202 Comments

Does anyone remember Bev Harris, Blackbox voting, and all the voting machine conspiracies about Diebold in the 2000s? The recent election denialism made me think of that.

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I do remember the "election denialism" of 2000 – SCOTUS denied that the presidential winner be decided by an accurate count of the Florida election.

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I blame those who voted for Nader for 2000.

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Yes, but also Roger Stone, Governor Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris (Florida SoS).

Likewise three members of George W. Bush’s legal team who later were duly rewarded: John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

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They're not as much to blame as the unconstitutional Supreme Court's order partisan power grab.

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Yes they are. I can’t believe there are progressives who still make excuses for Nader. Without Nader on the ballot, Bush v. Gore would never have happened.

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Dude; no one is making excuses for Nader; chill out and focus; then reread what he posted(you don't get to add to his post; then editorializing it)

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Nader voters were seriously misguided and hurt the country, but they weren't engaging in an unconstitutional power grab. But keep spouting off stuff...

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Without the Nader voters the power grab doesn’t happen.

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Also Nader got GOP money.

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Also the butterfly ballot design.

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And it wasn't just Broward County's ballot, where more than 10,000 people voted for Pat Buchanan when they meant to vote for Gore. Duval County had just as big of a ballot design problem but it got little press. Confusing ballot design cost Gore more than 20,000 votes.

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yep, sure do. I was involved with her and her colleague right here in Warren County, Ohio in 2004, when our Board of Elections was improperly locked up to outside observers after the polls closed on election night by a contrived bomb threat. They came here and did an investigation, in which I participated. I was involved with the recount, also - - county coordinator. (not so fun times).

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I wonder whatever happened to her.

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She died. Her colleague, Andy Stephenson, died as well a few years later of brain cancer. Sad.

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There but for the grace of God goes our party. In a world without HRC or Obama, it's not impossible that RFK Jr, who was pushing these conspiracies at the time, could have run in our 2008 primary and had a real shot.

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I respectfully disagree. He's never held elected office before and that would have severely hurt his chances in the primaries. As the "government is good" party, we Democrats actually expect our politicians to be able to govern and to demonstrate that. Yes, Obama was seen as "inexperienced" in some circles, but at least he was a State Senator and US Senator before he became President. This is a major reason why Orange Slob never tried to run for office under our banner. He knew he'd never make it to the White House that way.

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I've always thought JFK jr. would have been our nominee in 2008 if it wasn't for that plane crash. People think he was planning on running for Governor of New York in 2002.

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I agree

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Only if he had gotten elected somewhere (either New York or Massachusetts most likely) statewide first.

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I might be misremembering, but I thought the general expectation was that he was going to go after NYC mayor. We all know that isn't the best launching pad for most people.

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I think Vanity Fair had an article out after his death that said people close to him thought he was going for Governor. Really good read if you can find it only somewhere.

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It would have been a fascinating alternative history if he had won governor in 2002. It might have been a tall order though.

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EARLY VOTE

Update with correction: As of 8:30pm today, at least 8,740,613 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 1,936,909 • Mail Ballots Returned: 6,767,438. Early Votes have been cast in 36 states plus DC. These 16 states have at least 100,000 votes:

CA 903,487•

MI 857,270•

FL 833,464•*

VA 815,119<

OH 551,001• (Corrected from 719,827)

PA 690,891•

GA 620,687•

IL 432,934<

NJ 408,261•*

MA 360,707•

MN 337,633•

MD 297,805•*

WI 283,123•

IN 220,686•

AZ 172,145•

NE 107,804•*

*) States that report party registration: CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, IA, ID, KY, ME, MD, NE, NV, NJ, NM, NC, OR, PA, RI, SD, WV.

•) States with updates today.

<) Updates are lagging.

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Re: Stellar Democratic fundraising… Looks like Elon Musk will be writing another check.

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Not to mention Timothy Mellon, who has funded something approaching $200m (172 by old date), Miriam Adelson (100m) and others....

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/biggest-campaign-donors-election-2024/

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https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/16/kamala-harris-pennsylvania-campaign-drama-00183844

Great! First they are saying the Firewall may not be met due to dwindling dem numbers and now it's Harris team in disarray! I thought PA was gonna go our way too. Now we must get NC! Ughh

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Please take a breath; or better yet, step away from politics for a few days

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"Worry less, do more!"

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By the way; that's the exact same article, written by the exact same rag every single election; it's no better than trash

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Actually in the article... it looks like the complaints against Nikki Lu, the Harris PA campaign representative, are because she's from Pittsburgh and not Philly. So... regional prejudice.

