US election thread

It certainly seems Harris is in a much better position than I thought she would be, and I’ve never been happier to be wrong. Politics is about momentum, and given that Trump was getting shot at a week or so ago, the turnaround is ridiculous.

She hasn’t really done anything yet, it just goes to show what an awful candidate Biden was that with the shooting surge  Trump got, that Biden just dropping out of the race has caused such a swing.

Lets hope it continues, but after the dust settles the democrats have to take responsibility for how absolutely **** awful the candidates they have wedged into the recent election races are. Give people better options and they will vote for them.

Harris is certainly doing a lot better than I expected, maybe that’s because the Vice President role is is largely ceremonial and requires the occupant to simply mouthpiece what the boss is saying, the job literally mean’s that you have to keep yoir opinions to yourself.

She has managed to change the public perception of her overnight with that acceptance speech, concise, energetic and humorous. She looks really, really confident and relishing the fight.

A week is indeed a long time in politics.

Kamala Harris has firm views on Benjamin Netanyahu and the cease-fire framework

I hadn’t realised that Netanyahu was invited to address Congress by the majority Republican Representatives, although Donald Trump has been critical of Netanyahu since October

Hopefully she’ll seize the opportunity to pull voters wavering on Gaza back into her orbit, especially with Trump’s history e.g. declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel in 2017, contrary to most countries

Two-minute read https://theconversation.com/benjamin-netanyahu-addresses-the-us-congress-and-receives-a-very-mixed-reception-expert-qanda-235385

how much is the fight for voters really about personality and how much about policy?

It’s ALL about personality and nothing about policy.  That’s how someone like Trump can win.  He says a load of encouraging sounding things that have no substance – there is no policy, and even if he suggests something that sounds like a policy there’s no plan to implement it.  But large chunks of the electorate aren’t able to pick this up.  Candidates with a moral compass won’t just lie or bullshit to get votes, they will talk about what’s possible, but if you’re unencumbered by conscience you can say what you like, win, and then persuade people you’ve done ok.

I see Obama has finally come into the fold after surprisingly not endorsing the first black female nominee…… maybe he was secretly hoping that position would fall to his wife! However with Nancy Pelosi, Joe Biden, Clintons and all the other senior democrats very vocal about her it was only going to be a matter of time. That means she’ll deffo get the nomination now.

How long do we think Vance has?

Don Jr tanking his dad's campaign with one of the worst veep choices of all time is delicious pic.twitter.com/SwHhkcfR8J

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 25, 2024

even tho I said ignore polls until after convention…

Harris has her work cut out, but I think she can do it

NEW: Trump leads Harris in seven of nine states polled.

?? Swing States VI (22-24 July):

(Trump | Harris)

AZ (46% | 43%)
FL (47% | 39%)
GA (47% | 42%)
MI (44% | 41%)
MN (41% | 44%)
NV (45% | 43%)
NC (46% | 43%)
PA (46% | 42%)
WI (44% | 44%)https://t.co/oWzPSiikVU pic.twitter.com/lYpHAhsuQe

— Redfield & Wilton Strategies (@RedfieldWilton) July 26, 2024

Harris has trolled her Republican rival after he backed out of a proposed television debate with her, asking on social media: “What happened to any time, any place?”

Trump had previously used those words to lay down the gauntlet to Biden but now appears to have cold feet about taking on Harris, who accused him on Thursday of “backpedaling” on his commitment to a debate provisionally scheduled for September 10 to be broadcast on ABC.

Trump’s campaign team subsequently confirmed that he would not face her – at least not yet – blaming Democratic instability for the U-turn.

Trump obviously knows Harris would run rings around him in a fair debate…

and the whole Vance sofa joke thing…….

reality is just that much better

so, JD Vance searched for "woman dolphin" and then proved it by tweeting this ?? pic.twitter.com/LqKzdvWESn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 26, 2024

As if there was any real doubt about Obama supporting Harris.

https://x.com/BarackObama/status/1816760809193677069

It felt more like they were intentionalyl dripfeeding the endorsements- before Biden dropped out it was realyl conspicuous that none of the people saying “Biden must step down…” were also saying “…in favour of Harris” and I took that as basically an anti-endorsement but at this point it definitely feels much more like a planned, slow roll out.

It will take a lot of work to get Harris elected, I imagine that Trump is near his vote/turnout ceiling, but there’s room for Harris to get hers up, but it’ll mean all dems getting behind her and an error free campaign, which is a big ask.

Watching teh “vance ****ed a sofa” thing grow in realtime on social media has been fun though. AP releasing a fact check saying “no he didn’t **** a sofa” and then taking it back down again was a highlight. Especially with how quickly all the people who usually hate factcheck websites embraced it when it first appeared.

Yeah  I agree The Obama endorsement was a political timing thing looking at it after the fact, and agree Haris has her work cut out…

But she seems to be relishing it, and she’s very coherent, which is a nice breath of fresh air.

Plus she can throw a lot of mud at trump, validated, proven and known mud…

All trump has is, well, all he ever had… a load of lies and un-truths, at best, so I’d cautiously agree he’s already reached peak popularity with that old chesnut…

It’s hers to win and his to lose as long as she doesn’t drop any clangers and keeps the message strong, on point, consistent, and actually truthful.

It will be an interesting few months in the run up… espesially the huge donations that have landed since she became the front runner…

I note the trump lobby are trying to block the dem donations as Biden said he’s not running, and they are crying foul play (supprise supprise), I’m not sure if that’s a goer, though as no formal dem candidate has been announced yet, even though it 99.99% will be Harris.

Saw a tweet earlier in the week (can’t see twitter on my phone) saying that a zoom call to rally women of color, in Georgia I think, on Monday was originally slated for 1000 participants, but after Harris became front runner over the weekend it was over subscribed and they had to increase to 40k participants.

