2024 US Presidential Elections Megathread

[Barrister]

I have to say I don't understand why Harris is wasting time ass-kissing the old former GOP establishment. Any Republican non-tribal enough to ever consider voting Democrat has already decided to do so, but having fun and laughs with the old Republicans both Democrats and current Trumpist Republicans hate... what's the point?

This won't be the first election in recent years ruined by the mirage-hunting for the mythical moderate Right, extinct since at least 2016.

It's a knife's edge election that could go either way.

There may not be a massive number of moderate undecided Republicans - but they vote.  So if you can peel off enough - those become both one extra vote for Harris, but one less for Trump, so a two-vote swing.

So whereas you can try to go fishing amongst unlikely voters, it's well hard.

Plus the campaigns (well at least the Dems) have a lot of polling and focus groups that aren't released publicly - they must have some reason to think having Harris campaign with Liz Cheney will be effective.

[The Minsky Moment]

I have to say I don't understand why Harris is wasting time ass-kissing the old former GOP establishment. Any Republican non-tribal enough to ever consider voting Democrat has already decided to do so, but having fun and laughs with the old Republicans both Democrats and current Trumpist Republicans hate... what's the point?

This won't be the first election in recent years ruined by the mirage-hunting for the mythical moderate Right, extinct since at least 2016.

Something like 98% of the voting public is decided and not moving no matter what happens.  Harris could have a massive mental breakdown and spend the rest of the campaign reading Das Kapital in Bulgarian and her base will still vote for her to stop Trump. And we already know the Trump voters are committed because he already done far worse and weirder than that.

So the election comes down to:
1) Whose voters turnout.
2) Who can get the tiny sliver of 2% that isn't committed.  Which is mostly oddballs, some traditional Dem voters who are pissed off at the party (e.g. over Gaza, taking minority vote X for granted) and true never Trumpers who still have residual resistance to pulling the Democrat lever.  The last category may be vanishingly small at this point but every increment counts.

[Barrister]

There was a small but noticeable number of voters who went for Trump in 16 and Biden in 20.  Harris needs to make sure they vote for her.

[Sheilbh]

I have to say I don't understand why Harris is wasting time ass-kissing the old former GOP establishment. Any Republican non-tribal enough to ever consider voting Democrat has already decided to do so, but having fun and laughs with the old Republicans both Democrats and current Trumpist Republicans hate... what's the point?

This won't be the first election in recent years ruined by the mirage-hunting for the mythical moderate Right, extinct since at least 2016.

It's also another thing that just feels worryingly like 2016. I know it gets a lot of mentions but on Past Present Future the host did express his surprise that one of Walz's (obviously scripted) lines to close the debate was something along the lines of people with views from Dick Cheney to Bernie Sanders were backing Harris.

It feels like the sort of line that sounds good in a room full of people interested in politics - it's a Pod Save America gag. But move outside those circles, there's a lot of people who don't like Dick Cheney and/or Bernie Sanders and I'm not sure necessarily see them uniting on an issue as necessarily a good thing.

I think the energy around Harris was in her effectiveness at taking over the campaign and Walz - it was in moments when she was trying to and managing to excite Democrats. And, for whatever reason, there's been a strategic decision not to tap into that but pitch to the centre and refocus the campaign on Trump as a threat (like Biden, successfully, and Clinton). It might work, I'm not sure it's the right choice. I don't want to say, to nick Willie Whitelaw's line, that they're going round the country stirring up apathy but it doesn't feel far off it.