Aside from that, it goes against all I've heard of the strong ground game actually going on in PA.

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It's a junk article written by a rag

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I cannot speak for Philly, but the ground game in rural central PA is strong! I have not seen so many volunteers and so much canvassing since 2008, and maybe not even then.

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The article is crap; it should be ignored

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Not only is it crap, it’s by Politico.

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That's funny!

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the idea that a dem presidential campaign has a lagging ground game in Philly is hilarious

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Especially this Dem presidential campaign.

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I feel you Gina. These next three weeks are going to be exhausting.

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Only if you read Politico. Otherwise, the next three weeks can be fun.

I'm actually enjoying all the lit dropping I'm doing. I'm up to over 600 doors.

And I'm excited to start door knocking as well

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Thanks for your service(I normally don't speak of my personal activism, but since you posted, I'll add that I'm doing another lit drop just tomorrow morning before I leave on my weekend trip; be prepared for a gas price survey as well); and reading Politico is a waste of time; like Jus here says, if you want to 'do something'; your local\state DEC will assuredly put you to work

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Sounds like a rehash of "Dems in disarray" or "black and Latino men supporting Trump" that has little merit or basis. If you feel concerned volunteer or donate.

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This is Politico. They have a tendency to exaggerate things when it comes to reporting on Democrats and their “drama.” It’s been going on for years.

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It's Politico. You might as well get your news from Pravda.

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The findings, from a Howard University Initiative on Public Opinion poll of 981 likely Black voters in battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — show that 84% of likely Black voters will support Harris in November and 8% say they’ll support Trump. Another 8% are undecided.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/harris-maintains-strong-lead-black-swing-state-voters-new-poll-rcna175420

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Imo she either equals Biden or winds up just above him(and in raw numbers, I think she outpaces him because I think she gets a better overall AA turnout)

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I'm skeptical about turnout matching Biden's....AA turnout and overall turnout. Eighty-one million votes is a very high bar. Hopefully the message is starting to get through but the reports of base apathy in urban strongholds this October are at least as loud as the proven-true reports of a MAGA wave in South Florida at this time in 2020.

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I can absolutely imagine a scenario where turnout this year is meaningfully lower than 2020.

But, I can also see it matching or exceeding. Both 2018 and 2022 saw the highest midterm turnout since the 70s; 2020 wasn't a once-off high turnout election.

The story of the outcome of this year is, in my view, currently coming down to what the story of turnout is. It looks like the MAGA voters are more or less expected to show up and vote. Does the anti-MAGA crowd come out again, does it grow from former republicans willing to preserve democracy, or did some of it grow complacent and thus won't show up?

There's valid arguments for any of those happening. The data is all over the place depending on what pollsters believe will happen and thus how they model their electorate.

Which is a long winded way of saying I wouldn't be surprised if you were right, but I would be unequally unsurprised if you were wrong. It's too hard to tell right now.

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Imo Trump being on the ballot increases overall turnout(for both sides)

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I utterly fail to see how Americans can consider 67% a high-turnout Election. By any reasonable measure, as well as comparison to other Western nations, that is absolutely dismal!

At the very least, we should be aiming at a Democratic turnout of 75–80% in every single swing states.

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You have a solid point.

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My mother and I voted today at the Apex (NC) Town Hall. Got in line just before noon, 1.5-hr wait. Line was just as long when we left.

40 minutes is the longest I have ever waited to early vote, previously.

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What county?

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Apex is in Wake County; you probably know that Raleigh is the seat. It's originally a railroad town that boomed with the Research Triangle tech explosion in the late 90s/early 2000s. It's basically a Raleigh suburb and part of the RDU metro.

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I think Kamala Harris will significantly exceed Biden’s turnout. In 2020, because of the pandemic, there was minimal canvassing and person-to-person GOTV effort for our side, whereas Trump had this.

Now, in 2024, this is very much reversed. Enthusiasm is through the roof and the Harris-Walz Campaign has invested heavily in GOTV and groundgame operations. Moreover, this is augmented by the GOTV/groundgame efforts of a wide network of local, state and national organizations: Field Team 6, Red Wine & Blue, etc etc.

All in all, the number of volunteers who feel a personal stake in preventing America from turning Fascist is seven-digit.

And what does Trump have? Huge legal bills and grift – his own as well as his operatives’. He has outsourced his GOTV to Charlie Kirk and his Turning Point USA, and to Elon Musk. What could possibly go wrong??

