Gaming The Polls Gives Trump Cover For Another Insurrection

 

We've been thinking about this for some time:  a flood of Republican- friendly polls being released just before the election intended to do several things.  One, to "spook" Democrats and Democrat- leaners in order to depress turnout;  and, more ominously, as several former Republican Party insiders put it:

... Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chairman who is strongly anti-Trump but has retained his GOP registration, agrees that some of these polls are gamed. “I know they are,” he said. “I’ve talked to enough people on this side of the street to know they are.” The way it’s done, he says, is that “you find different ways to weight the participants, and that changes the results you’re going to get.” That’s a striking allegation coming from such a longtime senior GOP insider.

Steele also shares some of the same worries as Rosenberg, Bonier, and others—that pro-Trump pollsters are feeding a perception of a Trump lead to provide his allies a way to blame a Trump loss on a rigged election. “They’re gamed on the back end so MAGA can make the claim that the election was stolen,” he said.

Stuart Stevens, the anti-Trump former Republican pollster, agreed. “Their game plan is to make it impossible for states to certify. And these fake polls are a great tool in that, because that’s how you lead people to think the race was stolen,” Stevens said. All manner of postelection mischief-making, and maybe even political violence, would be thus justified...

The linked article goes into significant detail about the polling strategies and techniques under scrutiny, but the basic message is, don't get spooked by the polling, just get out the vote for Harris-Walz.  Vice President Harris and others have said they're prepared for the Malignant Loser and his merry band of fascists to claim victory regardless of the real outcome and for potential violence.  And yesterday she said,

... [W]e will deal with election night and the days after, as they come, and we have the resources and the expertise and the focus on that as well...

We have confidence that they do.  When we fight, we win!

(Image:  John DiJulio, University Communications, University of Virginia)

Poll: Opposition To "Project 2025" Grows With Knowledge

 

Turns out the more voters know about "Project 2025," the MAGAt cult's fascist agenda for governance, the less they like it (click to enlarge):

That's why it's important to keep hammering the MAGAt Republican Party and their cult leader on the sheer un- American extremism of it, however much they seek to deny authorship.  Get up to speed on it (go to link above).  Explain to people what it means for them in their lives, and how its economic and social policies would devastate them and those around them.

There are two sides in this election: one that stands for democracy and one that doesn't.  It's on every one of us to make sure democracy wins that fight.

QOTD -- Flogging Negative Polls

 

"... [I]t’s helping to set Trump up to challenge the results of the election if it doesn’t go his way. If the country is programmed to believe that Trump is way ahead in the polls and Biden is in much deeper trouble than he is after months of this kind of press coverage, his people (and probably others) will be predisposed to believe Trump’s lies about a rigged election.

"If these polls are correct then we will have bigger problems but if Biden wins, there will be regrets for flogging these negative polls so hard to the exclusion of the others that showed it was much closer. The media needs to be careful of how they talk about the horse race in light of this. And the Democrats should take heed too and stop their perennial pearl clutching over every bump in the road. It is always detrimental on some level but it’s downright dangerous now." -- Heather Digby Parton, Hullabaloo, describing the danger of the relentless press coverage on negative polls like the recent, flawed New York F-ing Times/ Siena poll that paint a likely skewed picture of the race 6 months out.  We've also noted the Malignant Loser's habit of claiming "the polls" showing him "winning by a lot."  Begging the question of whether polls this early in a campaign are of any value, giving this lying fascist ammunition to claim (as he has frequently since 2021) that flawed polls show that the election was stolen (if and when he loses) is playing directly into his hands.  

Polls, even close to an election, can be wrong.  If you must poll, poll better, report better and yes, Dems, keep calm and carry on.

 

QOTD -- Polls

 

"... These days, partisans gravitate to the polls that support their chosen narrative. Trump 'truths' the polls that show him winning. Haley supporters and Biden adherents tout the ones that show Biden winning. I love seeing polls that show Biden up. However, it’s best not to get too worked up over an individual poll, and instead look at the overall average and broader trends. That advice, of course, is hard to adhere to in an election with so much at stake.

The broader trends of the recent polling tell me two things. First, Biden, at minimum, has stabilized, and things may be looking up as people’s views on the economy improve. Second, the polls are consistent with what we have long assumed — this is a very close and winnable race that will come down to less than 100,000 votes across a small handful of states. Our task is the same if the polls show Biden up by 2 or down by 5. We have to do the work of persuading voters, which is why you should immediately go to Vote Save America and sign up to do something other than worry about polls." -- Dan Pfeiffer, The Message Box on Substack, concluding a smart piece providing sound advice to all who obsess about polling 9 months before an election (guilty!).

 

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly

 

The good:

• Biden leads Trump 49-45. He leads women (55-38), 18-34 year olds (65-30), Latinos (66-26), Indies (47-33). These are good, healthy numbers.

• Dems lead in Congressional Generic 48-46, up from 46-47 in January. Congressional generic asks “which party are you supporting next year for Congress?” These are good, healthy numbers.

• Trump’s lead over DeSantis doubles from 46-31 (+15) to 51-22 (+29). A big yikes for the Florida governor.

• Like other polls DeSantis is already remarkably unpopular with the overall electorate. He is -16 here, -19/20 in Civiqs and Biden is only -9 in this one. While voters do not have a lot of information about DeSantis what they do have so far is really bad for him. It suggests, like Trump, he may have a low general election ceiling. I remain really surprised by how intense his negatives are this early - it has to be the most worrisome data out there right now for the Republicans for it suggests their problems go far beyond Trump. [snip]
  

  As we saw in 2022 the Biden approval rating is once again not a good gauge for understanding the election this cycle. While he may not be popular, he is more popular than his opponents. The constant focus on his low approval rating led a lot of commentators astray in 2022, and it is doing so again this year. The most powerful force in American politics over the last 3 election cycles has been fear and opposition to MAGA, and if you aren’t talking about that you are leaving out the most important part of the story...

