Official Discussion Thread: U.S Presidential Election 2020

[LaLa 19,898]

29 minutes ago, caulixtla said:

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.

thank you! yeah, I was never really worried, just more wondering how long they can drag this out for 

In the states other than WI does he have to pay as well? 

[Gagaloo911 12,959]

Not that it was really up in the air at this point, but Biden is up by more than 10,000 votes in GA now. It's BLUE baby!

[JusKeepBreathin 19,311]

3 hours ago, caulixtla said:

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.

Me too, but I was talking about primaries not general election. If Nina won the primaries she will have my vote in the general no matter what, and I wouldn't be a Bitter Betty about it. 

[caulixtla 2,170]

35 minutes ago, JusKeepBreathin said:

Me too, but I was talking about primaries not general election. If Nina won the primaries she will have my vote in the general no matter what, and I wouldn't be a Bitter Betty about it. 

In the primaries, I voted Biden for a simple pragmatic reason: He had the best chances against Trump, according to the then RealClearPolitics polling averages, having a small but significant edge over Biden.

This is where I get in to my rant of, if you’re going to say RCP polling averages are wrong or polls are wrong, what sources are we supposed to use to determine who best could beat Trump? Considering what a nail biter it was with Biden, unless the polls were completely in outfield—and maybe they were, since Biden polled better in FL than GA—Sanders might had lost. Actually, I think Sanders would had won, but only flip PA/MI/WI, leaving GA and AZ red. GA was a clear case of Black voters registering and lining up behind Biden. AZ was a lot of factors, including a continuing trend blueward and older retired people unhappy with Biden’s COVID-19 response, Biden known for working with McCain, the endorsement of McCain’s widow, and Trump not being as strong with male Latinos as he was in TX and FL (To which I say: ¿¿Qué??)

[Whispering 18,865]

7 hours ago, StarstruckIllusion said:

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

Biden beat Bernie in every precinct in Miami-Dade in the Latino vote. 

Cubans passed on Bernie during this last primary. 

[Whispering 18,865]

9 hours ago, Chromatican said:

Sorry, but we just ran a candidate who had the most aggressive campaign in a long time in terms of trying to appeal to Republican voters (Republicans at DNC, The Lincoln Project, Reaching across the aisle rhetoric, Cindy McCain's endorsement) and we got LESS Republicans to vote against Trump than in 2016. Time to hang this strategy up for the coming years.

Biden’s strategy worked. 

Biden is only the fourth candidate to beat an incumbent in the past 100 years, and he did it against a president directing the force of his entire administration into a taxpayer-funded reelection effort. Biden won the most votes in American history, and with votes still being counted that are leaning his way, his share of the electorate is already on par with the percentage of the vote Ronald Reagan won in 1980; it’s looking like the second-biggest popular-vote margin in the past 20 years, after Obama’s in 2008. He had strong support from moderates and progressives, won more votes from Black voters and women than either Obama or Clinton did, and ran stronger in many white areas than Democrats have recently.

[sarahb 17,188]

The relief I just felt when I got a notification on my phone from CNN about a US politician and it wasn't about Trump and it didn't give me a sense of dread   (it was about Biden's plans for the pandemic)

[Nitandeaughs 0]

Now Election is over and people is expectation new hope of development, heath  and peace.

[Chromatican 4,046]

1 hour ago, Whispering said:

Biden’s strategy worked. 

Biden is only the fourth candidate to beat an incumbent in the past 100 years, and he did it against a president directing the force of his entire administration into a taxpayer-funded reelection effort. Biden won the most votes in American history, and with votes still being counted that are leaning his way, his share of the electorate is already on par with the percentage of the vote Ronald Reagan won in 1980; it’s looking like the second-biggest popular-vote margin in the past 20 years, after Obama’s in 2008. He had strong support from moderates and progressives, won more votes from Black voters and women than either Obama or Clinton did, and ran stronger in many white areas than Democrats have recently.

