Utterly outrageous that, in Ohio, courtesy of the Republicans who hold power, there is only one single Early In-Person Voting location per county. That may be fine for the 12,000 people of Vinton County, but entails serious voter suppression for the 1.5 million people who live in Cleveland, Ohio.
Our county in SC has 4 early voting locations for ~66,000 people. That's total population, not registered voters. The early polls are spread geographically around the county which helps lower income rural residents early vote. There can be lines, but it is sufficient since they are open for 2 weeks. I run a poll on E Day, and by that time about half the voters who will turn out have already voted.
Question: Will the voters who are in line at the advertised poll closing times, on Election Day and on Early Voting Days, be allowed to vote? In previous elections I believe the answer was Yes. This time around, I am less confident.
Less confident only because the Republican Party, in its current MAGA incarnation, is doing all sorts of things that were previously unthinkable. The guardrails have been removed.
Before Baker vs. Carr, in some states state senators were elected by county. Which was a Wyoming/California situation but on an even larger scale because mosts states have a lot of rural counties.
By the time Baker v. Carr kicked in for AZ, Maricopa County had a majority of state population, but only 2/28 Senators. The least populous county was Mohave, which also had 2 Senators, but which at the time of the 1960 census had 1/86th of Maricopa's population.
The Georgia county unit system was worse; if you ever get the time, there are some great history books on voting systems in the US where the small minority dominated the states elections laws and used them against the masses
EARLY VOTING – Thoughts on Pennsylvania from Christopher Bouzy:
"Now that we have early vote data, we can better understand what is happening on the ground in PA. In my opinion, early vote data is more reliable than polls. I successfully used early vote data in 2020 and 2022. However, you must be careful because early vote data can sometimes be misleading.
"It is still early, and conditions on the ground may shift, but the current developments in Pennsylvania are eye-opening. As of today, 61.6% of absentee and mail-in ballot requests have come from Democrats, a significant figure that could indicate trends leading up to Election Day.
"Democrats aren't just leading in requested ballots; they are also leading in returned ballots by a whopping 72.8%. This may indicate higher enthusiasm among Democratic voters compared to Republicans. However, it is also possible that ballots from key counties are still in transit.
"But the situation for Republicans is even more dire. According to TargetSmart's race modeling data, Black voters represented just 8.8% of the Pennsylvania electorate in 2020. However, that percentage has surged dramatically, with Black voters now making up 19.5% of the vote.
"It is important to understand that while I am analyzing partisan voting patterns, the electorate doesn’t always vote along party lines. Not all Republicans will vote for Trump, and not all Democrats will vote for VP Harris. However, I estimate that Trump will lose 8-10% of Republican support in PA."
PA is, at best, 12.5% Black so that 19.5% claim is absurd. Bouzy seems like a nice guy but some of his election analysis is ridiculous. If you want quality PA election coverage, follow Charlie Wolfson (@chwolfson), Ben Forstate (@4st8) and Joshua Smithley (@blockedfreq) on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Thank you for the additional sources! (For Early Vote data I’ve mostly followed Michael McDonald’s Election Project.)
Is the final Black vote going to account for 19.5% total? Of course not! But in light of the fact that the Early Vote leans strongly Democratic, and that Philadelphia has already returned one-third of its VBM ballots (ref. Joshua Smithley, Michael McDonald), that initial percentage does not seem "absurd".
This is simply because the city centers mailing back the ballots early. Right now over 3/4 of returned ballots are from Philly, Allegheny and Montgomery counties.
In a recent NYT/Siena poll, 54% of those sampled were men – despite the fact that there are more women voters and they vote at higher rates than men. In fact, the NYT figure is the exact mirror image of the known Early Vote. So far, women account for a striking 54% of the vote!
As always, strong reason for skepticism about early vote analysis this year. It will look completely different from both 2016 and 2020. And from 2022. We have no benchmark due to the huge one-off surge in early voting in 2020, and the trend towards a new normal since. Early vote takes will split between these two themes: Democrats excited that we seem to still be voting earlier and in greater numbers than Republicans. And Republicans excited that the Dem advantage is down significantly from 2020. The truth is: Dems will win the early vote, but it will be smaller, and less blue. And Republicans will win the election day vote, but it will be larger, and less red. And of course, no accounting for how independents break and crossover voting.
Another thing to keep in mind about PA: 2020 was the first major election with no-excuse mail-in ballots, which passed in March 2019. This will be the first major "regular" election under the new law so any comparisons to prior elections need extra scrutiny.
The early mail votes from the rust belt are heavily on loyal and constant Dem voters. Most of them will vote any methods anyway. Banking the votes early just serves as an insurance, in case anything happens later impeding them getting to vote.
It probably says little about the final results, as we don’t know from these numbers, the big chunk of Trump only voters, nor their excitement level.
Nota bene: Banking the votes of loyal and reliable Dems early is valuable for campaigns because it allows them to check these voters off their GOTV lists, and thus allows them to focus on less reliable election day voters.
I feel like the smart move would likely to simply ignore "votes every time" voters altogether in your GOTV regardless of whether you have proof they voted or not. If your time/money is that valuable then using it even just to check in on a guy like me who has voted in every primary/general since I moved back to MD seems like a waste.
It's been a while since I've done direct canvassing with access to VAN and such but when we would get back at 6 or 7 PM we would go over Board of Elections data to confirm early votes and strike the early voters from call/walk lists.
I think the smarter move is for the campaigns to contact the "votes every time" voters early, ask them to please encourage their family and friends and neighbors and acquaintances to vote – and to consider volunteering for additional GOTV efforts.
SPR has a poll with Harris up 5% in PA10. Trump won this district by 4% in 2020. Trump absolutely has to win PA10 if he wants to win the state. Hopefully this is also good for the Democrat Janelle Stelson running here to replace Re. Scott Perry
Someone yesterday (Mark?) asked what kinds of places Harris was making gains this cycle. This is precisely the kind of place where you might expect that.
If you look at the swings towards Dems from 2016 -> 2020 that are over 5% they are all small to mid-sized states: (In order from highest swing to lowest): VT, CO, DE, NH, MD, CT, MA, ME, NE, KS, MN, GA, RI, OR. I'm still skeptical it's anything but noise but states like the above might account for slippage in FL/NY.
