Tuco

Yes. Sorry. Tired math. Yes, the implication is there is a 160k dem advantage, but that implication is wrong because D+R does not equal 480k. -Shit. Nevermind. I just need to stop for a while.

It's also misleading. 478k ballots with a 2:1 Dem advantage makes people think that Dems have a 300k 160k advantage in ballots. They have a 74k ballot advantage, assuming no party and minor split evenly. Granted, he posted the party registrations, but the text is kind of bullshit. Nevermind. I'm wrong.

Ballots returned as a percentage of ballots requested: Party - Dems 82%, Rep 70.6%, No Party: 72.6%. Age - 18-24 : 65/3% - 25-34 : 69.7% - 35-44 : 73.5% - 45-55 : 75.6% - 56 to 65: 80.5% - 66+ : 85.1% link At this point, any mail in ballots should be deposited directly at drop boxes.

Either "no reporters" just means no recording devices, or Ernest has someone on the inside feeding him info. He seems like an established journalists, so I think the info is reasonably trustworthy.

I think there is certainly a possibility of a realignment, with some transitional period where a third party is generated, pulling significantly from both the conservative Dems and never-Trump Republicans - sort of the old guard. In Omaha, this is sort of thing is happening now. Kara Eastman is running as a progressive challenger to Republican Don Bacon. In 2016, Bacon had defeated Brad Ashford, a centrist Dem who had previously been a Republican. In 2018, Kara beat Brad in a close primary. In the 2020 primary, Brad's wife Ann Ashford was throttled by Kara, in roughly a 2:1 margin. A couple of weeks ago Brad endorsed Bacon against Kara. Earlier this summer, County Attorney Don Kleine, a registered Dem, decided not to press charges against a bar owner who had killed a black protester and claimed self defense. He was pressured into calling a grand jury, which indicted the bar owner. Eastman had called out the killing of the protester. Kleine criticized her for it. Now Bacon is running ads with an endorsement from Ashford and the criticism from Kleine. Kleine has even publicly stated he voted for Trump. It is definitely an old conservative white guy faction (both R and D) against the progressive Dem. Granted, I think a lot of this personal rather than policy, but there is a cultural difference that will lead to personal rifts. I could see that kind of dynamic happening on the local level elsewhere, and nationally. If the Dems win the White House, the Senate, and the House, there will be a lot of in-fighting on what needs to be fought for. That will put a lot of pressure on any existing cracks in the party. I think the progressives win control of the party. They are making too much money to be ignored. It is a little ironic.

In NE-1 (Lincoln + some Eastern Nebraska, except Omaha), Kate Bolz (D) always had a big uphill battle against Fortenberry (aka Googly-eyes Fartenberry). She has maybe a chance if a blue tsunami carries her. Last week she caught the Covid, and has significant symptoms. She is relatively young and in good shape, so chances of recovery are good. But damn, it sucks with all of the effort and stress of running for a Congressional seat, only to get a hammered in the final push with an illness that saps your energy and prevents you from directly interacting with your staff or the public. Tough way to finish the campaign.

If there is a major swing from the polls, either way, I think it's going to be because the turnout models are off. I don't either side are pretending to be undecided when called by pollsters. But, if young voters or minority voters don't turn out like the models assume, Trump may win. If young voters and minority voters turn out at higher rates than the models assume, it's Biden in a landslide. I think every indication in early voting is that this is going to be a huge turnout election. It's just a question of who is turning out. I try to avoid reading too much into EV breakdowns, but every state I spot checked had women early voting at significantly higher rates than men. In Texas, it's 54 to 45. Arizona is 49 to 43. (I'm guessing they are pulling gender off of first names, so some uncertainty.) Ohio 52/42. Florida 55/45. I think that is a good thing.

I wonder how much of that has to do with trying to win back blue collar voters. Not only are a lot of them indoctrinated with anti-Clinton bullshit, there are the legitimate complaints over NAFTA. Against a regular free-trade type Republican, it wouldn't be a big deal, but against Trump it's a liability.

This was Gorsuch's statement when they denied the extension of Wisconsin vote-by-mail receive date: To me that is an explicit statement that the federal courts should be interpreting how the state law is being applied. It doesn't matter that the state officials (SOS) or state judges (Texas SC) have decided it should be allowed. The Feds have stated they will determine if the application of the law is meeting how the law was written. In the end, it would just an egregious denial of voting rights to toss 100k votes, and I doubt it would happen, but I don't see how you can be confident that the Feds will just say "states' rights" and walk away from it.

Scanning through the last 12 hours of posts on this thread....it looks like the manufactured Hunter-gate has predictably fizzled.

