I hoped Kamala would jump out to a 5 point lead after the convention. Did not happen. Though I’d obviously love to be wrong, I don’t have any real hope. In fact, Trump may well win the popular vote.
I believe in the end this will be a revenge of the men election, with a big assist from Evangelical women. I’ve been expecting this for literally decades, boring my wife with dire predictions. I’ve brought up the problem with men here, in comments, several times over the years to either indifference or scorn.
Men have been deprived of a unique place in society. There are now no jobs reserved for men. Women, OTOH, still make babies. IOW, everything boys can do, girls can do, too; and girls can do something rather major that boys cannot. We could keep the species going if we eliminated 90% of men. That was never going to be a stable situation unless men evolved, and quickly. They have not.
Far from evolving, men have lost ground in education, while maintaining strong leads in drug addiction and suicide. At the same time men have been demonized as toxic. Men have lost their roles even in entertainment.
We’re going into a bad era for women. I expect women will see declining participation in traditionally male occupations – police, fire, military. Trans rights will be wiped out except in hard blue states like CA, NY and MA. I imagine gay rights will be OK cuz they’re men. There will be more restriction on abortion rights and birth control. More rape, more unwanted children, and employers will be openly sexist. DEI is over. I don’t think this will be short-lived, I’d guess at least 20 years of Handmaids Tale light. Probably preceded by a lot of brown shirt thuggery.
It won’t just be transgender folks and women, but immigrants, obviously, at least south of the border immigrants. The Hispanics voting for Trump are idiots, but muy macho idiots. The Christians will get their pay-off in the form of worsening public education.
In foreign policy we’ll betray Ukraine and abandon Europe. The US will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at a time when we face no international peer powers. The military will be cut and become a less professional force. The US will suffer a big drop in international standing and prestige, allying with declining non-powers like Russia.
I’m trying to figure out my own place in all this. If I didn’t have a trans kid I’d be able to stand outside and cynically observe the death of the United States. I think I may just start day drinking.
Nothing would make me happier than having this rant thrown in my face in a few weeks. I would be happy to be ridiculed as an alarmist.
Harris is behind were Clinton was at this stage and unless there is a “Come to Jesus” up tick in the next few weeks I’m guessing that the US is still not ready for a woman president. Which is insane. For crying out loud, Germany had a female leader, so did Israel, India has one right now (and the 2nd woman to hold office).
We are just so screwed. The worst part is we are going to have to listen to a long litany of smug commentators talk about all the oh so obvious reasons why Harris lost when the real reason is the US population it too immature to have a democracy. Full stop.
I too home I am very, horribly wrong about this. It’s almost like there is a segment of people out there desperately looking for a reason to not vote for Harris (Remember how Hillary was at deaths door… and of course cankels). I’m so depressed about the fact that we are going to have to live with the irreversible decision of F#$%ing morons.
I’m guessing that the US is still not ready for a woman president.
Bull. Shit.
America was very much “ready” for a female president in 2016. And I’m not just talking about the popular vote. It’s perfectly reasonable to observe that Clinton was hurt by misogyny, and to speculate that a male candidate in her position would have passed the 77,000-vote threshold she lost by. But it’s ridiculous to suggest her gender was some impassable barrier to her being elected, that her loss was some kind of foregone conclusion from her being a woman. It’s off the mark to suggest she couldn’t win. She simply didn’t win, in that particular time and place and set of circumstances.
I’ve imagined a hypothetical scenario in which Clinton and not Obama wins the 2008 Democratic nomination. Then, given the very favorable environment for Dems that year, she wins the election and serves two terms as president. Then her vp Obama runs in 2016 and loses.
In that alternate timeline, I am sure people would go on about how America wasn’t “ready” to elect a black president.
People are always way too quick to draw sweeping conclusions from one election.
@Michael Reynolds: While I agree that the backlash you describe is real–it’s clearly the thing that’s driving Trump’s increasing (if still modest) support among Black and Latino men–I think it’s more likely that Harris sweeps the swing states than that Trump wins the popular vote.
