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If Trump wins re-election while losing by 5 million votes.
- Thread starter BackLogJoe
- Start date
The nature of the Senate elections (only 1/3rd of the chamber being up every two years, meaning not every state will have an election) means you probably shouldn't infer too much from them. The GOP did gain seats, but look where they gained them - Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana and Florida. Florida is the only one that's legitimately troubling in terms of the Electoral College, but the other three are all safe Republican states that happened to have Democratic senators after 2012 due to bad opponents or incumbency.
If it's generally agreed upon that Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan are the three most important states going into 2020, rest easy - Democrats won the first two by double digits, and still held Michigan easily despite the incumbent coasting against a black Republican who played dress-up moderate. They also picked up the Senate seat in Arizona, a state that could be helpful for the Democratic nominee next year if they lose Wisconsin or something.
2014 is the same way, actually. Of the nine seats that Democrats lost, six were in red states (Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, South Dakota, West Virginia) that were naturally inclined to vote Republican by that point. The other three (Colorado, Iowa and North Carolina) were still competitive for the Democrats, and their Senate seats are considered flippable.
Not even saying 2018 necessarily means it'll be a slam dunk Democratic victory next year, there's just way more context to the Senate gains than the Republicans beating the odds. Florida was their only impressive victory, and it's not even a state that Democrats necessarily need to win the White House - PA/MI/AZ or WI gets them past 270 without it. If all one hundred Senate seats were up for election last year, Democrats probably would have won control of the chamber.
Illinois had a state rep in 2012 that was kicked out of office in August because of bribery, but then easily re-elected three months later.
The logic is that a lot of people on this forum severely underestimate Trump and his support. It happened twice so I wouldnt be surprised if it happens a third time.
there's a difference between underestimating support and being fed bad polling data and having the director of the fbi drop fake political bombshells while Russian agitprop creates chaos and Russian hackers compromise voter rolls and a suspicioislrecord electoral college fluke happens and the entire thing is swept under the rug by a wholly corrupt justice department.
I understand your point but thinking trump was going to lose in November 2016 was a perfectly rational position.
And actually so is thinking Trump may not in fact have won at all.
There is such a progressive bubble here and many people don't understand and don't want to admit Trump is popular, or why he is. People need to open their eyes or they're gonna be shocked next year.
He did win, and believing in a conspiracy theory that he didn't is irrational. But yes, believing he would lose was rational and I was one of those people that thought Hillary would win. I'm not making that mistake again.
Underestimating his support is still a huge issue amongst progressives today. Huge. I remember anecdotal stories from July 2016 of people taken aback by the vociferousness of his supporters and how the MAGA banners and flags and bumper stickers were everywhere outside of the cities. By the size and passion at his rallies. There were clues but many people didn't want to look for them.
there's nothing conspiratorial or theoretical about the fact that Russia interfered with our election and successfully compromised the electoral registry of multiple states. Those things happened abd were intended to sway the election in favor of Donald trump. We still don't know what if any data was compromised but calling that a conspiracy theory is like saying it's paranoia to catch a burglar running out of your house and then checking to see if he stole anything.
In fact those compromised servers and systems still haven't been adequately investigated and the beneficiaries of the events have blocked both election security funding and deeper investigations.
so you can call me overzealous but conspiracies actually happened. Theory is currently practice- I have no idea if or how those intrusions affected the actual results and neither do you. But I do know for a fact that the other efforts changed both turnout and numbers. We'll probably never know how much or if that alone tipped a balance. But all of that occurred.
I won't be as glib next time but ultimately I'm at the mercy of my fellow voters and the legitimacy andveracity of the systems and processes.
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Trump has the worst sustained popularity of any president since we've started keeping track if it. He barely squeaked by the primary with under 50% of the vote, won the presidency with 46% of the vote.
The correct argument is that his coalition works, despite his unpopularity. But he isn't "popular".
It still makes sense today. No electoral system is perfect, especially not in a 2-party environment. Besides, it will never be amended in our lifetime.
He is very popular amongst his base, arguably more than any previous GOP president. And is base is made up of reliable voters.
Requires a Constitutional amendment, which is not impossible to do, but an amendment like this would be extremely hard to do. The electoral college benefits Republicans, so House and Senate repubs wouldn't vote for it (you need a 2/3 majority in both, among other things).
This happens everywhere. In the U.K., Tories got majority with a minority of the votes, same with Liberals in Canada.
I didn't say it was unique to america, i'm just saying it doesn't make sense unless you fundamentally dislike democracy.
All these warnings and it wont mean shit if trump can garner some positive tv coverage on voting day. I'm convinced a large number of US voters are that fickle.
His base is still not a majority of voters. It's around 30-40% at most.
This is different. In those countries there are multiple parties which have to combine to form a government. Every vote still counts as one. Here there are two parties and not everyone's vote is equal.
Something something to protect the minority (Wealthy landowners) from tyranny of the majority (poor white voters)
Because it's advantageous to a certain party and that party will never agree to changing it, so you need that certain party lose a ton of seats to the point where the other party can change the system on their own.
