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The State of the Union, Week 7 – politicalbetting.com
The State of the Union, Week 7 – politicalbetting.com
Not much movement, and yet lots of movement (for some).The national polling gap continues to narrow slightly, fairly uniformly (we’ll get to Princeton). And yet… Harris’s vote share is actually increasing, just slightly slower than Trump’s. It would seem that both sides’ voters are firming up their views. Harris may be happy to have a lead, Trump may be happy the lead might not be enough for Harris to overcome the disadvantage the Dems have in the Electoral College. Princeton Electoral Consortium had a big shift to Trump this week. Unlike the others, their model only uses state polls, and it hasn’t been a great week for the Dems at state level, so while the end result is slightly unexpected, it is logical.
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Thank-you for the header, James. I wonder if RR is thinking about VAT on books ?
(Edit - why do Bobs always make me late? Whether Generick Bob or AnaBob, Grrr.)
FPT: That's quite funny. It says that last year she spent £137.50, which at professional rates is what for an accountant - one hour? £1225 is 2014 to 2022.
Good shop it wasn't a lawyer she needed - that's probably about time for one to polish one shoe and turn up dishevelled.
The Telegrunt is running out of material
Whoever wins Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia will likely therefore win the EC and presidency. Nevada is also a tossup but went for Biden and Hillary the last 2 times in the end
If Mr Starmer survives the barrage of baseless bollocks at the beginning, this could be a great reforming Government !
To believe that this anecdote is interesting you have to be incredibly self absorbed, or really quite stupid. Or both?
But not Kamala Harris. She thinks it’s a different, shameful, day in American history.
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1845805483539472438
Some, like Stansted refurbishing and expanding a bit, are things that MAG have wanted to do for a while, and feel like Starmer riding the coattails stuff. But the AI/digital £6.3bn is possible more significant.
As always the detail will be the clincher.
I said this ages ago, he is Gordon Brittas.
Boris' infamous Peppa Pig funny was an extended, excruciating classic of the genre.
His enemies and opponents can only destroy him once, so he might as well do the things he believes in in the meantime. There's a story in John Major's biography of when the Conservatives fluked a win in Lambeth in 1968. At the first group meeting after the election, the leader stood up and said something along the lines of "We've got three years and will almost certainly lose next time. Let's be brilliant while we're in charge, so that defeat is an unjust defeat."
One of the truly disappointing things about Sunak's Premiership was that he must have realised his situation, but didn't have that insight. (Or, perhaps even worse, he did, and this is the legacy he wanted to leave.)
The PB Tories who luxuriated in this being shelved because Louise Haigh rightly called out P&O's sharp practices are looking rather silly now. The summit seems to be going pretty well...
What's on earth is wrong with Da Libz? Utterly self-destructive. They can't help themselves when wallowing in this bullshit.
Bet on Trump.
Personally I think Harris is narrowly ahead, in Electoral College terms too, but there are a lot of variables,
I would expect Trump to win the white vote comfortably and the white working class vote by a landslide. If Harris wins it will be by high turnout of African Americans in her favour and also her winning the Latino and Asian and native American vote comfortably while also leading Trump with white female graduates and at least close to tied with Trump with white male graduates
"The transport select committee chair, Conservative Huw Merriman, joined calls for government action, saying: “The government must do everything it can to ensure that this appalling employment transaction cannot be completed.”
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/17/po-ferries-halts-sailings-before-major-announcement
Devastation, violence and stealing land - pre-Columbian history is vague, but my understanding was that this was pretty standard practice in the Americas prior to Columbus. To the extent that Europeans managed to get a foothold, it was to a large extent down to tribe X allying with or recruiting the Europeans in their war/revolution/intermittent raids against tribe Y. The Aztecs, for example, were utterly bloodthirsty and their various subject peoples were quite delighted to find an ally to help overthrow them. So I'm not sure European explorers unleashed a wave of this, though it would be hard to claim that Europeans didn't partake.
