gmr548

Debates do not and will not matter. Public opinion polling has consistently shown Trump as a decisive loser in every presidential debate he's participated in. They fade in the news cycle like everything else and everything can see what poo flinging shit shows they've become. If they debate, Biden will crush Trump, and it won't matter.

Republican incompetence in its implementation gives me more solace than the Democrats' willingness/ability to frame and attack it for what it is, or the American public's or appetite to recognize and reject it. Sad place to be. 46% of the electorate will vote for this, whether out of malice or ignorance; just as 46% of the electorate voted for the less well articulated version of it in 2016 and 2020. Whether that's enough, who knows?

11am road game at Arkansas is great. Piglets do not have all day to tailgate and the environment will not be as rowdy (at least at first); and for most of us watching on TV, game is first thing.

What we know as Texas was very literally founded by carpetbagging white bois that weren't too fond of brown folks. Seems to fit the mold.

Until you lose good talent over draconian policy

Tuition hikes at public colleges are directly correlated with state funding cuts. In Texas, that ratio is actually < 100%; i.e. universities have increased tuition by less than funding losses. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fancy-dorms-arent-the-main-reason-tuition-is-skyrocketing/

It's pretty well documented that this is a myth.

We're all losing our minds as of the first incompletion against Colorado State and you know that.

If this is what they are reaching for to fire up the outrage machine things may look pretty bleak to FOX.

We recently relocated out of Texas and I really wish we did this. We got rid of a decent amount of our belongings but still brought some furniture, kitchen gear, clothes, etc. Pain in my assholes. /Borat. Considering the time/effort that goes into packing/loading then doing the reverse, cost of transport, and the fact that we beat PODS up here by like a week, it would have been more cost effective to lose nearly everything.

That still makes sense though, because the trend of educated voters making up a higher proportion of the electorate in specials isn't because all of the same people that show up for a general election show up- there are fewer voters with college degrees too - it's because everyone else's participation falls off an even bigger cliff. That's how you get a very small piece of the general electorate in a district like this exercising hugely disproportionate influence in a special. Will be interesting to see the voter demographics if anyone is reliably tracking them.

Silver & co. were pretty consistent in 2016 in saying a 70-whatever percent chance of a Clinton victory in their model is not at all a sure thing and a Trump win was very plausible. They were basically the only outlet that wasn't treating the election as a foregone conclusion and the only modelers that didn't have Clinton at like 95%. Texas was favored against OU and UW and was an underdog against Alabama. Play those games again in the same settings and the same teams would be favored (though it would be more like Alabama -2 or -3 than -7 or whatever it was). Clinton was favored for a reason but underdogs win sometimes. As usual, wrong. Democrats have absolutely been overperforming in low turnout elections since the start of the Trump era, because college educated voters do make up a greater portion of the electorate in midterms and especially special elections, and those voters have shifted notably toward Democrats. This is well documented. Olds do vote at higher rates. Disparities still exist along the typical lines - education, race, etc. - but controlling for all that, olds do still vote at higher rates. Always have.

Been off Surly for a while but my wife ended up accepting that job offer and started in late May. We hit the road out of Houston a month ago and are renting in Greenwood in North Seattle. Glad we went with this location because the neighborhood is great and wife's job, which has started off really well, is much more flexible in terms of remote work than initially expected. It's been a whirlwind making a cross country move on the quick and dirty side but we're starting to get settled in. Have some family and friends coming to visit over the next couple weeks so that will be nice. Eventually I need to join a basketball league and go to some networking/education events in my industry to get out and actually meet some new people. Have work travel to Texas in July so I'm sure I will get absolutely wrecked without any kind of usual heat acclimation.

Might be older too

Wait, okay, I'll bite; what's the issue with Jokic?

Bad comp. Pretty sure cats have their humans domesticated, not the other way around.

This ignores demographic differences between states. The shifts that theoretically pull a GA or a NV into the R column may or may not have much of an impact in 80%+ white and much older states like WI, MI, and PA; and could even cause drift in the opposite direction. I think GA goes narrowly R this cycle. I think NV does too. I know @Js1 will roast me for that but the GOP has had some intermittent success in NV over the past decade, most recently a Governor's race in 2022, and the coalitions that delivered each state for Biden appear to have legitimate fractures. AZ is a complete wildcard. Fundamentally it's not far from NV but the prominence of abortion an the absolute toxicity of the state GOP bring it back into tossup category. Gallego is also a strong Senate candidate and his campaign could elevate Biden a bit. I don't see Trump finding 100k+ votes in MI or PA, even with the mess in Gaza. WI is one of the 2-3 legitimately 50-50 states in the country and could go either way, but Democrats there have been on a roll and have a generational opportunity at the state level. I think it will ultimately come down to WI and AZ. I think Biden needs both because Trump will put pressure on NE to go winner take all, the state level GOP will give in very late in the cycle and ram it through in a special session, and Maine will not have the ability or the appetite to respond in kind. Senate goes GOP 51-49 and the House is Democratic - not by a huge margin but more cushion than the GOP has now.

Your wife needs to keep an eye on her voter registration from now until the election.

It's an across the board phenomenon. Anecdotally, multifamily kinda sorta maybe seems to be moderating but it's too early to say with any confidence, and I wouldn't apply that claim nationally - sorry Gulf Coast, CA, etc.

This is part of it for teenagers. A big thing for the older under 30s is that we're living in unprecedented times in terms of educational and professional opportunity for women. To be frank, women can have standards now and that hasn't been the case for most of human history. An able bodied young man who isn't an enormous prick and has a steady income will do fine. There not actuallythat many young men who clear all three of those bars.

I mean if you want to talk about broad appeal, is there a better broad description for this country than the bolded?

Electorally elder Gen Xers have pretty consistently delivered the biggest margins for Republicans in recent years. Similar to how Millennials are overwhelmingly Democratic but you wouldn't know from in this chart, that independent bloc is full of consistent Republican voters.

You are right, I crossed early and late in my mind. Should have said early Gen X'er (i.e. came of age under Reagan as opposed to Bush I or Clinton). Though as a whole Gen X is still the most conservative generation out there, for all the shit boomers get.

He is career business/finance academic and a late Gen X'er (the most conservative generational cohort in the country) who came of age during the Reagan revolution. There was the whole working with Dan Patrick on the Liberty Institute bit - though given it didn't go anywhere it seems like he was just humoring the politicians who wanted to get involved in a flavor of the month crusade. I doubt he is some mouth breathing, election denying, texags dipshit and prior to this week has always seemed to handle himself professionally - not injecting politics into his job - at least from what I can tell as an unconnected observer. But simple demographic probability and his track record at UT suggest it's unlikely he is any kind of progressive.