zzrmark

An excellent move or a canny one? The lobbyists for the pharma industry are going to hamper all lawmakers efforts to get the ball rolling on this one and it's my guess that you or I won't benefit from this for many years yet.

The Mirror

I find it hard to believe that anyone here thinks that Trump has a chance of getting a second term. It's an obvious landslide for Biden, or any warm body that the Democrats stand up there..

Jerseygirl

that was the opinion of many in 2016.

GeneralPowerpoint

Polling looks considerably better for Biden than it did for Clinton at least.

If we’re lucky it’ll be a clean sweep for the Democrats across the House, the Senate and the Presidency.

GOP needs a painful beating to reflect on it’s decision to enable authoritarianism.

spouse of scouse

The press secretary's telling porkies about Paw Patrol now. There's a joke there somewhere, if anyone wants to find it Children's programme Paw Patrol has not been cancelled, its makers have said, after the White House press secretary appeared to fall for rumours it had.

Kayleigh McEnany said the show featuring cartoon dogs who run a police department was among programmes and games axed due to "cancel culture".

But the series swiftly reassured fans that there was "no need to worry".
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53538204

Giantaxe

Meanwhile back in the real world, pandemic unemployment assistance expires today. The House passed an extension two months ago but predictably McConnell and the Republicans haven’t and Trump has been pushing a payroll tax cut instead. He seems to be losing that battle with his own party but more pandemic assistance seems a way off. Given even with this assistance 1/3 of renters haven’t paid their July rent, we’re heading into dangerous territory, especially as eviction moratoriums start to expire over the next month.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zackfri...-tomorrow/amp/

Steerpike

I'm only slightly / cautiously optimistic that Trump will be gone. In addition to the daily portrayal of violence on the streets, voter turnout / voter suppression in swing states could be a massive factor. The election will be decided in just a few states, including Florida. If Florida is still a hot-spot for the virus, then voters won't feel safe going to the polls. Mail-in voting seems to be a non-starter in such states, thanks to strong opposition from the ruling Republican administrations in these states. Georgia is another swing state where cases are seriously rising. I won't breath a sigh of relief until January.

zzrmark

I was quite surprised by stats in a recent mailing encouraging me to register for mail-in-voting and decided to check the facts for myself.
From Florida Department of State, Division of Elections online blurb...

Florida 2016 general election: Election day votes - 2,959,085
Early Vote Center - 3,876,753
Vote-by-mail - 2,758,617
Provisional voting - 24,460


The media might want to specify how large the percentage needs to be before Florida is considered by them to have a taste for vote-by-mail.

RICH

I have always voted by mail (since becoming a citizen in 2013) and still republicans keep winning in FL

Steerpike

To be honest, I'm not sure that Florida was one of the 'poster children' for opposition to vote-by-mail. I do know that vote-by-mail is extremely popular in AZ, so definitely a non-issue there. Perhaps it was Texas? Georgia?

PS - Early Vote Center - is that just early voting in person?

zzrmark

I don't recall too much positive reporting in the media for Florida's historical vote-by-mail numbers, plenty of Republicans coming out against it though.
I believe EVC is as you say.

Leslie

Oh who knows? Nothing queer as folk.

What I'll say, based on my anecdotal evidence, is that a lot more people are bitching about Trump than complimenting him. Maybe they never liked him and are now more vocal about it? The Trumpsters are quiet as mouse farts. Roughly, the situation was flipped around the other way pre-Covid. I can only think of a few who actually voted for him and now say they regret it and won't vote for him again. Two have apologized to me personally but (full disclosure) one is a family member and the other is a friend. At work, I can't give too much away but I do listen. One thing I like about the masks is that they can't see my entire face because it tends let my feelings known.

Election-wise, I haven't seen any Trump yard signs or new Trump bumper stickers. This is VERY different than this time in 2016 when there were Trump/Pence yard signs before he even won the primary. He was more popular in Texas than Cruz --- who is from Texas. After the primaries, the signs were everywhere. If you recall, Trump picked Pence as his running mate before he won the nomination. Which (IMO) makes me wonder if he's holding out in the event he decides to replace Pence as a drama whoring stunt or if the campaign is just sloppy and slow on the marketing. Of course, no Biden signs either but I can't see that as unusual because he hasn't picked a running mate so the campaign hasn't started circulating the signs. There weren't many Hillary signs/stickers in all of 2016 so your guess is as good as mine.

Biden and Trump are both buying commercials in Texas which means (1) the Democrats have more money than they know what to do with or they think Biden has a chance and (2) the Republicans have more money than they know what to do with or Trump is worried. It occurred to me, as I was writing the previous paragraph, I haven't seen Pence mention in any of the commercials either. That may not mean much because I usually speed mute or fast forward until there is no chance of his voice being audible to my ears.

Trump still has a lot of support in Texas --- so I'm not going to make any sweeping declarations.

Never join anything.

Leslie

Yup.

carcajou

Correct. Clinton never polled as well as Biden currently is. Clinton occasionally had pops up to about an 8 point lead or so but never consistently.

The question is, have the polling companies fixed what was wrong - which since the exit polls were spot on, I believe were methodology errors and not bias ones?

carcajou

Still to early to say. It isn't going to come down to sneaky back-room tactics. It never does, but it gives some people some comfort in thinking there is some way to put a finger on the scale or program it in some way when there isn't.

It will come down to what is the dominant narrative and the dominant voter priority. Covid-19? Biden. Portland riots and anti-police invective, behaviour and spray? Trump. Biden may still win if it's the latter, but if Trump is able to shift things to that terrain he has a chance to catch up. The public, even in blue states, do not support defund the police etc and are still very broadly supportive of their police services, and it's not even a close-run thing.

We've still got 100 days to go and the famed "October Surprise."