They might, but we should also look at the 2020 -> 2022 swing. Nate Cohn says that his polling data makes him think some of those patterns from the midterms may continue into 2024. That would mean relative gains for us in, well, exactly the right places: PA, MI, WI. Maybe AZ as well. And Midwest suburbs such as NE-02, Des Moines (IA-03), and KS-03. Offset by biggish losses in FL and NY.
In those states I listed Democrats generally outperformed expectations in the midterms too so I think both could be true. It may just be some shitty outliers in FL/NY or something else too though.
Account for the popular vote polls to make them work with the polls showing a drop in FL/NY. I'm skeptical of all of it but for the sake of the exercise, those states I mentioned may account for it.
The places Dems have been gaining lately tend to be ancestrally GOP, relatively white, and relatively well educated. I think PA10 fits the bill on all three of those.
TBH, ancestrally is probably used too loosely and there are few places where political traditions go back to ancestors. The only one that comes to mind is Eastern TN defying all Southern logic and being Republican.
The realignment of the 1900’s means few regions have political traditions that go back far enough. And then, the early 2000’s have only solidified that. No more liberal Republicans representing New England or conservative Democrats representing the South.
Thanks. If districts like PA-10 swing to the left by high single digits while the entire state more or less stays stagnant compared to 2020, which is what polls have been showing, I'd think that suggests there's slippage of a similar magnitude in other geographical areas, either the rural area or heavily minority urban areas like inner Philly, maybe both.
The question is whether the polling averages are accurately measuring the race. Right now the PA polling average on 538 includes a bunch of right-leaning polls (Trafalgar; Insider Advantage; Patriot Polling) that give Trump a lead. These same polls led 538 to give Oz a lead of 0.5% in 2022. Even though 538 tries to correct for house effects/biases of polls, they cannot totally negate the influence of red-leaning polls on their aggregation. So if Harris is leading in PA 10, this could (but need not) mean that her lead in PA is greater than what 538 is presently showing.
Yeah I agree that the current PA polling average is skewed by a bunch of right-leaning polls. However, even if we look at only the most reputable polls, I don't think any of them suggests KH is leading in PA by 9 - 10 points. If the 9 point swing in PA-10 is even close to being real, that means there's likely slippage elsewhere is all I'm saying.
A 9-10 point swing in one district need not mean a 9-10 point swing statewide. There might be relatively few districts like PA 10: suburbanish district that had not yet swung heavily towards Democrats. Most of the Philly suburban districts have already swung towards the Dems, with Bucks county showing the weakest swing. Parts of PA 10 are somewhat like the Philly suburbs: highly educated voters who might have supported Republicans in the past. If those voters are slower to move than their Philly area counterparts, and there are few if any other districts that are late swinger, then this swing might be somewhat isolated.
I'm increasingly convinced that it's wishful thinking that the 2022 electorate is gonna show up, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Midterm turnout has always skewed upscale and highly educated. In the past, that's meant Republican-leaning, but especially after Dobbs, it meant an electorate disproportionately friendly to Democrats in the new coalition. If more downscale and less educated voters show up in 2024, I suspect it cancels out the midterm turnout model and looks more like the 2016 and 2020 electorates that were much more Republican. Sure, Biden still won with the 2020 electorate, but after four years of additional downscale, less-educated voter realignment, I'm increasingly suspicious we'll look back on swing state polling as being too generous to Trump.
I bet the D friendly upscale electorate is not constant either. Would be a realignment further to D?
You might be correct that the downscale realignment Redding is bigger than the upscale realignment bluing, in the rust belt. I am not sure it is the case in GA/NC/TX where the downscale already went thru southern realignment but the upscale realignment is ongoing.
BTW, if there is no realignment, just pure migration redistribution, then a constant country level, some states Redding doesn’t mean there is always another state bluing. Think if we had only two states CA/TX, and the net migration CA->TX being redder than CA but bluer than TX. A static country level means both CA and TX getting bluer.
The problem is there aren’t very many districts like PA-10. It’s not a really a suburban/exurban district but a Harrisburg seat. I’m going through the state capitols in my head and where they are in congressional maps. Harrisburg and Lansing are the only ones I come up with as competitive. The rest are either blue districts, gerrymandered to be red or not enough population to do anything with it.
I recall a week or two ago there was a website posted that had daily updated early voting statistics/breakdowns for the states that publish that information. Does anyone have that link?
As of 12:20am today, at least 2,777,179 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 496,239 • Mail Ballots Returned: 2,280,931. Early Votes have been cast in 27 states. These nine states have at least 100,000 votes:
In California the ballots are arriving this week. Mine came Monday (which was the expected date), I voted yesterday and will take it to a drop box tomorrow.
We will start to see numbers of ballots returned by the end of this week.
So these data are combining absentee and in person early voting, I guess. SC has no in person early vote until 2 weeks before Election Day. Absentee is only by mail. No drop off sites, iirc.
Right, the numbers I’ve quoted are totals for each state, a combination. If you go to the link and select the state you want, you can see the precise breakdown between "Mail Ballots" and "In-Person Early" votes. Those are the terms McDonald uses.
UK. Two nutjobs to lead the party of Disraeli. Badenoch is probably the lesser evil.
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are the final two candidates to become Conservative leader after James Cleverly was eliminated in the last round of voting among Tory MPs in a stunning turnaround of fortune.
The choice will now be made in a ballot of Conservative party members, with the result announced on 2 November.
Cleverly had topped the third round of voting, but came third in the one on Wednesday, losing two votes.
Seeing how the Tories threw a fit over the UK ceding sovereignty over the Chagos Islands (despite the fact almost all of them didn't even know that place existed) coupled with the fact said negotiations began under Cleverly's watch must have hurt him in the end.
Most Britons didn't know that the Falkland Islands existed until Argentina - which was then very much a military dictatorship - invaded them back in 1982. Didn't stop a war from coming.
I know we're all obsessed with the presidential election this year (and there are a lot of marble riding on it!) but it is really nice to see the trends in Alaska (and of course the slower trend in Texas). The potential for two Senate seats over the long term in a low population state is great.
I'd also add that it has been a state thats benefitted from government spending. At one point AK republicans could get away with supporting that without facing blowback in the national party, but as the GOP moves hard right, alot of programs that Alaskans rely on are being threatened/cut. I'd also wager that AK is culturally aligning with other west coast states, albeit slowly.
