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.
10/ georgia's gov kemp is not a fan of trump. there's been a lot of effort to pull electoral shenanigans there, but kemp isn't going to put his fist on the scales for trump if he comes up short, so on paper at least a decent dem margin in ga will hold.
11/
like az, ga has had a few state level trumper candidates. in 2020 warnock beat loeffler by 2 pts, and ossoff beat perdue by ~1 pt. that's really close, but it's a margin that's pretty shenanigans-proof.
then in 22 ga gop nominated herschel for senate. warnock won by 1 pt in a "red wave" year.
And Georgia's GOP Lt. Governor just endorsed Biden, saying as a Republican, he disagreed with some Biden policies, but was voting for him because saving democracy is critical.
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.
