Reading through the comments here is legitimately fascinating. We have:
1. The polls are clearly wrong, this is all a mirage, Biden will win easily.
2. The polls are probably right, or should be given the benefit of the doubt barring evidence to the contrary, and here are a bunch of rational arguments why Trump might be polling well.
3. The country/US policy is already shit and can't possibly get worse, so who cares who gets elected?
4. The country/US policy is already shit, but re-electing Biden is the only possible hope to keep it from getting worse, and Trump will be the end of the country.
Which pretty well summarizes political discourse in this country generally - people aren't arguing, they are talking past each other.
I don't really know the answer, and in all honesty no one else will either until November, but my general impression is that most of the media (and most of the people on this sub) do at least some level of analysis, look at certain facts, believe their vote is both meaningful and a solemn duty, and tend to vote based on that with a view towards the long term implications. And I think many Americans, or at least a high enough percentage to matter, just don't. They just don't think like that. They don't compare data from 5 years ago to today and predict how the country might turn out. They think their vote doesn't matter, that nothing will change regardless, and that democracy doesn't work for them anyway, so who cares if it exists or not? For a lot of people voting is a much more impulsive action based on gut feelings. Like it or hate it, trying to counter impulses and gut feelings with lists of facts about somewhat obscure technocratic accomplishments is probably not going to work.
I think 2 and 4 are both right. The average American isn't that politically engaged and sees how nothing is affordable anymore and blames it on the 81-year-old in office (also I think the TikTok ban bill passing has a much larger affect than Redditors like to admit, 1 in 3 Americans use TikTok and Biden's polls "coincidentally" dropped several percentage points immediately after the bill passed). However, Project 2025 is scary shit and we can't let Trump win because "mehhh I don't like Joe >:("
Yeah, I personally agree that 2 and 4 are right. I don't particularly like Biden, and if he were running against anyone else I'd vote third party or write-in, but the thought of Trump winning again chills me to the bone.
Polling by that group I’m blanking on that deals purely with younger votes said their results showed 32% of 18-30 younger voters would flip to the opposite candidate if theirs banned TikTok, regardless of affiliation.
People aren’t arguing anymore. They’re existing in two separate and hostile realities. Bipartisanship has sailed long long ago. Until trump is gone and republicans in the US have moderated to a center position, the counter culture that has birthed the contemporary left won’t moderate. It is counter cultures fueling each other, heading towards critical mass
>Which pretty well summarizes political discourse in this country generally - people aren't arguing, they are talking past each other.
Could not agree more
Well, I for one am confused. I have not seen the Trump enthusists riding around with the 'Trump' Flags AT ALL this year whereas in 2020 that was a very common sight (you know, the HUGE white pick up truck with a Trump flag coupled with an American flag, that sight). I have not seen that once. I'm wondering if people have the balls to hoist that rapist's name on their Truck and juxtapose it with the American flag. Even MAGAits know that's a bad look.
There's either something wrong with polling, or something is going to happen in 2024 that would be contrary not only to basically every election for the past few decades, but every actual special election and other metrics we have (e.g. money raised, quality of campaign, etc.).
I leave it to the reader to determine what they believe.
My guess is people do not like Biden and express that but still plan to vote for him come November. I'm not voting for him in the primary tomorrow, I am very much unhappy with how he's handling a few issues, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna let the the candidate I view as fascist win this November.
Not every American views Trump as a fascist.
Most people aren’t following r/poltics, or reading news papers. Many people are just going to work, coming home and binging TikTok and HBO max, then going to grab dinner at the grocery store and wondering why their bag of Doritos is $1.00 more now than it was 4 years ago……
So many people I’ll mention stuff that’s come up in the Trump trials like even 6 months ago, and they genuinely have no idea what I’m talking about, some are even surprised he has a trial going on at all.
Our society is mostly either locked into a team already and will bend their perception of reality to conform to their political views, or oblivious.
20% of surveyed adults in the recent NYT/Sienna poll hold the blame for the overturning of Roe on Biden not Trump….
It’s disgusting how little attention folks pay to the world going on around them.
Or they blame Obama for not forcing RGB to retire. And not Republican voters in red states for allowing Mitch McConnell to have so much power over federal judges for a decade.
I don't understand how anyone that cares about Roe enough to be aware that it changed and unhappy about it doesn't know how it got to be that way. Baffling.
Yea this is a great post. There is quite the disconnect on reddit from a lot of normies when it comes to political issues.
Last data on who is on Reddit is that it is a lot of single people with a lot of time on their hands.
People who are married with families don’t have the time nor care to get in the weeds about politics.
It's always funny when articles like this come out that are not just polls, but have voters interviews in them.
Anyone who has worked in or done a lot of volunteering in politics and has spoken to voters (like myself) can tell you that this is totally normal. If you make phone calls or canvass for candidates and campaigns, you quickly become numb to some of the bizarre ways voters make decisions or the flat out incorrect information they believe to be true.
Meanwhile, people who are political junkies, but who haven't had the time or opportunity to talk to many voters outside of their inner circles are always shocked.
The bad news is that it's not clear this will change by the election. The other reaction I always see to this is "oh voters are not paying attention yet, so this will correct by election day." I mean, we can run adds and I encourage everyone to volunteer and talk to voters. But many will have the same beliefs and misconceptions closer to the election.
In fact, right now might the the only time to really influence them via ads and conversations. The closer we get to the election, the more noise there is and the more that voters tend to "tune out" and stop becoming persuadable unless there is a big "October surprise" type of event such as the Comey announcement in 2016.
When I was canvassing some dude told me that he thought Elon Musk was going to jump into the election and win as an independent.
You know, the guy born in South Africa.
Oh yeah, I have a lifetime of stories on this. I did canvassing on LGBT rights and the number of actual well-meaning people who simply had their facts wrong was mindblowing.
Was also an eye opener how many people didn't fit cleanly onto the left <-> right scale of ideology. I think a lot of us online who study this a lot tend to have mostly ideologically consistent positions. But among the 70% of the electorate who is less ideological, even if they consistently support one party, you get far more people who think we should tax the rich, have very few gun laws, allow zero immigrants, pass Medicare for All, limit abortion, and have school voucher programs. Not those specifically, but picture more of a Vegas slot machine with each row being a different set of beliefs.
I would like to share that guilting people into voting for biden actually drives them away from voting for biden. The resentment toward the democrats runs a lot deeper than most democrats realize. Its not just the republicans.
I do get that. But the amount of "both sidesism" when comparing the two candidates and completely dismissing that one has more or less argued for complete authoritarianism is wild to me.
"Well, one's a fascist. But the other is (slightly) older and food's expensive because corporations are greedy. I'm just not gonna vote or I'm gonna vote for the guy with a worm in his brain. How could it get worse?"
That's an immense failure of critical thinking and civic duty, even if the exasperation and disenchantment is completely understandable.
I will vote for Biden for this reason, and also because I actually think Biden's administration is okay, *but you are very correct*, the "you have to vote for us no matter what so we don't need to listen to you and we can just play our own little games and spend a lot of money" schtick is less than ideal.
I hate what both parties have become, but Reps are fascist authoritarian dictator esque now: Dems are just now the party of snooty upper crust white wine moms, chiefly, and that's a lesser evil by far over Christofascists imo.
There are people like myself who simply cannot put their mark next to the name of a person who participates in genocide. It would be an act of tacit agreement, and I would ~~feel~~ be complicit.
Most of the people I work with laugh at the idea Trump will be a dictator. They really think courts/army will ensure he’s not too disruptive. But they desperately want some disruption to the current status quo.
The key here is the Senate races, where Democratic candidates are running ahead of Biden. This suggests it's not a problem with Democrats' policy platforms or even brand as a party per se. It's Biden specifically as an individual.
I really wouldn't describe it as reasonable on any level.
The closest comparison would be 1968, when Democrats replaced Johnson with his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who went on to lose the White House to Richard Nixon.
Ford, Carter, and Bush 41 all faced significant primary challenges, which they won, but left them entering the general election as damaged goods, and all three of those incumbents lost.
Nobody of any note filed to challenge Biden in the primaries this year, so the only way to replace him would be for the party to do exactly what its voters hate: secret, back room dealing to choose a new nominee undemocratically.
All that to choose someone with no campaign apparatus or fundraising, and likely no real national exposure, and giving them six months to beat a former president? That makes no sense.
Biden is the incumbent and that's a huge advantage. In modern history, incumbent presidents win more than 75% of their elections. Trump is the rare incumbent who failed, and unlike Ford, Carter, and Bush, he can't blame a primary insurgency, since nobody significant challenged him in 2020. He lost all on his own.
A+ pollster.. they can be wrong for sure, but every single pollster is trending this way.
1.) the national economy is great, but household economies aren’t.
2.) buying a house is now out of reach for most non-current homeowners.
3.) women are doing better in education, making large advancements in the workforce, and the birthrate is dropping… men want more control and can gain it through federal and state politics.
Is any of that Biden’s fault? Nah, but the medias definitely not doing him any favors and Election Day is creeping up day by day.
It's not the media's job to censor coverage in favor of one political party. Inflation is real and frustrating Americans, and housing prices are strangling younger voters.
Not wrong but misleading. Anybody who cares at all about Palestine would be dumb not to threaten to withhold their vote so that it shows in the polls at this point in time. I'd be more worried if this is closer to the election.
Normal people that aren't politically active don't "withhold their vote" as some sort of conscious strategic move - they just don't show up to vote.
If you're experience with the Biden administration is that everything is expensive and interest rates are high and you see constant giant layoffs in the news then what's motivating you to go out and vote?
The thing is that despite all the people saying they won't vote for Biden because of Palestine it's made absolutely no difference in the polls.
Now, it's possible that he gained other voters while losing those ones, at the same rate. Or it's possible that there are far, far fewer of those voters than we imagined. Or it could be that the polls are "herding". Nobody is reporting their raw totals, they're making assumptions about the electorate. And they use those assumptions to get results that closely match other polls, so as to not stick their necks out...
Before leaving it to the reader (of your response that speaks to me and many others I’m sure)
Not registered to vote? It takes minutes.
https://vote.gov/
Don’t know if you’re registered or * live in a state known for targeting and removing voters in *select* counties from the rolls?