The original "conventional wisdom" was that Alaska was going to be a hardcore Democratic state because of government spending. And that Hawaii was going to be a hardcore Republican state because of tourism and the military presence. Sometimes you don't know.
My only question is, why isn’t this already impacting the polls more? That said, I do think Harris will capture a significant and decisive portion of the Republican vote – and that the Harris Campaign’s far-superior GOTV operation will reach those voters and get them to the polls. Or that some of them will simply stay home.
Imho, now it’s mostly a question of turnout – and we’re far better position to get our side to vote than they are. If we have a 5-percent greater turnout, it’ll be a huge Blue Wave! There is absolutely no reason why Democrats & allies shouldn’t be able to achieve 80-percent turnout!
It's now down to Crazy vs. Crazy for the UK Tory leadership conference! Will Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch be the Stephen Harper of UK politics or will they be another Preston Manning or Stockwell Day.
Screaming "people are stupid" when trying to win their votes in an election is not a great strategy to winning elections. Talking down to voters is ALWAYS a bad idea, politically.
Even going back to "The Apprentice" I never got anything but a clueless nepo-asshole boss who blames subordinates for everything energy. Some people obviously get the "of the people" energy but i'll never understand it. I do remember being forced to watch "Celebrity Apprentice" on Fridays in a 2008-09 throwaway High School marketing class and feeling the same way I feel about him now. The teacher of said class however called him "A genius, who could one day be president." Sigh.
It's because he actually is your racist uncle who watches 18 hours of Hannity every day and complains about how alimony is unfair to men, even though he's never been married.
Well, at least they aren't herding. Some indications that this is partially about sample composition/differential response (maybe influenced by a post-debate Harris bump?): Michigan sample went from D+2 Harris +6 to R+1 Trump +3, Wisconsin sample went from D+2 Harris +1 to R+3 Trump +2, Pennsylvania sample went from D+3 Harris +5 to D+2 Harris +3.
The million dollar question is which electorate will show up.
No crazy crosstabs in PA but two of note: More Blacks are undecided than support Trump (80-8-9) and Harris has 9-12 point leads among three age demos but Trump is up 13 with 50-64 yet is only down two? How many younger Boomers & older Gen X are there?
MI & WI each have weird crosstabs. Harris only up 8 among MI women AND losing 18-34 by a bigger margin than 50-64? Trump up 20 among WI men AND hitting 50% with 35-49?
Trump ahead by fifteen points in the 18-34 age group in Michigan is complete nonsense. I don't care what the state culture is. Especially when Harris is up 49-48 with the 65+ crowd.
Oh great now this will continue to feed the slew of "Trump is gaining ground with youth and minority voters" articles. The articles reacting to outlier polls sprout up within days of the polls emerging.
Trump is a wounded animal and has a knack for hitting the right notes to move scared people to vote for him, Harris has become stagnant with certain groups of voters, understand that this is far from over and I've seen a lot of premature celebration on MSNBC and on Daily Kos. Harris should have been pointing out how bad the Trump economy really was and not trying to defend Biden's economy which a lot of Americans don't feel good about. I believe Q polls but also know that polls in 2024 are wildly divergent and all are off in their methodology in some way. Believe none of them. Trump is an ignorant buffoon but the people running his campaign. LeCavita and Wiles are most assuredly not.
We're not prematurely celebrating. We're encouraged. There's a difference. We realize it could all go south and we know it's a competitive turnout-based election.
In both 2016 and 2020, Trump's ceiling in Michigan was in the mid 47%. Given that he's neither an incumbent nor a newcomer anymore with his increasing unpopularity it's highly unlikely he's gonna break 50% there. Wisconsin is harder to say, but given the enthusiasm for Harris and strong voter engagement among her key groups, notably women and young voters I doubt she's in the same boat as Hillary. Also, the Wisconsin results suggest that a whopping 6% of the vote is going to 3rd party candidates, and right now there's been little indication of that, at least on Harris' end. At most they would be around 3% otherwise those are likely undecided or refused.
FYI, this is what Quinnipiac forecasted around this same time in 2020 (Oct 7 to be precise):
FLORIDA: Biden 51%, Trump 40%
PENNSYLVANIA: Biden 54%, Trump 41%
IOWA: Biden 50%, Trump 45%
I'm not sure I'd consider them a model of accuracy. And post-Dobbs and post-non-red-wave-2022, I don't think the polling errors are going to favor the Republicans this time.
The only thing you should take from it is polls are messed up beyond belief.
In the meantime, with all the money the Harris campaign has taken in, I'm sure they're taking NOTHING in the Blue Wall for granted and working the ground game like crazy.
I'm choosing to hang a lot of my hopes on "the trend is your friend". Our over performance in so many down ballot elections since Dobbs carries a lot of weight with me. But still.
The sad reality which makes this very depressing is that we have to say things like this. This should just not be the case. Period. This should not be a close race by any stretch of the imagination. Win or lose, this election has brought out some of the worst of this country and it appears to have become the new normal. MSM bias, fake polls, convicted criminal nominees, and all he other bullshit that in every election previous would have gotten this asshole kicked out of the party and into jail, but here we are. With everything going on we get this crap and then we have to tell each other to keep working hard. WTF?!?!? Look, if we win, and yes I have to use IF. If we win, this will not be the end of it. These idiots who support this asshole are still out there and they will continue to vote stupid. The media will do what they do and we will continue to live in a world where normalcy is gone forever and after awhile you just give up.
Quinnipiac has had a quirky reputation of either producing very accurate results or very off outlier results at times. When you mix them in with the partisan and sus polls like Atlas, it becomes pure chaos, esp since they're an "A rated" nonpartisan pollster.
Great points, Alkatt, especially your reference to 2020.
Someone else mentioned that, in August, Quinnipiac explicitly acknowledged that it was altering its turnout model to show much heavier Republican participation and slightly less participation by Democrats. In other words, they were going forward with a model that closely resembled 2020 turnout.
After Democrats over-performing polls in the midterms and in just about every post-Dobbs election & special election, I would argue that Quinnipiac is making a highly questionable choice.
