The election is closer than it should be: Given the facts, why is it a tie?

The Spectator ^ | 06/20/2024 | Ben Domenech

[SeekAndFind]

So I want to open with a caveat: Fox News is my employer, and anything I say that is critical of their pollsters should be understood as distinct to their pollsters, and not to the network as a whole. That said, their pollsters have occasionally been… very wrong. Who can forget the ludicrous Indiana Senate poll from 2018 that envisioned a dead heat between the candidates in a race the Republican won by seven points? So the point is, everyone can be off on occasion. But right now, the Fox prognosticators are…

Welcome to Thunderdome. So I want to open with a caveat: Fox News is my employer, and anything I say that is critical of their pollsters should be understood as distinct to their pollsters, and not to the network as a whole. That said, their pollsters have occasionally been… very wrong. Who can forget the ludicrous Indiana Senate poll from 2018 that envisioned a dead heat between the candidates in a race the Republican won by seven points? So the point is, everyone can be off on occasion. But right now, the Fox prognosticators are out with a poll that shows Joe Biden up, and the opinions about the economy up as well. It’s been a shift that is notable over the past month.

For Republicans, this may come as a shock, or they might dismiss it. But it’s probably pretty accurate, or close to it. Things just aren’t as bad for Joe Biden politically as some people would like to believe. The indications are dire on paper, to be sure — but even with his failures on the economy, chaos on the world stage and his radicalism on culture war issues, Biden is hanging in there.

The truth is that none of this is a significant change. Trump has been within the margin of error for a long time now and it’s hardly a surprise to see him there again. But it might be a surprise to those Republicans who thought the former president was running ahead. 

The power of incumbency is significant. So is the advantage bequeathed to Joe Biden by having a compliant media and massive donor support structure. Virtually every entity and institution of note is on Biden’s side. So for the former president, this is an uphill battle.

For Democrats, next week’s debate is about establishing stability and framing the upcoming fall contest. For Republicans, it needs to be about detailing all the failures of the Biden administration for voters who have generally tuned out of political news in the past few years. Anyone watching it needs to come away with the conclusion that the affordability of a home, food, gas, electricity and basic needs for a family are all problems that Joe Biden exacerbated. If they don’t, that’s going to be Donald Trump’s fault for spending too much time on issues that aren’t priorities for Americans.

If given the choice, I’d still rather be the Trump campaign than the Biden campaign at this point. But this is a much closer race than it should be given the state of affairs. The possibility of a shy Biden vote is very real. And no amount of hammering away from the right’s media arm will alter that fact. It will take a performance from the candidate himself.

[dfwgator]

Too many stupid people.

[Mark17]

Too many stupid people.

Unfortunately, there are tons of those out there.

[JimmyTheFish]

Too many people are stuck in the past, thinking that Dems are loveable rogues rather than neo-communist degenerates.

[Secret Agent Man]

Media bias. I don’t trust ‘em on this, or much of anything.

[Drew68]

Too many variables. Will this be a high-turnout or a low-turnout election? A lot of people don't like either candidates. They may stay home.

Independent voters? Another word for these people are "low information voters." I mean, really, who at this point is really independent? Everyone puts so much value in these voters, as if their opinions are divine, but they're the ones most likely to not even bother showing up on Election Day.

We do know this though. Trump has never led his Democrat challenger in aggregate polling until now. Not in 2016 and not in 2020 so there's that.

[Drew68]

The possibility of a shy Biden vote is very real.

Biden has an advantage in that he leads amongst the two demographics who have the best voter turnout: The elderly and college educated whites.

However, he has historically low approval ratings that no incumbent has ever recovered from to win re-election.

Trump also has a lot more paths to 270 than Biden has, with polling tied in Virginia and (shockingly) Minnesota and he leads in all of the Sunbelt and Rustbelt states (though there hasn't been recent post-conviction polling in WI, MI, and PA).

