2020 Presidential Election

[LasVegas]

This oft-quoted statistic about Hillary winning the popular vote is somewhat misleading. Yes, if you look at all 50 states, she won the popular vote. But, if you eliminate California, Trump won the other 49 states by over 2.8 million votes and, if you eliminate California AND New York, he won by almost 5 million votes. Furthermore, as many Trump supporters will tell you, the presidential election is NOT a "popular vote - majority wins" type of election (which most candidates for President, including Donald Trump and his campaign advisers, realize). So, Trump and his campaign put absolutely ZERO time, money and effort in the presidential race into California, New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, etc. They knew right from the "get go" that they would lose those states (and the margin was irrelevant).

California and New York are states and will remain so until the end of time. Manipulate the data however you want but those votes count.

[SouthernDukie]

I agree wholeheartedly. Nominating Sanders is not a path to victory for the Democrats, IMO. Voter turnout is going to be a huge factor and Sanders will motivate a bazillion Moderates to head to the polls in order to vote against him.

Totally agree. Bernie would certainly motivate his base, but the problem is he'll motivate the GOP, Independent and moderate Democrat base to vote for Trump. Ideally what the Dems need is a candidate that will motivate their base in the full while at the same time not utterly fire up the GOP/Indy base. I know that's tough to accomplish, but I do believe a candidate like Bernie - versus say someone like a Biden - brings extra energy to the opposing base.

[SouthernDukie]

Never mind.

[JasonEvans]

This oft-quoted statistic about Hillary winning the popular vote is somewhat misleading. Yes, if you look at all 50 states, she won the popular vote. But, if you eliminate California, Trump won the other 49 states by over 2.8 million votes and, if you eliminate California AND New York, he won by almost 5 million votes.

I'm sorry, but that is really funny. I am sure Carolina fans are quite pleased at their easy victory if you eliminate the final 3 minutes of regulation last week. Ha!

Bottom line -- there are two absolute facts that can be stated about that election.
1) Donald Trump won the electoral vote
2) Hillary Clinton won the popular vote

#1 made Trump the most powerful person in the world
#2 made Hillary into a recluse in the New York countryside

Continued re-litigation of these facts probably runs counter to the expressed rules of this thread. Thanks.

[CameronBornAndBred]

Bloomberg is in the debate.

[Chicago 1995]

Totally agree. Bernie would certainly motivate his base, but the problem is he'll motivate the GOP, Independent and moderate Democrat base to vote for Trump. Ideally what the Dems need is a candidate that will motivate their base in the full while at the same time not utterly fire up the GOP/Indy base. I know that's tough to accomplish, but I do believe a candidate like Bernie - versus say someone like a Biden - brings extra energy to the opposing base.

I think this line of thinking drastically underestimates how little many "moderate Democrats" (and even independents) dislike Trump. It goes beyond the appropriate lines of discussion for this thread, but analyzing moderate voting as though Trump were a traditional Republican makes little sense. He's a unique candidate who is almost singularly polarizing and who defies that kind of traditional analysis.

I'm not a Bernie backer by any stretch, but I'd also note that polling data (grain of salt, I realize, but what else do we have) shows that Bernie's numbers, both nationally and state by state are pretty much the same (or within the same range) as the other, more moderate Democrats. Bernie might well not beat Trump if he gets the chance, but I don't really see any evidence that his chances are substantially worse than any of the other Democratic candidates.

[SouthernDukie]

I think this line of thinking drastically underestimates how little many "moderate Democrats" (and even independents) dislike Trump. It goes beyond the appropriate lines of discussion for this thread, but analyzing moderate voting as though Trump were a traditional Republican makes little sense. He's a unique candidate who is almost singularly polarizing and who defies that kind of traditional analysis.

I promise you I am not underestimating the Trump hate. I just think that unless the economy takes a downturn, if given the choice between Bernie and Trump, those moderate Dems, like most everyone else, will go with what they feel will most likely help their pocketbook every single time even if it means putting up with a much-disliked POTUS. I could be wrong, but that’s what I think. And I’m betting that’s what most of the Democrat party leaders think as well. And lest anyone think that’s a jab, it isn’t. I think that’s true of almost all people across political spectrums. Economics is always a key point in any presidential election. I think Bernie’s policies would potentially push those moderate Democrats back to Trump’s side, even though they dislike him.

[Chicago 1995]

I promise you I am not underestimating the Trump hate. I just think that unless the economy takes a downturn, if given the choice between Bernie and Trump, those moderate Dems, like most everyone else, will go with what they feel will most likely help their pocketbook every single time even if it means putting up with a much-disliked POTUS. I could be wrong, but that’s what I think. And I’m betting that’s what most of the Democrat party leaders think as well. And lest anyone think that’s a jab, it isn’t. I think that’s true of almost all people across political spectrums..

