TwilightZone
TwilightZone's JournalThe ends justify the means.
Lots of voters are generational partisan voters. They're going to vote for the R, regardless.
Lots of voters agree with his racist, sexist, bigoted attacks on "others". He harms the people they want him to harm.
Lots of voters agree with the agenda they know Trump will pursue.
Lots of votes agree with his SCOTUS and other judicial appointments.
Lots of voters agree with Trump's anti-government nonsense.
We too often fixate on the individual things that Trump says and does and completely miss the big picture. To many, what he says and does is irrelevant. They'll put up with all of that to get what they really want.
"Weird" works because it's vague.
It's fully open to interpretation, and almost anything can fit under that umbrella. It's even more effective if no examples are provided, leaving it entirely up to the voters' imagination.
The GOP figured out a long time ago that vague accusations can be some of the most difficult to counter, especially in terms that defy easy definition. Liberal, leftist, inclusive, diverse, etc. They managed to make all of them slurs even though there's nothing inherently wrong with any of them. The "wrong" often exists only in one's mind.
Trump also hates to be mocked, and there's little he can do to counter the accusation. In part, of course, because he's undeniably weird.
I find it funny that a seemingly effective tool seems to have emerged from nowhere. It's like things that go viral -- no one can easily predict what will work and what won't. Sometimes, the best are happy accidents.
(Yes, that's a hat-tip to Bob Ross. 
)
It's unlikely to be in play for a few reasons.
Mail-in voting is highly restricted: over 65, sick/disabled, out of the county for early voting and election day, giving birth within three weeks, or in jail. Everyone else votes in person.
Voter apathy and turnout are serious problems here in Texas. We're working on them, but they're a big challenge.
Texas is also a relatively young state, 3rd lowest median age in the country. Younger voters have lower turnout, of course.
Polls can be misleading for all of these reasons. "Likely voters" aren't as likely to vote as in most other states. The lower the turnout, the better it is for the GOP.
This article from 2018 is a good summary, and the circumstances haven't changed significantly since then, with the exception of further restrictions put in place by Abbott in 2020.
https://www.texastribune.org/2018/02/23/texas-voter-turnout-electorate-explainer/
Yep.
DU is hyper-focused on Trump, Trump, and more Trump. People act as though attacking him would be something new, instead of something that Democrats have been doing constantly since 2015. They're convinced that if we just beat voters over the head with how bad Trump is for the 4,000th time, this one will definitely be the one that sinks in.
It has to be more than that, because that's clearly not working. We need to balance calling out Trump with getting across to voters exactly what we'll do to improve their lives in myriad ways. The focus needs to be on the latter, because we need our side to get out and vote way more than we need to spend endless resources trying to court the tiny fraction of the populace that's still (inexplicably) undecided. If our message reaches them, great. But the focus needs to be on motivating Democrats and left-leaning independents to get to the polls.
I'm confident that Democratic leadership understands this and will act accordingly. The VP's speech today was a good balance, and she's just getting started.
I think the debate was just an excuse.
This is just a semi-educated guess, but I think internal polls were always the problem, and President Biden's debate performance just gave them a convenient excuse to start the discussions. I think they're looking at internal polls for swing states, and it's put them into a panic. Unless there's some surprise candidate that they're hiding in the wings, they don't seem to have thought this through beyond replacing Biden on the ticket.
I'd be surprised if any of the "leaders" currently making the push really believe that the president's debate performance was indicative of his normal state or state of mind. It's also had seemingly little impact on the national polls, so I'm not sure it was ever enough to generate this kind of response, which leads me to believe that something was already brewing.
Of course, the donors are also a factor, but if they're as involved as many believe, they'd have been made aware of the internal polling. It all then circles back around.
Most independents lean toward a party. The current split is 43/46 R/D
Most independents lean one way or the other. Very few are truly independent or non-partisan. The percentage of true independents is rarely more than single digits.
The 43% are essentially Republicans who just choose to register or identify as independents. Also, many states don't have party registration.
So, the percentage of Republicans is higher than 1/3. It's more like 44% (math below). That partly explains why Trump's approval rating is consistently higher than the percentage of people who ID as Republicans.
Example, using Gallup's numbers.
Republicans: 25%
Democrats: 27%
Independents: 45%
Independent leaners:
Republicans: 43%
Democrats: 46%
Total Republicans, plus leaners: 25% + (0.45 x 0.43) = 44.3%
Total Democrats, plus leaners: 27% + (0.45 x 0.46) = 47.7%
Total true Independents: the remaining 8%.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
Primary turnout is not indicative of general election turnout.
Never has been. Never will be. The myth that wouldn't die.
Before 2008, the record for Democratic turnout in the primaries was in 1988. Dukakis got hammered in November.
Democratic turnout in the 1992 primaries dropped significantly, by more than two million votes. Clinton won easily.
Article from 2016 explaining many of the reasons why there is zero correlation:
https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/presidential-campaign/272381-the-truth-about-primary-voter-turnout/
That is quite the mystery, eh?
The number of people on DU who hate-watch cable news and then complain about the same things over and over and over and over and over again makes me shake my head.
They apparently enjoy being miserable. There are enough negative things in the world without intentionally searching them out, watching them incessantly, and then beating a dead horse.
The best part is that they act surprised/shocked/outraged about something the 100th time it happens even though the first 99 were exactly the same and they saw every one of them.
There once...
There once was a bigot named Trump
Who usually smelled like a rump.
Voters rebelled
Repelled by the smell
The next step is jail for the schlump.
There isn't going to be a Civil War.
The fearmongering about it is really tiresome. Trump's supporters stopped showing up at January 6th-type rallies as soon as the feds starting busting some of the seditious idiots for January 6th. Most of the Proud Boy, etc., leaders are either in prison or in hiding, afraid some 16-year-old is going to identify them on video from January 6th.
They thought it was all fun and games until they discovered that there were ramifications. There will always be some isolated individuals or small groups that will raise hell, but the claim that there's going to be some mass uprising on the scale of the CW is ridiculous, because for the most part, they're a bunch of bigoted cowards who are terrified of everything, including consequences.
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Gender: Do not displayMember since: Fri Oct 1, 2004, 10:32 PM
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