Who is the Dick Cheney/Liz Cheney constituency though? Whose opinion will be swayed by the former VP of a deeply unpopular administration at its end? Or by a former Congresswoman with a infamous last name?
This is a nice-to-have for Democrats, but is it actually moving the needle with voters? Is it actually changing minds or increasing turnout? Harris and her advisors certainly think so, she's out there campaigning with Cheney actively, but where is the movement in the numbers, cause I'm not seeing it.
Yes. She could be capitalizing on popular progressive ideas, like healthcare or lowering grocery prices. These ideas have traction with groups beyond just leftists. She could have run an Obama style campaign, rather than be Biden 2.0. Instead we get Cheneys and "opportunity economy" for small business owners.
There are far more progressives than there are conservatives.
Doubt. Gallup has 48% of Americans identifying has Republican or Republican leaning. Unless you're telling me that self identifying Republicans are not conservative, but are in fact made up of mostly "moderates" or secret progressives, I don't know how else you came to this conclusion.
There might even be more progressives than there are moderates.
That's a comfortable lead no matter how you spin it.
My brother in anti-Trumpism, the only spin here is yours in saying her lead is comfortable.
Your original OpEd focused on national polling, so that's what I responded to. But yes, ignore the national polling, focus on the swing states, the electoral college is what counts.
From the same WaPo article as your picture is this swing state focused chart:
It shows the 2020 polling error, which was largely in Trump's favor in swing states (other than GA). If the same polling error still exists now in 2024, all that comfort disappears. The polling error was even greater in Trump's favor in 2016, however was in Obama's favor in 2012.
The point not being that Trump will outperform the polls this time, but that margins of error matter, and the reality could swing either way. With polling in so many states being within the margins, we're likely seeing the closest election of our lifetimes.
And all this isn't meant to be doom and gloom, but I ain't going into this election with Clinton levels of comfort, again. You're absolutely right on the game plan though. If you live in any of these states, your vote this time will likely be more consequential than it ever will be.
Just two days out he even had her probability of winning at just 64.2%, still better odds than what we're seeing for Harris right now. And you're right, he was the only reputable poll aggregator who was making downward adjustments of that magnitude, that late in the race.
I've been feeling the same way for years now. I think the course of Canadian politics massively changed for the worse from his passing. Though I never thought of it as a real inflection point until years later.
His political activities include social media comments that "appear to reflect antisemitic and anti-immigration themes" and "espouse political violence". Pretty shit political beliefs, if you want to call them that.
Was shit perfect? Fuck no, but there was comfort in appearance of civilized debate. You could disagree with a politician, family member, or even stranger without calling their entire world view into question. I can remember when we agreed on the facts, and just disagreed on whose solution was best to fix the problem.
Endless daily headlines, stupid shit said hourly, think of all the coverage, all the outrage, all the clicks! Who needs democracy anyways if we've got ad revenue?
You forgot the part where they were literally given a pandemic playbook and they choose to actively ignore its existence, with some republicans even claiming it didn't exist.
What you just described is basically a statistical tie and worse odds than what 538 (regardless of it no longer being Nate Silver's original model) gave Hillary to win in 2016.
Hillary lost despite winning the popular vote by a +2% spread
Biden won with a 4.5% spread in the popular vote
Obama won by 7% and reelected by ~4%
It's not just that Democrats need to win big to shut the other side up, they need to win big just to overcome their inherent disadvantage in the electoral college.
With Kamala sitting around 2.2% nationally on average, being within the margin of error of the states she needs to win, and her momentum seemingly stalled for the reasons you listed, Democrats should be worried.
As someone who would vote for her, or just about anyone who is not Donald Trump, I hate this.
Goddamn the Acolyte was rough