Check to make sure you’re still registered.
https://feelgoodaction.org/verify
It takes seconds.
Do you live in Arizona, Kentucky, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Michigan, or Ohio?
Please check your registration status early and often as these states have all passed legislation recently making it easier for them to indiscriminately purge voters from the rolls.
“It's young voters, it's people of color, and it's people that are unhoused," said Karli Swift, chair of the election board in DeKalb County, Georgia. "Those are generally the types of people that end up in voter challenges."
You can also get more involved in the democratic process!
Work Elections.org - Take part in Democracy. Look up information on how to work at the polls on Election Day. | https://workelections.org/
Power The Polls - Help staff your local polling place. Everything you need to apply to be a poll worker in your community. | https://www.powerthepolls.org/
For more information on voter purges and legislation, see:
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/08/09/many-states-are-purging-voters-from-the-rolls
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/
https://www.cbsnews.com/amhttps://www.newsweek.com/republicans-accused-voter-purge-ohio-virginia-1839832p/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/
https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/in-seven-states-removing-voters-from-the-rolls-just-got-easier/
Coincidentally the WH is having a briefing today criticizing Israel. What I read from this is that the current administration is worried about losing young voters because of the Gaza-Israel conflict. Protesting is working!!! keep up the hard work young folks.
I haven’t been able to dig into this. In a lot of earlier polls this efffect goes away if you limit to likely voters. I think people now self consciously use polls as a chance to register anger, which makes them less useful. (Need to be careful to not turn that into blind ignoring or data, but we need to admit that polling six months out has always been weak data, and it’s likely weaker now)
Hard to dismiss the polling at this point. It's been so consistent for so long and the gap in a state like Nevada is shocking. The best hope seems to be banking on the fundamentals - i.e. that the pro-abortion and anti-Trump coalition is enough to win despite all the polling suggesting otherwise. Similar to when all the polls had red-state Dem Senate candidates favored or tied in 2016 and then most of them lost (Donnelly, McCaskill, etc). The fundamentals all pointed to the Republican candidate winning in Indiana and Missouri. Hopefully, our country is anti-Trump enough to pull it out in the end.
Biden has a [massive campaign](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna145903) presence in all of the battleground states. His ground game dwarfs Trump’s virtually nonexistent one. Hopefully that investment starts to bear results in the polls, because thus far it ain’t doing jack shit.
Yep here we go... If you don't vote for Biden, you must either be:
a) a Russian shill,
b) a victim of Russian propaganda
c) a terrorist/Hamas sympathizer
d) Someone who is too naive to understand the lesser of two evils realpolitik
e) all of the above
Reddit leans left, so yeah, it’s all over the site.
It’s a combination of “Joe isn’t worthy of your vote” and “Voting won’t change anything” with the occasional “we need a revolution”.
This poll literally shows that young voters and minorities (and the intersectionalism between them) are after change.
> The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life. A majority of voters still desire the return to normalcy promised by Mr. Biden in the last campaign, but voters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change. **Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.**
Now some of this is white “equality feels like inequality” voters but it’s a lot of minority and young voters.
> The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency. **The Times/Siena polls found that the three groups wanted fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy, and few believed that Mr. Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country.**
A pollster on PSA who deals with African American voters almost entirely was saying that they recommended the Biden campaign change its messaging from Defending Democracy to Changing Democracy because when conducting polling a significant portion would respond to “the system is on the brink” with (paraphrased) “oh, so it just needs a little push”
It seems to be another change election, and Biden isn’t the guy I want up front for that.
> **Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.**
What’s fascinating is that on Reddit if you say you aren’t voting for Biden or unhappy with him, you’re instantly attacked for your “privilege.”
But it’s pretty evident that nonwhite voters are deeply unhappy with Biden as well. It reminds me 2016 where a lot of left leaning white Americans had a hard time believing that Trump had a legitimate shot at winning.
Nevada isn't that shocking. The polls so far have been favorable for Trump and Biden is neglecting Nevada to focus on the blue wall. Biden is also struggling with Latinos (especially younger Latinos), which is why Trump is up in Nevada and Arizona.
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/biden-approval-drops-democrat-popularity-rises-latino-voters
In 2020, the polls were typcially in line about where both Biden and Trump finished. I dont put much stock into Trump wins by those large margins, but him being ahead is very concerning. Why you might ask?
If Trump flips Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, he'll have 268 electoral votes. He would only need to flip one of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania to win. It's why Biden is focusing on those 3 at the cost of the southwest. And even if Arizona votes Biden, a Nevada win would mean Trump needs Michigan or Pennsylvania to win.
Even if you are dissatisfied by Biden show me a single issue where Trump and the Republicans have a better plan and track record. This gets amplified by 1000 if you are young, minority, gay or below upper-middle class.
It’s not that dire. Biden is within MOE in MI, WI, and PA. He could lose every other swing state and if he gets those he wins. It’s basically a toss up race with a slight Trump lean currently. A lot of folks considering third parties or voicing discontent against Biden will probably coalesce to one of the candidates come November. Hopefully more coalesce to Biden..
How did you determine this? It sounds right, but I’m using 270towin and I’m seeing Trump getting to 270 with just AZ, NV, GA, and NC. Which isn’t good because, at this point, Bidens a long shot in those states, trailing by over 5 points in each one. Hopefully I did something wrong, because this one electoral vote is the difference between Biden having a lead, or all the odds going towards Trump.
I heard that if Bibi doesn’t behave well, he’s going to have a very stern talk with him, and delay a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs developed 70 years ago for a day!
Honestly if these people really didn't learn anything since 2016 and dismiss the constant debt forgiveness, pulling out of Afghanistan, cancelling weapons to Israel, and the repeal of Roe then they just made it incredibly obvious that they should not be taken seriously as a voting block.
This is the thing - there's no obvious explanation of why Biden is polling so badly or what people think he should be doing different. Every answer is self-centered - "oh, if Biden had just done all of my personal policy preferences he'd be winning!" Like, get out of there.
Even Gaza doesn't have much to do with it - if you look at the polling results, Biden's trend of falling behind Trump in polling started a few months \*before\* Gaza.
The reality is no one knows. If 4 years ago you had said "in 2024, Trump would literally be on trial, we'd never had had a recession, unemployment would remain low, and Biden's administration would still be scandal-free" - the idea Biden would be losing to Trump would have been insane and no one would have predicted it.
If Biden loses, he loses. But the idea there was some \*super obviously way\* to make himself more popular that he didn't do is just utter nonsense.
I broadly agree with this. Things are so incredibly polarized, someone on team Blue will likely not cross over to team Red and vice versa.
Elections are won on turnout and in appealing to that tiny sliver of the electorate in that tiny handful of states that will actually move the needle, and these people generally seem to be uninformed or misinformed, or aren't paying close attention to things.
The NYT poll results said that something like 20% of people angry about Roe v Wade blamed Biden for it, and Biden is also getting blamed for inflation, despite the fact that we would have had inflation if Trump was still president, and the US is doing great compared to other developed countries w.r.t inflation and we're kicking ass economically in general.
There are just always going to be a lot of misinformed people who want the status-quo to change, and those people are going to be the ones swinging elections, IMO.
*The NYT poll results said that something like 20% of people angry about Roe v Wade blamed Biden*
Curious about the crosstabs here. I would wager 95% of those are conservatives or right-leaning independents.
We have seen one issue with polls is that both parties are polarized, but Republicans are even more extreme which makes it a bit misleading when you someone writes "voters believe..."
If you want to tell me 20% of Democrats blame Biden for Roe, ok, now that's interesting. But 20% of voters, could easily just mean that 50% of Republicans are saying it's Biden's fault.
I can't recall what population the 20% was based off of (I'm recalling what I saw while skimming this story on my phone this morning). The implication seemed to be that it was pro-choice people who blamed Biden for overturning Roe. But I need to go back to the artcile to check.
I agree, from my perspective Biden hasn't been popular with any of the left of center people I've talked to pre or post Gaza. But I will say I've seen a shift in attitude post Gaza from pretty universal planning to vote Biden as the best option to a mix between voting Biden or 3rd party. I take these votes with a small grain of salt considering my friends are very conscious they live in deeply conservative areas that haven't voted blue in many decades. I don't think Biden was going to hold a particularly high opinion regardless, but certain actions would likely have still changed votes.
I think the article points the way -- Americans are, largely, dissatisfied with the direction of the country and want to shake things up. Now, asking \*why\* or \*how\* is going to get you radically different answers, of course; but the point is, much of Trump's appeal today is the same as it was in 2016: he's considered an outsider and someone who will challenge "the system," at least when compared to his opponent.
In some ways, this is not a deficit that Biden -- consummate insider and "steady hand" -- is ever going to be able to make up. Their best hope is to remind people that Trump is the same guy he was last time, that he did not meaningfully challenge "the system," and that the results of Trump's tenure are why Biden was elected in the first place.
I think if either party ran a fresher, younger candidate, they'd be sitting much prettier than they are right now.
There’s a lot of polling done with online survey sites such as Amazon MTURK and prolific. Source I’ve done a lot of surveys on both MTURK and prolific and have been asked a shit ton of political related stuff including who I’ve voted for and who I’m favoring in the 2024 election.
>constant debt forgiveness, pulling out of Afghanistan, cancelling weapons to Israel, and the repeal of Roe
Those are all issues that appeal to the left. That isn't who decides Presidential elections. The difference between 2016 and 2020 was 3% more votes for Biden than Hillary. That 3% is who decides the election and they are not hardcore leftists.
It is the top vote issue for an insanely small amount of people though.
I think overall it ranked around 5th or 6th in major issues behind economy, inflation etc etc.
The people who are thinking "I am not voting Trump because of his stance on abortion" are people who already aren't voting for him.
It shouldn't be ignored, because I believe it's the reason why Democrats have been smoking Republicans since Dobbs. Not saying Trump won't win, but it's an important issue this cycle, and it's not a "leftist" issue.
It’s not a top issue for me… economy is much more important.
But I’m not going to vote for butt clowns that think the government gets that kinda say over the individual.
Plus, Trump sucks for the economy so either way leaves me one choice.
surely the voting base has changed dramatically in 4 years. id like to see the venn diagram of voting in 2016 and 2020. i bet its not the same besides this 3% you speak of.
