The number that keeps coming back up for me is the polls of Trump supporters that ask "who could the Democrats nominate that would make you switch your vote from Trump to that candidate". The two candidates who consistently get over 10% in that metric are Bernie and Yang. I suspect that's why the "If nominee, then vs Trump" numbers are what they are... that's the whole ball game, right there. Flip 10% and get even passable base turnout (which you will regardless of nominee because they're voting against Trump), and it's probably over.
But then I remind myself of the history of incumbents never losing, and the democratic party's penchant for shooting itself in the foot, and that hope dissipates a bit. Maybe I'm just trying to insulate myself from disappointment.
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Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 08-29-2019 at 01:09 PM.
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The number that keeps coming back up for me is the polls of Trump supporters that ask "who could the Democrats nominate that would make you switch your vote from Trump to that candidate". The two candidates who consistently get over 10% in that metric are Bernie and Yang. I suspect that's why the "If nominee, then vs Trump" numbers are what they are... that's the whole ball game, right there. Flip 10% and get even passable base turnout (which you will regardless of nominee because they're voting against Trump), and it's probably over.
But then I remind myself of the history of incumbents never losing and that hope dissipates a bit. Maybe I'm just trying to insulate myself from disappointment.
Flipping 10% would be rout by any measure.
Anyway, polling like that doesn't mean anything until a) the Dems get a candidate and b) there is a campaign.
I'm giving Trump very good odds. He's not as dumb as people think, he's been Teflon to every mini or mega scandal, and the Democrats are really not a great political party.
Warren as VP makes far more sense to me than Warren at the top of the ticket. I just think Biden is clearly out of it (he can't seem to remember what state he's in at times and has already suggested that the current pace of the primary race is too much for him). I also doubt he's going to win the nomination at the end of the day, because eventually one of Bernie or Warren will drop out, and neither candidate's supporters are likely to have Biden as their second choice.
The odds above seem to think that it'll be Bernie dropping out and his supporters going to Warren, I guess, but it could really go either way.
Because of this, both will likely stay in the race until the end.
Anyway, polling like that doesn't mean anything until a) the Dems get a candidate and b) there is a campaign.
I agree, though that goes both ways... a "who would you vote for if they were nominated" poll requires a bunch of things, beginning with whether the respondent even knows who the democratic primary nominees even are. No one's going to respond "I'd vote for Tim Ryan", because 99.5% of people being asked that question don't know who Tim Ryan is.
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I'm giving Trump very good odds. He's not as dumb as people think, he's been Teflon to every mini or mega scandal, and the Democrats are really not a great political party.
Which is why they need to stop trying to campaign on creating scandals for Trump. They don't work. Everyone who's going to be convinced that he's terrible already thinks he's terrible. You're not winning anyone new over with the 1000th story about Trump being terrible.
I mean, sure, continue to make sure those stories get out there, because "Trump is deporting children with cancer" is the sort of thing that energizes your base to vote to get rid of him. But "Trump is awful and we should strive to be better as a nation" can't be the centerpiece of the strategy. That will result in another loss.
Unfortunately, as we agree, the Democrats are pretty terrible at this, and many of them are basically treating the primaries as an audition for the role of "Who can attack Trump the hardest and best", as if the measure of the best nominee is who can generate the most "got 'im" cheers from an audience of die-hard supporters. So I feel like I have good reason for my pessimism.
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Because of this, both will likely stay in the race until the end.
What do you mean by "the end"? If you mean the convention, I doubt it, unless something very weird happens. If you mean Super Tuesday, that wouldn't be too surprising.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I agree, though that goes both ways... a "who would you vote for if they were nominated" poll requires a bunch of things, beginning with whether the respondent even knows who the democratic primary nominees even are. No one's going to respond "I'd vote for Tim Ryan", because 99.5% of people being asked that question don't know who Tim Ryan is.
