US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4628

The first time Donald Trump won more than 50 percent of the vote on Election Day was in his home state of New York, on April 18. Two weeks prior, he'd barely managed to get a third of the vote in Wisconsin, where Ted Cruz beat him by 13 percentage points. Until New York, Trump's support among Republicans seemed to be hitting a ceiling somewhere in the low 30s, even as other candidates dropped out. New York came late in the cycle and pitted him against only Cruz and John Kasich. His win there made his nomination seem inevitable (though it wasn't), and his win in Indiana shut the door.

Of the primary votes cast in 2016 for Republican candidates, Donald Trump won about 45 percent, according to U.S. Election Atlas's estimates. Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton won about 55 percent in hers — because she was running against one person, as Trump constantly notes.

It's not clear, though, that Trump doesn't have a ceiling, even now. With the exception of the brief spike he saw after the Republican convention, Trump hasn't been above 44 points in the RealClearPolitics polling average in 2016. Clinton hasn't been below 43.1. That's a big exception, of course: Trump spiked above 45 after his convention. But by the time Clinton finished her convention, that peak was gone.


As an effort to expand his base, Trump's convention seems to have failed. He gained some support among groups he was already winning but turned off voters who already viewed him skeptically. Gallup found that a majority of people it polled were less likely to vote for Trump after his convention — a first in the history of Gallup's post-convention polling.

So over the course of the 98 days between now and Election Day, Trump has to figure out how to break through with the electorate. His focus on attacking Clinton in the press and doing occasional campaign stops hasn't done anything yet to bump him up above that 44-percent ceiling.

On Tuesday afternoon, NBC reported that one thing Trump and his allies aren't doing is running TV ads. Clinton and super PACs supporting her have reserved $98 million nationally and in swing states over the next three months. A PAC supporting Trump has reserved $817,000. Trump's campaign has reserved $0.00.

Trump's most recent campaign filing, covering the month of June, lists 74 people on his payroll. Clinton has about 10 times as many staffers.


There are two factors at play. The first is that Trump is relying on the Republican Party to run a lot of the traditional ground operations in battleground states. (At the end of May, the party was well behind its targets.) The second is that Trump won the Republican primary battle despite not spending much and without running many ads. So Trump doesn't really want to run ads, it seems; he has lamented that he ran ads in Florida, where he beat Marco Rubio easily. But he also can't run many — or, at least, couldn't at the beginning of July. Trump started raising money only at the end of June and had far less to spend than his rival.

The reasons aren't important. What's important is that at some point Trump needs to do something that breaks through his ceiling again — and keeps him there. Maybe it's a debate. Maybe it's some flub by Clinton. But what couldn't hurt is actually running a campaign, running ads and reaching out to voters in battleground states. A few scattershot events and dominance of the cable news channels each night kept him above water long enough to win the Republican primaries, and it's keeping him in the 40-percent range in the polling average. But it seems clear at this point that he needs to do something else.

Like: campaign. It can't hurt. Maybe at some point in the next 98 days, Trump will give it a shot.

On August 03 2016 07:01 CannonsNCarriers wrote:


But the emails proved everyone who didn't vote for Bernie was Corrupt, so the elections are invalid. Bernie would have won if we discounted all the Shillariate haters who only voted for the Establishment because of Wall Street Money. /s4p

On August 03 2016 07:19 Nyxisto wrote:


I don't really know what's fair and not biased about Trump. Like there always seems to be this politeness in the US where a scientist will go up on a stage and debate a creationist and it goes on for hours.. sometimes it's completely legit to call an idiot an idiot.

On August 03 2016 07:31 Biff The Understudy wrote:
I actually came to slowly start to wonder if Trump is not simply a bit deranged.

That seems the most likely explanation to his erratic behaviour. Being a flawed personality or simply a nasty narcissist doesn't really account for the amount of irrationality in his decision making.

On August 03 2016 07:35 CosmicSpiral wrote:


Narcissistic personality disorder explains most of his behavior. He's not crazy.

On August 03 2016 07:38 Mohdoo wrote:


Yeah, I think he holds the view that people should "know what he means" and somewhat resents people for not going along with what he says, even though he does intentionally make things a bit spicy to get attention. He wants the attention, but he also wants people to regard him highly and not hold his bluster against him.

On August 03 2016 07:40 LegalLord wrote:

That is culturally very far from what Americans do. Fake niceness is a big part of US culture and calling people out for being morons is not generally done.

One of the things I've definitely never liked about this country, but it is what it is.

On August 03 2016 07:42 Mohdoo wrote:
Thank you, Jill. Your recent comments on WiFi were exactly what I've been telling my friends you were all along. They finally see the light and can not take you seriously.

On August 03 2016 07:32 OuchyDathurts wrote:


There's two trains of thought on it. One group thinks that by debating a creationist you're giving some credence to their completely false ideas. Ken Ham is flatly wrong and by debating him you're making it seem like both arguments have valid points and are worth debating when his has none. The second train of thought is that yes while he's totally wrong about everything he thinks, you're never going to change people's minds by not having the debate. You've gotta go into the proverbial lion's den to change minds.

I see both sides. I know personally I don't have the patience to be the Bill Nye here. To be calm and respectful and counter someone who I believe is a total lunatic. I've had all those arguments, I don't have the patience for it anymore. But I do see where the need to do it is. It just requires people with the patience of a monk. You need people with good ideas to challenge people with bad ideas. Just ignoring the issue only lets it grow unchecked.

On August 03 2016 07:48 farvacola wrote:
"Fake niceness" is not an accurate descriptor when it comes to figuring out exactly what has lead to the extreme cultural inter-differentiation present here in the US. To put it as plainly as possible, folks who think mostly of skin color and alienage when they hear the term "melting pot" are not doing the term justice. There's a uniquely American quality of diversity that plays a role in every facet of social/political life, which is, I might add, one of the things I've always liked about my country. However, a side effect of that is a usually localist tolerance for ass backwards thinking.

Honestly, if folks really wanna start to get a sense for just how different this country can be amongst itself, spend a year in Seattle and then a year in Atlanta or Dallas and then a year in Pittsburgh or Buffalo.