Biden vs. Trump

[_subgenius]

Apr 24: FOX News poll has Biden over Trump in Florida by +3
Apr 22: FOX News poll has Biden over Trump in Pennsylvania by +8
Apr 22: FOX News poll has Biden over Trump in Michigan by +8
Apr 19: NBC/Wall St Journal Poll has Biden +7 in General Election
Apr 16: Public Policy Polling had Biden +1 in North Carolina
Apr 15: Economist/YouGov has Biden +5 in General Election
Apr 14: OH Predictive Poll has Biden +9 in Arizona

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/pol ... 012071001/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/

Cool how you and the 2016 polls have this sort of odd relationship.

[_Some Schmo]

What has Trump done, or not done, that would sway the people who voted him in in the first place to change their minds?
What could he possibly do or not do that would change their minds?

There hasn't been a more impeachable President in the history of the United States (or so it seems to me), and yet...

Yeah, Trump support is solid proof that a large percentage of the population is composed of idiotic assholes. Is easy to see. Just watch someone come to Trump's defense. They sound like an idiot or an asshole (or both).

That's just science.

[_EAllusion]

It's easy to go through the motions of discussion on campaign strategy, horserace polling, and normal political science of American elections, but we probably ain't having a free and fair election and such conversations always feel a bit deluded about where things really are.

[_moksha]

Trump apparently jumped all over his campaign manager and threatened to fire him when told of this poll.

[_EAllusion]

Grain of salt, but the latest Marquette Wisconsin poll on Trump vs. Biden has some interesting under the hood numbers. The top line is that Biden has a small +3 lead that is approximate to what he's had for a while. But that's made up of him now dominating older folks and bleeding younger folks at the same time to off set it. That is *not* the normal Trump voting pattern. It's possible that the "cull the elderly" message the GOP is going with is depressing elderly support for the President while at the same time the fact that very few Democratic voters under 45 actually like Biden so much as tolerate him as the nominee is depressing support for him.

Seems like that's another piece of evidence it would be smart for Biden to get a VP that does something about voter enthusiasm for his supporters and on the fence voters who aren't old. That's probably another argument in Warren for VP's favor.

All of this assumes a normal election, though, which it very well might not be.

[_Dr Exiled]

It's way too early to call. Both Trump and Biden have the ability to blow up at any moment and turn-out will be a factor as always.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[quote="Dr Exiled" post_id=1224456 time=1589385783 user_id=18909]
It's way too early to call. Both Trump and Biden have the ability to blow up at any moment and turn-out will be a factor as always.
[/quote]

Trump blows up every day. He’s impervious to it. His base is impervious to it. The only way he gets the boot is if Millennials and Zoomers actually vote this time.

Good luck with that, by the way. CPT. Where’smypants isn’t exactly inspiring anyone to show up in November. Hopefully voting by mail is more agreeable to the younger demographics.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

The Wisconsin poll I referred to is mirrored in the national polling from CNN. Biden appears to now be quite comfortably leading Trump among older voters. This is a quite large reversal from previous patterns where Trump dominated the elderly and rode their high voter participation to defeat broad unpopularity every where else. Biden did a little better among old people to begin with - him being quite old alone probably helps - but this is more recent. It's hard not to see that as some older voters souring on all the messaging coming out of the GOP that treats the elderly as, in effect, expendable. COVID is way more real when it's killing people at Justinian plague rates in your cohort. While Biden is doing several points better than the Clinton popular vote victory baseline, he isn't blowing Trump away in these numbers because while he's wiping out one of Trump's core demographic edges, he's losing young voters to offset some of those gains. Unless you look at the numbers or have younger people in your social circle, it's hard to get across just how not wanted Biden was among anyone who doesn't have less years ahead of them than behind them.

So it's not hard to imagine a scenario in which "only old people vote" means a commanding Biden victory. Also, it's not hard to imagine a scenario where it's a hell of a lot easier to vote if you the sort of old person who is, um, white and doesn't live in the city, so lot of caveats here.

[_Gunnar]

One worrisome problem is that Trump hates the USPS and the very idea of mail in voting, and has recently appointed one of his big donors as postmaster general. This does not bode well for the prospect of fair and impartial elections! :mad

[_EAllusion]

Trump doesn't hate the very idea of mail in voting. He voted by mail himself. He thinks, perhaps incorrectly, that more widespread mail-in voting will allow Democrats to have an easier time voting and therefore opposes it because he does not see a democracy that elects someone other than Donald Trump as legitimate. He also has a separate beef with the Post Office because he thinks, or pretends to think, that they have given Amazon a sweetheart deal on shipping rates, which isn't true, and he wants to see Amazon screwed because the owner of Amazon owns a major newspaper that says critical things about him.

In addition to appointing one of his major donors as Postmaster General, there's a purge going on in the post office beneath that. It's unclear how taking it over with loyalist hacks is going to help with the VBM issue, so Trump has that going for him in this case. I mean, what is the Post Office gonna do?