The (no longer) much too early 2024 election thread

[N.E. Brigand]

Pollster Sarah Long says she:

"Just did a focus group with swing voters (Trump 2016, Biden 2020). No one had heard anything about Trump calling Hezbollah 'very smart.' Only one person had seen Biden's speech on Israel. Most were interested in voting for third party candidates."

[Voronwë the Faithful]

This is a very concerning trend.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And this, even more so.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Fundraising is often not a good predictor of results, but I think she is going down this time (she should have lost last time).

[N.E. Brigand]

Perhaps it should be noted that Taylor Swift isn't old enough to be president:



(I have no idea whether either of those verified accounts is actually Grimes, the experimental pop singer who once was close to Elon Musk.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Take this for what it is worth (i.e, very little if anything), but it is interesting that it suggests that Kennedy would significantly hurt Trump/help Biden.

[N.E. Brigand]

Rep. Debbie Lesko, a Republican from a very Republican district in Arizona, has announced that she won't seek reelection next year, citing the difficulty of caring for her 94-year-old mother in Arizona while spending 75% of her time in D.C., which she describes as "broken." Lesko came to Congress from the Arizona state senate in 2018 after winning a special election to replace Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in 2017 after the House Ethics Committee said he would be investigated for sexual harassment based on allegations that he had asked two female employees, one of whom he reportedly offered $5 million, to have his babies as surrogate mothers.

[RoseMorninStar]

Not sure where to put this as I'm not into much in the way of social media, but it seems that Biden/the Biden administration (Dark Brandon?) opened an account on Truth Social.

President Biden’s campaign said it had joined Truth Social “mostly because we thought it would be very funny.”

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't think any comment about this is necessary.

[N.E. Brigand]

This is a very concerning trend.

As that post notes, Republicans did very well last week in state elections in Louisiana, where the incumbent conservative Democrat governor, John Bel Edwards, was term-limited from seeking reelection. He will be succeeded by the state's Republican attorney general, Jeff Landry. They also have a legislative supermajority.

Edwards first won in 2015. Today he revealed in his monthly radio address that in 2019, then-President Donald Trump told him that if he switched parties, Trump would campaign for him. He wouldn't have to change any of his policy positions; he only needed to announce that he was a Republican (as West Virginia governor Jim Justice did just months after taking office in 2017). Edwards declined and won reelection anyway over the Republican that Trump did endorse.

[N.E. Brigand]

Bloomberg reports that Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in most swing states.

[N.E. Brigand]

Bloomberg reports that Donald Trump leads Joe Biden in most swing states.

A Republican analyst tells Matt Yglesias: "We’re going to win [in 2024] because our message is: Democrats wants to sacrifice the interests of middle-class Americans to benefit refugees, Ukrainians, criminals, and climate fanatics. And it will work, because we both know it’s true — Biden won’t even deny it."

Yglesias feels that President Biden needs to (1) push for a deficit reduction act that will raise taxes on the rich and reduce interest rates and (2) talk a lot about how Republicans want to help pharmaceutical companies at the public's expense.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

I don't think any comment about this is necessary.

[CREW: "Harlan Crow made a maximum allowed donation to Cornel West's presidential campign"]

Is West just returning to his roots?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[Frelga]

Yes, it did have the flavor of "I was at a shawarma shop eating hummus, and overhead a group of liberal naturalized Arab Americans..." Like they used to publish about mythical inner city, or university town, Starbucks where apparent liberals proclaimed their love of Trump.

[River]

Yes, it did have the flavor of "I was at a shawarma shop eating hummus, and overhead a group of liberal naturalized Arab Americans..." Like they used to publish about mythical inner city, or university town, Starbucks where apparent liberals proclaimed their love of Trump.

And then, when the election results roll in, there will be shock and awe as it is discovered that these cherry-picked and perhaps fictional individuals do not, in fact, represent the majority of their communities.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

At this point it seems extremely likely that the GOP will take the Senate next year, unless there is a true blue wave. The top eight most likely seats to flip are all Democratic ones, and the top ones are very likely to flip, while the last two on the list, Florida and Texas, would be shocking to flip.

The 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in 2024

On the other hand, between the gains that the Democrats are likely to make as a result of the SCOTUS decision that Alabama was violating the Voting Rights Act, the high possibility that some of the close races that the Democrats lost last year (several in New York, and Boebert's seat in CO) will go the other way, the self-harm that the GOP House caucus is currently inflicting, I think there is an equally good chance that the House will turn blue.

[Sunsilver]

The strange things you see on YouTube!

While viewing a video from 1977, where Frank Sinatra was subbing for Johnny Carson, I saw a video off to the side featuring a familiar face. The caption was something like 'the awful truth about the U.S. government everyone needs to know'.

I couldn't help myself - when the Tonight show video finished, I clicked on it, curious to know what Tucker Carlson had discovered. He claims that Joe Biden was replaced by a surgically altered lookalike sometime prior to his election to office.

Honestly how anyone could possibly be dumb enough to believe the claptrap this man spouts is beyond me!

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion... And I apologize if I'm rehashing a theory that's been posted before. I don't get Fox News in Canada (thank you for small mercies!) so I've remained blissfully unaware of some of these theories. And no, I am NOT posting the link!

[Voronwë the Faithful]

The presumptive GOP presidential candidate thinks that Viktor Orbán is the leader of Turkey (to be fair, everyone misspeaks some times, but still.)