DL Open Thread: Sunday, November 3, 2024

Looks Like The Harris Surge Is–Real.  The NYTimes/Siena Poll, which has shown weaker numbers for Harris than comparable polls in the past, now shows a significant surge for Harris.  I will also add that, if there are two states where the ground game will make a difference, those two states are Michigan and Pennsylvania.   Still skeptical of that Iowa poll, though:

Kamala Harris now leads Donald Trump in Iowa — a startling reversal for Democrats and Republicans who have all but written off the state’s presidential contest as a certain Trump victory.

A new Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa Poll shows Vice President Harris leading former President Trump 47% to 44% among likely voters just days before a high-stakes election that appears deadlocked in key battleground states.  

The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

However, I’m not skeptical that women have broken even stronger for Harris, and that Trump’s hemorrhaging of support is not even fully captured in these latest polls.  Not predicting it, but there could be a blue wave on Tuesday.

RFK Jr. Vows To Get Fluoride Out Of The Water.  Wasn’t fluoride considered a communist plot back in the late ’50’s?   Yep. It’s why Suxco residents had rotting teeth until cooler heads (and dentists) prevailed.

One More Reason Why Pollsters May Have It Wrong.  I think this analysis may be correct:

For eight years, pollsters have been striving to accurately capture former President Donald Trump’s level of support among voters. Even today, on the eve of his third campaign for the presidency, there’s no confidence they’ve nailed it. It raises a question that not enough people are asking: If it’s taken that long to adjust for Trump, is 100 days enough to accurately poll potential Vice President Kamala Harris voters?

It’s not just an academic question. There’s reason to believe that, just as proved to be the case with Trump, there is a fuller range of Harris voters who aren’t being measured.

Specifically, Haley supporters:

The survey showed that while 66 percent of Haley primary voters supported Trump in 2016, that number dropped to 59 percent in 2020 and is expected to drop even further to 45 percent in this year’s election. Meanwhile, their support for the Democratic presidential nominee has nearly tripled from only 13 percent supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 to 36 percent indicating an intent to vote for Kamala Harris.

Pollsters’ recent embrace of “weighting on recall vote” may be hiding the true effect these Haley-Harris voters will have on the upcoming election. This approach to polling involves pollsters asking respondents who they voted for in the previous election. Statisticians then weight responses they receive to ensure that their predicted electorate mirrors voters who have previously showed up to vote in past years. The problem is this method entirely excludes Haley voters that either supported third-party candidates in the 2020 election or chose to sit out the previous election altogether.

There are more gory mathematical details, but if the polls are trending in Harris’ direction without said polls adequately capturing these Harris supporters, it, um, could be a blue wave.

Enough with polls.  I’m not the Poll Guy.  But I just wanted to maybe make you feel better, and even more resolute, heading into Election Day.

Trump Campaign Staff Fires Arrows At–Each Other.  Sure, it’s just insider soap opera, but it presages a lot of finger-pointing after a possible loss:

In conversations with nearly a dozen of the former president’s aides, advisers, and friends, it became apparent that Trump’s feeling of midsummer tedium marked a crucial moment in his political career, setting off a chain reaction that nearly destroyed his campaign and continues to threaten his chances of victory. Even as they battled Democrats in a race that refuses to move outside the margin of error, some of Trump’s closest allies spent the closing months of the campaign at war with one another: planting damaging stories, rallying to the defense of wronged colleagues, and preemptively pointing fingers in the event of an electoral defeat.

The bull in a china shop? Corey Lewandowski:

The honeymoon period was nonexistent. Before Lewandowski worked a single day on behalf of the campaign, he complained to friends that Wiles and LaCivita had leaked the news of his hiring in an unflattering light that downplayed his role—and timed it to coincide with when he was traveling and off the grid, unable to speak for himself.

Determined to assert himself, Lewandowski arrived at Palm Beach headquarters in mid-August with designs on running the place. Wiles accompanies Trump nearly everywhere on the trail, and LaCivita, when not joining them, often works from his home in Virginia, leaving Lewandowski with a free hand in Florida. He began taking aside junior staffers and department heads alike, one at a time, informing them that he spoke for Trump himself. He made it known that he would be in charge of all spending, and that he needed people to tell him what wasn’t working so he could fix it. Meanwhile, he began calling the campaign’s key operatives in the battleground states, probing for weaknesses in Trump’s ground game and assuring them that a strategy shift was in the works.

You’ll want to read on.  I know I did.

More Attempted Voter Suppression In Georgia Rejected By Court:

A Georgia judge on Saturday rejected a Republican lawsuit trying to block counties from opening election offices on Saturday and Sunday to let voters hand in their mail ballots in person.

The lawsuit only named Fulton county, a Democratic stronghold that includes most of the city of Atlanta and is home to 11% of the state’s voters. But at least five other populous counties that tend to vote for Democrats also announced election offices would open over the weekend to allow hand return of absentee ballots.

The lawsuit was filed late Friday and cited a section of Georgia law that says ballot drop boxes cannot be open past the end of advance voting, which ended Friday. But state law says voters can deliver their absentee ballots in person to county election offices until the close of polls at 7pm on election day. Despite that clear wording, lawyer Alex Kaufman initially claimed in an emergency hearing Saturday that voters aren’t allowed to hand-deliver absentee ballots that were mailed to them.

The only purpose of this suit was to prevent otherwise-eligible voters from voting.  I’ve thought for awhile that Harris would win Georgia.  I still do.

Buccini-Pollin Can’t Enforce Own Parking Ordinances. Yet.  Betcha they’ll fare even better under the sleepy countenance of a former high school QB:

This year, Wilmington officials are educating one of the largest developers in the city on the illegalities of attempting to do their own enforcement.

Representatives of 101 Dupont Place, a residential building owned and reconstructed by the Buccini-Pollin Group, say they were simply trying to alert residents who park their cars around the building for days on end that they were at risk of a parking ticket or tow.

But after Delaware Online/The News Journal shared photos of these recent postings on vehicles, city officials said those notices aren’t allowed.

“BPG has been informed that the posting of signs on vehicles is improper and has been instructed to cease this activity,” said John Rago, Mayor Mike Purzycki’s deputy chief of staff, in an emailed response to questions.

‘Educating’ Buccini-Pollin?  That’s why they off public officials with political bribes.

Just Two Over-The Hill White Guys Hankerin’ For An Orange Crush:

Speaker Pete makes his exit from the Democratic Party official. Costal Sussex residents: Take note.
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