Which is why they need to stop trying to campaign on creating scandals for Trump. They don't work. Everyone who's going to be convinced that he's terrible already thinks he's terrible. You're not winning anyone new over with the 1000th story about Trump being terrible.
I mean, sure, continue to make sure those stories get out there, because "Trump is deporting children with cancer" is the sort of thing that energizes your base to vote to get rid of him. But "Trump is awful and we should strive to be better as a nation" can't be the centerpiece of the strategy. That will result in another loss.
Unfortunately, as we agree, the Democrats are pretty terrible at this, and many of them are basically treating the primaries as an audition for the role of "Who can attack Trump the hardest and best", as if the measure of the best nominee is who can generate the most "got 'im" cheers from an audience of die-hard supporters. So I feel like I have good reason for my pessimism.
Yup.
The best candidate will be the one who can credibly elide Trump's attacks and speak directly to voters. This is an extremely difficult challenge.
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The best candidate will be the one who can credibly elide Trump's attacks and speak directly to voters. This is an extremely difficult challenge.
Hence why I like Yang.
I know, pipe dream, and I've generally been a UBI skeptic. For all I know, it'd wind up being the Democratic version of "build a wall", the election promise that's too difficult to implement and just never happens. But policy aside, his whole messaging is completely on point in terms of "how do you beat Trump".
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While some of his ideas may not be implementable, I certainly appreciate the refreshing approach he takes, to try and tackle the broken system that exists.
The best candidate will be the one who can credibly elide Trump's attacks and speak directly to voters. This is an extremely difficult challenge.
This is where I think Yang, Buttigieg, and potentially Harris would excel.
On another train of though...if Sanders or Warren won the nomination, do they select each other as the VP candidate? It seems like the obvious choice from a policy perspective, but wouldn’t help their ‘broad appeal’ or being a substantially different perspective.
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CNN's climate change town hall tonight... five freaking hours of it. Here are the segments for the top candidates who have spoken thus far, plus Klobuchar. I assume Buttigieg is to come.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
You have to be pretty extreme to have a shot with this potion of the base, though, so it's not a huge surprise that they're all tripping over themselves to be the most ambitious. Jay Inslee's goal is achieved.
So, MSNBC has been deliberately omitting Yang from graphics for a while, leading to a "YangMediaBlackout" trend that in turn caused CNN to respond a couple of days ago. But this is just next level malfeasance.
So, there are ten candidates. Count to 9 and... who's missing? Why it's Yang.
Then an NBC senior producer lies outright, and tweets a false image.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
Last edited by CorsiHockeyLeague; 09-05-2019 at 10:30 PM.
After looking into the responses, this is actually a long trend... and it's hilarious.
Spoiler!
This is an image from the first debate, purporting to show all of the people who made it. It omits Yang, and includes Bullock, who didn't make it.
From earlier on - Yang was next in this poll, but I guess there was no room for him on the graphic.
All of the candidates' speaking time at the original debate hosted by MSNBC (the second was hosted by CNN and was not egregious)
Note: MSNBC is hosting the next debate and no other networks are allowed to cover it, even CSPAN.
After the first debate, Yang's positive twitter mentions were the highest of the candidates owing to the hashtag "letYangspeak". MSNBC's graphic doesn't list him at all.
At the time this tweet was made, Yang was 8th in the polling. He's not included on a graphic showing 20 candidates.
Another poll where Yang was 8th, but again, clearly no room for him on the screen.
This is the poll that allowed Yang to get into the fall debates - he qualified with a result of 2%. But that's not important, right? No need to include his name, we've got to talk about Steyer (who didn't qualify) and Gillibrand (who didn't qualify and has now dropped out).
Not that CNN is immune... guess who finished immediately behind Buttigieg in this poll? Sorry, ran out of space...
In this poll, Yang got 3%, but they instead show O'Rourke with 1%.
People got upset about that, so they fixed it! ... Sort of?
I mean, come on. How is all of this not a deliberate attempt to ensure no one finds out the guy is running? Can incompetence be this coordinated?
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