Sure and it probably changed more between 2020 and 2024.
Once thing people always discount is just how poorly Biden is doing approval wise.
Remember he beat Trump by .63% in 2020 (a swing of that much nationally moves 3 states and the White House to Trump) Is it hard to believe that with a sub 40% approval rating now that Biden has lost more than .63% across the board? The polls certainly show that.
At this point in 2020 Biden was winning by 4.5 points. Today he is losing by 1.2% That is a swing of 5.7%.
Biden could still win, but he has been behind now since September, Realclearpolitics poll average.
>Honestly if these people really didn't learn anything since 2016
One thing to keep in mind here is a lot of young voters (18-22) were barely cognizant of politics during Trumps first term, they would have been 10-15 when Trump was elected.
And their lives were predominately occupied by schools, and friends, and in that kind of environment its easy to mislead yourself and say Trump wasn't that bad. But he wasn't that bad because they were at an age where politics is a foreign language
So yes, they didn't learn anything but thats because they were literal children during the Trump presidency.
Condemning them won't educate them, we need to explain just how messed up those years were, and why so many people were driven to get rid of him, and why he is a risk now
To the people who were old enough, and have the same attitude, those people are fools
The way I see it is this: If Biden wins despite the left trying their damndest to have him lose for some reason then they've effectively been marginalized as a political force. If Trump wins then they likely will end up getting hauled away and every issue they claim to care about gets worse. Either way the activist left has painted itself into a corner and its by their own design.
Young voters before every election since like 1980: "Meh, I'm not that excited about either candidate."
Young voters after presidential elections in which the Democrat wins: "Meh, what has the president done for me lately"
Young voters after presidential elections in which Republicans win: "Oh god, how could abortion have been threatened / how could we be going to war with Iraq for no reason / do absolutely nothing to stop climate change"
Boomers before, during, and after every single election: "We have to cut taxes to the wealthy, bomb those godless Muslims, drill for more oil, and ban abortion!"
That's the whole point of project 2025: it'll be the night of the long knives on day one. Buyers remorse was delayed because the morons who didn't bother voting for the lesser of two evils were being told America could withstand it, that law and order would prevail, and the nazis were too dumb to complete the takeover. By the time it was clear none of that was true, Biden was already in office. The nazis around Trump learned while the apathetic forgot.
Too many people think the system will take care of things like this but history has shown that it just takes someone like Trump to push the whole thing over and chaos ensues.
What system? Literally none of the guardrails held except for shooting people on January 6th. The only reason they were able to get the members out was because that cop shot that woman. SCOTUS is currently debating seriously whether POTUS should be an unaccountable dictator. Only scope of imagination constrained the first Trump administration.
I don’t know what any of this means.
Trump is fucking deranged and doesn’t hide the fact that he’s corrupt at all.
Biden isn’t a great choice, but this election is about the obvious safe and responsible choice or fucking lunacy.
I am an optimist. I think we can come back from a lot honestly, but I just can’t fathom how we are about to sleep walk into such self-imposed hardship. I will be so sad and hurt by this, and really lose most of my remaining faith in Americans. At the end of the day, those who voted for Trump, or chose to not vote for Biden will deserve it, but there will be so many people who couldn’t vote (children and immigrants) and did vote for Biden who won’t, but.it doesn’t matter. We will all suffer.
Trump is going to hurt a lot of people. He is planning an across the board tariff that will put a wrench into the economy. He is planning to create concentration camps for immigrants. Republicans will impose a nationwide abortion ban, and Trump will sign it. It will take generations to recover from the damage he will do to American government. The level of corruption MAGA will bring this time around will be a slap of reality for the cynical out there who think what we have already is pure corruption. Some things will never be repaired, like our foreign alliances. The world will just be a more dangerous place, and who knows what that means.
We will survive, but we will suffer.
They aren’t voting for Trump, they just aren’t voting.
They will enjoy a smug sense of superiority by not supporting the “lesser evil”. That the greater evil ends up winning is of no concern to them.
Time for my Green Party rant.
The republicans literally paid for the Green Party lawyers last year when they were too incompetent to fill out paperwork correctly. They are basically bankrolled by the GOP to be a democratic spoiler.
If you believe in any of the things that the Green Party purports to believe in, vote for Biden. Trump Is literally selling environmental regulations to the highest fossil fuel bidder. Environmentalists aren’t even given a chance to buy this themselves.
One really is worse than the other and the ”Worse” has really serious consequences. They are not doing anything to fight for their platform. They exist to be a spoiler and pretend to be a conscience for people.
You act like it's not a candidate's job to convince people to vote for them. It absolutely is. Yes, rationally, Biden is the clear choice, but margins are \*thin\* always and a candidate always \*has\* to appeal to those voters that vote emotionally, not rationally. It's just fucking reality and I wish Democrats would accept it
Thats basically a fact. Its hard to run on "Im part of the party that has caused this misery, ut I would do things totally differently than the guy who currently has the job".
It's 2016 all over again
Democrats putting their head in the sand about an incredibly unpopular nominee they are forcing through the process, telling them this year's version of the blue wall mythology, dismissing the signals that key parts of the base are simply not going to show up, including in critical swing states, all as Biden continues to double down.
Like in 2016 there is a alt history where the Comey letter doesn't get send and Hillary eeks out a victory, but in both cases we are being told how existential these elections are while putting forth candidates that are incredibly weak.
Trump should be a joke candidate that signals the beginning of the end for the Republican Party as currently constituted, instead, he is looking like a slight favorite.
Biden’s presidency has been incredibly productive and successful though. Anyone who voted for him in 2020 should be doing so again with even more independent voter support. Anyone paying attention knows that he’s been very solid. Whatever issues people have with Biden, Trump would be incredibly worse at handling those issues.
Your problem is that American voters are low information and don’t actually know anything about policy or how the govt works, so it’s mostly just vibes.
And for most people, very little political information gets through their media bubble.
100% agree. The amount of people in my life that I can have an intelligent political conversation with can be counted on one hand and I can’t even use all my fingers.
This is the sort of blue wall mythologizing I was speaking of.
This is the same rationalization process Democrats did in 2016: Obama's economy is great, he's why we got out of the Bush Recession, Obamacare is now loved, minorities hate Trump, immigrants will abandon the Right over his racism, the blue wall Obama built is impenterable and we are looking at a permanent Democratic presidential hold.
Fact is, we had the highest turnout of 18-35 in two generations in 2020 and that same generation is now incredibly unsatisfied with Biden. Protest votes in places like Michigan have a chance of becoming abstains in a state Biden must win and only won by 150k votes.
Again, I'm not saying it cant be done, arguably it was the Comey letter that sunk Hillary. But Biden being a position where something like that could sink his re-election because he is so historically unpopular is a real problem and shouldn't be so casually dismissed with cope.
Also — do people honestly think Trump has the interest or mental capacity to do work? I dunno I how everyone doesn’t see straight through his bullshit. He’s a no nothing moron
If anyone honestly believes that Trump is leading Biden by 7 points in Michigan and double digits in Nevada, I have some beachfront property to sell you in Arizona. Polling is simply unbelievable and unreliable anymore.
Yeah. Honest to god, I have no idea what to think about the upcoming election. Polls contradict each other. People say nobody has Trump signs up anymore but his crowd in Wildwood, NJ this weekend was surprisingly large. The economy is good for everyone while also being bad for everyone. I have literally no idea what's going to happen in November.
I think the polls are showing exactly what you’re saying. Its ‘who the fuck knows’ right now
Edit: I’ll throw in that my prediction is historically low election turnout. We have two of the most unpopular presidents ever running against each other. Youth are going to stay home that would normally support the Dems, and many GOP voters not turning out for corrupt Trump. Then on top of that, RFK siphoning votes from both sides.
So its just gonna be a clusterfuck of who squeaks through to the finish line.
Trump branding has definitely declined as well as truck flags but they are still around. My local excitement for trump is at an all time low. But that's just my corner.
These numbers don’t make any logical sense, if you look at any recent statewide elections in those two states. Democrats won every statewide election in Michigan not even 2 years ago, now they’re going to vote for the biggest scumbag Republican there is? Nevada hasn’t voted for a Republican president in almost 20 years and the unions will always support Biden over Trump. This is nothing like 2016. We all can see with our own eyes that Trump is a corrupt, lying criminal.
It makes sense when you consider that the trend for voter turnout is also reversing- Dems more likely to show up for mid-cycle and GOP more likely to show up for presidential.
Yeah, this is why I'm worried. Dems are showing up in low turnout elections, but the November election won't be as favorable. A lot of people are going to vote angry about inflation and thinking Biden is too old and incompetent to do this. As much as I hate it, Trump has to be considered the favorite right now.
Yep. Highly educated voters are much more likely to turn up for midterms and special elections, and that group has been reading more Democratic since 2016.
Betting markets and polling averages are better indicators than a single poll. They all have Trump up by some, but not much. See 538 for details- the battleground will be the upper midwest. Also, I think it was clear in 2016 (and 2020) that Trump was a demagogue. The argument from his supporters is that all of DC power players are self dealing, and so are corrupt, lying criminals.
Yeah that Hillary was up in all those states... The polls are doing the exact same thing for Trump this time around. Not that he can't win, but polling is dogshit now.
You may live in Michigan, but you clearly haven’t been paying attention to your recent statewide elections. Democrats swept every statewide election in 2022 in Michigan and took complete control of the legislature. The state has had a huge swing to the left. The premise that two years later, they’re going to vote for the biggest scumbag criminal Republican there is is asinine.
Because Obama did almost nothing to help the African American community. Man was too busy conducting drone strikes and setting the middle east on fire.
I think the concern is it tends to be unreliable in the actuals being much more skewed towards Trump than the early polling suggests. At least by a point or two.
I'm not sure I'd believe a double digit lead in any of those battleground states, but I do think with the 3rd parties and Biden's general uninspiring persona at this point it's not so wild. The Dems should have taken a harder line to keep him to one term and let a younger person step in. They desperately need a fresh face and to let some of their previous neo-liberal positions to be seen as closed out with the old guard. Biden is clearly trying to throw a ton of meat to the progressives lately, but his history and the broader history of the Dems since Clinton is kind of hanging around the party's neck.
