Biden takes a 14-point lead nationally

Why the sudden swing? Voters feel the President took a beating in the debate. Among those who had an opinion of the “winner,” Biden won 49-24. More important was this question:

Did the presidential debate make you …

More likely to support Donald Trump…………… 6
More likely to support Joe Biden ………………… 19
Made no difference…………………………………… 73
Not sure………………………………………………… 2

So among voters who were swayed one way or the other, Biden held a 3-1 edge.

This post-debate poll of the popular vote may be accurate, but is almost meaningless because of the electoral college. Yes, Trump will lose California by some five million votes, but the swing states are all pretty much still in play. (Additional polls from RCP)

36 thoughts on “Biden takes a 14-point lead nationally

  1. I think it is the only thing. He reminds me of my grandfather – in that respect only. My great-grandfather had a serious case of the Irish Disease, fell into the bottle and didn’t come out again while my grandfather was a medical student at Johns Hopkins. Grandpa had to drop out and go back to Massachusetts to head up the family. Eventually went to pharmacy school and made a decent living as a pharmacist. Put Dad through Harvard and two other sons through Northeastern. But never forgot the “marble stoops” of Balmer. Boy, would my genetic history have been different if Great Gramps hadn’t been a lush – since I’m sure Grandpa would have settled in Baltimore and married a local, rather than a nice Irish girl back in Lynn. Getting to the point, you couldn’t get Grandpa within 10 feet of an open bottle after his father’s death. The situation with Trump’s brother really seems to have had a similar effect on him.
    Of course that doesn’t stop our Very Stable Genius from being an expert on wines. He knows American wines are better than French “because they look better”.

  2. A 74-year old President of the United States continuously acting like a badly-raised 10-year old doesn’t make for great optics. Of course the Bonk probably thought he was doing a great job of “owning the liberals”. Trump has got to be the most obnoxious-drunk-style nondrinker ever.

    1. Yes, that nails it. He’s the guy at the end of the bar with the Archie Bunker weltanschauung who has had a few too many. He’s the obnoxious uncle filled with unsupported opinions – you know, the one who hits the bottle a little too hard at Thanksgiving dinner.

      The fact that he always seems drunk is amazing given that he doesn’t drink at all.

      Oh, wait. He SAYS he doesn’t drink at all. Does that mean it’s nearly 100% certain that he’s always drunk, or is that the only thing he tells the truth about?

  3. I think it was very bad for Trump to allow a direct, personal, one-on-one comparison between him and Biden, which is what the “debate” boiled down to. Biden projects decency and humanity. None of the people Trump blew off the stage in the 2016 Republican debates were good at that in the debate setting, no matter what they are like in person. And it sure isn’t Hilary’s strong suit either. But compared to Biden, Trump isn’t even a guy you’d want for your local alderman, let alone President.

    In that sense, the Covid infection is a godsend for Trump, because it gets him out from under more debates in a way that may garner him some sympathy for his base.

    And his base it out there. I took a drive out into the country today, and once I was in a rural area, I saw about a dozen Trump/Pence yard signs, and only one Biden/Harris. That was not reassuring.

    1. I guess given Trump’s idea of himself as smart and quick-witted, debating Biden, given what Trump says he thinks about Biden, the “debate” seemed like a very good idea. But it worked out very poorly, IMO, and was repulsive to the undecided, no matter what the Bonker says above.

  4. Yeah just wait a couple of weeks until the “vaccine” is released and Barr and Durham release the Mueller investigation investigation “results”.

  5. “but is almost meaningless because of the electoral college. ” … Your point is valid — the popular vote really doesn’t matter — but that’s not because of any aspect of the electoral college. It’s because of the winner-take-all statutes that are in place in 48 states which skews how the electors are allocated in each state. Without the California statute, for example, Trump would earn 20 or more electoral votes in California based on his share of the popular vote in that state.

    The winner-take-all statutes could be abolished tomorrow by the state legislatures. They are no part of the constitutional electoral college structure.

