Election 2020

[Eric the Green]

Oh well. McAuliffe decided to devote his energy to Virginia. He, like everyone else, thinks we have a good line-up of candidates and that one of them can beat Trump. He and everyone is wrong.

Trump is the favorite among all the candidates running, or who might run. This is a sad day. Our supreme court is going to have a right-wing majority. This will be very hard to overcome, along with all the other federal courts with right-wing judges.

No matter how badly things look in these state polls that brower posts, don't be fooled. Trump is likely to win now.

[David Horn]

(04-18-2019, 01:05 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: Oh well. McAuliffe decided to devote his energy to Virginia. He, like everyone else, thinks we have a good line-up of candidates and that one of them can beat Trump. He and everyone is wrong.

Trump is the favorite among all the candidates running, or who might run. This is a sad day. Our supreme court is going to have a right-wing majority. This will be very hard to overcome, along with all the other federal courts with right-wing judges.

No matter how badly things look in these state polls that brower posts, don't be fooled. Trump is likely to win now.

Perhaps that's true.  We certainly deserve it.  No one on the left has focused on the important issues affecting almost everyone for decades.  Instead, they've spent their time on narrow social issues that are touchstones to groups within the Dem coalition, and anathema to others, both inside and out.  That's not a prescription for winning.  So here we are.

At that, I never saw McAuliffe as a viable option anyway.  He's a salesman, and a good one.  We don't need a salesman.  We need a visionary.  The GOP went through this awakening in 1964, by running the massively outgunned Barry Goldwater.  He was crushed, but 16 years later: Reagan!  The Dems have avoided putting it out there for decades.  Now the entire chicken ranch has come to roost.  

If your goal is leadership but you have no courage of your convictions, no one else will either. That's the Dems for the last 40 years.

[Tim Randal Walker]

If they want to win votes outside of their base, the Democrats should focus on economics.

The narrow social issues are simply useless to me. And, I suspect, a demographic the Democrats lost-white working class voters.

Of the issues the Democrats have focused on in recent decades, health care is just about the only one that is relevant to me.

[Mikebert]

I think a stumbling block for many of us (me especially) is that, because the Republicans are so obviously biased in favor of the wealthy (the only actual policy they pursue anymore is tax cuts) the Democrats must be for everyone else. Obviously, the rich are very influential and will always demand (and get) a party that looks after their economic interests, so it is understandable that they have the GOP as an advocate for their economic interests. The very fact that some 80% of Americans are not either rich (top 1%), affluent (91-99%tile) or upper middle class (81-90%tile) implies that the other party would then look after the interests of this group (lots of votes there).

But the fact is that the top 1% (rich) are pretty much equally split between the two parties (for example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of very richest Americans, are Democrats). And more people with advanced degrees, who mostly fall above the 80th percentile in income, are Democrats. Why on Earth would these rich people be voting Democrat? 

Could if be that the Democrats offer a more moderate version of the economic policy Republicans offer, and that there is NO party that looks out for the economic interests of the bottom 80%? For a brief period between 1935 and 1968 Democrats DID look out for the interests of the bottom 80% of white people (they were considerably less assiduous with black people). When they corrected their racial error, they started to lose some of their bottom 80% (white) support who decided to vote for the Republicans even though they knew they did not look out for their economic interests. It did not happen overnight. Carter was elected with a solid majority in Congress, but with stagflation, high unemployment, flat wages and a white-friendly social message, so-called Reagan Democrats were  willing to vote of Reagan. And when inflation and (eventually) unemployment fell a great many of white middle and working class folks began Republicans.

With the bottom 80% split on racial and class (poor vs everyone else) lines the two parties are balanced and politics is based on the struggle for elite support. Hence the basic post-Reagan economic paradigm is not challenged by any party. The other battlefield that can exists is the social one.

[pbrower2a]

(04-18-2019, 08:03 PM)Mikebert Wrote: I think a stumbling block for many of us (me especially) is that, because the Republicans are so obviously biased in favor of the wealthy (the only actual policy they pursue anymore is tax cuts) the Democrats must be for everyone else. Obviously, the rich are very influential and will always demand (and get) a party that looks after their economic interests, so it is understandable that they have the GOP as an advocate for their economic interests. The very fact that some 80% of Americans are not either rich (top 1%), affluent (91-99%tile) or upper middle class (81-90%tile) implies that the other party would then look after the interests of this group (lots of votes there).

The split among the rich used to be between northern industrialists and southern agrarian interests. Both were largely reactionary in their politics, but they had dissimilar interests on economics and especially race. They did not see each others as partners as they do now. Southern agrarians wanted ultra-cheap, dependent labor on their great estates; northern industrialists wanted ultra-cheap labor in manufacturing and trade. Southern agrarians had no stake in the greatest profitability of northern industrial interests but used northern industrial workers and their unions as counterweights to the power of industrialists and financiers. Northern industrialists and bankers sought to improve the lot of poor farmers and farm laborers just to get them to join the consumer market. This is analogous to the split between Tory agrarians who challenged the upstart Liberal industrialists with reforms of working-class life while keeping farm laborers under the thumb -- with the Liberal industrialists trying to protect the low wages that made maximal profits possible.

That largely ended in the 1960s in America, when working people decided to no longer support the racist Southern agrarians.