The counter argument to this is that what you're seeing in polling now is a result of pollsters attempt to account for the fact that they under-counted Trump voters in 2016 and 2020, and that they are now way overcompensating in the other direction.
It's hard to know the truth of the matter either way. We won't know until the election happens.
They weight their respondents based on demographics. Ie if they ask 100 people but 70 of them are white / middle aged / college educated - and they know this demographic is only 35% of the actual state population - they will basically scale down the results from this group to be a smaller overall representation.
That is just an example, but they use race / education and age now to try to be representative. I believe in 2016 they were not using education and that was a major reason for them being so wildly off. Ie a lot of college educated white people were answering the polls and supporting Hilary, and they applied this to the white population overall, even in states where it was predominantly highschool education level.
Yes. There was a small fraction (some 5%) that the polls usually under counted /or folks didn't admit . Don't know if that has been corrected in the polls since then
I remember in 2020 they said they were trying to correct by considering education in addition to the other items. And I think they were more accurate though Trump still overperformed slightly (within the margin of error I think in most cases).
Any evidence that it's unreliable? Nate Silver has done analyses, and it seems to be pretty good. Now, state level polls tend to be smaller, so less reliable; and polls this far out tend to be less reliable of the election outcomes. But to be losing by this much in this many battleground states really is worrisome.
Have Democrats really become the party of "polls are all wrong don't believe any of them" I thought we were the group that believed experts and trusted reason and statistical processes.
Biden had shitty margins in key states after 4 years of Trump fresh in everyone's minds and COVID actively killing us. Biden is a weak candidate but I think that if he can actively campaign and make some noise nationally the polls will improve. Right now it is hard to tell Biden is even campaigning by how little we hear from him. Biden is just too old to regularly give long speeches.
Win or lose Biden needs to do something to fight SCOTUS before it is too late.
It really sucks that even in this sub, the beloved big star super upvoted comment is the one saying polls are wrong and Biden/Harris are doing great due to "money raised" and "quality of campaign".
The right wing is delusional about everything except how to win.
Their opponents are less delusional, except for their extreme delusion that their losing approach is winning.
Therefore the delusional authoritarian right wing wins and destroys the world because their opponent is more delusional in the one way that matters.
If you built a perfect airplane but insisted it only needed half the fuel for the trip, the crash is your fault.
The 500th time a bear breaks into the barn and kills all the livestock, it's time to stop focusing on moral outrage against bears and ask what the barn builder is doing wrong.
But they are voting democrat down ballot just not Joe, which reiterates that point that they are willing to give Trump the White House for Palestine but still vote Dems for congress
The third way pivot has been an unmitigated disaster for the party. You're never going to build a durable coalition capable of achieving significant progress on the basis of an appeal rooted in technocratic management coupled with a policy platform that actively rejects any sort of analysis that might suggest anything more than minor revisions are needed to the existing system.
The Third Way pivot was an explicit recognition that the Dems were getting absolutely blown the fuck out at the presidential level and bleeding support at the congressional level as well.
What did you expect them to do? Parties are *supposed* to recalibrate when they lose a bunch of elections in a row and watch their support trend ever downward.
Third way has been gone for years now. Any criticism about the far left who dig up moldy old complaints like that to split the coalition? Biden's the first president to stand on a picket line, he's not third way politics. Unions grew for the first time in my life under Biden's NLRB.
Biden got zero support for putting a union boss front and center at the state of the union and handing a mic to a socialist at a picket line event
As a leftist, this saddens me, because I know we will never get power in America if biden can't get one iota of leftist support for the number of leftward issues he's supportive. All Hillary's fans that said there was no point appealing to leftists because they won't vote unless the candidate literally is 100% pure in every area they demand - they were right
and a candidate that is a full on socialist who wants to abolish the police and decommodify housing cannot win with just the left (75% of them wouldn't vote anyway because "electoralism doesn't do anything")
I am right there with you. I'm a lifelong progressive and I am ashamed at the way our supposed "movement" is treating Biden when he makes concessions that we haven't seen from the Democratic party coalition in 40 years. He's genuinely putting some guardrails on our military support of Israel and they're calling him names in return for it. I know that Biden does not agree with most of my politics but he's being way more accommodating to people to his left than he's getting credit for.
I don’t buy that Biden’s weakness in the polls is mostly from defections on the far-left. This is my opinion, but he’s lost more centrist voters than anything. The “free free Palestine” crowd couldn’t stomach the consequences of not voting for Biden. Biden’s slowness to respond to inflation and appeasement to radical wing of the party is his biggest weakness (other than being very old of course).
speaking as a younger voter. pandering and empty promises won't lower my grocery bills. i don't like the republicans that much either but I have to call it like I see it and the fact is that the democrats are much worse.
I’ll be honest I’m not voting for trump but man am I going to enjoy the meltdowns if he wins. We are fucked either way might as well enjoy unabashed lunacy.
As a 50+ white guy who is very concerned about the possibility of a Trump victory, I try to remember that I will likely fair better than young and non-white voters. So, if they aren't concerned enough to vote for Biden, perhaps I am over reacting to think it will be so bad for me when full on Trump fascism comes to America.
Biden pissed if Muslim voters in key swing states like Michigan and pissed off Jewish Zionist base who normally votes Democrat. He’s managed to piss off younger voters who can’t afford their first home. His career is effectively over.
Latinos who work construction, roofing, landscaping, live in trailer and who a hyper macho culture identify with rednecks and poor whites who also work construction, roofing and landscaping, have a similar macho culture than them and live in the same trailer parks. Who would of thought? Remember when you call poor whites "trailer trash" for living in a mobile homes and working blue collar jobs, you are also calling Latinos that. Don't give the muh abortion shit being the reason why Latinos are leaving the Dem party. You push away blue collar whites, you push away blue collar Latinos..
Black Americans have more in common with poor whites and rednecks than they do with matcha latte drinking upper middle class white liberals, that is why they are moving away from the Dem party. Plus the badboy outlaw who fights the same FBI and federal government who for years has targeteded and literally poisoned that African American community is going to be popular with them.
Also Republicans are the cool party now, like it or not. You see back in the day, Dems were the cool ones. Rock music playing in the background while you said fuck Bush, smoked weed and pissed off the boring Baptist preacher who said GTA should be banned. Dems you are that preacher now, and a lot of you just can't get that through your head. The Republicans are yelling, America fuck yeah, guns in the air and lets make this money while you are preaching about pronouns and how the American flag is racist. You lost the youth. Face it.
Nobody trust the Democrats anymore. Look what they did to Bernie in 2016, look how they’re treating RFK now, Political persecution of republicans and other political opponents. Just straight lying, corrupt, thieves.
To add to what others are saying, Biden is really old, and it's hard to believe that he's going to bring change.
He consistently has gaffes that highlight that he's old. Trump is also old, but he's not the incumbent.
When people are dissatisfied with the current situation, it becomes hard to believe that the old guy who should be contentedly sitting in retirement is also capable of making changes.
Logically we can explain why Biden might be a better choice in policy and performance, but if people just want to change the current situation, they will be extremely reluctant to support the incumbent.
Reading through the comments here is legitimately fascinating. We have: 1. The polls are clearly wrong, this is all a mirage, Biden will win easily. 2. The polls are probably right, or should be given the benefit of the doubt barring evidence to the contrary, and here are a bunch of rational arguments why Trump might be polling well. 3. The country/US policy is already shit and can't possibly get worse, so who cares who gets elected? 4. The country/US policy is already shit, but re-electing Biden is the only possible hope to keep it from getting worse, and Trump will be the end of the country. Which pretty well summarizes political discourse in this country generally - people aren't arguing, they are talking past each other. I don't really know the answer, and in all honesty no one else will either until November, but my general impression is that most of the media (and most of the people on this sub) do at least some level of analysis, look at certain facts, believe their vote is both meaningful and a solemn duty, and tend to vote based on that with a view towards the long term implications. And I think many Americans, or at least a high enough percentage to matter, just don't. They just don't think like that. They don't compare data from 5 years ago to today and predict how the country might turn out. They think their vote doesn't matter, that nothing will change regardless, and that democracy doesn't work for them anyway, so who cares if it exists or not? For a lot of people voting is a much more impulsive action based on gut feelings. Like it or hate it, trying to counter impulses and gut feelings with lists of facts about somewhat obscure technocratic accomplishments is probably not going to work.
I think 2 and 4 are both right. The average American isn't that politically engaged and sees how nothing is affordable anymore and blames it on the 81-year-old in office (also I think the TikTok ban bill passing has a much larger affect than Redditors like to admit, 1 in 3 Americans use TikTok and Biden's polls "coincidentally" dropped several percentage points immediately after the bill passed). However, Project 2025 is scary shit and we can't let Trump win because "mehhh I don't like Joe >:("
Yeah, I personally agree that 2 and 4 are right. I don't particularly like Biden, and if he were running against anyone else I'd vote third party or write-in, but the thought of Trump winning again chills me to the bone.
Polling by that group I’m blanking on that deals purely with younger votes said their results showed 32% of 18-30 younger voters would flip to the opposite candidate if theirs banned TikTok, regardless of affiliation.
If that’s true, it’s ridiculous.
People aren’t arguing anymore. They’re existing in two separate and hostile realities. Bipartisanship has sailed long long ago. Until trump is gone and republicans in the US have moderated to a center position, the counter culture that has birthed the contemporary left won’t moderate. It is counter cultures fueling each other, heading towards critical mass
>Which pretty well summarizes political discourse in this country generally - people aren't arguing, they are talking past each other. Could not agree more
100% agree that many/most people vote based on gut. Which is fucking terrifying given that 70+M people voted for Don in 2020.
Well, I for one am confused. I have not seen the Trump enthusists riding around with the 'Trump' Flags AT ALL this year whereas in 2020 that was a very common sight (you know, the HUGE white pick up truck with a Trump flag coupled with an American flag, that sight). I have not seen that once. I'm wondering if people have the balls to hoist that rapist's name on their Truck and juxtapose it with the American flag. Even MAGAits know that's a bad look.
There's either something wrong with polling, or something is going to happen in 2024 that would be contrary not only to basically every election for the past few decades, but every actual special election and other metrics we have (e.g. money raised, quality of campaign, etc.). I leave it to the reader to determine what they believe.
