Trump is hoping to activate apathetic voters sympathetic to him to flip Blue States

Why don’t all anti-Trump people pretend they’re going to vote for him and instill false security among Trump’s real, lazy supporters so that they’ll stay home?

I forget where I read it, but there was an article that argued more Republicans did turn out than normal in 2018, but nobody noticed because they were dwarfed by the Democratic turn out.

That is true. And Republicans still have an electoral advantage disproportionate to their population. Notice, they gained in the Senate because all these rural red states get two senators just the same. Also, almost all experts agree Florida and Ohio have become even More Republican than in 2016. Iowa is lost.

I fear North Carolina has become fool’s gold for Democrats. They believe all the new people moving there are turning it blue, but the people moving there tend to skew conservative, become more conservative after Moving there, or aren’t voting. Also, white voters and religious voters in NC have increasingly become Republican to the point where voting Democrat is becoming unthinkable.

There was total increased turnout in 2018 for BOTH parties.

I question how many Republicans stayed home in 2018 but voted in 2016 and will come out again in 2020. I'm sure there are some, but it's not likely to be statistically significant.

Those voters hate your liberal asses. Trannies, what looks like open borders, abortion, drag queen hour at the library, talking about giving prisoners the vote. All the shit the Dems talked about in the first debate and they will get locked into in the HRC debate will energize Trump supporters and normal Republicans. Until Dems wake up to this they will continue to lose. This is a Dukakis election.

In other words, imaginary voters.

Uh-huh, r6. That's what idiots like you said in 2018, almost word for word. How did that work out for you?

As usual, you're completely full of shit, contradicted by all of the available data.

Pretty much, R7. This is just one more sign that the Trump campaign knows it's in real trouble. They lost the suburbs in 2018 and there are no signs that they can get them back. The majority of voters don't want Trump to be reelected and he's losing to all of the major Democratic candidates.

He's down to his base right now and even that base is shrinking in recent polling, as his approval rating has dropped in the past month or so. He needs another 8 to 10% of the voters and he has absolutely no idea how to win them.

I'm waiting to see how Trump polls against Mark Sanford, once Mark Sanford makes it official. Should be interesting.

When they feel desperate, political parties of the right and left both succumb to the appeal of reaching the non-voter. If we can get them to vote, they will vote for us! However, all analysis shows that, if they did vote the regular non-voters would replicate the percentages of voters. It would make no difference.

I call bullshit. Trump is hated by everyone except his 35% and will get crushed in 2020.

R8, the Dems won most seats in 2018 running to the center. The four Congresswomen who the media loved were outliers. As the article says, which you probably didn't read, voters have grown less fond of Democrats as the press paints them as leftists. Name calling ("full of shit") btw indicates you're either a troll ( here only to cause trouble) or not that bright.

Trump having the ability to activate apathetic 2018 voters sympathetic to him is magical thinking. He has lost white women suburban voters. He is starting to lose his white male voters. He doesn't have the temperament to correct his own path, so those trends will continue. He is circling the drain, and it's only a question of when the Republican donors publicly come up with a polite excuse to pull the plug. My guess is that behind the scenes, they are actively talking to other candidates.

You have to wait to see who his opponent is. People didn't vote for Trump as much as against Hillary.

Sorry, R13, but you're still full of shit and you still have absolutely no data to back up your ridiculous "analysis." All of the major Democratic candidates are beating Trump in the polls, both the national polls and the swing state polls. And this is despite:

[quote]Those voters hate your liberal asses. Trannies, what looks like open borders, abortion, drag queen hour at the library, talking about giving prisoners the vote.

So apparently, the actual voters don't "hate our liberal asses," no matter how much you would like to pretend that this is the case. Moreover, you're also full of shit in pretending that your list of issues is what Democrats are actually taking about, campaigning on, advertising on, etc., just as you're full of shit in pretending that any of the Democratic candidates are talking about open borders.

I read the article; it didn't say what you claim it did, nor is there any data anywhere that indicates that "voters have grown less fond of Democrats," as they're still leading in the generic Congressional ballot by about the same amount as was the case in 2018, and, of course, are beating Trump handily in the polls, as voters have grown less fond of Trump in the past couple of months.