Quote:But the fact is that the top 1% (rich) are pretty much equally split between the two parties (for example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of very richest Americans, are Democrats). And more people with advanced degrees, who mostly fall above the 80th percentile in income, are Democrats. Why on Earth would these rich people be voting Democrat? 

American politics have become tribal -- a very bad thing. Republicans have gone from having a strong hold on educated people (Goldwater got a majority of college graduates in his disastrous run in 1964) to having lost them. Maybe the best-educated were more strictly WASP in the 1950s, and thus more closely connected to capitalist profit and privilege. Of course part of the connection could be that well-educated people  like a certain temperament among politicians, which partially explains why the Obama vote looked much like an Eisenhower vote. This said, the intellectual content of the Republican Party has been on a steady downward slide to Donald Trump, who said "I love low-information voters!" This would have been shameful to Gerald Ford.

American tribes divide on ethnicity, occupational group, region, religion, gender, sexual orientation, and level of education. Such is tribalism, a bane of democracy.

Quote:Could if be that the Democrats offer a more moderate version of the economic policy Republicans offer, and that there is NO party that looks out for the economic interests of the bottom 80%? For a brief period between 1935 and 1968 Democrats DID look out for the interests of the bottom 80% of white people (they were considerably less assiduous with black people). When they corrected their racial error, they started to lose some of their bottom 80% (white) support who decided to vote for the Republicans even though they knew they did not look out for their economic interests. It did not happen overnight. Carter was elected with a solid majority in Congress, but with stagflation, high unemployment, flat wages and a white-friendly social message, so-called Reagan Democrats were  willing to vote of Reagan. And when inflation and (eventually) unemployment fell a great many of white middle and working class folks began Republicans.

Poor white people see poor non-white people as economic competitors -- and alien, often for reasons other than appearance. In my case (my ancestry is about half English/Welsh/Scots-Irish and about half German and Swiss scattered throughout my family tree) I would not expect a huge cultural divide between myself and a Japanese-American. But between poor whites, blacks, and Hispanics I would expect huge shibboleths of culture. They have little in common except poverty and low educational achievement -- and regrettably the GOP has chosen to turn poor whites against poor blacks and Hispanics.

Quote:With the bottom 80% split on racial and class (poor vs everyone else) lines the two parties are balanced and politics is based on the struggle for elite support. Hence the basic post-Reagan economic paradigm is not challenged by any party. The other battlefield that can exists is the social one.

A huge difference: in the 1930s the economic elites from the Gilded Age to the Crash of 1929 lost much of their wealth and economic power, and hence political influence. Although America underwent about half the sort of economic meltdown that gutted wealth and economic power of the upper part of the capitalist class, the super-rich recovered first and got their political power back. It is conceivable that with a President more astute a political leader than Donald Trump, the super-rich could be consolidating even more political as well as economic power to the point that everything goes their way, with others existing solely to enrich, pamper, and enforce the power of the economic elite. All others would be stripped of their assets and rendered poor and dependent in a new feudalism differing from plantation societies in having high technology. Ten years after the Crash of 1929, most Americans were materially better off. Ten years after the Crash of 2008, most of us simply pay more for what we get, with on the net all of the fruits of greater productivity and innovation going to the upper 2%.

What can we do?

[David Horn]

(04-18-2019, 08:03 PM)Mikebert Wrote: I think a stumbling block for many of us (me especially) is that, because the Republicans are so obviously biased in favor of the wealthy (the only actual policy they pursue anymore is tax cuts) the Democrats must be for everyone else. Obviously, the rich are very influential and will always demand (and get) a party that looks after their economic interests, so it is understandable that they have the GOP as an advocate for their economic interests. The very fact that some 80% of Americans are not either rich (top 1%), affluent (91-99%tile) or upper middle class (81-90%tile) implies that the other party would then look after the interests of this group (lots of votes there).

But the fact is that the top 1% (rich) are pretty much equally split between the two parties (for example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of very richest Americans, are Democrats). And more people with advanced degrees, who mostly fall above the 80th percentile in income, are Democrats. Why on Earth would these rich people be voting Democrat? 

Could if be that the Democrats offer a more moderate version of the economic policy Republicans offer, and that there is NO party that looks out for the economic interests of the bottom 80%? For a brief period between 1935 and 1968 Democrats DID look out for the interests of the bottom 80% of white people (they were considerably less assiduous with black people). When they corrected their racial error, they started to lose some of their bottom 80% (white) support who decided to vote for the Republicans even though they knew they did not look out for their economic interests. It did not happen overnight. Carter was elected with a solid majority in Congress, but with stagflation, high unemployment, flat wages and a white-friendly social message, so-called Reagan Democrats were  willing to vote of Reagan. And when inflation and (eventually) unemployment fell a great many of white middle and working class folks began Republicans.

With the bottom 80% split on racial and class (poor vs everyone else) lines the two parties are balanced and politics is based on the struggle for elite support. Hence the basic post-Reagan economic paradigm is not challenged by any party. The other battlefield that can exists is the social one.

