The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[N.E. Brigand]

From Dave Weigel, who now writes for Semafor: "'The decision not to publish was made by The Post’s owner — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.' I worked at the paper for seven years and Bezos never interfered with a thing. This is five-alarm fire stuff."

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminds voters that Trump and Musk, with the McDonald's stunt and the lottery, are "making fun" of regular, hardworking Americans:

[N.E. Brigand]

This is just one commentator's speculation, but I hope it's true: "The pollsters are all herding with a small thumb on the scales for Trump to avoid 'getting it wrong again'; the actual result is Harris two points stronger than the national average, and this is the map:"



But it won't happen by magic. I'm signed up to volunteer for ten hours of getting out the vote on Monday, November 4th here in Ohio. And I just made a small donation to the Wisconsin Democratic Party.

[N.E. Brigand]

Josh Barro, a commentator who sometimes gets on my nerves by being too centrist -- he was a registered Republican until 2016 -- notes that today's alarming New York Times poll which found Kamala Harris and Donald Trump tied at 48% each also seems to suggest that Trump is not winning where he needs to: in the three rust-belt swing states. The Republicans' Electoral College advantage appears to be shrinking, and it's even possible that Harris could lose the popular vote and still win the electoral vote (in large part by doing worse in non-swing states like New York and Florida than Biden did in 2020).

But no one should count on that -- and Barro himself fears that Harris will lose Wisconsin. Also there's a new national CNN poll that also finds the race tied, at 47% each. so everyone has to do the work. And besides volunteering and donating, the best way is probably to talk to family and friends who are on the fence.

[N.E. Brigand]

"After he spoke in Austin today, Trump greeted executives from Blue Origin, the space exploration company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos."

[N.E. Brigand]

V, have you ever fallen asleep in court? Have you ever had a client fall asleep in court?

New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman says that while it's true that Donald Trump fell asleep in court, "everyone" does that.

[N.E. Brigand]

Oklahoma City's mayor, David Holt, is a Republican.

He hasn't endorsed a presidential candidate, and apparently he won't explicitly do so, but he wrote in an op-ed today that he's voting for character and virtue, and without naming names, he cited things Trump has done as examples of where the those characteristics are lacking.

[N.E. Brigand]

Nine Washington Post columnist have jointly published a piece in the Post itself calling the non-endorsement a mistake.

[N.E. Brigand]

A CNN story running with the chyron "Former Nikki Haley voters in Pennsylvania open to Kamala Harris" includes a Republican woman who supported Haley who says she decided to vote for Kamala Harris during Harris's debate with Donald Trump when he indicated Ukraine should surrender to Russia. This voter explains: "Sometimes you have to say American first, Conservative second, Republican third."

[N.E. Brigand]

Is Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner stupid, or does she think her viewers are? Faulkner says it's wrong to say that Donald Trump is a fascist, explaining:

"This is hate speech now. I mean, you are quoting Antifa, in which the 'fa' stands for fascism."

Donald Trump's own staff are saying he's fascist!

[N.E. Brigand]

If Kamala Harris called the United States "the garbage can of the world," it would get big headlines.

Donald Trump did that yesterday, and it only seems to be getting any media attention now because Harris criticized him for it this afternoon.

[N.E. Brigand]

"Army releases report on Trump camp’s Arlington cemetery altercation."

Much of it is redacted, and the Army says it can't comment further because the "law enforcement investigation into the incident remains open".

[N.E. Brigand]

Houston Chronice: "Kamala Harris draws massive Houston crowd to her rally.."

I'm sure the fact that Beyoncé appeared made a huge difference! And I haven't seen any reliable attendance numbers yet. One Houston TV station says 1.5 million people signed up to attend. The number who actually showed up doubtless is only a very small fraction of that, and I suspect some enthusiastic supporters are exaggerating a bit. But I did see what looked like genuine video showing a line extending at least a half mile from the venue. The stadium holds about 25,000, I think.

- -- - -- - -- - -- - -- - -- -
Meanwhile, in an ABC poll, 49% of respondents say that Donald Trump is a fascist as compared to 22% who says that Kamala Harris is a fascist.

[N.E. Brigand]

Anyone know why Donald Trump is going to be three hours late for his rally in Michigan?

I'm seeing that his interview with Joe Rogan ran long, but that doesn't make much sense.

[N.E. Brigand]

This: "When I am forced to steal your rations to survive in a Trump Re-education Camp and you say, 'How could we have known he would destroy our lives and put us all in prison camps?', I want you to remember this tweet:"

[N.E. Brigand]

The New York Times published a map showing Donald Trump's and Kamala Harris's campaign events from September 1 through October 23. It purported to show that Trump has held 71 events in 14 states (plus D.C.) while Harris has held only 53 events in 10 states (plus D.C.). But while it does seem that Trump held more events over those seven weeks, the Times did shoddy work (perhaps responding to this observation noting a Nevada rally on September 29 that they missed), they updated (scroll down at the first link) with new totals: Trump with 76 events in 14 states (plus D.C.) and Harris with 61 events in 11 states (plus D.C.). As someone asks at the link: if they can't event count correctly to double digits, how good are their polls likely to be?

[N.E. Brigand]

One last thing: people who find it extreme to compare Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler should realize that according to John Kelly, it was Trump who compared himself to Hitler by saying he wished he had the kind of generals that Hitler had.

[Frelga]

Whatever else you may say about Anthony Scaramucci, he is able to laugh at himself.

Scaramucci says he's been knocking on doors for Harris.

[Túrin Turambar]

I'm watching Donald Trump on Joe Rogan, about 40 minutes in. The good for Trump - he's adept at this sort of long-form conversational interview with a friendly interviewer, and he's able to throw in rambling personal anecdotes mixed in with political points in a way that comes across as natural and unrehearsed. Eight years at the top of politics and he doesn't sound like a politician. The bad for Trump - he's definitely low-energy, markedly so compared to 2016 and 2020. The full three-hour interview is going to keep some fact checkers very busy but I doubt it will hurt him.

[Voronwë the Faithful]