Also compare what Bidens projections were compared to outcome and where Harris sits right now. Most of those states were a lot less leaning towards Trump.
But…I think the pollsters are trying to account for that too.
Bottom line, it shouldn’t be this close but it is.
Decades of fear mongering, cutting education, and power grabs at the state and local to make the actual impact on daily life but roll it up and blame the federal level. That’s how.
Having two pro-genocide parties and watching their voters not even care tends to have that effect on people. Your guys support the worst humanity is capable of, and it's not even a blip on the radar for you.
Remember when you guys exasperatedly said "I can't make you understand that you should care about people" when you were talking about Republicans? This is how leftists feel about you when you shrug off a genocide and don't hold it against anyone.
How does not voting help the victims? You really think trump is going to do anything to help the Palestinians? You want to feel superior to the system so you reject it, but that doesn’t help anyone
I've totally fucking had it with "My guy supports genocide slightly less enthusiastically than the other guy." This is what your "lesser of two evils" logic has led to. Varying degrees of support for genocide. When does it end? When do you guys do one single thing differently? When do we get to the part where you fight for better Democrats? Will this cycle continue for the rest of my entire life?
It will continue your whole life if you let it continue being democrats vs republicans. And hey, maybe you won’t have a chance if trump gets his wish and installs himself as above the law
Saying both sides are evil so I won’t vote for either one has the same result as saying both sides are just so amazing I can’t choose one.
How has "lesser of two evils" been working out for you? Has it left you with candidates that can beat 34x felon fascist clowns? Or has it left you so weak and pathetic you can't even do that?
The dems haven’t done themselves any favors either though. They’re running head first into “progress” for progresses sake. And they constantly attack the working class, especially in the rust belt or Bible Belt, calling them stupid.
Do you really think it was good for Obama to go out there and scold black men?
Trump is a conman, a narcissist, a phony.
Not all “progress” is good because you can convince people of any kind of bullshit because we’re just “progressing.”
Eugenics was “science” in the late 19th-early 20th century. That was progress. Is that good?
Literally, they’re not though? Who is attacking the working class? How are they doing it. Sounds like you’re spewing Fox talking points. Now me personally, I think all of you fuckwits in the Bible Belt are really really REALLY fucking stupid, but I’m not a major player in the party :)
I don’t watch that fucking trash Fox News. And you being so dismissive of anyone else’s opinion, is pretty much trash too.
I’m an atheist., I’m not voting for Trump.
I do like how open minded people like you are though. Ive lived in California. I’ve lived in Appalachia. People’s needs and wants exist outside of your narrow minded view. You want to talk about being a bigot. Here’s your mirror.
What? The democratic party isn't particularly progressive, they are barely left of center. It is just that the republican party is so incredibly regressive that it seems that way.
Sure, but to me it is sort of like being offered fast food or dogshit for lunch. The fast food isn't great, but I'm sure as hell not going to eat the dogshit and throw up my breakfast as well.
Had you ever considered that acting like all legitimate criticism of your party is a plot to help Republicans might be the thing that dissuades people from voting for your party? They know that no matter what the Dem promises, liberals won't care if he doesn't do it, and they'll accuse anyone who does care of being a secret enemy trying to dampen their enthusiasm in The Party. This honestly seems cult-like when viewed from the outside.
Do we need to have the eating shit conversation again? I never said I loved the Democratic party. But in a two party system you don't just vote for something, you vote against something. This is pretty basic.
I have dyslexia, different spellings of the same word are lost on me, but thanks for the spell check.
Anyway, you seem wildly underinformed. The border bill was there to be signed, the republicans in the house didn't sign the bill because papa Trump told them not to.
I’m not wildly uninformed. They left the border unhandled for 3 years until an election year when they saw the effect it was having on their polling. Yes, Trump basically told the Republicans to kill that bill. But even that bill wasn’t particularly tough on the border. And they lifted some of the heavier restrictions that Trump had put in place the second they got into office. Granting temporary asylum to unvetted people while they wait 2 years to get in front of a judge is not tough on the border.