This is all too true, unfortunately, but how we got here has a few more data points.  Let's start with Lucky Reagan, who managed by the grace of Paul Volker, to sit in the ideal spot to show economic success in his first term.  Barring that, his solid second term would have been impossible, and Bush '41 would have never happened.  Equally important is Bill Clinton, and the Third Way DINO policy of sleeping with the enemy -- Wall Street in this case.  After that, the die was cast, and the road back from this huge shift to the right mandates a huge shift left.  It may happen, if things go sour again, but 2020 may be too soon to hold out hope for that.  Add-in the not insignificant conservative bias built into our system, and real change may require a real cataclysm of some sort. 

We know that AGW is not waiting for us to stop dithering.  It will proceed as physics demands, so that may be it -- the cataclysm.  Trump has made enough changes everywhere that a Dem elected in 2020 will be hard pressed just to restore the inadequate Obama climate program.  A second Trump term will assure a climate crisis to some degree.  That's a hell of a way to fix a political problem, but it may come to that.

[Eric the Green]

(04-18-2019, 10:29 AM)Tim Randal Walker Wrote: If they want to win votes outside of their base, the Democrats should focus on economics.

The narrow social issues are simply useless to me.  And, I suspect, (to) a demographic the Democrats lost-white working class voters.

Of the issues the Democrats have focused on in recent decades, health care is just about the only one that is relevant to me.

You and David make good points about the Democrats, and I don't disagree. Myself I don't look at the situation just in terms of what is relevant to me. The fact remains that in order to win, the Democrats must do BOTH: focus on the economic issues and those that affect the well-being of everyone, AND appeal to the social issues that matter to a strong proportion of their base. Democrats also don't forget that the support of that social-issue base is what got Obama elected.

In fact, inequality in America is sharply affected by the oppression of and discrimination against the less-fortunate groups on our society, such as various peoples of color, women, gays, youth, etc. The trickle-down economics policies are and always have been victorious because its champions sound the dog whistle of opposition to government programs and welfare which white men are asked to pay for in their taxes, and which they know benefit other groups besides them. Classic Xer is their representative here. 

So the two kinds of issues are and always have been linked together, and even if being upfront about supporting the desires of oppressed groups to have their rights protected turns off some whites, Democrats can't win without these groups, and so they must appeal to them as well as try to get white working class voters to realize who it is that really meets their needs, despite their fears and prejudices which the Republicans arouse against the less-fortunate groups.

[Eric the Green]

(04-18-2019, 08:03 PM)Mikebert Wrote: I think a stumbling block for many of us (me especially) is that, because the Republicans are so obviously biased in favor of the wealthy (the only actual policy they pursue anymore is tax cuts) the Democrats must be for everyone else. Obviously, the rich are very influential and will always demand (and get) a party that looks after their economic interests, so it is understandable that they have the GOP as an advocate for their economic interests. The very fact that some 80% of Americans are not either rich (top 1%), affluent (91-99%tile) or upper middle class (81-90%tile) implies that the other party would then look after the interests of this group (lots of votes there).

But the fact is that the top 1% (rich) are pretty much equally split between the two parties (for example, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, two of very richest Americans, are Democrats). And more people with advanced degrees, who mostly fall above the 80th percentile in income, are Democrats. Why on Earth would these rich people be voting Democrat? 

Could if be that the Democrats offer a more moderate version of the economic policy Republicans offer, and that there is NO party that looks out for the economic interests of the bottom 80%? For a brief period between 1935 and 1968 Democrats DID look out for the interests of the bottom 80% of white people (they were considerably less assiduous with black people). When they corrected their racial error, they started to lose some of their bottom 80% (white) support who decided to vote for the Republicans even though they knew they did not look out for their economic interests. It did not happen overnight. Carter was elected with a solid majority in Congress, but with stagflation, high unemployment, flat wages and a white-friendly social message, so-called Reagan Democrats were willing to vote (for) Reagan. And when inflation and (eventually) unemployment fell a great many of white middle and working class folks (became) Republicans.

With the bottom 80% split on racial and class (poor vs everyone else) lines the two parties are balanced and politics is based on the struggle for elite support. Hence the basic post-Reagan economic paradigm is not challenged by any party. The other battlefield that can exists is the social one.

Yes, that's how the Republicans kept their support, even though they represent only the wealthy.

Of course, the white middle and working class did not actually benefit from Reaganomics. Wages remained flat, even if inflation and unemployment fell. After 2000, Reaganomics created an even-more stagnant economy, and then almost created another Great Depression. So Republican policies have never benefited the people. Now a slight majority of Americans are agreed that Reaganomics does not work, and are willing to vote Democratic. 

When they don't win the presidency these days, besides the factor of the rigged election system, it's because Democrats have a propensity to choose poor candidates, regardless of where they fall on the ideology spectrum. The quality of the candidate matters. For 2020 they are already fixed to choose a candidate whom, at best, is not favored to win. The best candidates have bowed out.

The fact that more people realize the failure of neo-liberalism/Reaganomics, however, especially younger people joining the electorate now, means that the Democratic Party is slowly shifting to the Left to balance the extreme right-wing stance of the Republicans. The economic and social battlefields will merge, and the Reagan paradigm will be challenged. Obviously if Sanders wins the nomination, that will be more true than if Biden wins it, but Biden cannot entirely escape the increasingly left-wing make-up of his Party.

