Crumbling? You are right that is wishful thinking. Weakness? Yep. The thing is, we know some slice of that 20% is going to vote for Trump. The key is to pound the message so that slice is as small as possible. That is why groups like RVAT are getting things right. The race will be decided by how many potential Trump voters are convinced to not vote for him. This result shows that group exists and is sizable.
In the last few months Biden has moved up in the number of points by which polls show him trailing Trump--as much as by 4 to equal. And it's early April. I can't accept the claim that the number of Wisconsin republicans not favoring Trump is meaningless for the general election.
Chris, I know you are telling us what we don't want to hear and you are right. It strengthens my feelings that Trump is going to win in November. I just witnessed a local school tax initiative go down to defeat.
When talking to individual voters, because there was so much miss information out there, when pointed out what was true, the individuals conceded that they were wrong about the information, but they were still going to vote no. Yes, a presidential election is different from a tax increase, but the voters are the same. Went given, over and over, the truth, or factual evidence, and acknowledgement of their misinformation, they still vote their original way. I just don't get it.
I have a fellow educator who says this is a failing of the education system that has not been supported or funded in many red states and other rural areas. Therefore we have graduated citizens who are not prepared with critical thinking skills necessary for a democracy to survive..
Sorry for the down post, but I am sad about and for the community I live in.
I strongly believe that you are right about the lack of critical thinking skills in a lot of people. That's a big shame, not just from a political point of view, but it also negatively impacts every aspect of someone's life.
What would it take at this point for any of his supporters to abandon him? What could possibly be revealed that would be more embarrassing than any of the outrageous things that he has already done?
Yes, it's going to be another close election, with the electorate working through Trump 'extremism' and Biden 'anxiety'. But 'wishcasting' and 'polling' aside, the reality is that Trump has a hard ceiling and he is pretty much at it right now. There's a much better possibility of people work their way through 'anxiety'......
I "get" that "wishcasting" in regards to Trump doesn't serve us well, and I agree with the basic premise of this post. That said, two things in your comments, Chris, once again about polling, that I just can’t understand where you’re coming from.
First, you pull ONE POLL from the Wall Street Journal as an example of Trump being *ahead* of Biden, but you ignore the latest polls from 14 HIGHLY RESPECTED polling companies that show Biden ahead! Why is that? Are you saying that WSJ is more reliable than NPR/Marist, Morning Consult, Quinnipiac, Economist/YouGov, Ipsos/Reuters, Public Policy Research, Civiqs, Emerson, Kaiser Family Foundation, and 5 others that show Biden ahead? You seem like you have a preset opinion ("This race will be close") and you’re ignoring shifting trends that don't fit your narrative…
Secondly, these very same polls that you revere so highly *also* show that a significant number of Republican and independent voters will NOT vote for Trump IF he’s convicted of a felony. Of those that voted for Haley, and that's not an insignificant number of people, in exit polling identified that 43% would vote for Biden, if Trump was convicted.
I agree that "wishcasting" a conviction will happen prior to the general election is not wise, as there are too many variables making it less and less likely that a jury will see closing arguments in sufficient time. Those of us that are actively working for a Biden victory can't make any assumptions and must work even harder to make it happen.
All of that said, Chris, either believe in the trends the polls are highlighting or don't, but cherrypicking to match your narrative isn't the sort of journalism we expect from you.
Larry went hard in the paint on Chris here!!!! And I agree some w the general sentiment, but also, I think that what Chris is trying to cement in our brains is that this will be a close election.
Are there any of us here who expect a landslide Biden win? If so, I would love to share such an optimistic stance.
It's going to be tight, maybe not super-tight( or maybe super-tight - hell, I'm not sure) , but this certainly isn't going to be Reagan/Mondale either.
I like Chris and his writing, don’t get me wrong! All I’m asking for is consistency, nothing more. If you’re going to put so much “weight” into polling, then you need to watch *all* of the non-partisan and reliably administered polls for trending there.
Chris puts *way* more weight into polling than many of the sharpest analysts I follow here on Substack (Jay Kuo of The Status Kuo, Jonathan V. Last, Andrew Egger, and Bill Kristol of The Bulwark, etc), so I expect him to change his opinions when the polling indicates a trend in a slightly different direction than he anticipated.