On one hand, I get it. The stakes could not be higher and the race could not be closer. It’s equal parts mystifying and enraging that someone as dumb and dangerous as Donald Trump could win the election. However, to quote a famous meme from this exact moment in the 2008 campaign:
“Everyone needs to chill the fuck out.”
I am not telling anyone to stop “bedwetting.” And I am certainly NOT telling people that Kamala Harris will definitely win. Trump may still win this race. By some measures, Trump is stronger than he was in 2020. But the whiplash between the Democratic elation of a few weeks ago and the full-on panic of the last few days is detached from reality. This has been a remarkably stable race. The vibes changed, but the race hasn’t.
Kamala Harris’s Upside
Trump has structural advantages. He is better known. The Electoral College has a Republican bias. People are unhappy with the economy, and President Biden’s approval rating is underwater.
These are tough political headwinds to overcome. However, Kamala Harris has some real advantages over these final three weeks.
First, Kamala Harris has a higher ceiling. Trump never received more than 47% of the vote nationally and tends to cap out at about 48% in the battleground states. That’s enough to win, but only barely. As evidenced by Biden’s numbers in 2020 and Democratic performance in these battleground states, Harris has the greater potential to grow her vote total than Trump.
Second, Harris is the better, more popular candidate. She isn’t perfect on the stump, but her appearances in the media and on the campaign trail benefit her. Trump’s — not so much. Blueprint, a Democratic research firm, tested clips from Harris’s recent interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle and every clip was viewed positively by six in ten voters, and every clip made those who saw it more likely to vote for her. Next week, Harris is barnstorming six battleground states with at least 19 events.
Finally, she has more money to spend over the last few weeks. In a close race, a better field operation makes the difference; and Harris has the better field operation.
None of this means she WILL win. But it does mean she CAN win. It will take work from all of us. Start channeling your anxiety into action by volunteering to help elect Kamala Harris. There is no time like the present. At Vote Save America, you can sign up for volunteer opportunities that have been vetted by the team at Crooked Media.
This is a very winnable race if — and only if — we do the work. We beat Donald Trump in 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2022. We can do it again. We won’t win if we spend the final three weeks panicking about what could happen.
ETA: I recall reading that Kamala’s current polling is almost identical to Obama’s 2012 lead – the race Romney was so sure he had won he had no concession speech preprepared.
@Michael Reynolds: I’ve never thought that your theory was wrong. Unfortunately, it’s also at the root of the complementarian theology that is incompatible with the remainder of your worldview and that you and others here are so disdainful of (and correctly so*). It’s a knotty problem.
*Even back at the earliest days of Bill Gothard’s ascension, I saw the problem that complementarian practice was based on self-centered misunderstanding of what it means to “love one another as [Jesus has]loved you.” I was the kid with oppostional-defiant disorder, though, so my thoughts were easy to discount. They still are. Some things never change. (I guess it comes from having been brainwashed by religion into believing I needed to go along for approval.)
Lay off the negative vibes, Moriarty.
Enjoy your luxury cruise, Reynolds. Take a break from the doomerism, it’s counterproductive and senseless.
Like guppies eating their young.
Texas abortion bans have put OB/GYN physicians under considerable stress, with most feeling the restrictions inhibit their ability to care for patients and some considering leaving the state or retiring early, according to a new report.
Released on Tuesday by the firm Manatt Health, the report found that 60% of OB/GYN physicians fear they could face legal repercussions if they follow best practices and provide medically-necessary care to their patients. At the same time, nearly 30% feel they don’t even have a clear understanding of the state’s abortion bans and are unsure when they would be allowed to perform an abortion to save a patient’s life.
Fewer OB/GYN physicians in Texas would also be detrimental to patients in a state where women’s health outcomes are already among the worst in the nation, experts said. Pregnant people don’t have full access to maternity care in nearly half of Texas counties, and studies have found the abortion bans have led to an increased risk of serious pregnancy complications and delays in treatment after miscarriages. Experts believe those problems could worsen if Texas sees an exodus of OB/GYN physicians.