I understand this and am glad Biden won, but he was also running against one of the most unpopular and disliked presidents in history, who bungled the biggest health crisis since the Spanish Flu pandemic which cost almost a quarter of a million Americans their lives. Something about the Democratic messaging is not connecting the conditions on the ground to politics. Biden lost Florida, yet Florida voted to increase the minimum wage. I’m not saying Biden’s civility arguments weren’t effective, but in future races where circumstances aren’t as conducive to an incumbent being dethroned the Democratic nominee is going to need to offer more than platitudes and a return to normalcy. I still wonder why more Republicans didn’t flip to Biden. Trump went from 90% to 93% of that demographic. Trying to appeal to Republicans with the Lincoln Project just didn’t connect. 

[Othon 34,299]

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

Biden’s strategy worked. 

Biden is only the fourth candidate to beat an incumbent in the past 100 years, and he did it against a president directing the force of his entire administration into a taxpayer-funded reelection effort. Biden won the most votes in American history, and with votes still being counted that are leaning his way, his share of the electorate is already on par with the percentage of the vote Ronald Reagan won in 1980; it’s looking like the second-biggest popular-vote margin in the past 20 years, after Obama’s in 2008. He had strong support from moderates and progressives, won more votes from Black voters and women than either Obama or Clinton did, and ran stronger in many white areas than Democrats have recently.

I've never seen mental gymnastics and rhetorical sleights of hand like this in my entire life. Attempting to spin what has universally been derided as a disastrous result in all corners of the press and was literally called a "dumpster fire" by congressional Democrats into some sort of historic victory is just insanity.

Did you just copy and paste this from some pro-Biden Facebook page? Or from some DailyKos comment thread? 

 

Let's break this paragraph down piece by piece.

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

Biden’s strategy worked. 

Biden spent the entire election pandering to Republicans, inviting Bush-era war criminals to the DNC, flaunting the endorsement of the Republican in Michigan who poisoned Flint's water supply, and to what end? Trump won more of the Republican vote than he did in 2016. The backbone of Biden's entire campaign was reaching out to aggrieved Republicans and moderates... and they voted in even larger percentages for Trump than they did before. His strategy failed, unequivocally. 

Trump won higher percentages of the Black vote and the Hispanic and Latino vote than any Republican presidential candidate in 60 years. Why was that? Because Biden took them for granted and promised them nothing in exchange for their vote. There was ZERO outreach effort on behalf of these communities. His campaign said, point blank, that they didn't see Latino voters as a part of their path to victory, and those voters voted in unprecedented numbers for the Republican party. He lost a significant amount of ground all across the country with a major voter block that the Democrats need to win if they want to stay viable at all. Again, his strategy failed.

We were told repeatedly that he needed to be the nominee for the sake of downballot races; Biden was POISON for Senate and House races. The Democrats lost 10 seats in the House and are almost certainly going to lose the Senate. The party invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Senate candidates that adopted the same exact strategy that Biden ran on, and they bombed spectacularly. Amy McGrath lost by 20+ points and blew $90 million. Again, this strategy failed. 

A bowl of hair should've been able to crush Trump definitively. Biden couldn't deliver on any of the demographic promises he made, and he lost ground with voters of color, the actual base of the Democratic Party. 

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

Biden is only the fourth candidate to beat an incumbent in the past 100 years.

You've deliberately worded this to make it sound like some sort of absurd anomaly, but that's just... wildly misleading. 11 presidents have failed to be re-elected, and none of them had ANYTHING even remotely as immediate and disastrous working against them as the mishandling of the COVID crisis was working against Trump. That was the #1 issue of the election according to all of the exit data. 

It also eliminates any and all context. Namely: the deadly pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people, deaths that Trump is directly responsible for. The electoral circumstances for the Democrats could never have been more favorable. A quarter of a million Americans have died in a pandemic bungled by the incumbent president, and at least 6 million have consequently been driven into poverty. The coronavirus crisis is the devastating climax of a presidency defined by hundreds of scandals, many of which alone, in normal circumstances, could have destroyed the political career of whoever occupied the White House. And somehow... Biden barely won, likely by a very similar margin in the electoral college to what Trump won by in 2016 when he barely edged out Clinton.

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

Biden won the most votes in American history

This means absolutely, positively nothing. The American populace is larger than it's ever been and there are more registered voters than we've ever had before. Voter turnout was up across the board: most Biden voters explicitly said they planned to vote for Biden because he wasn't Trump. 

