2024 Election

The media are definitely reaching voters. They knew of all the polling. States with a Democratic majority in most elections had low turnout as they knew Harris would win.

There were groups that seemed to react merely by gut feeling. Young black males in Michigan voted for the alpha male. Similar voters were able to vote for Biden 2020. It's easier to be the alpha male....if you are a male.

The excitement to defeat Trump was definitely there in 2020. Looking at PA.

Then in 2024 it was Trump that got almost the same number as Biden got in 2020. It cannot be the same 3.4 million that voted for Biden and now Trump, it just looks comical. The shift was some 100 000 voters. So even though Michigan was maybe doable for Harris (if she had had a whole year to campaign) this PA group of shifting voters was again decisive. 

It may be noted that Harris was not just a woman but a vice president. Typically they do not do well, having sometimes spent almost eight years almost invisible to the general public.

Prediction for 2028: they will run a male governor.

It's time

 

We are going to win this. About 273-275 for Harris. Any way we can. It could even go this way.

Nov 6th:
Well, it did not go that way. PA was supposed to end up with small edge for one or the other and a recount. It did not go that way. The upper Midwest should all have gone about this way. Harris had the disadvantages of 1. being a woman 2. being a part of the Biden administration, which blue collar workers had grown to hate.

Finally, some satire from my firend Kari:

How can Trump do those things that all the Democrat presidents could not?

 As we get closer to the election more and more of the low information voters are coming out. These Elon fan boys are now Trump voters. They seem to have no idea how government works. And do not care.

Others are coming out and saying "it's not going to be so bad." After all, how can Trump do those things that all the Democrat presidents could not?

It's simple. None of the departments and none of the so called administrative state are required by the Constitution. It might be a little difficult to dismantle the Treasury. But for the most part the departments are strictly there so the president does not have to run every government function. If the DOE is not needed, then scrap it. If the EPA is bad...not even a cabinet level department...scrap it. All these things require is a presidential order. There is no budget required to eliminate a department. A building left to be auctioned off.

No Democrat ever proposed to scrap the federal governmnet and run a bare bones operation. Make money and run a military would be all that is required. Trump can round up the immigrants with his army if that is his plan. Use army funds to house the camps. Pull out army bases from the entire world.

Voting guide

For your undecided friends and relatives. The man is not well. He is not fit to be president of any country. If he quits, you get Vance. Who is not quite human.

 

It may take some effort for them to see who Trump is. Mostly a fake.

If they are still "I just don't know about Kamala..." remind them of their duty to the country:

Finally, a word on polls from Jeff:

It seems that FOREIGNERS are indeed Trump's trump card

 He does not seem to be winning in other areas, so it makes sense to repeat the claim, from Ohio to Colorado to California.

I took a few wild guessed in the 538 polling game.

I took the view that the ones that agree to answer at all are angry about 1 migrants or 2 abortion.

You can do your own guessing here:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/donald-trump-poll-quiz-2024/

Information overload

Why is it people are confused about issues and are often labeled low information voters? It is, I claim, because there is just too much stuff out there coming to you via the Internet.  Most of it is not factual. Compare this to the everyman on the train or even the union worker in 1900. Or compare news today to to the TV news of the 70s with Walter Cronkite. The worker read his newspaper daily cover to cover. Especially election years. He read the comics too, it took 5 minutes. 

The TV watcher got the general idea of Vietnam from Cronkite. The war was going badly.Now compare to today's Internet news consumer. There is too much. They lose interest. They are more likely to click around with sports, entertainement and everything that is not news.

Chris Hayes has a book coming out February that touches on this overload of infromation and entertainment coming to us. The people that just are not interested in elections are not going to get much further information on the two candidates. They will actually dismiss most of the news on Trump or Harris. The only decision that they will take some time with is whether to vote or not.

White Males and others...the Trump Coalition

 It was a populist movement, a cult. It lasted a good 9-10 years. Trump has almos run out of steam, though there is some bluster still left to Trump at a rally. I think Trum is going to lose. But that does not solve our problem. These voters are still there in 2028. It will be hard to pass any major reform, such as rules for the Supreme Court and any plans to take the lifetime appointment away. As well as border plans. Some plan will emerge, but the Trump folks want zero immigrant admitted. 

He captured white males. Polls list men without a college degree. This Brookings chart lists just the so called working class. Overall, the Trump support is white males, but in the working class also a good portion of women. In the middle class voters it is not that way.

There is at times a lack of interst in an election from this group regarding the issues and a candidate. You can see it for McCain, but not especially for Romney. He was as far as possible from the working class!

A website has listed the types of Trump voters we had in the 2016 election:

https://www.voterstudygroup.org/publication/the-five-types-trump-voters

I've abbreviated the groups:

1. Staunch Conservatives (not recent, the always Republicans)

2. Free Marketers (tech boys, Musk)

3. American Preservationists. The people who think there is some idea of "America" that is under attack

4. Anti-Elites (I would include some libertrians, they just hate all of the federal gov't)

5. The Disengaged. People who literally don't care about politics. (there for trhe show, many of them racists this time around).

