i'm getting so, so tired of the doomerism on here, and the press loves covering shit like a horse race instead of explaining fundamentals and what's at play, a job that seems to fall to @golikehellmachine.com on here.
so here's a thread about why i'd rather be biden — yes, biden — right now
2/
the baseline for this election is 2020. normally "the last election" might not be a perfect baseline, but it's the same guys with the roles reversed. both are quasi-incumbents, and we have a four year record for the both of them, with some recency bias for biden.
here's that map
3/ now, for trump to win, he has to do three things:
1) hold nc
2) flip georgia and arizona
3) make headway in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania
for biden to win, he has to hold wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania.
4/ holding nc:
trump won nc in 2020 by 1.5 points, the closest red state of 2020. in 2020 dem roy cooper won the governor's race by 4.5 pts, meaning a lot of trump/cooper split tickets.
for this round, the nc gop nominated a literal nazi as their gubernatorial candidate. not ideal!
6/ next order of business is flipping arizona and georgia. i think both of these states were at least modest surprises to everyone in 2020, and on paper should be the most tenuous biden holds. trump should be able to flip them back, right?
well, it's still an uphill battle.
7/ for arizona, we have multiple state-wide races to look at from 2022 to establish a baseline. katie hobbs beat kari lake by about 10k votes for the governorship. adrian fontes beat the far-more-trumpy mark finchem in sos by ~5 pts. trumpy blake masters lost by same margin to incumbent kelly.
8/ so arizona, in 2022, given a slate of very trumpy candidates, rejected all of them. the most likeable (least serial killer like), kari lake, is running for senate again.
the az gop is bankrupt, and fake elector trials will start some time before the election, and will be big local news.
GA is trending bluer too, mostly thanks to continual migration (both foreign and internal) to the Atlanta area. But the rate of change has been slow and I feel like the state is still more red than blue in an average election.
DNC, I know it's your white whale, but fuck turning Texas blue. I appreciate you have not abandoned us like so many people on here would have you do, but for the sake of this election please pour every resource into holding onto the states mentioned here for dear life.
The Biden campaign has field offices in almost every county in Wisconsin, and has publicly targeted only North Carolina for expanding their 2020 map. Texas is a landslide flip they aren't focusing on from what I can tell.
I get E-mails from them constantly but I suppose that is minimal effort that is not costing them much. And I appreciate that we've not been abandoned but in the next four months I am much more worried about them holding the Presidency, so I am okay if we get minimal visits.
Oh yeah, if Biden is hosting a rally in Houston it's because either their internal polling is showing that it's time to hit the jets or things are so desperate they hope for a hail mary. I do not think it will be the later.
