Official Discussion Thread: U.S Presidential Election 2020

[caulixtla 2,170]

Back to AZ, in the last drop, Biden actually gained ground:

When looking at https://alex.github.io/nyt-2020-election-scraper/battleground-state-changes.html# the thing to keep in mind is that about half of those AZ votes remaining are provisional votes. A number of provisional votes will be rejected; of those accepted, there’s no reason to think they will tilt red compared to AZ’s overall results the way the mail in ballots have been tilting red, especially since a large portion of them are in Blue Pima county.

Here’s a list of what’s left to count in AZ: https://arizona.vote/ballot-progress.html

I estimate Biden will be +10,000 when all is said and done. +5,000 worst case.

We’ll get another drop from AZ in an hour or two.

@Jill AZ is Blue!

[Morphine Prince 109,654]

Something I've noticed that seems to work is to run as a progressive even if you're still more of a centrist. Obama did it. Twice.

Americans seem scared of any labels like "soclialism"

The thing is, you can sell them the same things (universal healthcare, etc) without these labels. The polling says the majority of Americans want them.

Another example would be Beto O'Rourke in Texas. He ran as a progressive IN TEXAS even though he's more centrist. He only lost by 2% IN TEXAS. 

The strategy works.

You can argue people like Sanders and AOC have set themselves up for failure by being perceived as "radical," but the strategy has been proven to work if you brand it in a way Americans can easily digest these ideas.

Bernie did it with "Medicare For All" - Medicare is extremely popular and he took it and was going to improve and build on it. 

[Othon 34,299]

8 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

Something I've noticed that seems to work is to run as a progressive even if you're still more of a centrist. Obama did it. Twice.

Americans seem scared of any labels like "soclialism"

You can argue people like Sanders and AOC have set themselves up for failure by being perceived as "radical," but the strategy has been proven to work if you brand it in a way Americans can easily digest these ideas.

It's really just Cubans in Florida. I haven't seen any evidence that the "socialism" scare tactic worked anywhere else, and it only worked there because Biden gave Trump a month and a half of free airwaves and had no Latino outreach program at all.

Not saying that someone should straight up run for president screaming that they're a Marxist over and over again, but the socialism scare tactics didn't work on Obama at all. 

I agree with everything else you said. The Dems have to run progressive campaigns if they want to have any hope of success.

[caulixtla 2,170]

4 minutes ago, Morphine Prince said:

The thing is, you can sell them the same things (universal healthcare, etc) without these labels. The polling says the majority of Americans want them.

It’s interesting because, as deep blue as California is, a lot of progressive stuff keeps failing at the ballot box. Cap drug prices to be what the VA pays for them? Failed at the ballot box. Increase property taxes for businesses? Failed at the ballot box. Override legislation stopping Uber and Lyft from having their entire workforce be underpaid contractors with no health benefits? Won at the ballot box. Make Gay marriage illegal? Won at the ballot box in 2008. And so on.

The reason why CA is so solidly blue is because, back in 1994, we passed an openly racist ballot measure, proposition 187. While it was overturned by the courts, having something like this pass in California mobilized a very large and very previously politically indifferent population of latin@s. Those latin@s because latin@ voters, and continue to vote solid blue up and down ballot at each election to make sure the kinds of people who would even entertain proposition 187 do not have any political power.

[StarstruckIllusion 53,564]

8 minutes ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

It's really just Cubans in Florida. I haven't seen any evidence that the "socialism" scare tactic worked anywhere else, and it only worked there because Biden gave Trump a month and a half of free airwaves and had no Latino outreach program at all.

Not saying that someone should straight up run for president screaming that they're a Marxist over and over again, but the socialism scare tactics didn't work on Obama at all. 

I agree with everything else you said. The Dems have to run progressive campaigns if they want to have any hope of success.

Didn’t Bernie wins Cubans in Florida during the primary? That whole media scare over something Obama said twice was all for nothing lmao 

[Othon 34,299]

Just now, caulixtla said:

It’s interesting because, as deep blue as California is, a lot of progressive stuff keeps failing at the ballot box. Cap drug prices to be what the VA pays for them? Failed at the ballot box. Increase property taxes for businesses? Failed at the ballot box. Override legislation stopping Uber and Lyft from having their entire workforce be underpaid contractors with no health benefits? Won at the ballot box. Make Gay marriage illegal? Won at the ballot box in 2008. And so on.

