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Cake day: July 6th, 2023

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  • Harris tried to run on protecting abortion rights, and saving democracy from Trump and Project 2025. Under other circumstances, that probably would have worked.

    Unfortunately, she was the nominee for the incumbent party at a time when the vast majority of voters were unhappy with the economy. That’s a hard position to be in, and requires a compelling answer. She had a few token items for the agenda, but nothing that would address the larger issue of people feeling squeezed by inflation. Saying things are better now or going to be better soon doesn’t appease the voters who don’t feel better.

    The horrible truth is, a large portion of the electorate would vote for the literal devil if he was running against an incumbent during a bad economy.





  • Lotteries are specifically called out as illegal when used to incentivize voting or voter registration. By making a lottery only for registered voters, he is violating that law. The petition is a smoke screen, but it doesn’t actually negate the fact that this is a lottery for registered voters.

    That’s why they switched to saying they were sponsors, they were trying to avoid lottery regulations. Unfortunately for them, you can’t make it legal retroactively by changing your story.




  • Makeitstop@lemmy.worldtoStar Wars Memes@lemmy.worldDamn StarWars Fans!
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    6 days ago

    Remember kids, if you like anything in a series, you must like everything in that series, or you aren’t a real fan.

    Also, anyone who likes the parts of a series you dislike is an idiot that uncritically absorbs trash and doesn’t understand why the good parts are good.

    And of course, the coolest thing you can do is reduce both sides of a discussion to a straw man and mock them to claim a dubious high ground for yourself.



  • Harris holds on to the support of nearly all Democrats, with 97% saying they will support her and 0% saying they will support Trump.

    But she also gets 5% of Republicans who say they will vote for her over Trump. Trump holds 89% of Republicans.

    The poll shows a small universe of people who say they previously supported Trump and have now switched their vote to someone else.

    Among those not supporting Trump, 16% say there was a time when they supported him, while 81% say they have never supported him. Another 3% are not sure.

    This is a factor that very few polls ever look for. There are so many reasons to oppose Trump which transcend partisan politics. We’ve had so many Republicans endorse Harris, but you don’t see many polls looking for the voters that are making the same jump.

    The implications are huge. Every voter that switches from Trump to Harris is a net gain of 2 votes. And if they are still registered Republicans, any early voting data will likely be interpreted with them in the Trump column until they are actually counted. And of course, any voter turnout efforts paid for by the Trump campaign will likely be turning these people out as well, which is just delightful.

    We’ll see how accurate this is on Tuesday. But if Iowa really does go blue, it seems likely that it won’t be the only surprise that night.




  • There are some additional reasons to be optimistic.

    First, the poll numbers have been getting skewed by Republican affiliated pollsters that consistently show Trump in a better position than the nonpartisan polls. The race is definitely close, but if these partisan polls really are just trying to give the impression of a surge in Trump support and aren’t actually more accurate than the nonpartisan polls, then that potentially pushes some states from a narrow Trump lead back to a narrow Harris lead. And it’s not like there isn’t a precedent for this, it’s exactly what happened with the polls in 2022.

    Second, while Republicans are casting a higher percentage of the early votes than in 2020, that increase is largely coming from people who voted on election day in 2020. Moving a vote from election day to early voting is a net change of 0. And the Harris gotv machine appears to be much stronger than the one Trump outsourced to Musk, which seems to be targeting the least reliable voters while also using the least reliable canvassers. It’s no wonder Musk resorted to buying votes petition signatures.

    Harris has a stronger lead among women than Biden or Clinton did, and the gender gap in turnout so far is also higher in the previous elections. In addition, Harris is leading among voters over 65, a reversal from previous elections and particularly important because they are by far the most reliable voters.

    And the news cycle has not been kind to Trump this past week. It turns out that insulting groups that make up a sizable chunk of the voting population in certain key swing states isn’t a good move. Will it make a difference by Tuesday? Hard to say, but it sure as hell isn’t helping him.


    None of this is terribly solid, it’s just trends and indicators, no one should be getting complacent here. But it’s enough for me to feel cautiously optimistic that Harris will be able to secure Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, with a reasonable chance of picking up at least one more state.

    If the Republican gotv gamble backfires and their election day turnout advantage doesn’t fully materialize, we could see more states flip. More importantly, it could be enough to flip the House (currently a toss up) and maybe even hold the Senate (requires defying expectations in at least 2 out of 3 races, so a long shot but not impossible).