EricK wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2024 2:17 pm
SSJBartSimpson wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2024 1:46 pm
mikeylikey wrote: ↑Wed Mar 06, 2024 7:30 am
What I am seeing several of you apparently positing above is that pollsters have overcorrected and are now spotting Trump several extra points, so that his current lead can be disregarded as an illusion. I'm not buying it.
I think it's this + Biden is now the one with an EC edge as the trends favor him in the most crucial swing states, so he could lose the PV and win the EC.
People act like I'm crazy for saying this, but Obama had an EC advantage in 2012 as well. It ended up not mattering because he ended with a comfortable PV as well.
Where do you see the trends favoring Biden in crucial swing states? This Hill article referencing a Bloomberg poll has Trump favored in Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4 ... urvey/amp/
Given the 270towin map (
https://www.270towin.com/), Trump only needs Georgia and Pennsylvania to win.
Here's why I don't think it's realistic for Trump to win Georgia or Pennsylvania:
For Georgia, BIden won this state in 2020 by 0.2%, while he won nationwide by 4.5%. So it was over 4 points to the right of the nation.
Republicans largely won in Georgia in 2022; however, one democrat did win: Warnock. How did he win? For one, his opponent was a Trump ally while the other big-name republicans Kemp and Raffensperger had famously repudiated him and got a lot of independent support because of it. Georgian independents had the chance to vote against Biden at the federal level but sent Warnock back to the senate when the environment was much redder and Biden's approval ratings were/are in the s***hole.
But even if we didn't have the senate race to look at as a point of comparison there were some serious red-flags for republicans in the races they did win.
The most important counties in Georgia are the counties around Fulton, the highly populated suburbs of Atlanta. Abrams who basically became a meme outperformed Biden in a number of suburban counties in a much redder environment.
Clayton:
--Biden 2020: +70.9
--Abrams 2022: +72.6
Henry:
--Biden 2020: +20.5
--Abrams 2022: +23.3
Rockdale:
--Biden 2020: +40.8
--Abrams 2022: +42.4
These margins really make even less sense when you consider black turnout was way down in 2022; so the drivers of these margins were suburban whites.
So the question here is Trump going to be able to narrow these margins? He's already proven himself toxic to these white college-ed voters, so that seems unlikely when Walker could not do it. He also has the option of winning the rural margins even more, but these are easily offset by a slight swing left in one of the Atlanta counties.
It's a similar case in Pennsylvania, the analogous example being Philadelphia. The most important county here is Montgomery and it's trended left since 2016 into 2022; however, there is an even bigger issue going on. While Georgia is almost universally gaining population, Pennsylvania is losing population; however, the exception is the suburbs of Philadelphia and especially Montgomery. So if the rest of the state where republican votes come from is decreasing in population but these suburban counties are growing
and getting bluer, what is the answer to that for Trump?
I won't even get into the county analysis for Arizona, but democrats unexpectedly won the governorship in 2022 with minimal engagement and the state republican party is near bankruptcy and are nominating the crazy lady who bungled said governors election as the senate nominee.
This analysis could be wrong and these counties could vote differently than they've been trending in the last several election cycles, but all the evidence we have for why they are trending in this direction is because of Trump.With him on the ballot, or a Trump-like candidate, I don't see these states becoming competitive.
I think Trump could win Wisconsin, Nevada, and Michigan, but these just won't be enough.