In my mind, the idea ISN’T to come up with a perspective THEN find a poll that reinforces that perspective, but to look at ALL the evidence (polls, etc) and THEN determine what perspective best fits the evidence. That’s what empirical analysis means, whether in science, politics, or other areas of thought.
And I read another interesting take on polling from Simon Rosenberg at The Hopium Chronicles. Admittedly, given that Simon is a Democratic strategist, I would take his comments with a grain of salt, but he had a very good point that is a clear contradiction to Chris’s perspective. He quotes the 14 new polls this week, showing Biden ahead of Trump, and specifically cautions against taking the Wall Street Journal’s poll too seriously, given that WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is *clearly* “Republican aligned”.
I couldn’t agree more!! When certain polls *consistently* lean more heavily towards Republicans and are proven wrong in actual voting (the only “polling” that truly matters!), then you *must* lower their value in the averages. When a polling company like Rasmussen is consistently used by Fox News and others in the right-wing echo chamber, and is consistently overestimating results for Republicans, you simply can’t take them seriously.
Sorry, but WSJ being a Murdoch-owned “Republican-aligned” organization makes me *immediately* skeptical of their “findings”. That it was the ONLY poll that Chris quoted is precisely why I’ve said that he’s picking his “facts” in order to support his hypothesis.
Having studied 4 semesters of Logic at University (on my way to a BA in Philosophy), I can spot a logical fallacy a mile away! Admittedly, those courses were *decades* ago, but Logic isn’t really a hotbed of contemporary thought, where perspectives change over time….
What Biden needs to do is build a "coalition of the sane." Create ads in which , for example, (1)Trump talks about pardoning the people he calls "the heroes of 1/6" and show the carnage these miscreants left behind (2) Trump talked about drinking bleach or shining lights internally to combat Covid; (3) various former Trump officials talk about his incompetence and lack of knowledge (e.g., Esper, Kelly, Christie, Tillerson, Barr, Bolton, Farrah-Griffin). These are the sorts of things that motivate the never-Trumpers. That segment can swing the election. They need to be convinced that voting for Biden is the only hope to restore sanity
It's not "wishcasting" to state the fact, as William Kristol and Andrew Egger of the Bulwark did this morning...that despite the "protest vote" in WI.....
"...nearly 48,000 who did (about 8 percent) more than doubled their goal of surpassing Biden’s 2020 margin of victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin.
But the 89 percent of the Democratic vote Biden took in Wisconsin was better than Trump did anywhere last night: 79 percent in Connecticut, 82 percent in New York, 84 percent in Rhode Island, 79 percent in Wisconsin. These are remarkably soft numbers for a now-unopposed candidate, especially given the fact that—unlike on the Democratic side—there’s zero ongoing organized Republican effort to use the primaries to send Trump a message. A fifth or so of GOP voters are still just showing up to pull the lever for somebody else instead."
TRUMP is the one who constantly is wishcasting when (as Chris cited) swing state polls are all within the margin and totaling between 87 & 93 points, meaning a substantial "undecided" while constantly proclaiming that he is "way ahead" of President Biden.
Polls are NOT like voting. It is not "wishcasting" to observe that Trump is suffering some very soft support within his own party when the actual voting takes place.
I have been curious about the people not voting for Trump in the GOP Primaries and what it all means. In New York, which is a closed primary, 18 percent of voters still showed up to show their displeasure with the nominee.
Given that everyone freaked out over the uncommitted vote in Michigan, Trump's ceiling being consistently capped around 80 percent is not a great sign.
Yes, it’s not easy to change parties to vote in a primary in NY. I did it to vote against Elise Stefanik for her opponent. That’s not going so well, but I did take the opportunity to vote for Nikki Haley yesterday.
It used to be worse. You used to have to change before a general election and it would take effect afterwards. Now, you just have to change before a primary or general election. It’s not something you do on a whim.
But one fact you might be overlooking Chris is that Cheeto Don has not won anything since 2016. The votes that he lost in 2018, 2020 and 2022 are somewhat unprecedented.
I think that at the end of the day, Americans are going to not want to have 4 more years of chaos.
The vast majority of Trump supporters are low..very low..almost zero..information voters. If TFG shot someone on 42nd avenue, they would likely never hear about it, but if they did their preferred news feeds would tell them Trump was a hero who was, single-handedly, fighting off an army of marauding illegal immigrants. Sad.
