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FlaShFTW
United States9920 Posts
On March 07 2024 04:39 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Agreed. Primary = vote with your heart. General = vote with your head. That last part would mean something if we didn't all see what happened in 2016 when Bernie bros didnt vote at all lol. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:03 GreenHorizons wrote: Obama lost ~3,500,000 votes, while Biden can't afford to do that. This whole line of thinking around primary results is straight up copium because it's basically the only statistic that can be remotely reasonably spun (provided one shuts off enough of their critical thinking skills) as positive for Biden. It depends on how many votes Trump loses too (and in which states). It's never a good thing to lose votes on an absolute scale, but technically we need to compare Biden's gains/losses relative to Trump's gains/losses. It sounds like we'll all be speculating about these kinds of things up until the November vote. | ||
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BlackJack
United States9977 Posts
On March 07 2024 04:39 Introvert wrote: GH was right the other day when he said there was a lot of coping here, Trump is a quasi-incumbent , but Biden is the actual incumbent with far worse favorables than when he won in a squeaker last time. Also, both men have 100% name ID, and Biden now has a record and isn't a blank slate. I still think he's favored, but when thr polling has shown the same story for months... I think Nate Silver is actually right on this one, it's been two decades since the dem nominee was behind in polling averages, dems don't know how to handle it. And Biden apparently thinks he's going to run on "Democracy." Apparently they live in a different world than the rest of us, and have no desire to adjust. But in different and good news Katie Porter will be out of Congress entirely after this year, so that's a plus. The downside is the clown Schiff will be a senator, but at this point that's normal here in CA. I think coping is the right word here to explain this bizarre contention of "This incumbent candidate running virtually unopposed is getting a larger % of votes than this non-incumbent candidate that faced a field of serious contenders so that's a great sign." | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22338 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:07 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: It depends on how many votes Trump loses too (and in which states). It's never a good thing to lose votes on an absolute scale, but technically we need to compare Biden's gains/losses relative to Trump's gains/losses. It sounds like we'll all be speculating about these kinds of things up until the November vote. This is part of what I'm talking about when I say Biden is obviously in trouble by basically every traditional metric (hence the desperate reaching for this primary stuff) and the stubborn refusal by his supporters to recognize it may be a critical component in their downfall. It currently sounds like they are going to wait until it is far too late to course correct and then do the typical "who could have seen this coming (other than the people we willfully ignore, berate, and ultimately blame)" thing that US politics does. (EDIT: Forgot to mention that Trump gained over 11,000,000 more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016 and he's doing better than both of those this time around.) Pretty much the only useful info out of the primaries is that Michigan is going to be critical for November and Biden is going to ignore his voters concerns about his/Democrats complicity in genocide and Democrats/their supporters will still blame "uncommitted voters" rather than their candidate if he loses. | ||
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Gahlo
United States35063 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:05 FlaShFTW wrote: That last part would mean something if we didn't all see what happened in 2016 when Bernie bros didnt vote at all lol. You mean when Bernie voters voted Hillary at a higher rate than Hillary voters voted Obama? | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:14 BlackJack wrote: I think coping is the right word here to explain this bizarre contention of "This incumbent candidate running virtually unopposed is getting a larger % of votes than this non-incumbent candidate that faced a field of serious contenders so that's a great sign." Where did you get the ridiculous notion that the Republican primary had a "field of serious contenders"? Neither the pre-primary polls nor the actual primary results support that phrase. Heck, Trump's Republican primary opponents were so unserious, Trump didn't even bother to show up to the debates and he didn't even experience a significant drop in support. Having a bunch of candidates polling at single-digit percents, and then one or two polling a bit higher, is not a field of serious contenders. At most, one could think that Trump was against two serious contenders - DeSantis and Haley - but DeSantis's popularity had already lost steam before the primary elections even began. Everyone except Haley almost immediately dropped out of the race by... the second state or so? Outside of Haley, they made zero impact, received almost zero delegates, polled at next-to-nothing, and so therefore were just as much "serious contenders" as Biden's irrelevant Democratic opposition (like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips). When I think of the phrase "field of serious contenders", I think about a situation where several primary candidates are polling well or evenly, with the first few state primaries being close. One example of this would be the Democratic primary of 2020, when we legitimately weren't sure how Biden vs. Sanders vs. Buttigieg vs. Warren would play out for several states, arguably until after Super Tuesday. Heck, even Bloomberg won 51 delegates in that primary, which is more than this Republican primary's DeSantis + Ramaswamy + Christie + Hutchinson + Pence + Scott + Burgum combined. | ||
