The Joy Of Opening Time Capsules: The Night Before the 2024 Presidential Election
We had one of these back in January where we discussed whether or not Trump would be on the November ballot.
We had one of these back in July where we discussed whether or not Biden would be on the November ballot.
And we had one of these back in October back when we were still young and innocent and P’nut the squirrel was still alive.
Here’s the big thing: The ballots are finally hammered down. It’s Harris/Walz vs. Trump/Vance.
We have a Senate election with *9* retirements including Arizona’s Sinema and West Virginia’s Manchin. For Republicans, Indiana and Utah have Braun and Romney retiring. Democrats have Butler retiring in California (Feinstein’s old seat), Carper in Delaware, Cardin in Maryland, Stabenow in Michigan, and Helmy in New Jersey.
The House currently has 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats (1 Republican resigned recently, 2 Democrats passed away).
Draw your map and post a link to it. (I’ve taken the liberty of using “same since 2000” as a starting point).
Any surprises on your map? (Let’s define a surprise as the ability to yell “IN YOUR FACE!” to someone else on the board.)
As for the senate, there are 34 seats up for election this year. 33 of them are for “Class 1” and 1 of them is from “Class 2”. Of these, 20 Democrats are up for re-election, 10 Republicans, and *FOUR* independents (each of which caucused with the Dems).
So, right away, it’s 24 Dem seats versus 10 Republicans. Just flipping a coin gives the Republicans somewhere around 7 seats. But, of course, it’s stuff like California and Delaware in the election. That ain’t a coin flip. We’ve got (deep breath): Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska (twice, one of them is the special election), Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
How many seats are picked up/lost? We’re 50/50 today… what will the balance be come 2025? Which loss is the most surprising?
The house is 220 to 212. What will it be come 2025?
Lay down your marker! (Remember, you can’t make fun of anybody else’s predictions until you lay down your own.)
And, as always, here’s the links to past predictions:
In 2011, we made predictions about 2012 and then, in 2012, enjoyed reading those predictions.
Back in 2015, we made predictions about the coming nominations and then, in 2016, had a real hootenanny looking back again.
In 2018, we made predictions about what would happen in the mid-terms.
And, yes, in 2019, we made predictions about who the Democratic nominees would be.
In 2020, we made predictions about the presidential election.
And, in 2022, we made predictions about the off-year election.
I’m going to have to think about this for 2-3 hours but I will say that when I spend 10 minutes on Bluesky, I walk away thinking that Harris will win with a landslide because of all of Trump’s missteps and when I spend 10 minutes on twitter, I walk away thinking that Trump will win in a landslide because of all of the Democratic leadership’s missteps.
I am not immune to propaganda.Report
So you want us to do it but you admit you are incapable of doing it yourself. GreatReport
Part of the problem is that I look and I see fifteen different outcomes and each of the fifteen is equally likely.
I see A happening.
I see B happening.
I see C happening.
Each one makes sense and, for each one, I can explain exactly how it happened and the stuff that ran up to it. For all fifteen.Report
I’m leaving for work shortly and will vote on my way there.
I will take my experience from voting and extrapolate it out to the rest of the country.Report
As God intended.
still better than desperately hoping for one outcome and fitting all data points back to it.Report
I arrived at the DMV around 8ish. The parking lot was pretty empty. I was able to park close to (but not *NEXT* to) the building.
In years past, when I’ve gone in to vote, I’ve never had to wait long (back in 2020, I didn’t have to wait at all) so the lack of a line wasn’t that surprising (also, it was 8ish). (back in 2016, I had 3 people ahead of me in line).
A guy walked in about 10 feet in front of me to vote and I followed behind and he was waved over to one of the desks where an election official took his data. I walked up and was quickly waved over to the last open desk.
Handed over my ID, confirmed that all of the info on it was still good, and I got my ballot before I could get distracted by Twitter.
I walked over to the little voting desks and noticed that I had to look around to find one. In 2020, the little desks were responsibly socially distanced.
This year, we were back to normal but I had to look to find an open one among the sea of heads.