If American take the threat of a second Donald J Trump term seriously, and vote as though their democracy depends on it(because it does) then President Joe Biden will win a second term. If folks sit it out because they somehow think that Trump won’t win, we’ll see 2016 all over again. Remember the sick feeling you had on the day following the election in 2016…..and vote like you never want to feel that again. Trump can lose if we the people kick him to the curb.
Oh now Chris we shouldn't be concerned about Trump's 20% protest vote against him in Wisconsin . But you were gleefully waiting for the number and percentage of protest votes against Biden per your yesterday's post. Now that the protest vote is less than 10% against Biden and some 20%(about 100,000) against Trump, there should be no concern for the Trump's team. Just imagine that Biden's protest votes were close to 100,000, the talking and writing heads would be saying oh, Biden defeated Trump by some 20,000 votes in 2020 and he is losing some 100,000 Democrat's votes, therefore Biden is doomed.But now that the reverse is the case, Trump's team should not be concerned and those who genuinely point this out like( Adam Kissinger) is "wishcasting"according to Chris. IMO, Adam Kissinger(a seasoned politician) is not wishcasting but saying the obvious. He did not say Trump is doomed but rather pointing out Trump's obvious weaknesses.
Oh by the way,Chris you got the WSJ's polls in Wisconsin WRONG. It's not a tie , (46 to 46) you probably wish it is a tie but it is not. Biden is leading Trump by 3 points there . Even though II don't believe in those phony polls.
Crumbling? You are right that is wishful thinking. Weakness? Yep. The thing is, we know some slice of that 20% is going to vote for Trump. The key is to pound the message so that slice is as small as possible. That is why groups like RVAT are getting things right. The race will be decided by how many potential Trump voters are convinced to not vote for him. This result shows that group exists and is sizable.
When you see a hole in the dyke or a crack in the wall, it is likely to get bigger fast if it is focused on so there is more pressure on it.
That isn’t wishcasting. It is a strategy.
In the last few months Biden has moved up in the number of points by which polls show him trailing Trump--as much as by 4 to equal. And it's early April. I can't accept the claim that the number of Wisconsin republicans not favoring Trump is meaningless for the general election.
True! And Chris is ignoring the results of 14 *very* credible recent polls that show Biden having an edge now…
Chris, I know you are telling us what we don't want to hear and you are right. It strengthens my feelings that Trump is going to win in November. I just witnessed a local school tax initiative go down to defeat.
When talking to individual voters, because there was so much miss information out there, when pointed out what was true, the individuals conceded that they were wrong about the information, but they were still going to vote no. Yes, a presidential election is different from a tax increase, but the voters are the same. Went given, over and over, the truth, or factual evidence, and acknowledgement of their misinformation, they still vote their original way. I just don't get it.
I have a fellow educator who says this is a failing of the education system that has not been supported or funded in many red states and other rural areas. Therefore we have graduated citizens who are not prepared with critical thinking skills necessary for a democracy to survive..
Sorry for the down post, but I am sad about and for the community I live in.
I strongly believe that you are right about the lack of critical thinking skills in a lot of people. That's a big shame, not just from a political point of view, but it also negatively impacts every aspect of someone's life.
Horrifyingly, many folks these days consider it critical thinking to give credence to conspiracy theories! Like, what?!
I am "wishcasting" that some embarrassing evidence brought out in one of the trials might hurt him.
more embarrassing than getting caught redhanded for sleeping with a porn star and paying to cover it up? I join you in that wishcasting
What would it take at this point for any of his supporters to abandon him? What could possibly be revealed that would be more embarrassing than any of the outrageous things that he has already done?
Yes, it's going to be another close election, with the electorate working through Trump 'extremism' and Biden 'anxiety'. But 'wishcasting' and 'polling' aside, the reality is that Trump has a hard ceiling and he is pretty much at it right now. There's a much better possibility of people work their way through 'anxiety'......
I "get" that "wishcasting" in regards to Trump doesn't serve us well, and I agree with the basic premise of this post. That said, two things in your comments, Chris, once again about polling, that I just can’t understand where you’re coming from.
