People tend to forget how difficult it is to defeat an incumbent President.

Gerald Ford was never elected President (he was appointed VP when Agnew resigned and became POTUS when Nixon resigned). One month after taking office, he alienated much of the country by pardoning Nixon.
For half of his first year in office, the US was in a recession. Then Saigon fell. Then America’s biggest city, New York, almost went bankrupt and Ford initially refused to help. The country was embroiled in bitter, sometimes violent protests over busing.
Ford had an average Gallup approval rating of 47%. When he ran for a full term in 1976, he made an incredible gaffe during a Presidential debate, saying there was no Soviet domination in Eastern Europe (which there was) and then doubled down on his misstatement.
Complicating matters further, a month before the election, Ford had to sack his Secretary of Agriculture for having made a crude, racist remark against black men.

And despite all of these things, Ford, the only President who was never elected as POTUS or VP, almost won!
The election of 1976 was one of the closest in US history. And the incumbent President, who got to the Oval Office only because both the President and Vice President had both resigned, and who presided over a lost war, recession, civil strife, STILL almost won.

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More from @TheValuesVoter

7 Oct
Let me say how I feel about the two major political parties.

Honestly, I find a lot of the aspects of the modern Democratic Party annoying.

I find a lot of the aspects of the modern Trumpist Republican Party frightening.

And I’ll take annoying over frightening. Any day!
I have never been a fan of Dem Progressives. I disagree with them in parts on policy and in parts on approach. I cringe when I hear some of them speak.

But they never tried to throw out my vote. They don’t pal around with Nazis. They haven’t tried to overthrow the government.
The modern GOP is whatever Trump says it is. They like whatever he says they like. They eat whatever he tells them to eat. It has no ideological core remaining. It exists now just to placate a bitter old man, undermine democracy and to push white nationalist rhetoric.
Read 7 tweets
7 Oct
I grew up around a lot of different types of people. I had friends across every spectrum - Black, White, Asian, Jewish, Muslim, etc. I got to know well folks who called themselves “Rednecks,” folks from the ‘hood and people from everywhere in between.

That’s how I like it.
I like being in environments in which everybody isn’t the same, however you apply that meaning. I’m comfortable in my own skin and am just as relaxed if I’m the only black person in a room as I am in any other situation. But I love people and am fascinated by them.
I like it when I see a bunch of people in a room all from different backgrounds. I learn a LOT from talking to people and learning to see things from other points of view. I love all people and being around all people.

But, to many people, this prospect is frightening.
Read 15 tweets
6 Oct
This is how the National Debt and the Federal Budget Deficit have changed year over year since 2001.
A couple observations:

The Federal Deficit has risen year over year in 11 of the past 20 years.

We had a Democratic President in 3 of those years. And a Republican President in 8 of them.
Of the 11 of the past 20 years in which the Federal Budget Deficit rose year over year:

Democrats controlled the Senate in 4 of those years.

Republicans controlled the Senate in 6 of those years.

In one year (2001), both parties held the Senate for months each.
Read 9 tweets
6 Oct
Every week, I track the Economist/YouGov poll which asks a lot of great questions, including how much people approve or disapprove of the Republican and Democratic Parties. Here is how approval of the two major parties has changed since right before the 2020 Election. Image
Both parties have a lower disapproval today than they had right before last November's election. But the Republicans have lost more ground than the Democrats have.

Dems have an edge with every group listed here with the exception of white men and white women without degrees. Image
White men without degrees dislike the Democrats as much as they did last November. But, for the moment, they don't like them worse than they did back then. This group has, however, soured a bit on the @GOP although they still favor it. Image
Read 6 tweets
4 Oct
@LeaderMcConnell and the majority of the @SenateGOP voted to suspend the debt ceiling on 8/1/2019. On that day, the US national debt was $22.023 trillion dollars. Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was Senate Majority Leader.
Joe Biden became President and the Democrats took control of the Senate on 1/20/2021. On that day the National Debt was $27.752 trillion dollars.

The debt had risen by $5.729 trillion since McConnell and his Caucus voted to suspend the debt ceiling 538 days earlier.
The debt is now $28.429 trillion dollars - just below our debt ceiling. But 89.43% of the debt we incurred since the GOP cooperated with suspending the debt ceiling on 8/1.
/2019 was borrowed during the time when Donald Trump was POTUS and @LeaderMcConnell controlled the Senate.
Read 10 tweets
3 Oct
The states that have had the most and the least deaths per 100k residents in 2021 so far (1/1/2021-10/2/2021, along with the percentage of the population that is fully vaccinated:

1) Alabama
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 192
% of State fully vaccinated: 42.3%
1/1/2021 - 10/2/2021:

2) Mississippi
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 164
% of State fully vaccinated: 43.1%

3) Oklahoma
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 163
% of State fully vaccinated: 47.4%

4) Arizona
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 157
% of State fully vaccinated: 50.9%
1/1/2021 - 10/2/2021:

5) Florida
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 156
% of State fully vaccinated: 57.0%

6) South Carolina
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 142
% of State fully vaccinated: 47.0%

7) Louisiana
YTD Deaths per 100k pop: 140
% of State fully vaccinated: 45.2%
Read 8 tweets

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