Four years ago, Paul Simmons and I were ahead of the curve predicting Hillary having trouble holding down MI, PA, and WI. Sadly, our predictions came true. Fortunately, the Biden/Harris ticket is going to win back these states. This is because we have a both/and ticket.
The debate after 2016 was whether to go after Obama/Trump white non-college voters or increase non-white turnout while appealing to Romney/Clinton voters. In 2018, House Democrats successfully recruited different kinds of candidates who appealed to either kind of constituency and the result was a 40+ seat wave and a Democratic majority. At the early onset of the primary there were different lanes of candidates appealing to different voters, fortunately with Biden/Harris we can still do both strategies.
Biden appeals to those Obama/Trump non white voters. On a recent road trip*, I drove through Scranton and Erie which are two cities that narrowly went for Trump in 2016. Signs don’t vote, but I see far more Biden signs than Trump signs in these cities, as well as places outside of Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, Philly has elected a progressive D.A. and sent a socialist to Harrisburg on the strength of black turnout while the ancestrally Yankee Republican Philly burbs have become Never Trump Democratic voters. I’m confident PA is Biden/Harris country.
I also drove through Ohio, a true American amalgamation where Friendly’s, Steak and Shake, and Waffle House meet at various intersections. I saw more Trump signs on barns there than I did in PA, indicating the rural right is still going strong. That said, the Columbus and Cincinnati burbs were visibly pro-Biden. If Harris can also accelerate black turnout in Akron and Cleveland (which I bypassed), then I think it’s in serious play.
*im a Covid hawk and support a stricter shutdown, my wife and I (and her family whom we visited) all tested negative before the trip and we stayed in one house for the duration of the trip. We ate lunches we packed at road stops and avoided restaurants. We drove rather than flew and we self quarantined until we tested negative when we came back. This was a trip for my sister in laws housewarming originally planned for Easter and we strictly followed the travel guidelines our three home states.
I think you’re right that Mr. Biden will win the election in November.
I sincerely hope that the victory will actually mean something. It appears to me — and to a great many other observers — that Mr. Trump and his thugs are acting as though they do not intend to respect the will of the voters if it happens that way.
I’m getting more and more worried about that. That the intentional delay in processing and counting votes buys him inordinate amounts of time to question the Biden victory. It also gives him an excuse that if it’s a real landslide (say 60/40 Biden over Trump which is improbable but possible this year), that it’s obviously indicative of Fraud. We know we cannot trust the Senate to do its job and act as a guardrail for the republic. It may come down to John Roberts-who’s record on voting right is terrible overall.
He is likely to attempt an actual coup d’etat, soft or otherwise. But he will fail,
I htink the more likely scenario is
1) Encourage his supporters to vote in person, front-loading the process
2) Declare victory on election night based on early returns
3) Attack mail ballots as fraudulent, disqualifying as many as possible and discrediting the results of the election generally
Ours should vote in-person early too.
My wife and I will be voting in person. We’ve concluded that the polling place is no more risky than the outdoor restaurant seating we’ve been occasionally enjoying in the past few weeks and certainly less risky than most of the grocery stores we’ve been going to.
I was at MGH for a routine appointment a week ago. My appointment was on the fifth floor. There is no way for six or seven people to stay six feet apart from each other in the elevator, and I’m not willing to walk up five flights of stairs.
I’ve seen signs on elevators asking that folks limit capacity for that reason.
As to voting in person, I have signed up to be a poll clerk in Lowell as my contribution to helping the election run smoothly. I will take my own completed ballot to City Hall when I go there tonight to be trained for that job.
I’m glad ‘light is – at long last – dawning’ on this blog regarding Joe Biden. Welcome to the party. It’s never too late!
(Fred Rich Lariccia was trying his best to supply something called political wisdom last January and February. Every prediction he made has come to pass.)
Like I said, welcome aboard! Onward to victory. No hard feelings! You are great people who want the best for our nation.
Did you intend this as a reply to my comment?
I’ve been supporting Mr. Biden since the first black voices to be counted showed that, for better or worse, he is the overwhelming favorite of Democratic voters.
I’ve been expressing deep concern about Mr. Trump’s willingness to admit defeat for years.
You don’t need to apologize to us for travelling.
Appreciated Christopher.
Harris will likely have little to no impact on the electoral dynamics of the race, just like every VP candidate ever.
Joe Biden will receive more votes than Trump because Trump is the worst President in history, completely botched the handling of a pandemic, and is overseeing Depression-level unemployment. I think that will be enough to win the Presidency, but the chaos and election tampering Trump is engaging in could be effective enough in some places. If the election is not crystal clear, I suspect we’ll see a complete disaster through January 2021.
