ThatOneKrazyKaptain
Decided to check since people said Trump was scrambling for endorsements. No former president or former vice president alive supports him. Most of the failed candidates for both don’t either(Romney, Ryan). Sarah Palin is the only VP Candidate willing to back him.
Just to say, I’m increasingly uncertain about how truthful it really is that JD Vance was the worst possible pick for Trump and the best case for the democrats. If the matchup was still Biden, perhaps. But the thing is, Kamala has the black vote, Indian vote, and to a lesser extent the Female vote on lockdown now. She’s the candidate, she’s got them turning out hard, any attempt for Trump to win some over with someone like Carson or Swaney would have been utterly undone and rendered moot. There’s a bit more of an argument for the women, but Nikki was too troublesome and most of the other options are either old or look old. Trump needed someone young to shore up that flank, who won’t depress his base(or will help boost them, albeit after the shooting that’s not needed), helps him look sane and the ticket by proxy, and is at least potentially helpful with either the rust belt whites or Hispanics(who are the actually gettable ones against Harris). Vance is young, helps the base, and might edge out a few rust belt voters. He’s useless with Hispanics though and doesn’t help the moderate issue. So still not great, but a lot of the picks people were worried about like Ben Carson would have been completely neutralized by Harris with hindsight. The threat of Trump pulling over key black voters is a dead threat and that’s not where the VP sway matters most right now.
The two picks that would be better than Vance(and the two you should feel worried about Trump switching to in the next 10 days) are Doug Burgum and Glenn Youngkin. Burgum has a lot of the same advantages as Vance, and he comes off as a lot more sane and less stupid, albeit at the cost of being older than Harris and most of her VP choices. That one could go either way honestly and I doubt Trump would risk the optics for someone barely better, but if he did he could be an issue especially as it kills stories like OP. The real threat would be Glenn Youngkin. He’s younger than Harris by two years and younger than almost all her VP options. He’s a white guy, he comes off as more moderate than Trump or Vance by comparison, but not so much to risk depressing the base like Haley, and he’s younger(Also he has Young in his last name, easy to work with). The biggest threat with him though is that he’d give a boost in Virginia, and while Post-Biden that’s not a death sentence it forces Harris to commit resources and time to a state the Republicans don’t really need to win and the Democrats really cannot afford to lose. Also both Burgum and Youngkin have tech industry roots and heavy ties. They might not be Vance tier loyalists, but they’ll sing the tune of the Paypal Mafia if they must.
Just FYI so you don’t get ‘gotchaed’, Trump isn’t the oldest nominee ever. Neither was Biden. Record is still held by Peter Cooper from the reconstruction era who was 84 when nominated.
Assuming the new candidate(probably Harris) avoid any major disasters as does Trump, we’ll be returning to the May 2024 status quo of things. Harris is more popular than post-debate Biden, was slightly behind pre-debate Biden, and will probably need a month to get back there(winning the nomination and undoing all the damage from 4 weeks of infighting.)
On the plus side, that’ll drop the hemorrhaging, New Mexico and New Jersey safe, Virginia and Minnesota probably safe. On the downside at this point Georgia and North Carolina are lost, there just isn’t time and the Republicans spent 4 years pouring resources into them.
This is back to the main 5. Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. The important factor is that if they lose Pennsylvania, they lose. They can win the other 4 here, but it’s 268-270. Unless they snag something extra like Georgia(unlikely in this scenario), that’s it.
If they win Pennsylvania, they need at least two others in ideal circumstances(Michigan needs to be one of the two and Nevada can’t be one of the two, second one would have to be Wisconsin or Arizona), 3 others in unideal circumstances if Michigan isn’t there and they get Nevada. I should also note several of these scenarios are razor thin (270-268 with Pensylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin and 271-267 with Arizona instead) and thus vulnerable to faithless electors. Or worse, if Maine’s statewide went red(which is more likely than Georgia going blue or Virginia going red at this point) the former would be a win and the latter would be a tie. In the tie scenario the House picks the president(so Trump) and the Senate picks the Vice President(so Vance would be ousted) which would be an absolute nightmare and gambling on Trump dying in that situation isn’t worth it.
I note this because even in the base line May scenario Pennsylvania was one of the worse polling one for democrats(Arizona and Wisconsin were the blue edging ones), and Pennsylvania is not a state where the stars are aligning. It was Biden’s home state, Scranton boy, him being off the ticket hurts things there probably more than they help. AND, while it’s true nationwide the post-shooting bump for Trump was relatively minor, Pennsylvania is where the shooting happened and has gotten the largest bump in the polls since, 3 or 4 points. Biden leaving demotivates the base there harder than anywhere else in the county and the Trump shooting re-motivated the base there harder than most.