In short, you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

I agree that people voted more against Hillary than for Trump. But that was before Trump established his track record. A few months ago I would have sworn that any progressive would lose to Trump. But Trump fatigue is so strong, and his accomplishments are so few, that I think any crazy socialist could beat Trump.

R4, I don’t think your assessment of NC is quite right. For one thing, the state has been gerrymandered to within an inch of its life (same goes for Texas).

For another, the red/blue state dichotomy is becoming less useful. The real divide is between urban and rural areas. Urban centers, whether in red or blue states, tend to skew heavily liberal/Democratic. In Texas, the major city centers are truly a different country than the smalltown, rural, and (to an extent) suburban areas.

That, unfortunately, does not translate to an electoral advantage for Democrats, especially in red states where the legislatures have drawn the districts in such a way that the voting power of the urban areas has been almost totally stripped away.

I think a lot of people publicly pretend to be repulsed by Trump, but secretly cheer him on or think he is doing enough things they support that it supersedes things they dislike about him.

Latest ABC News/Washington Post poll matching the Democratic candidates against Trump:

[quote]Among those tested in the survey, Joe Biden leads Trump by 16 percentage points among all adults, 54-38%, essentially the same as two months ago. Bernie Sanders leads by 12 points, up from 6 in July; as does Elizabeth Warren by 11 points, compared with a slight 7 points previously. Kamala Harris leads by 10 points, while Pete Buttigieg has a slight 6-point edge.

Gallup polling on Democratic party favorability.

2019, Jan: 45%

2018, Sept: 44%

2017, Sept: 44%

2017, May: 40%

2016, Nov: 45%

2016: Sept: 42%

Basically, just the usual fluctuations. Nothing noteworthy here.

[quote] Uh-huh, [R6]. That's what idiots like you said in 2018, almost word for word. How did that work out for you?

R6 makes a solid point. Trump voters are hardened against Democratic values and ideals. They revel in the mean-spirited, hateful rhetoric of Trump and see him as a bulwark against unwelcome changes in their world. No deficit in Trump's knowledge, intellect, integrity or character will turn them away from him. 2020 is gonna be tough for Democrats.

[quote] Sorry, [R13], but you're still full of shit and you still have absolutely no data to back up your ridiculous "analysis." All of the major Democratic candidates are beating Trump in the polls, both the national polls and the swing state polls.

Polls are not credible when it comes to Trump. Polls can be manipulated by Russians, and Trump enjoys the benefits of the reverse -"Bradley effect" -- Trump voters are reluctant to admit to pollsters that they like him and will vote for him.

Democrats should forget about Polls and focus on voter turnout in about 12 key states.

[quote]Trump voters are reluctant to admit to pollsters that they like him and will vote for him

Prove it.

Um R21, no. You're wrong.

Most Americans now have an unfavorable view of the party, no better than their view of the Republican Party. Likewise, slightly more voters say the “ideas being offered by the Democratic candidates” would hurt the country than say would help, according to the NPR poll (to quote a NYT article).

Look Cambridge Analytica is not gone. The Russian IT GRU guys aren't gone. They have drilled down and analyzed every bit of data starting with outcomes from 2018. They're analyzing voter behavior, using every marketing and manipulative technique they can think of and design. The special elections and the off year elections were particularly fruitful for them. They got a better understanding of how to do what they need to do to win. The are not giving up without a fight.

I've decided. I'm not watching the news and I'm not giving in to the horserace bullshit the Media is trying to sell us. I'm getting news on my feeds from twitter. I can monitor the outrage of the week without all the blathering. It's pretty simple for us: Vot Blue. Period. We have to do a purge. Every single Republican has to go. All of them. The party has become an extremist cult and none of them stand up to Trump. They are all whores and traitors. We know that. No need to gather more evidence. Just vote all of them out. Vote for a fucking dog if you have to but Don't waste your time on 3rd party bullshit. Get out there and vote. Very simple. Nothing complicated.