Disease was the big one. My understanding is that diseases imported by Europeans wiped out 90% of the North American native population before all but the briefest first contact was made. I may be wrong about this - it seems very hard to believe.
Politically, the 'you lot are evil' message is one that you would normally try to avoid. I guess it's so firmly embedded in the culture of the circles that Kamala moves in that it doesn't really occur to her that it's not necessarily that great a message to be putting out when you're thinking of winning elections.
Why do these things always come in something sevens? 27s, 47s, 97s, 687s and so on?
For someone seeking the presidency of the USA that seems suboptimal
What it did show sadly is that the British Government is more than happy to throw its Transport Secretary, who had released a Government approved press release, under a bus because a big corporate threatened not to come to their party. That's fairly pathetic.
She’s very lucky she’s facing the mad clown that is Trump so she will likely be OK
And, yes, pre Columbian native history is incredibly bloodthirsty. Aztec-style torture and cruelty - and cannibalism - was ubiquitous across the Americas
She'll be surrounded by people and advisors like them.
I can endorse this book for anyone interested in what was there before Europeans.
https://awesomebooks.com/book/9780719566370/a-voyage-long-and-strange-rediscovering-the-new-world/used?msclkid=bea77d9cb5981b2f12bd1a918d64a66f&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Shopping%20%7C%20UK%20%7C%20Used&utm_term=4585788126491835&utm_content=TS2
But we can't have Elon Musk attend, cos, he doesn't have enough money, or something...I lost track of the excuses.
No, there was no war, no murder, no slavery, no disease before the White Man came. Everything was perfect until then.
Its bullshit, of course.
That will go down like a sack of cold sick in the USA.
Catastrophic.
Nonetheless, she said it. Not a hoax
Jenrick: Lord Frost, Jacob Rees Mogg, Esther McVey.
Badenoch: Iain Duncan Smith, David Davis, Damian Green.
Make of that what you will.
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be re-elected before breakfast !!
I am very nervous about Harris doing a projectile D&V over her election chances in the next 3 weeks through temptations like this.
She’s been silent on the subject in the campaign.
I’m the one that went digging and discovered it’s actually from 2021. You can thank me later
You still haven't really explained why the US celebrates the Spanish/Portugese conquest of South America.
Interesting.
NEW (GOP)
@Senate_Fund
Senate/President Battleground internals.
Texas: Cruz +1 (48-47), Trump +5 (50-45)
Wisconsin: Baldwin +1 (46-45), Trump +1 (46-45)
Pennsylvania: Casey +2 (48-46), Harris +1 (49-48)
Montana: Sheehy +4 (48-44), Trump +17 (57-40)
Arizona: Gallego +5 (47-42), TIE pres (47-47)
Ohio: Brown +6 (45-39), Trump +4 (47-43)
Nevada: Rosen +7 (43-36), TIE pres (46/46)
Maryland: Alsobrooks +7 (48-41), Harris +29 (61-32)
Michigan: Slotkin +8 (46-38), Harris +3 (45-42)...
https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/1845618278645006584
Thanks for this, @Big_G_NorthWales . I think it is really interesting what will happen. I'm still roughly expecting (and tbf hoping for) maybe 5-10% of road mileage which has been set at the new default to be made into exceptions - so maybe ~3% of road mileage out of the total ~1/3 which changed at the start. Do you have any feel for how much linear mileage this will be reverting? I see that it says 440 individual representations concerning what looks like by eye ~70 sections of carriageway, whilst Wrexham has a population of ~135k.
Flintshire was 900+ individual comments talking about "93 roads".
https://www.deeside.com/the-93-roads-in-flintshire-which-could-return-to-30mph/
By comparison Gwynedd created 85 exceptions from the start, which was more than other Councils did, and Flintshire seems to be roughly in line with that:
Councils have always had the powers to create exception roads which would stay at 30mph. Some, like Cyngor Gwynedd have used these extensively with 85 exceptions but others have fewer than 10 across their counties..
