I agree but it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
They’re trying to negotiate a ceasefire; they’re trying to get aid into Gaza.
The problem with withholding large amounts of aid is the antisemitic attack ads will have more bite, AIPAC as the most powerful lobbyist will go crazy, and there’s a non-zero chance Bibi stages a false flag attack to paint Democrats as leaving them defenseless.
Couple things:
The most substantive quote you have is a blatant editorializing by Zateo of the YouGov data. Nowhere does the polling datasay “withholding all aid.” Conditioning Aid != Withholding Aid, which implies all aid. If we’re going down this path, then Biden has already withheld some aid to Israel. And when he did, there was a massive backlash.
Moreover all of these studies are many months old and thus subject to drastic changes since the likes of May. Moreover they don’t factor in the blow-back effect of withholding aid and the risk of there being a false flag on Israeli soil and how that would be portrayed against Democrats. Moreover it does not reflect the attack ads that would be used in battleground states with further bite by the GOP if Harris/Biden did this.
Further aid has also been conditioned on aid surges into Israel. Israel as expected is falling short half-way through the 30-day ultimatum.
Biden and Harris have repeatedly sought a permanent ceasefire solution; Trump by contrast reached out to Bibi to undermine said ceasefire negotiation. Both sides obviously deny this call because it would be blatantly illegal and undermining in public optics, but we know this is par for the course for both of them. It is in the interest of both Trump and Bibi to deny the ceasefire in order to make Biden/Harris look bad through the election.
Dems controlled weather to destroy… Jobs report…?
I think it’s kind of strange people think Harris wants to be associated with this Genocide. If it were that black-and-white, she clearly would’ve taken a harder position.
But if she does, then the larger Israeli-sympathetic Jewish voting bloc in PA that dwarfs the Muslim vote in Michigan (with less Electoral votes, mind you) gets jeopardized. If she doesn’t toe the line, she loses, Trump wins, and Gazans are definitely fucked.
Like it’s completely obvious why she has to have this position, lest she’s immediately cast as antisemitic.
I think you’re giving Trump far too much credit that he was dancing on stage because he had nothing to do and coasting to victory and that wasn’t just an obvious sign of dementia. Let’s be honest, here, the polls have been pretty much tied and within the margin of error this entire time. So I find this to be a bit speculative and expecting more than Trump than he is really capable of.
I’m nowhere saying this is a shoe-in. I am just explicitly responding and providing context to, “republican voting is up in places it matters”
I also disagree that she campaigned poorly. I think she campaigned exceptionally given the time she had and the needle she needed to thread with both distancing from Biden but also citing that the economy is, in fact, improving phenomenally on the world stage and post pandemic. To pick up the mantle in three months and run as well as she had? The Democrats have honestly not been this united since 2008 maybe, and that speaks to the fact that she brought onboard 5 veteran Obama campaign staffers. Regardless of the outcome, this has been historic.
Sounds like your main gripe is really her policy on Gaza, which unfortunately during election season you need to get the votes needed to cross the finish-line… Which means catering to the Jewish votes in Pennsylvania perhaps more so than the Uncommitted voters in Michigan by the nature of electoral votes. You saw that Elon Musk is spending millions in PA with attack ads with opposite messages targeting BOTH the (larger) Jewish community and the Muslim community in PA — yes? She literally has no choice but to toe the line between these two groups.
Moreover, I want to know at what specific point in time in polling anyone had confidence we were heading for a blue wave when polls are all we know?
The Iowa poll which has been dead-on in terms of gauging turnout in 2016 and 2020 compared to nearly any other pollster just gave Harris a +3 in Iowa. A +3 in Iowa. Keep that in mind.
If we’re going to go into more speculation as you’re suggesting we do, then I can point to 2022 and show that the Red Wave turned into a Red Mirage. Why? Simply: Pollsters did not account for the over-performance of Democrats post-Roe Reversal. Polling volatility given registration numbers and cross-over from Republicans is very volatile right now. It is entirely possible we see that same over-performance again, and thus a red wave turns into a blue mist, wave, or tsunami even given that Platinum-tier Iowa poll. Don’t forget 538 had 59:41 odds of GOP getting the Senate.
In the end who knows and I’ll hope for the best and expect the worst. But given the circumstances I think the Harris campaign has done great. I don’t think we as laypeople could do better. Easy to throw peanuts from the sidelines.
You’re going to see more registered Republicans crossing over to vote for Harris than perhaps any Democrat has previously received.