Trump also massively increased his vote totals, so, again, this is absolutely meaningless.

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

it’s looking like the second-biggest popular-vote margin in the past 20 years, after Obama’s in 2008. 

We've only had FIVE other elections in the last 20 years, and two of those resulted in presidents that didn't even win the popular vote at all.  

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

He had strong support from moderates and progressives

Incredible. Progressives get blamed for a moderate's loss if we do or don't vote for their losing campaigns and we're used as evidence that we actually LIKED that moderate if we vote for them and they win. 

2 hours ago, Whispering said:

won more votes from Black voters and women than either Obama or Clinton did, and ran stronger in many white areas than Democrats have recently.

This also means... nothing! The electorate is much larger and voter turnout was up across the board; actual vote totals mean nothing, especially when it comes to this insanely misleading sentence. Biden won a substantially SMALLER percentage of the Black and Latino vote than any Democrat in decades. Against one of the most overtly racist presidents of all time.

 

TLDR;

Biden's entire selling point was the notion that he could win disaffected moderates and Republicans. He spent the entire campaign criticizing Black protestors for breaking windows while they were protesting actual killings and telling the Democratic base that he'd veto Medicare for All in a desperate bid to persuade Republicans that they could vote for him. Instead, more of them voted for Trump than they did in 2016. With voters of color, the backbone of the Democratic electorate, Biden LOST ground with Black men and women, Latino men and women. He even lost ground with white women. 

Biden's strategy was a disaster. He barely won DESPITE his strategy. There were literally weekends where the Trump campaign was knocking on a million doors while Biden's knocked on zero.

He won because of a deadly pandemic. He won because Democrats hated Trump so much that they braved that pandemic to vote against him. He won because of progressive, largely Black and Brown organizers in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada that managed to turn out voters with no major outreach effort from the Biden campaign. Giving Biden the credit for their work, when the numbers prove, categorically, that he did not accomplish anything that he said he would electorally regarding pulling in moderates and Republicans, is insulting.

[KORG 4,756]

16 minutes ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

I've never seen mental gymnastics and rhetorical sleights of hand like this in my entire life. Leave it to you to spin what has universally been derided as a disastrous result in all corners of the press and was literally called a "dumpster fire" by congressional Democrats into some sort of historic victory.

Did you just copy and paste this from some pro-Biden Facebook page? Or from some DailyKos comment thread? 

 

Let's break this ludicrous paragraph down piece by piece.

Biden spent the entire election pandering to Republicans, inviting Bush-era war criminals to the DNC, flaunting the endorsement of the Republican in Michigan who poisoned Flint's water supply, and to what end? Trump won more of the Republican vote than he did in 2016. The backbone of Biden's entire campaign was reaching out to aggrieved Republicans and moderates... and they voted in even larger percentages for Trump than they did before. His strategy failed, unequivocally. 

Trump won higher percentages of the Black vote and the Hispanic and Latino vote than any Republican presidential candidate in 60 years. Why was that? Because Biden took them for granted and promised them nothing in exchange for their vote. His campaign said, point blank, that they didn't see Latino voters as a part of their path to victory, and those voters voted in unprecedented numbers for the Republican party. He lost a significant amount of ground all across the country with a major voter block that the Democrats need to win if they want to stay viable at all. Again, his strategy failed.

We were told repeatedly that he needed to be the nominee for the sake of downballot races; Biden was POISON for Senate and House races. The Democrats lost 10 seats in the House and are almost certainly going to lose the Senate. The party invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Senate candidates that adopted the same exact strategy that Biden ran on, and they bombed spectacularly. Amy McGrath lost by 20+ points and blew $90 million. Again, this strategy failed. 

A bowl of hair should've been able to crush Trump definitively. Biden couldn't deliver on any of the demographic promises he made, and he lost ground with voters of color, the actual base of the Democratic Party. 

You've deliberately worded this to make it sound like some sort of absurd anomaly, but that's just... wildly misleading. 11 presidents have failed to be re-elected, and none of them had ANYTHING even remotely as immediate and disastrous working against them as the mishandling of the COVID crisis was working against Trump. That was the #1 issue of the election according to all of the exit data. 