I'm worried about these 3 states, but Quinnipiac's reputation and accuracy haven't been anywhere near good in the longest time, huge outlier here. Whitmer, Shapiro, Evers need to get the well-oiled GOTV machine on the ground out in force to get Kamala over the finish line, because 4 more years of Donald is like being forced to drink p*ss!! 💙🇺🇲😢🙏
Because of one fucking poll? Are you trolling? Above, you suggested that Harris raising $1 billion might not have helped. Um, welcome and thanks for your first 2 posts...
No I am not trolling. I am reading all the above posts and comments and coming to a conclusion thank you. There were many people who stated that in the early days of the Kamala campaign that it felt like 2008. I am also reading comments from others stating that they are concerned that Kamala is not doing this or that. If she has raised 1 billion, you would think that she would be using that to hit places that are needed and places to grow. NO, it is not off of one fucking poll. I a bit smarter than that. It's off of all the comments here and kos.
"The Democratic strategy includes a new rural outreach director and a series of ads featuring growers pledging to vote for her in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
Yes, but this is really from the Wall Street Journal again. Quote:
GOP pollster Bill McInturff called it “the underrecognized game-changer for 2024.’’
My response: Unlikely. It's because progressives tend to be independents. I think that's a mistake where it denies them the opportunity to vote in closed Democratic primaries, but we know that's a real phenomenon.
“With four weeks to go, we’re going to be laser-focused on this and be talking about this,” a Harris aide said.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said Harris and her team will spend the final stretch of the campaign presenting her as the candidate fighting for the middle class, citing her upbringing and agenda, while portraying Trump as caring more about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans like himself and hitting his plan for aggressive tariffs as a de facto middle-class tax hike.[...]
“If I had one piece of advice: They need a much, much stronger and detailed economic message,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said. “Talking about aspirations, hopes and dreams is not a message. The economic issue is still Trump’s core advantage and one of the only reasons this race is as close as it is.”
My remark: But how much is this really about the economy? Consider this:
Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said that she has conducted focus groups with persuadable voters and that some voters who personally can’t stand Trump are open to him because of the economy.
“People almost always say ‘I hate him but,’ or ‘I like him and’ — ‘but he did a good job on the economy,’ ‘the economy is better under him,’” she said. “That’s sort of the permission structure for people to support Trump because they know they’re not supposed to like him and vote for him because they know he’s kind of a bad guy.”
Me again: So is it that people really think the economy sucks now and was better under Trump, or is that just their way to justify voting for the racist, sexist white guy against the Democrat (and now not just a Democrat but a Black woman)? I think that, especially because the media have fallen down on the job to a huge extent and a lot of people rely on Fox "News" and other habitually lying "news" sources, much of the public's acceptance of false narratives about the economy is real, but a lot of this perception is not really fact-based or in good faith. Recall that Republicans suddenly considered the economy bad after Biden took office. Do you think for a second that the Trump voters would consider the economy bad now if Trump were in office and hold it against him? But let's see if Harris can pull some kind of magic trick. I hope that's not really what she needs to do, and that a 9-point deficit in public opinion on the economy or whatever will be good enough for her to win, nevertheless.
Utterly outrageous that, in Ohio, courtesy of the Republicans who hold power, there is only one single Early In-Person Voting location per county. That may be fine for the 12,000 people of Vinton County, but entails serious voter suppression for the 1.5 million people who live in Cleveland, Ohio.
Time for Dems to put an amendment on the ballot requiring at least one early voting site for every 5,000 or 10,000 registered voters.
Our county in SC has 4 early voting locations for ~66,000 people. That's total population, not registered voters. The early polls are spread geographically around the county which helps lower income rural residents early vote. There can be lines, but it is sufficient since they are open for 2 weeks. I run a poll on E Day, and by that time about half the voters who will turn out have already voted.
Question: Will the voters who are in line at the advertised poll closing times, on Election Day and on Early Voting Days, be allowed to vote? In previous elections I believe the answer was Yes. This time around, I am less confident.
Why are you less confident? As far as I know, that's never been challenged.
Less confident only because the Republican Party, in its current MAGA incarnation, is doing all sorts of things that were previously unthinkable. The guardrails have been removed.
Yes they will. It is long established federal law.
Before Baker vs. Carr, in some states state senators were elected by county. Which was a Wyoming/California situation but on an even larger scale because mosts states have a lot of rural counties.
By the time Baker v. Carr kicked in for AZ, Maricopa County had a majority of state population, but only 2/28 Senators. The least populous county was Mohave, which also had 2 Senators, but which at the time of the 1960 census had 1/86th of Maricopa's population.
The Georgia county unit system was worse; if you ever get the time, there are some great history books on voting systems in the US where the small minority dominated the states elections laws and used them against the masses
EARLY VOTING – Thoughts on Pennsylvania from Christopher Bouzy:
"Now that we have early vote data, we can better understand what is happening on the ground in PA. In my opinion, early vote data is more reliable than polls. I successfully used early vote data in 2020 and 2022. However, you must be careful because early vote data can sometimes be misleading.
"It is still early, and conditions on the ground may shift, but the current developments in Pennsylvania are eye-opening. As of today, 61.6% of absentee and mail-in ballot requests have come from Democrats, a significant figure that could indicate trends leading up to Election Day.
"Democrats aren't just leading in requested ballots; they are also leading in returned ballots by a whopping 72.8%. This may indicate higher enthusiasm among Democratic voters compared to Republicans. However, it is also possible that ballots from key counties are still in transit.
"But the situation for Republicans is even more dire. According to TargetSmart's race modeling data, Black voters represented just 8.8% of the Pennsylvania electorate in 2020. However, that percentage has surged dramatically, with Black voters now making up 19.5% of the vote.
"It is important to understand that while I am analyzing partisan voting patterns, the electorate doesn’t always vote along party lines. Not all Republicans will vote for Trump, and not all Democrats will vote for VP Harris. However, I estimate that Trump will lose 8-10% of Republican support in PA."
https://spoutible.com/thread/36639336
PA is, at best, 12.5% Black so that 19.5% claim is absurd. Bouzy seems like a nice guy but some of his election analysis is ridiculous. If you want quality PA election coverage, follow Charlie Wolfson (@chwolfson), Ben Forstate (@4st8) and Joshua Smithley (@blockedfreq) on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Thank you for the additional sources! (For Early Vote data I’ve mostly followed Michael McDonald’s Election Project.)
Is the final Black vote going to account for 19.5% total? Of course not! But in light of the fact that the Early Vote leans strongly Democratic, and that Philadelphia has already returned one-third of its VBM ballots (ref. Joshua Smithley, Michael McDonald), that initial percentage does not seem "absurd".
