The 2020 Presidential Election - Convention & General Election

[funhusker]

10 hours ago, RedDenver said:

It's a weak ad. There's nothing of any substance in it. "If we work together, we can beat Trump." You can replace Trump with anything and it's the same message. The Biden ad post just above this one was much better.

I'd agree that it's not the best ad of his campaign, not by a long shot.

[TGHusker]

17 hours ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

I posted a story earlier today about how Trump and the GOP want to make everything about blaming China because they can't dwell on their own ineptitude.

 

If Biden keeps hitting him with ads like this it's going to make portraying Trump as tough on China very difficult.

Trump team will try to flip this back on Biden.

 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-team-sees-edge-in-linking-Biden-to-China-15210585.php

 

Quote

 

President Donald Trump's campaign is preparing to launch a broad effort aimed at linking Joe Biden to China, after concluding that it would be more politically effective than defending or promoting Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The decision by top campaign advisers, which has met pushback from some White House officials and donors, reflects polling showing a declining approval rating for Trump among key groups and growing openness to supporting Biden in recent weeks, according to officials familiar with the data who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.

The shift represents a remarkable acknowledgment by aides to a self-described a "wartime president," leading during what might have been a rally-around-the-flag moment, to effectively decide it is better to go on the attack than focus on his own achievements. Campaign polling found more than three-quarters of voters blamed China for the coronavirus outbreak, underscoring the potential benefits of tying the presumptive Democratic nominee to Beijing.

The planned China push, which has already been embraced by pro-Trump outside groups, comes as both the Trump and Biden campaigns have been anxiously recalibrating their plans in response to the most catastrophic economic and health crisis in the United States in generations. The two title contenders for the 2020 elections are finally set, but neither campaign, with their mismatched strengths and weaknesses, knows what the election arena will look like.

 

With the public distracted by economic collapse and disease, strategists have been trying to craft campaign blueprints that can accommodate everything from a country that reopens this summer to a fall election season without any door-knocking or massive rallies and with limited Election Day voting in person. They also face a challenge in inducing persuadable voters to focus on politics when they are consumed by their personal situations.

 

The Biden campaign faces an uphill battle with limited money to scale up its campaign to match the overwhelming scale and reach of the Trump operation, as the Democrats' likely candidate is forced to operate from his basement recreation room while the president hosts daily events from the White House. Meanwhile, Trump's reelection slogan "Keep America Great," still printed on $30 campaign hats for sale online, now seems like a relic of a lost era before more than 37,000 deaths from the virus and about 22 million Americans seeking unemployment benefits in the last four weeks.

Strategists for both parties now believe the election is likely to hinge on the question of which candidate is better able to help the country recover from the pandemic disaster. Trump has been shown economic models that indicate double-digit unemployment could come to the United States, and some advisers, including Kellyanne Conway and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, have begun thinking about how to sell a comeback narrative - with Trump's original asset of economic gains likely gone.

Conway, who remains in the West Wing, has emerged as a critic of the campaign team's decision to focus on China. And some who have seen newly produced anti-Biden ads - which largely feature footage of the former vice president making comments about China and a potential travel ban - have derided them as weak. As of Friday afternoon, Trump had not given the final green light to the ads, officials said, and the president sometimes vacillates on his position toward China.

 

 

[Danny Bateman]

10 minutes ago, TGHusker said:

Trump team will try to flip this back on Biden.

 

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Trump-team-sees-edge-in-linking-Biden-to-China-15210585.php

 

 

 

Of course. Trump's own record is pathetic and corrupt. They can't campaign on his incompetence so it's time to get to swift-boating.

 

I saw a clip the other day him or one of his idiot adult children tweeted out tearing into Biden for a comment he made in 2011 about China being on the rise being a good thing. Because of course that's relevant and nothing has changed in the nine years since.

 

It was always going to be a very dirty, muck-filled campaign. The question was always whether or not our candidate could weather that.

[Danny Bateman]

I know some are concerned about a lack of enthusiasm among Dems in November.

 

This polling actually found the opposite: Dems are growing much more enthusiastic to vote compared to 2016.

 

 

Quote

According to the Reuters/Ipsos poll, 70% of Democrats said they were “certain” to vote in the upcoming presidential election, 9 percentage points higher than in the first quarter of 2016.

 

Among Republicans, the increase from 2016 was much smaller – 3 percentage points – with 71% saying they will vote in November.

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When the poll combined states that are expected to be especially competitive this year – Arizona, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Colorado – voting interest rose by 11 points among Democrats over the past four years, while it only rose by 3 points among Republicans.

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The rise in political enthusiasm was on display in the Democratic presidential nominating contests this year. Turnout in many states such as Michigan, Virginia and South Carolina surpassed previous highs set in 2008, when Barack Obama made his

historic run for the presidency.

 

In state after state, large majorities of Democratic primary voters - around 60% - said they were “angry” with the Trump administration, while 30% said they were “dissatisfied,” according to exit polls by Edison Research. Most of them said they voted for a candidate who they thought could beat Trump.

