Trump's net (dis)approval ratings, which were already poor, are now worse than they have been at any time since January 2019. They roughly mirror those of Carter and GHW Bush five months before the elections they lost. They're well behind those of any president who won re-election.
Anyone who predicts that Trump will win at this point is a fool. That doesn't mean that there are no value bets to be had at long odds, but value bets are a very different thing to believing that something is more likely than not to happen.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily. Two points you miss, never under-estimate the big man and Biden is no Reagan or Clinton. Oh and there may be a slight suspicion the polls are a teensy bit biased. Yougov and Ipsos forget it, been wrong too often both sides of the pond. Some of the less moneyed polls are much closer, seek and you may find.
When Bannon took over in August 2016. Trump was up to 14 points behind and won handily.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
Some of Biden's current support clearly voted Libertarian in 2016, assuming Biden wins virtually all the Hillary vote, Trump will need to get his 2016 vote back for him and win those Libertarian voters over, not impossible if Biden picks a leftist like Warren for VP.
It's not impossible. But it is increasingly difficult.
However, it is possible that Biden is not currently getting a single libertarian vote, as (a) turnout in 2016 was around 55%, and (b) there will be new voters that have come of age (and some will have snuffed it too).
If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it.
Or would you prefer that we all cower in our homes for the next year ?
There's a long way to go to get 60% having had Covid-19 which should give some herd immunity. Also with a two week incubation period and exponential growth of infection it's not easy to control the rate. The NHS could still be overwhelmed if we get this wrong.
R of 1.01 and R of 3 are both exponential but the time scale is very different.
And we don't need to get anywhere near 60% to get some herd immunity.
Now we can either open up society a bit more over the summer and build some more herd immunity or we can cower in our homes for the next year.
But we're not stopping social distancing or track and trace or handwashing or social isolating for the most vulnerable are we.
But we still have to make the choice of slowly opening up the economy and society or of cowering in our homes.
And its the former which has been happening for two months and it has been successful.
Meanwhile herd immunity is slowly but steadily building and so making the more vulnerable people safer.
You've changed your tune. "If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it." You only build herd immunity if social distancing is failing and people are getting the virus and if that is happening we won't know how badly that is happening for two weeks - and depending on the value of 'R' that could be building exponentially. I seem to have missed your estimate of a good value for herd immunity, if not 60% then what?
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
Nothing disloges 'his' voters unless he departs from his theme of bigotry and racism. Who else sells that kind of snake oil? Where else will they go to buy it?
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
There has been a definite step in the polls.
The voters he seems to have lost.... well saying they weren't "his" doesn't make much sense. It isn't *all* independents switching away.
It's a big mistake to think that all Trump supporters are Republicans, or all Republicans are Trump supporters; nor are all Independents and Democrats necessarily inimical to the idea of voting for Trump.
He draws his support from those who feel the conventional parties and the political establishment will not publicly express their views and give vent to their frustrations. These included enough Indies and Dems last time to get him over the line. He seems since to have narrowed that base. I guess he could extend it again between now and the election but it isn't looking likely.
I thought the surveys were showing that he losing the "unconventional" voters as well? And losing them in a rather final fashion.
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
If we discount the views of everyone who called the 2016 election wrong then we will be left with very few commentators to discuss, and those that are left largely from the ranks of the Republican Party.
The late Plato did and what did she get on this board for her efforts?
The campaign has hardly started and we are all calling it for Joe Biden. Probably channeling our desires.
In the UK we think we have good coverage of US news. We don't. It is all filtered through the political lens of our correspondents. So we all thought Stormy/Avenatti (remember them?) were going to bring down Trump.
Mueller got called out months beforehand in the US but we were not told that.
Biden has not faced journalists for 90 odd days, and we think that is normal.
Biden is not a great candidate, there is a reason his previous runs for the presidency bombed. He's been around for nearly 50 years. He plagiarized the great Kinnock in his 1988 run.
Biden looks like he has dementia. His face mask flapping off his ear a few weeks ago had echoes of Dukakis and the tank. He seems to have a knack for inappropriately touching women and girls of all ages. His treatment of Anita Hill was memorable. Trump and his acolytes will be merciless in exploiting all this.
No one has heard of John Durham in the UK. Barr was on record this weekend as saying there WAS a plot to bring down Trump.
There is a long way to go. Typically the campaign does not start till Labor (sic) Day Sept 7th (a bit late this year) or the conventions (August I think) at the earliest.