All the usual caveats apply to polling this far in advance of primaries, conventions and the election. But it's better to be in the Democratic Party's shoes right now than to be in the Christofascist Republican Party's.

The bad: 

... In interviews with Florida politicians, activists and members of the business community — many of whom won’t whisper a word against him on the record — they describe how DeSantis has catered to special interests as ferociously as he has fought the culture wars. DeSantis wields near-dictatorial sway over his state, which he has used to grant special interests a breathtaking list of favors. He has helped them evade accountability, steamrolled regulations, funded their pet projects, and foisted bailouts and tax breaks onto ordinary taxpayers. Often he does so quite openly. One day after launching his 2024 presidential campaign in a live event on Twitter with its owner, Elon Musk, he signed a law relieving private space companies like SpaceX, another Musk company, from liability for accidentally killing its employees. 

In exchange for how he has run the state, DeSantis raised more money for his 2022 reelection than any governor in U.S. history. The funds now power his nascent presidential campaign: Just a few weeks ago, he transferred $82.5 million from his gubernatorial campaign into his presidential super PAC. As a declared presidential contender, he continues to be a fundraising juggernaut, despite donors complaining he has all the personality of wet cardboard.

This doesn’t mean businesses are getting everything they want — it means they’re getting everything DeSantis wants them to have. Despite building his campaign around falsehoods about LGBTQ+ people and fearmongering of woke boogeymen, DeSantis has identified one true thing, which is how few countervailing forces there are against corporations and their political whims. Even in states where Republicans have gerrymandered popular opinion into irrelevance, big consumer-facing companies remain invested in public sentiment. North Carolina’s anti-trans bathroom bill cost the state the NBA All-Star Game. Racist voting restrictions in Georgia did the same for the MLB All-Star Game and draft. DeSantis understands the threat this poses to his ascendance but remains reliant on corporate financial support, which is why his most meaningful attacks on corporate power have all involved reducing it relative to his own.

The word is out. “If you want to get in good with this governor and his team, you have to pay up,” said a Republican consultant in Florida who requested anonymity. The consultant added, “You need to be very careful getting crosswise with the governor.” He will not hesitate to remind you who really runs the state...

Bootsie's corrupt "pay to play" schemes follow the classic authoritarian/ banana republic model. His grubby, bullying form of politics and governance makes us recall the old Dashiell Hammett line from the Maltese Falcon:  "The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." But if the polling above holds, he won't be able to bring his "Florida Freedom" to the rest of us.

The ugly: 

...A weakened Putin could face challenges from the Russian elite, or inspire leaders in Russian regions such as Chechnya and Tatarstan, many of which have long-standing grievances with the central government, to push for additional autonomy or separation from Russia. In that kind of situation, “we’re very much talking about the dismantling of the Russian state as it currently exists,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, who served as deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia from 2015 to 2018.

Putin may be less stable than he appeared, said Angela Stent, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. “It’s not a good look for Putin that this man [Prigozhin], this leader, was able to challenge the authority of the ministry of defense, to take over a city, and to march down the road to Moscow,” she said. “And obviously Putin had to bargain with him.”

“This has been such a credible signal of the extent of discontent and dissatisfaction with the war in Ukraine and with the Putin regime in particular,” said Kendall-Taylor, who is now at the Center for a New American Security. “It’s going to be really difficult to overcome that.”

The real question, said Andrew Weiss, research director on Russia and Eurasia at the Carnegie Endowment, and a former National Security Council and State Department official “is are there significant, powerful people in the shadows who believe that this mess is the final straw, and Putin has screwed up so royally that they need to make him see the error of his ways and push him from power. I have a hard time believing that the scared people around him are likely to move against him.”  [snip]

Russia’s neighbors are bracing for chaos if the situation in Moscow deteriorates, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview. The NATO nations that border Russia are some of the West’s fiercest Putin critics, but they are also the most sensitive to what happens if instability spills across the heavily guarded frontier.

“If there is chaos in Moscow, there’s the same question people were asking back in 1991,” during a coup attempt against Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. “Who controls the nuclear football?” said Rinkevics, who will become Latvia’s president next month.

No one is more invested in the genocidal war in Ukraine than war criminal Putin.  Eventually ousting him might put Russia on a path to negotiations before events become even more calamitous.

Poll: Texas' Vigilante Abortion Law Is Political Poison

 

 

According to a new Monmouth University poll, by 62 to 31 percent Americans favor leaving Roe v Wade intact, a similar outcome when people are asked if abortion should be legal in most cases.

But, when asked about the specifics of the heinous Republican anti- abortion law recently passed in Texas by a passel of far- right mostly white men, the American public recoils almost in unison:

One of the most contentious aspects of the law, beyond the six-week time frame, is in how it allows regular citizens to enforce it — by filing complaints about those who obtain abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Asked what they think about “having private citizens use lawsuits to enforce this law instead of having government prosecutors handle these cases,” Americans disapprove of the idea 70 percent to 22 percent.

The pollster then noted that the law provides for compensation of $10,000 for private citizens who win such cases — what has been labeled a “bounty.” In this case, opposition was even higher: 81 percent to 14 percent. Even Republicans oppose this idea 67 percent to 24 percent.