Every 4 years we engage in VP punditry but the result is always the same – VP doesn’t matter. This year, Trump will be driving almost all voter behavior on all sides.
I think this about nails it.
I think the complete disaster will be well underway by election day. I mean COMPLETE — Katrina-level chaos in pretty much every region. I think the transportation network will collapse. I think food supplies will collapse.
I think Mr. Trump and his thugs will do everything in their power — and they have a great deal of power — to create a situation of maximum chaos and disorder.
I think the plan is to seize “emergency powers” in the ensuing chaos. I think that seizure of power will be ratified by what’s left of Congress.
I don’t think America can afford to wait until January of 2021 to remove these criminals from power.
You really think a Dem House will ratify an attempted coup?
We’ve been over this ground before, Christopher.
If it gets to the House, then each state gets one vote and that vote is determined by a majority of the Representatives of that state.
Several sources report that the result is 26-24 in favor of the GOP.
That’s in the event of an electoral tie or a situation where neither candidate has enough votes. The bigger question mark will be whether states send competing slates of electors to be certified.
Michelle Obama really hit the nail on the head. Everyone’s gotta vote and everyone’s gotta vote for Biden so it’s overwhelmingly and the election cannot be stolen or doubted in any way.
The strategy of the Trumpists is becoming clear. That strategy appears to be to contest the outcome of the popular vote in key battleground states (especially with GOP legislatures and/or governors). The point of the effort is to mount legal challenges that prevent the outcome of the election to be certified prior to the December EC deadline.
No matter how large the margin in any state, the Trumpists will argue — simultaneously — that there are “millions more” votes for Donald Trump that are “illegally being suppressed” and “millions” of “fraudulent” votes for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Those preposterous claims will be backed up by equally preposterous lawsuits. Preposterous, but no more than the already absurd lawsuits that have already paralyzed the investigations of Congress and the State of New York (among others).
I hope this all ends well. I suggest that it is crucial that we keep our collective eye on the ball.
Agree 100%. I think everyone should
Follow and support Democracy Docket which is fighting this rearguard attempt to subvert the electoral process. The only saving grace is how transparently incompetent the Trump admin was in the post office, now we all know months in advance. It’s become an issue for swing state Republicans.
https://www.democracydocket.com/
I meant the House will not allow the seizure of emergency powers, but if it gets to choose the President it will be the next House which will likely be more Democratic and may even flip delegations. I believe all the questionable states have Dems in some key positions. We have been over this before and every time I tell you there are multiple safeguards in the system. That has not changed.
Oh, you mean the way that the House stopped the invasion of Portland OR by armed federal troops over the explicit opposition of civilian authorities? Or do you mean the way that the House and Courts stopped the illegal imprisonment of immigrants and the separation of babies from their mothers?
Do you mean the way that House has stopped the ability of the Trump family to enrich itself through the use of presidential powers for personal venal gain?
Had the House even TRIED to use even its most basic powers — such as its ability to impose Contempt of Congress penalties on White House officials whose response to Congressional subpoenas was a raised middle finger — then your argument would be more persuasive.
Donald Trump yesterday retweeted Russian propaganda — material that the US State Department has long ago identified as false and as sourced by Russia. Yet Donald Trump remains president. Donald Trump is systematically destroying everything he can find to destroy and the “safeguards” you describe have done absolutely nothing.
The “multiple safeguards” you put so much faith in have already failed. The fact that Donald Trump remains in power shows that they have already failed.
Why would “safeguards” that are almost never exercised work any better than those that have already failed?
Basic constitutional procedures are still a huge red line.
Are you suggesting that the Emoluments Clause is not a “basic constitutional procedure”?
That “huge red line” is only meaningful when Trumpist Representatives and Senators make it so. The first attempt failed miserably — so much so that a Democratic majority in the House declined to even mention it in the first Bill of Impeachment. Is there something that makes you think a second impeachment attempt would have a different outcome? When do you think that might happen?
There will not be another impeachment, but there will be an election and it will stick. As I recall you didn’t think Trump would “allow” (as if it were even up to him) a Democratic House to be seated either.
I don’t remember writing that.
If there will not be another impeachment, then how will the “huge red line” of basic constitutional procedures be enforced?
The votes will be counted in the presence of both chambers. They can object to any votes they believe have been certified falsely. I don’t think it will even get that far, however.
By the time it gets to the House, the votes won’t be “certified falsely” — they won’t need to be.
My point remains that we are talking about aspects of the constitution that have been exercised at most a handful of times. I don’t believe these provisions have EVER been tested in the context of a President and party explicitly intending to exploit weaknesses for their own benefit.