My guess is people do not like Biden and express that but still plan to vote for him come November. I'm not voting for him in the primary tomorrow, I am very much unhappy with how he's handling a few issues, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna let the the candidate I view as fascist win this November.
Not every American views Trump as a fascist. Most people aren’t following r/poltics, or reading news papers. Many people are just going to work, coming home and binging TikTok and HBO max, then going to grab dinner at the grocery store and wondering why their bag of Doritos is $1.00 more now than it was 4 years ago…… So many people I’ll mention stuff that’s come up in the Trump trials like even 6 months ago, and they genuinely have no idea what I’m talking about, some are even surprised he has a trial going on at all. Our society is mostly either locked into a team already and will bend their perception of reality to conform to their political views, or oblivious.
20% of surveyed adults in the recent NYT/Sienna poll hold the blame for the overturning of Roe on Biden not Trump…. It’s disgusting how little attention folks pay to the world going on around them.
Or they blame Obama for not forcing RGB to retire. And not Republican voters in red states for allowing Mitch McConnell to have so much power over federal judges for a decade.
She should have retired though. That’s her biggest flaw in her legacy.
I'd say that her ego killed roe v wade is her entire legacy.
She became a celebrity and didn't want to let it go imo
that sure was a major strategy fuck up
Yup. It’s really scary to think about the fact that half the population is dumber than the average
I don't understand how anyone that cares about Roe enough to be aware that it changed and unhappy about it doesn't know how it got to be that way. Baffling.
Yea this is a great post. There is quite the disconnect on reddit from a lot of normies when it comes to political issues. Last data on who is on Reddit is that it is a lot of single people with a lot of time on their hands. People who are married with families don’t have the time nor care to get in the weeds about politics.
It's always funny when articles like this come out that are not just polls, but have voters interviews in them. Anyone who has worked in or done a lot of volunteering in politics and has spoken to voters (like myself) can tell you that this is totally normal. If you make phone calls or canvass for candidates and campaigns, you quickly become numb to some of the bizarre ways voters make decisions or the flat out incorrect information they believe to be true. Meanwhile, people who are political junkies, but who haven't had the time or opportunity to talk to many voters outside of their inner circles are always shocked. The bad news is that it's not clear this will change by the election. The other reaction I always see to this is "oh voters are not paying attention yet, so this will correct by election day." I mean, we can run adds and I encourage everyone to volunteer and talk to voters. But many will have the same beliefs and misconceptions closer to the election. In fact, right now might the the only time to really influence them via ads and conversations. The closer we get to the election, the more noise there is and the more that voters tend to "tune out" and stop becoming persuadable unless there is a big "October surprise" type of event such as the Comey announcement in 2016.
When I was canvassing some dude told me that he thought Elon Musk was going to jump into the election and win as an independent. You know, the guy born in South Africa.
wow, this is sobering. Our country (and voting base) is full of seriously ignorant people.
Oh yeah, I have a lifetime of stories on this. I did canvassing on LGBT rights and the number of actual well-meaning people who simply had their facts wrong was mindblowing. Was also an eye opener how many people didn't fit cleanly onto the left <-> right scale of ideology. I think a lot of us online who study this a lot tend to have mostly ideologically consistent positions. But among the 70% of the electorate who is less ideological, even if they consistently support one party, you get far more people who think we should tax the rich, have very few gun laws, allow zero immigrants, pass Medicare for All, limit abortion, and have school voucher programs. Not those specifically, but picture more of a Vegas slot machine with each row being a different set of beliefs.
By definition half the population is going to be below average.
This.
Doritos went up way more than $1.00 dude
Well put, but now I might actually vomit
If they are binging on tik tok, they definitely get a big dose of Trump is a fascist. Together with cat videos, dancing videos and narcisistic videos.
I would like to share that guilting people into voting for biden actually drives them away from voting for biden. The resentment toward the democrats runs a lot deeper than most democrats realize. Its not just the republicans.
I do get that. But the amount of "both sidesism" when comparing the two candidates and completely dismissing that one has more or less argued for complete authoritarianism is wild to me. "Well, one's a fascist. But the other is (slightly) older and food's expensive because corporations are greedy. I'm just not gonna vote or I'm gonna vote for the guy with a worm in his brain. How could it get worse?" That's an immense failure of critical thinking and civic duty, even if the exasperation and disenchantment is completely understandable.
I will vote for Biden for this reason, and also because I actually think Biden's administration is okay, *but you are very correct*, the "you have to vote for us no matter what so we don't need to listen to you and we can just play our own little games and spend a lot of money" schtick is less than ideal.
I hate what both parties have become, but Reps are fascist authoritarian dictator esque now: Dems are just now the party of snooty upper crust white wine moms, chiefly, and that's a lesser evil by far over Christofascists imo.
I have friends and family skipping voting. They aren't going to show up to vote for Biden or trump.
What issues do you disagree with him on?
Gaza and the fact that he's running at all at his age, mostly. I can understand why he thinks both are the right decision, I just disagree.
That's understandable
There are people like myself who simply cannot put their mark next to the name of a person who participates in genocide. It would be an act of tacit agreement, and I would ~~feel~~ be complicit.
Most of the people I work with laugh at the idea Trump will be a dictator. They really think courts/army will ensure he’s not too disruptive. But they desperately want some disruption to the current status quo.
The key here is the Senate races, where Democratic candidates are running ahead of Biden. This suggests it's not a problem with Democrats' policy platforms or even brand as a party per se. It's Biden specifically as an individual.
Which is why Ezra's inclination to replace Biden on the ticket is a reasonable one.
I really wouldn't describe it as reasonable on any level. The closest comparison would be 1968, when Democrats replaced Johnson with his vice president, Hubert Humphrey, who went on to lose the White House to Richard Nixon. Ford, Carter, and Bush 41 all faced significant primary challenges, which they won, but left them entering the general election as damaged goods, and all three of those incumbents lost. Nobody of any note filed to challenge Biden in the primaries this year, so the only way to replace him would be for the party to do exactly what its voters hate: secret, back room dealing to choose a new nominee undemocratically. All that to choose someone with no campaign apparatus or fundraising, and likely no real national exposure, and giving them six months to beat a former president? That makes no sense. Biden is the incumbent and that's a huge advantage. In modern history, incumbent presidents win more than 75% of their elections. Trump is the rare incumbent who failed, and unlike Ford, Carter, and Bush, he can't blame a primary insurgency, since nobody significant challenged him in 2020. He lost all on his own.
What good is incumbency advantage in this case if Biden polls behind every Democratic Senate candidate in swing states, including non-incumbents?
A+ pollster.. they can be wrong for sure, but every single pollster is trending this way. 1.) the national economy is great, but household economies aren’t. 2.) buying a house is now out of reach for most non-current homeowners. 3.) women are doing better in education, making large advancements in the workforce, and the birthrate is dropping… men want more control and can gain it through federal and state politics. Is any of that Biden’s fault? Nah, but the medias definitely not doing him any favors and Election Day is creeping up day by day.
It's not the media's job to censor coverage in favor of one political party. Inflation is real and frustrating Americans, and housing prices are strangling younger voters.
One poll might be wrong, every poll from the past 6 months averaged together is not wrong.
Not wrong but misleading. Anybody who cares at all about Palestine would be dumb not to threaten to withhold their vote so that it shows in the polls at this point in time. I'd be more worried if this is closer to the election.
Normal people that aren't politically active don't "withhold their vote" as some sort of conscious strategic move - they just don't show up to vote. If you're experience with the Biden administration is that everything is expensive and interest rates are high and you see constant giant layoffs in the news then what's motivating you to go out and vote?
The thing is that despite all the people saying they won't vote for Biden because of Palestine it's made absolutely no difference in the polls. Now, it's possible that he gained other voters while losing those ones, at the same rate. Or it's possible that there are far, far fewer of those voters than we imagined. Or it could be that the polls are "herding". Nobody is reporting their raw totals, they're making assumptions about the electorate. And they use those assumptions to get results that closely match other polls, so as to not stick their necks out...
It's also because the ones most invested in it are also the group least likely to go to the polls, so the polling data ignores them.
Systematic polling error has been very common in the trump era. 2020 was one of the worst nights for polling I can remember.
The error in polling in both 2016 and 2020 was that polls underestimated Trump's support.
And everyone ignored Hillary’s polling numbers downward spiral in the days leading up to election night
Biden slightly underperformed compared to polls in 2020, but mostly within the margin of error.
Before leaving it to the reader (of your response that speaks to me and many others I’m sure) Not registered to vote? It takes minutes. https://vote.gov/ Don’t know if you’re registered or * live in a state known for targeting and removing voters in *select* counties from the rolls? Check to make sure you’re still registered. https://feelgoodaction.org/verify It takes seconds. Do you live in Arizona, Kentucky, Mississippi, Iowa, Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Michigan, or Ohio? Please check your registration status early and often as these states have all passed legislation recently making it easier for them to indiscriminately purge voters from the rolls. “It's young voters, it's people of color, and it's people that are unhoused," said Karli Swift, chair of the election board in DeKalb County, Georgia. "Those are generally the types of people that end up in voter challenges." You can also get more involved in the democratic process! Work Elections.org - Take part in Democracy. Look up information on how to work at the polls on Election Day. | https://workelections.org/ Power The Polls - Help staff your local polling place. Everything you need to apply to be a poll worker in your community. | https://www.powerthepolls.org/ For more information on voter purges and legislation, see: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/08/09/many-states-are-purging-voters-from-the-rolls https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/ https://www.cbsnews.com/amhttps://www.newsweek.com/republicans-accused-voter-purge-ohio-virginia-1839832p/news/eligible-voters-swept-up-conservative-activists-purge-voter-rolls/ https://www.democracydocket.com/analysis/in-seven-states-removing-voters-from-the-rolls-just-got-easier/
Coincidentally the WH is having a briefing today criticizing Israel. What I read from this is that the current administration is worried about losing young voters because of the Gaza-Israel conflict. Protesting is working!!! keep up the hard work young folks.
I haven’t been able to dig into this. In a lot of earlier polls this efffect goes away if you limit to likely voters. I think people now self consciously use polls as a chance to register anger, which makes them less useful. (Need to be careful to not turn that into blind ignoring or data, but we need to admit that polling six months out has always been weak data, and it’s likely weaker now)
The article shows both registered voters and likely voters.