That’s about as consensus an issue as you’ll find in modern politics. And it’s a consensus against a central part of the Texas law.

The "bounty hunter" provision in the Texas law was designed (with the acquiescence of the Republican Supreme Court) to enable it to skirt its plain unconstitutionality by making it more difficult for federal courts to get involved.  

If Republicans are determined to fight this particular culture war against women (as they appear they want to do), Democrats should be making it (and at least for now, are) a war fought on our terms, with the vast majority of the American public on our side.  Bring it on!

(Photo: Marjorie Kamys Cotera/Texas Tribune)

Polls: Joy And Thriving In America

No doubt this is bad news for Joe Biden and Democrats:

A new Gallup poll finds that 59.2% of Americans say they're thriving. Additionally, 73% of Americans said they experienced enjoyment for a lot of the previous day.

The former is the highest rating Gallup has ever recorded on the measure dating back to when it was first taken more than 13 years ago. The latter is the highest since the coronavirus pandemic began early last year. [snip]

 

Last week, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist College poll found that 47% of Americans said the country was going in the right direction. That was within the margin of error of the 49% who said we were going in the wrong direction.

 

This 47% was the highest percentage who said the country was heading in the right direction in Marist polling since 2009, during the first year of the Obama administration. It's quite the turnaround from where former President Donald Trump was at this point in his presidency. Just 31% of Americans said the country was going in the right direction in a June 2017 Marist poll, while 61% said we were going in the wrong direction.  [snip]

 

The last time before President Joe Biden's administration that 43% of Americans said the country was going in the right direction in an average of polls was 2009.

 

Indeed, 43% believing the country was heading in the right direction is actually a really good percentage historically.

 

Govern like the country's behind you, because, for the most part, they are.

A Tale Of Two Poll Narratives

 

Here's the lede from the latest CBS News/YouGov poll (April 21-24, MOE +/- 2.3 pts.):

Approaching one hundred days in the presidency, President Biden maintains fairly strong approval ratings for what look like fairly straightforward reasons: most Americans like the way he's handling the country's top priorities, with especially strong marks on the pandemic and vaccine rollout; his major legislative pieces are popular so far. And then, more stylistically perhaps, a majority of Americans pick words to describe him like "presidential," "focused" and "competent." (our emphasis)

The numbers:

Here's the lede from the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll (April 18-21, MOE +/- 3.5 pts.):

President Biden nears the end of his first 100 days in office with a slight majority of Americans approving of his performance and supporting his major policy initiatives, but his approval rating is lower than any recent past presidents except Donald Trump, with potential warning signs ahead about his governing strategy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overall, 52 percent of adults say they approve of the job Biden is doing, compared with 42 percent who disapprove...  (our emphasis)

Beyond the discrepancy in the approval number (which we'll assume are the result of the Post's Republican- wired sampling methodology), the framing of the result of the poll is what also stands out in their narrative:  a 10- point gap between approval and disapproval is brushed aside in favor of a lede that reports that it's only a "slight majority" of Americans.  If that 10- point gap was the result of a presidential election, even the Post would have to call it a "landslide."  And, of course, "with potential warning signs ahead about his governing strategy." You can't have a Republican- wired narrative without warnings about trying to accomplish the goals you were elected to accomplish without "bipartisanship!"  So much horseshit in one sentence.

Funny that a paper so dedicated to bringing "light" into its pages that it declares "Democracy Dies in Darkness" is so stubbornly committed to casting that light in a way that diminishes those fighting that very fight.

 

Pollpourri

 

Blue/ red divide on vaccinations (click on images to enlarge):

"Woke" America:

Voting access:

 

Poll: Convict Trump!

 

Yet another poll, this time ABC News/Ipsos, is showing a healthy majority of Americans supports convicting malignant insurrectionist Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump at his second impeachment trial next week:

With his impeachment trial set to begin this week, a narrow majority of Americans say they support the Senate convicting former President Donald Trump and barring him from holding federal office again, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday.

Compared to public attitudes in the early days of his first impeachment trial, support for the Senate convicting Trump is higher now. In an ABC News/Washington Post poll published in late January 2020, when the first trial was ongoing but before senators had voted, 47% of Americans said the Senate should vote to remove Trump from office and 49% said he should not be removed.

But in this latest poll, 56% of Americans say Trump should be convicted and barred from holding office again, and 43% say he should not be. The new poll was conducted by Ipsos in partnership with ABC News using Ipsos' KnowledgePanel. [snip]

Support for conviction among Republicans was low in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, but slightly higher than it was ahead of Trump's first Senate impeachment trial. In the January 2020 ABC News/Washington Post poll, 9% of Republicans said the Senate should vote to remove Trump from office. In this new poll, 15% of Republicans say they support the Senate convicting and barring Trump from office.

Among Democrats, support for Trump's conviction is nearly universal in the ABC News/Ipsos poll, with 92% in favor. Independents mirror the full population, with 54% in support of the Senate convicting Trump and prohibiting him from holding office, and 45% against.  (our emphasis)

The vast majority of spineless careerist Senate Republicans will be looking exclusively at the Republican voter numbers, which show dogged support for the little- man- who- would- be- tyrant, though it's somewhat diminishing.  They'll violate their oaths, put Trump over country, and cast their votes to acquit.  Rotten and un-American to the core.

Georgia Poll Spells Trouble For Trump Party

 

It's just one poll, but it's a good one for Democrats in this swing state:

On Trump:

... A solid majority of Georgians disapprove of the former president in the weeks since he left office, with 57% giving him an unfavorable rating, compared with just 40% who approved of his performance in the White House.