      1. If all states had assigned electoral votes proportionately in 2016, neither candidate would have received 270 electoral votes because of the 13 that would have been won by Gary Johnson. Because the states where Trump did well get proportionately more electoral votes than the states where Hillary did well, Trump would have had an advantage in the electoral college 262-261, with 13 for Johnson and one each for Stein and McMullin,

        Given the same faithless electors, the final tab would have been Trump 260, Clinton 256, Johnson 13, Powell 3, Sanders 1, Spotted Eagle 1, Kasich 1, Paul 1, McMullin 1, Stein 1. That would have plunged the election into the House of Representatives, where the top three candidates would have been in a run-off: Trump – Clinton – Johnson.

        Contingent elections are not decided in the House by a one-person-one-vote procedure. The system is one vote per state. This is particularly troubling in the states that have an even number of representatives. At any rate, Trump would have won easily, since Republicans were in the majority in 32 of the 50 states at the time when the 2016 election would have been decided in the House.

        The “one vote per state” procedure suffers from the same bias as the Senate and the Electoral College – disproportionate representation to small states. (One wag called this “affirmative action for white people.”)

        1. I actually looked at this in 2016. If you take the census data of each state broken down by ethnicity and then do a weighted average with the number of electoral votes, you can calculate an “equivalent number of votes per person” by group:

          White: 1.006
          Black: 0.959
          Asian: 0.943
          Native American: 1.149
          Hawaiian/Pacific Islander: 0.735
          Hispanic: 0.918

          You can see that the electoral college system severely underweight the value of all groups with the exception of White and interestingly, Native Americans. The latter makes sense when you realize that the percentage of Native Americans is very high in several of the less populated states such as Alaska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and South Dakota.

          Caveats:
          1. Those numbers are based on breakdown of total population (not just voting age).
          2. I think I used 2010 census data, not 2016.
          3. They assume 100% voter participation. Directed voter suppression (hi, Texas!) would skew the numbers even more.

        2. not what I see… from the WaPo article…

          “Another seemingly simple concept, used in many states for the presidential primaries, is to assign electors according to the share of votes each candidate got. As with pure popular vote, this would encourage candidates to pursue votes in every state, not just those they can win outright. Proportional results are less decisive than winner-take-all so there’s less chance of a clear winner with a mandate to lead. In both 2000 and 2016, no candidate would have won a majority, so some combination of parties would have to form a coalition to get 270 electoral votes, or the country could have a do-over election.”

          That gives Clinton 268, Trump 267, Johnson 2 and McMullin 1. As the WaPo article points out this would have required Johnson to throw his support to Clinton for the win.

          1. They must be defining “proportionate” a different way, possibly by districts. Or perhaps they set some minimal percentage to be eligible. But using strict, pure mathematical proportions, you can rapidly double-check the math to see that even Jill Stein would clearly have earned an electoral vote. (Stein got 1.96% of the California vote – times 55 electoral votes = 1.08 electoral votes.)

    1. There is a way to keep the votes from skewing unfairly and to make everyone’s voice represented proportionately.

      It’s called the popular vote.

      So here’s the novel, almost brilliantly innovative idea – the winner is the candidate with the most votes.

  6. What did the numbers look like last time vs. Hillary? I thought she was leading by a landslide at this point.

    1. Even the highest gap in states which weren’t even polled with this quality, in a completely different scenario, the biggest ‘gap’ in a state compared to polling was around +6 for Hillary in Wisconsin, which Trump barely won.

      Now you have these states and these polls hitting over and over and over again with consistency. This isn’t two ultra unpopular candidates campaigning for a Presidential vacancy, or an ignorant candidate like Hillary was not spending any time or money in Wisconsin, Michigan, or Pennsylvania.

      Clinton was up by 1.6% at this time apparently BTW:

      Good breakdown of why this isn’t 2016 at all. It makes for nice media drama and clicks, but it’s no different from a team getting beat by 20 who came back from the same margin the previous game, to go on to lose by 30.

      Polls are better, reporting is better, and Biden isn’t Hillary. It couldn’t be more different.