Does this mean Trump will necessarily win? No. But Biden is not a shoe in just because we all know absolutely no one who will vote for Trump.
I think that it is fair to say that Biden would be odds on to win an election next week but there are 5 months to go so anything could happen.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
COVID and BLM going mainstream have resulted in a a game of 52 Card Pickup.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
Nothing disloges 'his' voters unless he departs from his theme of bigotry and racism. Who else sells that kind of snake oil? Where else will they go to buy it?
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
There has been a definite step in the polls.
The voters he seems to have lost.... well saying they weren't "his" doesn't make much sense. It isn't *all* independents switching away.
It's a big mistake to think that all Trump supporters are Republicans, or all Republicans are Trump supporters; nor are all Independents and Democrats necessarily inimical to the idea of voting for Trump.
He draws his support from those who feel the conventional parties and the political establishment will not publicly express their views and give vent to their frustrations. These included enough Indies and Dems last time to get him over the line. He seems since to have narrowed that base. I guess he could extend it again between now and the election but it isn't looking likely.
I thought the surveys were showing that he losing the "unconventional" voters as well? And losing them in a rather final fashion.
No idea. The ones I've seen have him gaining on most metrics.
Cambridge University statistician Sir David Spiegelhalter said there had been 959 Covid-19 deaths out of 18million people in that age range in England and Wales so far.
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
Another example of how history is complex and messy...and how the those trying to judge those of the past by today standards / not judging characters a whole, are going to end up cancelling everybody.
"I have spent my life fighting Tories." Apart from 5 years governing with them.
Lib Dems have a problem here. All their MPs in England have Tories as challengers so they want to fight them. There are hardly any Labour targets. However, the political space is for a fiscally conservative, socially liberal party. That is totally empty right now.
Davey is just setting himself up to be Starmer's Deputy PM if there is a hung parliament in 2024.
The last fiscally conservative, socially liberal LD leader was Nick Clegg.
Enough said
I cannot see that. A minority Government would not make him Deputy PM.
It likely would, with Starmer taking the Cameron role and Davey the Clegg role in a reverse of 2010. The LDs would be kingmakers in such a hung parliament and would want it as the price of their support
That would imply a coalition - rather than a minority Government. Unlikely Starmer would go for that.
Given the only non coalition minority governments since WW2 in 1974 and 2017 lasted no more than a few months to 2 years he likely would.
Plus a LD coalition would enable him to isolate the Corbynite left as such a coalition enabled Cameron to isolate the Cornerstone right from 2010 to 2015
The 2017 Government did last two and a half years - and did not have to end when it did. Starmer would be more likely to follow Wilson's example from 1974 - and indeed 1964 - and seek to improve his position at a second early election. It is also far from clear that the LDs would be attracted by the prospect of another coalition - Confidence & Supply probably would appeal more.
Wilson got a majority of just 3 in October 1974 after Feb 1974 produced a hung parliament and it was still an unstable government until 1979
Those of us who followed the tip and watched “This House” a few weeks ago now have a vivid picture of what was happening in Parliament at that time. One big difference to more recent Parliaments was the large number of bye-elections that Labour had to fight, often due to the death of the sitting MP.
Another huge number of new C-19 cases in Florida today - 5,511. Fortunately for Floridians very few die from the virus - only 41 new deaths recorded.
So not too bad, eh?
Florida is jammed full of oldies. Wonder what is going on? Are they all hiding away?
Didn't they fire the person responsible for collating the data because she was doing too good a job? We know from Bush Gore that if you want to stop counting things accurately the Florida Republican Party are your go-to guys.
Comments
In NY-14 (North Queens-East Bronx) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes comfortably saw off DINO carpetbagger Michelle Caruso-Cabrera 70-20.
Biggest upset of the night was in NY-16 (North Bronx-Lower Westchester) where Jamaal Bowman has almost certainly unseated House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Eliot Engel from the D nomination 60-35.
In NY-15 (South Bronx) progressive Ritchie Torres has a comfortable lead at c 30% in a split field, 10 points ahead of his nearest rival and 15 points ahead of the perceived front-runner, conservative Democrat Ruben Diaz.
In my seat of NY-17 (Upper Westchester-Rockland), Mondaire Jones has a clear plurality at c. 45%. As this is a safe Democratic seat, albeit not as "weigh the Democratic vote rather than count it" as the seats further south, it's a pretty safe bet that come January I'll be represented by the first openly-gay Black congressman.