Though he continues to have strong support from his base, with 84% of Republicans backing him, it’s a marked decline from the last AJC poll. That survey, conducted in September, found that 48% of Georgians and 95% of Republicans gave him a positive review.

On Sens. Warnock and Ossoff:

Fresh from their upset victories, the state’s two new Democratic U.S. senators are on solid footing. About 50% of Georgians have a favorable view of Ossoff, compared with 40% unfavorable. And Warnock, facing a reelection bid next year, has a 54% approval rating, with 37% disapproving of him.

On the Democratic Party and President Biden:

In other signs of troubling news for local Republicans, about half of Georgians have a positive view of the Democratic Party — while only one-third have a favorable impression of the GOP.

And Biden, who narrowly carried Georgia, starts his first term in positive territory. About 52% of Georgians have a favorable impression of the Democrat, compared with 41% who have a negative view of him. Also, roughly 59% approve of how Biden handled his transition, including about one-fifth of Republicans.

On the Capitol insurrection:

The poll found most Georgians, 57%, say that Trump is responsible for a “great deal” or a “good amount” of blame for stirring up the deadly mob on Jan. 6 that attempted to block certification of Biden’s election victory at the U.S. Capitol. That includes one-fifth of Republicans and a slight majority of independents.

On Republican seditionists:

And 58% of Georgians say the Republican members of Congress who tried to stop the formal certification of Biden’s victory were “undermining” democracy, compared with one-third who see them as “protecting” the electoral system.

On impeachment:

A narrow majority of Georgians — 51% — agree with the U.S. House’s vote to impeach Trump after the riot, including about 10% of Republicans and one-third of independents.

On Republican claims of voter fraud:

As Republican legislators seek new changes to Georgia’s voting laws, they face a skeptical electorate. A clear majority of voters — 58% — said they don’t believe in the thoroughly debunked claims of widespread voter fraud.

On the down side, the poll shows there's still some concern about "ineligible" voters casting ballots, which means Democrats still have some work to do in countering a boogeymen nurtured by Republican voter suppression efforts.  We can live with that.

Poll Of The Day -- The Party Of Treason And Sedition

 

 

45% of Republicans approve of the storming of the Capitol building. https://t.co/th0ldyK1IC pic.twitter.com/JnFFsZ4obo

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) January 7, 2021

 

 

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

What a depraved, fascist moron would do:

The packed crowd at a South Florida airport erupted into a chant early Monday: “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”

President Trump let the chorus grow louder for almost 20 seconds, turning to both sides as if pondering the request that he dismiss Anthony S. Fauci, the country’s leading infectious-disease expert. Finally, he responded.

“Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election,” Trump said, his supporters cheering almost immediately. “I appreciate the advice."

Trump’s suggestion that he might fire Fauci marks another escalation in his months-long feud with the public health expert over the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. It came at a rally where the president defied local coronavirus regulations, as the pandemic continues to worsen across the United States, endangering the president’s reelection hopes.

At the risk of counting chickens before they're hatched, David Faris explains why the Democrats' first priority is to fix the election system in this country:

If Joe Biden and the Democrats somehow manage to navigate this morass of voter suppression, election violence, and ominous threats and capture the presidency, the Senate, and the House this week, they must move quickly and decisively to democratize a country that is rapidly sliding into competitive authoritarianism. The Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution unambiguously grants Congress the authority to exert its authority over this archipelago of hateful, extra-judicial election rigging.

And that is what they must do. Outlaw racist voter ID laws. Require ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted. Mandate that states tie the number of polling places to population targets. Re-enfranchise every formerly incarcerated person in the country, whatever the racists in state government say. Clean up the ridiculous ambiguity over the rules of the Electoral College while we wait for the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to become law in enough states to end this madness forever. Enact sweeping new criminal penalties for voter suppression activities. Register every American to vote automatically when they turn 18 (or better yet, lower the voting age to 16). Refuse to admit members of Congress who won their seats through blatantly lawless voter suppression. Deploy force against states that refuse to comply.

Apologize for nothing.

Even if this isn't the absolute first priority, it has to be near the top.

Be confident, but take nothing for granted:

As a reminder, the final national polls in 2016 picked up the collapse in Hillary's lead and were very close to the actual final margin. https://t.co/dVAPbWO3dN

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) October 31, 2020

 

There's an excellent chance President Trump is headed for the biggest repudiation of a first-term president since Jimmy Carter in 1980 (9.7%) and an outside chance he's headed for the biggest since Herbert Hoover in 1932 (17.7%).

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 1, 2020

 

Kudos to all who are foiling Republican voter suppression efforts by making the decision to vote:

... In a year when the act of voting felt more precarious than ever, more than 94 million had voted in the 2020 election by Monday, casting their ballots early or by mail in record numbers in virtually every state in the nation. Tens of millions more will don masks, and in many places warm clothes, to vote the old-fashioned way — in person, on Election Day. They’ll do it despite — and in many cases, because of — the isolation and obstacles of this unusual year.

Those who have voted have lost jobs or loved ones to the pandemic or have battled the coronavirus themselves. They have withstood rain and heat and lines that lasted from morning until dark to register their electoral choices, risked exposure to the virus and navigated dizzying rule changes about signature requirements and drop boxes and ballot envelopes. They have been inundated with unsubstantiated attacks by President Trump on the integrity of the election.

They were helped by the unseen labor of thousands of state and county election administrators, some of them stumbling through messy primaries but then rallying to get ready for November, gearing up for massive demand for mail and in-person voting with rush orders of envelopes and high-speed scanners and backup rosters of election workers.

