Mega-Thread: 2020 United States General Election

[Elegiac]

As a Democrat, I really hope they adopt a "wait and see" approach to the Supreme Court. It's not clear to me that the new justices will behave like extremist right-wingers so the risk/reward of packing the court is unclear. You'd be unlikely to stop the Republicans from doing the same if you broke the seal on that tactic. Long-term it just seems like a bad, destabilizing strategy.

Implying the Republicans aren't already packing the courts.

[Milchshake]

buncha high quality polls coming out today.

Joe Biden leads in Wisconsin and Michigan by a significant margin, according to new Times/Siena polls.

• Biden leads Trump by 10 in Wisconsin, 51 to 41 percent.
• Biden leads by 8 in Michigan, 48 to 40

Trump Defectors Help Biden Build Leads in Wisconsin and Michigan
New polls show Biden is gaining in the Northern battlegrounds among white voters.

[DingDongKing]

Daily poll update from 538 (and no, this isn't anything but a poll update - nothing is for certain).



Biden is now up 10.6.

[Rasulis]

This will be a blow out election. Here is GA this morning. More than 3 weeks out from 11/03. Trump need to hurry up with his October surprise. Not sure the 10/29 debate would mean anything at this stage.

[Milchshake]

This will be a blow out election. Here is GA this morning. More than 3 weeks out from 11/03.

Hoping this powers Ossoff and Warnock to wins!

Warnock (D): 41% (+21)
Loeffler (R): 24% (+3)
Collins (R): 22% (-1)
Lieberman (D): 3% (-8)

PPP / October 9, 2020 / n=528 / MOE 4.3% / Telephone

It's nice having a national candidate that helps down ballot races.

[Edge-]

https://lawandcrime.com/awkward/oust...t-been-ousted/

More lawless behavior from the Trump administration, who care nothing for law and order.

Illegally-serving ex-BLM head William Pendley rejects the notion that he's been ousted after a court ruled he was illegally serving in that position and claims that he will continue to serve in that capacity because he has the support of a lawless president and the lawless presidents Interior Department.

Because, as a reminder, this is one of the most criminal administrations in the history of the US.

[PhaelixWW]

538 simulations drop Trump's chance of EC victory to 13/100:

[Rasulis]

Hoping this powers Ossoff and Warnock to wins!

Warnock (D): 41% (+21)
Loeffler (R): 24% (+3)
Collins (R): 22% (-1)
Lieberman (D): 3% (-8)

PPP / October 9, 2020 / n=528 / MOE 4.3% / Telephone

It's nice having a national candidate that helps down ballot races.

So far, states that show early voting turnouts (both by mail and in-person) by party affiliations show that Democrats outnumber Republicans by 2 to 1. Short of posting armed guards to turn way Democratic voters, voter suppression may not work so well this time.

[nonameelf]

I like how Trump is begging for California to vote for him now after he threatened to withhold disaster relief for fires in the past. No, Donny, you don't get to win California after threatening us, now fuck off out of the White House.

[Elegiac]

I like how Trump is begging for California to vote for him now after he threatened to withhold disaster relief for fires in the past. No, Donny, you don't get to win California after threatening us, now fuck off out of the White House.

If anything the Blue states should just use Texas's precedent and just excise Trump from history and poli sci textbooks, and then when Republicans complain we can ask them where their care about accuracy was when they were publishing propaganda about the Civil War.

[Kaleredar]

Most likely GOP motive in 2020?
Confusion and projection.

Confusion, they want to discredit the process as a whole.
With a big assist from Conservative Media and Mainstream Media for running headlines like:
"Unofficial ballot drop boxes found in three California counties"
Instead of headlines like:
"GOP Operatives placing unofficial ballot drop boxes found in three California counties"

Remember, the media always grades the GOP on a curve. And waits until paragraph 8 to actually attribute negative actions to the GOP. If the DNC did this, they would attribute Hillary in the headline or the lede.

Projection:
If mild GOP voter Karen sees one fake ballot box by her church. Fox News will insinuate that Antifa has 3 fake ballot boxes at every black or latino church.
Expect a couple of our Trump posters to run with this for the next 32 days. It will take Mark Dice about 4 days to cut a video, which they will link intermittently. Then Joe Rogan will interview some nitwit and "ask questions" about fake ballot boxes while high.