The progressive wave has probably not quite reached NY-12 (East Side Manhattan-NW Queens-Greenpoint, Brooklyn) where moderate Democrat incumbent Caroline Maloney has a small 41-40 lead over progressive challenger Suraj Patel.
The big caveat on these results though is that up to 70% of all votes were absentee postal ballots because of the coronavirus crisis. These have another week to come in, and so won't be counted until that deadline has passed. That said, there's no compelling reason to expect the absentee ballots to split very much differently from yesterday's in-person vote, so I don't expect any of the above results are likely to be changed by the absentee ballots. The only possible exception is NY-12 where Maloney's lead is slim enough that the absentee ballots might change it.
Trump also has his base behind him, how's that going for him?
Universal Basic Education, Universal Basic Healthcare, Universal Basic Law and Order, Universal Basic Defence, and so on.
Universal Basic Income is the most simple and direct provision of a safety net possible (without the detailed and arcane hoops to jump through to prove you are the "deserving" poor. It also removes considerable fear and stress at the bottom end of the scale (if you lose your job or need Universal Credit, you don't have to fill out pages and pages of forms and wait until they finally get around to supporting you - or choose for some obscure reason to judge you as "undeserving" and cut you off).
It ties in with the (surprising, to me, anyway) finding that being financially strapped for prolonged periods actually changes your brain - physically as well as psychologically. The constant stress and worry is analogous to a form of PTSD, and if you've been trapped in poverty for long enough, your decision-making is impaired (people fall towards short-term gratification rather than long-term sensibleness because: why not? You're screwed, anyway. And someone else (the person in the Government who decides whether or not your deserving and can take away your income at the stroke of a pen) has more and more power over you and you have less and less power).
Trials of UBI-like initiatives have found that mental health (and associated decision-making) improve, trust in institutions (essential for market-based solutions) increases significantly, and there is no noticeable reduction in work ethic and attempts to work (a slight INCREASE but not statistically significant).
UBI can act (at the margins, but that's where markets work best anyway) to free people up to try things and fail (also essential for markets), to move across fields and jobs (fluidity of workforce to help markets), to trust institutions (essential for markets), to make better decisions by relieving the constant stress and pressure to short-termism (empowering individuals).
It can take up most of the benefits - but not all, true. But the ideal is the enemy of the good: it can remove vast swathes of the need for administration, ensure work always pays, and provide a guaranteed safety net. There was detailed analysis at the University of Bath on affordability, and it can be introduced at low level to see how it actually does.
And it can effectively tie taxes and benefits into one whole - if you want to increase UBI, you have to shift the tax bands upwards for those in work.
NH always seems like a near miss and always seems to be below the radar.
The post viral experience, the baby, the extra work of being PM in a crisis, the underlying work of being PM... they're obviously taking it out of him. Today, he looked *rough*.
If he plans to relaunch his premiership with a big speech (They all do that, don't they? Does it ever work?) what can he say with enough oomph for anyone to notice?
The rot goes very very deep.
*completely wrong
https://twitter.com/d_jaishankar/status/1275765553718865920?s=20
https://tinyurl.com/y9b8zeqa
https://sluggerotoole.com/2020/06/20/irish-nationalism-needs-to-review-its-united-ireland-strategy-after-a-mere-2-increase-since-2003/
Spain looks like it'll have the highest death rate in Europe, UK or possibly Italy (figures only to end April) next.
Moscow figures suggest a massive undercount in Russia - they're greater than the official toll for the entire country.
And btw, the bias works the opposite way with me. I hate the idea of a 2nd term for him and so the pessimist in me - which I naturally am - is always searching for ways in which what I fear will come to pass. So I'm a natural Trump backer in betting terms. And yet I still think - I virtually know - that he's toast and have been betting that way since last year.
If, on the other hand you dispassionately viewing it in the context of how it will be used to form the basis of a dis-information campaign going into election season then I am all ears.
https://twitter.com/darrengrimes_/status/1275757172362706945?s=20
https://twitter.com/MrKenShabby/status/1275786717866405890?s=20
https://twitter.com/DaveHill/status/1275785549173927940
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1275782644484227073
Apart from anything else the polls tend to narrow nearer the election when the americans actually tune in.