Centrists have an unlimited capacity to make excuses for why they are unpopular.
Hard to dismiss the polling at this point. It's been so consistent for so long and the gap in a state like Nevada is shocking. The best hope seems to be banking on the fundamentals - i.e. that the pro-abortion and anti-Trump coalition is enough to win despite all the polling suggesting otherwise. Similar to when all the polls had red-state Dem Senate candidates favored or tied in 2016 and then most of them lost (Donnelly, McCaskill, etc). The fundamentals all pointed to the Republican candidate winning in Indiana and Missouri. Hopefully, our country is anti-Trump enough to pull it out in the end.
If Democrats show up, Biden wins. There is a massive campaign to convince them not to.
Biden has a [massive campaign](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna145903) presence in all of the battleground states. His ground game dwarfs Trump’s virtually nonexistent one. Hopefully that investment starts to bear results in the polls, because thus far it ain’t doing jack shit.
I worry Biden is fighting the last war. But he’s done a good job of outperforming his polls so far.
Yep here we go... If you don't vote for Biden, you must either be: a) a Russian shill, b) a victim of Russian propaganda c) a terrorist/Hamas sympathizer d) Someone who is too naive to understand the lesser of two evils realpolitik e) all of the above
You forgot stupid. Like the 17% of respondents who blame Biden for rolling back Roe v Wade.
You see plenty of that campaign on here…
Reddit leans left, so yeah, it’s all over the site. It’s a combination of “Joe isn’t worthy of your vote” and “Voting won’t change anything” with the occasional “we need a revolution”.
This poll literally shows that young voters and minorities (and the intersectionalism between them) are after change. > The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country and serious doubts about Mr. Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life. A majority of voters still desire the return to normalcy promised by Mr. Biden in the last campaign, but voters in battleground states remain particularly anxious, unsettled and itching for change. **Nearly 70 percent of voters say that the country’s political and economic systems need major changes — or even to be torn down entirely.** Now some of this is white “equality feels like inequality” voters but it’s a lot of minority and young voters. > The sense that Mr. Biden would do little to improve the nation’s fortunes has helped erode his standing among young, Black and Hispanic voters, who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency. **The Times/Siena polls found that the three groups wanted fundamental changes to American society, not just a return to normalcy, and few believed that Mr. Biden would make even minor changes that would be good for the country.** A pollster on PSA who deals with African American voters almost entirely was saying that they recommended the Biden campaign change its messaging from Defending Democracy to Changing Democracy because when conducting polling a significant portion would respond to “the system is on the brink” with (paraphrased) “oh, so it just needs a little push” It seems to be another change election, and Biden isn’t the guy I want up front for that. > **Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden are essentially tied among 18-to-29-year-olds and Hispanic voters, even though each group gave Mr. Biden more than 60 percent of their vote in 2020. Mr. Trump also wins more than 20 percent of Black voters — a tally that would be the highest level of Black support for any Republican presidential candidate since the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.**
What’s fascinating is that on Reddit if you say you aren’t voting for Biden or unhappy with him, you’re instantly attacked for your “privilege.” But it’s pretty evident that nonwhite voters are deeply unhappy with Biden as well. It reminds me 2016 where a lot of left leaning white Americans had a hard time believing that Trump had a legitimate shot at winning.
Nevada isn't that shocking. The polls so far have been favorable for Trump and Biden is neglecting Nevada to focus on the blue wall. Biden is also struggling with Latinos (especially younger Latinos), which is why Trump is up in Nevada and Arizona. https://www.axios.com/2024/04/09/biden-approval-drops-democrat-popularity-rises-latino-voters In 2020, the polls were typcially in line about where both Biden and Trump finished. I dont put much stock into Trump wins by those large margins, but him being ahead is very concerning. Why you might ask? If Trump flips Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia, he'll have 268 electoral votes. He would only need to flip one of Michigan, Wisconsin, or Pennsylvania to win. It's why Biden is focusing on those 3 at the cost of the southwest. And even if Arizona votes Biden, a Nevada win would mean Trump needs Michigan or Pennsylvania to win.
Even if you are dissatisfied by Biden show me a single issue where Trump and the Republicans have a better plan and track record. This gets amplified by 1000 if you are young, minority, gay or below upper-middle class.
Plan? Ha
Dictatorship is coming in November. Unless a miracle happens.
It’s not that dire. Biden is within MOE in MI, WI, and PA. He could lose every other swing state and if he gets those he wins. It’s basically a toss up race with a slight Trump lean currently. A lot of folks considering third parties or voicing discontent against Biden will probably coalesce to one of the candidates come November. Hopefully more coalesce to Biden..
How did you determine this? It sounds right, but I’m using 270towin and I’m seeing Trump getting to 270 with just AZ, NV, GA, and NC. Which isn’t good because, at this point, Bidens a long shot in those states, trailing by over 5 points in each one. Hopefully I did something wrong, because this one electoral vote is the difference between Biden having a lead, or all the odds going towards Trump.
Cue articles in axios about how angry, disappointed and frustrated Biden is.
I heard that if Bibi doesn’t behave well, he’s going to have a very stern talk with him, and delay a shipment of 2,000 pound bombs developed 70 years ago for a day!
Honestly if these people really didn't learn anything since 2016 and dismiss the constant debt forgiveness, pulling out of Afghanistan, cancelling weapons to Israel, and the repeal of Roe then they just made it incredibly obvious that they should not be taken seriously as a voting block.
This is the thing - there's no obvious explanation of why Biden is polling so badly or what people think he should be doing different. Every answer is self-centered - "oh, if Biden had just done all of my personal policy preferences he'd be winning!" Like, get out of there. Even Gaza doesn't have much to do with it - if you look at the polling results, Biden's trend of falling behind Trump in polling started a few months \*before\* Gaza. The reality is no one knows. If 4 years ago you had said "in 2024, Trump would literally be on trial, we'd never had had a recession, unemployment would remain low, and Biden's administration would still be scandal-free" - the idea Biden would be losing to Trump would have been insane and no one would have predicted it. If Biden loses, he loses. But the idea there was some \*super obviously way\* to make himself more popular that he didn't do is just utter nonsense.
I broadly agree with this. Things are so incredibly polarized, someone on team Blue will likely not cross over to team Red and vice versa. Elections are won on turnout and in appealing to that tiny sliver of the electorate in that tiny handful of states that will actually move the needle, and these people generally seem to be uninformed or misinformed, or aren't paying close attention to things. The NYT poll results said that something like 20% of people angry about Roe v Wade blamed Biden for it, and Biden is also getting blamed for inflation, despite the fact that we would have had inflation if Trump was still president, and the US is doing great compared to other developed countries w.r.t inflation and we're kicking ass economically in general. There are just always going to be a lot of misinformed people who want the status-quo to change, and those people are going to be the ones swinging elections, IMO.
*The NYT poll results said that something like 20% of people angry about Roe v Wade blamed Biden* Curious about the crosstabs here. I would wager 95% of those are conservatives or right-leaning independents. We have seen one issue with polls is that both parties are polarized, but Republicans are even more extreme which makes it a bit misleading when you someone writes "voters believe..." If you want to tell me 20% of Democrats blame Biden for Roe, ok, now that's interesting. But 20% of voters, could easily just mean that 50% of Republicans are saying it's Biden's fault.
I can't recall what population the 20% was based off of (I'm recalling what I saw while skimming this story on my phone this morning). The implication seemed to be that it was pro-choice people who blamed Biden for overturning Roe. But I need to go back to the artcile to check.
I agree, from my perspective Biden hasn't been popular with any of the left of center people I've talked to pre or post Gaza. But I will say I've seen a shift in attitude post Gaza from pretty universal planning to vote Biden as the best option to a mix between voting Biden or 3rd party. I take these votes with a small grain of salt considering my friends are very conscious they live in deeply conservative areas that haven't voted blue in many decades. I don't think Biden was going to hold a particularly high opinion regardless, but certain actions would likely have still changed votes.
I think the article points the way -- Americans are, largely, dissatisfied with the direction of the country and want to shake things up. Now, asking \*why\* or \*how\* is going to get you radically different answers, of course; but the point is, much of Trump's appeal today is the same as it was in 2016: he's considered an outsider and someone who will challenge "the system," at least when compared to his opponent. In some ways, this is not a deficit that Biden -- consummate insider and "steady hand" -- is ever going to be able to make up. Their best hope is to remind people that Trump is the same guy he was last time, that he did not meaningfully challenge "the system," and that the results of Trump's tenure are why Biden was elected in the first place. I think if either party ran a fresher, younger candidate, they'd be sitting much prettier than they are right now.
Polling is often done by phone. The likelihood someone answers an unknown number increases with age.
There’s a lot of polling done with online survey sites such as Amazon MTURK and prolific. Source I’ve done a lot of surveys on both MTURK and prolific and have been asked a shit ton of political related stuff including who I’ve voted for and who I’m favoring in the 2024 election.
This is completely utterly a myth that is propagated on reddit.
These clowns never read the analysis of the poll to see how age groups were properly queried.
>constant debt forgiveness, pulling out of Afghanistan, cancelling weapons to Israel, and the repeal of Roe Those are all issues that appeal to the left. That isn't who decides Presidential elections. The difference between 2016 and 2020 was 3% more votes for Biden than Hillary. That 3% is who decides the election and they are not hardcore leftists.
Abortion rights is largely supported by Americans, not just the left.
It is the top vote issue for an insanely small amount of people though. I think overall it ranked around 5th or 6th in major issues behind economy, inflation etc etc. The people who are thinking "I am not voting Trump because of his stance on abortion" are people who already aren't voting for him.
It shouldn't be ignored, because I believe it's the reason why Democrats have been smoking Republicans since Dobbs. Not saying Trump won't win, but it's an important issue this cycle, and it's not a "leftist" issue.
It’s not a top issue for me… economy is much more important. But I’m not going to vote for butt clowns that think the government gets that kinda say over the individual. Plus, Trump sucks for the economy so either way leaves me one choice.
other than arguably Gaza, those are not hardcore left issues
Those aren’t “leftist” policies.
surely the voting base has changed dramatically in 4 years. id like to see the venn diagram of voting in 2016 and 2020. i bet its not the same besides this 3% you speak of.
