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The 2022 Midterm Elections


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14 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

yup. I don't see any reason to have confidence the pollsters have figured out their sampling resistance issues between left and right until they actual start hitting the Dem numbers a little closer to election results. It's not so bad with national numbers but at state and congressional district level blue polling bias has been significant.

Polls are still useful as you can find trends, even if the top line numbers leave you skeptical.

If Marquette does a survey in June showing a 2-point race and one in August that shows a 7-point race, that suggests movement in the environment. Doesnt mean it will stay that way, polls are a snapshot in time. But it does suggest it

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Been wondering this for a while... R candidates have been eschewing traditional media more and more this cycle. And while Fox is a big fish, just purely on numbers, if you are avoiding non-conservative media, you aren't getting your message out as the majority of Americans do not watch these outlets.

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Charlie Sykes, the thought criminal from the completely debunked bougie The Bulwark writes this morning

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Protecting The Donald

The RNC's 2024 mission

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U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) gives a concession speech to supporters during a primary night event on August 16, 2022 in Jackson, Wyoming(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Predictions are always risky, but I think it is safe to say that Brave Sir Donald will never under any circumstances get on a debate stage with Liz Cheney.

Reports Ron Brownstein in the Atlantic: “The general feeling among Republicans I spoke with this week is that the RNC would go to almost absurd lengths to avoid allowing Cheney to appear on the same debate stage as Trump.”

Well, yes. And the key words here are “absurd lengths.”

Let’s break out the popcorn for a moment to imagine the mind of RNC Chairwoman Ronna [Romney] McDaniel circa 2024, as she struggles to shield, coddle, appease, and protect the Orange God King from his 5’3” nemesis.

It’s not that hard, since [Romney] McDaniel has a track record. It’s not beyond her to cancel primaries and caucuses, or even scrap the party’s platform altogether.

So a debate — an actual face to face confrontation between the disgraced, twice impeached, defeated, chronically lying narcissist and his most loathed antagonist — is not going to happen.

“Imagine,” writes the Wapo’s Aaron Blake, “Cheney pressing the case against Trump not just in Jan. 6 committee hearings, but also doing it to his face.”

There is no circle in the MAGA Hell too deep or fetid for an RNC that even thinks about allowing that to happen.

Brownstein talked with our colleague Bill Kristol, who “predicted that the party might try to exclude her by requiring any candidate participating in a RNC-sanctioned debate to commit to supporting the party’s eventual nominee in the general election—something Cheney’s determination to stop Trump would not allow her to do. (In 2016, the RNC imposed such a loyalty oath primarily out of fear that Trump wouldn’t endorse the nominee if he lost. Trump signed it but characteristically renounced it in the race’s latter stage.)”

But the pretext they will use to exclude Cheney isn’t important. If they have to, the pigeon-hearts of the RNC will just make up some other sh*t, because the leash from Mar-a-Lago will be very short and very, very tight.

Make sure you read Brownstein’s whole piece, which lays out what a Cheney 2024 bid would look like. No one, including Cheney herself, thinks she could actually win. It would be a kamikaze mission; but it would be a helluva ride.

“Of course she doesn’t win,” Bill Kristol, the longtime strategist who has become one of Trump’s fiercest conservative critics, told me. But, he added, if Cheney “makes the point over and over again” that Trump represents a unique threat to American democracy and “forces the other candidates to come to grips” with that argument, she “could have a pretty significant effect” on Trump’s chances.

Unlike, say, Joe Walsh or Bill Weld, Cheney’s quixotic bid would be able to muster some formidable firepower. Brownstein writes:

Her name identification is extremely high, for both her familial ties and her prominence as a Trump critic. Her potential fundraising base is strong: Through late July, she had already raised more than $15 million in her House race, and in a presidential run, she could tap into a huge pool of small-dollar donors (many of them Democrats) determined to block Trump. And with her unflinching attacks on the former president, she would be ensured bottomless media coverage.

All of which would give TrumpWorld and the RNC fits. To the surprise of absolutely no one, their reaction will be petulant and petty.