First, you pull ONE POLL from the Wall Street Journal as an example of Trump being *ahead* of Biden, but you ignore the latest polls from 14 HIGHLY RESPECTED polling companies that show Biden ahead! Why is that? Are you saying that WSJ is more reliable than NPR/Marist, Morning Consult, Quinnipiac, Economist/YouGov, Ipsos/Reuters, Public Policy Research, Civiqs, Emerson, Kaiser Family Foundation, and 5 others that show Biden ahead? You seem like you have a preset opinion ("This race will be close") and you’re ignoring shifting trends that don't fit your narrative…
Secondly, these very same polls that you revere so highly *also* show that a significant number of Republican and independent voters will NOT vote for Trump IF he’s convicted of a felony. Of those that voted for Haley, and that's not an insignificant number of people, in exit polling identified that 43% would vote for Biden, if Trump was convicted.
I agree that "wishcasting" a conviction will happen prior to the general election is not wise, as there are too many variables making it less and less likely that a jury will see closing arguments in sufficient time. Those of us that are actively working for a Biden victory can't make any assumptions and must work even harder to make it happen.
All of that said, Chris, either believe in the trends the polls are highlighting or don't, but cherrypicking to match your narrative isn't the sort of journalism we expect from you.
Larry went hard in the paint on Chris here!!!! And I agree some w the general sentiment, but also, I think that what Chris is trying to cement in our brains is that this will be a close election.
Are there any of us here who expect a landslide Biden win? If so, I would love to share such an optimistic stance.
It's going to be tight, maybe not super-tight( or maybe super-tight - hell, I'm not sure) , but this certainly isn't going to be Reagan/Mondale either.
I like Chris and his writing, don’t get me wrong! All I’m asking for is consistency, nothing more. If you’re going to put so much “weight” into polling, then you need to watch *all* of the non-partisan and reliably administered polls for trending there.
Chris puts *way* more weight into polling than many of the sharpest analysts I follow here on Substack (Jay Kuo of The Status Kuo, Jonathan V. Last, Andrew Egger, and Bill Kristol of The Bulwark, etc), so I expect him to change his opinions when the polling indicates a trend in a slightly different direction than he anticipated.
In my mind, the idea ISN’T to come up with a perspective THEN find a poll that reinforces that perspective, but to look at ALL the evidence (polls, etc) and THEN determine what perspective best fits the evidence. That’s what empirical analysis means, whether in science, politics, or other areas of thought.
And I read another interesting take on polling from Simon Rosenberg at The Hopium Chronicles. Admittedly, given that Simon is a Democratic strategist, I would take his comments with a grain of salt, but he had a very good point that is a clear contradiction to Chris’s perspective. He quotes the 14 new polls this week, showing Biden ahead of Trump, and specifically cautions against taking the Wall Street Journal’s poll too seriously, given that WSJ is owned by Rupert Murdoch and is *clearly* “Republican aligned”.
I couldn’t agree more!! When certain polls *consistently* lean more heavily towards Republicans and are proven wrong in actual voting (the only “polling” that truly matters!), then you *must* lower their value in the averages. When a polling company like Rasmussen is consistently used by Fox News and others in the right-wing echo chamber, and is consistently overestimating results for Republicans, you simply can’t take them seriously.
Sorry, but WSJ being a Murdoch-owned “Republican-aligned” organization makes me *immediately* skeptical of their “findings”. That it was the ONLY poll that Chris quoted is precisely why I’ve said that he’s picking his “facts” in order to support his hypothesis.
Having studied 4 semesters of Logic at University (on my way to a BA in Philosophy), I can spot a logical fallacy a mile away! Admittedly, those courses were *decades* ago, but Logic isn’t really a hotbed of contemporary thought, where perspectives change over time….
What Biden needs to do is build a "coalition of the sane." Create ads in which , for example, (1)Trump talks about pardoning the people he calls "the heroes of 1/6" and show the carnage these miscreants left behind (2) Trump talked about drinking bleach or shining lights internally to combat Covid; (3) various former Trump officials talk about his incompetence and lack of knowledge (e.g., Esper, Kelly, Christie, Tillerson, Barr, Bolton, Farrah-Griffin). These are the sorts of things that motivate the never-Trumpers. That segment can swing the election. They need to be convinced that voting for Biden is the only hope to restore sanity
It's not "wishcasting" to state the fact, as William Kristol and Andrew Egger of the Bulwark did this morning...that despite the "protest vote" in WI.....
https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/mike-johnsons-ukraine-trap
"...nearly 48,000 who did (about 8 percent) more than doubled their goal of surpassing Biden’s 2020 margin of victory over Donald Trump in Wisconsin.