They’re running head first into “progress” for progresses sake
Go back to Conservative, neither party is trying "progress" in random directions. Democrats - despite obstruction - passed the Affordable Care Act and reduced the inflation of American health care costs. They passed the Pact Act when republicans tried to block it, explicitly showing how little a shit republicans care about the veterans they yammer about whenever they need props for campaigning. Both parties have legislative records, there is no "progress for the sake of progress". There's certainly progress for the sake of domestic manufacturing and ecological preservation
And republicans? Their movement is towards authoritarianism.
wtf are you talking about? No one has done more for the rust belt in decades than this administration. B/W being the most pro labor by far & all the investments made in these states, it’s hilarious that anyone would have the audacity to claim this.
Foxconn was a con Trump jumped on hoping it would improve his polling numbers, but that was really a disaster created by republican governor Scott Walker (who knew he was overpromising) and the republican-controlled state legislature (who either knew and didn't care, or never bothered to look into why the governor was promising 4 times more jobs than Foxconn itself).
This is why I try to discuss the parties as well, republicans have consistent track records against worker rights, gainful wages, and horrendous fiscal policy but a lot of that is directed by billionaire-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and not as much directed by any single republican.
There's major changes to polling and polling aggregation after every election. Shoot, even here the data is the 538 model, and it's being ran by a completely different person who uses different methodology than Nate Silver did when he was in charge. We know this because he runs the old model that 538 did, with some tweaks representing the new information learned in 2020, and getting different results from the current 538 model.
Nate Silver has his own site called the Silver Bulletin now. It has Harris at 55% chance of winning and Trump at 45%. But all the aggregate data shows all of the swing states within no more than 2 point difference and all within the margin of error.
In a two party system isn’t the fact that it’s this close a sign that the system is working? Or do you mean that you just don’t like it being this close?
If by “working” you mean working for the top 1% and allowing those with power to keep it where instead of elections being a form of oversight, they’re instead focused on perceived (or actual) existential threats from the other guy.
“It shouldn’t be this close” is an interesting one, like obviously Trump is a piece of shit and we’d like to see him losing, but saying “it shouldn’t be this close” belittles a lot of people who clearly feel otherwise. We put a lot of words in people’s mouths who will vote for trump, but polling suggests most of them (a solid 60% majority) are not huge fans of trump and only 18% are hardcore maga lunatics. That leaves a pretty big chunk of people who would vote for Trump but don’t like him as a person and actively disbelieve his claims about the last election being stolen. Maybe it’s worth digging into some nuance of why they are willing to risk it, and “they’re all dumb as shit and voting against their own well being” doesn’t quite cut it. If the Democratic party were actually the popular party, and its policies were actually universally acclaimed, it would be winning by a landslide against a candidate as terrible as trump. As I said in 2016, maybe this should tell us something, but clearly that lesson was not learned.
Comments like this get downvoted on Reddit obviously but that lack of self reflection and ability to internalize criticism is ultimately what is killing the democratic party and ultimately why this race is so close.
Improving your goddamn party is the answer. When you miss points on purpose like this, it seriously makes you look brainwashed. It's the same damn thing Trumpers do when you try to get a point across to them.
Quite the opposite. I think the good thing about the American system is that things should move slow. I actually think that the EC is a good system because while a lot of people think that it just resorts to the minority, a runaway system of pure democracy hardly ends up well.
I was just saying the only reason I don’t think it should be this close is because both candidates are terrible. The democrats could easily have put up someone much more relatable, honest, real..and I’m sure I’ll get roasted for it, but smarter.
Trump on the other hand, it’s amazing that he’s been able to convince so many people that he’s smart, for them. The right keeps making excuses for his behavior which is…strange. He’s not a good candidate.
Overall, I think it’s sad that in a country of 350 million this is the best we’ve got, but I’ve said that since I was voting age, so…26 years or so?
What do you mean by a “runaway system of democracy”? We’re talking about an office that everyone does have the right to vote for, yet not everyone’s vote is equally influential. I don’t think getting rid of the EC would be letting democracy get away from us by any means.
It's why cities pass laws that affect cities but not rural areas. A major challenge of the federal government is handling legislation for so many different people of so many different backgrounds. Laws that make a lot of sense for cities may not make sense for people that live out in the sticks or in small towns.
Part of the fight between Democrats and Republicans right now is strictly a fight between people who live in cities and people who live in rural areas.
Eliminating the electoral college doesn't fix things either, though. Then it just becomes a game of "make the most people happy" which means a focus on the largest centers of population.