But that doesn't make sense. It's oversimplified and shallow. It's like saying the weatherman told us it wasn't going to rain yesterday and it did so it will definitely rain today, too.
If Trump wins...
What do you mean "if"? Y'all should mentally prepare yourselves now and buckle up for another 4 years of this orange dickhead. Warren, Bernie or Buttgeejdtstsfhfh, aren't going to beat him. Mitch the Bitch and our impotent ass Senate ain't gonna do shit either. So unless the motherfucker dies of a heart attack or eats a baby on national television, we're stuck with him. You can thank ignorance, misplaced fear, Iack of empathy and the dumb half of White America for it.
What do you mean "if"? Y'all should mentally prepare yourselves now and buckle up for another 4 years of this orange dickhead. Warren, Bernie or Buttgeejdtstsfhfh, aren't going to beat him. Mitch the Bitch and our impotent ass Senate ain't gonna do shit either. So unless the motherfucker dies of a heart attack or eats a baby on national television, we're stuck with him. You can thank ignorance, misplaced fear, Iack of empathy and the dumb half of White America for it.
Sadly true aside from him eating a baby on TV. He'd get away with that too.
He's a slight favorite because of all the massive built in advantages but lets not pretend that its a forgone conclusion, especially if biden wins the primary.
Hillary had 3 decades of slander, russian interference, and the fbi dropping a nuke on her a week before the election and it was still super close.
Hillary had 3 decades of slander, russian interference, and the fbi dropping a nuke on her a week before the election and it was still super close.
Yup. Biden has the best chance at beating Trump, and even then it won't be by a whole lot.
Ultimately it comes down to the economy. If the country doesn't enter into a recession, or if it doesn't weaken significantly, its going to make the D's job much harder unless their impeachment proceedings unearth further damning evidence
Eh, i think he's getting his 62-63 million votes regardless of what happens, they'll blame any economic issues on the democrats. The real question is whether the democrat base comes out and votes, and doesn't throw them away on 3rd party candidates.
This is a bad kind of energy.
Imagine if we had this kind of energy entering elections in 2018 and 2019? We wouldn't have flipped the House, the entirety of Virginia, and gotten a Democratic Kentucky governor who may be paving the way for a future Democrat to take over Mitch McConnell's seat.
If Trump wins, Trump wins, but don't let it be for lack of trying.
Nonsense. He has near universal support in the Republican Party. He's very popular with tens of millions of people.
The EC only makes sense if you despise the idea of everyone's vote being equal and love a system that allows the GOP to rule without consent of the people.
This is the most ill-informed take. If you study that race the mere fact Bevin got so close is troubling.
He was only the second Republican Kentucky governor since 1971.
I'm pessimistic as fuck about the Dems chances but even I think that's unlikely. The Republicans are disadvantaged in the popular vote and always struggle there.
There is not a scenario on Earth I can fathom that would make me Vote for Trump HOWEVER, none of the current Democratic Candidates are worth a damn. Is this really all we have? They are all extremely flawed. And at the end if the day I will vote for one of them but I am sane ( politically speaking).
I want to be wrong.
True, but when he did win in 2015 it was 52.5 percent to Conway's 43.8 percent. The rest of the ticket which was Republican also won, which showed Kentucky's not exactly the bluest state, and he had the backing of Trump right before the election. What I'm saying is that Republican leaders are not an inevitability and to act as such is bad energy.
Why politically are they not worth a damn?
Again, those tens of millions of people were outnumbered in 2018 and can be outnumbered again.
The problem is getting our side out to vote, and with impeachment hearings blaring throughout the election he's not going to have an easier time than he did in 2016.
Trump had the luxury of BUT HER EMAILS in 2016. As it stands now, impeachment is going to be what that is for him. Sure, the Republicans and his base will show up to vote, that much is guaranteed. But if the 2018 results happened without impeachment I think it can happen again.
That is insanely irrational given his disapproval polling plus rising turnout.
I'm not saying you're a troll, but that is literally troll country given everything we are seeing.
For Trump or a Trumpist to win the popular vote in 2020 is going to take massive voter suppression or fraud. Full stop.
You mean the guy who lost the popular vote to Hillary?
Nah I dont troll im just worried that people will become apathetic and just not vote. The feeling im getting from some people is that it's inevitable that he (Trump) wins so what's the point. Now that is completely anecdotal i am aware. Joe Biden seems like the only Dem that can beat Trump in a General Election but will young people vote for Crazy Joe? I just be spit balling sometimes just saying what I was thinking in the moment.
I hear you. Hope im wrong. Im probably wrong.
Agree 100%. The Blue Wave election of the past 2 years, plus the crowds of people booing Trump at sporting events shows that the majority of people disapprove him. Democrats are more motivated to go and vote in 2020, and moderates who voted for Trump in 2016 are feeling remorse and most likely won't make the same mistake.
I am afraid of Electoral College fuckery and/or Russian interference though.
No its more like a lot of people who are not weather experts were telling me it wasn't going to rain two times despite heavy clouds. And it is like saying again it isn't going to rain despite heavy clouds.
Because we have a system that makes it insurmountably difficult to change it.