This was taken from the link @barfo had shared with me. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...s/trump-vs-biden-national-polls-2020-vs-2016/
Does that go for everything, or just politics? Are you undecided about the shape of the earth? Do you think the 'round earthers' and the 'flat earthers' are only decided on the topic because they believe twitter and facebook? barfo
That is NOT a Trump lead over Biden. That is a Trump lead over where he was in 2016. Read the caption on the graph. Trump hasn't led Biden, ever. barfo
That wasn't a lead over Biden, that was a lead over where he was in 2016. This is the graph of Biden's leads over Trump: As you can see, Biden has held a large and pretty consistent lead over Trump since about May and has been leading continuously since last year.
Of course, Hillary had a 10 point lead over Trump at this time in 2016, so I would hope that the Dem strategists are actually taking care of business instead of poll watching.
Sure, I doubt anyone's getting complacent. But for us observers, it's worth noting that Clinton's leads were never consistent, they were spiking up and down. The 10 point lead was her high water mark after the convention. Also of note, even when she was up 10 points, she wasn't very close to 50% support...she was leading something like 44% to 34%. Biden has been at or above 50% most of this time, which is a big difference. In 2016, Trump could win if people who disliked them both chose him--now he has to actually pry away people who are currently on Biden's side on top of winning all the uncommitteds (and uncommitteds usually break against the incumbent rather than toward). So, is anything guaranteed? Not at all. I wouldn't be surprised if the polls tighten before election day, as this kind of lead is historically unsustainable in this era of polarization. But his lead is meaningfully different from Clinton's.
I don't disagree with any of that, Minstrel. I do think that Hillary's campaign got too complacent because of summer poll numbers and didn't do the work that was needed in the mid-west. I would hope and assume that Biden's campaign won't make the same mistake. Only people on forums like this should take too much stock in summer polls in an election year.
I think she got complacent in a pretty specific way--which I think you're getting at too, but I thought I'd spell out because a lot of people act like she just quit working to rest on her laurels. She assumed she was going to win, but that didn't mean she stopped working...she just started focusing on expanding the map, the way Obama did in 2008, rather than spending time trying to lock down the Midwest. The Midwest had constantly been called the "blue wall" and the "Democratic fire wall" so was taken too much for granted. She put resources into places like Texas and Arizona, states that were slight to moderate reaches but could potentially go blue in a landslide. A lot of models (notably aside from 538) made the error of assuming all the Midwest states were independent from each other, so the chances of Clinton losing ALL of them were tiny, if you assume they're each independent coin flips with a coin that slightly favored Clinton. But they weren't all independent, they had very similar types of voters--which meant if her support eroded in one, it would probably erode in all. Which is what happened and Trump managed to sneak out victories in nearly all of them by a few thousand votes. I think Biden should really put all his focus on the "traditional" battleground states and if outside groups want to pour resources into the surprisingly competitive Georgia and Texas, let them.
I read the thread, and quoted the context. But I look forward to your explanation of how you didn't mean what you said. barfo
If someone is unenthusiastic at this point I’m not sure they will go find the convention on CNN and get fired up though
Well, you'll just have 2016 all over again if that happens. People believing "its in the bag". "There's no way Biden will win." Hillary and the dems mailing it in and assuming that she would win caused her to lose. Trump campaigned hard in battleground states and Hillary did who knows what. People will just be whatevers about voting again, and the upset will happen again.