I asked the guy “Crazy day?” and he said “not too bad, actually… thought we’d get more!”
So.
There was not a line.
The voting booth desk areas were pretty much full up, though.
There were a ton more people than 2020.
I don’t remember if there were more people than 2016. I *THINK* so, but I didn’t have a line this year and I definitely had a line in 2016.
So Colorado is definitely going Harris, but it feels like El Paso is more into it than it was in 2020 and 2016.
Extrapolating out to the rest of the country from there, it looks like it’s going to be 50/50.
I’ll give it a 270-Harris/268-Trump. Neither candidate will break 50% of the popular vote.
It’s a mandate!Report
I am too far away to ask my election official friends if people were coming down the mountains and out of the hollows to vote for the first, nay second, nay third time.
It remains a mystery to me.
on the other hand, my timeline is saturated with AmSol votes! Big if True.Report
Twitter is saying that the Amish are coming out to vote in PA.
If the ents awaken…Report
Somewhere in Lancaster County, PA two women in wimples exchange knowing glances over their polling partitions… and vote for Trump.Report
I’m not predicting this, but if black men and the Amish deliver PA to Trump? I don’t even know how to start that post-mortem.Report
In my state, a third of registered voters took advantage of early voting. I’ve heard from a few people who ran out this morning, and they all said it was amazingly uncrowded. Might be a different situation in your neck of the woods, but I don’t think the election day polling station vibes are as reliable this year as they were in the past.Report
Early voting started a few weeks ago in NJ but only at select location. My polling place is the elementary school directly across the street. I had planned to vote this evening but as I got ready to leave this morning, I saw folks lining up for the 6AM opening. I wandered over with my mug of coffee, waited in line about 20 minutes, and cast my vote. The line was longer by the time I left. I’ll be curious to see what it looks like this afternoon. Polls close at 8, though I won’t be able to watch too closely as we have the nephew’s birthday dinner this evening.Report
Yeah i had to go to the other town district’s voting location, but for me it wasn’t much less convenient than the usual spot. I’ll be curious to see the numbers for our town specifically — word of mouth from today’s voters is no one yet has seen a line longer than 4 people.Report
One reason I waited is my 6th grader is studying government and the election, so I had planned to bring him. Schedules ultimately conspired against that but the convenience of “walk across the street with coffee mug in hand” remained too much to pass up.Report
According to a quick google, more than half of Colorado voters voted early.
More than half!
I am a firm believer in walking in and standing in line.
Hell in a handbasket, I say.Report
I like in person but also prefer going early to avoid the lines. Last time I went on election day was 2016
It took almost an hour and I didn’t like it.Report
My company offers 2 hours of paid leave to vote on election day. (There’s an honor system so if it takes an hour, they ask you to not put both hours of leave on your timecard.)
One of my co-workers learned this and announced that he would be voting on his (long) lunch break.
So I asked him a bunch of questions to keep in mind when he voted. Here are the questions and his answers:
Did you stand in line? For how long?
“I stood in line for 15-20 minutes.”
Did you get your ballot quickly or did the printers jam or something?
“I got the ballot quickly.”
When you voted at the little stand-up desks, did you have an empty desk on either side or were you next to somebody? (Or two somebodies?)
“I was next to somebody.”
Did they run out of stickers?
“I got myself a sticker.”
How was the parking?
“It wasn’t that bad.”
And I just confirmed that he voted at the same place I did this morning.
So there’s that.Report
Didn’t know you were on Bluesky.Report
I read it. I rarely comment. I suppose I should use it as my cat picture dump.Report
Oh, wait, turns out I did know that. I already follow you there, and you follow me back.
I just recycled one of Our Tod’s jokes about a certain Twitter personality, because I know Tod won’t mind.Report
I’m terrible at national stuff. I’ll confine myself to: the 13-state West will be bluer than the pundits are predicting. Harris wins AZ and NV, the AZ and NV Senate seats stay blue, Tester will be closer than people think, all four of the abortion ballot initiatives pass, the total number of (D) Representatives increases by two, and one of the two AZ state legislative chambers flips.Report
Californication?Report
The West is GOP baby. Maybe you could pitch in a bit, help Colorado get with the program.Report
Do you think so? I don’t. The 13-state West consists of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming — the Rocky Mountains and points west.
