The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[Alatar]

Another one for Nate to ignore. Harris by 3 in NC.

It occurs to me that if the polls show Trump at an advantage, it will feed the claims about the stolen election when Harris wins.

If Harris wins...

[Frelga]

Another point made about the Haiti libel is, there's a significant, and currently very angry, Haitian minority in Florida.

[RoseMorninStar]

Everyone wants to be a cat. Or maybe not.

[N.E. Brigand]

A newly released Marist poll, which was conducted Sep. 3-5, i.e., over much of the same period as the New York Times poll released two days ago (which was in the field Sep. 3-6), finds Vice President Harris leading Donald Trump by 1% among registered voters and by 3% among likely voters. The former represents a 2% shift toward Trump since the previous Marist poll (not sure about the latter). The poll also finds Donald Trump winning Latino voters by 3%, which is almost certainly wrong and could suggest the poll, but it's very risky to make too much of such details, because shrinking the size of the group you're looking at increases the margin of error.

Noting this difference between two high quality polls, Times polling analyst Nate Cohn explains that the Times takes a different approach to "likely" voters than many other polls: they don't take voters' stated intentions at face value but consider other factors such as "whether someone has a track record of voting," because some people who say they're "definitely" voting, and in late polls, even some people who say they already voted, don't actually do so (or are lying about having done so). In the Times poll, Harris led Trump among the subgroup that said they were "almost certain" to vote but not among merely "likely" voters.

Note that two other national surveyors of good repute -- Harvard/Harris and Pew -- both had new polls out yesterday which found the national race tied. I think it's safe to say that it's tightened up some over the past couple weeks.

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I appreciate this argument from Matt Yglesias about how the media is helping Donald Trump through their choices about what to cover:

"Trump single-handedly scuttled a tough border security bill to advance his own interests, overturned Roe v Wade, and if he wins will pardon insurrectionists, rip health care from millions of people, and put a 10% tax on coffee. You’re either talking about that or you’re not."

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Meanwhile, Sen. J.D. Vance says the police in Springfield, OH are lying about Haitian immigrants not stealing and eating people's pets. Vance doesn't say that quite so explicitly, to be sure. He says his office has received numerous calls about the matter. Because when someone steals your cat, you call your senator and not the cops.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

A newly released Marist poll, which was conducted Sep. 3-5, i.e., over much of the same period as the New York Times poll released two days ago (which was in the field Sep. 3-6), finds Vice President Harris leading Donald Trump by 1% among registered voters and by 3% among likely voters. The former represents a 2% shift toward Trump since the previous Marist poll (not sure about the latter). The poll also finds Donald Trump winning Latino voters by 3%, which is almost certainly wrong and could suggest the poll, but it's very risky to make too much of such details, because shrinking the size of the group you're looking at increases the margin of error.

Has the Times explained yet why their poll had a sample that had 3 percent more Republicans than Democrats, when the electorate is actually 3 percent more Democrats than Republicans?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Also, this additional observation by Nate Cohn is worth noting.

[Dave_LF]

Remember though that Trump motivates people who don't normally vote to do so, hence the multiply-observed effect where Trumpy candidates do well when he's on the ballot himself, and poorly otherwise. I'm sure this is not an original thought, but this is likely a big part of why polls underestimate his support.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

538 has inched back up to 56% for Harris after having gotten as low as 53%.

I'll be curious to see where Silver is (more out of curiosity than anything), but he did acknowledge some good news for Harris.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Maybe Harris should just play this ad over and over tonight instead of answering questions.



Not serious, obviously, but it is a good ad.

[N.E. Brigand]

Remember though that Trump motivates people who don't normally vote to do so, hence the multiply-observed effect where Trumpy candidates do well when he's on the ballot himself, and poorly otherwise. I'm sure this is not an original thought, but this is likely a big part of why polls underestimate his support.

Quite so. That said, a recent survey from Gallup (which doesn't poll head-to-head matchups anymore) finds that Democrats are 14% more enthusiastic than Republicans at this time -- the biggest gap since 2008. In the last two elections, Republicans had the lead at this point on the calendar.

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In other news, the New York Times, for the second time in two days after much silence, has another real story about the stakes of the election, whose headline and subhed read as follows: "Trump Steps Up Threats to Imprison Those He Sees as Foes. The former president is vowing to prosecute those he sees as working to deny him a victory, while laying the groundwork to claim large-scale voter fraud if he loses."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Meanwhile, despite acknowledging Harris' good polls, Silver still gives Trump a ridiculous 61.3% chance of winning.

[Frelga]

There are anecdotal stories that, if true, may be good for Harris. People saying that their neighbors took down their Trump sign. Women asking how they keep their vote secret from their husbands. White men tweeting their photos with guns and dogs and flannels saying "I'm a 58 year old veteran and a life long Republican, and I'll be voting for Harris." Pickups decked out with flags and signs for Harris/Walz in Florida.

Hard to say if this will mean anything, or if it will be enough to overcome the tampering, voter intimidation, and other shenanigans to help Trump.