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Sbrubbles
Brazil5774 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:05 FlaShFTW wrote: That last part would mean something if we didn't all see what happened in 2016 when Bernie bros didnt vote at all lol. Falling in line during primaries will do nothing to people's willingness to fall in line during the election, unless you somehow think that a mass demonstation of people betraying their principles and not using their vote to make a point they want to make is somehow a show of strength that will inspire others. | ||
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BlackJack
United States9977 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Where did you get the ridiculous notion that the Republican primary had a "field of serious contenders"? Neither the pre-primary polls nor the actual primary results support that phrase. Heck, Trump's Republican primary opponents were so unserious, Trump didn't even bother to show up to the debates and he didn't even experience a significant drop in support. Having a bunch of candidates polling at single-digit percents, and then one or two polling a bit higher, is not a field of serious contenders. At most, one could think that Trump was against two serious contenders - DeSantis and Haley - but DeSantis's popularity had already lost steam before the primary elections even began. Everyone except Haley almost immediately dropped out of the race by... the second state or so? Outside of Haley, they made zero impact, received almost zero delegates, polled at next-to-nothing, and so therefore were just as much "serious contenders" as Biden's irrelevant Democratic opposition (like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips). When I think of the phrase "field of serious contenders", I think about a situation where several primary candidates are polling well or evenly, with the first few state primaries being close. One example of this would be the Democratic primary of 2020, when we legitimately weren't sure how Biden vs. Sanders vs. Buttigieg vs. Warren would play out for several states, arguably until after Super Tuesday. Heck, even Bloomberg won 51 delegates in that primary, which is more than this Republican primary's DeSantis + Ramaswamy + Christie + Hutchinson + Pence + Scott + Burgum combined. Your metric for whether or not his contenders are serious is based purely on whether or not they get close to winning? We are talking about popular governors with national name recognition, the idea that they are not serious contenders is a bit silly. In a sense you're right that it wasn't a serious contest because Trump was already the presumptive nominee. He's still so popular among the Republican party that he could have slept through the whole process and still walked away with the victory. Is that supposed to be a bad sign for the Trump campaign? | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:06 BlackJack wrote: Your metric for whether or not his contenders are serious is based purely on whether or not they get close to winning? We are talking about popular governors with national name recognition, the idea that they are not serious contenders is a bit silly. In a sense you're right that it wasn't a serious contest because Trump was already the presumptive nominee. He's still so popular among the Republican party that he could have slept through the whole process and still walked away with the victory. Is that supposed to be a bad sign for the Trump campaign? Chris Christie was a serious contender for winning this Republican primary because he was governor of New Jersey? No. Even the previous vice president, Mike Pence, wasn't a serious contender for winning the Republican primary. Again, no one outside of DeSantis and Haley makes sense as a serious contender pre-primary, and even DeSantis certainly couldn't be considered a serious contender once the primary results started coming in. It sounds to me like you're defining "serious contender" as *anyone who has name recognition*, rather than "having good early primary results" or even merely "polling well, right before the primaries start". I don't think your definition of "serious contender" is a particularly common one, but I guess we can just disagree on the semantics (since you and I both agree that Mike Pence is a household name, and you and I both agree that Mike Pence polled poorly and performed poorly in the primary). In regards to Trump easily winning the Republican primary and how that's not a bad sign for him, I was pointing out earlier how Trump's wins aren't as lopsided as Biden's wins (so just on a relative scale between the two). That may or may not mean anything significant in the long run, but I would be a lot more concerned with Biden's chances if he was pulling "only" 2/3 of the primary votes and losing one or two of the elections... like what Trump is experiencing against Haley... rather than Biden's much more dominant percentage wins. But Trump still clearly winning the overall primary is absolutely a good thing for Trump, compared to if Trump had lost the overall primary (or barely won with a close call). | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22338 Posts
