Wolfgang622 wrote:mcare89 wrote:Wolfgang622 wrote:Augustus wrote:Trent Steele wrote:Augustus wrote:Do people not remember 2016? Hillary was supposed to be putting Texas, Georgia, and Arizona in play.
Biden is not as unpopular as Hillary, but he's still underwater in favorable/unfavorable. Trump is more popular now then he was then. The shy Trump effect in polling is probably even bigger this time, because there's a lot of white people who claim they would have voted for Biden in 2016 but actually love Trump.
Not saying I think he's guaranteed a win, but he's got to be the favorite right now.
This is ridiculous analysis that ignores, among other things, 2018, the fact Arizona has moved left as reflected in the truth that Kelly is going to smoke McSally and will have two D senators, that Trump is also more unpopular than he was in 2016, that Texas and Georgia are completely irrelevant from an Electoral Vote perspective, that Trump has zero chance of turning any blue state in 2016 red in 2020 (remember Virginia lol), that this requires Trump to pull off another miracle where he has no path but to take Florida and Michigan or Pennsylvania (I say he is a prohibitive underdog in both) or Florida and both Arizona and Wisconsin. There's no other way he gets re-elected. I say he's a 2 to 1 dog.
I only brought those states up in response to another post which claimed that Biden was going to flip many red states. I struggle to see how or why Arizona has "moved to the left." I'm sure some of McSally's struggles are attributable to anti-Trump sentiment, but she has several other unique liabilities. One, her appointment after a close election loss to Sinema was widely panned by both liberals and conservatives as undemocratic. Two, there is lots of turmoil in her campaign over whether to run as a Trump booster or a Trump skeptic-she's already fired one campaign manager over this. Three, as a result, she is distrusted by both moderate Republicans and pro-Trump Republicans; both groups see her as squishy and unprincipled. Four, she is running against a very strong candidate in Mark Kelly.
Sorry, but Trump is objectively more popular now than he was at this time in 2016. He was consistently 25-30 points underwater in favorable/unfavorable throughout that year; he's now about 12-15 points underwater. His approval rating is only a point or two below where he was at his inauguration. He has significantly shored up his support among Republicans, making defections to Biden less likely. Finally, despite the sore loser Bernie Bros narrative in 2016, Gary Johnson received over three times as many votes as Jill Stein. Quite a few of these voters will come home to the Republicans in 2020, including in PA, WI, MI, etc.
None of this is meant to discount Trump's obvious shortcomings and problems as a candidate. However, we have to acknowledge his advantages, such as incumbency, the structure of the Electoral College, social media misinformation and disinformation, and voter suppression. I hope my analysis turns out to be ridiculous, but I think calling an incumbent president a slight favorite over a weak challenger is a lot more sober and realistic than calling him a 2-1 dog.
Agree 100%. The trick continues to be that Trump can and very maybe will lose by 5 points nationally, lose PA and one of MI or WI and still win. Meanwhile, Biden will certainly not be flipping any Trump states. People seem bound and determined to (1) underestimate to what extent Trump is to angry white people what Obama was to the young and to black people, and (2) underestimate the biggest thing about old, scared white people: they are your most reliable voting bloc, and they are in the bag for Trump.
Biden will lose, book it.
You don't think Biden will flip 1 of Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin, all of which went for Trump in 2016 and has since either elected or re-elected a Democratic governor? Not to mention Arizona, where Biden's numbers are pretty incredible for a state with a Republican governor.
Poorly worded. What I meant was outside of the only three that matter - PA, WI, MI - Biden will not be flipping any Trump states. FL is a lost cause in the age of Trump: too much of it is Alabama, not Miami. And the rest of the states that might be thought of as "swingy" - Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona - have far too many people who are right in Trump's nitro zone to flip.
The only realistically flippable states are PA, WI, and MI. Trump need only hold one to win.
Trump wins.
Polling in AZ suggests otherwise. Like NM before it, AZ is rapidly becoming a blue state.