Trump wins NV, AZ, and GA. This means he needs ONE Rustbelt state or he needs to flip VA or MN. If he wins none of these and flips the NE congressional district, that's 269-269 and the GOP House calls the race (absent a faithless elector, of which there were two in 2016).

[hole_n_one]

The possibility of a shy Biden vote is very real. And no amount of hammering away from the right’s media arm will alter that fact. It will take a performance from the candidate himself.

Precisely why they are going to incarcerate him.

[Robert DeLong]

That's an illusion to enable the steal. If the real numbers were exposed & published the steal would be harder to contain as the lawsuits could not be ignored this time around like it was in 2020, because we now know the many ways as to how the steal was accomplished in 2020. As it was, 2020 was touch & go for them, but the Republican RINOs held up their end of the Faustian deal to oust Trump with hopes of eliminating him along with the MAGA movement in the process.

But we refused to accept their big lie and maintained or insistence that what we saw was a crooked election & we refused to waiver. They know we are coming for them, on both sides of the aisle who were complicit, and they are very concerned as a result.

[PghBaldy]

Meghan McCain’s husband, FWIW.

[convoter2016]

Why is there a shy Biden voter? The mainstream media keeps saying that Trump is a convicted felon and doesn’t set a good example for kids. Basically Trump doesn’t behave like a proper president. For me there are voters who are afraid to admit to pollsters that they are Trump voters.

[Triple]

It is not close. - the survey’s are “weighted”

[Ingtar]

Add the Corrupt to the stupid and we could have another 2020, sadly.

[Freest Republican]

Pres Trump is $1.60 to win $1.00

Braindead Biden is $1.00 to win $1.40.

There is no tie.

fwiw one of my leading indicators is the YHOO comments’ section.

They ran an asinine piece today from liar in chief Newman about pro investors preparing for Trumpflation while touting inflation supposedly coming down now under Braindead.

The comments are so overwhelmingly opposed to the content-

I’d be very hard pressed to find such a ratio over 2500 comments at any time in YHOO’s history.

[Freest Republican]

I see no reason for four years of despotic tyranny if they were confident in their steal.

[BigEdLB]

Built in 5% bias for Donks in many polls, some have a bias of 10%

[McCarthysGhost]

Polls indicate that Biden is way down with black voters with an historically low performance which alone should be the death knell of his campaign. He’s also not doing so hot with hispanic voters and young voters either, another big problem.

War drums are beating. There is lots of speculation of a draft. Inflation is really starting to bite. The border is wide open. Many are questioning the future of America.

The real problem is how do they pull off another steal without permanently shattering our country? Our political system will be left in shambles.

So they generate polls that show Biden leading but that won’t work for the same reason another stolen election won’t work. Outside of Freerepublic, enough Americans just won’t believe it.

What will happen next when the country is faced with economic ruin and world war and an end to everything American with no political way out? The country will likely become unstable.

[x]

Who can forget the ludicrous Indiana Senate poll from 2018 that envisioned a dead heat between the candidates in a race the Republican won by seven points?

Maybe it's best if Ben avoids the rhetorical questions for a while.

[SuperLuminal]

I’ll be satisfied only after a poll of the 50-to-60 million migrant invader vermin (MIV) is conducted and the potential results for the 15-to-20 percent of the MIVs who will actually vote are added to all the other polls...

Until then I think that Joe will get the baseline communist party vote plus 90% of the MIV votes...

Landslide?

[Chuck N]

It’s rigged. The voting system is compromised on purpose.

When Biden wins, there will be WW III

That’s what the 51 intelligence experts who said the laptop was Russian Disinformation want. They want war with Russia.

Fox News Paul Ryan

They don’t want sovereignty. They want single party rule.

Biden Leads!!! Biden can’t get 300 people at a rally. And those people get paid to attend.

They want to defeat Russia for the resources

They want to wipe out the Orthodox Christians

Russia stands in the way of the globalist leftist Islamic Nazi cabal.