I think there is a lot of possibility in the female vote and amongst people of color that we aren’t yet hearing about that Harris can mobilise.

The whole abortion issue and now the Vance cat lady thing is going to be a problem for Trump

Don’t underestimate the absolutely insane lengths the Republicans have gone to to gerrymander districts and make it harder for their opponents to vote

https://www.statista.com/chart/21313/most-gerrymandered-districts-us/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-us-2020-54532189

Traditionally a party’s convention where they get to unveil thier candidates and get a week of almost blanket coverage to get their message across marks the high point of thier polling.

The fact that Harris is already rapidly closing the gap and completely shifted the narrative from where where we  were a week ago is remarkable, we also still have almost a month to go before the DNC.

Vance was picked purely as an attack dog to go after Biden, his whole reason for being on the ticket is now gone and his extreme anti-choice stance (he’s far more outspoken on this than Trump) is going to be a real liability against a female candidate.

Its not a done deal by any stretch but suddenly the whole energy of the race has changed and the Democrats are making all the running it’s a complete 180 from a week ago.

complete 180 from a week ago.

It’s not really a 180… the dems have simply put someone forward that can actually win some votes.

38500 people registered to vote in the 48 hours after Biden’s announcement, the largest number in this election cycle, a 700% daily increase. And 83% of them were 18-34. 0.0% of the people who made up that increase are going to vote Trump…

(you often hear people complain about youth turnout- it was 50% in 2020 compared to 66% across the whole cohort. But that also means they’re the least tapped resource. It’s not that they’re going to be easy to mobilise but in this climate it is one hell of a lot easier to motivate one new voter than it is to switch 1 voter from red to blue.)

a zoom call to rally women of color, in Georgia I think, on Monday was originally slated for 1000 participants, but after Harris became front runner over the weekend it was over subscribed and they had to increase to 40k participants.

Yeah, yeah, they crashed Zoom, so what? The Republican convention crashed Grindr, they aren’t making a big fuss about it.

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1817007890496102490

Yikes!

Can you imagine a candidate in any other (sensible) country saying this and not being immediately binned?

Came here to say the same thing – he said the quiet part out loud…

Is that for real?

if so, wow.

Well I’ve seen it said that clip is taken “out of context” but there’s no way I’m watching the whole thing to check. Anyway, even if it is out of context the Democrats should be all over it along with their support in the media.

It feels like all Harris has to do is follow Starmer’s Ming vase strategy and Trump will keep saying stupid stuff until he campaigns himself out of the race for all except the MAGA loons. And there’s not enough of them to win.

Yikes!

Can you imagine a candidate in any other (sensible) country saying this and not being immediately binned?

In that room were thousands of Americans who are salivating at the prospect of an authoritarian Christian takeover. He’s a showman, he’s good at giving people what they want to hear and that’s exactly what he was doing.

The problem is much deeper than just Trump, where Trump seems fairly unique is his ability to sell that agenda to the American people, the more the mask slips over the next 4.months the more chance the Harris campaign will have to energise the anti-Trump vote and chip away his more moderate supporters who generally just want lower taxes.

Trump is a profound narcissist so the temptation to whip up the adulation of his loyal hardcore supporters, at the risk of alienating his more critical supporters, must be hard to resist.

And yeah hatter as you suggest it could be his undoing.

https://x.com/Acyn/status/1817007890496102490

Yikes!

Can you imagine a candidate in any other (sensible) country saying this

Jeeeezus Christ. On a stick.

J. D. Vance has a burnt monkey testicle problem.

https://x.com/jjabbott/status/1817187244916330972

I wouldn’t be surprised if Vance was replaced by next weekend.

As dead cats go, Vance is a pretty good one

Trump tells supporters they won’t have to vote in the future: ‘It’ll be fixed!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/27/trump-speech-no-need-to-vote-future

Bye bye democracy!

It’s nonsense but it makes sense in his head &  his supporters just hear what they want to hear

even tho I said ignore polls until after convention…

Harris has her work cut out, but I think she can do it

My heart sunk when she was endorsed because I know sentiment towards her is not overtly positive. But listening to her speak, it’s a bit, wow, normal politician… Exactly the thing Americans are calling out for. I’ve no idea if it’s going to cut through but there’s hope that the voting public are feeling the same way. I see a glimmer of light.

bottom of that Guardian article

This article was amended on 27 July 2024. A part of Trump’s speech that was unintelligible was deleted.

Does that leave much?

It’s as if someone (tried) describing the plot of The Handmaid’s Tale to Trump, and he thought “Great idea! Bigly great!”.

But listening to her speak, it’s a bit, wow, normal politician…

I agree.

Exactly the thing Americans are calling out for.

But are they?

This article was amended on 27 July 2024. A part of Trump’s speech that was unintelligible was deleted.

Ah that’s interesting. The article originally said that trump had said that he wasn’t a Christian but that wasn’t what I heard and I couldn’t believe for a second he would have said that

I  see hopeful signs that Harris will be able to mobilise and motivate sections of the electorate that were unlikely to vote.  The young, BAME and women

That can only be good and we have to hope its enough

Several US labour unions have declared support of her too. Most will wait until the formal nomination in a few weeks before official endorsement, but the United Auto Workers have already carried the full process.

The difficulty is the gulf that exists between what union leadership want and what some of its members want

I  see hopeful signs that Harris will be able to mobilise and motivate sections of the electorate that were unlikely to vote.  The young, BAME and women

That can only be good and we have to hope its enough

Several US labour unions have declared support of her too. Most will wait until the formal nomination in a few weeks before official endorsement, but the United Auto Workers have already carried the full process.

The difficulty is the gulf that exists between what union leadership want and what some of its members want