On March 07 2024 05:54 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Where did you get the ridiculous notion that the Republican primary had a "field of serious contenders"? Neither the pre-primary polls nor the actual primary results support that phrase. Heck, Trump's Republican primary opponents were so unserious, Trump didn't even bother to show up to the debates and he didn't even experience a significant drop in support. Having a bunch of candidates polling at single-digit percents, and then one or two polling a bit higher, is not a field of serious contenders. At most, one could think that Trump was against two serious contenders - DeSantis and Haley - but DeSantis's popularity had already lost steam before the primary elections even began. Everyone except Haley almost immediately dropped out of the race by... the second state or so? Outside of Haley, they made zero impact, received almost zero delegates, polled at next-to-nothing, and so therefore were just as much "serious contenders" as Biden's irrelevant Democratic opposition (like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips). When I think of the phrase "field of serious contenders", I think about a situation where several primary candidates are polling well or evenly, with the first few state primaries being close. One example of this would be the Democratic primary of 2020, when we legitimately weren't sure how Biden vs. Sanders vs. Buttigieg vs. Warren would play out for several states, arguably until after Super Tuesday. Heck, even Bloomberg won 51 delegates in that primary, which is more than this Republican primary's DeSantis + Ramaswamy + Christie + Hutchinson + Pence + Scott + Burgum combined. "Incumbent" has always meant "the candidate that currently holds the office they are running for" in US politics, which definitively isn't Trump. The "field of serious contenders" means the field that would have run (and likely contained the nominee) if Trump hadn't run, like would be traditionally expected of an incumbent that lost and be reinforced by voters in polling and votes if he tried ignore that expectation. That Trump so handily demolished them so fast (without even debating them) isn't a case to cast him as a weak incumbent. If anything it's essentially an unprecedentedly high level of support for a presidential candidate that lost his last race as an incumbent. His support is higher at this point in the race than it was at this point when he won, and higher than when he lost with ~11 million more votes than he won with. Trump is showing unprecedented electoral strength and resiliency (EDIT: Oh and Biden has worse unfavorables/disapproval than any president that has ever won reelection) so I believe it would behoove Democrats to recognize and reconcile those facts instead of burying their heads in the sand. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:18 GreenHorizons wrote: "Incumbent" has always meant "the candidate that currently holds the office they are running for" in US politics, which definitively isn't Trump. The "field of serious contenders" means the field that would have run (and likely contained the nominee) if Trump hadn't run, like would be traditionally expected of an incumbent that lost and be reinforced by voters in polling and votes if he tried ignore that expectation. That Trump so handily demolished them so fast (without even debating them) isn't a case to cast him as a weak incumbent. If anything it's essentially an unprecedentedly high level of support for a presidential candidate that lost his last race as an incumbent. His support is higher at this point in the race than it was at this point when he won, and higher than when he lost with ~11 million more votes than he won with. Trump is showing unprecedented electoral strength and resiliency and I believe it would behoove Democrats to recognize and reconcile that fact instead of burying their heads in the sand. This contradicts what BlackJack said, and your definition is merely a thought experiment. We have no idea which Republicans or Democrats would have hypothetically run in this primary if Trump or Biden didn't run again (surely more candidates than those who actually ran this time). We can't know if they'd be "serious contenders" until they actually run, and until we actually see how they measure up to the rest of their opponents. You can speculate about how Candidate X would perform if we removed Biden or Trump from the equation, but that doesn't mean that they're actually "serious contenders". By your definition, I could say that Biden also won among "a field of serious contenders" because I could name a few well-known Democrats who didn't actually run against Biden, but who knows if they would have done well in a race where Biden didn't actually run? That's not a very useful assertion, nor a very useful definition. "Trump is showing unprecedented electoral strength and resiliency" is definitely false. The fact of the matter is that the candidates who show the most "electoral strength and resiliency" win the presidency twice in a row. Trump isn't in that first tier of "electoral strength and resiliency", since he lost the second time around. The only thing "unprecedented" is that he's trying a third time, which is totally fine, but of course all the recent two-term presidents didn't run a third time because it's unconstitutional. That being said, I agree that we shouldn't sleep on Trump's popularity, which is why I've been saying that it's far too early to tell if either Biden or Trump even have a significant advantage. | ||
Liquid`Drone
Norway28489 Posts