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/2024-general-election-early-vote-pennsylvania/
This is simply because the city centers mailing back the ballots early. Right now over 3/4 of returned ballots are from Philly, Allegheny and Montgomery counties.
No one would expect the 19.5% number to last.
In a recent NYT/Siena poll, 54% of those sampled were men – despite the fact that there are more women voters and they vote at higher rates than men. In fact, the NYT figure is the exact mirror image of the known Early Vote. So far, women account for a striking 54% of the vote!
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
(These states report gender data: CO, GA, ID, MI, NC.)
As always, strong reason for skepticism about early vote analysis this year. It will look completely different from both 2016 and 2020. And from 2022. We have no benchmark due to the huge one-off surge in early voting in 2020, and the trend towards a new normal since. Early vote takes will split between these two themes: Democrats excited that we seem to still be voting earlier and in greater numbers than Republicans. And Republicans excited that the Dem advantage is down significantly from 2020. The truth is: Dems will win the early vote, but it will be smaller, and less blue. And Republicans will win the election day vote, but it will be larger, and less red. And of course, no accounting for how independents break and crossover voting.
Another thing to keep in mind about PA: 2020 was the first major election with no-excuse mail-in ballots, which passed in March 2019. This will be the first major "regular" election under the new law so any comparisons to prior elections need extra scrutiny.
The early mail votes from the rust belt are heavily on loyal and constant Dem voters. Most of them will vote any methods anyway. Banking the votes early just serves as an insurance, in case anything happens later impeding them getting to vote.
It probably says little about the final results, as we don’t know from these numbers, the big chunk of Trump only voters, nor their excitement level.
Nota bene: Banking the votes of loyal and reliable Dems early is valuable for campaigns because it allows them to check these voters off their GOTV lists, and thus allows them to focus on less reliable election day voters.
I feel like the smart move would likely to simply ignore "votes every time" voters altogether in your GOTV regardless of whether you have proof they voted or not. If your time/money is that valuable then using it even just to check in on a guy like me who has voted in every primary/general since I moved back to MD seems like a waste.
It's been a while since I've done direct canvassing with access to VAN and such but when we would get back at 6 or 7 PM we would go over Board of Elections data to confirm early votes and strike the early voters from call/walk lists.
I think the smarter move is for the campaigns to contact the "votes every time" voters early, ask them to please encourage their family and friends and neighbors and acquaintances to vote – and to consider volunteering for additional GOTV efforts.
That's what they do. The script for early canvassing asks strongly supporting respondents whether they would be willing to volunteer.
Yeah generally that is question #2 if they identify as a strong Harris supporter.
This is bad campaigning tactics; people liked to be asked for their vote; you are a supervoter and will vote, but campaigns need to ask you
Biggest boost of getting Dem votes in early is GOTV efforts can focus more on the stragglers.
SPR has a poll with Harris up 5% in PA10. Trump won this district by 4% in 2020. Trump absolutely has to win PA10 if he wants to win the state. Hopefully this is also good for the Democrat Janelle Stelson running here to replace Re. Scott Perry
https://x.com/SusquehannaPR/status/1843997886797013429
Someone yesterday (Mark?) asked what kinds of places Harris was making gains this cycle. This is precisely the kind of place where you might expect that.
Could be wrong, I think he meant by demographic segments.
Yeah, there could be places with movements across all segments. The swing state level polls sometime miss these movements.
If you look at the swings towards Dems from 2016 -> 2020 that are over 5% they are all small to mid-sized states: (In order from highest swing to lowest): VT, CO, DE, NH, MD, CT, MA, ME, NE, KS, MN, GA, RI, OR. I'm still skeptical it's anything but noise but states like the above might account for slippage in FL/NY.
They might, but we should also look at the 2020 -> 2022 swing. Nate Cohn says that his polling data makes him think some of those patterns from the midterms may continue into 2024. That would mean relative gains for us in, well, exactly the right places: PA, MI, WI. Maybe AZ as well. And Midwest suburbs such as NE-02, Des Moines (IA-03), and KS-03. Offset by biggish losses in FL and NY.
In those states I listed Democrats generally outperformed expectations in the midterms too so I think both could be true. It may just be some shitty outliers in FL/NY or something else too though.
By "account for," do you mean counter? I certainly don't think swings toward the Democrats in other states cause losses for Democrats in New York.
Unless the swing state is exactly the major destination of the blue exodus from NY
What blue exodus? I don't think there's any such exodus, and there are undoubtedly also liberal folks moving in to New York.
I was talking about the hypothetical, how you can have a causal relationship of NY red turn and swing states bluing.
Account for the popular vote polls to make them work with the polls showing a drop in FL/NY. I'm skeptical of all of it but for the sake of the exercise, those states I mentioned may account for it.
The places Dems have been gaining lately tend to be ancestrally GOP, relatively white, and relatively well educated. I think PA10 fits the bill on all three of those.
Perhaps a naïve question, but what do you mean by "ancestrally GOP"? Republican since the time of Lincoln?
TBH, ancestrally is probably used too loosely and there are few places where political traditions go back to ancestors. The only one that comes to mind is Eastern TN defying all Southern logic and being Republican.
The realignment of the 1900’s means few regions have political traditions that go back far enough. And then, the early 2000’s have only solidified that. No more liberal Republicans representing New England or conservative Democrats representing the South.
Is PA-10 is a suburb district? Is that what allows PA-10 to swing much more to the left than the state as a whole?
It encompasses suburbs of Harrisburg, but also rural areas.
Thanks. If districts like PA-10 swing to the left by high single digits while the entire state more or less stays stagnant compared to 2020, which is what polls have been showing, I'd think that suggests there's slippage of a similar magnitude in other geographical areas, either the rural area or heavily minority urban areas like inner Philly, maybe both.
The question is whether the polling averages are accurately measuring the race. Right now the PA polling average on 538 includes a bunch of right-leaning polls (Trafalgar; Insider Advantage; Patriot Polling) that give Trump a lead. These same polls led 538 to give Oz a lead of 0.5% in 2022. Even though 538 tries to correct for house effects/biases of polls, they cannot totally negate the influence of red-leaning polls on their aggregation. So if Harris is leading in PA 10, this could (but need not) mean that her lead in PA is greater than what 538 is presently showing.