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This follows a trend we've seen with Hispanic only polls and young voter only polls where the numbers look very comparable to 2020 in contrast to Trump consistently, sometimes significantly, overperforming with these groups in the crosstabs of polls.

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My prior is that polls that specifically target subgroups tend to be more accurate because the results aren't muddled by people outside the group responding randomly or deliberately that they're a member of the group. The Howard poll isn't likely to get many non-black people inaccurately responding that they are black and voting for Trump.

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You're probably right, but what do you suppose they're doing to weed out liars that's not being done in polling of the entire pool of voters?

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What are the Hispanic-only polls showing Harris performing comparably to previous Democrats? The only one I've seen is that Telemundo poll from a couple of weeks ago showing Hispanic support for Harris cratering to 54-40.

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Here's one that shows Harris up 59-37, down 51-44 in Florida but up 25+ in the contested states. https://www.hispanicfederation.org/our-work/civicengagement/national-poll-on-latino-voter-sentiment-in-the-2024-election-crosstabs-on-swing-states/

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I've seen the votoLatino one(led by a woman who's name is Kumar, I think) it's @60% Harris with about 7-8% still undecided(personally, I think the undecided % in some of these polls is ridiculously high)

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So the range between polls is pretty big. I hope we'll get good data on the actual voting after the fact.

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Me too; imo if Harris can get 63% of Hispanic in the swing states, then she's ok

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on cue here is one of Latino voters in battleground states. Harris leads 62% to 34%

https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1846944600352538943

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Similar-ish to 2020

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I bet 8% turns out to be an overestimate when it comes to actual votes cast.

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Can you expound on this? I'm not exactly following your thoughts? Apologies

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Nothing deep, I’m just saying Trump will probably get less than 8% of actual votes cast by folks identifying as African-American.

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Agreed and I think AA turnout is being low balled

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WaPo headline suggests GOTV efforts are somehow nefarious:

– "Massive influx of shadowy get-out-the-vote spending floods swing states"

https://wapo.st/3Yp5gSa

(The only thing that clearly is nefarious is Elon Musk offering people $47 for each swing state voter they recruit for Trump.)

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Great political messaging video! Dave Bautista tells us who "strongman!" Trump really is.

https://nitter.poast.org/jessejoyce/status/1846764158945317381#m

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Should be a hit against Trump’s relationship with the WWE.

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Should be shown repeatedly during WWE broadcasts!

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Unfortunately, it will likely not as Trump has a long history with Vince McMahon.

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Does WWE have its very own broadcast channel? Or McMahon have veto power over which ads are broadcast in conjunction with its ... theatrical events? Unless that is the case, I would think that anyone is free to book advertisement with the broadcaster.

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Bautista may have a contract situation here..??

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Ah, never having watched WWE, I hadn’t realized Bautista himself had been a wrestler.

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Any polls regarding the NH Gov race? The question is how many Harris/Ayotte voters will there be?

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Ayotte 42-41. According to this poll.

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So many undecideds with such little time left, September primaries need eliminating; way too late!! 😢🇺🇲

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They should have pushed the leaners.

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This👆👆👆

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If Craig loses it will be because that primary fight got too nasty. Particularly at the end. We Democrats need to treat 2008 as the exception, not the rule when it comes to intraparty fighting.

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Most G20 countries elect a President in about three months. September primaries are fine

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I disagree

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Most G20 countries don't have primaries and go straight to the general election. We do. Primaries often hurt. Especially when people get too attached to individual politicians.

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NORTH CAROLINA: Early In-Person Voting started today. Does anyone have links to reliable sources for turnout at the polls? Good data-oriented, on-the.ground reporting? Or better yet: live updates of how many people are voting?

GEORGIA has a stellar website, showing hourly updates (with just 30-minute lag) of how many people have voted:

https://sos.ga.gov/page/election-data-hub-turnout

In-person: 312,260 on Tuesday; 276,667 yesterday; 252,128 today as of 6:30pm.

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Wednesday's PA Mail-In Ballot Update is in.

28,714 new requests, R+2144. Overall request advantage now down to D+523,214 (lowest since 10/4)

60,836 ballot returns, D+13,418. Overall ballot advantage now D+271,171.

Total Requests:

D - 1,035,258 (58.87%)

R - 512,044 (29.12%)

O - 211,107 (12.01%)

Total - 1,758,409

Total Returns:

D - 450,379 (43.50% return rate)

R - 179,208 (35.00%)

O - 62,974 (29.83%)

Total - 692,561

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Great! You beat me to it by 2 minutes. I’ve deleted my post. :)

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Erie, Luzerne & Westmoreland are still lagging behind. Each have 30-40k in requests with a 9-11k Dem advantage & current have a return rate under 5%.

