A General thread for 2024 Presidential Elections

[sugar magnolia]

Desantis and Ramaswamy will both be on our ballots on Tuesday because they forgot to notify the State that they had withdrawn.

[Flatpoint High]

unb99xsb7xmc1.jpeg (59.99 KiB) Viewed 1652 times

[AndyinPA]

[Suranis]

“Look, we needed a couple of miracles,” Uygur said in a “The Young Turks” interview later Wednesday. “This was an act of desperation to try to change the course of this campaign because Biden I was positive was going to lose.”

Uygur acknowledged that his legal battle found little success, but he said the stage is set for future naturalized citizens who choose to challenge the presidential requirement.

“I got caught trying,” he said.

Uh... Cenk, if that was the case there were lots of people you could put on the ballot INSTEAD OF YOU who would not have had any legal problems to surmount.

But then that would be someone INSTEAD OF YOU!! Wouldn't it?

[Slim Cognito]

IMG_3188.webp (123.38 KiB) Viewed 1619 times

[raison de arizona]

I'm unclear on how some states were able to remove Uyguyr's name from the ballot absent enabling legislation by Congress.

Or does such legislation already exist?

[bob]

I'm unclear on how some states were able to remove Uyguyr's name from the ballot absent enabling legislation by Congress.

Or does such legislation already exist?

Before SCOTUS' latest, the answer was easy: States have the inherent authority to remove ineligible candidates. States, in fact, have been doing that for decades (if not longer).

Post-Anderson, the answer is probably the same.

The Anderson concurrence notes other presidential disqualifiers (i.e., natural-born-citizen clause and the 22nd Amendment) are self-executing, and observes the majority opinion doesn't suggest otherwise.

But I wouldn't be surprised if, in some future eligibility challenge, a court cites Anderson for the proposition that (absent Congressional approval, which will never happen) state courts lack the authority to remove any federal candidate for any reason. Because the Anderson majority clutches pearls about patchwork decisions, which federalists used to say was a feature and not a bug. Yet Uygur is a textbook example of such a patchwork: He was actively excluded from some states' ballots (e.g., New Hampshire, South Carolina) yet included on others (Minnesota, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont).

[RTH10260]

‘Like choosing between a hedgehog and a porcupine’: US braces for presidential election no one wants
Both candidates are disliked by a majority of Americans, and 45% believe a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch is bad for the country

Joan E Greve in Washington
Sat 9 Mar 2024 14.00 CET

In past years, the first phase of the general election has involved at least one of the presidential nominees introducing themselves to the broader public and presenting their case for taking the country in a new direction. But that has been rendered unnecessary this year: former president Donald Trump and president Joe Biden are very familiar to the American electorate – and they are broadly unpopular.

“I think this is the worst election in my lifetime,” said George Argodale, a Nikki Haley supporter from Gainesville, Virginia. “It’s just terrible that we don’t have better candidates.”

“That’s a sad state of affairs for our country that those are the two best candidates that we can come up with,” agreed Peggy Hudson, a primary voter in Charleston, South Carolina.

Judith Smith, from Moncks Corner, South Carolina, said of Biden and Trump: “That’s like choosing between a hedgehog and a porcupine.”

As the primary season sputters to an expected ending, following Haley’s withdrawal from the Republican primary on Wednesday, voters’ frustration with their general election options is palpable.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... -one-wants

[tek]

45% believe a Joe Biden-Donald Trump rematch is bad for the country

And exactly what is the alternative at this point?

[Suranis]

Maybe the alternative is not believing meaningless polls that want to push a narritive? This was written March 2nd...

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/can- ... rudy-salas

It’s A Close, Competitive Election - Yes, the NYT released a poll today that has Trump ahead. Some initial thoughts:

Lots of other polls show the race even, competitive - Three national polls released this week (below) have the race even. 538’s Congressional Generic tracker is tied, 44%-44%. A new battleground state poll produced by top Democratic pollsters has Trump and Biden tied at 40%. Another battleground state poll that hasn’t been released yet that I was just briefed on has it 41%-39% Trump, essentially the same results. Senate polling is slightly better for us than for Republicans right now.