It also eliminates any and all context. Namely: the deadly pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people, deaths that Trump is directly responsible for. The electoral circumstances for the US Democrats could never have been more favorable. A quarter of a million Americans have died in a pandemic bungled by the incumbent president, and at least 6 million have consequently been driven into poverty. The coronavirus crisis is the devastating climax of a presidency defined by hundreds of scandals, many of which alone, in normal circumstances, could have destroyed the political career of whoever occupied the White House. And somehow... Biden barely won, likely by a very similar margin in the electoral college to what Trump won by in 2016 when he barely edged out Clinton.

This means absolutely, positively nothing. The American populace is larger than it's ever been and there are more registered voters than we've ever had before. Voter turnout was up across the board: most Biden voters explicitly said they planned to vote for Biden because he wasn't Trump. 

Trump also massively increased his vote totals, so, again, this is absolutely meaningless.

We've only had FIVE elections in the last 20 years, and three of those involved presidents that didn't even win the popular vote at all.  What even is this talking point?! 

Incredible. Progressives get blamed for a moderate's loss if we do or don't vote for their losing campaigns and we're used as evidence that we actually LIKED that moderate if we vote for them and they win. 

This also means... nothing! The electorate is much larger and voter turnout was up across the board; actual vote totals mean nothing, especially when it comes to this insanely misleading sentence. Biden won a substantially SMALLER percentage of the Black and Latino vote than any Democrat in decades. Against one of the most overtly racist presidents of all time.

 

TLDR;

Biden's entire selling point was the notion that he could win disaffected moderates and Republicans. He spent the entire campaign criticizing Black protestors for breaking windows while they were protesting actual killings and telling the Democratic base that he'd veto Medicare for All in a desperate bid to persuade Republicans that they could vote for him. Instead, more of them voted for Trump than they did in 2016. With voters of color, the backbone of the Democratic electorate, Biden LOST ground with Black men and women, Latino men and women. He even lost ground with white women. 

Biden's strategy was a disaster. He barely won DESPITE his strategy. There were literally weekends where the Trump campaign was knocking on a million doors while Biden's knocked on zero.

He won because of a deadly pandemic. He won because Democrats hated Trump so much that they braved that pandemic to vote against him. He won because of progressive, largely Black organizers in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada that managed to turn out voters with no major outreach effort from the Biden campaign. Giving Biden the credit for their work, when the numbers prove, categorically, that he did not accomplish anything that he said he would electorally regarding pulling in moderates and Republicans, is insulting.

... then he won.

[Othon 34,299]

3 minutes ago, KORG said:

... then he won.

...With "dumpster fire" results, according to the Democrats themselves. 

[Chromatican 4,046]

31 minutes ago, OG Gaga Stan said:

I've never seen mental gymnastics and rhetorical sleights of hand like this in my entire life. Attempting to spin what has universally been derided as a disastrous result in all corners of the press and was literally called a "dumpster fire" by congressional Democrats into some sort of historic victory is just insanity.

Did you just copy and paste this from some pro-Biden Facebook page? Or from some DailyKos comment thread? 

 

Let's break this ludicrous paragraph down piece by piece.

Biden spent the entire election pandering to Republicans, inviting Bush-era war criminals to the DNC, flaunting the endorsement of the Republican in Michigan who poisoned Flint's water supply, and to what end? Trump won more of the Republican vote than he did in 2016. The backbone of Biden's entire campaign was reaching out to aggrieved Republicans and moderates... and they voted in even larger percentages for Trump than they did before. His strategy failed, unequivocally. 

Trump won higher percentages of the Black vote and the Hispanic and Latino vote than any Republican presidential candidate in 60 years. Why was that? Because Biden took them for granted and promised them nothing in exchange for their vote. There was ZERO outreach effort on behalf of these communities. His campaign said, point blank, that they didn't see Latino voters as a part of their path to victory, and those voters voted in unprecedented numbers for the Republican party. He lost a significant amount of ground all across the country with a major voter block that the Democrats need to win if they want to stay viable at all. Again, his strategy failed.