[Eric the Green]

The horoscope scores tell who can win, based on aspects in the charts of all the candidates in USA history. The higher the proportion of the score based on the aspects in their horoscope, the greater their chance to win. Only 3 candidates with barely-negative scores have won the US presidency in 230 years, and none since 1904. Those with the best scores are actually the ones who can appeal to American voters and impress them as a strong and likable leader. The best Democratic candidates have not announced, and some of the worst-scoring are now more popular. Fair warning! Estimated scores so far (subject to minor changes):
Republicans:
Donald Trump 9-4
William Weld 8-13
Democrats:
Mitch Landrieu 16-2
Terry McAuliffe 11-2
Sherrod Brown 19-8
Bernie Sanders 14-7
Joe Biden 14-7
Wayne Messam 15-8
Stacey Abrams 13-7
Tulsi Gabbard 11-6
John Delaney 7-5
Elizabeth Warren 8-7
Amy Klobuchar 7-7
Marianne Williamson 13-14
Pete Buttigieg 7-8
Cory Booker, 6-7
Eric Swalwell 4-6
Julian Castro 8-13
Kirsten Gillbrand, 7-13
Andrew Yang 8-15
Mike Gravel, 5-10
Howard Schultz 9-18
Jay Inslee 3-7
Beto O'Rourke 11-26
Tim Ryan 3-12
Kamala Harris 4-16
http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html

[Marypoza]

(04-20-2019, 04:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The horoscope scores tell who can win, based on aspects in the charts of all the candidates in USA history. The higher the proportion of the score based on the aspects in their horoscope, the greater their chance to win. Only 3 candidates with barely-negative scores have won the US presidency in 230 years, and none since 1904. Those with the best scores are actually the ones who can appeal to American voters and impress them as a strong and likable leader.  The best Democratic candidates have not announced, and some of the worst-scoring are now more popular. Fair warning! Estimated scores so far (subject to minor changes):
Republicans:
Donald Trump 9-4
William Weld 8-13
Democrats:
Mitch Landrieu 16-2
Terry McAuliffe 11-2
Sherrod Brown 19-8
Bernie Sanders 14-7
Joe Biden 14-7
Wayne Messam 15-8
Stacey Abrams 13-7
Tulsi Gabbard 11-6
John Delaney 7-5
Elizabeth Warren 8-7
Amy Klobuchar 7-7
Marianne Williamson 13-14
Pete Buttigieg 7-8
Cory Booker, 6-7
Eric Swalwell 4-6
Julian Castro 8-13
Kirsten Gillbrand, 7-13
Andrew Yang 8-15
Mike Gravel, 5-10
Howard Schultz 9-18
Jay Inslee 3-7
Beto O'Rourke 11-26
Tim Ryan 3-12
Kamala Harris 4-16
http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html

-- you knocked the Donald down 6 pts wuzzup?

Ps my homeboy Sherrod ain't running

[pbrower2a]

The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was, Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

[David Horn]

(04-20-2019, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was,  Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

Scandal only counts if people can be scandalized.  Trump has managed to make scandal into a social game by playing it in the press as theater with lines that change at every performance.  10 years from now, we may look back and be embarrassed.  But, for now, hoi polloi thinks it's all fun and games.

[Eric the Green]

(04-20-2019, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was,  Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

The fault is not in his stars, although they helped him get elected, or rather indicate aspects of his abilities as a candidate, which were better than Hillary's in that regard and will be tough to beat in 2020 too. The horoscope scores do not lie. Beyond that, he is responsible for how he has used his abilities and not reined in his inadequacies and sins.

Of course, our election system is rigged in many ways, and his probable collusion with the Russians and the Comey letter and phony email scandal made a difference too. But, to a degree, destiny is indicated in your horoscope. W. Bush should not have won either, but there he was, and with a markedly-superior horoscope score to Gore. So, "the stars" mean something.

And the Lichtman Keys indicated much the same results. So, indicators like this are significant about who wins an election. Beyond that though, other indicators, events and actions determine the success or failure of a presidency. Nothing Trump has done in office has been of any value, and all his decisions have been wrong and self-serving. That in itself is a worse record than any president in history, with the proviso that so far W. Bush's actions have cost more lives.

[Eric the Green]

(04-20-2019, 11:23 PM)Marypoza Wrote:

(04-20-2019, 04:10 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: The horoscope scores tell who can win, based on aspects in the charts of all the candidates in USA history. The higher the proportion of the score based on the aspects in their horoscope, the greater their chance to win. Only 3 candidates with barely-negative scores have won the US presidency in 230 years, and none since 1904. Those with the best scores are actually the ones who can appeal to American voters and impress them as a strong and likable leader.  The best Democratic candidates have not announced, and some of the worst-scoring are now more popular. Fair warning! Estimated scores so far (subject to minor changes):
Republicans:
Donald Trump 9-4
William Weld 8-13
Democrats:
Mitch Landrieu 16-2
Terry McAuliffe 11-2
Sherrod Brown 19-8
Bernie Sanders 14-7
Joe Biden 14-7
Wayne Messam 15-8
Stacey Abrams 13-7
Tulsi Gabbard 11-6
John Delaney 7-5
Elizabeth Warren 8-7
Amy Klobuchar 7-7
Marianne Williamson 13-14
Pete Buttigieg 7-8
Cory Booker, 6-7
Eric Swalwell 4-6
Julian Castro 8-13
Kirsten Gillbrand, 7-13
Andrew Yang 8-15
Mike Gravel, 5-10
Howard Schultz 9-18
Jay Inslee 3-7
Beto O'Rourke 11-26
Tim Ryan 3-12
Kamala Harris 4-16
http://philosopherswheel.com/presidentialelections.html

-- you knocked the Donald down 6 pts wuzzup?