The Times poll has Trump leading among likely voters by 4 points, 48%-44%. This is a gain of 6 points for Trump since the December Times poll. None of these other polls have found a GOP surge of this magnitude or even a GOP lead. So the NYT results are not confirmed in lots of other recent polling which finds the race close and competitive, which is where I think it is now.

Biden 36% Trump 36% - AP/IPSOS

Biden 44% Trump 44% - Economist/YouGov

Biden 43% Trump 44% - Morning Consult (Biden’s gained 4 pts in recent weeks in this poll)

There are problems with the NYT poll - It has Trump winning both Hispanics and women - an impossibility. It’s likely voter electorate is +3 Republican - something we haven’t seen in a general election in actual voting in 20 years, and only once in the last 8 Presidential elections going all the way back to 1992. In the last 4 Presidential elections, Democrats have averaged 51%, Republicans 46%, and we gained ground in the 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023 elections. After all these years of strong Democratic vote performance for the electorate to become +3 Republican this year is, um, unlikely. Overestimating their intensity and strength and underestimating ours was a central reason so many saw the red wave that never came in 2022.

The poll has Trump winning all his 2020 voters, and keeping his party unified - something that is not happening either in the actual voting or polling in the early states. It has Dean Phillips at 10% in the Dem primary against Biden. In Michigan this week he got 2.5%, and came in behind Marianne Williamson who dropped out of the race a month ago.

The poll’s initial likely voter sample was 29% Dem, 28% Republican and was “weighted” through a complex formula to become 32% R and 29% D. That’s a shift of 4 percentage points, something that would take an even race and make it +4 R, as this poll finds.

The poll has Biden winning Democrats 90%-7%, Trump winning Republicans 91%-6%, and Biden winning Independents 45%-41%. These results would normally produce a Biden lead but with the aggressive weighting and a very Republican sample, it produces a 4 point Trump lead.

The poll only interviewed 980 people, which is a relatively small sample for such an influential poll. Its margin of error is 3.5% for registered voters and almost 4% for likely voters. The sub-samples have margin of errors in double digits.

I want to thank my friends Tom Bonier and Joe Trippi for their help in putting together this quick analysis.

Point being that poll is weighted twords Republicans to get a more or less even result.

[Suranis]

More on polls

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/grea ... n-leads-in

Biden Leads in 4 New National Polls - Even before his powerful State of The Union speech, the President has had his best week of polling in some time. Four new, national polls show him leading. He made meaningful gains in all of them, and all 4 had more interviews than the most recent NYT poll (you can find the polls at 538). Here they are, Biden-Trump:

47%-44% Kaiser Family Foundation (7 pt Biden gain since last poll)

51%-49% Emerson (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

44%-43% Morning Consult (5 pt Biden gain over past month)

43%-42% TIPP (3 pt Biden gain since last poll)

A central reason I’ve been so optimistic about us winning in November is that I always believed that when it became clear to voters that it was Biden vs Trump, and the Biden campaign began in earnest, a big chunk of our wandering coalition would come home. Biden would then gain 3-4 points and open up a small but meaningful lead in national polling. It’s possible that is what we we’re seeing now. It’s what Morning Consult found in their polling this week:

Biden retakes lead from Trump: Biden leads Trump, the likeliest Republican presidential nominee for 2024, by 1 percentage point (44% to 43%) in our latest national tracking survey. It’s Biden’s first lead over Trump since early January, and is driven by coalescence among the voters who backed him last time around: 85% of Biden 2020 voters say they’d vote for him if the election were today, the largest share since early September.

We begin the general election with the race close and competitive. Trump does not lead, nor he is favored. As I wrote recently, there are serious warning signs about ongoing Trump/Republican struggles and underperformance right now for those who want to see them. Yes, we have work to do to win this election and get to 55. But it is doable work, work that we can do, whereas their job of selling a more dangerous and extreme MAGA to a country which has rejected it in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023 is far, far harder.

I just feel that throwing around a bit of hopium is good for the soul.

[pipistrelle]

It shouldn't be close at all, yet somehow here we are.

[Suranis]

There no point getting depressed because its "close." That's like the way people were hating on Obama because he wasn't winning by enough. Thats nasically the whole thing of not having the good guys back.

Besides, it just leaves you depressed and exhausted which is what they want.