But the 89 percent of the Democratic vote Biden took in Wisconsin was better than Trump did anywhere last night: 79 percent in Connecticut, 82 percent in New York, 84 percent in Rhode Island, 79 percent in Wisconsin. These are remarkably soft numbers for a now-unopposed candidate, especially given the fact that—unlike on the Democratic side—there’s zero ongoing organized Republican effort to use the primaries to send Trump a message. A fifth or so of GOP voters are still just showing up to pull the lever for somebody else instead."
TRUMP is the one who constantly is wishcasting when (as Chris cited) swing state polls are all within the margin and totaling between 87 & 93 points, meaning a substantial "undecided" while constantly proclaiming that he is "way ahead" of President Biden.
Polls are NOT like voting. It is not "wishcasting" to observe that Trump is suffering some very soft support within his own party when the actual voting takes place.
That is my exact point!
"And I can’t imagine there is anything that could happen between now and November that would change those facts." Oh, so you're going to stop posting?
I have been curious about the people not voting for Trump in the GOP Primaries and what it all means. In New York, which is a closed primary, 18 percent of voters still showed up to show their displeasure with the nominee.
Given that everyone freaked out over the uncommitted vote in Michigan, Trump's ceiling being consistently capped around 80 percent is not a great sign.
Yes, it’s not easy to change parties to vote in a primary in NY. I did it to vote against Elise Stefanik for her opponent. That’s not going so well, but I did take the opportunity to vote for Nikki Haley yesterday.
It used to be worse. You used to have to change before a general election and it would take effect afterwards. Now, you just have to change before a primary or general election. It’s not something you do on a whim.
But one fact you might be overlooking Chris is that Cheeto Don has not won anything since 2016. The votes that he lost in 2018, 2020 and 2022 are somewhat unprecedented.
I think that at the end of the day, Americans are going to not want to have 4 more years of chaos.
The vast majority of Trump supporters are low..very low..almost zero..information voters. If TFG shot someone on 42nd avenue, they would likely never hear about it, but if they did their preferred news feeds would tell them Trump was a hero who was, single-handedly, fighting off an army of marauding illegal immigrants. Sad.
If American take the threat of a second Donald J Trump term seriously, and vote as though their democracy depends on it(because it does) then President Joe Biden will win a second term. If folks sit it out because they somehow think that Trump won’t win, we’ll see 2016 all over again. Remember the sick feeling you had on the day following the election in 2016…..and vote like you never want to feel that again. Trump can lose if we the people kick him to the curb.
Oh now Chris we shouldn't be concerned about Trump's 20% protest vote against him in Wisconsin . But you were gleefully waiting for the number and percentage of protest votes against Biden per your yesterday's post. Now that the protest vote is less than 10% against Biden and some 20%(about 100,000) against Trump, there should be no concern for the Trump's team. Just imagine that Biden's protest votes were close to 100,000, the talking and writing heads would be saying oh, Biden defeated Trump by some 20,000 votes in 2020 and he is losing some 100,000 Democrat's votes, therefore Biden is doomed.But now that the reverse is the case, Trump's team should not be concerned and those who genuinely point this out like( Adam Kissinger) is "wishcasting"according to Chris. IMO, Adam Kissinger(a seasoned politician) is not wishcasting but saying the obvious. He did not say Trump is doomed but rather pointing out Trump's obvious weaknesses.
Oh by the way,Chris you got the WSJ's polls in Wisconsin WRONG. It's not a tie , (46 to 46) you probably wish it is a tie but it is not. Biden is leading Trump by 3 points there . Even though II don't believe in those phony polls.
I see the sense of what you're saying here, Chris--no wish casting!-- but I DO disagree with your statement:
"And I can’t imagine there is anything that could happen between now and November that would change these facts."
I think there's plenty that can change. Trump is walking a razor-thin line between a heart attack and a bankruptcy. It's a rocky road ahead for DJT.