As for our Political professionals on the Democratic Side:Be careful of traps. We absolutely MUST figure out an effective way to frame immigration issues. Believe it or not, the immigration issue is hurting us. "Open borders" is killing us. We have to appear tough but reasonable on immigration. Our winning issues are healthcare and the Environment. And Trump. Go after him on tax cuts and the economy. poke holes in the so called "prosperity" they're selling. Economic insecurity is always a winner even during good times.

83% of the DEMOCRATIC poll respondents consider the policies to be helping the Democrats, R25.

You're including what Republicans think of Dem candidate policies in your post, and that doesn't make any sense: Repubs won't be voting Dem or agreeing with them at all.

[quote] Prove it.

It can only be proven in retrospect, like a recession. However, it is not a stretch when you consider the scorn a Trump voter should expect. There are likely people who are closet racists, facsists and nationalists who choose not to publicize their views. In 2016 he was just talk but Trump now has a track record of hate, nothingness and broken promises, so his supporters appear even more idiotic and unhinged. It makes sense that fewer people would publicly voice their decision to re-elect him. We should be prepared for him to outperform all polling.

I should add that 46% of people who consider themselves moderate think Dem policies would move the country in the right direction, versus 40% of moderates who don't.

I don't see the stats that supposedly prove that the Dems have the wrong messaging and are alienating huge swaths of the voting populace, handing Trump a certain win.

Still also not seeing any proof that Trumpsters across the country in all 50 states lie to every pollster about who they'll vote for, thereby rendering all polls invalid.

[quote]It can only be proven in retrospect, like a recession. However, it is not a stretch when you consider the scorn a Trump voter should expect.

You have no proof because it's not true.

What you're suggesting would mean that a significant number of Trump supporters across ALL states, and answering ALL 20 or so of the respected national polls, would have to be lying consistently for years upon years. That's almost literally impossible. It's just not happening.

Look, the politicians who are desperate to elect Biden are the ones who keep pounding away at the need to tack further to the Right and cater to the White Working Class that feels ignored. They want us to be Republican Lite and be less inclusive. Just remember: 77,744 votes delivered Trump to us. That does not constitute a mandate to change who we are or what we stand for.

All the concern about "socialism" and demonizing the Left is so retro. They need to get over themselves. The world is smaller. We know what is working in other countries. People leave here because our healthcare system is so fucked up. They find our ignorance of environmental issues ridiculous. We need to start realizing how other countries look at us, and realize we need to get our act together.

No, he really doesn't make a valid point, R22. Many Trump voters are exactly what you claim but what you and R6 overlook is that there aren't enough of those voters to reelect Trump. Or to make 2020 "tough for Democrats."

Trump and the Republican Party need another 10% of the voters. Where are those voters going to come from?

The voters will come from a pool who are anti-socialist. Trump's best chance is if the Dems select Sanders or Warren.

[quote]Um R21, no. You're wrong.

Um, R25, no, I'm not.

[quote]Most Americans now have an unfavorable view of the party

Which is exactly what the Gallup polling data I posted demonstrated. I also showed that it hasn't changed significantly in the Gallup poll for several years, including in 2018, when we had a blue wave election. The people pretending that Democrats are being badly hurt are cherry-picking the data.

The generic Congressional ballot poll still has Democrats up by nearly 7 points.

This aside, all Democrats running for every office must go door to door in every state. No state can be ignored. Did Ds learn nothing from 2016! Sure part of it was Russia cheating the vote toward Trump but we know Hillary fucked it up too by ignoring so many voters. We especially need to win the Senate and take out Moscow Mitch.

[quote]Polls are not credible when it comes to Trump.

You have no data to back that up.

[quote]Polls can be manipulated by Russians

That's ridiculous.

[quote]and Trump enjoys the benefits of the reverse -"Bradley effect" -- Trump voters are reluctant to admit to pollsters that they like him and will vote for him.

And that's nonsensical.

Um R34:

"Currently, 45% of the public has a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, while 52% view the GOP unfavorably. Opinions about the Democratic Party are the same (45% favorable, 52% unfavorable).

