2020 Elections - Trump FIRED

[njbill]

As we all know, we don’t have one race for president; we have 50. And only about ten or so of them matter. I’m one of those for whom by far the most important issue is who has the best chance of beating Trump – in these key battleground states. As of now (and, sure, the sands continue to shift), I think that is Biden.

As I said upthread (won’t repeat reasoning here), I think Biden can beat Trump in Pennsylvania. (Course I thought Clinton would win Pa. in 2016.) More importantly, I think he has a better chance in Pa. against Trump than any of the other Dem candidates. Not sure Warren would even win Pa.

I also think Biden has a good shot against Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin. Better than Warren. I would put Minnesota in the same category. Dems better be careful there and not take that state for granted.

Not feeling warm and fuzzy about any Dems’ chances in NC or Florida. Would love to be wrong.

I think Warren or Bernie might do better than Biden in NH, which I think will be close (what say ye, seacoaster?), but I think Biden can win there as well.

I think Ga. and Texas are still pipedreams for the Dems, though that may change in a cycle or two. Arizona is closer to turning blue, but I would put it in the “pleasant surprise” category at this point.

While I expect Ohio to stay red, I think it could be a close race if Biden is the nominee.

I wouldn’t say Nevada is safely blue yet, but it is moving in that direction. I think any of the top Dems can beat Trump there.

True, Biden isn’t the sexiest candidate to every come down the pike (far from it). And, yes, he may have a problem with turnout, especially with younger voters. But I think the primary motivator in 2020 will be defeating Trump, not passion for the Democratic nominee. The desire to beat Trump will get out a lot of votes.

No one individual appeals to all demographics. Warren has a lot of support among the young (I have this debate with my daughter (a big Warren fan) all the time). But Warren has less appeal with older voters. Joe is the reverse. I think Biden would do better with African American voters and Latinos than Warren. But, again, these prognostications are essentially meaningless on a national level. They only matter in the battleground states.

Would Biden get as many total national votes as Warren? Maybe not. She could run up the scoreboard in solid blue states such as CA, Mass, and NY. But Biden would still win those states. We certainly don’t want another pyrrhic victory like with Clinton.

I always figured Biden would get beaten up in the primaries, and he has. I think he would get less beaten up in the general election than would some of the other Dems who are running. Maybe Biden has already taken Trump’s best shot. At least anything else Trump comes up with against him may be viewed as suspect given how the Ukraine thing has played out.

As many have predicted, the 2020 general election is going to be VERY dirty. God knows what stuff, true or untrue, Trump is going to try to dig up. The Dems will throw everything at Trump. I fully expect NY state will indict him in, say, October, of next year. A nice, fat, juicy 150 page multi-count indictment with lots of persuasive details. Trump will cry foul, and we’ll be off to the races. Given that he has been in the public eye so long, and in view of the fact that many (all?) of his warts are already public knowledge, I think Biden is in a better position to withstand the certain mud the Trump dirt machine will spew out than the others.

If, however, someone comes out of the woodwork who I think has a better chance of beating Trump, I’ll dump Joe in a heartbeat. But until then, he’s my guy.

I frankly don’t get the Tulsi love some on this board are espousing, but I’m not going to waste any of my dwindling brain cells on her at this point since I don’t see her going anywhere. (If somehow she were to get the nomination, I certainly would vote for her over Trump.)

[MDlaxfan76]

As always it will be the independent voters will make the call.

That's a big misconception. The data says that there really aren't hardly any true independents.

17% of the population are "independents" who lean Dem and vote just like Dems. 13% of the population are "independents" who lean Rep and vote just like Reps. That's why the number of independents for/against impeachment are basically the same as the overall numbers -- Dems favor, Reps don't favor.

Only 7% of the population truly have no partisan lean. And those folks tend not to register or vote. The reason they have no partisan lean is that they aren't interested in politics.

The way you win is turning out your partisans/leaners while depressing turnout of the other base. In 2016, Dems stayed home or voted third party. In many cases because they doubted Trump could win. That's not going to happen in 2020.

If both Dems and Reps turn out, Dems win the popular vote by even more than they did in 2016. But Trump could draw the inside Electoral College straight again.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/politics ... index.html

Yes, particularly if the Dems don't run to the middle in those battle ground states.
The candidate matters.

