Awsi Dooger wrote:
Runningart2004 wrote:
Trump’s popularity is literally lower in every state now vs when he assumed office. He won against a highly unpopular candidate. Clinton isn’t running again. I just don’t how he wins MI, WI, and PA again. Without those he loses. He also losing ground in traditional red states like TX.
Alan
His approval is lower than when he took office but not lower than when he won the election. His national exit poll number that day was 38% favorable 60% unfavorable. I could rattle off a half dozen other questions from that exit poll that are more favorable to Trump now. The opinion of the Republican Party was 40% positive 55% negative.
Obviously he was facing a polarizing figure with low upside. And Hillary stupidly prioritized the wrong states. I'll always insist that Obama winning North Carolina in 2008 was one of the worst things that ever happened to the Democratic Party and specifically regarding Hillary 2016. Somehow she thought it was a true swing state even though the ideological percentages screamed otherwise. The nation in 2016 was 35% conservative 26% liberals. North Carolina was 43% conservatives 22% liberals. Hillary was wasting time banging her head into an ideological wall while ignoring states like Wisconsin and Michigan that were exactly the same 9% gap between conservatives and liberals as the nation itself.
If Hillary's camp had merely polled on that topic instead of candidate to candidate they would have gulped and recognized the problem. People are often reluctant to say which candidate they prefer and that applied in major Shy Tory fashion to Donald Trump. But they are very rarely hesitant to say whether they identify as liberal, conservative or moderate.
I have zero respect for Donald Trump. Eventually he will be remembered as one of the worst Americans of all time. That is hardly opinion. Lies, fear, divisiveness and exclusion aren't exactly American values that will stand up to scrutiny.
Trump is competing in the only small window he could ever be viable. A decade earlier and his party was not ready to make a despicable leap like that. A decade later and the Silent Generation is all but gone, millennials are voting more dependably, and the math simply doesn't work for Republicans on that national level, not given the demographic shifts in Arizona, Georgia and Texas, among others. As I mentioned, there was no demographic shift in Michigan, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin. That was merely complacency and short term betrayal. Pennsylvania had only 6% fewer liberals than conservatives in 2016, which cements it as blue state.
I had to laugh at the typically clueless conservatives who somehow looked at 46% against Hillary Clinton as a sign of great things ahead, and who didn't know enough to evaluate Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on foundational terms instead of simpleton bottom line only.
The nation in 2016 dropped to only that 9% gap between liberals and conservatives. That was easily the greatest untold story of that election. I recognized it immediately on election night and posted it on liberal sites. Then it took the New York Times more than a year to write a related article. Previously that gap had been 12%, then 11%, then 10%. I was shocked it reached 9% so quickly. Then it maintained at 9% in the 2018 midterm, which is remarkable since midterms always trend older and more conservative.
There doesn't have to be parity or anything close to that among those two numbers, because moderates vote blue. Moderates were 52-40 for Hillary in 2016 and 62-36 blue in the 2018 midterm. Once that conservative edge over liberals drops to 7 or 8% there will be little stopping the moderate vote from shoving the Democrat over the top, unless the Republican has a marked candidate to candidate edge. That variable is never obvious well ahead of time. But you always want the fundamentals on your side and right now they are heading in one direction only. Thats why the GOP is so desperate to stack the courts here and now, and to suppress as much of the unfriendly vote as they can via Voter ID laws, etc.
BTW, I appreciate that some of you are willing to read this math stuff. Obviously the geniuses like, "Democrats lose again," will scoff at it. It doesn't fit the simpleton themes he is accustomed to, or hears from his family, friends and favored networks.
Trump can absolutely win again in 2020, if his approval rating rises another let's say 2 points, and Democrats cooperate by nominating someone who can easily be defined as too liberal and risky. Here in Florida I saw Democrats stupidly nominate Andrew Gillum for governor last year instead of more moderate Gwen Graham. That decision itself changed the fate of the governorship and probably took Bill Nelson down as well in the senate race. Ron DeSantis successfully applied the socialist tag on Gillum and it worked to astounding degree. An amazing 46% in the Florida exit poll said Gillum was too liberal for the state. I have followed that question for more than 25 years and never seen anything like that number. It basically means almost nobody who didn't vote for Gillum even considered him. Just north in Georgia the same question was posed regarding Stacey Abrams and 41% indicated she was too liberal for the state. That is another incredible number. That category seldom reaches above 35%.
I doubt Democrats were paying attention. They praised Gillum and Abrams instead of recognizing what a drag they were. Now if someone like Kamala Harris is nominated I won't be shocked at all if a California liberal is easily tagged as as socialist and enables Donald Trump to barely escape again. Harris has the most liberal voting record in the recent senate. That is a very easy reference point among 100. Trump understands he has zero risk attacking a Californian and everything about that state since he has no prayer of being competitive there anyway.
I am in disbelief that my party is even considering someone so mediocre and overrated and potentially damaging as Kamala Harris. She is always on tunnel vision attack and has no clue how to react on defense. The GOP would place her on defense without any trouble. But Democrats are lousy handicappers in general so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.