Note that Columbus Day only became a US national holiday in 1966, thanks to decades of advocacy by Italian Americans. Who back in that era were still suffering from significant degree of WASP* prejudice.
Nowadays hardly 97% of even Italian Americans are "celebrating" Columbus Day, except as (maybe) a day off OR with holiday pay.
Further note that the day has always been UNpopular with Norwegian Americans, who (for some reason) regard Christopher Columbus as a Johnny-come-lately!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day
The early returns on early voting are a lot more encouraging. Harris is getting low participation groups out voting now. Its always hard to tell if this is eating your own seed corn but on the figures I have seen she is doing better than Biden did in 2020.
Instead, it's a very old chestnut that's been roasting in the fire on this side of the Atlantic (and the Pacific) for the past generation.
Will it go down in history as one of the most iconic videos of the early 2020s?
(..and why can't I still use chopsticks)
Edit: I see it is not. Neverthless, it’s quite a batshit position to take.
There’s a kind of fundamental divide I think on the Western colonisation.
Many - I don’t know how many, but obviously a lot - seem to see it as the original sin. The founding shame of capitalism. An essentially racist project which we must now talk truth about and cleanse somehow from our societies.
I find this an ultimately neurotic and self-defeating take, but I feel increasingly estranged from what goes for bien pensant opinion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada)
"The first Thanksgiving Day after Confederation was observed as a civic holiday on April 5, 1872, to celebrate the recovery of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) from a serious illness."
https://www.almanac.com/content/ways-canadian-thanksgiving-differs-american-thanksgiving
Both for Kemi - IDS and DD.
They may well have done in the past, when striving working class self-improvement was much more of a thing. (As were school music lessons.)
Lest we forget, Starmer is quite old, and a lot of the Britain he grew up in was rather different to today. In some ways that's good, but in others it isn't.
Someone says: ""Russian 'explorers' ushered in a wave of devastation, violence, stealing land, and widespread disease""
Would you agree or disagree with such a statement?
This isn’t a sensible comment being skewed. She said a very dumb and insolent thing
There’s suggestions that the Harris camp is starting to run out of vibes, and that the Biden and Harris staffers really don’t like each other, to the point of scheduling clashing events.
https://thepostmillennial.com/shade-war-between-kamala-and-biden-heats-up-as-election-day-nears
It's a desperate attempt (paralleled by a few on here) to talk up Trump's prospects and generate the perception of a close race or even of a GOP win.
Other indicators, as you say, tell a very different story of strong Harris momentum. The problem for her is piling up votes in California, Illinois and Rhode Island isn't going to help her - she needs to ensure she is winning those key marginal states.
There seems to be a Trum-esque establishment - one might almost call it a "Blob" of officials and others who, if not willing to break democracy and democratic practice, seem happy enough to bend it in their candidate's favour.
With both extremes being pretty much equally ridiculous.
Anyway, we should REALLY be arguing about the sins of St. Brendan - the Irish discoverer of America!
Possibly the most impressive live footage I’ve watched - of anything - that I can remember
To repeat Damian Green is about the only sane intelligent one amongst them. Jeez.
I've a hunch Kemi could be seriously bad news for Sir Keir, if these people are anyway representative. And I'm not really sure how Farage would manage - he could easily look like last week's news compared to someone as assertive, colourful and new. Not sure the odd gaffe would make much difference - in fact may even help. Authenticity and personality count.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/oct/13/conservatives-focus-group-kemi-badenoch-robert-jenrick-tory-leadership
Bottom line: serious Harris/Walz turnout operation versus Trump/Vance wing(ing it) and a prayer(circle).
It's a weird tax to think about. Interested in PBers take on it - a sort of employment wedge?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ysx4t7ICO58
The view from just above the chopsticks, as they close in on the rocket that was 100km up only three minutes earlier, is possibly the personal favourite!