UPDATE: Sunday, Jul 7, 2024 · 3:35:58 PM +00:00 · Dem
What I have learned through this time is the amazing power of confirmation bias. For four years, the media and the Trump team and certain others have been pushing a wildly successful public relations campaign against President Biden saying that he is too old, makes too many gaffes, and may be in cognitive decline. So when people saw the debate, then they projected their fears onto what they saw, being unaware of alternative explanations like the consequences of a stutter that President Biden has been less and less able to disguise while Trump shouted during President Biden's time to speak and the difficulty President Biden had trouble dealing with Trump's Gish Gallup and 1,000 miles of travel and a bad cold, all combined with over preparation.
"I know what I saw" = I AM UNABLE TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN WHAT I SAW AND MY INTERPRETATION OF WHAT I SAW.
IF YOU'RE NOT NOW PUBLICLY DEMANDING ON DAILY KOS AND ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND IN THE STREET THAT PRESIDENT BIDEN RESIGN FROM OFFICE IMMEDIATELY THEN YOU ARE TELLING ME THAT YOU ARE NOT NEARLY AS SURE THAT PRESIDENT BIDEN IS IN COGNITIVE DECLINE AS YOU ARE PRETENDING TO BE AND YOU ARE BREATHTAKINGLY CYNICAL.
UPDATE: Sunday, Jul 7, 2024 · 2:34:09 PM +00:00 · Dem
President Biden must immediately resign from office if we're doing this because he's in serious cognitive decline. If he's not and we have no polling evidence to say that she would do better, then why would we do this?
Again or to put it another way:
Obviously if he can't be trusted to run his campaign because he is in serious cognitive decline, then he absolutely must resign his office immediately. He's fine, but if you're saying he's in such serious cognitive decline that he can't be allowed to compete as the nominee when 85% of Democratic Party primary voters chose him, then you need to get off your ass and demand that he resign immediately. If you're not doing that, then you're admitting that you're not quite as sure that he's in cognitive decline as you are trying to make us believe and I find that breathtakingly cynical.
UPDATE: Sunday, Jul 7, 2024 · 2:25:09 PM +00:00 · Dem
If it is said that these polls aren't reliable because Vice President Harris is not the nominee , there are two points to make: (1) Vice President Harris' approval rating is not materially better than President Biden's (2) then one is admitting that one has no evidence to support the belief that she will perform any better than he is.
If we have no evidence that she would do any better, then why would we remove the nominee who won 85% of the votes from Democratic Party primary voters in anti-democratic process?
We had a democratic process. Biden won that democratic process. There is no way to hold another Democratic Party primary with voters choosing a new nominee. There just isn't. Again, it would be removing the winner chosen by the voters of the democratic process we did have.
Presumably, the reason why some people are pushing for another candidate to be the nominee is because they think somebody else has a better chance according to the polls. If it's not that, then why else would you be doing this since the administration has been wildly successful and Vice President Harris can step in whenever necessary? Right now the Democratic Party is not unified at all. Forcing President Biden out isn't going to create more unity. Vice President Harris was my first choice to be the nominee of the Democratic Party in 2020. I strongly opposed President Biden. However, he has done a great job as president and he won the 2024 Democratic Party primary. 85% of Democratic Party primary voters chose him. If he were forced out, a small group of political insiders would have made a very anti-democratic move and there is no other democratic process by which we could choose a different nominee. Any other nominee would have been chosen through an anti-democratic process because there is no other democratic process for Democratic Party primary voters to choose a nominee. This is an undeniable fact. Doing such a thing when there is no unequivocal evidence that this move would improve your chances of winning the 2024 presidential election seems to be political suicide to me. Must we cannibalize ourselves?
.
.
This is an excellent explanation of what we are seeing in the media. The news is becoming the news. 192 stories on President Biden dropping out after the debate, but lack of coverage on Donald Trump's fascism. He even talked about how he wanted to have elections whenever he like based upon what he understands of elections in the United Kingdom. The agenda of the media is to make a profit. "The folks who are doing this do not have a plan b that is remotely viable".
.
About an interview 9 months ago:
"General Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gave an interview to 60 minutes where he said, 'I am in the room every day with Joe Biden. He is calm, he is clear-headed, he is doing the job. There is nothing wrong with him.' If you do not trust the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you have a problem. I don't think that General Milley is out there lying to the American public. As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the entire American military, he is not lying. "
.
.
The point that the interview was nine months ago is granted, but do we really believe that cognitive decline is now evident, but there were no hints of it when General Milley saw him every day? It's possible because sometimes suddenly an older person becomes suddenly unable to function well cognitively. Yet, if there were real evidence before this, then I would strongly suspect that somebody would have said something. Some staffers are saying something now, but if they really truly believed that there was unequivocal evidence that President Biden was in serious cognitive decline, wouldn't they have said something at the time that they were observing it. Are they saying that they are without a conscience and courage? I strongly suspect that these people had ulterior motives, wanting a younger person or seeing President Biden as insufficiently progressive or were unhappy with President Biden's policy on Israel Hamas.
Here's what 538 says about who is more likely to win
.
