That always made me laugh. Hillary wasn't even Bill's favorite.
Posted on 10/31/2020 6:01:57 PM PDT by RandFan
Victory for President Trump in Tuesday’s election remains a distinct possibility, despite the fact that he lags in national polls.
There is no question that Trump is the underdog against his Democratic opponent Joe Biden.
Biden has several realistic routes to the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the White House, and a Democratic landslide is also possible.
But there are plausible scenarios that give Trump a narrow path to a second term — and they are giving Democrats sleepless nights.
Above all, Democrats are traumatized by the memory of what happened four years ago, when Trump won a shock victory over Hillary Clinton, despite polling projections that showed her as the overwhelming favorite.
“It’s hard to forget the nightmare of 2016 and how wrong things were, so that’s a cloud that lingers over this election,” said one Democratic strategist who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
Trump’s simplest and easiest route to victory this year is to hold onto Florida and Pennsylvania, both of which he won in 2016. Florida is, as usual, a tight race — Biden led there by 1.2 percentage points in the RealClearPolitics average on Friday afternoon.
Some Florida Democrats have expressed concern about Biden’s standing with Latinos, especially in the Cuban American community. There are also some signs that voter enthusiasm in Trump-friendly parts of Florida is roughly equal to the anti-Trump fervor in Democratic strongholds.
Biden’s polling lead in Pennsylvania is bigger, at 3.6 percentage points — but that’s hardly an invincible margin, especially if state-level polls are off as they were in 2016. The president has three events scheduled for Pennsylvania on Saturday.
If Trump won Florida and Pennsylvania, he could afford to lose two key states, Michigan and Wisconsin, so long as he held onto the other states that he won in 2016 — including Arizona, where he is under significant pressure.
This scenario gives Republicans hope, despite all the polls in which the president is trailing. Some in the GOP also take a measure of encouragement from Biden’s travel schedule, which included a stop in Minnesota on Friday. Clinton carried Minnesota four years ago and the Trump campaign has targeted it as a rare pick-up opportunity this year.
“Despite the polls, it feels like [Trump] has a 50-50 shot at winning,” said GOP strategist Ron Bonjean. “Everyone is holding their breath. … The Biden team is not measuring the drapes for the White House. If you look at where they are going in the last few days, they are nervous.”
For all that, Biden is the clear favorite.
He is running against the most polarizing president of modern times during a pandemic that has claimed more than 225,000 American lives. He retains leads, slender or otherwise, in the vast majority of battleground states. He is competitive in southern states such as Georgia and Texas in a way that no other Democrat has been in a generation.
Independent experts note that Michigan and Wisconsin appear to be slipping out of reach for the president — a trend which reduces his options, even if it is not a fatal blow.
"If he doesn't get over the top in Wisconsin and Michigan, then he has got to hang onto all those other states [including Florida and Pennsylvania] and either get Arizona, or miss in Arizona but pick off Nevada," said Steve Kornacki, national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC.
Even some Democrats scarred by Clinton’s 2016 loss insist this time really is different.
They point to a number of factors, including the consistency of Biden’s polling lead and the fact that, unlike Clinton, he has never been broadly disliked.
“Several things are different,” John Podesta, who served as Clinton’s campaign chairman, told The Hill earlier this week. “One is that — somewhat remarkably, given all the advertising hits you take — Biden’s favorability remains in positive territory.”
Podesta also noted that Biden draws more than 50 percent of all voters’ support in many polls — something which Clinton almost never did. And, he added, Biden has “much less of a third-party problem” — a reference to the 2016 candidacies of the Libertarian Party's Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein, who together won almost 6 million votes.
Lanny Davis, a longtime Democratic strategist and a strong supporter of the Clintons, highlighted the narrowness of Trump’s victory in 2016. The crucial aggregate margin across Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was approximately 77,000 votes.
Davis also noted the extraordinary developments in the closing days of the 2016 campaign — including the controversial intervention of then-FBI Director James Comey — and said nothing similar had occurred this year.
“With no Comey letter — and with the escalation of the COVID crisis, which [Trump] denies — it is virtually impossible that Joe Biden won’t do 70,000 votes better in those three states,” said Davis, who is also a columnist for The Hill.
Nervousness is by no means confined to the Democratic side. A Trump defeat in Texas, for example, would be catastrophic not just for his chances but for the GOP writ large. A loss in Georgia would also be a stinging blow.
“We'll all be watching Georgia. If you lose Georgia, you’re done,” said one GOP strategist with ties to the White House.
More broadly, the political world is grappling with the sheer uncertainty of an election revolving around Trump, and being held amid unprecedented circumstances.
"I know it's not much of a prediction, but the range of possible electoral vote outcomes here is far and wide," said Kornacki, "from Biden wins with 413 electoral votes to Biden loses with 264 — and anything in-between."
With just days to go, Democrats know Biden is in the driver’s seat. But they are torturing themselves with all kinds of questions — about black turnout, and Trump’s ground game, and voter suppression, and whether they could be swamped by high Republican turnout on Election Day itself.
But one question looms over every other: What if the polls are wrong?
“Pollsters don’t want to admit a simple fucking fact: there is some percentage of silent Trump voters,” said the Democratic strategist who requested anonymity. “There are people who are not going to tell you that they are going to vote for Trump. We can pretend it’s not a fact. But it is.
