Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines
before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules
when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
That Prop 117 was pretty confusing . The Maryland state ballot also has a proposition, which allows the governor to arbitrarily decide how much budget the state can have even after the state legislature has proposed an annual itemized list.
There both sound like they're basically austerity measures but dressed up in pretty words so that it's not immediately obvious
Edited by Xopher001 on Oct 30th 2020 at 11:10:45 AM
![]()
![]()
![]()
I would consider three things:
1) Election turnout is up at an all-time high in multiple parts of the country. While I have no doubt republicans are fired up to vote for Trump, I don't think that such a big turnout makes sense for the chances of the incumbent.
2)If more latino and black people are voting on election day, while that could be quite bad depending on the voter suppression measures and voter intimidation, it also means the argument against not counting mail-in ballots from the GOP might not look so great if black and latino turnout on election day is big enough that Biden has a significant lead in multiple states on election day.
3) Covid is the issue of the day and most people simply don't approve of how Trump handled the pandemic.
I completely understand the concern but if this is all getting to you I would sincerely consider making an effort not to doomscroll anymore for the next few days and only look into the actual results of the race on wednesday morning.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 30th 2020 at 6:16:26 AM
Just looking at the basic online stats, Black voters appear to be early voting at lower rates than others voters in some swing states, but I wouldn’t say it’s “very few”.
In North Carolina, 22% of the population is Black, as are 19% of early voters. (Party registration of all early voters is 38% Democrats to 31% Republicans. 27% of early voters did not vote in 2016.)
In Georgia, 32% of the population is Black, as are 28% of early voters.
If Black voters are typically more likely to vote on election day, those stats don’t seem unduly startling; it suggests that they haven’t voted yet, not that they won’t vote.
Edited by Galadriel on Oct 30th 2020 at 5:30:29 AM
Thanks for the responses. I am trying not to be panicky, but I got to say that the article is uniquely terror inducing because the premise is that Biden's staff are saying at this point that they've been overconfident and are now flailing. Which does seem kind of plausible because like Clinton's campaign, Biden's has put a certain emphasis on picking off Trump voters. Just hopefully more successful in Biden's case.
So with that in mind, it does seem kind of plausible that the Biden campgaign completely fucked up and isn't make enough effort to get the vote from "reliable" voters. The commentator Adam Serwer, who I tend to trust, seems to think the article is legit and terrible news for Biden.
And for what it's worth, I've come across articles criticizing Biden's outreach to Hispanics/Latinos, although there was some pushback as to whether the groups disaffected with Biden were groups (i.e. Cubans) that are reliable Republican voters.
Edit - On the other hand, Dave Wasserman thinks the article's conclusions are offbase
. It kind of seems like the article is (hopefully) spinning legit internal complaints about not enough resources being directed towards Hispanic and Latino turnout as an inaccurate story about Biden having effectively no votes.
And like remember when some Biden advisors were saying that Klobuchar was 100% going to be his VP?
Even campaigns have an element of We ARE Struggling Together.
Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 30th 2020 at 4:52:10 AM
Nate Silver has made the argument before that it's best not to put too much weight on what campaign staff think of the state of the race since they don't usually have a better picture of what's going on than polls do. There were trump staffers in 2016 that were panicking too because they thought his chances were collapsing close to the race.
![]()
Dave Wasserman also gave an interview a few days ago where he said that he felt Trump was pretty doomed this time. He made some interesting points about how the voter suppression could backfire on the GOP since all the early in person and mail in voting by democrats could mean they have less lines to go through.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 30th 2020 at 6:59:31 AM
Yeah in some states we know the party registration of early voters, and it’s overwhelmingly Democratic. That’s before we get into the fact that democrats have been polled on their likelihood to vote early, and are in large numbers saying they will.
If the early voting is mainly white, then the local combination of the facts is that white democrats are voting early, while minority democrats plus republicans are planning to vote on the day.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ CyranRegarding the Texas talk, I think it's pertinent to remember that Obama won Indiana in 2008. That turned out to be a one-off but the point is that one-offs can happen. And the demographics in Texas are probably much better for lasting change than those in Indiana are.
Which isn't to say that Texas isn't unlikely, or even if it goes for Biden this time it will immediately become a permanent blue or swing sate, just that people seem to be working under this idea that the electoral map as it exists right now is fixed and, well, that just isn't the case.
Wasserman himself mentions that black and latino communities tend to distrust mail-in and early person voting, which suggests to me they're going to largely vote on election day.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 30th 2020 at 7:15:00 AM
Everyone is terrified because the polls are widely seen as having gotten it wrong in 2016, and that felt terrible when it happened. But understand that the polling agencies know perfectly well that they had to improve their performance this time around, and have done everything they can to avoid making the same mistakes.
I'm done trying to sound smart. "Clear" is the new smart.I feel like mentioning that the polls were very accurate. Trump won by the skin of his teeth via the electoral college but lost the popular vote by a huge amount. Mind you, I'm still confused at who kept assuming Trump would lose by a landslide. They really must have had more faith in humanity than I did.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.![]()
Yeah that was one statistic that I found peculiar as well.
-
So, I don't normally put much stock in these kinds of individual profiles of political supporters as a broad indicator of anything, but I thought this one was worth sharing since it mentions the other side of that idea: the shy Biden supporters.
And it makes sense when you consider the violence and defacing of signs that can happen in more red-leaning communities.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 30th 2020 at 8:00:20 AM
Dave Wasserman also gave an interview a few days ago where he said that he felt Trump was pretty doomed this time. He made some interesting points about how the voter suppression could backfire on the GOP since all the early in person and mail in voting by democrats could mean they have less lines to go through.
Indeed, and with Suburban women going to the Dems in 2018 voter suppression is even more problematic because Republicans haven't really voter suppressed the suburbs because they've always expected it to go their way.
Regarding the Texas talk, I think it's pertinent to remember that Obama won Indiana in 2008. That turned out to be a one-off but the point is that one-offs can happen. And the demographics in Texas are probably much better for lasting change than those in Indiana are.
Which isn't to say that Texas isn't unlikely, or even if it goes for Biden this time it will immediately become a permanent blue or swing sate, just that people seem to be working under this idea that the electoral map as it exists right now is fixed and, well, that just isn't the case.
This is definitely an excellent point. As you say one-offs do happen but a state flipping can be a sign of a more serious change.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 30th 2020 at 4:23:41 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangWhile it's plausible that New Hampshire could turn red this election (it was one of the states Hillary won by a very small margin), I think the fact that it's one of the states with the oldest overall population puts a bit of a damper on trump's chances. Seniors are actually leaning more towards biden this election because they're afraid of covid.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Oct 30th 2020 at 8:25:26 AM

So, I recognize that this is kind of hypocritical of me to post because I have critcized "doomsaying", but I just read terrifying Bloomberg article
, and would like someone to hopefully calm me down, or less hopefully, confirm.
Tl; dr version, basically, although there has been a lot of early voting, very, very little of it is by African Americans or Latinos in key states. Apparently it is more common for those demographics to vote on election day (and Biden is obviously going to get some white votes).
However, the article kind of gives the impression of a nightmare scenario in which the polls are very wrong as (early) voters are all voting for Trump and dependable Democratic voters aren't voting.
Edited by Hodor2 on Oct 30th 2020 at 4:09:50 AM