As I look about the west, I see only Idaho, Wyoming, and Utah as solidly red such that Democrats are not even competitive. But I see four coastal states where Republicans are in the same boat, and Colorado and New Mexico look pretty solid for the Dems too. That’s six sapphires to three rubies — and the sapphires are bigger.
The other four — Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Montana — are moving in different directions, but three of these have been electing Democrats at least as much as Republicans lately (in the past decade or so). We’ll see what data points get added to those curves today. I’m not optimistic about Tester’s chances but it’s not for nothing that AZ and NV considered swing states at the Presidential level.
I say the western states are, in aggregate, much more Democratic than Republican.Report
The two large political geography stories of the last 30 years are much of the Midwest turning Republican, and the West turning heavily Democratic. And it hasn’t been just the coastal states. At this moment, and obviously subject to change today, the eight-state Mountain West has one more Democratic US Senator than the 13-state Midwest.Report
Two years ago you predicted an enormous GOP wave sweeping the West. That turned out to be the Nevada governor’s office.Report
Big day tomorrow. It’s the NFL trade deadline. The Steelers need a receiver…..wait….never mind.
Harris gets a strong win. Takes one of the two southern BG’s and at least one of the western BG’s. Trump will let the lawsuits fly and there will be some minor violence by Trumpers.Report
Harris wins and Democrats retake the House.
Harris will win the following swing states: PA, MI, WI, NC, AZ, and NV pretty quickly.
I can see Georgia going either way. I think Harris wins NC because Stein is crushing Robinson and from what I read the local state-wide races are also all D leaning. So there is a bit of reverse coattails. The same is true in Arizona (Gallego is crushing Lake). NV won’t be as close as it looks because it automatically registers new voters as Independents and these voters will swing strongly towards Harris especially in Clark County.
Iowa: I believe the Selzer poll is freaking Republicans out. Trump can still eek a win but Red Eagle Strategies rushed out a weekened push poll showing Trump up by 7 or 8 and that makes me think they are concerned.
If Harris wins Iowa for the reasons Selzer states she is winning (big swing from older women voters) expect a few more surprises such as Cruz and/or Scott going down.
Senate:
Democrats hold WI, MI, PA, NV, and AZ (technically AZ would be a gain). Rs gain WV
Toss-Up: Ohio, Montana, and Nebraska (technically R v. I). Brown has held is own and knows how to win. Tester looked like he was going down for a while but recent polling gives him a puncher’s chance. If Selzer is correct about Iowa, it gives Brown and Tester and Osborn advantages. It may also give Allred and whoever is going against Scott advantages.Report
Dartmouth has Harris up by 28 in New Hampshire: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/us/elections/polls-president-new-hampshire.htmlReport
https://x.com/notcapnamerica/status/1853244712360022520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1853244712360022520%7Ctwgr%5Ed0a036ccdbfb332a9c8a1e545ad94afc16ed58ba%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fdisqus.com%2Fembed%2Fcomments%2F%3Fbase%3Ddefaultf%3Dlawyersgunsmoneyblog-comt_i%3D14591020https3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F3Fp3D145910t_u%3Dhttps3A2F2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com2F20242F112Flgm-prediction-postt_e%3DLGM20prediction20postt_d%3DLGM20prediction20post20-20Lawyers2C20Guns202620Moneyt_t%3DLGM20prediction20posts_o%3Ddescversion%3D3eb318847b9ba051e1aaed202ef5cc92
I have seen a lot of anecdata like this about doorknockers and other GOTV types discussing how Dobbs is being underestimated. If this is true, we might have lots of surprises tomorrow nightReport
Trump’s closing arguments are a triple down on his worse: https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/11/the-closing-arguments-of-the-civil-discourse-candidatesReport
Here’s what I’ve got.
History suggests polling understates Trump support in the midwest among non-college whites. There is also a history of under-counting minority votes, though, leaving me more bullish on the southern states.Report
See, my thoughts were that if polling understates Trump support *AGAIN*, we’re going to see a Trump victory.