Ps my homeboy Sherrod ain't running

Yes, unfortunately, and so with Landrieu and McAuliffe. So Bernie and Biden are at the top of the Democratic pack.

As I have often mentioned, I revised the scores during the 2016 election, due to further thorough refinements in my research. Except for minor changes if I find out birth times, or corrections to mistakes I have made in my counts for new candidates, the scores have been set now since Dec. 2016. After the 2020 elections, there could be further minor changes. Probably no-one will have their scores changed by six points again though.

[Kinser79]

(04-22-2019, 11:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-20-2019, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was,  Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

Scandal only counts if people can be scandalized.  Trump has managed to make scandal into a social game by playing it in the press as theater with lines that change at every performance.  10 years from now, we may look back and be embarrassed.  But, for now, hoi polloi thinks it's all fun and games.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps more accurately, PBR only sees what he wants to see and believes only things that he wants to believe like everyone else does.

It is a fact that Mueller found nothing on the President worthy of further investigation.  He couldn't find much dirt on his cronys either (and yes all presidents have those--don't let PBR try to persuade you otherwise) other than a ten year old money laundering charge (that cost more to investigate than they will ever recover) and he hired a dumbass as a lawyer once, oh and his tenants might have some scandals (seriously do we drag the local slum lord out and try and lynch him cause his tenants are smoking the crack in the stair well?  No.).

I would argue that the President is able to "play the press" the way he does because he knows how the Lame Stream media ticks.  He's been playing them for years.  Indeed if one really wants to know what the President is doing, saying or thinking one would be better servedjust following him on Twitter.

Indeed if one simply sits back and observes the Democrats they are defeating themselves at every turn.

Kinser's Prediction for 2020:  Donald Trump will be re-elected (with the Popular and Electoral vote) defeating any Democrat that the DNC manages to come up with.  And it will likely be Biden--who was Obama's Gaffmaster and is seen by many who aren't true blue Dims as "Creepy Uncle Joe".

[pbrower2a]

Fifty states from January to April before the Mueller Report was released. Apples to apples, oranges to oranges. Mostly posted on Leip's Election Atlas:

https://civiqs.com/results/approve_presi...e&map=true



Caveats:

1. It is over three months. Most statewide polls are over much-shorter times, so I can't relate these results to statewide polls over a weekend -- which is most of what I have, or even the month-long polling of Morning Consult.

2. Two national polls already show Trump support undergoing significant drops following the release of the  Mueller report. See below. Although there were apparently no statewide polls taken in the weekend following the release of the redacted report, there will be such reports. Even the three polling results that I have for the three narrowest Trump wins of 2016 (and these come from an internal poll for the Bernie Sanders campaign), the last three that I have gotten, are from before the Mueller Report exposing the ethical cesspool of the Trump campaign of 2016.

3. We can expect some systematic faults of sampling by any pollster on populations  that will distort results. The question about such remains: who has the faults, and which ones are significant?

We can go with the argument "but this pollster got this election right to an extent that someone else did not get so right". Such implies a difference in modeling of any election. Trump obviously wins re-election with an electorate like those of 2010 or 2014, and obviously loses with an electorate of 2006, 2008, 2012, or 2018. 2016? Which way is the wind blowing? Who can say what sort of electorate we will have?  

Concurrences:

1. This is the same pollster in all fifty states. It is apples to apples, oranges to oranges.

2. Trump polling has been remarkably stable, at least until the release of the Mueller Report.

3. We get to see results from states that don't get polled often.

4. This could be a contrast to what we see in the last week of April and from early May. I am not predicting polling results as the result of events, even if the Mueller Report is a huge event.

From this collection of data exclusively (except that I am guessing that Trump has no chance to win Dee Cee):



Trump, net approval positive -- raw approval

55% and higher
50-54%
under 50%

tie (white)

Trump, net negative approval -- raw approval

43-49% with disapproval under 51% if approval 45% or higher
40-42%, or under 45% if disapproval is over 51%
under 40%

Note that I am changing my format here. I cannot see the President winning any state in which his disapproval is over 51%. If Obama could not win in 2012 in any state in which is disapproval rating ever got above 51%, then how could Trump barring some huge positive event? Obama is as slick and competent a campaigner and political strategist as we have seen in decades, and to get re-elected he had to be that slick and competent. At this I in practice give Trump much leeway. I must -- you know my bias. I thoroughly loathe him, and I thought Obama a fine President.

But this said, any state in maroon is practically certain to give Trump a double-digit loss, and any state in red has a high likelihood of giving him at the least a high-double-digit loss. States in pink or the one in white will be the ones to watch. Nothing is in light blue, so there is no state in which he is up 49-47 or so, but it is worth noting that Trump approval is at 50% in Ohio, South Carolina, and Texas... and at a mere 51% in Indiana.