@Kylopod: Well my vote is already banked, but my pessimism is based on something my step-son said over the weekend. He was a Jill Stein voter in the 2016 election. All of his friends were on the Stein train and I talked to a lot of them at the time and they were just bored with the old lady who was on “deaths door”.
Fast forward to now I was taking with him yesterday at a lunch with his mother, who has also banked her vote and so has he. But he told me that just about all the younger folks he has talked to at his work (a large retail\farmers market) are doing this 3rd party dance because reasons (I don’t know any thing about her … what has she ever done … why didn’t she fix everything). All of the hallmarks of not wanting to say, because she’s a woman and my balls shrink whenever I think about voting for her (and yes the few woman in his life are either his girlfriend or his age 31).
Sure it’s anecdotal, but it’s the same crap I heard when everyone was using their vast ingenuity to come up with reasons to not vote for Hillary, another eminently qualified female candidate for public office versus a buffoon. Yes I understand billionaires, they will get a hefty tax break while their money shields them from any inconvenient laws passed by Christian nationalists. I also understand power hungry Republican politicians. I also understand brain washed evangelicals, But 20 something males? What benefit from Trump do they see that will make their lives better in any concrete way other then not making there stuff shrink?
I hope to high heaven I’m wrong, This is the only forum other then conversations with my wife that I have gave words to this anxiety. But it’s real and I am worried. I can’t help that.
Most Pollsters Are Adding Pixie Dust to Boost Trump’s Support
It’s valuable to get a look under the hood of how polling outfits juice their survey data to make it look better for Donald Trump. According to Nate Cohn, pollsters recognize that they have historically underestimated Trump’s level of support, and they want some scientific-sounding way to add a little Trump pixie dust to their numbers as a way of guarding against making the same mistake again.
Two-thirds of them are opting for weighting their data with “the recall vote.” This isn’t a complicated mechanism. We know what the presidential vote was in 2020, both nationally and in every state. So, the idea is to weight your survey pool to make it match the percentages of Biden and Trump voters from 2020. Yes, there will be new voters in 2024, as well as voters who have died in the interim, and some 2020 voters will simply sit the current election out. But getting a baseline that matches the people who actually participated four years ago, gives you a good starting point for a representative sample. To obtain this, many pollsters ask survey respondents who they “recall” voting for in 2020 and then they make adjustments to their data.
If this worked as designed, it would produce an accurate measurement of how voters have changed their minds over the last four years. It would show how many 2020 Trump voters are planning to vote for someone else in 2024, and how many Biden voters are not planning to vote for Harris. The problem is a well-known phenomenon where fewer people recall voting for the loser of an election than the winner. That means the recall question doesn’t produce an accurate sample of the 2020 electorate because many of the people who voted for Trump don’t remember it that way, or at least aren’t willing to admit it. A lot of them wind up getting counted as 2020 Biden voters, and the resulting sample has more 2020 Trump voters than it should.
The suspicious thing here is that the pollsters know this. In fact, they’re relying on this inaccuracy to add a few points to Trump. It’s their way of accounting for their historic tendency to undercount or underweight Trump’s support. If this weighting tactic added points to Harris, they would not consider using it for a moment.
The upshot is that two-thirds of the presidential polls you see have added pixie dust for Trump. These pollsters pretend to be using a valid scientific method because it makes them feel better about themselves than if they just added pixie dust without the cover of some explanation. But let’s be honest. It would be just as valid to look at how much they’ve underestimated Trump in the past and simply adjust their polls by adding that percentage of support to him now. I’d argue that it would be more valid. It would introduce a coherent, measurable and direct variable rather than utilizing an unrelated and known flaw in their methods to reach a more arbitrary result.