If it’s by only +1, maybe we’ll have a 50/50 election. But if it’s +2 or +3, we’re going to see Trump sworn in.
*BUT*
2016 had a *HUGE* third party undercurrent (Gary Johnson, baby!). So that might have acted as a release valve.
But did 2020? I voted for Jo but she got 1% instead of Gary’s 5%. All of that 4% went to Biden.
You know what I’ve heard about Chase Oliver? Diddly Squat.
I *HAVE* heard a handful of things about Jill Stein (mostly in regards to Michigan).
So it comes down to the 3rd Parties again, I guess.
The Libertarians are going to get 1%, just like last time.
The Greens? How much will the Greens hoover up? They barely got a quarter in 2020. Will they get that much in 2024? They might double that and end up with .5%.
What will the 3rd Party People do? Will they go *BACK* to voting 3rd Party? Will they vote Harris? Will they vote Trump?
Dude. I have no idea.
I will say that Harris isn’t polling as strongly as Clinton was at this point in 2016.
And *THAT* makes me think “Trump”.
But the 3rd Party voters man… they’re not 3rd Party anymore.Report
You aren’t the first people person doing this but I don’t understand the people who think PA and WI will go for Trump. I’m not sure they will even be close.
According to NBC:
1. There are 1.77 million early votes in PA and the partisan breakdown is 56 D, 33 R, and 11 O.
Let’s assume Harris and Trump get 90 percent or higher of their registered voters and split the Os evenly. This gives Harris a big fire wall. If you add in some other changes like the recent Univision poll giving Harris big leads among Puerto Rican voters and possible national ramifications from Selzer’s Iowa +3 poll, Harris has a good firewall even if this only represents 20 percent or so of the total PA electorate.
2. Wisconsin has nearly 1.5 million ballots counted and the partisan breakdown is 41 O, 34 D, 25 R. In 2020 about 3.2 million people voted in Wisconsin so this represents nearly half the vote in. Again, assuming party registration equals Presidential candidate voted for, the GOP would really need to crush it with Os to have a chance and I don’t see that in this environment. Though it is plausible.
I agree with you that Harris is a strong contender in NC especially considering that Democratic candidates are favorites in all the state-wide races and Josh Stein is crushing Robinson in the governor race.
Arizona barely flipped for Biden in 2020 and I can see it being a return to Trump. The current breakdown of 2.1 million votes cast is 42 R, 33 D, 25 O. There were about 3.3-3.4 million votes cast in Arizona in 2020 so it is possible a majority of the vote has already been cast. The again, Gallego crushes Lake in the polls. Emerson has Gallego up by 5, NY Times/Sienna by 8. Only right-wing push pollers give Lake an upside advantage (and Gallego ruthlessly fundraises using their polls). I have a hardtime seeing a universe where Gallego wins by 5-8 but Trump gets a victory.
Georgia I think is a Trump potential too. There are just over 4 million votes cast. The breakdown is 48 R, 45 D, 7 O. The final Presidential vote tally in 2020 was 4.9ish million. If the 2020 numbers hold up, it means an astonishing amount of the vote was cast before election day. Ds could win it but I think they would need a bunch of R breakaway votes here and they would really need to crush it with in person voting and with Os.Report
Basically where I am. Maybe swap PA and NC.Report
NC was a last minute move for me. People with some familiarity with the state are telling me that all the signs are good.
On the flipside, two weeks ago I had Arizona in the Harris column.Report
There’s a part of me that has wanted very badly to go to that map but I tend to lean in Saul’s direction, that if Harris is getting both NC and GA it’ll be part of a blowout.
