mtutiger

From the Alberta piece, a couple of things stood out: LaCivita/Wiles are on the right side of this - when you think back to where this race was immediately post-drop out, and with Harris as the heir apparent, it was evident to almost anyone watching that it was a race to define her. And to drive a message on the issues to prevent her from getting separation from Biden. When you fast forward to today, the project seems to have largely failed - Harris has seen her approval rating go way up to generally around even, about 10 points higher than Trump's, and in terms of policy, you have seen her on issues that were previous clear strengths for Trump (such as the economy/inflation and crime) draw to about even. Moments like the NABJ interview were an example of stepping on the message that the campaign wanted to make, and they are reaping the fallout today. This is on the candidate - the campaign, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Biden dropout, was doing the kind of messaging that it needed to, but the candidate was never interested in that. And fast forward to today, although I know it's gone mentioned and unaddressed the couple of times I've brought it up, the campaign's paid advertising is closing on things like sex changes for prisoners. Not the economy, not crime, not even immigration.... transgender ads. This low level staffer, responsible for the social media strategy geared toward younger men, is apparently the nexus for two of the largest **** ups that this campaign has experienced since July. Which is crazy.

I always kinda hold it against Alberta that he wrote a snide pre-mortem about Beto O'Rourke's campaign (which ended up far more successful than he envisioned in that piece - his sources were speculating low double digits and it ended with Cruz only winning by ~2.). Just a reminder that you cannot depend on your opponents incompetence, you gotta run through the tape.

We butt heads a lot these days, but I agree here... Texas is a stretch, but both the Senate/President are likely going to be closer than Florida will be

They're one of the rare beer restaurant chains that actually makes good beer... BJ's Brewhouse, not so much

I would add that Trump mildly underperforming in Ohio does make me curious about what Selzer finds going on in Iowa... people will probably overread whatever she puts out, but I do think it could provide a decent benchmark for rural white voters in an election where we are mostly flying blind with this demographic.

I guess anything is possible, but in terms of polling average or how the campaigns are approaching the state, I don't see a lot of evidence that it's competitive. Especially with the possibility of 270-268, one would expect Trump to be spending money (or even a little time) in the state if they thought they could flip it.

Purely looking at the layout of the state, I have a tough time seeing where Harris makes those kinds of gains to actually flip the state.... The suburban trends that exist in other states exist in Ohio too, if Cleveland turns out more (they are usually really bad), that only gets you so far. If I had to guess, it'll land somewhere between 5-8 in favor of Trump.

I wouldn't be surprised if the flood of misinformation was not as well received in North Carolina as people were assuming at the time. We give the actors who push this sort of misinformation a lot of power when we automatically assume that everything they do is effective

His most viable path is PA/GA/NC... which is why he seems to be focusing his final three days so heavily on holding NC My thing is that despite the flood of tied polls for PA and WI polling slightly better for Harris than PA is, I would be surprised if WI is to the left of PA when it's all said and done.

Excerpt from Nate Cohn's new article... Even this guy lol

Again, this race is close because we are a deeply polarized country with a candidate who has been on the ballot three times. I have zero clue why anybody expected this race not to be close.

https://x.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1852424141804126448 Trump adds a fourth NC Rally in final 3 days (in Raleigh)... They're apparently seeing something there.

This race is close because we are a deeply polarized country with a candidate who has been on the ballot three times. And with respect to the economy, even as polling shows a tight race, Harris in a lot of the most recent polling has wiped out his advantage on the issue. In part because Trump seems to shrug off campaigning or driving a message on that issue, instead focusing on sex changes for prisoners on TV and personal retribution in campaign events. If he loses, that's going to be a factor IMO

The fact that Trump's campaign, at least based on their paid media, seems to be closing on trans sex changes for prisoners seems to suggest that the issue has lost its political potency. At the very least

And if there was, there would be a massive recession that would accompany it.

That was my immediate first impression of the complaints about this job report: the fact that we spent the last three years being told how jobs reports were irrelevant and CPI was what mattered. Sign of the times I guess... Lol

If he in fact loses, one of the many benefits will be the possibility of never hearing "but 2016" ever again

Yeah, believe MI and WI for him today.

It's clear that his main focus is the PA/GA/NC path and that isn't too surprising (he's going to GR, but that's more for superstition than anything since he always ends there). But yeah, going to NC more than PA/GA makes me wonder if they see something there that we aren't

https://x.com/akarl_smith/status/1852355742608613420 Trump's final list of rallies... There's a lot of NC on there, no Wisconsin

Bernie Porn has spoken

The Marquette Law poll of Wisconsin that had her up 50-49 (from Wednesday this week) was enlightening for me.... She managed that with an R+5 sample. They all approach polling and subsequent weighting differently, but one gets the sense that they all agree on not underestimating Trump going forward

I'd rather be her, but it's going to be close.... she's just running a better campaign, and some of the Congressional level data suggests she's stronger than what is getting picked up in state/national polling. And as far as the polls are concerned, given the stakes, I think they are trying really hard not to underestimate Trump a third time. You see it in the samples they are putting out (ie. most polls seem to be assuming a very Republican electorate)

Probably previous familiarity given that he was President before. That doesn't mean that he's guaranteed to win either... if anything, someone in his position should be running away this thing right now. And yet he isn't.

She's winning some and she's losing some.... it's a close ****ing race. I swear, the way it gets discussed, you'd be hard pressed not to think that it was already over....