 

 

[TGHusker]

trump's strategy  now that the economy has tanked  - demonize dem governors and throw the blame on them, WHO, china etc

https://www.vox.com/2020/4/19/21225195/stay-at-home-protests-trump-tea-party-reelection

Quote

For some on the right, the plan seems simple: vilify Democratic governors and agitate for the end of shutdown orders. Then, “reopen the economy” and spur a massive turnaround in the nation’s economic prospects just in time for Trump to be reelected in November. If the pandemic recedes, he can claim he was entirely responsible; but if people continue to die, he can place the blame on Democratic governors.

Theda Skocpol, a professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, put it this way: “That’s ... Trump’s entire strategy, and you can see it in the way he talks about this.” Skocpol is the editor of the upcoming book, Upending American Politics: Polarizing Parties, Ideological Elites, and Citizen Activists from the Tea Party to the Anti-Trump Resistance.

She added, “I think there really is popular anger among middle income people, particularly living in whiter, less metropolitan parts of these key states” about stay-at-home orders, but “it’s being goosed along by some of the same advocacy groups on the free market right.”

But there’s a problem for Trump: the public, including the vast majority of Republicans, largely supports social-distancing measures, and new polling shows that half of Republicans are concerned stay-at-home orders and social distancing measures will be lifted too quickly. Research shows that many Americans began social distancing before urged to do so by the government, and likely wouldn’t stop even if such orders were lifted. In short, the anti-shutdown-order protests don’t mirror public opinion. And in order for Trump to benefit from their potential impact, they need to — and coronavirus needs to spare rural America (which it isn’t.)

 

[RedDenver]

2 hours ago, Danny Bateman said:

Of course. Trump's own record is pathetic and corrupt. They can't campaign on his incompetence so it's time to get to swift-boating.

Yep. And this is another one of the reasons that 2020 reminds me of 2004. I think swift-boating will work on Biden much as it did Kerry. Both Biden's and Kerry's campaigns are simply "the current president is bad", and I think the lack of any meaningful goals makes it easy for their opponent to control the narrative. On the other hand, there's a lot of anti-Trump momentum, so we'll see.

[teachercd]

The different tones of husker message boards is interesting.  I don't get over to Husker Online that much but I checked it out yesterday and it is like the exact opposite from this board.  

[commando]

you guys are discounting the republicans who are strongly against trump.    

[RedDenver]

23 minutes ago, commando said:

you guys are discounting the republicans who are strongly against trump.    

Doesn't Trump have something like a 90% approval among Repub voters?

[commando]

Just now, RedDenver said:

Doesn't Trump have something like a 90% approval among Repub voters?

maybe i should have said republicans who have left the party repulsed by trump.    we are not going to sit this out.   i may have to fight my way through a gaggle of trumps brownshirts to get to the polling place...but i will get there if i can. 

[RedDenver]

23 minutes ago, commando said:

maybe i should have said republicans who have left the party repulsed by trump.    we are not going to sit this out.   i may have to fight my way through a gaggle of trumps brownshirts to get to the polling place...but i will get there if i can. 

I've said a bunch of times that I could be underestimating the anti-Trump vote, but I don't think there's many current and former Repub voters that will vote Biden. I think it's more likely that former Trump voters will stay home, which could still be enough for Trump to lose.

 

But I ultimately think the country is so strongly polarized that few 2016 voters will change their vote for 2020, which leaves the enormous pool of non-voters to decide the election. That's where I think Hillary failed and Biden will too.

[Notre Dame Joe]

34 minutes ago, RedDenver said:

I've said a bunch of times that I could be underestimating the anti-Trump vote, but I don't think there's many current and former Repub voters that will vote Biden. I think it's more likely that former Trump voters will stay home, which could still be enough for Trump to lose.

 

But I ultimately think the country is so strongly polarized that few 2016 voters will change their vote for 2020, which leaves the enormous pool of non-voters to decide the election. That's where I think Hillary failed and Biden will too.

 

A lot of Never-Trump Rs are quarantined in solid blue states irrelevant to the national election.  I can't imagine that Trump's 2016 voters would stay home because . . . fear of the virus?

 

Hilary got whacked by assuming the prediction models of Obama voters automatically translated to herself.  One can infer Obama's stats will also be inapplicable to Biden.

[commando]

1 hour ago, RedDenver said:

I've said a bunch of times that I could be underestimating the anti-Trump vote, but I don't think there's many current and former Repub voters that will vote Biden. I think it's more likely that former Trump voters will stay home, which could still be enough for Trump to lose.

 

But I ultimately think the country is so strongly polarized that few 2016 voters will change their vote for 2020, which leaves the enormous pool of non-voters to decide the election. That's where I think Hillary failed and Biden will too.

well...this guy doesn't care if every one else in the country votes for trump...i am still voting against good ol don the con. if the count comes back 1 vote for biden in nebraska (assuming he is the dem nominee) that will be my vote.

[BigRedBuster]

 

[funhusker]

15 hours ago, commando said:

well...this guy doesn't care if every one else in the country votes for trump...i am still voting against good ol don the con. if the count comes back 1 vote for biden in nebraska (assuming he is the dem nominee) that will be my vote.

The best feeling I ever had was voting against him twice in 2016.  Once in the primary and again in the general.

 

I can't wait to do it again!