The reason I still kind of like your map though is that it’s consistent with where the fundamentals are for the economy, sentiments towards the incumbent party, inflation, immigration, etc. BUT has the GOP blowing their advantage by nominating a candidate beyond the pale for too many people, and the economic situation isn’t so bad that on the fence voters are willing to entertain it. I mean, imagine telling people a year ago Trump would win PA and still narrowly lose the election. It seems crazy but it’s also just the kind of thing that could happen.Report
Honestly, when people predict things like Harris wins but Trump gets WI and PA, it feels like a desire for something unique to happen more than anything elseReport
Dobbs + Herding
Kamala 319 – Trump 219 – 52.4% – 46.6% – 3rd Parties total 1%
Democrats 50 – Republicans 50 (Not sure which, but there’s going to be one surprise)
Dem’s 225 – GOP 210Report
I’ll take it. Though if Harris does that well, I think there is a good chance of Democrats retaining the Senate with a more than 50 seat and Walz as the tiebreaker lead.
Harris getting 52.4 percent of the vote indicates a push to the Ds because of Dobbs which might indicate a surprise in Texas. I think Tester and Brown both have puncher’s chances to win reelection. Brown more than Tester.Report
I think Tester is toast, sad to say.
Texas gets our hopes up in statewide races a lot, and it never really pans out, but a lot of that is because we get excited about candidates who appeal to Blue State Dems and raise a lot of money without really being competitive in the state, and partly because because Cruz is such an oleaginous butthead.
Haven’t really paid enough attention [1] to know whether it’s the same story with Allred. And of course there’s the chance voters will be punishing Cruz for Dobbs and the subsequent cruelty and carnage that the TX GOP has wrought.
[1] Partly to avoid getting my hopes up.Report
Some more general thoughts:
1. I think the media and pollsters have been downplaying or outright ignoring Dobbs for the entire election because they are mainly not women and think of it as a girl cooties issue;
1a. They may have been right but Trump decided to go all in with the fratbro crowd and this might end up being a massive self-own. Marist/NPR/PBS thinks Harris has closed in on the gender gap: https://maristpoll.marist.edu/polls/u-s-presidential-contest-november-2024/
“The gender gap nationally has been cut by more than half. A 15-point gender gap now exists compared with 34 points in early October. Harris (47%) has carved into Trump’s advantage (51%) among men. Now, only 4 points separate the two among these voters. Trump previously had a 16-point advantage among men. While Harris (55%) maintains a double-digit lead over Trump (44%) among women, her lead has decreased from 18 points.”
3. I think October 27th (MSG rally) onwards has produced a downward spiral in the Trump campaign and in reaction to him. Trump’s response to this seems to be a triple down and that is not playing well especially with Latino(a) voters and women.Report
Trivia, the town of Dixiville Notch has voted:
They vote 5-1 Ayotte – Craig and split 3-3 Harris -Trump.Report
The funny thing I didn’t know until this cycle is the actual voters in Dixville Notch gets cycled out every election, so the 6 people there are different than the people who voted in 2022Report
Rotten Borough.Report
In 2020, Dixiville Notch voted 5-0 for Joe Biden.
In 2016, Dixiville Notch voted 4-2 for Hillary Clinton.Report
In vaguely related news, Guam’s vote is finalized:
🔵 Harris: 49.5% (+3.3)
🔴 Trump: 46.2%Report
Who the hell is “P’nut the squirrel”? *google* Jesus Horatio Christ, the Republican echo-chamber is dumb today. You can’t own wild squirrels in most states. How about we worry about the _dogs_ being killed by the cops before the _illegal_ pets?
Anyway, in 2020 I didn’t make a prediction, because I had no idea how 2016 had gone so wrong, but at this point I’m willing to go again and…boldly take the exact same position as a bunch of others:
Dobbs mattered more that people think, and the polls are wrong, the assumed voters are incorrect. I’m not going to try to guess individual states, not even my own, but this race is not going to be as close as people seem to be thinking it will be.Report
“Who the hell is Harambe?”Report
Harambe was slightly interesting and sad news that turned into a absurdist meme.
P’nut is being talked about in a political context, where people are, apparently seriously, saying that it says something about ‘Democractic overreach’.
I live in Georgia. It is illegal to own a squirrel as a pet here. It’s illegal in most states to own squirrels, and the few that allow it require domesticated squirrels of a specific species purchased from breeders, not wild squirrels. If it’s an example of government overreach, it’s a government overreach we all signed up for.