None of that felt inevitable at the start of the year, when the arrival of the pandemic collided with the first primaries of the 2020 campaign. Acute shortages of poll workers forced election officials to shutter many voting locations. Voting rules were changed to accommodate the health crisis, only to be overturned by the courts. States that had previously handled a trickle of mail voting suddenly faced a deluge.

And yet, they persisted.

Infidel 753 posted "The Choice" twice, most recently back on September 14.  The whole post is worth reading, especially if you're still in an "undecided" mode (really?), but we're just excerpting a portion to give you a flavor:

This post is addressed to those who, for whatever reason, don't like Biden.  Maybe you consider him too centrist or too old or too old-fashioned or "Republican-lite" or whatever...  Maybe you think the process by which millions of rank-and-file Democrats chose the nominee (from among a remarkably large and varied group of candidates) was tainted in some way.  Maybe you hold that your vote has to be earned and Biden hasn't done this or that thing that qualifies him as having done so.

None of that is a good enough reason to let Trump be re-elected.

None of that is a good enough reason to let him saddle the whole country with a 7-2 majority of reactionaries and theocrats on the Supreme Court for decades to come.

None of that is a good enough reason to risk four more years of migrant family separation and kids in cages, or of rhetoric which blatantly scapegoats Latinos, Muslims, and whatever other minority makes a convenient target.

None of that is a good enough reason to leave this vicious and hateful man in a position where he could block laws to help the unemployed and the uninsured, laws to end gerrymandering and vote suppression, laws to protect gay equality and the right to abortion nationally, that a Democratic House and Senate might pass.

None of that is a good enough reason to tolerate four more years of the massive and flagrant banana-republic corruption we've seen.

None of that is a good enough reason to risk four more years of budget-wrecking giant tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, and efforts to sabotage Social Security, the Postal Service, and the Devil knows what else.

None of that is a good enough reason to facilitate four more years of bungling the response to covid-19 (yes, it will still be around long after January 2021).

You should also check out Infidel's link round- up, which we recommend every week because, well, you can't do any better!

Democratic Enthusiasm Behind Record- Breaking Turnout

Less than three weeks until Election Day, some 15 million people have already cast their ballots (roughly 10 percent of the electorate), and the news is looking good for Democrats:

So far, much of the early voting appears to be driven by heightened enthusiasm among Democrats. Of the roughly 3.5 million voters who have cast ballots in six states that provide partisan breakdowns, registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by roughly 2 to 1, according to a Washington Post analysis of data in Florida, Iowa, Maine, Kentucky, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

Additionally, those who have voted include disproportionate numbers of Black voters and women, according to state data — groups that favor former vice president Joe Biden over President Trump in recent polls.  [snip]

...[T]he early numbers are proving to be larger than even Democrats predicted. Three out of four voters in Pennsylvania who have returned their ballots, for instance, are registered Democrats. In increasingly Democratic Virginia, where early voting began in September with hours-long lines in suburban Washington, nearly 1.7 million voters had cast ballots by Wednesday, according to the nonpartisan Virginia Public Access Project — more than triple the number who voted early or by mail overall in 2016. In Kentucky, nearly 70 percent of mail ballots cast have come from registered Democrats.

In Georgia, so many people were determined to vote in person at the first chance of early voting Monday that they withstood lines that lasted throughout the day. A record 242,000 people voted in the first two days.

Before you start thinking, "Yeah, but a lot of those votes won't be tallied until after November 3, giving would- be autocrat Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump precious time to monkey with the election," check this out:

...[S]ome potentially pivotal results are expected shortly after polls close, according to a Post analysis of early vote totals and state rules governing mail balloting. Thanks to surges in early and absentee voting, looser rules for processing and counting mail ballots, and active preparation by election officials, voters in critical states such as Florida and North Carolina can expect to see advanced results on election night, if everything goes to plan.

In North Carolina, for instance, state officials plan to release preliminary returns from early in-person and mail voting shortly after polls close on Nov. 3, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time. State officials in Florida expect to release similar returns at 8 p.m. and in Arizona two hours after that.

Combined, those three states will deliver 55 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

Let's look at races in battleground Georgia and Ohio:

Former Vice President Jo Biden has pulled ahead of President Donald Trump in Georgia, and the candidates are statistically tied in Ohio, according to new Quinnipiac University polls of likely voters released on Wednesday.

The Georgia poll also shows Democratic challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock leading against the Republican incumbents in the state's races for U.S. Senate.

Biden holds a 7-point lead in Georgia, 51 percent to Trump’s 44 percent, with 4 percent of likely voters undecided in the state. Last month, Quinnipiac polls showed the race for the state was too close to call, with Biden at 50 percent and Trump at 47 percent. The Real Clear Politics polling average, by contrast, has Biden leading by only four-tenths of 1 percent in Georgia.

How about battleground North Carolina?

North Carolina Democratic Senate hopeful Cal Cunningham leads Sen. Thom Tillis by 4 percentage points in a poll released Wednesday despite being dogged by scathing press coverage for nearly two weeks after his marital infidelity surfaced.

Cunningham thus far appears politically unharmed by the scandal, leading Tillis 41 percent to 37 percent among likely voters in a New York Times/Siena College poll released Wednesday. The poll’s margin of error was plus-or-minus 4.5 percentage points.  [snip]

Democrats are also running ahead in North Carolina’s two other major contests, with Joe Biden leading President Donald Trump 46 percent to 42 percent and incumbent Gov. Roy Cooper up 14 percentage points — 51 percent to 37 percent — over Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. 

More votes are being cast every day in these states and many others.  Keep the foot on the gas and get that turnout, because when more people vote, Democrats win.