I'd totally agree with you if Donald Trump was the reincarnation of Dubya. He's not. If Trump was merely a "much-disliked POTUS," he'd be a shoe-in for reelection.

The nature of this thread tends to normalize Donald since you can't really discuss his candidacy without hitting any number of the thread's third rails. Because we can't talk about him in full, we tend to minimize that which is most objectionable (to put it mildly) and he gets thought of here as a more traditional President far too often. There's plenty of evidence out there making it clear how not normal his presidency and the opposition to it is and hence, the "vote the pocketbook" kind of analysis, to me, bears little relevance.

[SouthernDukie]

I'd totally agree with you if Donald Trump was the reincarnation of Dubya. He's not. If Trump was merely a "much-disliked POTUS," he'd be a shoe-in for reelection.

The nature of this thread tends to normalize Donald since you can't really discuss his candidacy without hitting any number of the thread's third rails. Because we can't talk about him in full, we tend to minimize that which is most objectionable (to put it mildly) and he gets thought of here as a more traditional President far too often. There's plenty of evidence out there making it clear how not normal his presidency and the opposition to it is and hence, the "vote the pocketbook" kind of analysis, to me, bears little relevance.

I’m not disagreeing with any of your points, except the last line. I do think if comes down to Sanders v Trump, the pocketbook will have an influence on many voters who might otherwise have gone for a moderate Dem. Even in view of what I think are your very valid points about Trump. But we shall see in about 9 months.

[Troublemaker]

The numbers on single-payer, etc. vary pretty significantly depending on how it's described (seems to be typical with healthcare policy - remember the ACA polling back in ~2010?). Kaiser has an interesting set of graphs from a poll in Jan that try to tease apart some of the distinctions (https://www.kff.org/slideshow/public...care-coverage/). Their top line, though, is that 56% overall support "Medicare for all", which is how Bernie tries to frame his plan. Depending on how it's described, support can shift around, but it is roughly equally divided. From a quick glance, other polls from the summer/fall show 40-50% support, even when explicitly told it would "replace private insurance" (e.g. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ong-democrats/). Various versions of the "public option" are consistently more popular, though.

I'm not convinced that Bernie's plans are a huge killer to his chances. After all, Trump ran on a number of seemingly-out-there ideas, and there was a lot of talk about taking him seriously but not literally, etc. My amateur electoral college analysis would be that Bernie would be hard-pressed to flip new states to blue (and places like Virginia might get tight), but that he would likely compete well with the Obama-Trump voters in the Rust Belt. The possible fight with unions mentioned above might complicate that, though.

Nice post. Re: unions, Bernie gets a lot of support from them, probably more than any other candidate, so I wouldn't worry much there. There are certain union bosses that don't like him, but as long as union workers do, he'll be more than okay with that demographic.

Links describing his union support and also sometimes clashes between union members who like Bernie and certain union leadership that don't (3rd link):

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...s-labor-103136

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/p...port-for-labor

https://inthesetimes.com/working/ent...en-endorsement

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entr...e-victory-seiu

[CameronBornAndBred]

Good and bad news for Bernie in Polling World today.

Sen. Bernie Sanders has jumped out to a double-digit national lead in the Democratic presidential contest after his victory in New Hampshire's primary and his second-place finish for delegates in Iowa's disorganized caucuses, while former Vice President Joe Biden has seen his support drop by 11 points since his disappointing finishes in both contests, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Tuesday.

And the poll has President Donald Trump's approval rating tied for his all-time high in the NBC News/WSJ survey, while also finding that the most unpopular candidate qualities in a general election are being a socialist, being older than 75 years of age and having a heart attack in the past year.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/nbc-news-...220000327.html

[VA_BDevil]

Dennis Celery would make a great running mate.

[OldPhiKap]

Dennis Celery would make a great running mate.

Although he couldn’t release his taxes because they are still under audit . . . .

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Although he couldn’t release his taxes because they are still under audit . . . .

I don't know who I would be less likely to vote for, Dennis Celery or the guy in the Allstate commercials (Mayhem). Both of them are absolutely horrible and those commercials are on over and over and over again.

I just realized that the debate tonight is the same time as the Duke game, so I guess I will have to watch it on replay or just read about it.

[bundabergdevil]

I don't know who I would be less likely to vote for, Dennis Celery or the guy in the Allstate commercials (Mayhem). Both of them are absolutely horrible and those commercials are on over and over and over again.

I just realized that the debate tonight is the same time as the Duke game, so I guess I will have to watch it on replay or just read about it.