Because, in every instance that you just named, the provisions are deliberately worded to be vague and confusing and because voters were subjected to relentless propaganda campaigns. Uber and Lyft spent $200 million to convince California voters to vote for prop 22. The proposition’s backers bombarded Californians with misleading mailers, ads, and in-app notifications in the lead-up to the vote, and it's estimated that they spent $624,854 a day attempting to mislead voters.

As with everything, it all comes back to corruption and corporate power, and with no progressive leadership in California, there was no real pushback to that campaign.

[27monster27 15,855]

On 11/7/2020 at 10:24 AM, JusKeepBreathin said:

Georgia again pivotal in the US election. Donate to two both Georgia Senate candidates. It might mean our majority in the Senate. The way Stacey Abrams keeps working for everyone else. 

Donate!

www.gasenate.com

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/georgiasenate

Will there be runoffs in every state, or just Georgia?

[caulixtla 2,170]

3 minutes ago, 27monster27 said:

Will there be runoffs in every state, or just Georgia?

Just Georgia. Control of the Senate for Biden’s first two years comes down to Georgia.

[Serial Chiller 8,044]

2 hours ago, Lion Heart said:

These people are just..

 

Lady Gaga at the beginning of Aura 

[caulixtla 2,170]

For anyone who saw that 2000 Washington Times newspaper saying Gore was president: It never happened.

I was there in 2000. What I saw: First it looked like a Bush victory. Then we had all of the lawsuits, descriptions of voter suppression in Florida, and things were up in the air. Then Gore finally conceded after the Supreme Court got involved. No reputable news organization was claiming Gore had it; indeed the network I was watching called Florida for Bush and we thought it was over at that point.

(Mods: can I embed a tweet with cussing? I like the retweet from supermodel Chrissy Teigen, since it shows a beautiful female model being an intelligent woman with sass, breaking some stereotypes one sees with toxic masculinity.)

 

[Supersonic 49,376]

1 hour ago, Morphine Prince said:

Americans seem scared of any labels like "soclialism"

Considering that the biggest part of the US population alive right now grew up in the cold war and got indoctrinated with catchphrases like "red scare" and "I'd rather be dead than red", that seems like a fair assessment.

[JusKeepBreathin 19,311]

6 hours ago, Chromatican said:

You really don’t think Bernie stans would get behind Nina Turner or AOC? This one would.

I loved Nina. I thought she should have been the one to run instead of Bernie, but she didn't do herself any favors towards the end of Bernie's campaign. Nina seemed to be fueling the vitriol of Bernie stans at the end. It really turned me off to her. I hope she learned from the mistakes Bernie's campaign made. 

AOC on the other hand back away from the vitriol at the end of Bernie's campaign and even criticized the nastiness of some supporters. 

And here you are spreading vitriol. 

I'd vote for AOC. She knows how check her followers. 

[caulixtla 2,170]

2 minutes ago, JusKeepBreathin said:

I'd vote for AOC. She knows how check her followers. 

As long as Trumpism is still a Republican thing, and it’s been a thing with the Republican party long before Trump, I will vote for a yellow dog with a D next to their name before I vote red.

[LaLa 19,898]

so, I have a question about recounts. 

I read that if the margin is less than a certain number (0.5% ?) then a recount is automatic, but anything over that a campaign must request, and pay for. This person was speculating that a lot of the recounts the Trump people are banging on about won't even actually happen because they can't realistically expect to flip any states, and they won't want to waste the money at the end of the day. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that? I'm sure I read it on twitter, so not sure how trustworthy. 

[caulixtla 2,170]

1 hour ago, LaLa said:

so, I have a question about recounts. 

I read that if the margin is less than a certain number (0.5% ?) then a recount is automatic, but anything over that a campaign must request, and pay for. This person was speculating that a lot of the recounts the Trump people are banging on about won't even actually happen because they can't realistically expect to flip any states, and they won't want to waste the money at the end of the day. Does anyone know if there is any truth to that? I'm sure I read it on twitter, so not sure how trustworthy. 

It depends on the state. WI has a close enough margin for a recount, but only if Trump pays for it (about three million dollars). AZ won’t do recounts unless the margin is under 200 votes or 0.1% (which is one reason they are so slow counting)

GA allows a recount under 0.5% (it’s that close) after Trump requests one (he’s going to request on, you can count on it)

PA allows a recount to be requested regardless of the margin. You know Trump’s going to request one here, and it will probably be granted.

Now, about recounts: We only have to worry about them if the margin is below about 1,000 votes. When the margins are 10,000 votes or more (as they are in all states with close results), a recount doesn’t change anything. Trump is still finished.