Inaugural 2016 Polling Watch Map of the Election

The map is based upon current general election polling. Yes, Hillary is currently leading Trump in Utah, Mississippi, Arizona and Georgia. I would not expect that to continue in Utah and Mississippi. But Arizona and Georgia will be this year's competitive battleground.
Thursday Open Thread [5.5.16]

Thursday Open Thread [5.5.16]

Markos says no, the superdelegates will not be bailing Bernie out.
Hillary Clinton will end the contest with the most pledged delegates, and it won’t even be close. It was closer in 2008—and it wasn’t close back then, either. Best case scenario for Sanders at this point is that he splits the delegates through the end of the contest, but he’ll likely lose even more ground. So whether Clinton needs the superdelegates to get her a majority of all delegates is irrelevant. Obama needed the supers to get him a majority, too, and no one called it a “contested convention” because that would’ve been stupid and asinine. [...] It’s undemocratic for a party elite to ignore the will of the voters and substitute their preferences for that of the party base. It was bullshit when Clinton made these arguments in 2008, and it’s bullshit today [when Sanders makes them]. You can rail against the establishment all cycle and sue the Democratic Party. It was good politics! It won him lots of votes! But then don’t expect that very same establishment to bail you out. If you go to war against them, you must beat them on the electoral battlefield. And it can be done! Because Barack Obama did it in 2008. And if the supers wouldn’t bail out Clinton that year, when Clinton was on the losing end, why would they turn on her this year, when she’s on the winning end?
Bernie’s insistence that the process is “rigged” and that he expects a contested convention are exasperating, especially when you consider, and Bernie admits himself, he will need the "rigged" super-delegates to make the convention contested. And it is all the more exasperating because it would be overwhelmingly anti-democratic.

I am a Sanders supporter, so…

  • I don't support gay people. I don't support people of color. I don't support women. I am purist/wild-eyed zealot. I hate Hillary Clinton as a person. I adopt Republican criticism of Clinton uncritically. I am ignorant of Bernie's flaws as a candidate. I love Trump. I want Trump to win.

The Dem Nightmare Map

Donald Trump wins all the rust belt and coal belt toss-ups and toss-ups that have significantly restricted the voting rights of minorities. Click the map to create your own at…

Trump and Sanders win in Dem’s blind spot

Clinton may agree with Sanders on 95% of the issues, but it is the 5% of the time that she is on the side of the financial industry and not the people that voters still want to talk about. Sanders is a one issue candidate, and it has always been within Clinton's power to eliminate Sanders from the race by co-opting his message on the rigged economy. That she hasn't done it suggests to me that she can't bring herself to do it.

Wednesday Open Thread [5.4.16]

Alright. Jason and I have to admit that we were wrong. Ted Cruz will not be the nominee. And Unstable Isotope was right: Donald Trump will be the nominee. Bernie Sanders rebounded after a string of five defeats over the last two weeks to defeat Hillary Clinton in the Indiana Democratic presidential 52% to 48%. He wins 43 delegates to Hillary's 37 from the contest, meaning he has gained 6 delegates on Hillary from the performance. At that rate, he will catch up to Hillary sometime in April 2017 after she has passed her first budget as President. Hillary leads Sanders still by 296 pledged delegates, thus Sander's win last night, or wins by similar margins in all of the remaining nine contests, does little to impede Clinton's likely path to the nomination. Ted Cruz had a much easier path to the nomination of his party than does Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Party. Ted Cruz dropped out last night because that path was foreclosed. Bernie's path to the nomination was foreclosed on April 19 after his 20 point loss in the New York primary. But he remains in the race.