Yup. Unfortunately, this is also the most compelling debate. I’m very interested in seeing just how hard everyone goes at Bernie and Bloomberg. Both have rich territory open for attack. I don’t think Bernie has ever really been through the ringer. Hillary treated him like a curio and didn’t hit him as hard as she could have. I doubt Trump will be able to resist beginning to go after Sanders now but I wonder if his campaign thinks of Sanders the way HRC thought of Trump: the opponent they’re hoping to run against. It’s been raised on this thread before, and by certain Trump strategists, but Trump and Sanders share more similarities than either would care to admit.

As for Bloomberg, oof, has he said some things. It will be morbidly fascinating to see just how far his record spending gets him because he isn’t a particularly compelling politician and has a mixed track record at best. After 2016, I’m willing to toss conventional wisdom aside and say, who knows, if either of these guys gets the nod they still have a real shot at the presidency.

[Troublemaker]

Lots of nice polls for Bernie recently nationally and in California (lots of delegates). He appears to be closer to (or at) 30% than 25% or less at this point nationally.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...ry-d/national/

Even in the 538 graph in that link (which probably hasn't disposed of the old polls yet), you can see Bernie is at the highest point in his campaign so far. If he continues to be the frontrunner, people will hop on, imo.

[dukebluesincebirth]

Anyone see the town halls last night? I was a little surprised that Sanders, Mayor Pete, and Klobuchar all got asked about taking money from Bloomberg. I didn't even know this was a possible thing, but they were all asked if Bloomberg dropped out and wanted to donate money, would they take it? I think Anderson Cooper even gave Bernie a specific amount (500 million?). Bernie had great hesitation, then said he didn't think his campaign would need it. Pete said he'd take it, and I dont know about Klobuchar. Is donating money to another's campaign after dropping out a common thing? FWIW, I thought Bernie did a really good job responding to his tough questions last night. He went hard at Trump several times, seeming to be more committed to the "I can beat Trump" argument which is so important to the Dem voters. I bet we'll see that continue to ramp up as his campaign builds more momentum. Pete got pressed on his inability to draw in non-white voters, and he didn't really have a solid response. He kind of dodged the question from Burnette, "are you worried that it's getting too late in the race for you to solve this problem?" I expect Pete will get pressed on this again tonight, and will probably have better responses. And they all attacked Bloomberg, and the debate will be interesting. Come on in to the lion's den, Mike!

[OldPhiKap]

NBC/WSJ poll , Trump approval rating amongst independents:

Approve: 47%
Disapprove: 50%

So, margin of error stuff if this poll is not an outlier.

I think the argument that moderates will still vote Dem if the nominee is Bernie is a pretty shaky proposition. And given that each party is going to draw out about 45% regardless, it's the middle that wins or loses elections IMHO.

(and although approval is not the same as favorability, Trump only had 37% overall favorability when he won in 2016).

[Troublemaker]

NBC/WSJ poll , Trump approval rating amongst independents:

Approve: 47%
Disapprove: 50%

So, margin of error stuff if this poll is not an outlier.

I think the argument that moderates will still vote Dem if the nominee is Bernie is a pretty shaky proposition. And given that each party is going to draw out about 45% regardless, it's the middle that wins or loses elections IMHO.

(and although approval is not the same as favorability, Trump only had 37% overall favorability when he won in 2016).

If Trump's approval rating is on the rise (just until the next controversial incident, right?), that would seem to be a problem for all Dems, not just Bernie.

To be clear, Bernie supporters don't think their guy will beat Trump solely because Trump is unpopular; they think he will beat Trump because Bernie is the best candidate to do so. He's still as strong as anyone vs Trump in head-to-head polling, and he's been strong in that regard for 4 years now (and was certainly stronger than Hillary in head-to-head polling vs Trump in 2016). [Now, early head-to-head polling may not mean very much, and maybe we'll find that out.] They think Bernie is the only candidate who can spread the court, so to speak, and make Trump defend every inch -- for the working class, for youth, for minorities, for college-educated professionals, whereas some of those "moderate" candidates project to have a much narrower coalition. Now, maybe that theory of the election is wrong, but that's the theory.

[OldPhiKap]

They think Bernie is the only candidate who can spread the court, so to speak, and make Trump defend every inch -- for the working class, for youth, for minorities, for college-educated professionals, whereas some of those "moderate" candidates project to have a much narrower coalition. Now, maybe that theory of the election is wrong, but that's the theory.

You have put your finger on the win-or-lose question.

From Trump's perspective, his goal is to make the opponent even less popular than he is. Trump did a very good job of that against HRC. He has already put a dent in Biden.