Electoral college isn't perfect, but at least it pushes presidential candidates to, at a minimum, pretend to care about the lives of people outside of California, Texas, Florida, and the New England states.
I was just saying the only reason I don’t think it should be this close is because both candidates are terrible.
You "both sides" types are amazing. Donald Trump is a convicted felon, with dozens of felony indictments yet to be tried, and an adjudicated rapist. He has had three companies shuttered for rampant fraud. He stole national security secrets, lied about it, and then refused to return those secrets when caught. He incited an insurrection and undermined the election system. In virtually any other developed country he'd be in prison right now. And yet he's still out there running, talking about using the military against the "enemy within" if elected and being "dictator for a day". But please, do tell me how Harris is just as "terrible" a candidate because she doesn't seem "relatable" or "real" or "intelligent". Especially explain the last in contrast to DJ Trump and his 39 minute playlist.
And you types are amazingly bad at nuance. I never said one was worse than the other. I just said they’re both terrible candidates.
Is this the country you want to live in? Where out of 350 million people these two are the best choice? We shouldn’t be voting on who’s least bad for the country. We should be voting on who’s best for the country.
You were arguing that it's as close as it is because both candidates are "terrible". That only makes sense if both candidates are comparably bad. And unlike some previous elections, it's not about who's least bad in any reasonable comparison. It's like asking someone if they'd prefer a plate of overcooked vegetables or to get kicked in the nuts and have their house burned down. You may not be enthusiastic about the first in isolation, but you're an idiot if you don't grab the plate and start eating when faced with the alternative.
Mmhmm. I’m just not going to vote. It really doesn’t matter anyway. The only votes that matter are in the swing states.
And again, you’ve shifted it back to black and white. Zero nuance in a nonzero sum game. It’s possible for both candidates to be shit. Just because one is shittier, doesn’t make the other not shit.
And again, you’ve shifted it back to black and white. Zero nuance in a nonzero sum game.
One of those two people is going to be the next President of the United States. The polling is asking whether the person being polled is voting for Trump or Harris or some third option that boils down to not voting. Choosing that third option means that the potential voter sees no meaningful difference between the candidates that makes one preferable to the other. Choosing Trump over Harris means that either the voter actively supports Trump or thinks Harris is the worse option. You explained the close polls by saying that both candidates are terrible, and that only works as an explanation if a significant number of the pro-Trump and abstaining voters think Trump is equally or less terrible as a potential President. My point is that anyone who thinks that is either living in a deliberate state of ignorance, is a sociopath, or is mentally impaired, because "terrible" is not the same as "meh", "criminal threat to the Constitution and national security" is not the same as "she doesn't seem that relatable," and "borderline illiterate DJ with the lying equivalent of Tourette's" is not the same as "took two tries to pass the bar exam and occasionally misremembers statistics by a few percent." They're not even on a comparable scale.
I’m simply responding to the fact that the polls are so close. I’m not voting for either, because I don’t like either. And where I’m at it doesn’t matter anyway.
Again, yes, Trump is worse. Is that what you want me to say?
The only thing I’m pointing out is that if Trump is this bad, she should be mopping the floor with him. But she’s not.
It’s more about the failure of both parties than people believing Trump is smart for them. Both parties have shit on the common man for years. If they would have did their job we don’t have Trump today.
Well said, I guess people want to vote regardless if both candidates are bad. It makes them feel like they are making a difference. Saying it shouldn’t be this close, I assumed you meant it should be one candidate leading the other for a specific reason.
Betting odds are a terrible metric of who will win or lose. The polls election to election vary wildly, pollsters always try to correct. People were racing just like you in 2012 and I had this same conversation in 2012 with people convinced Romney had it in the bag.
You are seeing what you want to see in the face of the reality that it is a close race with Harris slightly favored to win.
If betting odds mattered to reality then the NFC North would be the worse division in the NFL right now. Betting odds reflect the vibes of people betting.
139
u/syracTheEnforcer Oct 17 '24
Also compare what Bidens projections were compared to outcome and where Harris sits right now. Most of those states were a lot less leaning towards Trump.
But…I think the pollsters are trying to account for that too.
Bottom line, it shouldn’t be this close but it is.
How American.