The suburban voters, particularly educated voters, and particularly women, have shifted heavily to the anti-Trumpism position, meaning, for now, Dems. Yes, the African American vote needs to come out big, but again the anti-Trump intensity is really, really high.

Cradle is right that the 33-40% that represent Trumpist hard core will show up, but that next 10+% (or more in some states) he got last time is really disenchanted, demotivated by the Trump style. They may not vote at all, and others can be swung.

The wild card would be a Dem candidate that scared voters.
I don't think that fits anyone other than Sanders and Warren.

[njbill]

He does need a get-out-the-progressive-vote VP. Harris seems like the best choice.

How about Stacey Abrams? I know she has said she isn't interested, but maybe she's just playing hard to get.

[njbill]

My wildcard prediction. If Trump is vindicated by the Senate as a result of his impeachment trial that will be the core theme of his campaign. And every Trump supporter will crawl out from under every rock to wrong the right against their guy.

I agree with this. The counterbalance is, as ggait said, a lot of voters will crawl over broken glass to try to vote Trump out of office. Gonna be a lot of crawling in 2020, I guess.

Other variables:

1. The 2016 Trump voter who thought that the office would normalize him, that he'd stop with all the BS, and that as a "successful businessman," he'd do good things for the economy. Will they hold their noses and vote for Trump again, or vote Dem, or stay home?

2. The 2016 voter who didn't vote for Trump who now loves him because he didn't turn out to be a liberal in disguise and because he really has thumbed his nose at the establishment. These people will vote for Trump in 2020. How many of them are there? Beats me.

3. The apathetic 2016 Dem voter who didn't vote, or who voted independent, assuming Hills would easily win. Will this voter return home and vote D, and how many of them are there?

4. The new voter, those who have turned 18 since 2016. I would expect most would vote Dem, but that the turnout will be lower (a lot lower) if the nominee is Biden.

[DMac]

CU77 wrote
So, DMac, if it's Joe v Trump, whatchya gonna do on election day?

We can wish all day long for a different situation, but realistically it's down to Joe, Lizzie, & Bernie for the D nom. Joe is going to pull 90% of AA votes. After SC he will be the obvious front runner. I will be working hard for Joe, who IMO has by far the best chance of the 3 of beating Trump. Safe choice for the persuadable.

He does need a get-out-the-progressive-vote VP. Harris seems like the best choice.

I'd vote for Caitlyn Jenner before I'd vote for Trump, would find him(er) less embarrassning as the face of our great nation, and as far as a functioning brain goes, I don't think the gold medal winner's functions at any lesser level than the Prez's does. Could bring the Kardashian gals in like Donald brought in the whole fam damily and ya get Kayne to boot.

I like Bernie, was pulling for him last go 'round. I think he could handle Trump just fine, a whole lot better than Joe can/will. Had the Ds put him up Iast time I don't believe Trump would be the Prez. I feel as if the Ds are doing, Hillary, The Sequel, with Lizzie though. Don't see it ending well for the Ds with her as the prize.

Nope on Kamala, she's on my Lizzie-Joe list. She brings nothing to the likability factor, don't like much at all about her.

We'll see how it all plays out but it's feeling like deja vu all over again to me. Heard all about all the %s and polls and all the reasons why the Ds couldn't lose last time but they did. They need to get it together a little better this time if they're going to win it.

[ggait]

Latest battleground polls. Any poll can be wrong. But these say the Dem nominee really doesn't much matter.

But I'd personally pick Biden to be safe.

Verified account @AJentleson

New battleground polls from @DataProgress @Civiqs:

Warren/Trump in
MI: 47/44
PA: 48/43
WI: 49/44
AZ: 47/44
FL: 46/46
NC: 46/46

Biden/Trump:
MI: 46/44
PA: 48/43
WI: 47/43
AZ: 45/45
FL: 45/46
NC: 45/47

Bernie/DJT:
MI: 47/43
PA: 47/44
WI: 47/44
AZ: 46/44
FL: 44/46
NC: 45/46

[ggait]

2015 VA turnout was 29%. 2019 turnout was 40%.

In 2020, Trump will fire up both sides to come out and vote in historically huge numbers. I don't think anyone is going to stay home. I don't think anyone is going to vote third party.