Why give Pete HUD? Of all of his policy points I agreed with him during the debates, I can think of any that dealt with low income housing or urban housing. My preferences would be: 1. Secretary of Defense: The dude has a background in military and management consulting. One of his main pushes during the campaign was working on way to extract ourselves from perpetual war. I would love to see what he could do about streamlining the military and preparing for a post-war defense. And sure, having an openly gay man as the civilian head of the military would send a signal that we aren't going to give credence to gay stereotypes. 2. Secretary of State: He doesn't really have the experience for this one, but I thought his statements on the nature of our competition with China were good. Something about how focusing on who sells more washing machines was completely outdated. And, diplomacy will be part of ending perpetual war. 3. ...Energy maybe. He did talk a lot about engaging rural America and environmental solutions. I'm not nearly as excited about that.

Fucking hell. Washington Examiner (which is still shit) is reporting it as well. Fucking racist pieces of shit.

Text looks weird. Seems really short for a proclamation. Not seeing anything in the news on it. Not seeing anything in Trump's twitter vomit. Looks like bullshit.

Ok. I think maybe election day is heavy with the utes, but there does seem to be a disconnect on the 2020 final youth percentage. (Final is EV+election day). NBC is saying 18% of the final 8.92M, which is 1.6M votes., in 2016 Tuffts is saying 1.22M youth, or 13.7% of the 8.92M, in 2016 I am wondering if NBC was including registered voters in their "all voter" demographic. Still, if ~106k voted early in 2016 (per the Mark Elliot tweet) of the 1.22M who would eventually vote, election day had a shitton of youth voting on election day. (Ok, the Elliot tweet did not include the Friday before election day in 2016.) So, to me the bad news is that the youth have not exceeded their 2016 total votes yet. Their EV rates have not exceeded their final rate of 2016. The good news is they frequently wait until election day, and logic tells me that they are less likely to be concerned about COVID issues with voting then. Considering the party affiliation differential currently favoring the Republicans, that's a good thing.

I don’t know where you are only getting 2.2m votes on Election Day in 2016.

If the youth vote was 2% of EV in 2016 and it was up 600%, then it would be roughly 13% without any increase by anyone else. And their EV % would still be less than their % in the total vote on Election Day. It’s possible NBC’s numbers are bad, but there is nothing wrong with the math. The Tufts numbers could imply an issue with what youth % of total is.

Because compared to previous early voting, their turnout is high: (Credit to someone who pm'd me that.)

I'm sure it's up compared to EV in previous years, both in total numbers and as a percentage of EV. But I don't think the percentage of youth vote as a total of EV in 2020 is higher than the 2016 total percentages. And I think that is consistent for other states. Nebraska 18-29 is at 11% total, Wisconsin is 8%, Ohio is 10% (compared to 18% of 2016 vote), Georgia is 13% (compared to 18%). [Not sure of that 18% is the nationwide % of 18-29 in 2016, or it's just consistent between states.]

The NBC tracker indicates 18-29 year olds are 13% of the 8.5M votes. That's the smallest chunk of any age demographic. In 2016, that demographic was 18% of all votes. But, I think younger voters are less likely to be concerned about voting on election day. (The 65+ chunk is currently 27% of EV, but was only 15% of 2016 total.) So who the fuck knows. That age correlation, in Texas and other states, may do a lot to challenge the notion that EV will be primarily Dem and election day will be primarily Rep.

So why is Texas kicking ass on early voting compared to other states? Is the hint of competitiveness bringing out a bunch of people who never vote? Are they pissed at some of the voter suppression fuckery? Was the effort to register new voters more effective than I would have guessed?

Those are minute orders. I need to up my prescription to read them.

As a Husker fan, I should be irritated, but with your early vote totals, I'm pretty much loving everything Texas right now.

I don't think it is limited to that one county. I work with a guy who lives near Philly and he said it took three weeks for a ballot to reach him, from the date it was listed as being sent on the election commission's website. Because of that, he ended up dropping it off at a drop box rather than relying on the mail.

The Dems should be blasting the airways with commercials that if your mail in ballot was lost you should come in and vote a provisional ballot.

Don't know if this one has been posted yet, but NBC's election page is tracking early voting, broken down by age group, party affiliation, and gender. I try to avoid drawing too many conclusions from early voting, so let's just call this speculation for the hell of it. Take it with a huge grain of salt. For example, Pennsylvania - link Comparing mail in ballot requests vs. combo mail-in returned and in-person early voting, the Dems request 63% of the ballots, but have 68% of MI+EV have been Dem. That seems like a good sign, as it could indicate a better Dem turnout on MI votes. Or it could just indicate that a higher percentage of Dems are doing EV, even relative the percent that requested MI. But overall, a good sign. Looking at the gender breakdown, 56% women is a good sign. But it may just reflect more women voting early, rather than voting in total. The biggest head scratcher to me is the total MI+EV compared to their 2016 totals. They are less than 36% of the total 2016 vote. Now, that is an increase of 1400% from MI+EV in 2016, so maybe it is just a massive pain in the ass to do so in Penn. But, (speculating) it may show a lack of effectiveness in the Dems pushing MI+EVs in the state, which is concerning for their effectiveness in total. And certainly mailing issues have been a problem.