But they’d essentially be admitting that they don’t trust themselves to come up with any polling result that doesn’t underestimate Trump. No matter what new weighting plan they come up with, they feel the need to add their historic miss on Trump’s support to the mix or they’ll undercount again. That’s exactly what “the recall vote” adjustment is doing, just in a dishonest way.
So, what does this recall adjustment mean for the polls we’re looking at right now?
For starters, because “recall-vote weighting mechanically forces polls toward the last election result,” the pollsters using it are more likely to show Harris, like Biden in 2020, with a larger popular vote than Electoral College lead. But we can also examine the impact on state polling. For example, here is what would have happened if “the recall vote” adjustment had been made to the most recent Times/Siena battleground state polls:
As you can see, with the adjustment Trump wins the election, and Harris wins if it isn’t included. According to Cohn, another result of the Times/Siena polls not using the recall vote adjustment is that their results look more like the 2022 midterm elections than the 2020 presidential one. This manifests with a narrower popular vote lead for Harris “even as she holds a discernible edge in the Northern battlegrounds.”
Mentioning the 2022 midterms is interesting, because the polls badly overestimated how well the Republicans would do, predicting a “Red Wave” that never materialized. In fact, ever since the Dodds decision overturned Roe v. Wade, the polls have tended to underestimate the Democrats. A huge question for pollsters right now is whether this will continue or not with Trump on the ballot.
One thing we can take from this is that with two-thirds of pollsters adding pixie dust for Trump, the actual results aren’t as likely to skew unexpectedly in his direction. This is good news for Harris because it wouldn’t take much skew for her to lose.
The real questions are if the pixie dust is justified and if they’ve used the right amount. It could be that they’re undercounting Harris’s support, just as they’ve undercounted most Democrats’ support over the last two years.
The truth, this election is a toss-up, and you need to do something to help with whatever time and skills you have to add to the effort.
This week, I’m going door to door in my neighborhood, handing out voter information materials, talking to fellow citizens whenever possible.
If you’re looking for ways to help elect Democrats, aside from your local Democratic Party organization, check out Field Team 6, Vote Save America, Swing Left, or any number of other groups. Or if you want to stay non-partisan, encourage people you know to vote. Point them to reliable sources of information.
@Rick DeMent: Harris has at least one thing Hillary didn’t have, which is dead-even favorability numbers. Granted that’s not the same as positive favorability, but it’s a lot better than Hillary’s numbers in 2016, and even somewhat better than Biden’s in 2020. In fact she’s the only nominee of the past three cycles not to have clearly negative favorability.
There’s going to be a lot of misogyny against Harris, just as there was a fuckton of racism against Obama (and a fuckton of racism against Harris of course). But it’s important not to confuse the existence of these prejudices with the idea that they’re some kind of impassable barrier for these candidates.
I remember back in 2008 there was a lot of nervousness among Dems (and glee on the Republican side) about a “Bradley Effect.” Sure he was up in the polls, but what about that hidden racist vote? In fact it’s never been proven that the Bradley Effect was real even for Tom Bradley. In any case, Obama not only won in 2008 but slightly outperformed his polls, and significantly outperformed them four years later.
Harris is clearly connecting with voters in a way that Hillary failed to do. The misogyny and racism against her is real, but I think it’s baked in; I don’t think it’s hidden from sight, ready to spring on us on Election Day.
Just a guess. The 20 something males who support Trump know that Trump uses the same right hand to make a fist, hold up the Bible and “grab them by the pussy”.
I hoped Kamala would jump out to a 5 point lead after the convention. Did not happen. Though I’d obviously love to be wrong, I don’t have any real hope. In fact, Trump may well win the popular vote.
I believe in the end this will be a revenge of the men election, with a big assist from Evangelical women. I’ve been expecting this for literally decades, boring my wife with dire predictions. I’ve brought up the problem with men here, in comments, several times over the years to either indifference or scorn.
Men have been deprived of a unique place in society. There are now no jobs reserved for men. Women, OTOH, still make babies. IOW, everything boys can do, girls can do, too; and girls can do something rather major that boys cannot. We could keep the species going if we eliminated 90% of men. That was never going to be a stable situation unless men evolved, and quickly. They have not.