(Cartoon: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

Biden National Lead Jumps To 14 Points In New Poll

It appears mass revulsion of COVID Donnie's performance at the "debate" is the most likely cause of Biden-Harris jumping out to a 14- point lead in this new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (the poll was taken before COVID Donnie's COVID diagnosis was public). 

Joe Biden’s national lead over President Donald Trump nearly doubled after Tuesday’s presidential debate, with voters saying by a 2-to-1 margin that Biden has the better temperament to be president, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The poll was conducted in the two days after the unruly and insult-filled Sept. 29 debate, but before Trump tested positive for Covid-19 and was hospitalized Friday at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

The Democratic nominee is now ahead of Trump by 14 points among registered voters, 53 percent to 39 percent — up from his 8-point lead in the previous poll before the debate.

That 14-point advantage represents Biden’s largest lead in the NBC News/WSJ poll during the entirety of the 2020 presidential campaign; his previous high was 11 points in July. (our emphasis)

Drilling down a bit, some important tabs:

The biggest declines for Trump in the poll come from seniors (who are now backing Biden by a 62 percent-to-35 percent margin) and suburban women (58 percent to 33 percent).

And men 50 years and older moved from a 13-point advantage for Trump in the pre-debate NBC News/WSJ poll, to a 1-point advantage for Biden in this latest poll.

Seniors, in particular, are very reliable voters, and the gender gap continues to propel Biden-Harris, as COVID Donnie's racist appeals to "suburban" (i.e., "white") women doesn't seem to have landed well.

The usual caveats apply, including vote like Biden-Harris are running neck- and- orange jowl with COVID Donnie. Keep the foot on the gas.

BONUS: A new New York Times / Siena poll shows voters in the critical states of Pennsylvania and Florida were disgusted by COVID Donnie's performance in last Tuesday's "debate": Biden leads in PA by 7 points and in Florida by 5 points. 

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

Nevada  Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak had some choice words for COVID Donnie in the wake of his superspreader indoor rally Sunday night:

“Tonight, President Donald Trump is taking reckless and selfish actions that are putting countless lives in danger here in Nevada,” he began. “Despite reports from his own White House, despite local officials in Southern & Northern Nevada reiterating to the venues the existing restrictions in State emergency directives, tonight, the President is knowingly packing thousands into an indoor venue to hold a political rally.” [snip]

“To put it bluntly: he didn’t have the guts to make tough choices ― he left that to governors and the states. Now he’s decided he doesn’t have to respect our state’s laws. As usual, he doesn’t believe the rules apply to him,” he wrote.

“This is an insult to every Nevadan who has followed the directives, made sacrifices, and put their neighbors before themselves. It’s also a direct threat to all of the recent progress we’ve made, and could potentially set us back.”  (our emphasis)

David Von Drehle discusses COVID Donnie's delusional claims about bringing jobs back to the auto industry, and concludes with this broadside on the myth of COVID Donnie as a shmart bidnessman:

Trump has led the planet in the production of just one commodity: hot air. Long ago, he reached the point where no major bank would lend him a nickel — except Deutsche Bank, known for the large fines it has paid over accusations of laundering money for Russian billionaires. As Trump himself likes to say, Russia, Russia, Russia.

During his years as a reality television star, Trump was known for saying, “You’re fired.” A more accurate tag line would have echoed a cough syrup ad from the 1980s: I’m not a successful businessman, but I play one on TV. But he’s a billionaire! For that he can thank his daddy. In fact, Trump would be far wealthier today if he had invested his inherited fortune in an index fund and walked away, instead of tossing it down ratholes of his own making. According to the latest estimate from Forbes, the vaunted Trump economy has cost Trump roughly a third of his net worth, leaving him a billion dollars poorer than he was last winter.

Trump’s defenders like to charge those of us in the reality-based community with rooting for failure. But I have high hopes for the economic future of the United States — hopes based on the productive energy of Americans, not the windbag of Pennsylvania Avenue.

Charlotte Alter went on a Cletus safari in Wisconsin and found a common element among many supporters of COVID Donnie who live in the right- wing conspiracy dome -- they're nuttier than a fruitcake:

Kelly Ferro is a busy mom on her way to the post office: leather mini-backpack, brunet topknot, turquoise pedicure with a matching ombré manicure. A hairdresser from Kenosha, Wis., Ferro didn’t vote in 2016 but has since become a strong supporter of Donald Trump. “Why does the news hate the President so much?” she says. “I went down the rabbit hole. I started doing a lot of research.”

When I ask what she means by research, something shifts. Her voice has the same honey tone as before, and her face is as friendly as ever. But there’s an uncanny flash as she says, “This is where I don’t know what I can say, because what’s integrated into our system, it stems deep. And it has to do with really corrupt, evil, dark things that have been hidden from the public. Child sex trafficking is one of them.”  [snip]

In more than seven dozen interviews conducted in Wisconsin in early September, from the suburbs around Milwaukee to the scarred streets of Kenosha in the aftermath of the Jacob Blake shooting, about 1 in 5 voters volunteered ideas that veered into the realm of conspiracy theory, ranging from QAnon to the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax. Two women in Ozaukee County calmly informed me that an evil cabal operates tunnels under the U.S. in order to rape and torture children and drink their blood. A Joe Biden supporter near a Kenosha church told me votes don’t matter, because “the elites” will decide the outcome of the election anyway. A woman on a Kenosha street corner explained that Democrats were planning to bring in U.N. troops before the election to prevent a Trump win.  (our emphasis)

Hoo- boy. Sales of tinfoil must be strong there.  But, the far right disinformation isn't limited to Wisconsin, of course, or to English- speakers.