“The real question is, how many of them are there?”
Did we not just hear this same thing from the AP on an earlier post today? So the media has gone from Biden has it in the bag to Trump has a slim way to victory. Look at the map. I would much rather be in Trump’s shoes than Biden’s.
My son, a prominent Democratic politician in Pennsylvania, tells me there is no such thing as the "Shy Trump Voter". "I don't think there is a single remaining shy Trump voter. Not since the first time. They're about as loud and brazen as can be, and threatening to bring ARs down to the polls, things like that. I think there's going to be a huge increase from the already increased militia activity, especially if he loses. In PA, the momentum and enthusiasm are all on our side." He doesn't realize that we, his dad and stepmom, are exactly that - the Shy Trump Voter. No signs, as we don't want our cars keyed, or worse. When I see "Dynata" (a polling company) or any other unknown number on caller ID, we don't answer. But we voted. We traded Electoral Vote Maps a few days ago, as we did four years ago. He is still stunned as to how his unsophisticated dad got it right, and he didn't
It’s not Narrow!!!!
Trump is looking at 320 +/- 10.
THIS JUST IN——Biden Cancels Texas Event After Highway ‘Ambush’ by MAGA POSSE
Biden was lucky to get out of Texas alive.
Biden expects to get Texas votes by running on his determination to shut down the oil industry?
Did Biden notice there’s an oil drilling rig on every street corner in Texas?
I didn’t think so.
I cant wait til Biden confronts Obama ….”You and your bright ideas, sending me to campaign in Texas.”
There’s a narrow path up Nancy Pelosi’s culo and that’s about it for narrow paths. fool. Trump wins bigly!
Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. B small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it
In spite of everything that we LEFTists and DEEP-STATists can and have done, he still has a chance! What is he, The Energizer Rabbit?
Nobody is blind on either side here dammit!! If Biden wins, even the dems will know that ballot fraud HAD TO HAPPEN!! Nobody is showing up to Bidens rallys. The man barely comes out of his basement for crying out loud! He’s a joke and everyone has known it the whole time and now he’s corrupt as it gets with China/Ukraine!
Biden is just a placeholder...they could have picked anyone off the street and the dems will still get the same votes. The dems are much stronger than we think, mainly because of the fraud machine they have in place. They were asleep at the switch in 2016, but they won’t let it happen again.
There is no question of this only if one is a fool. There area a lot of indicators that Biden is the underdog.
And the BLM/ANTIFA riots, Mueller investigation of the phony Russia hoax, the attempted coup, impeachment, etc. energize Trump’s base.
What is different from 2016 is that Trump has an incredible record of achievements. 56% of the people say they are better off now than four years ago. Trump is a proven commodity.
“THIS JUST IN——Biden Cancels Texas Event After Highway ‘Ambush’ by MAGA POSSE”
I do not believe this. I bet that Biden was having a bad mental day. The MAGA POSSE was an excuse.
Any story that cites this "RCP Average" is most annoying to me. It is absolutely meaningless garbage. One outlier poll, taken 6 weeks ago, which could very well have been paid agitprop, will skew the "average" of all other polls the wrong way. Why anyone would give any weight to an outlier poll and incorporate into an "average" is beyond me. And I am no math/statistics wiz just need to know enough to know that sometimes one data point will dramatically skew the results when you average it into all the others.
Often, when conducting large studies scientists will censor out the outlier data - on both ends of the chart - for this very reason. It is not representative of the majority of data and could be the result of some fluke or in this case some too clever by half outfit.
Everyone for many miles around must have driven to the rally.
The last four years have shown that Trump, now a known quantity, can do better than 77,000 votes in the key states,
“But there are plausible scenarios that give Trump a narrow path to a second term”
complete bullshit ... trump has multiple paths to victory while biden is the one with the narrow path:
https://the-american-catholic.com/2020/10/10/frontrunner/
example text:
“Trump has a floor of 259 EVs. Granted, I am assuming that FL and AZ will go red, but that is a reasonable assumption based on the non-MSM “narrative” polls and the real metrics (such as the trends is voter registration, VBM, and Trump’s surge among black and hispanic voters).
What the map shows is that Trump only needs one of WI, MN, PA or MI. He could even win by plucking VA (which is admittedly unlikely), or by taking some mix of NH, ME-2 and NV.
On the other hand, Biden has to SWEEP almost all of the remaining states. And Trump is more than competitive in everyone one of them, and likely leading in more than a few.
This is evidence of how powerful the MSM remains. In truth, Biden is a distant longshot electorally, and may need a miracle. (This is why the media is so angered by Trump’s rapid recovery from the virus – they were praying that would be their black swan event). But the MSM is still able to paint the picture of Biden leading the race by flooding the discussion with rigged polls showing Biden +16.
In reality, Trump is the real frontrunner, and it could get ugly for the dems downballot. That may explain some of the recent odd activities — like dancing around court-packing, and the 25th amendment. The Dems in the know see the real landscape, and are desperate to drive the youth vote and the hard left to the polls. They desperately need a 2008-type turnout. But the sad truth for them is that Biden is a dud, and Harris is an actual liability. They can see what is coming, and it is not pretty.”
Does your son understand why long time Democrats in PA are attracted to Trump or does he think his victory was a fluke and that those voters will return to the party?
That always made me laugh. Hillary wasn't even Bill's favorite.
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