[Dr. Ken]

This step and fetch mfer

[RTH10260]

‘A campaign for vengeance’: critics warn of a radical second Trump term
After a chaotic first term, experienced advisers are ready to usher in a second presidency ‘driven by imaginary grievances’

David Smith in Washington
Sun 17 Mar 2024 12.00 CET

The US election primary season is effectively over. Conventional wisdom holds that the two major candidates will now pivot towards the centre ground in search of moderate voters. But Donald Trump has never been one for conventional wisdom.

Composite of two images divided by two graphic lines, one red, one yellow. On the left is a Latino man with trim goatee, classes, collared shirt and tie, looking serious, and on the right, a brown hand and arm open what appears to be a ballot box with red starts and the beginning letters of "Maricopa county" in blue.

Detention camps, mass deportations, capital punishment for drug smugglers, tariffs on imported goods, a purge of the justice department and potential withdrawal from Nato – the Trump policy agenda is radical by any standard including his own, pushing the boundaries set during his first presidential run eight years ago.

“In 2016 he was still, in his own mind at least, positioning himself to be beloved by everybody,” said Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist. “That’s why ‘Drain the swamp’ was a more populist, appealing message to all sides of the aisle because everyone on some level felt like Washington’s broken, Washington’s left us behind.

“Now you flash-forward to 2024 and we’re getting a much darker version of Donald Trump, one who seems to be driven by imaginary grievances from the 2020 election. There’s nothing unifying about that message in any way; it’s incredibly self-centred. This is a campaign for vengeance. In a lot of ways he is Ahab and Moby Dick is the United States of America.”

Eight years ago Trump, seeking to become the first US president with no prior political or military experience, was running with a clean slate. If anything, there was a suspicion that his background as a thrice-married New York celebrity implied some ideological fluidity and latent liberal instincts.

But he announced his candidacy in June 2015 by promising to build a wall on the southern border, using xenophobic language to portray Mexicans as “criminals” and “rapists” and promising to “make America great again”.

During the campaign he described international trade deals as “a disaster” and called for increased tariffs on imports. He promised sweeping tax cuts and vowed to repeal Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act and environmental regulations, describing climate change as “a total hoax”.

Trump pledged to nominate supreme court justices opposed to abortion and, in one TV interview, suggested that women who have abortions should be punished. With backing from the National Rifle Association, he opposed gun safety reforms.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... trump-term

[AndyinPA]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/24/politics ... index.html

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, aghast at Donald Trump’s candidacy and the direction of her party, won’t rule out bolting from the GOP.

The veteran Alaska Republican, one of seven Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial amid the aftermath of January 6, 2021, is done with the former president and said she “absolutely” would not vote for him.

“I wish that as Republicans, we had … a nominee that I could get behind,” Murkowski told CNN. “I certainly can’t get behind Donald Trump.”

The party’s shift toward Trump has caused Murkowski to consider her future within the GOP. In the interview, she would not say if she would remain a Republican.

Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”

[Slim Cognito]

It would take a lot for me to bolt from the Democratic Party, but I do miss the days when the two parties could work together. I am reminded of the story of Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan sharing a scotch after a long day of negotiating legislation.

[pipistrelle]

Asked if she would become an independent, Murkowski said: “Oh, I think I’m very independent minded.” And she added: “I just regret that our party is seemingly becoming a party of Donald Trump.”

She's about 8 years behind on the news.

[RTH10260]

‘Feeble, desperate, mentally unfit’: Biden changes tack to mock Trump
The Republican contender lowered the tone of electoral politics in 2016 – now the Democratic president has left the high road to take him on at his own game

Adam Gabbatt
Sat 30 Mar 2024 13.00 CET

With November set to be one of the most consequential elections in US history, it would be understandable if Donald Trump and Joe Biden reached for soaring, lofty rhetoric: if they attempted to match the high-minded ideals of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the nation’s founding fathers.

American voters, and the country’s political class, are long used to Trump’s insult-laden and often crude rhetoric. “Everything Joe Biden touches turns to shit,” Trump said in Georgia earlier this month, during a rally at which he also also mocked Biden’s stutter.

But recently Biden and his campaign team appear to have decided to fight fire with fire, after previously seeking to stay above the fray. It’s a shift that seems to accept that Trump has moved the standards of US politics and that it’s more effective to embrace that notion than remain out of the fight.