I suggest that the key event is the December vote of the Electoral College. I predict that the GOP will have legal challenges active against enough states that it will not be possible for Mr. Biden to achieve 270 EC votes without the EC votes of the contested states. I think the Supreme Court is likely to play an enormous role, even more so than in the 2000 election.
In the context of these legal challenges, it appears to me that the options available to the Supreme Court will be:
A. Order the lawsuits ignored in the contested states.
B. Order the EC vote to proceed without the participation of the contested states.
C. Delay the EC vote pending the outcome of the legal challenges
I suggest that Donald Trump and the Trumpist already have a plan in place for each of these outcomes.
Do we?
I’ll add an Amherst constitutional scholar laid some fairly frightening scenarios. Trumps campaign to gummy up the postal service to delay mail in ballots is a tactic in an overall strategy of suppressing Democratic votes and casting doubt on the legitimacy of any Democratic victory. It could lead to scenarios where swing states with divided government (MI, NC, PA and WI have this configuration) with or without a possibly retained Republican Senate can send competing states of electors to be certified which would precipitate a constitutional crisis.
There’s also the possibility Trump loses big and on election night and then still casts doubt on the results and makes no effort at a clean transition. I don’t see him being led out in chains or by soldiers, I do see him getting a Fox show or his own channel to keep rallying the faithful that his election was rigged by the deep state or the media and he could still hold the 2024 candidates in fealty because is base is that large and personally loyal.
My hope is that he recedes out of the spotlight after a stinging defeat, like Hoover, Carter, and HW Bush before him (all finer men in office and better statesmen out of office than Trump could ever be). When has Trump ever done this before? He can do a lot damage even if he loses.
https://zeeshanaleem.substack.com/p/just-how-dangerous-is-trump-right
This all makes sense to me.
These are why I think it’s crucial that an impartial DoJ investigate and prosecute pretty much the entire Trump apparatus, top to bottom, including all the family members and the entire network of family businesses.
I think EVERY violation of state and federal law MUST be documented and charged.
As the full extent of the criminality of these thugs is revealed, I think even the Trumpist base will reluctantly admit that pretty much all of them belong in jail.
I hope so. I give Vance credit for his persistent vigilance against Trump (wish he has been more vigilant against Epstein and Weinstein but go figure) on his taxes. There’s more than enough information in the bipartisan intelligence report to indict some people too, particularly Don Jr. and Steve Bannon.
Every single black voter I’ve talked to is excited to vote for this ticket now, including a few in safe states who were on the fence. I think representation matters and I think excitement and energy matters for turnout.
Biden helped make Obama palatable to white Americans while Obama generated unprecedented black turnout at the top of the tickets. They won the places an ideologically similar ticket that was all white could not. The days of VPs carrying states or regions is over, but I do think they matter on the margins in turnout. Black turnout being just 1% better in PA, WI, MI, and FL is enough to deny Trump a second term.
“Toss me a cigarette, I think there’s one in my raincoat”
“We smoked the last one an hour ago”
So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine
And the moon rose over an open field
Sorry, I don’t understand the reference.
A great Simon and Garfunkel song
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo2ZsAOlvEM
Didn’t they also write Trump’s theme song?:)
“Lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie
Lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie
L-l-l-l-lie!”
Haha they certainly should!
Sorry to be the turd in the punch bowl, but what happens when Biden wins and we go back to the same failed neoliberalism that we saw with Clinton and Obama?
Americans vote on election day and maybe have a march or a rally a few times after that, then we go back to NFL sports and same old same old.
I’m certain that Biden/Harris will win. What I am not certain of is whether or not the American public will push them back to the center bu pushing them to the left.
Will we fight for higher wages, not just “free college” as a rumored path to higher wages? Will we fight for health care as a right, not an “affordable” right? …and I could go on a while on all the “will we”? (Will we put ANYONE from this administration in jail?)
I’m not sure we will, and if we do not, I am certain, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Don Jr. or Ivanka will return to the White House.
I think they recognize bigger government is needed to get us through to the other side of this pandemic. Biden has already adopted Warren’s plans on bankruptcy (undoing one of his own signature laws), criminal justice, and taking on the banks. He has already adopted Sanders climate change proposal and most of the Green New Deal. Sunrise actually gave it good grades. Biden has always been more committed to unions and fair wage laws than the Clintons or Obama. The only stuff he is really still centrist on is fracking in PA and refusing to defund the police, and frankly he has to be in order to get elected. That does not mean we do not have to push him, and unlike in 2008, there is a large and effective grassroots left wing mobilization outside of the auspices of the DNC or the candidate. I think the DSA, WFP, Sunrise, ACLU, and others will hold his feet to the fire in a way OFA never could hold Obama’s.