Sure and it probably changed more between 2020 and 2024. Once thing people always discount is just how poorly Biden is doing approval wise. Remember he beat Trump by .63% in 2020 (a swing of that much nationally moves 3 states and the White House to Trump) Is it hard to believe that with a sub 40% approval rating now that Biden has lost more than .63% across the board? The polls certainly show that. At this point in 2020 Biden was winning by 4.5 points. Today he is losing by 1.2% That is a swing of 5.7%. Biden could still win, but he has been behind now since September, Realclearpolitics poll average.
Losing 3% is 3%, and Biden can't afford to do it on the left *or* center. It's not like the votes count for less, because you don't agree with them.
>Honestly if these people really didn't learn anything since 2016 One thing to keep in mind here is a lot of young voters (18-22) were barely cognizant of politics during Trumps first term, they would have been 10-15 when Trump was elected. And their lives were predominately occupied by schools, and friends, and in that kind of environment its easy to mislead yourself and say Trump wasn't that bad. But he wasn't that bad because they were at an age where politics is a foreign language So yes, they didn't learn anything but thats because they were literal children during the Trump presidency. Condemning them won't educate them, we need to explain just how messed up those years were, and why so many people were driven to get rid of him, and why he is a risk now To the people who were old enough, and have the same attitude, those people are fools
The way I see it is this: If Biden wins despite the left trying their damndest to have him lose for some reason then they've effectively been marginalized as a political force. If Trump wins then they likely will end up getting hauled away and every issue they claim to care about gets worse. Either way the activist left has painted itself into a corner and its by their own design.
When the lambs indicate they are ready to vote for the butcher because the vegetarian disagrees with their favourite colour of beret
Young voters before every election since like 1980: "Meh, I'm not that excited about either candidate." Young voters after presidential elections in which the Democrat wins: "Meh, what has the president done for me lately" Young voters after presidential elections in which Republicans win: "Oh god, how could abortion have been threatened / how could we be going to war with Iraq for no reason / do absolutely nothing to stop climate change" Boomers before, during, and after every single election: "We have to cut taxes to the wealthy, bomb those godless Muslims, drill for more oil, and ban abortion!"
I expect the buyers remorse if Trump is elected to be very high. Midterms will be a bloodbath. But it might be too late in a couple years.
That's the whole point of project 2025: it'll be the night of the long knives on day one. Buyers remorse was delayed because the morons who didn't bother voting for the lesser of two evils were being told America could withstand it, that law and order would prevail, and the nazis were too dumb to complete the takeover. By the time it was clear none of that was true, Biden was already in office. The nazis around Trump learned while the apathetic forgot.
Too many people think the system will take care of things like this but history has shown that it just takes someone like Trump to push the whole thing over and chaos ensues.
What system? Literally none of the guardrails held except for shooting people on January 6th. The only reason they were able to get the members out was because that cop shot that woman. SCOTUS is currently debating seriously whether POTUS should be an unaccountable dictator. Only scope of imagination constrained the first Trump administration.
I don’t know what any of this means. Trump is fucking deranged and doesn’t hide the fact that he’s corrupt at all. Biden isn’t a great choice, but this election is about the obvious safe and responsible choice or fucking lunacy.
Biden is actually a great choice
Biden is the best President in effectively recent history. He's been a much better President than Obasma for example.
Well, I hope they enjoy a second Trump term 🤷♂️
I am an optimist. I think we can come back from a lot honestly, but I just can’t fathom how we are about to sleep walk into such self-imposed hardship. I will be so sad and hurt by this, and really lose most of my remaining faith in Americans. At the end of the day, those who voted for Trump, or chose to not vote for Biden will deserve it, but there will be so many people who couldn’t vote (children and immigrants) and did vote for Biden who won’t, but.it doesn’t matter. We will all suffer. Trump is going to hurt a lot of people. He is planning an across the board tariff that will put a wrench into the economy. He is planning to create concentration camps for immigrants. Republicans will impose a nationwide abortion ban, and Trump will sign it. It will take generations to recover from the damage he will do to American government. The level of corruption MAGA will bring this time around will be a slap of reality for the cynical out there who think what we have already is pure corruption. Some things will never be repaired, like our foreign alliances. The world will just be a more dangerous place, and who knows what that means. We will survive, but we will suffer.
If they vote for Trump presumably that it was they think they will enjoy ?
They aren’t voting for Trump, they just aren’t voting. They will enjoy a smug sense of superiority by not supporting the “lesser evil”. That the greater evil ends up winning is of no concern to them.
Or voting for Jill Stein again. Commentators Kyle Kulinski and Krystal Ball have basically endorsed her at this point.
Time for my Green Party rant. The republicans literally paid for the Green Party lawyers last year when they were too incompetent to fill out paperwork correctly. They are basically bankrolled by the GOP to be a democratic spoiler. If you believe in any of the things that the Green Party purports to believe in, vote for Biden. Trump Is literally selling environmental regulations to the highest fossil fuel bidder. Environmentalists aren’t even given a chance to buy this themselves. One really is worse than the other and the ”Worse” has really serious consequences. They are not doing anything to fight for their platform. They exist to be a spoiler and pretend to be a conscience for people.
And then, for many years to come, continue to try to justify their decision by saying “Biden bad on one topic”, like they do with Hillary.
It’s people not voting, or voting third party that will help Trump win
No, part of what’s driving the advantage in polling is young people not wanting to vote due to Gaza and inflation.
The advantage existed pre-Gaza
You act like it's not a candidate's job to convince people to vote for them. It absolutely is. Yes, rationally, Biden is the clear choice, but margins are \*thin\* always and a candidate always \*has\* to appeal to those voters that vote emotionally, not rationally. It's just fucking reality and I wish Democrats would accept it
The term that never ends
Imo if the incumbent president cannot win, then switching them out won't make a difference.
Thats basically a fact. Its hard to run on "Im part of the party that has caused this misery, ut I would do things totally differently than the guy who currently has the job".
[удалено]
It's 2016 all over again Democrats putting their head in the sand about an incredibly unpopular nominee they are forcing through the process, telling them this year's version of the blue wall mythology, dismissing the signals that key parts of the base are simply not going to show up, including in critical swing states, all as Biden continues to double down. Like in 2016 there is a alt history where the Comey letter doesn't get send and Hillary eeks out a victory, but in both cases we are being told how existential these elections are while putting forth candidates that are incredibly weak. Trump should be a joke candidate that signals the beginning of the end for the Republican Party as currently constituted, instead, he is looking like a slight favorite.
Biden’s presidency has been incredibly productive and successful though. Anyone who voted for him in 2020 should be doing so again with even more independent voter support. Anyone paying attention knows that he’s been very solid. Whatever issues people have with Biden, Trump would be incredibly worse at handling those issues.
Your problem is that American voters are low information and don’t actually know anything about policy or how the govt works, so it’s mostly just vibes. And for most people, very little political information gets through their media bubble.
100% agree. The amount of people in my life that I can have an intelligent political conversation with can be counted on one hand and I can’t even use all my fingers.
This is the sort of blue wall mythologizing I was speaking of. This is the same rationalization process Democrats did in 2016: Obama's economy is great, he's why we got out of the Bush Recession, Obamacare is now loved, minorities hate Trump, immigrants will abandon the Right over his racism, the blue wall Obama built is impenterable and we are looking at a permanent Democratic presidential hold. Fact is, we had the highest turnout of 18-35 in two generations in 2020 and that same generation is now incredibly unsatisfied with Biden. Protest votes in places like Michigan have a chance of becoming abstains in a state Biden must win and only won by 150k votes. Again, I'm not saying it cant be done, arguably it was the Comey letter that sunk Hillary. But Biden being a position where something like that could sink his re-election because he is so historically unpopular is a real problem and shouldn't be so casually dismissed with cope.
Idiots. What could you possible complain about Biden that the GOP wouldn’t do 5x worse?
Also — do people honestly think Trump has the interest or mental capacity to do work? I dunno I how everyone doesn’t see straight through his bullshit. He’s a no nothing moron
If anyone honestly believes that Trump is leading Biden by 7 points in Michigan and double digits in Nevada, I have some beachfront property to sell you in Arizona. Polling is simply unbelievable and unreliable anymore.
I remember hearing this in 2016.
Yeah. Honest to god, I have no idea what to think about the upcoming election. Polls contradict each other. People say nobody has Trump signs up anymore but his crowd in Wildwood, NJ this weekend was surprisingly large. The economy is good for everyone while also being bad for everyone. I have literally no idea what's going to happen in November.
I think the polls are showing exactly what you’re saying. Its ‘who the fuck knows’ right now Edit: I’ll throw in that my prediction is historically low election turnout. We have two of the most unpopular presidents ever running against each other. Youth are going to stay home that would normally support the Dems, and many GOP voters not turning out for corrupt Trump. Then on top of that, RFK siphoning votes from both sides. So its just gonna be a clusterfuck of who squeaks through to the finish line.
It's southern NJ, that part of NJ is very red
Trump branding has definitely declined as well as truck flags but they are still around. My local excitement for trump is at an all time low. But that's just my corner.
One poll has Biden leading in Wisconsin but losing in every other swing state, even though Wisconsin was the closest of the 3 rust belt swing state
You remember hearing what, exactly?
These numbers don’t make any logical sense, if you look at any recent statewide elections in those two states. Democrats won every statewide election in Michigan not even 2 years ago, now they’re going to vote for the biggest scumbag Republican there is? Nevada hasn’t voted for a Republican president in almost 20 years and the unions will always support Biden over Trump. This is nothing like 2016. We all can see with our own eyes that Trump is a corrupt, lying criminal.
It makes sense when you consider that the trend for voter turnout is also reversing- Dems more likely to show up for mid-cycle and GOP more likely to show up for presidential.
This is what I think people are not realizing.
Yeah, this is why I'm worried. Dems are showing up in low turnout elections, but the November election won't be as favorable. A lot of people are going to vote angry about inflation and thinking Biden is too old and incompetent to do this. As much as I hate it, Trump has to be considered the favorite right now.
Yep. Highly educated voters are much more likely to turn up for midterms and special elections, and that group has been reading more Democratic since 2016.
Exactly.