But it also probably reflects the unique threat that Trump’s bid to return to the White House for a second term represents to American democracy and that the time to sugarcoat the fight against that is long past. For many, Biden and his team’s insults aren’t just political hardball, they also smack of the truth.

In recent months, Biden has dubbed Trump “mentally unfit”, while this week his campaign declared that the US “deserves better than a feeble, confused, and tired Donald Trump”.

The president’s campaign has dubbed Trump “weak and desperate – both as a man and a candidate for president”. They’ve also taken to calling Trump, who says he is a multibillionaire but was recently unable to pay a court-ordered $454m bond, “Broke Don”.

It’s a remarkable shift for Biden, who less than a month ago raised eyebrows for only referring to Trump as “my predecessor” during his State of the Union speech.

Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington, suggested to the Guardian Biden’s reason for this shift was “very straightforward.

“What he was doing before obviously wasn’t working. Typically, we all learn from bad experience and Biden has been behind in the polls to a candidate who is quite frankly hated by almost half of the American electorate,” she said.

“I think that Biden was under considerable pressure from his advisers, from activists, to do something different.”

Notably, polling this week showed Biden gaining on Trump in six key states – after his supporters previously had a wake-up call when the incumbent reported dismal numbers.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... p-campaign

[RTH10260]

MTN Ben Meiselas has an interview with John Bolton

Former TOP Advisor to Trump DROPS THE HAMMER on Him

MeidasTouch
3 Apr 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas interviews Ambassador John Bolton, the former National Security Advisor to Donald Trump who doesn’t hold back in his scathing criticism of Donald Trump and the disqualifying characteristics of Trump he observed.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... al-ticket/

The centrist group No Labels abandoned its ambitions for a third-party 2024 presidential campaign Thursday, saying it had failed to find candidates that had a credible path to winning the White House.

“Americans remain more open to an independent presidential run and hungrier for unifying national leadership than ever before,” the group said in a statement. “But No Labels has always said we would only offer our ballot line to a ticket if we could identify candidates with a credible path to winning the White House. No such candidates emerged, so the responsible course of action is for us to stand down.”

[raison de arizona]

Good. I'm all for more choices, but all this was going to do was dilute Biden's votes and make it easier for tfg.

[Suranis]

https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/make ... hopium-get

I crunched some numbers last night. Of 22 national polls released since March 25th, Biden leads in 9, Trump in 8, and they are tied in 5. Trump no longer leads in this election, Biden is gaining ground (as I showed yesterday), there are now polls with us ahead in MI, PA and WI, we had very encouraging polling in NC last week and two thirds of recent Congressional Generics have us ahead. We have a lot of work to do, and a long way to go, but right now, in every way imaginable, I would much rather be us than them.

[RTH10260]

‘Danger to our democracy’: fears over Trump allies’ summit with far-right sheriffs
Mike Flynn, Mike Lindell and others to attend event on election fraud by Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association

Peter Stone in Washington
Wed 17 Apr 2024 12.00 CEST

A group of far-right sheriffs is set to meet Donald Trump allies in Las Vegas on Wednesday for talks with dozens of Republican state officials and candidates focused partly on potential election fraud by non-citizens, which experts say is wildly overblown.

The far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which the former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack founded in 2011 and which boasts hundreds of members nationwide, is hosting the day-long event, which it bills as a “training session”. The group is known for attacks on Covid mask mandates and gun control measures.

The Vegas confab is slated to feature talks by Mack and several conspiracy-minded Trump allies who have been major election denialists including the retired lieutenant general Mike Flynn, the MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell and the multimillionaire Patrick Byrne.

The event’s agenda and crew of Trump allies participating in it underscores how Trump’s campaign to return to the White House harbors extremist ties and beliefs, running from conspiracy theories around election fraud and the January 6 insurrection to Christian nationalism.

Mack, an ex-board member of the extremist Oath Keepers, told the Guardian that a key focus of the training session for sheriffs and others will be on the “chaos at the border” and the threat of voting fraud by non-citizens.

“Election fraud and the border go hand in hand,” said Mack. Dozens of candidates and elected officials including sheriffs from states such as Arizona and Nevada are expected to attend the gathering, Mack added.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... t-sheriffs

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

Here we go again.