I don’t know, I just read a quick summary of it. Maybe no one is being serious there, maybe this is another ‘dicks out for Harambe’, where everyone involved feels slightly bad for an animal dying, and kinda wishes there was another way, but knows the response is stupid and they’re just all joking. Maybe it’s sarcastic”Look at the government overreach! (But, yeah, you can’t collect any random animal from the wild as a pet, duh.)”
OTOH, the Republican echo-chamber has indeed taken extremely stupid positions before.Report
“P’Nut was being housed illegally!”
Personally, I’m pleased that the government put that many cops on the job to redress this issue.
An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.Report
Sticking with where I was in October.
Democratic House, odds 90% it is 5 seats or fewer, 10% 5-10 seats, 1% more than 10.
GOP Senate 52-48….
…Harris victory, 287-251.
This has her holding PA, MI, AZ, NV, WI. I just don’t think the fundamentals have shifted in favor of Harris for anything more decisive than that, but today will be about the GOP underperforming the odds with numerous unforced errors, most notably nominating Trump himself. Her win will go through the midwest, not the south.Report
NC is kind of a weird case because you have Mark Robinson running for Governor.
I pretty much never say that GOP pols are worse than Trump, but I’m pretty sure that guy is actually worse than Trump. Now usually this is the kind of thing I expect to have little to no impact, but given NC has cycle after cycle of being super-close, “little impact” coupled with Musk’s astonishing approach to GOtV could tip things our way.Report
Another potentially weird thing in NC is the flow of relief funds after Hurricane Helene. The GOP was all in on how terribly FEMA and the SBA were doing, but now hundreds of millions of federal dollars have arrived. Plus Mike Johnson’s possible own goal stating that if the agencies ran out of money it was no big deal because there wouldn’t be any federal money arriving until after the election any way.
When I worked on the budget staff for the state legislature here, it was disturbing how little the members knew about how the government actually functioned.Report
i still think it’s Inconceivable that Trump wins in a meraphysical sense. but that said, I have no prediction. My two observations (original or not):
1. I feel like the walls have been breached already…but we just don’t know whose, yet. I suspect a clear EC winner…
2. If base polling ops really are herding to avoid reputational damage, I hope they suffer reputational damage… but if Harris narrowly wins and they herded the polls to overstate Trump? Then we should cut off their ears so we might know who they are when we pass them in the street.
at this point I’m genuinely curious on seeing some revealed preferences.
My controversial statement for election day: The Dem ads on Abortion were so factually wrong that in any other scenario we would have called them Russian disinformation.Report
Prediction:
It will be close, and the losing side may or may not concede, but will not surrender.
The larger struggle will continue for the next decade.Report
Harris and Trump are both so weak/unusual as candidates that the normal models are questionable. Add to that Silverman’s statements about battleground polling being a mess and we’re deep into “IDK”.Report
What makes Harris particularly weak and/or unusual?Report
My take is that Harris is a pretty good candidate, but being nominated without any primary campaign, even a perfunctory one, is very unusual.
I think this has had both positive and negative effects, because she was able to get to the general without putting down a lot of the markers she would normally have needed to put down. But she also wasn’t really forced to go through the healthy-but-tricky process of defining herself separately from the Biden admin.Report
I don’t think she’s a good candidate or campaigner. In fact, if she wins this is likely the only sort of campaign she could: one where she replaces a damaged Biden and runs as a generic Democrat. in other words, by not having to come up with a Harris brand and message, she avoids running on a brand and message she came up with.
So crazy it might just work.Report
I think this is right. She was a very poor candidate in ’20, and has not done much, or even been particularly visible, since. The circumstances of her nomination, her (relative) youth*, and who her opponent, have produced more enthusiasm than she could have produced in pretty much any other context, I think.