More are voting early, but that’s to be expected given Trump learned from the 2020 mistake of dissuading his voters from early voting. It doesn’t mean greater turnout; it just means the same voters Trump had before are voting earlier.
Always vote, but yes, I’ll believe Texas and Florida turn blue when I see it.
Reassurance is women are out-voting men by 10pts in early voting.
Fully 35% of black voters say they plan to vote on election day alone.
538 gave 59% odda GOP to take the Senate in 2022.
Not only do these polls have a margin of error, but they are only predictive insofar as their likely voter models are accurate, and registration volatility and GOP crossover support for Harris means they likely aren’t.
There is no evidence that the low propensity incel bro vote is churning out as hoped.
But there are conservative-leaning never trumpers who have an ounce of moral standards that doesn’t let them vote for Trump who is unquestionably worse than Liz Cheney in every way (namely, she didn’t try to overthrow democracy on January 6th and continue to peddle the Big Lie).
It is these voters Liz Cheney seeks for Harris and it’s clearly scaring the fuck out of Trump lol
That Rick Scott is even publicly addressing this means they’re worried as hell lol.
The gap in early voting was never going to be as wide as 2020. Trump was actively telling his cult to NOT vote early. Now they’re telling them to do just that.
At the end of the day, the take-home message of this article is that Democrats are over-performing with seniors relative to 2020.
Trump is running 5 percentage points behind Harris among voters ages 65 and over, slipping back from the previous month, when he and Harris were tied with that demographic. It’s a major shift from 2020, when Trump carried 53 percent of the senior vote in Pennsylvania in a losing effort in the state.
Fair point. I feel Immediately following elections Democrats need to pivot into this one-part educational teacher mindset to dispel common myths on us history and civics (eg, “The Dems were the slavers!”), and one-part activism. Every election cycle we fall for the trap of letting the blind lead the blind. To carve out the winning electorate by whatever means necessary as you say. But when do we actually try to nudge Americans in the right direction? This is what I commended Warren or Sanders for because they built a movement around where the country needed to go through facts and conviction and persuaded people.
Democrats rarely persuade and equally fall for whatever bullshit narrative Republicans design.
I wish Dems would start spitting fire and come out with an ad going through the list of prejudices throughout our history.
"Native Americans / Aborigines? Italians? Jews? Asians? Blacks? Latinos? Women voting? Muslims? Gay? And now trans?
Isn’t it always something? When will we all see the pattern here that these witch hunts always fall on the wrong side of history. And they’re always perpetrated by the same sort of people - not grouped by the color of their skin race or religion, but of profound ignorance rooted in fear of the unknown. Cutting across every other adjective used to divide us, we are ALL human."
Side note but my god I still think of that Bernie Sanders ad from his 2016 campaign, Vote Together.
Anyone remember Umbrella Man from the 2020 Minneapolis riots? He was smashing windows and trying to frame BLM protesters when in fact he was a right wing nut job.
Wasn’t the only case if I recall of that year.
Boogaloo boys tried to do something similar in framing nearby protesters over George Floyd when they shot up a Federal courthouse, killing a security guard.
Investigations into the 2020 protests found that the vast majority of protests were peaceful and a majority of the violence was instigated by counter-protesters.
Editorial boards are strictly segregated from the objective reporters. Except for right wing media anyway.
This is key. Follow journalists and editors who leave WaPo and support them wherever they go.
Otherwise this may just be playing into the hand of Bezos to cripple yet another outlet that speaks truth to power.
ProPublica does phenomenal work.
I think there have been some “leaked” info to reputable journalists how both Biden and Harris pretty much despise Bibi at this point. I think if you look at it in the aggregate in how they pushed for the ceasefire (as opposed to Trump speaking with Bibi to actively undermine it), in her comments after meeting with Bibi shortly after becoming the presumed nominee following Biden stepping down — there is a clear tonal change from, say, 6-months-ago even. So yeah, I think her hands are pretty well tied.
Either way, the reality any sane person can understand is that there are much better odds we see movement from Harris than we do from Trump.
It’s because there is a large, internally-polled segment of the Pennsylvania electorate who are Jewish and sympathetic to Israel.
Harris can’t afford to not court them.
I have no doubt she vehemently dislikes Bibi and would wish to cut aid.
Well there’s plenty of reason to be anxious, but thus October Surprise combined with some recent polls gives me some renewed hope.
America: “Can you hold until after this election? You’ll have your answer then.”