My call? If they don’t pick Shapiro or Whitmer, it’s over 100%, and even with it’s iffy. Pennsylvania is perhaps the one state where any replacement is going to do worse than Biden even post-debate, and the one state the Trump shooting caused a notable bump. What are the odds it’s also the single most crucial state in this election?
(Russian Region including both Kursk and Belgorod)
One thing worth noting about how much the devil is in the details.
Arizona and Nevada are still leaning pretty solidly R at the moment.(Trump’s hispanic margins have steadily gone up since 2016, dropping the wall focus helped a lot). Wisconsin and Michigan are the closest to going D albeit Trump still leans ahead. PA is in the middle and is the most important of the set. (North Carolina is the strongest R of all 7, and Georgia is the Libertarian Ex-Democrat Chase Olivers homestate which combined with Cornell West’s strong focus there and the election commission shenanigans means those two are out of play barring some good luck and Roy Cooper being picked. Trump would have won Georgia in 2020 with no third party vote and those have leaned left since. I don’t consider them swing states unless Andy or Roy are on board).
In the Rust Belt Focus scenario(They pick Shapiro or Walz and make Pennsylvania the biggest focus as it’s the most important state, and manage to finish ahead in all 3, at the cost of Arizona, Nevada, and the Southern States), the final score is 268-270. A win, but a damn tight one.
Except…Nebraska. Nebraska is putting a law up in September to change the way their state distributes to be Winner Take All. If it goes through it would be passed in October, taking away one D vote from Omaha and giving it to R. (Maine has threatened to do the same if Nebraska does, but they wouldn’t have it done til after the election if they did, not enough time). That would change the above scenario to a 269-269 decided by the current House…which is Trump run and even if it wasn’t it’s state by state and more than 26 states are safe red even in a blue wave scenario. Though it would leave the VP pick to the Senate, which is democrat right now, and while it couldn’t be Harris due to her current spot anyone else would be came. So there’d be a very real chance of a Trump/Shapiro ticket which would be a dysfunctional nightmare and would have a massive chance of one of the two getting murdered.(I can’t find a source if it’s the current senate or the newly elected one as they get inaugurated seperately from the president, but if the senate falls which looks likely the Republicans can pick the VP, and while the House is leaning democrat due to it being state by state it would be R regardless).
This ALSO happens in the reverse scenario, where the Dems focus on the Southwestern States with Mark Kelly(taking Arizona and Nevada) AND manage to put on enough pressure to take Wisconsin and Michigan(which are the closest and Kelly while he isn’t a winning deal there is still better than nothing), but are unable to win Pennsylvania(which is a lot more red leaning and without Shapiro or Walz is probably going red). 270 - 268 win for Democrats…unless Nebraska changes the law in which case it’s a tie, House picks, see above.
The specific configuration of which states go where makes a tie super likely this year especially if Nebraska switches their rules(which isn’t unconstitutional, they picked a weird unique system and they can unpick it, the other system is used by 48 states that’s all above board. The scummy part is the timing as it would leave Maine without time to change their own system before the election and thus secure an extra R vote without an extra D vote from changing Maine). There are also tie scenarios in the event Nebraska doesn’t change, namely the “Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia go blue, everything else goes Red” possibility if someone like Beshear or Cooper is picked ends in a 269-269 tie, as does a couple of scenarios where Maine-State swings Red(which it has come extremely close to more than once), turning narrow Blue wins into ties. And if those scenarios happened alongisde a Nebraska change they’d suddenly be 270-268 clean wins.
It’s probably a trap…but beating him there would be a huge huge fucking deal. Trump took the last debate on Biden teams terms and despite that Biden still cocked it up and that made the burn worse(had that debate been on Fox the age issues would have been blamed on their audio mixing and editing and the room being too hot and crap). If Trump loses on his own turf on his rules with his followers watching?
Before anyone starts getting a bit too high off their own supply Harris’s polling averages peaked on August 12th. They were stagnant or declining on the 13th and 14th, briefly spiked on the 15th, and that spike was completely undone on the 16th. Today is dropping again. Not big drops, like 1/10th of a point every other day(which day depends on which conglomerates you use), but the growth trend is over.
I just heard her speak for the first time today.
Better than Joe, but I don’t think she’s Obama tier. That man was king of the mic.
