mtutiger

Unless they pull a 1969 Mets and go all the way (keeping my powder dry), I do think it's more longer range impacts in terms of marketing for next season and beyond. Not getting into free agency and other offseason moves, which is a conversation for another day.

Oh my goodness

Unreal, just worked their asses off the last month and half!

Shot: Chasers:

Garrett is right, but I specifically think it's a good bellwether for Midwestern suburban areas... Milwaukee comes to mind specifically, there's still a room for Trump to fall in the WOW counties. And I don't think he can afford to lose much ground there.

A couple of thoughts (not necessarily correlated, but observations that may apply): Katie Hobbs went into election night in 2022 seen as behind Kari Lake around 2 points, based specifically on polling. In the end, she did end up winning. Sun Belt states present their own challenges for pollsters because they are diverse and sometimes can encounter issues with sampling minority voters (Georgia is another case of this - Biden 2020/Warnock 2022 (before the runoff) both overperformed polling IIRC)... Another challenge is getting the turnout correct - using Georgia again because it's a little more straightforward an example (not as familiar as AZ), but if you see a poll that's only composed of ~26% black voters in that state, that likely isn't high enough; black voters since 2020 have generally always been at least 29% of turnout in that state, and 30% turnout is the magic number that D's like to hit to feel like they have a chance iirc Immigration is Trump's overall best issue, and among the battleground states, there's no state where it's more salient than Arizona by virtue of where Arizona is located

I like my bacon extra crispy, personally

In all seriousness, when you look at the actions (ie. Trump and his allies trying a last minute play to change Nebraska's EC allocation) and how the money is being allocated (ie. Ds flooding money into R districts in Iowa and WI-03), Trump appears to having real issues in the Midwest and Plains this cycle.

Bacon tends to be served on toast with lettuce and tomato... Sometimes avocado (for the millennial crowd).

Cruz is stuck hoping Trump's margin in Texas is close to 2020... If she can draw closer, like into range of a Trump +3 or so, the Senate race will be a tossup. He's just a uniquely flawed politician

Big for a few reasons... One, it's an important EC vote. But another reason is that the Omaha district may be most fitting avatar for a generic suburban district and suggests Trump will fall further in suburban areas this fall

With polling as well, discussing 2020, it's important to note that most national polling and state polling (Wisconsin being the exception) were pretty close on Biden's share of the vote.... for instance, he was generally pulling 51-52% in a lot of the national polling that year, but polls underestimated Trump's share. This is a big factor in the "miss" Fast forward to four years, Harris has polls where she's pulling a similar share to Biden, but Trump's share is polling a lot higher in 2024 than it did four years ago. This doesn't mean that polling error isn't possible in 2024, but it does tell me that if it happens, it isn't going to happen exactly like 2020. And it's a possible data point to suggest that pollsters might be having a better time picking up Trump's support versus previous cycles.

Voter apathy, and it's just hard in this country for the same party to win the Presidency three elections in a row; Reagan-Reagan-Bush are the exception, not the norm. 2020 was a different ball of wax, but I don't think it was so much a secret stealth Trump voter more than it was COVID and how it impacted sampling. Along with the fact that the Democrats basically had zero ground game as well (which won't be the case this year). Either way, pollsters aren't going to broadcast trade secrets, but there's little chance that they all sat around for the past four years without making modifications based on lessons learned from 2020. Especially given, again, the incentives strongly favor not underestimating Trump again.

It's apparently now election interference that weapons that Ukraine uses to defend themselves are made in Scranton

He's not a household name like MTG, but he's in the Top 5 of odious Congresscritters for sure.

Nobody will say it, but between the pollsters and the aggregators, there are many incentives not to underestimate Donald Trump's chances this year

I've been to Minneapolis a bunch of times over the years.... the last time I was there it seemed like it was as good as it's ever been. Not sure what Gramps is getting at here.

Wow... What a pitch to women voters there

Setting aside the legal cases, will he even be alive when he's 82? For as much attention as Biden's health has garnered, Trump would be older than him in 2028 and undoubtedly lives a less healthy life. Incidentally, this doubles as (yet another) reason to vote against him; the possibility that JD Vance graces the Oval Office

This is in reference to recent polling (particularly the national polling), but these guys are having a hard time understanding that the biggest theme of this race before the Biden-Trump debate was that Americans hated both choices. Like, setting aside my personal feelings about Biden, this is what I frequently heard from people in my own life whenever this discussion came up in the months preceding that debate. But that's not the choice anymore.... one of the parties went through an existential crisis and ended up with a different candidate. And changed the contours of the election. It's really easy to understand, just think it's hard for some to grapple with this reality.... even post debate, Trump isn't a beloved figure to a majority of Americans, and this is his third run at the Presidency; opinion on the guy is basically calcified.

The pandemic, and how each party approached campaigning, had huge impacts in 2020.... not sure how easy it is to make judgments off of that election

The fact that they are trying (again) to push this also says a lot about how Trump's Campaign sees this race.

People will take no comfort because of 2016, but Harris has ~$100 million more on hand with two months left. She also raised $33 mil from small dollar donors this month vs. $4 mil for Trump, another sign of enthusiasm perhaps being on her side

As long as I don't hear Kamala Harris at the rally bragging about her crowd size, I don't think it matters.... To the the extent that it might, it's a sign of enthusiasm.... there's a lot more enthusiasm behind her than Clinton 16 or Biden 20.... and that's undoubtedly a good thing.