COVID Donnie's not going to walk away with an award in any "who's the sanest" competition with Joe Biden:

Likely voters believe that Democratic nominee Joe Biden is more mentally sound that President Donald Trump, according to a recently-released Fox News poll.

The survey of likely 1,191 likely voters found that 51% believe that Biden “has the mental soundness to serve as president.”

Only 47% of likely voters told Fox News that President Trump has the “mental soundness” to be commander-in-chief.

That 47% sounds high, and the 51% low, but this is Fox News, so...

Speaking of polls,



Finally, once again, we recommend a visit to Infidel 753's link round- up for a very comprehensive collection of links to interesting blog posts from around the Internet.  Check out his posts, too, or better yet just bookmark him!

Biden Surges After Trump Bombshells

We need to see how the needles are moving in battleground states, but this national poll indicates two recent  bombshells bursting over malignant moron Donald "COVID Donnie" Trump's head have finally hit a nerve with voters:

Donald Trump has fallen further behind Joe Biden following bombshell reports that the president knowingly misled Americans about the dangers of COVID-19 and privately disparaged dead U.S. soldiers as “suckers” and “losers,” according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.

The survey, which was conducted from Sept. 9 to 11, shows Biden leading Trump by 10 percentage points among registered voters, 49 percent to 39 percent. The previous Yahoo News/YouGov poll found Biden ahead by just 6 points immediately after the Republican National Convention.

The results suggest that a week of unrelenting and unflattering revelations about Trump — from the Atlantic report on his alleged contempt for Americans wounded or killed in war (which appeared on Sept. 3) to Bob Woodward’s recordings of Trump admitting he downplayed the deadliness of COVID-19 (released on Sept. 9) — has damaged the president’s standing with voters.

The poll shows wide leads for Joe Biden in virtually all categories:

Registered voters reject Trump — and prefer Biden — on nearly every major issue. For instance, a wide majority of them (57 percent) disapprove of the president’s handling of the pandemic; only 40 percent approve. By a 17-point margin (48 percent yes to 31 percent no) voters say the current coronavirus situation in the U.S. would be better right now if Biden had been president instead of Trump.

Likewise, only 37 percent of registered voters approve of the way the president has handled the Black Lives Matter protests; 54 percent disapprove. In the wake of the protests in Kenosha, Wis., an even larger majority of registered voters (57 percent) say Trump “makes things worse” when he talks about race. Just 27 percent say he “makes things better.” By a 15-point margin, voters believe that Biden (49 percent) would have handled the Black Lives Matter protests better than Trump (34 percent).

COVID Donnie never polled above the low- to- mid 40's, and Biden's national lead up until now has been extremely steady.  Votes are already coming in in some early voting states, and November 3 is only 52 days away. As for a dreaded "October surprise," the New York Times' Nick Confessore said of just one of the bombshells:

"Trump is the first candidate for president to launch an October surprise against himself. It's as if Nixon sent the Nixon tapes to Woodward in an envelope by FedEx. It's really astounding and it's really self-inflicted."

All of that doesn't add up to a winning campaign, cheating or not.

"His" Military Won't Be Voting For Trump

Active- duty military don't care much for their "Commander in Chief," Cadet Bone Spurs, and the officer corps, in particular, strongly disapproves:

The latest Military Times poll shows a continued decline in active-duty service members’ views of President Donald Trump and a slight but significant preference for former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming November election among troops surveyed. [snip]

In the latest results — based on 1,018 active-duty troops surveyed in late July and early August — nearly half of respondents (49.9 percent) had an unfavorable view of the president, compared to about 38 percent who had a favorable view. Questions in the poll had a margin of error of up to 2 percent.

Among all survey participants, 42 percent said they “strongly” disapprove of Trump’s time in office. [snip]

Among active-duty service members surveyed in the poll, 41 percent said they would vote for Biden, the Democratic nominee, if the election was held today. Only 37 percent said they plan to vote to re-elect Trump.  [snip]

The splits between officer and enlisted views within the poll are notable. More than 59 percent of officers said they have a poor view of the president, with more than half saying they strongly disapprove.

Among enlisted respondents, 47 percent said they have an unfavorable view, and nearly 39 percent a favorable view. Enlisted views of Trump’s performance in office have consistently been more favorable than those of officers in the poll over the last four years.  (our emphasis)

The military, traditionally one of the more conservative sectors of any society, is also laying down a marker in the form of Joint Chief of Staff Chairman Mark Milley, who provided written confirmation that the Armed Forces won't be a party to any Cadet Bone Spurs coup attempt when he loses the election.  They take an oath to defend the Constitution, not Cadet Bone Spurs.  Of course, many retired brass have spoken out against Cadet Bone Spurs (Gens. Mattis, Kelly, Allen, McCaffrey, McChrystal, Dempsey, Clark, and Adms. Mullen, McRaven, Green, etc.) The fact that so many of them are appalled by what's going on in this country and are going to vote their consciences is somehow very encouraging.  When the time comes, they need to step up with the rest of us to make sure Cadet Bone Spurs doesn't steal this election and everything they swore an oath to defend along with it.

(Photo:  two who stood up to Cadet Bone Spurs -- Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman and twin Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (USA, ret.))