I mean I basically can't think of bigger republican names than DeSantis or Haley who didn't run. Biden on his behalf had to fight off some local and or joke candidates, while people who could have mounted some degree of a challenge (I don't even know, but Newsom? Buttigieg?) decided to sit it out. Even Christie was more serious of a candidate than the most serious opposition Biden faced. I'm not really arguing that the primary results are significant in any way tbh, I'm arguing that they aren't - but it IS undeniable that Trump had more opposition than Biden did. This is actually what the 'Biden is in alright shape'-crowd should latch on to: Trump has significant enough opposition in the republican party to make people run against him, and it's entirely conceivable that a good portion of the Haley vote will avoid voting Trump in the general election. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:39 Liquid`Drone wrote: It is obvious that Trump has had far more serious competition in his primary than Biden has had in his, even if it was a given that Trump would also win. I mean I basically can't think of bigger republican names than DeSantis or Haley who didn't run. Biden on his behalf had to fight off some local and or joke candidates, while people who could have mounted some degree of a challenge (I don't even know, but Newsom? Buttigieg?) decided to sit it out. Even Christie was more serious of a candidate than the most serious opposition Biden faced. I'm not really arguing that the primary results are significant in any way tbh, I'm arguing that they aren't - but it IS undeniable that Trump had more opposition than Biden did. This is actually what the 'Biden is in alright shape'-crowd should latch on to: Trump has significant enough opposition in the republican party to make people run against him, and it's entirely conceivable that a good portion of the Haley vote will avoid voting Trump in the general election. I don't think anyone disagrees with you on this  | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11207 Posts
This is fucking surreal and insane. In any sane world, Trump would get 2% of the votes and just get ignored by everyone, and then Biden would lose to a sane opponent. | ||
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GreenHorizons
United States22338 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:33 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: No. This contradicts what BlackJack said, and your definition is merely a thought experiment. We have no idea which Republicans or Democrats would have hypothetically run in this primary if Trump or Biden didn't run again (surely more candidates than those who actually ran this time). We can't know if they'd be "serious contenders" until they actually run, and until we actually see how they measure up to the rest of their opponents. You can speculate about how Candidate X would perform if we removed Biden or Trump from the equation, but that doesn't mean that they're actually "serious contenders". By your definition, I could say that Biden also won among "a field of serious contenders" because I could name a few well-known Democrats who didn't actually run against Biden, but who knows if they would have done well in a race where Biden didn't actually run? That's not a very useful assertion, nor a very useful definition. We have an idea of who would run. We don't know for sure, but we certainly have an idea. Haley was a serious contender if for no other reason than she had a 4% lead against Biden in national polling averages. We can be confident that without Biden Democrats wouldn't have left the nomination between Dean and Marianne. So no you can't seriously suggest that "Biden also won among 'a field of serious contenders'" What's not very useful are the assertions and definitions that the primary results demonstrate much of anything meaningful beyond the bit I mentioned about Michigan. Michigan is going to be critical for November and Biden is going to ignore his voters concerns about his/Democrats/their supporters complicity in genocide and Democrats/their supporters will still blame "uncommitted voters" rather than their candidate if he loses. | ||
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BlackJack
United States9977 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:16 DarkPlasmaBall wrote: Chris Christie was a serious contender for winning this Republican primary because he was governor of New Jersey? No. Even the previous vice president, Mike Pence, wasn't a serious contender for winning the Republican primary. Again, no one outside of DeSantis and Haley makes sense as a serious contender pre-primary, and even DeSantis certainly couldn't be considered a serious contender once the primary results started coming in. It sounds to me like you're defining "serious contender" as *anyone who has name recognition*, rather than "having good early primary results" or even merely "polling well, right before the primaries start". I don't think your definition of "serious contender" is a particularly common one, but I guess we can just disagree on the semantics (since you and I both agree that Mike Pence is a household name, and you and I both agree that Mike Pence polled poorly and performed poorly in the primary). In regards to Trump easily winning the Republican primary and how that's not a bad sign for him, I was pointing out earlier how Trump's wins aren't as lopsided as Biden's wins (so just on a relative scale between the two). That may or may not mean anything significant in the long run, but I would be a lot more concerned with Biden's chances if he was pulling "only" 2/3 of the primary votes and losing one or two of the elections... like what Trump is experiencing against Haley... rather than Biden's much more dominant percentage wins. But Trump still clearly winning the overall primary is absolutely a good thing for Trump, compared to if Trump had lost the overall primary (or barely won with a close call). It's just odd to me that anyone would even remark on the fact that Biden's win over "uncommitted" is more lopsided than Trump's win over Haley as if it meant anything. But as others have pointed out, considering Biden's % of votes as an incumbent is worse than any recent incumbent, and Trump's win as a non-incumbent was more dominant than any recent non-incumbent, I guess it's the best silver lining we have at the moment. | ||