People saying that Trump overturned big polling deficits last time as if it is evidence that it could happen again remind me of the diehards who kept telling us Corbyn was going to surge in December because he had done so in 2017.
There was never any evidence that history was going to repeat itself and at the moment there no evidence that it will for Trump, but it still could.
They have been heading down constantly (reporting averages) for a long period, and following the curve seen in other countries.
Just as in the rest of the world when this happens (and happened), the government is starting the journey back to some kind of normality.
Just as in the rest of the world, there will be spikes and partial returns to lock down measures.
Film at 11
https://twitter.com/Cruella1/status/1275754379690356737
I read several of his books in 2016. He's well keen on the idea that the party that wins in a deal (he has no concept of a non-zerosum game) is the one who is most willing to walk away. It's possible he'll tell the Republican party to shove their nomination before they take it away from him, perhaps ranting about going third-party before his people tell him he'd be wasting his money.
I've looked for what he might have said about a deal between himself and the US people, but there doesn't seem to be anything. That's not how he sees things.
He sees things more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JsAQj36gCU
The issue, as others have mentioned is changing rooms etc. Which are generally a complete petri dish.
On both Trump has exceeded even his usual idiocy. Which *seems* to have dislodged a portion of his voters.
I think this one is Biden's to lose. Biden seems to have got some fire in him on both issues.
My current estimate on chances would be:
70% Biden
25% Trump
5% Someone else
It's the other voters he is losing, and he cannot afford to. It was a small miracle that he managed to win the Electoral College with 2m fewer votes than Hillary, who was a lesser candidate than the one he now faces. (Yeah, I know, low bar but....) He simply has to win more votes and I don't see where they are coming from.
The voters he seems to have lost.... well saying they weren't "his" doesn't make much sense. It isn't *all* independents switching away.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1275781753400107009
https://twitter.com/dsamuelsohn/status/1275792771819937797
https://twitter.com/MarcACaputo/status/1275747216947384321
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8455283/Dominic-Cummings-vows-fundamental-change-civil-service-coronavirus.html
But more than 80 per cent of these victims had pre-existing health conditions that make the viral disease far more deadly than it otherwise would be.
Sir David said under-40s were more likely to die in a car accident than from Covid-19 and for under-25s, the risk was lower than dying from flu or pneumonia.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8454331/Under-50s-likely-die-car-accident-injury-Covid-19.html
Boris will surely not sacrifice much more political capital for him.
But we still have to make the choice of slowly opening up the economy and society or of cowering in our homes.
And its the former which has been happening for two months and it has been successful.
Meanwhile herd immunity is slowly but steadily building and so making the more vulnerable people safer.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html
The largest gap that Trump had in the 2016 race, based on the RCP averages, was on 9 August, when he was behind 43.9% to 36.3%. That's a 7.6% deficit.
The current RCP average is a 10.2% lead for Biden.
But that's not what should terrify Trump. You see, in 2016, Ms Clinton's best RCP average was just 46.2%. Her lead was because people said they wouldn't vote for Trump, not that they would vote for Ms Clinton.
This time round Biden is getting 51.1% in the RCP poll of polls. So, President Trump doesn't just need to persuade the unpersuaded. He needs Biden supporters to switch.
Plato predicted a Hillary win, when pushed to a forecast.
Also to be fair, Trump treats bankruptcy the way he treats everything else - breaking all the norms in as egregious a fashion as possible
He draws his support from those who feel the conventional parties and the political establishment will not publicly express their views and give vent to their frustrations. These included enough Indies and Dems last time to get him over the line. He seems since to have narrowed that base. I guess he could extend it again between now and the election but it isn't looking likely.
However, it is possible that Biden is not currently getting a single libertarian vote, as (a) turnout in 2016 was around 55%, and (b) there will be new voters that have come of age (and some will have snuffed it too).
"If there's a risk of a second wave this winter then building more herd immunity now is a good idea isn't it."
You only build herd immunity if social distancing is failing and people are getting the virus and if that is happening we won't know how badly that is happening for two weeks - and depending on the value of 'R' that could be building exponentially.
I seem to have missed your estimate of a good value for herd immunity, if not 60% then what?
Well quite.
fire up the well quite klaxon, chaps.
https://conservativewoman.co.uk/was-mary-seacole-racist-the-times-and-an-idiotic-attempt-to-erase-history/
keep mouth breathing!
So not too bad, eh?