Biden Continues To Widen Lead

The new Washington Post-ABC News poll is out, and it tracks recent polling by highly respected  Quinnipiac and Fox (!):

Biden leads Trump 55 percent to 40 percent among registered voters. That compares with a 10-point Biden lead in May and a two-point edge in March, at a time when the pandemic was just beginning to spread rapidly in parts of the country. Among those who say they are certain to vote, Biden’s lead stands at 11 points. [snip]

Biden is seen as having the better personality and temperament to serve as president by 26 points among adults overall. He is seen as likely to do more to unite the country by 24 points, of better understanding “problems of people like you” by 17 points, as more honest and trustworthy by 14 points, as better representing “your own personal values” by 12 points and as having a better idea of what America should stand for by 10 points. Trump and Biden are even at 45 percent on the question of who is seen as the stronger leader.

Trump’s weakness on the issue of uniting the country shows up in two other questions. In the new poll, 61 percent say the president has done more to divide the country than unite it, and 76 percent say that when Trump talks about people with whom he disagrees, he crosses the line in terms of what’s acceptable, with 21 percent saying he stays within acceptable bounds. Views of Biden are flipped, with 63 percent saying he stays within acceptable bounds and 26 percent saying he crosses the line.

On issues, Biden has a 20-point advantage on who is more trusted to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, a 25-point advantage on race relations and a nine-point advantage on crime and safety.  (our emphasis)

Yes, it's a national poll, and yes it's July 19.  And all the polls make the point that Biden's margins are less in the battleground states, but are still significant.  But state polling bears out what we're seeing nationally -- a voting public that's fed up with COVID Donnie's incompetence and divisiveness. Even on the topic COVID Donnie dreams he has an advantage -- crime and safety -- Biden beats him by 9 points.

Keep the foot on the gas and work like hell to see a blue tsunami in November that can't be questioned by cries of "voter fraud!"  Eyes on the prize!

Monday Reading

As always, please go to the links for the full articles/ op eds.

David Nakamura reflects on Cheeto Benito's Mount Rushmore rant:

In his inaugural address, President Trump sketched the picture of “American carnage” — a nation ransacked by marauders from abroad who breached U.S. borders in pursuit of jobs and crime, lured its companies offshore and bogged down its military in faraway conflicts.

Nearly 3½ years later, in the president’s telling, the carnage is still underway but this time the enemy is closer to home — other Americans whose racial identity and cultural beliefs are toppling the nation’s heritage and founding ideals.

Trump’s dark and divisive 42-minute speech at the foot of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota late Friday served as a clarion for his campaign reelection message at a time when the nation — already reeling with deep anxiety over the devastating public health and economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic — is also facing a cultural reckoning over the residue of its racially segregated past.

He then quotes former Bush speechwriter and never- Trumper Peter Wehner:

“It’s an insight into him: He doesn’t view his job in terms of governing. He just views it as a platform to vent and be angry,” Wehner said. “He’s not just appealing to the base, but he’s appealing to the base of the base. The aperture of the campaign is constricting, not expanding — he’s energizing a smaller and smaller group of angrier and angrier Americans. And to try to energize that base, he has to say more and more extreme things.”

This will be the darkest, ugliest, dirtiest campaign in American history.  As E.J. Dionne, Jr., says, it's all Cheeto Benito has left in his quiver:

Trump’s spiteful and hostile moves on a weekend when we celebrate the equal rights of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are alarming. But they are also a sign of weakness. They suggest his own lack of faith in his predictions that our economy will take off like “a rocket ship.” [snip]

What is Trump offering? When Fox News’s Sean Hannity recently asked Trump what he wanted to do in a second term, the president offered 138-words of rambling emptiness adding up to nothing. Lacking even a few ideas scribbled on a “sheet of notepaper,” he can only conjure terrorizing national nightmares.

It’s true that Trump’s Independence weekend escapades mean we face months of being led by someone so desperate to avoid defeat that he will warp our history, shatter what little unity we have left, and leave it to others to clear the wreckage. But there is hope here, too: Trump is acting like a frightened man who realizes that if his opponents keep their heads and avoid rising to his bait, his days are numbered.

Here's what polling tells us:

A new Monmouth University poll finds former Vice President Joe Biden with a 53% to 41% lead over President Donald Trump.

The average live interview poll conducted over the last month has Biden ahead by a similar 11-point margin.

What's the point: Usually, this is the point where someone like myself says we have four months to go until the election and polls are a snapshot in time. Both of those statements are true, but they obscure an important fact.

Polls taken around Independence Day in an election year are actually pretty highly correlated with the November results in incumbent contests. That means Trump is in a lot of trouble.

There are now 120 days until November 3.  Keep the foot on the gas, take nothing for granted and work like hell.

The issue most likely to be driving voters is Cheeto Benito's criminal incompetence in handling the coronavirus pandemic and the attendant catastrophic job losses and business closings. STAT asked reporters who've been covering the pandemic for their thoughts on which failures a future pandemic commission would likely focus on:

The country’s long list of missteps includes decisions from President Trump, governors, local officials, and even activists who have vocally resisted mitigation measures like wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.  Looking more broadly any examination could begin with the country’s failure to build infrastructure for testing and contact tracing in early 2020, Trump’s consistent downplaying of the virus even amid mass death, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s highly publicized testing debacle.

The areas highlighted at the link include sidelining the CDC, politicizing evidence- based decision- making, the aforementioned testing debacle, oversight of the strategic P.P.E. stockpile, the decisions to reopen non- essential businesses, and shifting guidance on wearing protective masks.

Finally, today the Supreme Court is expected to hand down decisions on several major cases, including Trump's financial records / taxes, and the contraceptive mandate under the Affordable Care Act. Stay tuned.

As always, do yourself a favor and check out Infidel 753's link round- up for a really comprehensive guide to posts around the internet that you'll find interesting.  If you haven't become a regular reader, shame on you!