She’s older than me, but I heard an interview of a college student (I can’t remember if it was local or on national radio) a week or two ago say that they felt she was a young person like them, and I felt like this was such an indictment of our political system and its tendency to put very old people in power.Report
It’s just as well, the ‘brand’ Democrats come up with during the primary is always nonsense anyway, and it’s basically ‘We will nominate whoever’s turn it is’. The only real exception in decades was Obama, and his brand was basically just charisma. But even there, once they get into office, they govern as generic Democrats.Report
It all depends on where you set the bar. People as recently as the spring considered her so bad as to be unelectable. That has obviously not been the case, which, may in some (large?) degree be attributable to the lack of primary to screw up and the desperation for a non-nursing home candidate. But either way she isn’t the disaster people thought she was, not by any means.
In terms of what the parties are capable of producing right now she is probably something like a B- Democrat. She’s been able to look the part when she’s needed to, can successfully best her actual (as opposed to hypothetical) opponent when she has the opportunity, and hasn’t committed any clear malpractice since taking the torch. Of course you always want the A+ candidate, the 2014 Patriots, if you will. But it also isn’t like you’re playing the 2014 Patriots either, and competent game managers win often enough, especially when they don’t turn the ball over.Report
It depends, rather, on if she wins.Report
Yeah B- sounds very close to where I’d put her.
Also like I think the lack of a primary was a mixed bag. I think she gained a lot by being able to largely avoid Gaza in particular as an issue.
Immigration I’m less sure about–as much as it would make me personally grind my teeth, I think a primary would have given the party as a whole a politically valuable chance to break from Biden on the issue.Report
All things considered, she has run as close to a flawless campaign as can be imagined.
The people critiquing her tend to be very partisan Republicans, the kind of leftists who think Democrats/liberals are the real enemy, and the rest are double haters who might as well be partisan Republicans.
Most of this crowd swings white and male.Report
We need some kind of ancillary to Godwin’s law that says any internet discussion, when allowed to go on long enough, will eventually involve a white man calling another white man, a white man.Report
So would you say that the bedwetter caucus was actually right?Report
The “weak”.
If she’s running on “hope and change” then she should be able to say “what changes”. If she’s running on Biden’s record then she should own it and claim that she helped him build it. If she’s not then she should be able to say what she’d do differently.
Every time she goes with word salad she’s proclaiming that she doesn’t know the answer. She should find a better way to dodge questions.
She has extremely limited experience and close to none in leadership or management of large groups. She has no track record of success there. The GOP suggests she spent the last two years hiding in her office playing solitaire and we can’t disprove it.
She got no, as in “zero”, nomination votes in her run for President. So in the Team Blue field she came in dead last.
After that failed she needed to reinvent herself but we’re not sure what she’s gone with.
She’s not charismatic enough to get Team Red members to vote for her. Obama needing to urge black males to vote for her over Trump is an obvious problem for someone who’s big strength is supposedly her identity.
The “unusual”.
She didn’t go through the nomination process at all. Biden is now unfit(?) but she’s leaving him in as President.Report
I read a headline somewhere yesterday where Elon was moaning that a Harris win would mean the end of twitter and I immediately thought, “Don’t threaten me with a good time.” The world would immediately be a better place, and I thought this before Elmo Meringue overpaid for the place.Report
To save everyone a lot of time:
https://www.cjr.org/covering_the_election/bad_media_takes_election.phpReport
For some reason the Google News algorithm has decided that I’m extremely interested in whether Joe Rogan endorsed Donald Trump.Report
Lemme copy and paste this comment of mine from 2016:
All I have are tea leaves that I do not know how to read.
Is anybody watching the television? What is the general mood of Fox? Of CNN? Of MSNBC?
Not “what are they reporting?” but, if you turned the sound off and had to guess what mood the newsreaders were in, what mood would they be in?Report
I turned on CNN when I was eating lunch. Tone struck me as ‘cautiously optimistic, but maybe a little defensive.’Report
There were two bomb threats to polling places in Georgia (the state) that were traced to Russia quickly according to Georgia’s Secretary of State.