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Do we have 2020 numbers to compare this to?

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Here's a link below but all comparisons to either 2020 or 2022 are unfair. This is the first "normal" election with no-excuse mail-in voting in PA since the law passed in spring 2019.

https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2022?demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22registeredParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&state=PA&view_type=state

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Any other way to post this? For some reason it's locked for me?

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Yeah, "Sign-in required."

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GEORGIA: Tom Bonier’s TargetEarly (TargetSmart) has posted its "Modeled Party" analysis of Georgia’s Early Vote. So far, Republican and Democratic voting seems to be neck-in-neck. This is a strong contrast with the 2020 Presidential and 2022 Midterm Elections, when Democrats were running up a significant Early-Vote advantage.

https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/g2024?calc_type=voteShare&count_prefix=current_eav_voted_count_&demo_filters=%5B%7B%22key%22%3A%22modeledParty%22%2C%22value%22%3A%22All%22%7D%5D&state=GA&view_type=state

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I’ve never gotten a good explanation on how his model actually works, which is why I’m skeptical of its efficacy (not just for meh Georgia, but also for Michigan where his figures by all accounts look stellar for us)

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That’s a valid criticism. It is also one of my long-standing criticisms against Nate Silver, even when he was running FiveThirtyEight. Nate always added (and continues to add) a "special sauce" – and the ingredients and their precise mix are proprietary; this means no-one can replicate and quality-assure Nate’s analysis and prognosis.

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Nate is past his sell date imo

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Worse. Nate is in bed with Peter Thiel and his Polymarkets.

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In general the poll aggregators are past their sell by date because the polls themselves just arent that useful. They try to add value by doing some special sauce math, but given the inaccuracy of the polls the best they can do is tell us that a close race is close.

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Right now, Republican-aligned pollsters – many of them crap pollsters – are releasing a flood of swing-state polls, clearly with the intention of impacting the averages. (The pollster version of Steve Bannon’s "flooding the zone with shit".)

Imho, 538 should be far stricter with enforcing their quality demands. (Say, use only polls rated +1.5 / B or higher.) Given the sheer number of recent bad polls, merely giving them a low weighting does NOT solve the problem – those bad polls are still skewing the averages.

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I initially read "special sauce meth," which it might as well be...

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Because Republicans are now being told it’s okay to vote early.

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GA is like FL in that GOP suburbanites voted early fairly heavily, no?

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I'm not a fan of his methodology

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New @InsideElections@NoblePredictive

House battleground poll in ARIZONA's 2nd🌵:

Eli Crane (R-inc) 42

Jonathan Nez (D) 42

Trump (R) 52 (presidential baseline similar to 2016 and 2020)

Harris (D) 43

Gallego (D) 48

Lake (R) 43

Fav/unfav

Crane 32/28

Nez 29/11

10/10-12, 414 LVs, live caller/sms

https://x.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1846929909328847345

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Oct 18
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Machismo ?? Hispanic men won't vote for a woman ??speculating

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This strikes me as not a great result for Crane

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It’s really bad result for Lake.

Here's how this CD voted/would have voted in a few recent elections:

2022 House: R54-D46

2022 Senate: R51-D47

2020 Pres: R53-D45

2018 Senate: R50-D47

2016 Pres: R51-D41

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what are the 2020 numbers here?

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my bad just scrolled down and saw Paleo's comment

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Cook's PVI rates this district as R+6 and Inside Elections, the poll's sponsor, rates this race as Likely R. This poll is really good for Dems. A tie in Inside Elections' own poll should shake things up a bit.

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So how should we interpret Trump pulling out of so many events?

I've seen some people arguing it could mean his campaign feels good about how the election is going, and feel it's best to just run out the clock.

Which I suppose I could understand if it were just interviews in potentially unfriendly environments. But with the news today that he cancelled an appearance at an NRA event, it's hard for me to square that with the "he's confident and is avoiding bad publicity" logic.

After how his last few public events went it's hard for me not to feel this is a sign he's not doing well, but I'm also not sure if that's just hopium on my part.

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The man is an egomaniac who loves the attention his rallies bring. I think there is a 0% chance that he would agree to not do events just because of confidence in the end result. I’d wager he also believes there is no such thing as bad publicity.

The most logical explanation is that he’s deteriorating and someone has convinced him (somehow) that his events are doing more harm than good. I doubt it will last though.

