2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[viper37]

.the thing about black women registering to vote in record numbers and all that..

It depends where they register.

If they are black women from New York and New Jersey registering to vote, it doesn't mean much.
If they are black women from Atlanta Georgia, it might help more.

[Barrister]

I've seen a couple of polls recently suggesting that Trump is only a point or two ahead in Florida. Probably just wishful thinking but could it be in play?

So the 538 model has Trump up 3 points.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2024/florida/

Is it possible for Harris to win Florida?  Sure.  But that would reflect either a pervasive polling error or a few points, or a decisive shift towards Harris in the last few weeks.

Things like heavy advertising, ground game, strong GOTV efforts - I think the wisdom is that can move a race by 0.5-1% (but also remembering your opponent is doing the same thing).

Florida would be a game-changer - but because it's so large it means making a play for Florida would be extremely expensive.

But it is fun to think that in 2000 Florida was a battleground state, while now it's safely Republican.  Or hell go back to JImmy Carter's 1976 election, where he largely won on the strength of the Dixiecrat south.

[OttoVonBismarck]

If I was betting (and I have before, but don't now) on this election I think there is a much stronger chance of Kamala flipping NC than Florida. There is an element of demographic drift ongoing--NC & GA are States where the core demographic "story" has been steadily trending towards Democrats for a really long time. GA was actually the redder of the two states even 10 years ago, but kind of overtook NC. But both states are states where it is obvious both parties remain viable--a Democrat has won the Governor's mansion 2x in a row in NC and looks likely to have a successor be a Dem as well, but Republicans have won the EC every year since 2016 and every Senate race since then as well.

Meanwhile, GA has consistently been electing Republicans to statewide office but when you count all the off-cycle special elections, has had like 3 Senate elections in a row go for Democrats and Biden flipped the state in the EC for either the first time since Carter or the first time since maybe Clinton in '92.

Florida on the other hand was just a very purple state 20 years ago and even 15 years ago, but its demographic story is different. The fastest growing demographic group in Florida, which is fairly unique to the State, is whites over age 65. It is a retirement destination state. As a rule this is making Florida less and less amenable to Democrats. There are also other factors at play, historically Democrats have done well with most Hispanic groups in Florida, albeit Republicans were often able to win the Cuban vote. These days Republicans dominate in the Cuban vote, but also a number of other Hispanic demos (but a lot of this is due to the reality that a lot of Hispanics in Florida are also something else--e.g. they identify as white people and many are over 65, so some of the shift just is because the Hispanic demographic has never been well-bounded.)

[Barrister]

If I was betting (and I have before, but don't now) on this election I think there is a much stronger chance of Kamala flipping NC than Florida. There is an element of demographic drift ongoing--NC & GA are States where the core demographic "story" has been steadily trending towards Democrats for a really long time. GA was actually the redder of the two states even 10 years ago, but kind of overtook NC. But both states are states where it is obvious both parties remain viable--a Democrat has won the Governor's mansion 2x in a row in NC and looks likely to have a successor be a Dem as well, but Republicans have won the EC every year since 2016 and every Senate race since then as well.

I mean no offence, but that's hardly rocket science.  NC and GA are easily the two most vulnerable states that are projected to go for Trump this time around (and heck - Georgia did go for Biden in 2020).

https://www.natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model

[OttoVonBismarck]

The problem w/NC is it has kinda sent indicators like that in elections since 2018 but GOP keep winning all the Senate / Presidentials there in spite of it, so I'm not sold on it until I see it actually happen.

[Barrister]

The problem w/NC is it has kinda sent indicators like that in elections since 2018 but GOP keep winning all the Senate / Presidentials there in spite of it, so I'm not sold on it until I see it actually happen.

For sure.

It's like Texas.  It probably is going to flip Democratic at some point in the future (flip side - Minnesota will probably flip Republican some day), but until it actually happens it's a mighty dangerous thing to rely on.  Until it does though parties will be tempted to throw away money chasing some rather unlikely wins - think how much money Beto O'Rourke got only to lose to Ted Cruz.

The real issue with NC is the hurricane - who knows how that will effect things.

[Valmy]

The problem w/NC is it has kinda sent indicators like that in elections since 2018 but GOP keep winning all the Senate / Presidentials there in spite of it, so I'm not sold on it until I see it actually happen.