Yeah I agree that the current PA polling average is skewed by a bunch of right-leaning polls. However, even if we look at only the most reputable polls, I don't think any of them suggests KH is leading in PA by 9 - 10 points. If the 9 point swing in PA-10 is even close to being real, that means there's likely slippage elsewhere is all I'm saying.
Point taken.
A 9-10 point swing in one district need not mean a 9-10 point swing statewide. There might be relatively few districts like PA 10: suburbanish district that had not yet swung heavily towards Democrats. Most of the Philly suburban districts have already swung towards the Dems, with Bucks county showing the weakest swing. Parts of PA 10 are somewhat like the Philly suburbs: highly educated voters who might have supported Republicans in the past. If those voters are slower to move than their Philly area counterparts, and there are few if any other districts that are late swinger, then this swing might be somewhat isolated.
I'm increasingly convinced that it's wishful thinking that the 2022 electorate is gonna show up, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Midterm turnout has always skewed upscale and highly educated. In the past, that's meant Republican-leaning, but especially after Dobbs, it meant an electorate disproportionately friendly to Democrats in the new coalition. If more downscale and less educated voters show up in 2024, I suspect it cancels out the midterm turnout model and looks more like the 2016 and 2020 electorates that were much more Republican. Sure, Biden still won with the 2020 electorate, but after four years of additional downscale, less-educated voter realignment, I'm increasingly suspicious we'll look back on swing state polling as being too generous to Trump.
I bet the D friendly upscale electorate is not constant either. Would be a realignment further to D?
You might be correct that the downscale realignment Redding is bigger than the upscale realignment bluing, in the rust belt. I am not sure it is the case in GA/NC/TX where the downscale already went thru southern realignment but the upscale realignment is ongoing.
BTW, if there is no realignment, just pure migration redistribution, then a constant country level, some states Redding doesn’t mean there is always another state bluing. Think if we had only two states CA/TX, and the net migration CA->TX being redder than CA but bluer than TX. A static country level means both CA and TX getting bluer.
Of course, the downscale electorate is also disproportionately non-white...
The problem is there aren’t very many districts like PA-10. It’s not a really a suburban/exurban district but a Harrisburg seat. I’m going through the state capitols in my head and where they are in congressional maps. Harrisburg and Lansing are the only ones I come up with as competitive. The rest are either blue districts, gerrymandered to be red or not enough population to do anything with it.
Springfield IL -13 is D+3 I think
Question:
I recall a week or two ago there was a website posted that had daily updated early voting statistics/breakdowns for the states that publish that information. Does anyone have that link?
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
But I agree with Skaje above that it's not particularly useful for predictions.
As of 12:20am today, at least 2,777,179 people have voted. In-Person Early Votes: 496,239 • Mail Ballots Returned: 2,280,931. Early Votes have been cast in 27 states. These nine states have at least 100,000 votes:
VA 573,644•
MI 393,593•
FL 316,434•*
NJ 263,718•*
PA 216,761*
IL 203,995
MD 201,695•*
WI 180,465•
MN 107,421
Early Voting in other states:
IN 47,460•
ID 37,519*
SD 35,366*
NC 33,253•*
VT 33,211
NE 25,891*
TX 21,428•
ME 21,141*
KY 14,722
DE 11,378•*
ND 10,118•
CO 8,529•*
CT 5,764•
WV 4,430
NV 3,503•
GA 2,365
SC 1,947
IA 1,425
https://election.lab.ufl.edu/early-vote/2024-early-voting/
*) States that report party registration: CA, CO, CT, DE, DC, FL, IA, ID, KY, ME, MD, NE, NV, NJ, NC, OR, PA, RI, SD, WV.
•) States with updates today.
In California the ballots are arriving this week. Mine came Monday (which was the expected date), I voted yesterday and will take it to a drop box tomorrow.
We will start to see numbers of ballots returned by the end of this week.
So these data are combining absentee and in person early voting, I guess. SC has no in person early vote until 2 weeks before Election Day. Absentee is only by mail. No drop off sites, iirc.
Right, the numbers I’ve quoted are totals for each state, a combination. If you go to the link and select the state you want, you can see the precise breakdown between "Mail Ballots" and "In-Person Early" votes. Those are the terms McDonald uses.
UK. Two nutjobs to lead the party of Disraeli. Badenoch is probably the lesser evil.
Robert Jenrick and Kemi Badenoch are the final two candidates to become Conservative leader after James Cleverly was eliminated in the last round of voting among Tory MPs in a stunning turnaround of fortune.
The choice will now be made in a ballot of Conservative party members, with the result announced on 2 November.
Cleverly had topped the third round of voting, but came third in the one on Wednesday, losing two votes.
Jeez, the Tories might as well invite Nigel Farage to lead their party!
That's in mid-2026, my guess.
Seeing how the Tories threw a fit over the UK ceding sovereignty over the Chagos Islands (despite the fact almost all of them didn't even know that place existed) coupled with the fact said negotiations began under Cleverly's watch must have hurt him in the end.
Most Britons didn't know that the Falkland Islands existed until Argentina - which was then very much a military dictatorship - invaded them back in 1982. Didn't stop a war from coming.
Democrats flipped the mayoralty in Fairbanks North Star Borough, Alaska (Trump+15) by 154 votes in results tabulated last night. https://nationalzero.com/2024/10/09/alaskas-fairbanks-north-star-borough-elects-democrat-mayor/
Nice! Also, I didn't know that there were any special/oddly time elections left before November.
Democrats also flipped the Anchorage Mayor earlier this year
I know we're all obsessed with the presidential election this year (and there are a lot of marble riding on it!) but it is really nice to see the trends in Alaska (and of course the slower trend in Texas). The potential for two Senate seats over the long term in a low population state is great.
Will be curious to see if Harris can close the gap further. On that list of states that swung by 5%+ 2016 -> 2020 Alaska just missed the cut at 4.67%.
Does anyone know why Alaska is trending blue? I’m not sure, but I’m curious to know.
It's a very urban/suburban, irreligious state with a large Native population.
I'd also add that it has been a state thats benefitted from government spending. At one point AK republicans could get away with supporting that without facing blowback in the national party, but as the GOP moves hard right, alot of programs that Alaskans rely on are being threatened/cut. I'd also wager that AK is culturally aligning with other west coast states, albeit slowly.