Far from evolving, men have lost ground in education, while maintaining strong leads in drug addiction and suicide. At the same time men have been demonized as toxic. Men have lost their roles even in entertainment.
We’re going into a bad era for women. I expect women will see declining participation in traditionally male occupations – police, fire, military. Trans rights will be wiped out except in hard blue states like CA, NY and MA. I imagine gay rights will be OK cuz they’re men. There will be more restriction on abortion rights and birth control. More rape, more unwanted children, and employers will be openly sexist. DEI is over. I don’t think this will be short-lived, I’d guess at least 20 years of Handmaids Tale light. Probably preceded by a lot of brown shirt thuggery.
It won’t just be transgender folks and women, but immigrants, obviously, at least south of the border immigrants. The Hispanics voting for Trump are idiots, but muy macho idiots. The Christians will get their pay-off in the form of worsening public education.
In foreign policy we’ll betray Ukraine and abandon Europe. The US will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory at a time when we face no international peer powers. The military will be cut and become a less professional force. The US will suffer a big drop in international standing and prestige, allying with declining non-powers like Russia.
I’m trying to figure out my own place in all this. If I didn’t have a trans kid I’d be able to stand outside and cynically observe the death of the United States. I think I may just start day drinking.
Nothing would make me happier than having this rant thrown in my face in a few weeks. I would be happy to be ridiculed as an alarmist.
Fading to the background for a while, until after the election. Can’t take the politics 24/7.
I have to agree with @Michael Reynolds.
Harris is behind were Clinton was at this stage and unless there is a “Come to Jesus” up tick in the next few weeks I’m guessing that the US is still not ready for a woman president. Which is insane. For crying out loud, Germany had a female leader, so did Israel, India has one right now (and the 2nd woman to hold office).
We are just so screwed. The worst part is we are going to have to listen to a long litany of smug commentators talk about all the oh so obvious reasons why Harris lost when the real reason is the US population it too immature to have a democracy. Full stop.
I too home I am very, horribly wrong about this. It’s almost like there is a segment of people out there desperately looking for a reason to not vote for Harris (Remember how Hillary was at deaths door… and of course cankels). I’m so depressed about the fact that we are going to have to live with the irreversible decision of F#$%ing morons.
@Rick DeMent:
Bull. Shit.
America was very much “ready” for a female president in 2016. And I’m not just talking about the popular vote. It’s perfectly reasonable to observe that Clinton was hurt by misogyny, and to speculate that a male candidate in her position would have passed the 77,000-vote threshold she lost by. But it’s ridiculous to suggest her gender was some impassable barrier to her being elected, that her loss was some kind of foregone conclusion from her being a woman. It’s off the mark to suggest she couldn’t win. She simply didn’t win, in that particular time and place and set of circumstances.
I’ve imagined a hypothetical scenario in which Clinton and not Obama wins the 2008 Democratic nomination. Then, given the very favorable environment for Dems that year, she wins the election and serves two terms as president. Then her vp Obama runs in 2016 and loses.
In that alternate timeline, I am sure people would go on about how America wasn’t “ready” to elect a black president.
People are always way too quick to draw sweeping conclusions from one election.
@Michael Reynolds: While I agree that the backlash you describe is real–it’s clearly the thing that’s driving Trump’s increasing (if still modest) support among Black and Latino men–I think it’s more likely that Harris sweeps the swing states than that Trump wins the popular vote.
“Chill Out”
ETA: I recall reading that Kamala’s current polling is almost identical to Obama’s 2012 lead – the race Romney was so sure he had won he had no concession speech preprepared.
@Michael Reynolds: I’ve never thought that your theory was wrong. Unfortunately, it’s also at the root of the complementarian theology that is incompatible with the remainder of your worldview and that you and others here are so disdainful of (and correctly so*). It’s a knotty problem.