But the Democrats have held the Governors mansion over the same period.

Obviously North Carolina and Georgia are the states the Democrats need to focus on in the short term. Tons of House seats are also up for grabs there if they can capture the statehouses before 2030.

Texas and Florida are longer term projects. Texas requires one more big shift to really be in play. But right now we can consistently be within 10% in most elections. Not great, but far from the 30 point whippings we used to take.

[Valmy]

But it is fun to think that in 2000 Florida was a battleground state, while now it's safely Republican.  Or hell go back to JImmy Carter's 1976 election, where he largely won on the strength of the Dixiecrat south.

Yeah but also in every election from 1972 until 1984 the entire west coast went safely Republican with Oregon and Washington not switching over until 1988. And frankly it was just a different world before right wing talk radio got going and created the different media eco-systems. Before that the Republicans or Democrats could get massive landslides because everybody was living in the same reality, it was just which party could produce the better pitch for solving problems. Now nobody even agrees on what are problems.

I mean the right wing has been going on and on and on about immigration and border security for decades, this is not something I feel particularly strongly about, and they never have had one serious policy proposal on how to fix it besides absurd things like turning the border into a walled off warzone. This is not a situation where both parties agree there is a serious problem and they are both coming up with policy proposals on how to fix it. It is just something to scare voters with. The Republicans are under no actual pressure to fix it and they won't. It is just a useful propaganda tool. That kind of thing wasn't around in 1972.

As for Florida, Covid was a huge win for them there. It is theirs until they fuck it up.

[Barrister]

But it is fun to think that in 2000 Florida was a battleground state, while now it's safely Republican.  Or hell go back to JImmy Carter's 1976 election, where he largely won on the strength of the Dixiecrat south.

Yeah but also in every election from 1972 until 1984 the entire west coast went safely Republican with Oregon and Washington not switching over until 1988. And frankly it was just a different world before right wing talk radio got going and created the different media eco-systems. Before that the Republicans or Democrats could get massive landslides because everybody was living in the same reality, it was just which party could produce the better pitch for solving problems. Now nobody even agrees on what are problems.

I mean the right wing has been going on and on and on about immigration and border security for decades, this is not something I feel particularly strongly about, and they never have had one serious policy proposal on how to fix it besides absurd things like turning the border into a walled off warzone. This is not a situation where both parties agree there is a serious problem and they are both coming up with policy proposals on how to fix it. It is just something to scare voters with. The Republicans are under no actual pressure to fix it and they won't. It is just a useful propaganda tool. That kind of thing wasn't around in 1972.

As for Florida, Covid was a huge win for them there. It is theirs until they fuck it up.

I think "blaming right wing radio" is grossly over-simplifying things.

You mentioned the west coast being safely Republican.  Rush Limbaugh and his ilk didn't turn California blue.

I mentioned the "dixiecrat south" - for generations after the Civil War the south was solidly Democratic (since the Republicans were the "party of Lincoln".  That shift started in the 1980s (the term was "Reagan democrat") and only solidified by what - 2000?  (Clinton was able to win some southern states).

Immigration is hard - illegal immigration doubly so.  I never heard many serious policy proposals from democrats to fix it either.  Democrats either ignored the issue, or just went hostile to the idea of immigration enforcement (sanctuary cities), or just tinkered around the worst edges (Obama's Dream Act).  Actually the only serious attempt at immigration reform I can recall since the 1980s was from George W Bush - which promptly got shot down from both sides.

[Josquius]

The solution to illegal immigration on the American border seems pretty clear to me - invest in Mexico and Central America.
Make them safer, wealthier places from which there isn't half as much of a desire to flee.

But it definitely seems true that the American right, much like people here, vastly overstate how much it an issue it actually is.

As to the dem/republican flip... I'm not too sure on giving Reagen much credit here. The trends were already developing there. Reagen just popped up at the right time to exploit the shift.

[Grey Fox]

There are easier steps too. Add categories and numbers to the green card system.

[Valmy]

I think "blaming right wing radio" is grossly over-simplifying things.

You mentioned the west coast being safely Republican.  Rush Limbaugh and his ilk didn't turn California blue.