[jhu72]

Respectfully, Tulsi doesn't stand a chance, in the primary or in a general. She'll be gone after New Hampshire, unless someone convinces her to do an independent run.

Unfortunately for Tulsi, the Fanlax board community is the only demo in the entire U.S. that knows or cares about her. She's beyond irrelevant. Maybe she could team up with my personal favorite obscure candidate (CO's Bennet) so that together they could break the 4% mark.

The key takeaway from KY is that turn out was up -- BIGLY. 31% in 2015 vs. 42% in 2019. That's why the late polls were off -- they didn't model the turnout correctly. Turnout on both sides in 2020 is going to be HUGE and the particular Dem nominee is not going to matter all that much. Trump will turn out his base and he is also going to turn out the Dems.

Voting today is all about negative partisanship. Reps don't like Trump, but they hate Dems so much they'll vote for jerk like Trump. Unlike 2016 when Dems were unexcited or apathetic, in 2020 Dems will crawl over broken glass to vote that flaming a-hole out of office.

My liberal fool millenial kids feel the Bern, but they'd gladly vote for grandpa Joe in order to flip Trump the bird. I wouldn't pick Lizzie since she'd make it closer in the rust belt than it would be for Joe (who would get huge turnout).

We see eye to eye. I am less worried about who the candidate is than most. I agree, Biden can kick it up a notch for the Ds because of his long relationship with the blue collars.

[old salt]

Trump's margin of victory.....

The most important states, though, were Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump won those states by 0.2, 0.7 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively — and by 10,704, 46,765 and 22,177 votes. Those three wins gave him 46 electoral votes; if Clinton had done one point better in each state, she'd have won the electoral vote, too.

More people than than that show up at Ohio State football games each week. This was against a candidate with a ton of baggage, with the Russian government working on behalf of Trump and against Clinton, along with the benefit of stealing the DNC's campaign data base which detailed potential voters by email, Facebook, twitter and instagram accounts. I don't know what Trump has done to make him more popular. By the time its narrowed down to a field of 1 nominee. things will look different.

...& those are the exact, specific voters that those evil Russian geniuses targeted to steal our election.

[CU77]

Pete looks like a real possibility. I think he'd crush Trump, would be extremely difficult to touch other than with the shrinking base of voters that just hate any Dem.

Sorry, no. If P.Butt is on the ticket, watch out for the tsunami of anti-gay agitprop that will swamp social media. Any gay man (in the states that matter) starts out with a handicap, hard to quantify, but IMO it's at least -5%. And plenty of AAs are social conservatives who will not turn out for a white gay dude.

But if he gets the nomination, I hope he tops his current personal best of 8515 votes received.

[CU77]

He does need a get-out-the-progressive-vote VP. Harris seems like the best choice.

How about Stacey Abrams? I know she has said she isn't interested, but maybe she's just playing hard to get.

Too fat.

Sorry, being brutal here, but ever since Nixon won the 1960 debate with Kennedy on the radio but lost on TV (he looked haggard), appearance has mattered FAR more than we like to believe. And women have it way tougher than men in this, and black women even more so.

Kamala, on the other hand, looks to be in pretty good shape, and is light skinned. It disgusts me that this matters, but it does.

[CU77]

New battleground polls from @DataProgress @Civiqs

Not to be trusted. This is Daily Kos' founder Markos Moulitsas personal baby. And they don't get rated by 538, which rates a zillion other pollsters with longer track reconds: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/pollster-ratings/

For more complete polling results:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... _election/

[seacoaster]

NJBill: "I think Warren or Bernie might do better than Biden in NH, which I think will be close (what say ye, seacoaster?), but I think Biden can win there as well."

I think all three beat Trump in a general election here in NH for its four electoral votes and bottle of maple syrup. The state is purple, and there is some active voter suppression by the Governor, but the national elections have trended Democratic for some time now.

[jhu72]

NJBill: "I think Warren or Bernie might do better than Biden in NH, which I think will be close (what say ye, seacoaster?), but I think Biden can win there as well."