These opinions are little changed since January, but last September, 53% Americans viewed the Democratic Party favorably, while fewer (43%) had a favorable impression of the Republican Party."

I don't know about you but to me 53% to 45% is not "unchanged".

Um, r37, notice what I said above about cherry-picking data? Thank you for so quickly doing that.

There is some evidence that voters lie to pollsters about willingness to vote for right wing, especially racist, candidates. This is based on past elections.

If you look at the Pew poll data that a couple of individuals keep touting above, it's a highly volatile poll, bouncing up and down by 5 to 10 points on a regular basis. If you draw a line to average out the data, though, what you see is that it averages out to roughly ... 45%, where it stands today.

Of course the Trump campaign would spin the loss of these voters to not having Trump on the ticket.

They would never admit any Trump voters have become disillusioned with him and his disgusting, lying, criminal, job-wrecking and batshit policies.

Nor will they acknowledge the voters won’t be stuck with the unpleasant alternative of Hillary Clinton.

I think Trump and his posse Can make Warren as disliked as Hillary. The seeds are already there

They'll go after any Democratic candidate, R42. None of them are immune. In fact, that's Trump's only option, since there is no way for him to actually do anything worthwhile or to come up with any real accomplishments or to get any less crazy. His only path to the presidency is to drag the Democratic candidate down.

Trump wasn’t on the ballot in 2018. His influence is pretty huge. America is about 90% idiots. People will lie on the phone to pollsters and go vote for Trump cuz MURKA, FUCK YEAH!

“I had to do it, bro! I had to make my mother in law’s head explode, heh heh by voting for MY MAN THE DONALD! Trump is AWESOME, the way he fucks with libs. He MIND FUCKS them, bro! They don’t even know what happened to them while they were cryin for the little brown people and thinking they were making socialism happen so everyone can be poor, yo! This is the best economy in the history of the world and libs wanna tear it down and give away money to black people. Ain’t happening, bro! We are gonna be RICH (someday) and we are WHITE!”

Yes but some candidates are more vulnerable to his antics than others

I really doubt that, R45. That was one of the things that Democrats said to themselves in 2004, that we needed to pick the most electable, least vulnerable candidate, that Republicans wouldn't be able to attack Kerry in the way that, e.g., they'd attack Dean. That didn't work out so well.

I truly do not think that any of the current crop of major candidates is more or less vulnerable than any other. Keep in mind that the Republican Party is not fettered by any sense of shame, any adherence to the truth, any sense of responsibility. If they can't find anything, they'll simply make it up.

[quote]Trump wasn’t on the ballot in 2018. His influence is pretty huge.

2018, like 2020, was a referendum on Trump and Republican control. As for Trump's influence, it is only "huge" for his rabid base. The people you describe are not sufficient to reelect Trump. Worse, the more he goes after that rabid base, the more he turns off the moderates he needs to win.

What I found interesting about the article is that it was basically a press release from the Trump campaign, without much context or pushback as to whether the tactic was likely to succeed and what that tactic said about the state of the campaign. A couple dozen paragraphs in the article and only one that expressed skepticism. And that was basically "he said; she said" journalism.

[quote]Not everyone is buying it. Trump’s sagging job approval ratings suggest to many political observers that the map-broadening is a reflection of a search for a long shot way back to the White House. Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist, says that the Trump campaign is right to be trying to get more voters to show up and to branch out into new territory. “There are reasons to compete in all these places,” Donovan tells TIME. But, Donovan says, “he’s not going to win any of these places if he’s still at 43 approval in the RCP average,” referring the average of Trump job approval polls published by RealClearPolitics.

It's the kind of political reporting that is both useless and infuriating, mostly just stenography without seriously questioning what you are being told and all about the horse race instead of real discussion of policy.

Yep. Democrats just lost 2 races in NC. One of the democrats had lost in 2018 by 900 votes and that was with the GOP cheating. Yesterday he lost by 4,000 votes without cheating.

Not good.

R8 And how did it work out for you last night, sweetheart?