So what about Indiana? Since the 1920s, no Republican nominee for President has won nationwide without winning Indiana by a double-digit margin. Even in the two elections in which the Republican won the electoral college without winning a plurality of the vote, the winning Republican (Dubya in 2000 and Trump in 2016) the Republican won the state by a double-digit margin. The disapproval number is just too high and the approval number is just too low  to offer the state as a ten-point win for Trump in 2020.  Indiana does not seem to be drifting Democratic, and it is not as if Indiana will be making voting easier to the benefit of Hoosier Democrats (mail-in or early voting). If you are a Democrat and hear at 7 PM that Trump has a 53-46 win in Indiana, you can consider that a very good sign for your party's nominee.

...

OK, I find it hard to believe that disapproval of the President is higher in Georgia than in Wisconsin, but it was hard for many to see Virginia drifting Democratic in 2008 until Election Night that year.  It may be a subtle difference, too. Maybe Donald Trump comes off as a thoroughly-obnoxious d@mnyankee in the South. No, he is not one of those militant partisans of the Union side of the Civil War who speaks of General William Tecumseh Sherman 'liberating' Georgia or some rich Californian who berates the state trooper who issues a ticket for driving 92 on a 70-mph freeway with a lecture with "I pay the taxes that pay your salary". (Well, if I were the state trooper I would write that ticket with relish -- and not ketchup or mustard).

Donald Trump needs either miracles or large-scale electoral fraud to get re-elected, as I shall demonstrate.

[pbrower2a]

Also one of my posts in Leip's Election Atlas. Leip covers US elections as far back as the process (not really an election) that selected George Washington as the first President of the United States). Red favors Democrats and blue favors Republicans as fits a pattern of over 200 years of elections, and I use green for what has yet to happen and purple for ambiguity. I have placed in bold coloration what I consider the likely theme of defeat of President Trump, and I doubt that that will much surprise anyone.

This is the (apparently) objective Lichtman test that has usually been right in determining which party wins the majority of the popular vote in a Presidential election. To be sure our system of electing the President has the States, and not the People, electing the President, so a winner of less than the plurality can get elected President, as in 2000 and 2016. It is still theoretically possible for Donald Trump to win reelection with a Democratic majority of the vote as Democrats run up huge majorities for President in states with 9 to 55 electoral votes (CO, MD, MA, WA, VA,  NJ, IL, NY, and CA) while barely losing some critical states as Hillary Clinton did in 2016.  But -- if the Democrats get an even swing of 1% of the vote from 2016 to 2020, then Trump loses Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, and his re-election bid. To be sure, even swings do not happen.  


.................

(revision: I consider the statement of former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld that he is running for the nomination for President through the Republican Party unambiguous evidence that Trump faces a serious primary challenge from someone with bona fide credentials as an elected Republican with a significant history of public service. I am also calling the President's anti-immigration stance an effective change in American politics even if I find it abominable. Lichtman does not ask whether the change that a President effects  (such as a large tariff) is to the good or bad of the country.    

Quote:1.    Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections.
2.    Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination.
3.   Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president.
4.    Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign.
5.    Short term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign.
6.    Long term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms.
7.    Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy.
8.    Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term.
9.    Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal.
10.    Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs.
11.    Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs.
12.   Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero.
13.   Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero.

1. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE. We now have a definitive answer on November 6, 2018. The GOP not only lost seats in the House of Representatives, but also its majority. This is usually a negative for practically any administration,
2. NOW NEGATIVE There could be, but that is yet well enough into the future that we can't say anything.

I'm not saying that Bill Weld will succeed in knocking out Trump, but his campaign will weaken Trump. This has become an unambiguous negative, and it could get worse for the President. The last two incumbent Presidents who faced a serious primary challenge (Ford and Carter) lost their re-election bids. In view of his experience, Bill Weld is a serious candidate. Effective Presidents do not face primary challenges. To be sure, I cannot yet say that Weld is as effective as Reagan in 1976 or Ted Kennedy in 1980 -- but he demonstrates a weakness of this President. Some GOP constituencies dislike Trump. The primary challenges to LBJ in 1968 created chaos.

Rivals for the nomination  are rarely effective in bringing all their early breakaway supporters back to the fold.
 
3. A Republican will be President in 2020 and the incumbent will be running even if something happens to President Trump. Pence would run for re-election.
4. I think that there will be, but that is too far into the future for any discussion yet.
5. Way too early to tell. Ask again in August or September 2020.
6. The Obama economy had a growth rate unusually high, as it was a recovery from a nasty recession. This will be impossible to meet.
7. NOW POSITIVE -- if for all the wrong reasons He hasn't yet. The tax bill is it. I expect more efforts at deregulation of industry, union-cracking, and privatization even if those prove unpopular. In view of the anti-immigrant policy that our President has, he now gets a positive. Lichtman does not judge whether the effects are good or bad, as in the past with a huge tariff bill. Consequences could lead to the strengthening of negatives, as in domestic unrest.
8. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE.  Sure, the President did not directly inspire one of his supporters to send bombs to Democratic politicians and celebrities, but he consider himself lucky that none of them blew up a target. Donald Trump may be no antisemite (Nazi-style antisemitism is racist), but the creep who mowed down eleven Jews in a Pittsburgh synagogue did so out of a concern that the  specific Jews had been  supporting immigration of non-white people. The frequent polite demonstrations from the Women's March on have not been unrest, but they can certainly call attention to his awfulness and aid in organizing an electoral opposition.  
9. GIGANTIC NEGATIVE.  This is the most systematically and severely corrupt Administration in American history. The legal problems keep piling up.
10. Likely but it has yet to happen. NOW NEGATIVE. I do not trust the deal with North Korea, and this President is insulting so many of America's traditional allies that something will go bad. The tariff is a disaster waiting to happen. I'm calling it now for reasons shown above on America's loss of credibility among its traditional allies. This is a matter of timing, and I could have done it earlier.  I do so now, not that anything has changed abruptly. Remember how badly he bungled the response to the deaths of four Special Forces soldiers in Niger? Maybe not, but I saw that as a portent of trouble.  
11. The nuke deal with North Korea? There is no enforcement in place. The President would need China and ideally also Russia as an enforcer.
12. Trump already seems much less charismatic now than in 2016. He still has charisma with his cult. That will not be enough.
13. We have no idea who the Democratic nominee will be.