I suppose that’s possible, but who’s doing what is so patently transparent that I don’t imagine it gaining them any real ground in this way, ESPECIALLY because the GOP is straight-up supporting them and the democrats are quite unequivocally trying to stop it. The gop isn’t even trying to operate through some proxy, like they normally do in bad faith stunts like these. And while we might chalk that up to sheer audacity on their part, California is not the place where their shenanigans will be taken likely or simply looked over.

Perhaps the angle is similar, but with a different slant... they know these ballot boxes aren’t legitimate, they know the votes are likely to be thrown out, and they know the votes being thrown out are in California, where the GOPs votes really don’t mean much. So in essence they’re intentionally sacrificing the votes of their own party to try and create a narrative of the democrats being the ones disenfranchising people that they can point to as being evidence of some nation-wide problem and why mail-in ballots aren’t to be trusted.

[Rasulis]

I like how Trump is begging for California to vote for him now after he threatened to withhold disaster relief for fires in the past. No, Donny, you don't get to win California after threatening us, now fuck off out of the White House.

As of Sunday, 270k ballots have been turned in and accepted in CA. Last year only 13k.

Arizona is a blow out also. Last Wednesday was first day for in-person voting in AZ. Three thousand votes in Maricopa County alone that day.

All of Trump's talk about USPS not being able to properly handle the mailed ballots may be self-defeating.

[nonameelf]

But only Trump can save California from having to ration water!

You mean destroy the delta because whiny rich fucks in the south don't care about the north.

[Blur4stuff]

Normally I vote by mail, but this time around I'm doing it early in person. Trump's fuckery with the mail is absolutely backfiring to some extent. Will be impossible to know exact numbers, but the end result may get Biden more votes that he would have had otherwise. I imagine fucking with the mail motivated at least some amount of people to vote that maybe wouldn't have.

[Zaktar]

Implying the Republicans aren't already packing the courts.

There's a significant difference between what they're doing right now and increasing the number of justices to stack the court the way you want it. What stops a republican president who has control of the senate from packing the courts with personally loyal judges in 2024, or 2032, or whenever they next get full control of the executive and legislative branches? The common sense and good will of republican senators?

[Elegiac]

There's a significant difference between what they're doing right now and increasing the number of justices to stack the court the way you want it.

The difference being what? They've already overturned a ton of precedent with every single one of Trump's appointees.

Stop clutching your pearls because of a susceptibility to Republican gaslighting, please.

[kaid]

Normally I vote by mail, but this time around I'm doing it early in person. Trump's fuckery with the mail is absolutely backfiring to some extent. Will be impossible to know exact numbers, but the end result may get Biden more votes that he would have had otherwise. I imagine fucking with the mail motivated at least some amount of people to vote that maybe wouldn't have.

Yup it is very possible that the early in person or day of vote is a lot more heavily democratic than they are expecting due to these reasons.

[Bodakane]

There's a significant difference between what they're doing right now and increasing the number of justices to stack the court the way you want it. What stops a republican president who has control of the senate from packing the courts with personally loyal judges in 2024, or 2032, or whenever they next get full control of the executive and legislative branches? The common sense and good will of republican senators?

They've already done that.

The sheer absurdity to play scared when the opposition is already destroying everything is so stupid and counter intuitive, it has to be a ploy.

[Elegiac]

Posting from another thread because it is relevant: Facebook has announced it is now cracking down on Holocaust denial content as well as QAnon related conspiracy theories. One has to one exactly how much of these recent reversals of course are due to their executives looking at the polling and realising they didn't have a backup plan if the US government ever does decide to crack down on their bullshit, as it is likely to under a Biden presidency.

[alexw]

There's a significant difference between what they're doing right now and increasing the number of justices to stack the court the way you want it. What stops a republican president who has control of the senate from packing the courts with personally loyal judges in 2024, or 2032, or whenever they next get full control of the executive and legislative branches? The common sense and good will of republican senators?

And you think political norms or precedent would stop them otherwise?

Can you tell me what planet you've been living on for the past decade...?

The reality is nothing would stop a republican president doing it in 2024/2032, just as nothing stops Trump doing it now. The only reason they haven't done it already is not because it would be breaking precedent or be a bridge too far, but because they have no need to. They can and are packing the courts without tearing up another political norm.

If the democrats held off now but a time still came where to gain control of SCOTUS republicans would have to increase the number of justices, they'd not hesitate, they'd do it in a heartbeat, and we all know it.