Quite well, hunty. The winner of that district, a less-crazy candidate than 2018, barely won in a district that Trump won by 12%, indicating a +10% move to the Democratic Party from 2016. Extrapolate that nationwide and we've got another blue wave coming in 2020.

I find it interesting how desperate Republicans (and concern trolls) are to spin those off-cycle results. Last night was not good news for Republicans.

It wasn't even a mid-term election; it was an off-cycle election. Trump had to campaign there, Republicans spent millions on this, and the national committee was heavily involved. And the Republican candidate barely hung on to win in an R+12 district. More important, the suburbs went to the Democratic candidate again, something that we saw in 2018. That was bad news for Republicans in 2018 and it remains bad news for them today.

Next year will be a presidential election year, where Democratic turnout is almost certain to increase. The tactics that Republicans used to hang onto this district are not scalable and cannot be replicated in every House district. And if we have a national +7 to +10 percent Democratic movement, Trump will lose, Republicans will not retake the House, and may well lose the Senate.

None of this is an actual prediction; a lot can happen between now and then; we don't know how the economy will do; we don't know what will happen in foreign policy; we don't know which Democratic candidate will be facing Trump and which themes will resonate with voters, etc., etc.

But, right now, things are not going well for the Trump campaign.

[quote]Trump is hoping to activate apathetic voters sympathetic to him to flip Blue States

This is so obvious it's not newsworthy, except to concern trolls.

All I can do is laugh at this one. He's so fucking delusional!

You know, I had no full appreciation of how much I truly love my country until it was attacked on 9/11. And I blame the Republicans for that and for every fucking thing that has happened since. Trump is the culmination, the embodiment of all of their ugly filthy despicable actions. When I think of how they have shit all over my country I get so viscerally angry I just want to put a fist through the wall. I don't think I have ever been so fucking angry at politicians before in my life. I can't think of anything good they have done.

We need to keep talking to people. We need to make sure that they have facts. Even if they seem to ignore them, keep talking. Don't be confrontational (it's hard) or antagonistic. just focus on facts. If they seem brainwashed and impervious, then walk away. But we have to work hard at the grassroots level and commit ourselves to getting rid of every single Republican office holder. They need the greatest possible chastisement. The Republican Party needs a "time out" for the next 20 years. I believe in my country and I am filled with resolve. We need to make sure that we have fair elections and we have overwhelming turn out.

This is what is known as "wishful thinking."

9/11 was the day the country lost its collective fucking mind, r54.

[quote]Notice, they gained in the Senate because all these rural red states get two senators just the sam

Small population and on the dole moochers. Fucking nerve of these whole states having populations smaller than one city in a blue state having the right to control the purse strings and the (regressive) direction of the country.

Sickens me to no end that a turtle-looking asshole from KY -a moocher state- gets to control where our blue state money goes.

[quote]I find it interesting how desperate Republicans (and concern trolls) are to spin those off-cycle results.

Oh, hon. MSNBC and CNN were sure the Republicans would lose and were readying their "landslide against Trump in 2020" narrative. You know, until the Republicans won and then they gnashed their teeth then dropped the subject the next day. If things had gone the other way, they'd have been strutting around and bragging about two Democrats winning. You know it's true.

[quote]Last night was not good news for Republicans.

Winning isn't good news now? Stop embarrassing yourself.

Oh, hon, you're entirely full of shit, which you already know. Nobody was predicting anything like that since the polls on one of those races had the Republican candidate easily winning and the other had the race simply too close to call. So no, hon, it's not true, it's not even close to being true, and you, of course, cannot support your delusional take on events.

I know that math is *really* difficult for you, hon, but winning a +12 Republican district by only 2 points is terrible news for Republicans. Do try to wrap your head around that, won't you? And extrapolate a +10 shift to the Democratic Party across other districts. What do you think happens in 2020 if that trend continues, hon?

I'd tell you to stop embarrassing yourself but you seem incapable of doing that. So, sure, you just keep right on fucking that chicken and delusionally claiming that all is well and the rest of us will continue to vote Democratic and trigger another blue wave in 2020.

R58, you’re full of shit. I’ve revoked your “hon” privileges.