Two clear blue, six red, four green (has not happened yet but still can), one purple (ambiguous). He now has no room for any one of them going red, and may have to reverse one of those4 keys in red.

Any bad result from the Mueller report or exposure of misdeeds involving Assange merely intensifies the ninth key already in flaming Atlas red.


The Lichtman test is not of my making, and it offers ambiguities for interpretation -- but  I have been slow to recognize any one of these turning against the President, choosing to recognize them only when they have become irrevocable  -- if only in my opinion. I am tempted to believe that pervasive corruption will be enough (as with an economic meltdown for Hoover or with catastrophes of foreign policy or continuing stagflation for Carter) to make this President unsuited to re-election in itself. Trump is on the margin of failure as it is, in accordance with the Lichtman test.

[pbrower2a]

Ryan Struyk

@ryanstruyk

Average presidential approval ratings through this point in term via ABC/Post and Gallup polling:

Kennedy 73%
W Bush 71%
HW Bush 70%
Johnson 69%
Eisenhower 67%
Nixon 58%
Truman 56%
Obama 55%
Reagan 55%
Carter 52%
Clinton 51%
Ford 47%
Trump 38%

8:14 AM - Apr 27, 2019

.....

Only three of these Presidents got a larger share of the popular vote in the ensuing election than this measure of approval -- Ford (by 1%. which obviously was not enough), Nixon (2%, and then against a nominee whom the Nixon campaign could cast as a dangerous rival), and Reagan (3%, and then against an inept challenger) Carter and the elder Bush both crashed, LBJ chose not to run for re-election as the Vietnam War spiraled into a disaster, no Presidential nominee ever gets more than about 61% of the popular vote, and Clinton was in a three-way race.

I am ready to concede that conservatives will get at least 45% of the popular vote, and that no Democratic nominee has a reasonable chance of topping the 52-something fraction that Obama got in 2008. But this said, Trump will need to get a gain of 8% in the popular vote from his current level of approval and win the 'right' votes to become America's first fascist dictator. (How non-neutral could I get with that smear? The truth offends anyone who still believes Trump

If I am to make my prediction, then the Democratic nominee will get 51-52% of the popular vote, third-Party nominees (including some crazy liberal and a more mainstream conservative than Trump) will combine for about 8% of the vote, and Trump will get 41% of the popular vote.

We had an election with a distribution of the popular vote similar to that. It was 1980, with Jimmy Carter winning only five states and 49 electoral votes. OK, America is polarized enough between the states that such a split would leave President Trump with 80 or so electoral votes.

I have already expressed the theme of the defeat of President Trump -- pervasive and severe corruption that Americans have never tolerated in elected officials except where machine politics dominate. Dan Rostenkowski, Rod Blagojevich, and William Jefferson exemplify that iron law. Yes, I named three Democrats.

[David Horn]

(04-30-2019, 09:00 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(04-22-2019, 11:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-20-2019, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was,  Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

Scandal only counts if people can be scandalized.  Trump has managed to make scandal into a social game by playing it in the press as theater with lines that change at every performance.  10 years from now, we may look back and be embarrassed.  But, for now, hoi polloi thinks it's all fun and games.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps more accurately, PBR only sees what he wants to see and believes only things that he wants to believe like everyone else does.

It is a fact that Mueller found nothing on the President worthy of further investigation.  He couldn't find much dirt on his cronys either (and yes all presidents have those--don't let PBR try to persuade you otherwise) other than a ten year old money laundering charge (that cost more to investigate than they will ever recover) and he hired a dumbass as a lawyer once, oh and his tenants might have some scandals (seriously do we drag the local slum lord out and try and lynch him cause his tenants are smoking the crack in the stair well?  No.).

Mueller did what he was supposed to do: he investigated interference by the Russians, and referred the rest to other offices. That hardly qualifies as an exoneration. Several career prosecutors have stated unequivocally that they have successfully prosecuted others with much less than the incomplete info in Mueller's report.

Kinser Wrote:I would argue that the President is able to "play the press" the way he does because he knows how the Lame Stream media ticks.  He's been playing them for years.  Indeed if one really wants to know what the President is doing, saying or thinking one would be better servedjust following him on Twitter.

Not to be missed: POTUS TV, also known as Fox News, is no longer the most followed. Now it's MSNBC. I suspect that's telling.