  7. This Biden voter is NOT going to change his mind all the way to the drop box on Tuesday. TG DC actually did something fast and efficient for once in getting the ballots out.

  8. From the Democracy Institute poll yesterday of likely voters (predicted Brexit & Trump win in ’16):

    Could your vote change before election day?
    Trump voters: Yes =2%
    Biden voters: Yes = 7%

    Are you very enthusiastic about your choice of candidate?
    Trump voters: 83%
    Biden voters: 49%

    Trump Covid diagnosis:
    Won’t affect how you vote = 68%
    More likely to vote Trump = 19%
    Less likely to vote Trump = 13%

    Electoral college prediction: Trump 320 to 218

    1. A right wing ‘thinktank’ that has been funded by the tobacco institute previously to say warnings don’t work on cigarette packaging, has an unscientific poll that Trump will win. All when the founder has been a pro-Trump backer complaining about Twitter bias in the past.

      Congrats, a made up Trump-land pollster with no scientific relevance predicts a Trump win. You keep thinking that, just like Coronavirus was a hoax right?

      Trump’s being bitch slapped back to reality right now, and will again in a month.

    2. good prediction Brobonk … and you see right away that they have nothing but insults … name calling … it it amazing how long this TDS has had them …he lives in their heads rent free … they are all gonna go nuts when he wins again … keep up the good posts … this site makes me laugh !!!

      1. Of course he’s living rent free in our heads. The MSM is constantly giving Trump free attention. Its hard to avoid the dip shit.

      2. If your clown doesn’t start taking his condition seriously, he’s not going to be around on Election Day. My girlfriend, a pediatrician, was off her feet for a week with the virus. And she didn’t get oxygen or the other stuff Trump has been getting because her case wasn’t considered serious. Not to mention she’s half his age and not in the slightest obese.
        That was a great stunt with the SUV yesterday. Secret Service people know they signed on to take a bullet if necessary. They didn’t know they signed on to take a germ.

        1. “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” Trump tweeted. “Don’t let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump Administration, some really great drugs & knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago!”

          Trump realizes that the US is populated by morons.

          1. “The president’s aides hope to keep him at the White House residence and away from the Oval Office but are uncertain how long that will last, according to people familiar with the matter. “We’ll be back on the campaign trail soon!!!” Trump tweeted before leaving the hospital.”
            Or as Joey Ramone once put it,
            “There’s no stoppin’ the cretins from hoppin'”

          2. The President’s aides hope in vain until Trump feels too sick to want to show off, which is very sick indeed. His concern about infecting others is nil. If pressed on this, he will talk about the miracle drugs that are right around the corner. That reminds of Hitler’s faith in wonder weapons in 1945.

          3. Difference being that The Germans did get their jet fighter into production, just too few too late to matter. They were scary close on a nuke too.
            Where we don’t have miracle drugs in the works, just the regular kind, and people might not take them after all Trump’s blather. But he doesn’t have to believe they will work, just that his doofi will believe him when he says they work.
            Fuck this year. Alexa, skip to 2021.

  9. Biden has been pretty consistently been hitting +7 to +10 now in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan and the inertia has been going up for Biden after Trump’s cluster bonanza of the past two weeks, and now Trump knocked on his ass and not exactly going to control any messaging for the next four weeks.

    I mean that’s all it takes to win it, it’s not even counting Biden in Arizona, Florida, Ohio – or even Republican strongholds like Texas, Georgia, or Iowa. The margin of error now is more likely within Biden blowout range rather than Trump magically going against all odds.

    Just goes to show the media play here, talk up the margin of error, yet ignore the fact that Biden is more solid in many ‘swing states’ that were pretty consistently blue before Trump won in 2016 than Trump even is with traditional Republican states.

  10. Yes “still in play” but thankfully we’re seeing those swing states pretty consistently pro Biden, with little narrowing so far. Those huge national numbers aren’t just from big blue states.

    Really seems like a fight between Blue voting turnout and RW vote suppression.

    1. The Republicans must be pretty damned scared if they are trying to suppress the vote in Texas. When they start worryin’ about losing that state, things are dire.

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