The original "conventional wisdom" was that Alaska was going to be a hardcore Democratic state because of government spending. And that Hawaii was going to be a hardcore Republican state because of tourism and the military presence. Sometimes you don't know.
Kamala Harris has a solid gem of an ad here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZobWPTtxziQ
Donald Trump must be feeling acute pain and frustration. Now even the Kremlin is fact-checking his campaign!
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/09/trump-putin-covid-testing-equipment-kremlin
If accurate, this could be big enough to potentially make some likely R states closer to lean/tossup, going by primary totals.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/exclusive-poll-finds-large-chunk?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share
My only question is, why isn’t this already impacting the polls more? That said, I do think Harris will capture a significant and decisive portion of the Republican vote – and that the Harris Campaign’s far-superior GOTV operation will reach those voters and get them to the polls. Or that some of them will simply stay home.
I suspect the reason is that polling is just broken and polls are no longer all that meaningful.
Imho, now it’s mostly a question of turnout – and we’re far better position to get our side to vote than they are. If we have a 5-percent greater turnout, it’ll be a huge Blue Wave! There is absolutely no reason why Democrats & allies shouldn’t be able to achieve 80-percent turnout!
It's now down to Crazy vs. Crazy for the UK Tory leadership conference! Will Robert Jenrick or Kemi Badenoch be the Stephen Harper of UK politics or will they be another Preston Manning or Stockwell Day.
https://news.sky.com/story/tory-leadership-race-james-cleverly-knocked-out-leaving-robert-jenrick-and-kemi-badenoch-as-final-two-facing-party-membership-vote-13230871
The Tories might as well make Nigel Farage their party chair.
That's basically Jenrick's plan (minus making Farage leader of the Tories). Jenrick basically wants Reform and the Tories to merge.
That’s a horrific plan!
wow https://x.com/blockedfreq/status/1844071836809822242
He also says that Cumberland County is making this district gettable due to housing developments popping up there.
PENNSYLVANIA: Harris 49%, Trump 46%, other candidates 2%
MICHIGAN: Trump 50%, Harris 47%, other candidates 2%
WISCONSIN: Trump 48%, Harris 46%, other candidates 2)
Quinnipiac
Casey 51 McCormick 43
Slotkin 48 Roger’s 48
Baldwin 50 Hovde 46
Hard to imagine MI being 6 point to the right of PA.
I wonder who Trump-Baldwin voters are.
My guess: populist voters. Less "left/right" aligned more "us/them" aligned. Hovde and Harris don't exactly exude "of the people" energy.
And trump does? People are so stupid!
Screaming "people are stupid" when trying to win their votes in an election is not a great strategy to winning elections. Talking down to voters is ALWAYS a bad idea, politically.
Fortunately, I'm not campaigning for anything, so I'll continue to call stupid idiots stupid.
Even going back to "The Apprentice" I never got anything but a clueless nepo-asshole boss who blames subordinates for everything energy. Some people obviously get the "of the people" energy but i'll never understand it. I do remember being forced to watch "Celebrity Apprentice" on Fridays in a 2008-09 throwaway High School marketing class and feeling the same way I feel about him now. The teacher of said class however called him "A genius, who could one day be president." Sigh.
It's because he actually is your racist uncle who watches 18 hours of Hannity every day and complains about how alimony is unfair to men, even though he's never been married.
Lol I think most of those boxes were checked then but if he's still alive I hope he had a better life these last 15 years.
I've loathed Trump since the 80's and never understood his appeal. But I guess carnivals have a midway for a reason, most people are rubes.
Well, at least they aren't herding. Some indications that this is partially about sample composition/differential response (maybe influenced by a post-debate Harris bump?): Michigan sample went from D+2 Harris +6 to R+1 Trump +3, Wisconsin sample went from D+2 Harris +1 to R+3 Trump +2, Pennsylvania sample went from D+3 Harris +5 to D+2 Harris +3.
The million dollar question is which electorate will show up.
That's where the ground game comes in. Thank God for Ben Wikler.
No crazy crosstabs in PA but two of note: More Blacks are undecided than support Trump (80-8-9) and Harris has 9-12 point leads among three age demos but Trump is up 13 with 50-64 yet is only down two? How many younger Boomers & older Gen X are there?
MI & WI each have weird crosstabs. Harris only up 8 among MI women AND losing 18-34 by a bigger margin than 50-64? Trump up 20 among WI men AND hitting 50% with 35-49?
Trump ahead by fifteen points in the 18-34 age group in Michigan is complete nonsense. I don't care what the state culture is. Especially when Harris is up 49-48 with the 65+ crowd.
Non College whites?
Oh great now this will continue to feed the slew of "Trump is gaining ground with youth and minority voters" articles. The articles reacting to outlier polls sprout up within days of the polls emerging.
Trump is a wounded animal and has a knack for hitting the right notes to move scared people to vote for him, Harris has become stagnant with certain groups of voters, understand that this is far from over and I've seen a lot of premature celebration on MSNBC and on Daily Kos. Harris should have been pointing out how bad the Trump economy really was and not trying to defend Biden's economy which a lot of Americans don't feel good about. I believe Q polls but also know that polls in 2024 are wildly divergent and all are off in their methodology in some way. Believe none of them. Trump is an ignorant buffoon but the people running his campaign. LeCavita and Wiles are most assuredly not.
We're not prematurely celebrating. We're encouraged. There's a difference. We realize it could all go south and we know it's a competitive turnout-based election.
In both 2016 and 2020, Trump's ceiling in Michigan was in the mid 47%. Given that he's neither an incumbent nor a newcomer anymore with his increasing unpopularity it's highly unlikely he's gonna break 50% there. Wisconsin is harder to say, but given the enthusiasm for Harris and strong voter engagement among her key groups, notably women and young voters I doubt she's in the same boat as Hillary. Also, the Wisconsin results suggest that a whopping 6% of the vote is going to 3rd party candidates, and right now there's been little indication of that, at least on Harris' end. At most they would be around 3% otherwise those are likely undecided or refused.
FYI, this is what Quinnipiac forecasted around this same time in 2020 (Oct 7 to be precise):
FLORIDA: Biden 51%, Trump 40%
PENNSYLVANIA: Biden 54%, Trump 41%
IOWA: Biden 50%, Trump 45%
I'm not sure I'd consider them a model of accuracy. And post-Dobbs and post-non-red-wave-2022, I don't think the polling errors are going to favor the Republicans this time.