We were told repeatedly that he needed to be the nominee for the sake of downballot races; Biden was POISON for Senate and House races. The Democrats lost 10 seats in the House and are almost certainly going to lose the Senate. The party invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Senate candidates that adopted the same exact strategy that Biden ran on, and they bombed spectacularly. Amy McGrath lost by 20+ points and blew $90 million. Again, this strategy failed. 

A bowl of hair should've been able to crush Trump definitively. Biden couldn't deliver on any of the demographic promises he made, and he lost ground with voters of color, the actual base of the Democratic Party. 

You've deliberately worded this to make it sound like some sort of absurd anomaly, but that's just... wildly misleading. 11 presidents have failed to be re-elected, and none of them had ANYTHING even remotely as immediate and disastrous working against them as the mishandling of the COVID crisis was working against Trump. That was the #1 issue of the election according to all of the exit data. 

It also eliminates any and all context. Namely: the deadly pandemic that killed hundreds of thousands of people, deaths that Trump is directly responsible for. The electoral circumstances for the Democrats could never have been more favorable. A quarter of a million Americans have died in a pandemic bungled by the incumbent president, and at least 6 million have consequently been driven into poverty. The coronavirus crisis is the devastating climax of a presidency defined by hundreds of scandals, many of which alone, in normal circumstances, could have destroyed the political career of whoever occupied the White House. And somehow... Biden barely won, likely by a very similar margin in the electoral college to what Trump won by in 2016 when he barely edged out Clinton.

This means absolutely, positively nothing. The American populace is larger than it's ever been and there are more registered voters than we've ever had before. Voter turnout was up across the board: most Biden voters explicitly said they planned to vote for Biden because he wasn't Trump. 

Trump also massively increased his vote totals, so, again, this is absolutely meaningless.

We've only had FIVE elections in the last 20 years, and three of those resulted in presidents that didn't even win the popular vote at all.  

Incredible. Progressives get blamed for a moderate's loss if we do or don't vote for their losing campaigns and we're used as evidence that we actually LIKED that moderate if we vote for them and they win. 

This also means... nothing! The electorate is much larger and voter turnout was up across the board; actual vote totals mean nothing, especially when it comes to this insanely misleading sentence. Biden won a substantially SMALLER percentage of the Black and Latino vote than any Democrat in decades. Against one of the most overtly racist presidents of all time.

 

TLDR;

Biden's entire selling point was the notion that he could win disaffected moderates and Republicans. He spent the entire campaign criticizing Black protestors for breaking windows while they were protesting actual killings and telling the Democratic base that he'd veto Medicare for All in a desperate bid to persuade Republicans that they could vote for him. Instead, more of them voted for Trump than they did in 2016. With voters of color, the backbone of the Democratic electorate, Biden LOST ground with Black men and women, Latino men and women. He even lost ground with white women. 

Biden's strategy was a disaster. He barely won DESPITE his strategy. There were literally weekends where the Trump campaign was knocking on a million doors while Biden's knocked on zero.

He won because of a deadly pandemic. He won because Democrats hated Trump so much that they braved that pandemic to vote against him. He won because of progressive, largely Black organizers in Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Nevada that managed to turn out voters with no major outreach effort from the Biden campaign. Giving Biden the credit for their work, when the numbers prove, categorically, that he did not accomplish anything that he said he would electorally regarding pulling in moderates and Republicans, is insulting.

Amazing post. Not to mention the police brutality and riots. The BLM movement sparking the largest uprising in American history. The Democrats just don’t know how to seize a moment like they used to. Obama really did that in 2008, but now it’s all about moderation and toeing the line. It’s like the Democrats are afraid to be political in a political race.

[bionic 50,111]

1 hour ago, Nitandeaughs said:

Now Election is over and people is expectation new hope of development, heath  and peace.

We'll get one of those things

[HorusRa2 5,005]

3 hours ago, KORG said:

... then he won.

He won but the democrats lost 5 seats in the house, likely failed to control the senate and didnt flip a single state legislature. Joe was able to save his own ass but couldnt win seats that the Dems were thinking they were going to get. 

Oh and every progressive in swing districts either won or were on track to win on election night.