Well, it was a primary full of problems, as the state was simultaneously dealing with new voting machines, procedures for the pandemic, and a shortage in poll workers, but the results of Georgia’s primary are in. A couple of items of note:
More democrats voted in the presidential primary than republicans.
More democrats voted in the Senate primary than republicans
On the republican primary, more people voted on the Senate race than on the presidential race.
Note that this is a state that has gone red in presidential elections going back to the 90’s. I was actually surprised to see a higher blue turnout here in a state that was so solidly red for so long.
Here is a link to the actual date from the Secretary of State’s page.
Wait, earlies this year Trump threatened not to show up for debates and was supported whole heartedly, and now we are worried whether Biden will show up or not?
I don’t really think there are many changeable minds out there in either direction. It all comes down to enthusiasm. Which is why Trump could easily prove the polls wrong once again. You can be against Trump but it you don’t turn out and vote it doesn’t matter. Trump supporters will crawl through hot coals to vote for him, and I can see anti-Trump people not turning out because Biden is leading in the Polls and then all of a sudden you have President Trump for 4 more years.
I would agree with this. I don’t think anyone is really excited at a Biden presidency. People were excited to vote for Obama. People are excited to vote for Trump. . . I think you’re spot in, most Trump voters I know can’t wait to go vote for him again while Biden supporters are saying “Well, he’s not Trump”
In the same way, who the hell was excited to vote for Romney or McCain? This has applied as long as I could remember. Bush Sr was just boring. Reagan exciting. Carter, Boring. Dole. Boring. Gore. Boring. Kerry. Boring.
Trump is at 43% approval today on Rasmussen. 28% strongly approve. 56% disapprove, 48% strongly disapprove. Nearly half the country not only disapproves, but strongly disapproves of Trump. Yes, the President has his fervent supporters, but there are many more who are just as strongly committed to voting him out of office.
Well, let’s just trust those polls. . . I’m reminded of the three most important polls during the 2016 election. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Each of those had Trump down by large margins 30 days out… yet he won all 3. I wonder why?
I think it’s going to come down to which group is more enthusiastic - those who vote for him, or those who want him out. That’s why I thought having a senatorial candidate in a primary getting more votes than the presidential candidate was an interesting thing. In GA, at least, it would seem that the enthusiasm for Trump was not there on primary day.
Yes, the state polling whiffed badly in those states. The RCP national average was only off by a percentage point, though. On election day Clinton was leading by 3.2% and ended up winning the national vote by 2.1%. Yes, we don’t elect presidents by national vote, but voting doesn’t occur in a vacuum. If the country overall is trending for a candidate then all states will generally see a shift in voting patterns. That is not to say that Biden could win a Wyoming or Trump could win a California, but we are talking about the battleground states)
There is no scenario where Joe Biden is up by 8% in the national vote (as he is today) and loses the electoral college. If he is up by that much nationally his .7% edge in WI, MI, and PA is gone and he loses those states.If we get to November and the polls show Biden ahead by 3% or 4% then we could have a repeat of 2016.
In 2020 Trump is a known entity as a president. He wasn’t well-liked in 2016, but he is hated in 2020. I did not vote for Trump, but I was one of those who thought he would grow into the role and not be so bad. Boy, was I wrong. Look at the number of people who said that the most important criteria in selecting the Dem candidate was who could beat Trump.So there are going to be a lot of people who maybe didn’t show up in 2016 because they weren’t excited about Hillary, but who want to make sure that Trump does not get reelected.
We still have 5 months to go, which is an eternity in politics and a lot can change - especially in these times, so I am not counting Trump out. But where he sits today is not in a good position.
Clinton led by 6% nationally less than 30 days out from the election. The polls right now are meaningless. Out of the toss up states, Trump won 132 electoral votes to 39 for Clinton. In the top 8 EV states, the deviation from the poll the day before the election to the election results averaged 3.6 points. The polls from 30 days out averaged 7.6 points to Trump’s favor in those same states.
If the same trends held today, he would win Pennsylvania by 6.4%, Michigan by 3.7% and Wisconsin by 4.1% based on polling in those states about a week ago.
As I said, I’ll worry about the polls in November. The rest are just unreliable at best. There is a much higher likelihood of someone going to the polls to vote FOR a candidate than to vote AGAINST one they don’t like. History is clear on that.
Clinton also never got to 50% in polling, even with her best showings. Biden is consistently hitting it. You are right that we are still a long ways away and a lot can happen but recent polling in Michigan shows Biden up 15 points, he is up 9 points in Wisconsin. Those are some formidable numbers.
She had several polls above 50% if you look back at RCP. Obama had about the same record as well as Bush. There’s only one consistent thing about RCP over the years. It always bounces around and the final result is rarely even close to what the polls are this far out.
Clinton was up in Michigan by 10.7 points 30 days from the election. She was up by 9 points in Pennsylvania. She was up by 6.8 points in Wisconsin. Hell, she was up by 2.4 points in Ohio and Trump won Ohio by 8.1 points. We heard the same thing 30 days out. No path to victory for Trump, those numbers were formidable.