*Even back at the earliest days of Bill Gothard’s ascension, I saw the problem that complementarian practice was based on self-centered misunderstanding of what it means to “love one another as [Jesus has]loved you.” I was the kid with oppostional-defiant disorder, though, so my thoughts were easy to discount. They still are. Some things never change. (I guess it comes from having been brainwashed by religion into believing I needed to go along for approval.)
Lay off the negative vibes, Moriarty.
Enjoy your luxury cruise, Reynolds. Take a break from the doomerism, it’s counterproductive and senseless.
Like guppies eating their young.
I think a lot of us still have a level of PTSD from 2016.
There’s a lot hanging in the balance, and in a sane world, things would not be this close.
All we can do is vote.
If OB/GYN’s are leaving, can women be far behind?
Texas abortion bans putting stress on OB/GYNs, with some considering leaving the state, report says
@Kylopod: Well my vote is already banked, but my pessimism is based on something my step-son said over the weekend. He was a Jill Stein voter in the 2016 election. All of his friends were on the Stein train and I talked to a lot of them at the time and they were just bored with the old lady who was on “deaths door”.
Fast forward to now I was taking with him yesterday at a lunch with his mother, who has also banked her vote and so has he. But he told me that just about all the younger folks he has talked to at his work (a large retail\farmers market) are doing this 3rd party dance because reasons (I don’t know any thing about her … what has she ever done … why didn’t she fix everything). All of the hallmarks of not wanting to say, because she’s a woman and my balls shrink whenever I think about voting for her (and yes the few woman in his life are either his girlfriend or his age 31).
Sure it’s anecdotal, but it’s the same crap I heard when everyone was using their vast ingenuity to come up with reasons to not vote for Hillary, another eminently qualified female candidate for public office versus a buffoon. Yes I understand billionaires, they will get a hefty tax break while their money shields them from any inconvenient laws passed by Christian nationalists. I also understand power hungry Republican politicians. I also understand brain washed evangelicals, But 20 something males? What benefit from Trump do they see that will make their lives better in any concrete way other then not making there stuff shrink?
I hope to high heaven I’m wrong, This is the only forum other then conversations with my wife that I have gave words to this anxiety. But it’s real and I am worried. I can’t help that.
Posted a while back (Oct. 7), re polling methodology:
“Progress Pond”
This week, I’m going door to door in my neighborhood, handing out voter information materials, talking to fellow citizens whenever possible.
If you’re looking for ways to help elect Democrats, aside from your local Democratic Party organization, check out Field Team 6, Vote Save America, Swing Left, or any number of other groups. Or if you want to stay non-partisan, encourage people you know to vote. Point them to reliable sources of information.
@Rick DeMent: Harris has at least one thing Hillary didn’t have, which is dead-even favorability numbers. Granted that’s not the same as positive favorability, but it’s a lot better than Hillary’s numbers in 2016, and even somewhat better than Biden’s in 2020. In fact she’s the only nominee of the past three cycles not to have clearly negative favorability.
There’s going to be a lot of misogyny against Harris, just as there was a fuckton of racism against Obama (and a fuckton of racism against Harris of course). But it’s important not to confuse the existence of these prejudices with the idea that they’re some kind of impassable barrier for these candidates.
I remember back in 2008 there was a lot of nervousness among Dems (and glee on the Republican side) about a “Bradley Effect.” Sure he was up in the polls, but what about that hidden racist vote? In fact it’s never been proven that the Bradley Effect was real even for Tom Bradley. In any case, Obama not only won in 2008 but slightly outperformed his polls, and significantly outperformed them four years later.
Harris is clearly connecting with voters in a way that Hillary failed to do. The misogyny and racism against her is real, but I think it’s baked in; I don’t think it’s hidden from sight, ready to spring on us on Election Day.
@Rick DeMent:..But 20 something males?
Just a guess. The 20 something males who support Trump know that Trump uses the same right hand to make a fist, hold up the Bible and “grab them by the pussy”.