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Velr
Switzerland10549 Posts
Its sad. | ||
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DarkPlasmaBall
United States43447 Posts
On March 07 2024 06:54 GreenHorizons wrote: No. We have an idea of who would run. We don't know for sure, but we certainly have an idea. Haley was a serious contender if for no other reason than she had a 4% lead against Biden in national polling averages. We can be confident that without Biden Democrats wouldn't have left the nomination between Dean and Marianne. So no you can't seriously suggest that "Biden also won among 'a field of serious contenders'" What's not very useful are the assertions and definitions that the primary results demonstrate much of anything meaningful beyond the bit I mentioned about Michigan. As I said before, I am happy to say that Haley was considered a "serious contender" against Trump, but not among an entire field of serious contenders. Haley? Yes. DeSantis? Okay, him too. Anyone else? No. Two serious contenders, not the original phrasing by BlackJack of "an entire field of serious contenders". He added significant hyperbole there (assuming a common definition of "serious contender" = "someone who is polling well or performing well in the primaries"), but then he later justified his perspective by saying that his criterion for "serious contender" was merely being a candidate with a recognizable name, even if they're polling at single-digit percents and immediately drop out of the race after they fail in the first state. They apparently count. I disagree with BlackJack's definition, but at least both he and I believe that a "serious contender" refers only to people who are actually running in the primaries. You don't; your definition extends to anyone, even if they're not running, as long as you can come up with a reason why they might hypothetically do well if Biden or Trump weren't around. And there's infinite flexibility there. It's a thought experiment, and we could certainly create unique scenarios where just about anyone could potentially do well, given the right circumstances. By your definition, of course someone can suggest that Biden won among "a field of serious contenders", because someone could simply assert that maybe Gavin Newsom would have done well in the primary and in the general election if Biden wasn't around (despite the fact that Newsom didn't even run), and maybe Sanders again (if we fabricated the perfect situation), and maybe like twenty other candidates that we can tautologically define as having potential given the right circumstances. In other words, anyone could be considered your kind of "serious contender", if we're creative enough. Your definition has a very low, subjective bar for merely speculating on candidates who didn't even run in the primary - in a universe where Biden and Trump didn't run again - to be considered a "serious contender". As for Michigan (and any other swing state), I'm guessing that the losing side will thrust blame upon a wide variety of demographics and individuals. | ||
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RenSC2
United States1012 Posts
Biden doesn't have much in the way of rabid fans. I like him, I'll be glad to vote for him given the circumstances, but that's about it. GH's nonsense about Michigan is just that, nonsense that ignores any reality. There was no reason to go out and vote for Biden in the Michigan primary and there was a very vocal group campaigning to vote for Uncommitted. Biden still crushed it. It won't be his Israel policy that sinks Biden. The reality of the situation for Democrats is that none of the serious candidates thought they could beat Biden or would do so much damage to themselves in the process that they'd lose to Trump. It was a cold political calculus. Every serious candidate realized Biden had a better chance. So that brings us to here. Polls have been pretty shitty for the last few election cycles. I don't trust them at all. However, anyone that values democracy should be scared. The message should be that they need to get out and vote to save democracy. That sounds like a pretty good motivating message. The good news is that Biden has a pretty big war chest and has barely touched it. Trump is mired in legal settlements and a lot of the big Republican donors don't like him and were trying to fund other candidates in the primary. Biden can flood the airwaves with commercials about how much better it is under him than under Trump. He can show videos of riots in our cities during Trump's presidency and peace+construction during his. He can show videos of everyone being locked inside during Trump's presidency and people getting back out into the world during his. He can show the recession at the end of Trump's presidency and the massive economic expansion during his. He can show the capitol being stormed during Trump's presidency and security during his. If he's smart, he can also put ads on Fox and the other right leaning outlets about how the democrats want to pass a border security bill and the Republicans are blocking it. Put clips of Republicans admitting to doing it for political purposes and a narrator pointing it out. He can do a whole lot of comparisons about the two presidencies and come up looking a hell of a lot better. There are so many angles of attack and all he has to do is put reality front and center. | ||
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