It's really harshing my mellow to see her under polling where Biden was. I can hope that they are wrong in the other direction... But...
The only thing you should take from it is polls are messed up beyond belief.
In the meantime, with all the money the Harris campaign has taken in, I'm sure they're taking NOTHING in the Blue Wall for granted and working the ground game like crazy.
I'm choosing to hang a lot of my hopes on "the trend is your friend". Our over performance in so many down ballot elections since Dobbs carries a lot of weight with me. But still.
The sad reality which makes this very depressing is that we have to say things like this. This should just not be the case. Period. This should not be a close race by any stretch of the imagination. Win or lose, this election has brought out some of the worst of this country and it appears to have become the new normal. MSM bias, fake polls, convicted criminal nominees, and all he other bullshit that in every election previous would have gotten this asshole kicked out of the party and into jail, but here we are. With everything going on we get this crap and then we have to tell each other to keep working hard. WTF?!?!? Look, if we win, and yes I have to use IF. If we win, this will not be the end of it. These idiots who support this asshole are still out there and they will continue to vote stupid. The media will do what they do and we will continue to live in a world where normalcy is gone forever and after awhile you just give up.
Quinnipiac has had a quirky reputation of either producing very accurate results or very off outlier results at times. When you mix them in with the partisan and sus polls like Atlas, it becomes pure chaos, esp since they're an "A rated" nonpartisan pollster.
Great points, Alkatt, especially your reference to 2020.
Someone else mentioned that, in August, Quinnipiac explicitly acknowledged that it was altering its turnout model to show much heavier Republican participation and slightly less participation by Democrats. In other words, they were going forward with a model that closely resembled 2020 turnout.
After Democrats over-performing polls in the midterms and in just about every post-Dobbs election & special election, I would argue that Quinnipiac is making a highly questionable choice.
Well... I don't love that.
I'm worried about these 3 states, but Quinnipiac's reputation and accuracy haven't been anywhere near good in the longest time, huge outlier here. Whitmer, Shapiro, Evers need to get the well-oiled GOTV machine on the ground out in force to get Kamala over the finish line, because 4 more years of Donald is like being forced to drink p*ss!! 💙🇺🇲😢🙏
I guess the 2008 vibes are now officially dead.
Because of one fucking poll? Are you trolling? Above, you suggested that Harris raising $1 billion might not have helped. Um, welcome and thanks for your first 2 posts...
No I am not trolling. I am reading all the above posts and comments and coming to a conclusion thank you. There were many people who stated that in the early days of the Kamala campaign that it felt like 2008. I am also reading comments from others stating that they are concerned that Kamala is not doing this or that. If she has raised 1 billion, you would think that she would be using that to hit places that are needed and places to grow. NO, it is not off of one fucking poll. I a bit smarter than that. It's off of all the comments here and kos.
You're misreading comments, but why would you think comments here, still less on kos really mean anything about the actual state of the race?
What 2008 vibes? I think the best we could realistically hope for was 2020 vibes.
You can't make this stuff up! https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/09/trump-bibles-made-in-china/
https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/09/harris-courts-trumps-base/
"The Democratic strategy includes a new rural outreach director and a series of ads featuring growers pledging to vote for her in the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.”
https://politicalwire.com/2024/10/09/more-americans-identify-as-republican-than-democrat/
Yes, but this is really from the Wall Street Journal again. Quote:
GOP pollster Bill McInturff called it “the underrecognized game-changer for 2024.’’
My response: Unlikely. It's because progressives tend to be independents. I think that's a mistake where it denies them the opportunity to vote in closed Democratic primaries, but we know that's a real phenomenon.
"Republican says things are looking good for Republicans."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/kamala-harris-final-push-economy-donald-trump-polling-rcna174277, Harris' mission critical in final push: Wipe out Trump's advantage on the economy
“With four weeks to go, we’re going to be laser-focused on this and be talking about this,” a Harris aide said.
The aide, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy, said Harris and her team will spend the final stretch of the campaign presenting her as the candidate fighting for the middle class, citing her upbringing and agenda, while portraying Trump as caring more about cutting taxes for wealthy Americans like himself and hitting his plan for aggressive tariffs as a de facto middle-class tax hike.[...]
“If I had one piece of advice: They need a much, much stronger and detailed economic message,” Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis said. “Talking about aspirations, hopes and dreams is not a message. The economic issue is still Trump’s core advantage and one of the only reasons this race is as close as it is.”
My remark: But how much is this really about the economy? Consider this:
Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster, said that she has conducted focus groups with persuadable voters and that some voters who personally can’t stand Trump are open to him because of the economy.
“People almost always say ‘I hate him but,’ or ‘I like him and’ — ‘but he did a good job on the economy,’ ‘the economy is better under him,’” she said. “That’s sort of the permission structure for people to support Trump because they know they’re not supposed to like him and vote for him because they know he’s kind of a bad guy.”
Me again: So is it that people really think the economy sucks now and was better under Trump, or is that just their way to justify voting for the racist, sexist white guy against the Democrat (and now not just a Democrat but a Black woman)? I think that, especially because the media have fallen down on the job to a huge extent and a lot of people rely on Fox "News" and other habitually lying "news" sources, much of the public's acceptance of false narratives about the economy is real, but a lot of this perception is not really fact-based or in good faith. Recall that Republicans suddenly considered the economy bad after Biden took office. Do you think for a second that the Trump voters would consider the economy bad now if Trump were in office and hold it against him? But let's see if Harris can pull some kind of magic trick. I hope that's not really what she needs to do, and that a 9-point deficit in public opinion on the economy or whatever will be good enough for her to win, nevertheless.
Or is it that some voters have been brainwashed by Trump’s propaganda? One of the few things he’s good at.
They have, but it's not about the economy for many of them. It's the fact that it's the economy while a Democrat is in office.
Not to mention the color and sex of the Democratic nominee.
Which makes them prefer the other candidate of color: that thin-skinned Orange guy??
Yep. A loudmouth, nasty white guy.
By no stretch of the imagination is he White.
Because they are also thin-skinned orange guys and he is One of Them in all of the ways they care about - a racist, bloviating bigot.