For anyone who cares, Bitecofer blocked me bc I pointed out the problems w analyzing mid-term turnout using California (jungle primary) & Virginia (only fed elections on the ballot). She responded by moaning that they were affordable data sets & she was an expert & I wasn’t
Well, that’s actually not true. She blocked me for responding by telling her she’s a grad of a second tier program, w a non-tenure track job at a school nobody’s ever heard of, & who has no experience on campaigns, so maybe she should stop pulling out the credentialism bullshit
[I know academics who are brilliant & weren’t fortunate enough to get a job, so I’m in no way denigrating her bc of her credentials, I’m just pointing that disrespectful credentialism is BS, especially when your credentials aren’t all that.]
[It was also a bit jarring when she did that, because I’ve found it fairly rare for academics I’ve engaged to not explain/support/defend their arguments, but instead pull the credentialist cop-out.]
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When my son was little & we lived in the city my son would hear a garbage truck & sprint through our flat & out of the building so he could stand in the parking area & watch the sanitation workers. The recycling people weren’t friendly & were occasionally a bit jerky…/1
…but the people who emptied the residential trash cans were very friendly & would always talk to my son. I made it clear to my kids that those workers did hard work that was important for all of us & I don’t think it ever occurred to them to not respect those workers…/2
But my son’s favorites were the trucks that emptied the big buildings’ dumpsters. This was the first summer of the pandemic & my kids had little contact w other people & we seldom went anywhere so the garbage trucks were a highlight of his week.
First, a little context. Those three R counties are growing like crazy, all over 10% just since 2020. That may account for some of the increase. But also important, Forsyth & Cherokee have huge Dem trend lines. Here are the Repub margins in each county…/2
Both counties are on the northern edge of the Atlanta metro area. Much of their growth has come from upscale ppl w college degrees, many of them Asian, or white ppl born outside the South… /3
Few more thoughts about this
*A close election helps Trump (& potentially SCOTUS) steal it. If it’s a big win it’s harder
*Election night matters; Trump will allege Dems are dumping a bunch of fake votes. But if we win marginal Repub areas it could speed the process…/1
…of the networks calling places like Michigan & Wisconsin, and it also limits Trump’s lead (& possibly prevents one) when we’re looking at 13% or 42% of the vote counted & reported.
*Which Dem states aren’t close & have surprisingly quick calls, & which Repub states…/2
…are surprisingly close, & aren’t called early matters to Trump’s ability to claim fraud. I have no idea why Walz is going to Kentucky, but it just occurred to me that KY is typically one of the first states called on Election Night. Maybe Walz going there is to juice…/3
Read this article closely, esp what Plouffe says. My take:
*They think she’s ahead
*They don’t believe public polls that have the battlegrounds all within 2 points; suggests they believe some are in the bag
*They don’t need Repub votes to win
*Going after Repubs /1
…& doing a bunch of outreach in unorthodox places isn’t as much to squeak out a win as it is to run up the score
*They trust their data more than their polling
*Their internal presentations of where the campaign is & where it’s headed must be really good if…/2
…big donors feel good (since they’re usually freaked out).
To me it reads not that they know they’ve got it won, but that they know that if they execute that they will win, maybe big. /3
These are the first NYT/Siena polls that have had Trump trailing. But like all the NYT/Siena polls, Trump does MUCH better bc of the respondents who didn’t vote in 2020
Now, it’s normal for there to be a not insignificant % of the electorate who didn’t vote in the previous…/2
…election. But 2020 was the highest turnout since women could vote. In most battleground states turnout of the voting eligible population was over 70%. How much of the population didn’t vote in the highest turnout election ever but will this time? And why do the 2020…/3
1/ Democrats cannot nominate anyone except Joe Biden or Kamala Harris. It's impossible.
If the Biden candidacy ends, so does the Biden campaign. It's not transferable. Anyone else other than possibly Kamala Harris would have to start from nothing. That's can't be done.
2/It's possible I'm missing something, but I don't think so. Here's why the Democrats can nominate Joe Biden, or possibly Kamala Harris, but nobody else.
There's only one candidate with a 2024 presidential campaign committee registered with the Federal Election Commission
3/Some of the "stuff" of the Biden campaign can probably be transferred to the DNC (and maybe state parties), but most of it can't. Another candidate can't just take over Biden's campaign.
So, think about it.
A new nominee would not have a campaign. Like, not a tax ID...