Just to be clear though, I’m not saying he’s not feeling good about how the election is going. He has been improving in some polls. But a plan of hiding away and coasting the last three weeks just because he thinks he has it in the bag is just incompatible with his personality.

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Also, it’s the case that an aggressive October schedule probably won him 2016 and nearly won him 2020.

I think he’s unwell from a health standpoint and they don’t want anymore glitches like the PA event; I don’t know that I’d read in from this how his campaign feels heading into 11/5. As you say, coasting and hiding is not how this man operates

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This ☝🏼☝🏼☝🏼

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I think they believe that the more people see Trump the worse it is for him and I think that would be true if he was winning or losing. The only interpretation I will say is I think this indicates his campaign believes they're not down significantly in the tipping point states. I think if he was down 5 in the tipping point states, they'd probably be more willing to do more interviews and events. But I think this is a strategy compatible with +2 or -2 in the tipping point states.

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Even the NRA event? That seems like something they would want him to do.

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Yeah I think so. In a pure political sense I don't think the NRA event does much for him and I think the goal is probably to do as few events as possible.

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Age catches up to everyone, even a conman grifter like Don. I'd bet he just doesn't feel like doing any of this stuff.

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Has he pulled out of events further in the future than just the next few days? They might just want to give him some time to rest and then chuck him back out there.

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I think it’s a mix but, yes, maybe

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I feel like him waiting an hour and a half to come out on stage the other night may be a bad sign for him as far as his condition.

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That’s pretty typical for him though; he’s always way late at his rallies

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being late to events/meetings is a sign of a bad executive or manager. Trump is and example and also Bill DeBlasio who was well known for being late.

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I agree!

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Not by that long though I don't think.

Or am I mistaken there? I don't generally watch his rallies.

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From what I’ve read his frequently way late, to the tune of an hour often.

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I don't know about you folks; but, imo the 'dance marathon' was a disaster; anytime we can get national media discussion of his age\mental acuity is a great day for Harris

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He may be in more serious mental decline than the media and the public perceive right now. His speech patterns and pronunciations have become increasingly incoherent to the point that serious concerns have been raised about his mental capacity and a renewed demand for his to disclose his medical records. It's increasingly reaching the point that ironically everyone should be worried about Trump's health. We're reaching the possibility of not just an incompetent leader, but an incapacitated leader.

There's a possibility out there where a demented and rapidly declining, though still barely functional and coherent Trump and his most loyal and delusional cultists are fighting vs former allies over whether or not to resign for the sake of the country. And at this point that truly is where we're at. MAGAs are a cult. It's not even an insult now, it's a undisputable fact. His followers blindly support and follow him, no matter how deranged and demented he degrades into.

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They don't care because "own the libs." At this point the Democratic Party should just come out in favor of breathing.

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This never made sense. It's often reached the point that the MAGAs are "owning the libs" by owning themselves. We saw it during the pandemic and we see it again with the hurricane misinformation. Literally depriving themselves of their own livelihoods and even lives because Biden and the feds are out to get them. Aside from themselves the only folks the MAGAs often end up owning is their own family and friends who sow the consequences of their ignorance and hatred.

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New

@InsideElections

/

@NoblePredictive

House battleground poll in ARIZONA's 2nd🌵:

Eli Crane (R-inc) 42

Jonathan Nez (D) 42

Trump (R) 52

Harris (D) 43

Gallego (D) 48

Lake (R) 43

Here's how this CD voted/would have voted in a few recent elections:

2022 House: R54-D46

2022 Senate: R51-D47

2020 Pres: R53-D45

2018 Senate: R50-D47

2016 Pres: R51-D41

Inside Elections Baseline: 53.6R - 45D

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Lots of undecideds in the house poll, but good.

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Trump said at one of his events relating to January 6th, and I quote:

"Ashli Babbitt was killed, nobody was killed. It was a day of love".

The cognitive decline is worsening and I think he needs urgent healthcare and this election is still "too close to call"!! 😢🇺🇲

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I worry seriously for the cognitive and mental decline of both Trump and many of his supporters. Many apparently outright refuse to seek federal aid from FEMA because they are so utterly brainwashed by rightwing misinformation or paranoid conspiracies. One example I heard on the radio was one man saying his father refused to seek FEMA aid because he believes the feds to seize his home if he does. Many of these folks need serious help.

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🤷Half of my family members fall in that category. They're becoming more distant relatives.

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I feel like this comment needs a big ☹️ and a "sorry for your loss."

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