[In] other states—including Iowa and South Carolina—the state party controls whose name can be included on the primary ballot. And in at least some of those places, either the state party or the Republican National Committee, which has subordinated itself to Trump under Chair Ronna [Romney] McDaniel, would likely move to keep Cheney off the ballot as a means of protecting him.

Reeks of confidence and courage doesn’t it?

**

But, if she can’t win (and she can’t) what’s the point of a Cheney presidential bid?

An excellent question that Brownstein posed to a bunch of smart people, including our publisher, Sarah Longwell.

The best-case scenario for the Trump critics if Cheney runs is that her battering-ram attacks weaken him to the point that someone else can capture the nomination. As Longwell told me, even if “Liz likely cannot win a Republican primary (though anything can happen!) … she can play a significant role in helping someone else beat Trump in a Republican primary.”

More likely, however, she could weaken him to the point he becomes unelectable in the general election. As Brownstein notes that “The only plausible way to break Trump’s hold on the GOP… is to show that Trump, or Trumpism, cannot win national elections.”

Even if Cheney cannot deny Trump the nomination, she could still ultimately loosen his hold on the party, this thinking goes, if she persuades enough centrist and white-collar voters to reject him and ensure his defeat in a general election. To save the party, in other words, Cheney might first have to be willing to destroy it.

 

Edited by romad1
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3 hours ago, mtutiger said:

Polls are still useful as you can find trends, even if the top line numbers leave you skeptical.

If Marquette does a survey in June showing a 2-point race and one in August that shows a 7-point race, that suggests movement in the environment. Doesnt mean it will stay that way, polls are a snapshot in time. But it does suggest it

right - a trend shown by two polls with the same methodology is more like to be real than the absolute value of the results. But trends are usually movement in the undecided blocks, so even trends can be a bit deceiving if you don't have a good handle on the number of true undecideds left. If you run out of undecideds before you catch the other guy your trend was for naught!

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1 minute ago, gehringer_2 said:

right - a trend shown by two polls with the same methodology is more like to be real than the absolute value of the results. But trends are usually movement in the undecided blocks, so even trends can be a bit deceiving if you don't have a good handle on the number of true undecideds left. If you run out of undecideds before you catch the other guy your trend was for naught!

Fair enough, but with respect to the poll we are discussing, it would be Johnson with that issue at the moment more than Barnes.

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3 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

More than just the polls, this is a reason why the Senate picture doesn't look great for the Rs. Have to imagine McConnell didn't think he'd have to spend significant cheddar in Ohio.

Why should McConnell spend a dime when its Peter Thiel's senate seat to buy

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8 hours ago, romad1 said:

Charlie Sykes, the thought criminal from the completely debunked bougie The Bulwark writes this morning:

... "she could still ultimately loosen his hold on the party, this thinking goes, if she persuades enough centrist and white-collar voters to reject him and ensure his defeat in a general election. To save the party, in other words, Cheney might first have to be willing to destroy it."

 

 

Been saying this from the get-go. 

In order for the Republican Party to save itself from Trumpism... it will need to destroy itself first. And then try to pick up the pieces afterwards... Can they be a phoenix...? Dunno... But if they value Country, and Democracy, over their Fascist Party as now constituted... It's the only way.

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15 minutes ago, oblong said:

how soon before some elected GOP person says we need to rethink women voting?  Or raising the age to 25?  Or maybe one vote per household with the Man taking priority of course?

 

NYTpitchbot is gonna have a field day with this one. 

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36 minutes ago, Motown Bombers said:

 

You have to think this will have impact in November.   Mitch knows.  He's annoyed as hell that the monster he created (Supreme Court majority) has created another monster which in turn has come to kill his GOP majority. 

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19 minutes ago, oblong said:

how soon before some elected GOP person says we need to rethink women voting?  Or raising the age to 25?  Or maybe one vote per household with the Man taking priority of course?

 

Mastriano is being supported by Andrew Torba, CEO of far right social media platform GAB, who says Jews have no place in the conservative movement.

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