I’m feeling better about Biden’s chances ։given more than just polling in the past month. The Alabama state senate race and the Enid, OK. Council recall both offer sone hope about cracks in the MAGA facade.
When it comes to polling, I’ve always kept the 1936 Literary Digest presidential election poll debacle in the back of my mind. That situation goes straight to how good one’s polling methodology really is, and it cuts both ways.
What’s important now is to turn Trump’s campaign into the voyage of the Demeter. Before early voting and Election Day, the country needs to see Trump lashed to its wheel, wild eyed and babbling incoherently as the last weak minded MAGA supporters see the horror of what they’ve put their red cap/bumper sticker/porch flag money into.
My concern is that many MAGA supporters *have* seen what they've put their money into and they're fine with it. Trump is the figurehead for white Christian supremacy; it might not even matter that he babbles (is he "speaking in tongues"?). Fortunately there's no comparable figurehead waiting in the wings, but it's hard not to be concerned about Project 2025 -- about which, I'm pretty sure, most Democratic-leaning voters have not even heard.
I like to think so. Consider also the predicament of the (at best) lukewarm Trump supporter whose spouse or other family member is a raging MAGA. They probably aren't going to contradict that person, but when they go into the voting booth . . . ? (This is the one thing I worry about with vote-by-mail: the raging MAGA might be looking over your shoulder.)
the figure I would REALLY like to see pollsters report is the ratio between people who answered the questions vs people they called who didn't even pick up the phone. How many calls does it take to get to 600 respondents?
Polls are valuable inasmuch as they may indicate trends.
Biden has two groups he needs to court with flowers, candy, and truth: Hispanics and Youth. Trump's convinced Hispanics that those their parents and they may have fled when they came to the US are now coming after them, that the current immigrants are not like them. Biden needs to go into immigrant neighborhoods (There's ice cream there too.), something Trump is unlikely to do. But he needs to avoid college campuses* but talk directly to youth in all of his stump speeches, and that's where he can talk community college, trade schools, SBA for entrepreneurs, military careers, first-time home buyer tax breaks, AI shifting career fields, and the ever-popular student loan forgiveness. And most importantly he needs to convince the elders that they owe opportunity to the young and immigrants because they are building the future and supporting the economy and our burgeoning old age demographic. In other words, he needs to burnish his kindly grandpa creds, something that may neutralize some of the age thing.
*The Gaza issue would overwhelm anything he'd have to say on campus. Include the "yutes" as part of the adult discussions.
And that's my unsolicited political consultant advice for the POTUS today.
I’m feeling better about Biden’s chances ։given more than just polling in the past month. The Alabama state senate race and the Enid, OK. Council recall both offer sone hope about cracks in the MAGA facade.
When it comes to polling, I’ve always kept the 1936 Literary Digest presidential election poll debacle in the back of my mind. That situation goes straight to how good one’s polling methodology really is, and it cuts both ways.
What’s important now is to turn Trump’s campaign into the voyage of the Demeter. Before early voting and Election Day, the country needs to see Trump lashed to its wheel, wild eyed and babbling incoherently as the last weak minded MAGA supporters see the horror of what they’ve put their red cap/bumper sticker/porch flag money into.
My concern is that many MAGA supporters *have* seen what they've put their money into and they're fine with it. Trump is the figurehead for white Christian supremacy; it might not even matter that he babbles (is he "speaking in tongues"?). Fortunately there's no comparable figurehead waiting in the wings, but it's hard not to be concerned about Project 2025 -- about which, I'm pretty sure, most Democratic-leaning voters have not even heard.
There’s still an element that’ll peel off at the last moment.
I like to think so. Consider also the predicament of the (at best) lukewarm Trump supporter whose spouse or other family member is a raging MAGA. They probably aren't going to contradict that person, but when they go into the voting booth . . . ? (This is the one thing I worry about with vote-by-mail: the raging MAGA might be looking over your shoulder.)
the figure I would REALLY like to see pollsters report is the ratio between people who answered the questions vs people they called who didn't even pick up the phone. How many calls does it take to get to 600 respondents?
I'll take it too, Tom. I'm waiting for Robert Hubble to weigh in about his usual midnight post.
Polls are valuable inasmuch as they may indicate trends.
Biden has two groups he needs to court with flowers, candy, and truth: Hispanics and Youth. Trump's convinced Hispanics that those their parents and they may have fled when they came to the US are now coming after them, that the current immigrants are not like them. Biden needs to go into immigrant neighborhoods (There's ice cream there too.), something Trump is unlikely to do. But he needs to avoid college campuses* but talk directly to youth in all of his stump speeches, and that's where he can talk community college, trade schools, SBA for entrepreneurs, military careers, first-time home buyer tax breaks, AI shifting career fields, and the ever-popular student loan forgiveness. And most importantly he needs to convince the elders that they owe opportunity to the young and immigrants because they are building the future and supporting the economy and our burgeoning old age demographic. In other words, he needs to burnish his kindly grandpa creds, something that may neutralize some of the age thing.
*The Gaza issue would overwhelm anything he'd have to say on campus. Include the "yutes" as part of the adult discussions.
And that's my unsolicited political consultant advice for the POTUS today.
Thank You!