On LGM, there is a report of a SWAT team surrounding a polling place in Portland, Maine.Report
So Georgia, the state, has apparently received bomb threats that originated from Russia:
https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/1853843915255996581?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1853843915255996581%7Ctwgr%5E36b142375e4753a4f0bb67ea90cb635e2af05873%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com%2F2024%2F11%2Fthe-russia-hoax-now-with-bomb-threatsReport
CEO of My Faith Votes charged with eight counts of child porn possession:
https://ministrywatch.com/former-my-faith-votes-ceo-charged-with-child-porn-possession/Report
In-person voting is apparently strong in Philadelphia and Millwaukee is reporting lots of same-day registration: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/live-blog/presidential-election-2024-live-updates-rcna175556#rcrd62493Report
Lots of same day registrations to vote in Milwaukee apparently:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/live-blog/presidential-election-2024-live-updates-rcna175556#rcrd62493Report
High turn out in Michigan:
https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/11/05/election-day-2024-live-updates-michigan/76043196007/Report
Am I wrong that this is a bad sign given the Trump camp’s low-propensity voter strategy?Report
It is a good sign because the turnout is high in blue cities like Detroit, Ann Arbor, Philly, Pittsburg, Millwaukee, etc. Also Charlie Krik is panicking: https://www.rawstory.com/charlie-kirk-ground-game/Report
I am trying hard to resist placing any weight on the emotional reactions of one of the dumbest people in American politics…
…but I can’t say I’m not tempted.Report
Don’t worry….he has a lot of company.Report
He was apparently on Fox News earlier losing it.Report
One thing I love about our modern media landscape is I can soothe my own partisan anxieties by seeking out members of Team Red who are freaking out even worse.
Am being sarcastic? No idea!Report
Yeah, when I’m wandering around Twitter, I see a bunch of people prematurely celebrating and yelling encouragement to go out and vote, get friends to go out and vote, go out and vote, OH MY GOD WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE YOU NEED TO GO OUT AND VOTE and when I go on Bluesky, I see a bunch of people confident that Harris already has it in the bag alongside calming posts (posts with pet pics, posts talking about Xanax, posts with mental health hotline phone numbers).
I don’t know how to read it.Report
This is why I don’t pay much attention to the run up/day of an election. It’ll be what it’ll be. I’m not watching a blow by blow of it. I got other things to do. Won’t change much regardless.Report
I had similar thoughts. Huge increases in same-day regisrations? Extra-high turnout among people who don’t usually vote?
My mental model of “didn’t vote in 2016 (but could have), didn’t vote in 2020 (but could have), desperate to vote in 2024” has more Trump-leaning traits than Harris-leaning.Report
Higher turnout elections are generally better for Democrats than not historically.Report
This has always been my understanding as well.Report
Philadelphia is nearly at 86% of it’s 2020 turn out by 12:30 PSTReport
Turnout is mixed and not where we want it to be. We need more people to vote. We can’t let turnout flatline.
Text everyone you know.
Make more noise.
We need more.-CHARLIE KIRK TODAYReport
Catturd seems like a nice person: https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/f6a3591005158b8012a2165ac2c22a49cce1cbc90b54a724a5928c31ee30ab51.jpgReport
He’s had a vision of the future, and it is a wine mom’s sensible shoe pressed to his face, forever.Report
This is brilliant.Report
Exactly what it says on the tin.Report
From Paul Campos at LGM
“The Florida Election Lab, Prof. Michael McDonald’s project, had recorded 85.6 million early votes as of an hour ago. This site includes non-public sources of information so the numbers are higher than the NBC early vote tracker a lot of people have been citing. The site is quoting a 54.0% to 43.8% women to men gender split….It also doesn’t include any updated numbers from either California or New York, which haven’t reported since Sunday, so between that and some other stragglers we could be looking at 87-88 million early votes (lots of mailed ballots coming into today are still early votes of course).”
Opinions on whether good or bad for Democrats edited outReport
I’m 61 and I had a first time experience voting today: waiting in line. I waited about an hour in Chicago’s 2nd Ward.Report
This wasn’t a 50/50 election.Report
It does refute a lot of theories about how 2016 (“Clinton was a Uniquely Bad Candidate” and “there must have Obviously Been Russian Interference”, in particular)Report
This is total Wednesday morning quarterbacking, but it is fun to see what the echo chamber produces vs reality.Report