I mentioned the "dixiecrat south" - for generations after the Civil War the south was solidly Democratic (since the Republicans were the "party of Lincoln".  That shift started in the 1980s (the term was "Reagan democrat") and only solidified by what - 2000?  (Clinton was able to win some southern states).

Right Wing Talk Radio was the start of it. Once it was profitable it exploded from there.

That shift happened well before the 1980s. It started with the New Deal in the 1930s, that was the first time black Americans started to vote Democratic, and unraveled in 1968 with it only lingering on for a bit thanks to the aging Yellow Dogs. Look at 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968, and 1972. 1976 was an anomaly, the dixiecrat south hadn't been solid since 1944 and even then Carter lost Virginia. The shift started the second Truman integrated the military. "Reagan Democrats" were left wing boomer hippies who shifted rightwards not Southerners.

Immigration is hard - illegal immigration doubly so.  I never heard many serious policy proposals from democrats to fix it either.  Democrats either ignored the issue, or just went hostile to the idea of immigration enforcement (sanctuary cities), or just tinkered around the worst edges (Obama's Dream Act). Actually the only serious attempt at immigration reform I can recall since the 1980s was from George W Bush - which promptly got shot down from both sides.

Practically it is actually quite easy. You have the policies actually line up with the labor needs of the economy, you cannot legislate it so people are not going to follow their interests. There are dozens of ways we might do it.

Politically it is not. There are reasons neither party will do that. For the Democrats it would be passing legislation allowing for cheap immigrant labor that work for less than minimum wage. That is not something they would ever allow, at least not officially. So what they do is simply blandly enforce the existing laws. And every once in a while do little things their base would like, like the DREAM act.

As for Sanctuary Cities being some kind of widespread Democratic platform designed to end enforcement of immigration is ridiculous. I don't know where you got that idea from. The idea was to help local enforcement be able to operate in their cities without having to suffer the consequences of the Feds failed policies. And Rick Perry, my former governor, was in favor of them before his base freaked out. Last I checked he was not a Democrat. Democrats mostly run the cities and those mayors want law and order so they can get re-elected. That is why they wanted sanctuary cities, not out of some national strategy to end enforcement of immigration laws.

And yes I was a big fan of Dubya's immigration policies and very excited to see them put into action but his own party betrayed him. The Democrats don't like guest workers for obvious reasons unless they get paid minimum wage and all that. And no serious effort has been done to fix it since.

But here is the issue: Democratic voters for the most part do not care about this issue. They are fine with immigrants but also fine with illegal immigrants being deported. Or not. Whatever. Outside of immigrant activist groups of course who have to have a bone tossed their way from time to time. Democratic voters were not all up in arms about Obama being the "deporter in chief" or Biden also deported massive amounts of people.

For Republicans this is one of their main issues. They constantly and loudly demand action, big serious profound action. They consider this issue an existential threat and a huge security and social order issue. There are billboards all over Texas demanding action or our doom as a civilization is surely imminent. But they do nothing at all about it. And the Democrats have basically said they are willing to pass whatever the Republicans want on this issue, because again this is not a huge issue for them, and the Republicans still have nothing. The Republicans controlled the House, Senate, and White House with a guy who specifically promised to build a wall and yet no wall was built. And the wall was not mentioned until the Democrats had taken control of the House and Senate. It was a political, just like claiming the Democrats are for "open borders". They aren't but this is a good issue to stir up rage and fear and get elected, so why solve it?

So to portray it as some kind of "both sides" thing when one side doesn't care that much while the other side makes this their main issue is rather absurd. It would be like if nothing was ever done for environmental protection, gay rights, and worker rights even when the Democrats were in charge and I decided the Republicans were equally at fault...even though they are at best neutral on those issues if not hostile.

[OttoVonBismarck]

First place to start on immigration is simple—no more Muslims. Muslim non-citizens sent home. Muslim citizens who praise Hamas, jailed.

[Valmy]

I will say that with Trump and the Republicans now demanding that legal immigrants be deported that might be a bridge too far and we might see the Democrats finally start to take action on this issue.

Maybe. I never want to get my hopes up.

[Valmy]

First place to start on immigration is simple—no more Muslims. Muslim non-citizens sent home. Muslim citizens who praise Hamas, jailed.

Well simple for you.

But for some reason Christian Haitians and Latinos seem to be the main source of fear.