However, Harris’s popular-vote edge is almost entirely negated by the bigger Electoral College bias against her. In our polls-only forecast pairing Biden against Trump, the Democratic candidate needs to win the popular vote by just 1.1 points to win the presidency. That’s thanks to Biden doing better in Pennsylvania, the likeliest tipping-point state in our model. Harris, by contrast, would need to win the popular vote by 3.5-4 points to win Pennsylvania and, with it, the Electoral College.
However, whether Harris would truly be a stronger candidate than Biden also depends on information besides the polls. In our full forecast model — which includes a variety of non-polling economic and political variables, which we call the “fundamentals” — Harris does much worse than Biden across the board. Whereas Biden has a 48-in-100 chance to win the Electoral College, Harris has only a 31-in-100 chance.
.
Vox gives sensible analysis of the polling
.
What we know: The data shows a wash
There are a few different ways to judge how a hypothetical non-Biden candidate might fare against Trump:
- Head-to-head polling, which asks voters who they would vote for: Trump or [insert Democrat here]?
Polls taken before Thursday all largely deliver the same answer: any Biden alternative — Vice President Kamala Harris, Govs. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Gavin Newsom of California, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg — performed about the same, or worse, than Biden against Trump when voters were asked how they’d vote in head-to-head matchups.
In averages of national polls fielded between February 2023 and January of this year, for example, Harris underperformed Biden by about 2.3 percentage points, per tracking by the former Democratic pollster Adam Carlson.
More recently, a New York Times/Siena College poll asked this question of likely voters. Harris received the support of about 42 percent of respondents against the 48 percent who said they’d back Trump, trailing by 6 points. Biden, by comparison, received the support of 44 percent of respondents against Trump’s 48, trailing by 4 points. The 2-point gap is within the margin of error, so there’s little daylight between Biden and his vice president.
.
Vice President Harris ' approval rating is NEGATIVE 14, 37% APPROVE AND 51% DISAPPROVE .
.
Politico
.
The POLITICO/Morning consult poll reveals that only a third of voters think it’s likely Harris would win an election were she to become the Democratic nominee, and just three of five Democrats believe she would prevail. A quarter of independents think she would win.
The poll shows that Harris shares the same poor ratings as Biden. Both are well underwater, Biden at 43 percent favorable and 54 unfavorable, Harris at 42 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable.
.
Newsweek
.
Donald Trump would easily beat Vice President Kamala Harris in a presidential election, according to a new poll.
A DailyMail.com survey of 1,000 likely voters found that Trump would defeat Harris by 11 percentage points in a head-to-head race (49 percent to 38).
.
.
.
The Hill says, ignoring other polls and her worse electoral college prospects.
.
[Vice President Harris is] running closer to former President Trump than President Biden is, according to a new poll.
The CNN poll released Tuesday found that 45 percent of registered voters would support Harris in a hypothetical match-up with Trump. She is 2 percentage points behind the former president, who received 47 percent support in a head-to-head contest with Harris. Five percent of respondents said they would choose someone else.
On the other hand, Biden trailed Trump by 6 points in the poll. Trump is leading with 49 percent support in a match-up with the president, while Biden received 43 percent support. Another 4 percent said they would vote for someone else.
.
CNN says that most voters think somebody else would have a better chance at winning but these people disagree on who that person is and who should be the nominee making this an absurd question to ask in a poll.
.
Biden’s campaign has insisted he will not drop out of the race, and while some Democratic insiders have privately discussed the possibility of replacing him as the nominee, any path forward would be both logistically difficult and politically risky..,
.
While some democrats recognize the obvious reality that Vice President Harris is the best second choice if democrats decide to cannibalize themselves, this proves the stupidity of pundits. 1. TWO THIRDS OF DEMOCRATS OPPOSE THIS MOVE. 2. 81% TO 78% IS WITHIN THE MARGIN OF ERROR AND A TRIVIAL DIFFERENCE.
.
But pundits advocating that Harris take over the ticket have pointed to polls suggesting that she could have advantages over Biden in a race against Donald Trump. A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats think Biden should quit, and that 81% viewed Harris favorably, compared to 78% for Biden.
.
.
.
.
This is unsurprisingly worse than before since the media and democrats and others continue to attack President Biden. Those voters who are up for grabs are younger voters of color.
.
This shows the stupidity in polling. Since 1988, republicans have never won the female vote.
.
The poll notes, "Harris' slightly stronger performance against Trump is partly due to broader support among women (50% favour Harris over Trump compared to 44% for Biden against Trump) and independents (43% favour Harris vs 34% for Biden)."
.
.
What about the base, African American women?
.
.
If you want to watch a video to lift your spirits, I recommend you watch this one
.
There was a summary title that said that the interview didn't resolve the concerns about his age and mental fitness. No shit Sherlock. The media and those who want somebody else for whatever reason have run a wildly successful nearly four year public relations campaign against him that said that he was way too old and he makes lots of gaffes and he is in serious cognitive decline. Of course one interview isn't going to resolve those concerns.
.
The bottom line is that there is no clear evidence that Vice President Harris would do better than President Biden. Two thirds of democrats do not support replacing President Biden. Polling is almost certainly going to improve for President Biden as he becomes the official nominee. We talk about President Biden's weakness with voters because of the debate and the wildly successful public relations campaign against him, but Vice President Harris isn't more popular with independents. If this is the nadir after incessant attacks, then we're in a much better position with President Biden.
.
.
.