Kinser Wrote:Indeed if one simply sits back and observes the Democrats they are defeating themselves at every turn.

There's is truth here. The Dems have a genetic death wish that seems to emerge when things are looking brightest for them.

Kinser Wrote:Kinser's Prediction for 2020:  Donald Trump will be re-elected (with the Popular and Electoral vote) defeating any Democrat that the DNC manages to come up with. 

Possible but not likely.

Kinser Wrote:And it will likely be Biden--who was Obama's Gaffmaster and is seen by many who aren't true blue Dims as "Creepy Uncle Joe".

This isn't even the pot calling the kettle black. This is the cesspool pointing fingers at the swimming pool for not being crystal clear.

[pbrower2a]

(04-30-2019, 10:32 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-30-2019, 09:00 AM)Kinser79 Wrote:

(04-22-2019, 11:41 AM)David Horn Wrote:

(04-20-2019, 11:39 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The fault with Donald Trump is obviously not in his stars, as the Mueller report shows. We have no Presidency with this level of known scandal, but also no precedent for the consequence of so many and so pervasive scandals.

He got elected with the aid of electoral misconduct in which he is complicit. Close as the 2016 election was,  Trump may have little legitimacy as President except for the legal presumption that electoral results are valid even if they prove wrong after the fact.

Scandal only counts if people can be scandalized.  Trump has managed to make scandal into a social game by playing it in the press as theater with lines that change at every performance.  10 years from now, we may look back and be embarrassed.  But, for now, hoi polloi thinks it's all fun and games.

Perhaps.  Or perhaps more accurately, PBR only sees what he wants to see and believes only things that he wants to believe like everyone else does.

It is a fact that Mueller found nothing on the President worthy of further investigation.  He couldn't find much dirt on his cronys either (and yes all presidents have those--don't let PBR try to persuade you otherwise) other than a ten year old money laundering charge (that cost more to investigate than they will ever recover) and he hired a dumbass as a lawyer once, oh and his tenants might have some scandals (seriously do we drag the local slum lord out and try and lynch him cause his tenants are smoking the crack in the stair well?  No.).

Mueller did what he was supposed to do: he investigated interference by the Russians, and referred the rest to other offices.  That hardly qualifies as an exoneration.  Several career prosecutors have stated unequivocally that they have successfully prosecuted others with much less than the incomplete info in Mueller's report.

I read most of the Mueller Report... and it left clear to me that Donald Trump cheated to win. Cooperation with a foreign power hostile to American democracy to become President (or to get elected to any significant office) discredits one. Russian intelligence groomed Donald Trump as a useful idiot, and it seduced him with gain and the satiation of his bloated and empty ego. People around him have been convicted of statutory offenses. It's not one rogue; it is a pattern.

Money-laundering is itself a crime. One needs not hide honest transactions.  

Kinser Wrote:I would argue that the President is able to "play the press" the way he does because he knows how the Lame Stream media ticks.  He's been playing them for years.  Indeed if one really wants to know what the President is doing, saying or thinking one would be better servedjust following him on Twitter.

Not to be missed: POTUS TV, also known as Fox News, is no longer the most followed.  Now it's MSNBC.  I suspect that's telling.[/quote]

I prefer English-language services of the BBC, Deutsche Welle, and France24, and when available NHK -- they don't have people screaming some agenda.

I no longer get cable, but I saw a change in MSNBC in seeking to get dissident conservatives on the air. The liberal base will not be enough to take down Donald Trump. At this point I can think of solid conservative reasons to want the Trump nightmare to come to an end in electoral defeat. Anyone who says that there are good people on both sides when one of the sides is neo-Nazi scum who shout "Jews will not replace us!" would scare the Hell out of me. If I were a conservative, I would want educated minorities to see a free market as an ally and not as a means of keeping people poor. (I will say this -- the black bourgeoisie cares more about poor black people than either the super-rich whites or middle-class suburban whites care about poor white people. I can say the same of Hispanics and Asians).

To the chorus of It's a Long Way to Tipperary:

It's a long way to Appalachia,
It's a long way to go.
It's a long way to Appalachia
Though it's pretty, yes I know!
Stay in familiar suburbs (or),
Visit places much the same!
It's a long long way to Appalachia,
Destitution's not my game!

Quote:

Kinser Wrote:Indeed if one simply sits back and observes the Democrats they are defeating themselves at every turn.

There's is truth here.  The Dems have a genetic death wish that seems to emerge when things are looking brightest for them.

Resolution of this vile, but not yet decided 4T can go well only if the best of us commit to no longer doing the self-sabotage at which most good people are prone.

Kinser Wrote:Kinser's Prediction for 2020:  Donald Trump will be re-elected (with the Popular and Electoral vote) defeating any Democrat that the DNC manages to come up with. 

Possible, but highly unlikely, unless Trump and his cronies can pervert the electoral process with fraud and intimidation. 

Quote:

Kinser Wrote:And it will likely be Biden--who was Obama's Gaffmaster and is seen by many who aren't true blue Dims as "Creepy Uncle Joe".

This isn't even the pot calling the kettle black.  This is the cesspool pointing fingers at the swimming pool for not being crystal clear.

[/quote]

Indeed! Trump has done  more to debase American politics than Senator Joseph R. McCarthy or any segregationist pol of the old "Ku Kluxistan".