I think all three beat Trump in a general election here in NH for its four electoral votes and bottle of maple syrup. The state is purple, and there is some active voter suppression by the Governor, but the national elections have trended Democratic for some time now.

Do you really believe there is any state that Hillary won, that Biden will do worse in? I really doubt it. Barring some significant event (not fake Trump news), can't imagine what that would be, I see Hillary's 2016 numbers as a real hard floor for Biden.

[jhu72]

The lesson from Kentucky that no one is talking about. It wasn't just the bigger city suburbs.

[LandM]

72,
I think the story being missed is that ALL of the major offices in KY went R except the Governor, pick any one of those statewide offices. The AG is a black R and a former college football player, good on him in many ways. Unfortunately, he got less national news then the lady representing a county in MD as she flipped off the President's motorcade and lost her job many years ago - I am NOT in favor of that but that is her right. The Governor for years/months has been shooting himself in the foot and has had as we use to say, "hoof and mouth disease". He lost and he needs to concede over his own stupidity IMHO. You all have a whole year to debate this but you are missing, so are news organizations, IMHO the key point of this election in KY, everything came up R except the big one.

[MDlaxfan76]

Pete looks like a real possibility. I think he'd crush Trump, would be extremely difficult to touch other than with the shrinking base of voters that just hate any Dem.

Sorry, no. If P.Butt is on the ticket, watch out for the tsunami of anti-gay agitprop that will swamp social media. Any gay man (in the states that matter) starts out with a handicap, hard to quantify, but IMO it's at least -5%. And plenty of AAs are social conservatives who will not turn out for a white gay dude.

But if he gets the nomination, I hope he tops his current personal best of 8515 votes received.

I dunno; 10 years ago, probable. 20 no chance at all.
But I think there'd be one heck of a backlash to that sort of thing.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Trump's margin of victory.....

The most important states, though, were Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump won those states by 0.2, 0.7 and 0.8 percentage points, respectively — and by 10,704, 46,765 and 22,177 votes. Those three wins gave him 46 electoral votes; if Clinton had done one point better in each state, she'd have won the electoral vote, too.

More people than than that show up at Ohio State football games each week. This was against a candidate with a ton of baggage, with the Russian government working on behalf of Trump and against Clinton, along with the benefit of stealing the DNC's campaign data base which detailed potential voters by email, Facebook, twitter and instagram accounts. I don't know what Trump has done to make him more popular. By the time its narrowed down to a field of 1 nominee. things will look different.

...& those are the exact, specific voters that those evil Russian geniuses targeted to steal our election.

Who said they were? Was anything that I stated factually incorrect or based on an opinion.

[MDlaxfan76]

72,
I think the story being missed is that ALL of the major offices in KY went R except the Governor, pick any one of those statewide offices. The AG is a black R and a former college football player, good on him in many ways. Unfortunately, he got less national news then the lady representing a county in MD as she flipped off the President's motorcade and lost her job many years ago - I am NOT in favor of that but that is her right. The Governor for years/months has been shooting himself in the foot and has had as we use to say, "hoof and mouth disease". He lost and he needs to concede over his own stupidity IMHO. You all have a whole year to debate this but you are missing, so are news organizations, IMHO the key point of this election in KY, everything came up R except the big one.

How often does anything come up D in KY? It's a ruby red state, right?
Yes, great that a black R AG was elected, sounds like an interesting story, but the story isn't that an R was elected in KY.

[foreverlax]

72,
I think the story being missed is that ALL of the major offices in KY went R except the Governor, pick any one of those statewide offices. The AG is a black R and a former college football player, good on him in many ways. Unfortunately, he got less national news then the lady representing a county in MD as she flipped off the President's motorcade and lost her job many years ago - I am NOT in favor of that but that is her right. The Governor for years/months has been shooting himself in the foot and has had as we use to say, "hoof and mouth disease". He lost and he needs to concede over his own stupidity IMHO. You all have a whole year to debate this but you are missing, so are news organizations, IMHO the key point of this election in KY, everything came up R except the big one.

Trump carried Mississippi by almost 18% points. The R governor won with 5.5%. What's up with that?