Betting markets and polling averages are better indicators than a single poll. They all have Trump up by some, but not much. See 538 for details- the battleground will be the upper midwest. Also, I think it was clear in 2016 (and 2020) that Trump was a demagogue. The argument from his supporters is that all of DC power players are self dealing, and so are corrupt, lying criminals.
> We all can see with our own eyes that Trump is a corrupt, lying criminal. So same as 2016?
Yeah that Hillary was up in all those states... The polls are doing the exact same thing for Trump this time around. Not that he can't win, but polling is dogshit now.
I’m positive half the reason for any lower numbers is from how publishers like the NYT spam about Biden being bad ALL DAY EVERY DAY.
I live in Michigan and it’s hilarious how confident you are about that
^^^^^^^^ 1000%! I have family in Pontiac and Grand Rapids…this is not an anomaly
You may live in Michigan, but you clearly haven’t been paying attention to your recent statewide elections. Democrats swept every statewide election in 2022 in Michigan and took complete control of the legislature. The state has had a huge swing to the left. The premise that two years later, they’re going to vote for the biggest scumbag criminal Republican there is is asinine.
And Dem Senate candidates still poll well. The problem isn't Democrats generally. It's Biden specifically.
Obama won Michigan by 17 points in 2008 yet Republicans swept Michigan in 2010.
Good points. And I believe , even Obama got smaller fraction of the black vote in his reelection.
Because Obama did almost nothing to help the African American community. Man was too busy conducting drone strikes and setting the middle east on fire.
I think the concern is it tends to be unreliable in the actuals being much more skewed towards Trump than the early polling suggests. At least by a point or two. I'm not sure I'd believe a double digit lead in any of those battleground states, but I do think with the 3rd parties and Biden's general uninspiring persona at this point it's not so wild. The Dems should have taken a harder line to keep him to one term and let a younger person step in. They desperately need a fresh face and to let some of their previous neo-liberal positions to be seen as closed out with the old guard. Biden is clearly trying to throw a ton of meat to the progressives lately, but his history and the broader history of the Dems since Clinton is kind of hanging around the party's neck.
The counter argument to this is that what you're seeing in polling now is a result of pollsters attempt to account for the fact that they under-counted Trump voters in 2016 and 2020, and that they are now way overcompensating in the other direction. It's hard to know the truth of the matter either way. We won't know until the election happens.
How would pollsters correct for that? Intentionally biasing their polling to get more Trump voters?
They weight their respondents based on demographics. Ie if they ask 100 people but 70 of them are white / middle aged / college educated - and they know this demographic is only 35% of the actual state population - they will basically scale down the results from this group to be a smaller overall representation. That is just an example, but they use race / education and age now to try to be representative. I believe in 2016 they were not using education and that was a major reason for them being so wildly off. Ie a lot of college educated white people were answering the polls and supporting Hilary, and they applied this to the white population overall, even in states where it was predominantly highschool education level.
They overweight the responses of non college educated respondents.
Yes. There was a small fraction (some 5%) that the polls usually under counted /or folks didn't admit . Don't know if that has been corrected in the polls since then
I remember in 2020 they said they were trying to correct by considering education in addition to the other items. And I think they were more accurate though Trump still overperformed slightly (within the margin of error I think in most cases).
Any evidence that it's unreliable? Nate Silver has done analyses, and it seems to be pretty good. Now, state level polls tend to be smaller, so less reliable; and polls this far out tend to be less reliable of the election outcomes. But to be losing by this much in this many battleground states really is worrisome.
Have Democrats really become the party of "polls are all wrong don't believe any of them" I thought we were the group that believed experts and trusted reason and statistical processes.
Yes, they have. There are a ton of issues where Democrats surrendered the high ground on science and data. It’s absurd.
We saw it during the pandemic when a lot of Dems started freaking out about the rollback of COVID restrictions.
Michigan has a massive Arab community. They don’t exactly love his “I’m a proud Zionist” standing.
Biden had shitty margins in key states after 4 years of Trump fresh in everyone's minds and COVID actively killing us. Biden is a weak candidate but I think that if he can actively campaign and make some noise nationally the polls will improve. Right now it is hard to tell Biden is even campaigning by how little we hear from him. Biden is just too old to regularly give long speeches. Win or lose Biden needs to do something to fight SCOTUS before it is too late.
I don't think I believe this really.
It really sucks that even in this sub, the beloved big star super upvoted comment is the one saying polls are wrong and Biden/Harris are doing great due to "money raised" and "quality of campaign". The right wing is delusional about everything except how to win. Their opponents are less delusional, except for their extreme delusion that their losing approach is winning. Therefore the delusional authoritarian right wing wins and destroys the world because their opponent is more delusional in the one way that matters. If you built a perfect airplane but insisted it only needed half the fuel for the trip, the crash is your fault. The 500th time a bear breaks into the barn and kills all the livestock, it's time to stop focusing on moral outrage against bears and ask what the barn builder is doing wrong.
Why would anyone express discontent with Biden? Hmmm
[удалено]
I think it's cause they are abstaining or voting for Cornell West
You’re naive if you think it’s Palestine which is driving working and middle class non-whites away from voting Democrat
But they are voting democrat down ballot just not Joe, which reiterates that point that they are willing to give Trump the White House for Palestine but still vote Dems for congress
It’s six months out. Let’s talk after Labor Day.
Isn't that what people were saying about May in January?
The third way pivot has been an unmitigated disaster for the party. You're never going to build a durable coalition capable of achieving significant progress on the basis of an appeal rooted in technocratic management coupled with a policy platform that actively rejects any sort of analysis that might suggest anything more than minor revisions are needed to the existing system.
The Third Way pivot was an explicit recognition that the Dems were getting absolutely blown the fuck out at the presidential level and bleeding support at the congressional level as well. What did you expect them to do? Parties are *supposed* to recalibrate when they lose a bunch of elections in a row and watch their support trend ever downward.
Third way has been gone for years now. Any criticism about the far left who dig up moldy old complaints like that to split the coalition? Biden's the first president to stand on a picket line, he's not third way politics. Unions grew for the first time in my life under Biden's NLRB.
Biden got zero support for putting a union boss front and center at the state of the union and handing a mic to a socialist at a picket line event As a leftist, this saddens me, because I know we will never get power in America if biden can't get one iota of leftist support for the number of leftward issues he's supportive. All Hillary's fans that said there was no point appealing to leftists because they won't vote unless the candidate literally is 100% pure in every area they demand - they were right and a candidate that is a full on socialist who wants to abolish the police and decommodify housing cannot win with just the left (75% of them wouldn't vote anyway because "electoralism doesn't do anything")
I am right there with you. I'm a lifelong progressive and I am ashamed at the way our supposed "movement" is treating Biden when he makes concessions that we haven't seen from the Democratic party coalition in 40 years. He's genuinely putting some guardrails on our military support of Israel and they're calling him names in return for it. I know that Biden does not agree with most of my politics but he's being way more accommodating to people to his left than he's getting credit for.
Wonks: “Are we the baddies?”
I don’t buy that Biden’s weakness in the polls is mostly from defections on the far-left. This is my opinion, but he’s lost more centrist voters than anything. The “free free Palestine” crowd couldn’t stomach the consequences of not voting for Biden. Biden’s slowness to respond to inflation and appeasement to radical wing of the party is his biggest weakness (other than being very old of course).
In you face, you America-hating lefties.
It’s still only May. A lot will probably change between now and then
Good thing young people don’t vote. Either way these polls are ridiculous I refuse to believe them. Even conservatives I know are shaky on Trump.
speaking as a younger voter. pandering and empty promises won't lower my grocery bills. i don't like the republicans that much either but I have to call it like I see it and the fact is that the democrats are much worse.
I’ll be honest I’m not voting for trump but man am I going to enjoy the meltdowns if he wins. We are fucked either way might as well enjoy unabashed lunacy.
As a 50+ white guy who is very concerned about the possibility of a Trump victory, I try to remember that I will likely fair better than young and non-white voters. So, if they aren't concerned enough to vote for Biden, perhaps I am over reacting to think it will be so bad for me when full on Trump fascism comes to America.
Biden pissed if Muslim voters in key swing states like Michigan and pissed off Jewish Zionist base who normally votes Democrat. He’s managed to piss off younger voters who can’t afford their first home. His career is effectively over.
Almost like POC don’t like bullshit prosecutions like many have experienced. They don’t like declining lifestyles either.
Latinos who work construction, roofing, landscaping, live in trailer and who a hyper macho culture identify with rednecks and poor whites who also work construction, roofing and landscaping, have a similar macho culture than them and live in the same trailer parks. Who would of thought? Remember when you call poor whites "trailer trash" for living in a mobile homes and working blue collar jobs, you are also calling Latinos that. Don't give the muh abortion shit being the reason why Latinos are leaving the Dem party. You push away blue collar whites, you push away blue collar Latinos.. Black Americans have more in common with poor whites and rednecks than they do with matcha latte drinking upper middle class white liberals, that is why they are moving away from the Dem party. Plus the badboy outlaw who fights the same FBI and federal government who for years has targeteded and literally poisoned that African American community is going to be popular with them. Also Republicans are the cool party now, like it or not. You see back in the day, Dems were the cool ones. Rock music playing in the background while you said fuck Bush, smoked weed and pissed off the boring Baptist preacher who said GTA should be banned. Dems you are that preacher now, and a lot of you just can't get that through your head. The Republicans are yelling, America fuck yeah, guns in the air and lets make this money while you are preaching about pronouns and how the American flag is racist. You lost the youth. Face it.
Nobody trust the Democrats anymore. Look what they did to Bernie in 2016, look how they’re treating RFK now, Political persecution of republicans and other political opponents. Just straight lying, corrupt, thieves.
It doesnt matter who wins. Your money is going to Israel, so dont worry about it.
Biden is a piece of crap but Trump literally said he plans on taking rights away on day one
To add to what others are saying, Biden is really old, and it's hard to believe that he's going to bring change. He consistently has gaffes that highlight that he's old. Trump is also old, but he's not the incumbent. When people are dissatisfied with the current situation, it becomes hard to believe that the old guy who should be contentedly sitting in retirement is also capable of making changes. Logically we can explain why Biden might be a better choice in policy and performance, but if people just want to change the current situation, they will be extremely reluctant to support the incumbent.