In the same way that you can trust that nearly 100% of Harley Davidson owners are Trumpers, you can get the feel for certain groups gravitating toward Trump.

The big strawman that Trump created for these people to focus on is illegal aliens. They are monsters, according to Trump. Groups 1-5 are not going to argue against that.

"I just don't know enough about Kamala Harris..."

The problem with voters and elections is that we think it is about the candidates and the issues. (The Trump issue is all a straw man...). But it is not. The voter is filling out the ballot, and at that moment, it is about them. Very very few might think about the welfare of a bigger group. No, it is 90 plus percent about that voter. The information is collected and sort of stored as a combined gut feel. And then you pick one. It's that simple. Often times there is a bias against the party in party, and that too is not actual math. The president and party in power simply must be punished. My view of the election includes the US Constitution and our voting rights. Sadly, this is irrelevant to the average voter. The average voter is not "low information" but is closer to that than I am.

"I don't like Trump, but I just don't trust Democrats. They are like lawyers. In fact most of them are lawyers. Kamala..."

People have strong feelings about presidential candidates. I have heard Trump talking hundreds of times. I remember things my governor said, but I don't even remember what he sounds like.

There are the so called low information voters who don't know how to vote, and then there are the ones voting on some single issue. It's not exactly known how we decide on a vote. You can do all the psychology experiments and still won't know much. I've listed the Tversky-Kahneman type of factors in earlier posts. The voters with firm beliefs and a lifetime of voting one party can best explain why they voted.

But here we are. What do we do about these people?

Not much. They are not going to be able to decide better no matter how many Trump facts you present. On the other hand, some won't vote at all, as Trump is not gaining voters.

So what is there to do? Make sure polls are not under Trump folk attacks and intimidation. Make sure the people who we have had all along remember to vote. For them, you can paint the scary picture of the Trump world.

So if you have a lot of time on hand and are just reading these social media posts all day, take a break. Fall is a beautiful time in most parts of the country. Enjoy the outdoors. It's only about a month anymore.

On the lighter side, I posted a Threads post on the undecided voter. They can't even pick a lunch meat out of these two. How can they pick a president?

ADDED Oct 3

Trump legal cases moving along. There was an insurrection. Do the undecided voters

know anything? MSNBC town hall Trump voter to Alex Wagner: there were just some riots in DC.

If Obama had tried to overthrow the election he would be in jail.

Polls are....polls

In 2016 and 2020 there was polling error. The factors were different. Let us just say it was complicated.

Kamala is looking to beat Trump in PA. However, it is harder to poll states than the country. Therefore the most recent poll seems to drive the state data presented at 

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

But polls are polls, and are not really facts. Rasmusen is skewed, Fox poll is occasionally realistic. But the setup for polls is not random. They are fixed to have the same numbers of democrats, independents and republicans as are registered to vote.

The tossup map is worth a look. It seems to be up to date.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/maps/president/2024/no-toss-up/electoral-college

Note that the table gives PA to Harris but the MAP above does not. With PA included Harris gets 276.

Even that is not news. And as for news, Trump is still getting too much news. He is running a risky campaign as many people out there are mad at him. Maybe just stick to the putting green and driving range, Mr Trump? He did not he ran a Nazi rally in NY.

It's still the low information voter

I know, and the media knows, that the election will be decided by people that really don't care about elections or politics. Yet, there must be some way to reach them. These people will not watch the debate. They certainly can choose based on a very unconscious gut reaction.

Kamala has to get to the 3% over Trump level (arrow) to safely win the battleground states. There, PA is the key. Polling there is not telling us much. She may still win at 2%, but there will then be recounts. We want to avoid those due to GOP manipulation of ballots.

So what will happen after the debate? This sort of a boxing match now. Kamala has to get a few hard punches at Trump. He has to be suffering and give the appearance of a loser on the little information that trickles through to the low information voter. Mainly through social media but also through their friends. They will get the general impression of the state of Trump. This is maybe the FIRST TIME in 12 years that there is a good chance to make Trump look like a loser. And make it stick.

(I may add a poll to this post a week or two after the debate.)

Other than two candidates, voters also base their voting on two things:

1 how they feel the economy

2 the vague "country is going in the wrong direction."

That second one is pretty much why they always want a NEW president, every four years. Here we have the problem of separating Kamala from Biden.

As for the economy, the voter may well be right in deciding that the party in power is responsible for the government part of the economy. The normal economic cycles are a fuzzy concept to them. But the facts do not really get to the voter, and there is a lag time of up to a year to see any affect the current administration has on the economy. Working class will only remember that "Biden tried to forgive student loans for those college folks."