When the Democrats can line up 500 Biden-festooned golf carts in The Villages to caravan over to the early polling station, it’s a sure sign the culture of the place has shifted. The massive retirement community is supposed to provide a reliable harvest of Republican votes that will help offset the GOP’s weaknesses in the cities and throughout South Florida. Photos of the scene must strike terror in the hearts of President Trump’s campaign, and it helps explain why Joe Biden is consistently ahead in surveys of the Sunshine State electorate.
The defection of older voters to Biden also has something to do with Lindsey Graham’s difficulties in South Carolina. Perry Bacon Jr. of FiveThirtyEight thinks Graham will probably survive, but that’s based on the historical reluctance of white voters there to even consider supporting a Democratic candidate. This doesn’t keep Democrats from getting 45 percent or better, but it does preclude them winning a majority. Yet, if white seniors crossover in even small numbers, the calculus changes. In the most recent poll of the race, Graham is trailing is challenger Jaime Harrison by a single point.
It’s not just white seniors, either, but white women in general regardless of their age. They’re abandoning Trump and it’s putting a lot of supposedly safely red seats in play, all across the Sun Belt and throughout the nation’s suburbs.
Winning elections is about addition, but Trump hasn’t added to his 2016 coalition. He still seems focused on boosting the enthusiasm of his diehard base, and that’s not worth nothing but it’s not enough when you’ve energized your opponents for four years.
I think that golf cart parades are a thing is one of the funniest discoveries of 2020. Boat parades are just lame. Golf cart parades are also lame, but there’s something cute about it.
In the recent AARP Election 2020 Bulletin, AARP asked Trump how he would finance Social Security and Medicare in regard to his proposal to “terminate the payroll tax”. Trump didn’t answer the question and said his Executive Order to defer the payroll tax posed no risk. Biden’s response discussed Social Security ending by 2023 as a result of Trump’s proposal. Seniors understand how insurance policies work. No premiums, no payouts.
This is true. It’s more important too because R registration is increasing, and D is reducing, although Independent registration is also increasing in many places. This is probably due to younger people moving into I camp, as well as older Ds who have voted R for a while that finally made the change. But, the crossover votes and independents will then decide the election. This is basically why it’s so critical Biden to do well within traditional Republican strongholds like The Villages.
For fun, I ran the numbers for NC, based off of the early VBM requests. My back of the envelope calculation shows Biden +3, but then error bar is pretty high and in part it depends a lot on how independents break. That error bar will shrink as we get closer to election day.
Biden will maybe-probably win all things being equal.
What happens when the Fed’ruhl Gub’mint decides that tareeeerists want the liberals to win because crime and rioting?
Because that’s what’s next.
I remain worried. Ari Melber noted that this time in 2016 Hillary was further ahead than Joe in the three states he won Pa, Michigan and Wisconsin. Should I be worried?
I think Steve M. at NMMNB makes a reasonable case as to why you shouldn’t be (overly) worried re Ari Melber’s analysis: https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2020/10/could-polls-be-wrong-again.html
Thanks for the lifeline. I hope it is right.