[Maria]

I wish Josh Hawley wasn't on the same election cycle as the presidential race, as he'd likely be easier to vote out if that were the case.

[RoseMorninStar]

There are anecdotal stories that, if true, may be good for Harris. People saying that their neighbors took down their Trump sign. Women asking how they keep their vote secret from their husbands. White men tweeting their photos with guns and dogs and flannels saying "I'm a 58 year old veteran and a life long Republican, and I'll be voting for Harris." Pickups decked out with flags and signs for Harris/Walz in Florida.

Hard to say if this will mean anything, or if it will be enough to overcome the tampering, voter intimidation, and other shenanigans to help Trump.

I'm not seeing that kind of stuff where I live. If anything they are digging in. They believe the lies and conspiracies. In my opinion, it's a lose-lose situation for America. A destabilization of trust in our institutions. The behavior by some on the Supreme court has not helped matters.

[Dave_LF]

Same here. I said it before, but easily 2-3x as many Trump signs as previous years, and they are *mad*.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is indeed a helpful report from the PBS NewsHour about life the Haitian immigrant population in Springfield, Ohio, although it doesn't address the question I asked earlier: per Wikipedia, the city's population dropped from 60,600 in 2010 to 58,700 in 2020 to an estimated 58,100 in 2023, but also per Wikipedia (and much reporting) something like 20,000 Haitian immigrants have settled in Springfield in the past five years, so does that mean that Springfield's population otherwise would now be about 38,000? Was the city on track to lose two-thirds of its population? Isn't it disastrous for a city to lose so many people so quickly? Or is it just that all these numbers are wrong?

A quick synopsis of the video: there were already some Haitians there, some factories were growing and needed workers, thousands of temporary Haitian immigrants had been allowed into the U.S. under a program set up in response to the violent condidtions in that country, and hearing that there were good jobs in Springfield, that's where they moved. Many of them hope to return to Haiti some day. (Not mentioned: this was often the case with immigrants from Europe in the late 19th and early 20th century. Donald Trump's grandfather moved to the U.S. from Germany, failed to achieve success, and moved back to Germany for awhile.) The factories say the Haitians are reliable employees, generally more so than the more established Springfield residents. Springfield's mayor says that there has been no increase in crime connected to the immigrant population, but there have been increased costs particularly for Engliss as a Second Language tutors in the schools and translators at the local health centers. (The report also says "last year was the busiest on record for the fire department" but with no explanation of what that might have to do with immigrants.) While this was challenging, for the most part local attitudes seemed fine until a car crashed into a school bus and an 11-year-old boy was killed: "when the driver was revealed to be a Haitian immigrant without a U.S. license, things erupted." (When I was in high school, a girl one year older than me in band was killed by a drunk driver. She was white. He was white. It was a very white community. There was no eruption against whites.) Not mentioned in the report: the dead kid's parents object to the anti-Haitian rhetoric that developed as a result.

This clip from the 1987 film Matewan, with James Earl Jones in a supporting role, now seems relevant:



Although if you know the film or the history, you realize that things didn't end well for anyone.

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We saw in 2017-2020 that Donald Trump used the presidency to line his pockets. Here's new reporting about what he may be planning for 2025 and after* if he should return to the White House: he's partnered up with a cryptocurrency company that is only like to succeed if, once in office, Trump can name an SEC chair who will change how cryptocurrency is regulated in their favor. Trump and his three sons (Don Jr., Eric, and Barron) all have positions at the company.

*I list no end date because my assumption is that Donald Trump will never leave office once elected.

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The deputy opinions editor at the New York Times (formerly their politics editor), Patrick Healy, who writes there about Kamala Harris' campaign, doesn't seem like the a poor choice for that task. Among other things, he's the guy who coined the term "Clinton cackle" to explain why Hillary Clinton didn't appeal to voters.

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Remember that before his debate with President Biden in June, Donald Trump predicted that Biden would take performance enhancing drugs. Obviously that was not the case! But we know that every Trump accusation is actually confession. In other words, it's a reasonable guess that he was hopped up on something that night and that he will be again for this evening's debate. I imagine the challenge for his pusher is balancing the goals of having Trump not too peppy at the top of the event and not too tired at the end of the event.

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When videos like this are shared, it's often noted that they're selectively edited and not representative of the U.S. as a whole because the people who can successfully answer the (usually quite simple) questions aren't shown. This is true.

[RoseMorninStar]

Same here. I said it before, but easily 2-3x as many Trump signs as previous years, and they are *mad*.

They're also angry.

[Frelga]

Is anyone watching the debate? I ventured on Twitter, and the pro-Harris accounts seem pleased with her performance.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

She is doing a good job, but the moderators are letting him go on and on.

She is getting under his skin, though.

[Frelga]

Tweet: trump says "Now she wants to do transgender operations on illegal aliens in prisons."

Me, haha, obviously it's satire

Two more tweets from serious people: THIS IS AN ACTUAL QUOTE

Me: