Imabench

Look I dont know what to name this and im mentally fried from having to teach middle schoolers who after winter break forgot how to fucking act like theyre in a classroom, so I just wanted to put this into writing and refer back to it in the future should I ever need to. 

I predict that the Georgia runoff elections will not have any long term impact because theres almost no way in hell that Dems win one or both of them. 

Yes the state barely budged for Biden over Trump and almost elected Stacey Abrams over whoever the fuck actually won, but look at how other senate Dem challengers have done in other states and all you will find is a BLOODBATH. 

Iowa = In the state that forever reason is still considered a swing state even though it drifts further right with each presidential election, Democrat Theresa Greenfield loses to Joni Ernst by 6 points 

Maine = The state fucking EVERYONE thought would be flipped ended up staying red, with the oft-attacked Susan Collins beating challenger Sara Gideon by NINE POINTS 

North Carolina = 2 point Republican hold by incumbent Tom Tillis in a state that always votes red minus one time when Obama was on the ticket in 2008. 

Texas = John Cornyn, whose biggest asset is not being as hated as Ted Cruz, wins reelection by a double digit margin in a state that is concerningly pulling more towards the middle when it comes to presidential elections. 

My point is that while Biden has squeaked out a win against Trump at the top of the ticket, the next line down where senators have been judged have consistently gone in the GOP's favor. If Democrats cant pull out a win in fucking Maine or other states that have for sometime been considered swing states, I am very pessimistic they will be able to pull out one, let alone two, surprise upsets in the Georgia runoffs. 

If you want to see where shit REALLY is on the line, check out some of the states that elect senators in 2022. Its basically a who's-who of swing states where incumbant senators are either retiring or controversial in some way shape or form:

Long story short, I took the (most recent) popular vote margins taken in each state, and then applied the margins those candidates won to the electoral votes each state actually carries, splitting the votes that could be won in each state among candidates based on how well they actually did rather than the winner-take-all method we currently use........ Here's how the results for the 2020 election came out for any of you who give a shit: 

Alabama = 9 Votes = Trump 62.2% 
6 votes for Trump, 3 votes for Biden 

Alaska = 3 Votes = Trump 53.1%
2 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden 

Arizona = 11 Votes = Biden 49.4%
6 votes for Biden, 5 votes for Trump

Arkansas = 6 Votes = Trump 62.4%
4 votes for Trump, 2 votes for Biden 

California = 55 Votes = Biden 63.5% 
35 votes for Biden, 20 votes for Trump

Colorado = 9 Votes = Biden 55.4% 
5 votes for Biden, 4 votes for Trump

Connecticut = 7 Votes = Biden 59.3%
4 votes for Biden, 3 votes for Trump

Delaware = 3 Votes = Biden 58.8%
2 votes for Biden, 1 vote for Trump 

Florida = 29 Votes = Trump 51.2% 
15 votes for Trump, 14 votes for Biden 

Georgia = 16 Votes = Biden 49.5% 
8 votes to Biden, 8 votes to Trump


=====================================================
1-10 SUMMARY COUNT: 
Biden = 80 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 68 Electoral Votes 
=====================================================


Hawaii = 4 Votes = Biden 63.7% 
3 votes for Biden, 1 vote for Trump

Idaho = 4 Votes = Trump 63.9% 
3 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden 

Illinois = 20 Votes = Biden 57.6% 
12 votes for Biden, 8 votes for Trump 

Indiana = 11 Votes = Trump 57.1%
6 votes for Trump, 5 votes for Biden 

Iowa = 6 Votes = Trump 53.2%
3 votes for Trump, 3 votes for Biden 

Kansas = 6 Votes = Trump 56.5% 
3 votes for Trump, 3 votes for Biden 

Kentucky = 8 Votes = Trump 62.1% 
5 votes for Trump, 3 votes for Biden 

Louisiana = 8 Votes = Trump 58.5% 
5 votes for Trump, 3 votes for Biden 

Maine = 4 Votes = Biden 53.4% 
2 votes for Biden, 2 votes for Trump

Maryland = 10 Votes = Biden 65.8%
7 votes for Biden, 3 votes for Trump 


=====================================================
11-20 SUMMARY COUNT: 
Biden = 42 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 39 Electoral Votes 
=====================================================


Massachusetts = 11 Votes = Biden 65.9%
7 votes for Biden, 4 votes for Trump 

Michigan = 16 Votes = Biden 50.6% 
8 votes for Biden, 8 votes for Trump 

Minnesota = 10 Votes = Biden 52.6% 
5 votes for Biden, 5 votes for Trump 

Mississippi = 6 Votes = Trump 57.6% 
3.5 votes for Trump, 2.5 votes for Biden 

Missouri = 10 Votes = Trump 56.8% 
6 votes for Trump, 4 votes for Biden 

Montana = 3 Votes = Trump 56.9% 
2 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden 

Nebraska = 5 Votes = Trump 58.5% 
3 votes for Trump, 2 votes for Biden 

Nevada = 6 Votes = Biden 50.1%
3 votes for Biden, 3 votes for Trump

New Hampshire = 4 Votes = Biden 52.9% 
2 votes for Biden, 2 votes for Trump 

New Jersey = 14 Votes = Biden 57.3% 
8 votes for Biden, 6 votes for Trump 


=====================================================
21-30 SUMMARY COUNT: 
Biden = 42.5 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 42.5 Electoral Votes 
=====================================================


New Mexico = 5 Votes = Biden 54.3% 
3 votes for Biden, 2 votes for Trump

New York = 29 Votes = Biden 60.3%
18 votes for Biden, 11 votes for Trump

North Carolina = 15 Votes = Trump 50.1%
8 votes for Trump, 7 votes for Biden 

North Dakota = 3 votes = Trump 65.5%
2 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden

Ohio = 18 Votes = Trump 53.3%
10 votes for Trump, 8 votes for Biden

Oklahoma = 7 Votes = Trump 65.4%
5 votes for Trump, 2 votes for Biden

Oregon = 7 Votes = Biden 56.9%
4 votes for Biden, 3 votes for Trump

Pennsylvania = 20 Votes = Biden 50.0%
10 votes for Biden, 10 votes for Trump

Rhode Island= 4 Votes = Biden 59.7%
2 votes for Biden, 2 votes for Trump

South Carolina = 9 Votes = Trump 55.1%
5 votes for Trump, 4 votes for Biden


=====================================================
31-40 SUMMARY COUNT: 
Biden = 59 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 58 Electoral Votes 
=====================================================


South Dakota = 3 Votes = Trump 61.8%
2 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden 

Tennessee = 11 Votes = Trump 60.7%
7 votes for Trump, 4 votes for Biden

Texas = 38 Votes = Trump 52.1%
20 votes for Trump, 18 votes for Biden 

Utah = 6 Votes = Trump 58.2% 
4 votes for Trump, 2 votes for Biden 

Vermont = 3 Votes = Biden 66.4%
2 votes for Biden, 1 vote for Trump

Virginia = 13 Votes = Biden 54.4%
7 votes for Biden, 6 votes for Trump

Washington = 12 Votes = Biden 58.4% 
7 votes for Biden, 5 votes for Trump

West Virginia = 5 Votes = Trump 68.6%
3.5 votes for Trump, 1.5 votes for Biden 

Wisconsin = 10 Votes = Biden 49.6%
5 votes for Biden, 5 votes for Trump

Wyoming = 3 Votes = Trump 70.4%
2 votes for Trump, 1 vote for Biden

Washington DC = 3 Votes = Biden 93%
3 votes for Biden, 0 votes for Biden 


=====================================================
41-51 SUMMARY COUNT: 
Biden = 51.5 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 55.5 Electoral Votes 
=====================================================


Biden = 80 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 68 Electoral Votes 

Biden = 42 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 39 Electoral Votes 

Biden = 42.5 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 42.5 Electoral Votes 

Biden = 59 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 58 Electoral Votes 

Biden = 51.5 Electoral Votes 
Trump = 53.5 Electoral Votes 

FINAL TALLY

BIDEN  =  275
TRUMP  =  263

Total = 538

TL;DR version: Biden would have still won the electoral college vote by about the size of Washington State had electoral votes been split based on the actual popular vote among the states themselves, rather then winner-take-all. 


Special Notes

#1 = THE MISSISSIPPI RULE......... If both candidates get a proportion of the vote in a state that leaves 1 electoral vote left over, the remaining electoral vote will be split in half among the candidates who are almost the same margin (0.05) away from the halfway point to win the remaining vote. 

Proportional Allocation makes Mississippi an incredibly interesting state. Because it has 6 votes, a candidate would need to win a massive 58.4% or more of the vote in order to outright win 4 of the electoral votes the state carries while the other candidate is left with two..... This time around, Trump got 57.6%, which is just short of the margin to win 4 outright (it gets him to 3.456 which rounds down to 3), but what is curious is that Biden only got 41.1% in the state, which would put him at 2.466 electoral votes and round him down to 2, leaving 1 electoral vote up for grabs.  

Biden’s 0.466 is closer to the 50% margin to win the remaining electoral vote than Trumps 0.456, but giving Biden the remaining vote would be the equivalent of making the result 50/50 when the total results for the state was far from a split decision. At the same time, giving the 1 vote to Trump would be mathematically irresponsible since Biden was technically closer to winning the remaining electoral vote than Trump by a margin of 0.010.... For the sake of fairness, I split that last remaining vote in half and awarded one half to each candidate, since that what would have been done if the state had more electoral votes to work with. This problem is not an issue with larger states since the margins needed to leave an electoral vote up for grabs is incredibly small.... Indiana for example which is nearly twice as big almost had a similar issue with 11 votes, where Biden's 41.0% margin brings him to 4.51 electoral votes, barely enough to round up to 5 while Trumps 57.1% margin puts him pretty close to 6 electoral votes (6.28). 

#2 = This rule also applied to West Virginia. Of the 5 Electoral Votes in the state, Trump won 68.6% of the vote which brings him to 3.43 electoral votes. However, Biden only got 29.7%, which brings him to 1.485 electoral votes. Because both candidates are at least 40% of the way to the next vote and are within a 0.05 decimal margin, the remaining 1 vote was split between the two candidates just like the first instance where such a split happened in Mississippi. 

#3 = This rule almost kicked in for Utah as well. Utah has 6 votes, and Biden only got 37.7% of the vote which would put him at 2.26 electoral votes while Trump’s 58.2% puts him within spitting distance of 4 electoral votes (3.492)….. Had Biden done better and got some of the 4.0% 3rd party votes, he could have pulled close enough to 2.50 so cause the final electoral vote to be split between both candidates, but Biden missed the mark so it went to Trump.  

#4 Washington DC has 3 electoral votes….. I completely fucking forgot that they get electoral votes, and it drove me completely insane when the total tally for all this data kept stopping at 535 instead of 538. I finally figured it out when I wondered if there was some small ass state that has 3 electoral votes I somehow missed in the NE United States, and Washington DC showed up in the results when I started looking around. 

CNBC had Biden at +4.0 (Missed by 3.2)

InsiderAdvantage had Trump at +2.0 (Missed by 2.8) 

-

Final Result: Trump by 8.2

Rasmussen (Missed by 2.2, 4.9, 4.2, 4.4)...................................... Average miss = 3.93%

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/fl/florida_trump_vs_biden-6841.html

In Wisconsin damn near EVERY POLL THAT WAS HELD IN THE STATE had Biden up by an average of 6.5% yet Biden only won by a margin of about 0.7%..... A 6 point gap that is only slightly better than the horrid 7 point gap that was uncovered in 2016. 

Unless all of this is somehow just unique to Trump and his base, and not actually reflective of the Republican base as a whole, then polls going into future elections are going to be just as similar of a crapshoot as theyve been for the last two elections.... That actually leads me a bit into my second point: 

After the GOP missed in 2012 with Romney, an 'autopsy' on the election led them to conclude they need to reach out to younger, black, and hispanic voters otherwise the GOP as a party will be left behind.... Trump now has TWICE shown that just appealing to their base as hard as fucking possible and relying on rural turnout to overcome bad polling is a strategy that can work since it worked once and damn near almost worked a second time. Romney and McCain when they were nominees were ale to position themselves as somewhat moderate and could appeal to independent voters, but Trump on the other hand made the GOP reflective of himself and still came closer to winning than either of the two previous nominees..... Whoever runs for the GOP in 2024, 2028, and even 2032 are going to be more inclined to try to rally the GOP base as hard as fucking possible the way Trump has rather than try to be a moderate centrist that tries to woo independents to come to their side. 

Even the Democrats might start doing the same because their strategy of picking a moderate leftist has barely worked as well. Both Hillary and Biden have relied on being moderate democrats whose extensive time in politics make them good candidates for the job, and both times the strategy has left little distance between them and Trump's scorched-earth way of campaigning. Could the next Dem candidate after Biden tell conservatives to suck a fat dick and just try to rally liberal voters as hard as possible? It sure seems possible that it would lead to a better outcome since playing it safe and being a bit centrist cost them one election and damn near lost them another. 

If Democrats cant win a senate race in fucking MAINE against a Senator who is not even that conservative yet still has largely sided with Trump a vast majority of the time, then theres not going to be enough chances for Dems to reclaim any other seats in the midterm 2022 elections barring any monumental fuckup by the sitting senator themselves.... Florida and Ohio are squarely in the GOP column now (Rubio is especially safe in Florida since he is already hispanic and can rally cuban voters to support him), leaving Pennsylvania as the only spot where Dems really have a chance to flip a seat.... Georgia is going blue in 2020 but unless Stacey Abrahms runs for senate again and manages to win this time, I dont see how Democrats flip that seat either

Short version: Kingdom, the first Korean-language original series on Netflix about a zombie breakout in 1600's Southern Korea, is one of the best damn zombie shows/movies/stories ever. 

Long Version: I fell off the Walking Dead a while ago, right around the Terminus story arc well into when the show became focused entirely on human drama in the midst of a zombie apocalypse rather then a struggle against zombies themselves. Outside of the Walking Dead, zombies only really have a presence in movies that have one of two possible story routes: 1) Its the beginning of an outbreak and people just keep trying to stay alive, movie ends open-ended with the zombie apocalypse still happening and not much has changed from the beginning, or 2) A zombie outbreak happens and is contained all within the movie where the bleakness of the situation never really sets in and you assume some sort of cure will be found just because it always does...... The exception to both of these types is Shaun of the Dead, which is basically a movie that expertly spoofs other zombie movies and motifs (It's title is almost exactly the same as Dawn of the Dead ffs) that gets somewhat resolved by the time everything ends. There's Shaun of the Dead, and then there's everything else. 

Then 'Kingdom' came along. 

Here's some of the reasons why Kingdom is such a unique take on the zombie genre 

- In the 1600's, the idea of zombies naturally would not be in anyone's consideration, so when zombies do start popping up or when people try to warn others that the dead wake up at night, they naturally dont believe/dont understand whats happening. In modern movies when people dont know how zombies work, its an indication of stupidity because just about everyone in modern society has some concept of how zombies work. But in the 1600's, fucking nobody would know anything about that, so when the situation does deteriorate and people dont know what is happening, rather then being angry at how stupid people are being you get more tense because there's no way people in this time could know whats going on 

- In the 1600's, zombies are a lot harder to kill..... Damn near every zombie movie or show gives humanity a fighting chance due to the existence of firearms, vehicles, explosives, etc that gives mankind a 50-50 fighting chance when fighting a hoard, no matter how outnumbered they may be. In the 1600's though, when best case scenario you have a sword and a horse, a zombie hoard is almost unstoppable, especially if you're outnumbered with not much strategic advantages. Instantly this raises the tension up 5 fold, as now those 50-50 odds of surviving or at least doing a decent amount of damage to a zombie hoard is now down to 10%. By setting the series in a time period when weapons are not capable of mass-destruction, it becomes way fucking harder for humans to survive even isolated encounters compared to horde's, which makes the stakes that much higher 

- In the 1600's, people were far more ruthless..... The most extreme decision that gets made in most modern zombie stories is whether or not a person kills another person when its revealed theyve been infected, or when someone tries to conceal theyve been infected from others in the group. A close third is when people decide to turn away healthy people who need help because you dont have enough supplies for everyone. These are motifs/plot points that have been used time and time again, with no adaptation really standing out in terms of how deep they go into the ethics of the circumstances. But this is medieval Korea now, where you have peasants already pushed to the extreme just to stay alive on a day-to-day basis, and higher up nobles and kings willing to do anything they can to maintain power since its their belief that they have been chosen by God to retain power. The level of dark shit that people in this time period are willing to do is substantially darker then what we could imagine in modern times, since modern people have greater inclination to maintain civility and humanity when possible while medieval people are far more inclined to value survival at all costs. Just being alive and being infected is not a unifying force among people as they face zombies, humanity is divided among class and status where each side resents each other nearly as much as they resent zombies, which makes things substantially more interesting. 

- You cant really guess what will happen next..... In modern takes on the zombie genre, a zombie apocalypse is solved in one of two ways: Heavy firepower if deployed at the last moment that literally just wipes them all out, or some sort of highly scientific cure is found just in time to cure or prevent people from becoming zombies. Again, nether of which can really apply to the 1600's, since overwhelming firepower isnt a thing, and people havent figured out that you shouldnt shit upstream in a river you drink your water from. As things get worse, the odds of fixing the situation immediately plummets down to single digits because humanity simply lacks the military capacity, scientific capacity, and general knowledge about zombies to be able to effectively react to such an outbreak. Its completely unpredictable how things will go or how people will react, whereas modern adaptations usually have up to two or three outcomes that can be predicted based on information obtained 10 minutes earlier. 

If you are willing to view this series via subtitles and dont mind the audio being in Korean, this is one of the most enthralling takes on the zombie genre you will ever watch. If Train to Busan got your attention and you enjoyed it, this will be right up your alley as well. I cannot endorse it enough

However long ago it was, Biden promised during a debate I think that he would choose a woman as his VP. The big stickler of the point was that Biden as an 'old white guy' alone does not represent the diversity of the Dem party, and picking some other white guy regardless of age as his VP might lead to turnout/enthusiasm issues since Biden himself already had that within his own primary campaign. So he promised to pick a woman as his VP to pacify the portion of the base that values that kind of thing, yatta yatta yatta. 

In light of recent events though with the George Floyd killing and subsequent crackdowns, one can argue that race has taken precedent in American's minds over sex/gender. Some Dems who might have pulled for a Biden/Warren ticket or a Biden/Klobuchar ticket are now likely far less enthused about such a combo compared to other potential tickets like Biden/Harris or Biden/Abrams since the national spotlight has shifted HARD to race relations in the US. It is now at the point where if Biden had NOT made his original promise to select a woman as his VP, Biden selecting an African American male as his VP would be much more relevant to all the discussion going on, and by extension a better asset, then if he were to select a white woman as his VP partner. 

Lets put a pin on that for right now and focus on another thing going on. 

A recent trend among prominent Republicans has taken place in light of the response to the George Floyd protests, where prominent officials and former officials have either flat out said they would not support Trump's re-election, or would even consider voting for Biden instead. Many of these people are ones who were tied to the Bush, Romney, and McCain campaigns stretching back to the year 2000, all of whom Trump has significantly criticized throughout his presidency and presidential run in 2016, sometimes even before he even began campaigning in the first place. Many of these Republicans, who are held in high regard by centrist and moderate republicans, have increasingly voiced their distaste for the President and how he has done things. 

One of whom just so happens to be Colin Powell. 

The goal of a VP selection is four-fold: 

#1 - Be capable of becoming President if something happens to the actual President 
#2 - Not be a negative distraction 

#3 - Bring more people/enthusiasm to the ticket

#4 - Not cause more people to go to/become more enthusiastic about the other ticket (Trump/Pence) 

#1 - Colin Powell's competence is not an issue, he arguably would be able to handle being president better than Biden could. 

#2 - Colin Powell would not be a negative distraction on the scale that Sarah Palin was for McCain in 2008. If anything, a Biden/Powell ticket would see more gaffes coming from Biden himself than Powell. Biden could make 7 gaffes in the time it takes Powell to make anything close to one. 

#3 - Would Colin Powell bring more enthusiasm to a Biden ticket? For anyone who really values diversity, Powell would naturally be a plus just by being a person of color. For people who value military service, Powell would also be an attractive selection since he was a 4 star general and has already served in a cabinet-level office. For people who are moderate conservatives or are part of the GOP that are put off by Trump (there are a lot of them), Powell teaming up with Biden would gain much more consideration from this voting bloc to temporarily switch sides then any female-selection as VP would be able to replicate.... African Americans who understandably question Biden's allegiance to the African-American vote would definitely be pacified by a Powell selection as VP, arguably even more so then Kamala Harris since Harris's service as a prosecutor has put off some black voters from liking her since shes been on the side of law enforcement in the past. Powell's national profile is also still large enough where people would be more likely to recognize/remember him compared to some obscure selection made by Biden chiefly on the basis of gender. 

In terms of what Colin Powell can bring to a ticket, there is much more he offers to the Biden camp as VP then just about any woman could at this point. Only Michelle Obama or Oprah at this point could bring more people to the Biden ticket than Colin Powell could, and neither of them are going to accept that offer to do so which leaves Powell near the top of the line. 

#4 - The clearest drawback to a Powell VP selection among Democrats would be the fact that he is basically a Republican NeoCon. I dont see any Bernie Bros or whatever is left of Warrens base being super-pleased by a Powell selection, Powell would arguably reinforce Biden's more centrist stances on issues compared to the more liberal positions that Bernie or Warren would pull for. The thing about appeasing the super liberal faction of the Dem party is that no one who Biden selects to please this part of the base wouldn't also just push centrist Republicans back to supporting Trump..... If Elizabeth Warren is selected as VP, 9 out of 10 wavering Republicans would go right back to reluctantly supporting Trump, while the other 10% may choose to just stay home instead of flip sides. Warren and Sanders as VP would push away just as many people from considering a moderate/centrist Dem like Biden as it would rally those in the far left to support the ticket. Selecting a very liberal candidate as VP that intends to rally the extreme faction of the base would far more likely become a liability than an asset during the general election, which violates rule #2 of what a VP candidate is meant to do for a President..... For regular Dems who question if Powell is really on their side, the fact that he voted twice for Obama over McCain and Romney, and has become a vocal critic of Trump indicates that he has had at least some change in allegiance that dates all the way back over a decade to 2008. 

Going back to the year 2000, electoral advantages between the GOP and DEM was split roughly evenly, where either party could effectively guarantee around 220 electoral votes and then the remaining 80-100 were up for grabs. Going back to 2000, the only nominee to not get more than 220 was when McCain had the unfortunate situation of trying to represent the GOP when the economy collapsed near the end of the Bush years..... Because of this near-certainty, a handful of swing states held great importance in national elections where losing 3 or 4 of them effectively ensured defeat, due to how evenly split the electoral power both sides had on average. 

That is shifting as we go into 2020 and beyond though. 

The states of Texas, Arizona, and Georgia collectively have 65 electoral votes between them. That number is likely only going to climb going into the future as states in the south tend to have greater growth compared to states in the north. The problem though for the GOP is that these 3 states, which have gone Republican in every recent election without the GOP having to sink resources into those states to defend them, are now drifting into swing-state territory, assuming they're not swing states already. 

Last 3 polls from Arizona shows Biden +7. Trump +1, Biden +4 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/az/arizona_trump_vs_biden-6807.html

Last 4 polls from Texas shows Tie, Biden +1, Trump +6, Trump +1

Sparse polls from Georgia show Trump +7 and Trump +8, but neither of those polls were taken in 3 months, and historically Georgia went Republican by an averega of 15% during the bush years whereas Romney and McCain only carried the state in high single digits

These three states are the three that have historically been the largest safe states for the GOP in presidential elections..... North Carolina usually breaks GOP but in the last 3 elections in a row have been decided by less than 3%, the Great Lakes states like Ohio, Penn, Mich, and Wisc tend to lean blue or be swing states, while no other safe GOP state in the Midwest carries more than 10 electoral votes. 

If this trend holds where it currently is, meaning from now on everything stays the same and doesnt change further, this means that the largest 'safe' state the GOP can count on would be Tennessee at 11 electoral votes. 

Democrats have SIX states larger or equal to that size that are safe Dem territory. CA at 55, NY at 29, IL at 20, NJ at 14, WA at 12, MA at 11..... Seven if you count Virginia at 13 which even Hillary won by 5% where the last two polls show Biden carrying by a massive 11 points. 

If we put Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia into Democrat territory, and throw in Maine in there as well which is only 4 delegates total so whatever, then going into the 2020 election Dems can reasonably rely on 213 electoral votes at minimum, needing only 57 more to hit the magic 270 number..... 213 at minimum is pretty on par for recent presidential elections going back to the year 2000. https://www.270towin.com/

The GOP on the other hand, with Texas, Georgia, and Arizona all drifting towards swing state territory if they arent there already, can only safely rely on 127 electoral votes, less then HALF what is needed to hit 270. Even if you think Georgia will stay with the GOP for at least the next 3 election cycles, Georgia's 16 only puts the GOP at 143, which is barely over halfway to the 270 number needed to win the presidency, and 70 electoral votes behind where Dems are already starting off at 213. 

If the GOP win 6 the smaller swing states that have less than 11 electoral votes (Nevada, Iowa, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Arizona) That still puts them 40 electoral votes behind the DEMs 213 to 173....... Add in Georgia and North Carolina on top of that and they STILL trail 213 to 204 

For those keeping track, the GOP would have to win the 8 of the smallest swing states just to pull about even with Dems that are relying on just safe Dem states. 

Of the 5 remaining large swing states: Florida, Texas, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, lets give Ohio to the GOP and Michigan to the Dems.... Ohio went 8 points for Trump in 2016 (the largest margin of this bunch) while Michigan went Democratic 6 of the last 7 elections where the one time it did go GOP it went for Trump by 0.2% (3 most recent polls in Michigan also show Biden leading +8, +2, and +12 so you can argue this state of the 5 mentioned is the one most likely to go Dem) 

With Ohio going GOP and Michigan going DEM, that puts the electoral count at 229 to 222 Dems leading. Whoever wins two of the remaining 3 swing states (Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania) would go on to clinch the election. 

===============================================================================================================================

To summarize all the info above, the GOP is getting to the point where it would need to win about 8 to 11 swing states just to barely win a presidential election, while the Dems only really need 3 to 5. This is due to the fact that once reliable GOP states of significant size (Arizona, Texas, Georgia) are trending more towards swing state territory or are already in swing state territory, while no other safe Dem state has drifted into swing state status at at the same time (Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, nor Virginia were ever guaranteed to go Dem in previous elections, 

This is IF things stay the same. If Texas and Arizona continues to get bluer due to population patterns, the way Virginia clearly has, then Dems would only need any 2 additional swing states to clinch an election whereas the GOP would need at least 10. That's just not sustainable going into the near or long term future, and something will need to change in order for the GOP to have a fighting chance in presidential elections going forward. 

 

Steve King, the House Representative from the 4th district of Iowa, the same person who wondered why "white nationalist" and "white supremacist" are considered offensive terms and also has been called "the world's most conservative human being" by President Trump himself, has lost in the GOP PRIMARY race for the Iowa seat he already possessed. 

Arguably the most detestable being in the GOP, King is notable even for how far he pissed off fellow Republicans with his words. Following the White Nationalist/White Supremacist remarks, King was stripped of his membership on  the House Judiciary and House Agriculture panels by the GOP themselves, in an ultra-rare move of shunning within the Republican Party. Even Mitch McConnell, the Majority leader for the GOP in the SENATE spoke up about how King could effectively go fuck himself: "If he doesn't understand why 'white supremacy' is offensive, he should find another line of work" 

The final vote in the GOP primary was 36% for King, 45.7% for the actual winner Randy Feenstra, and 18.3% split among three other candidates 

King has held the seat since 2003 and was re-elected 8 times despite his numerous moments of dumbfuckery regarding race, multiculturalism, Obama, abortion, etc. He had never received less than 60% of the vote during any of his reelection campaigns until the 2018 midterms this last cycle, where he came dangerously close of losing his seat to the Democrats 50% to 47%....... As a direct result of his vulnerability, voters from within the GOP itself decided narrowly to throw King out of office and instead back a candidate who reached the very low qualification of being more sane than he is. 

Whats most interesting about this whole thing though is that this could signal a change for the GOP. Republican voters voted against King because his long history of inflammatory remarks left him at risk of losing an  election to a democrat in a 1v1. How many other loud-mouth dumbasses in the GOP House of Representatives could also be ousted from office by conservative voters themselves who want to maximize their chances of winning House elections? By ousting the liability that was King, Iowan conservatives in the 4th district have almost surely secured the seat for the forseeable future. Its quite easy to believe that other conservative voters represented by loud idiots could make similar decisions going into 2022 and beyond. King is the first to be replaced since he was the most controversial and detestable, those next in line behind him on that list could very well be the next ones cast out of office in future elections, paving the way for the GOP to rid itself of its most asinine members and instead represent themselves with people that have things like class and sophistication. 

The Coronavirus, once it really took hold in the US, gave Trump the best opportunity to secure reelection.... Nothing else before matters now, because we've never seen anything like this , certainly not in our lifetimes. His affinity for Russia doesnt matter, his haphazard feud with China doesnt matter, his alienation of Euro allies doesnt matter, not even the Ukraine story matters anymore. The number one issue that historically has decided if a president gets another term is economic performance, which the Coronavirus absolutely put on life support. 

But here's the thing: When the Coronavirus put the economy on lockdown, it made the response to eliminating the coronavirus the single most important issue in America. Success would be curtailing the virus and reopening the economy, Defeat would be fucking it up and causing lots of deaths while the economy sputters. Trumps entire struggle of winning re-election has been effectively reduced to a test where there is only 1 question and the two answers that can be picked are basically true/false. For one option, practice social distancing and have states issue stay-at-home orders to limit the spread of the virus hard. The other option, fuck about and risk letting the virus spread further and faster just so things can stay sort of normal. 

When these coal plants shut down, they will not be immediately reopened once the Coronavirus is gone simply because the option for cheaper and more powerful sources of energy exist. Coal up to this point has at least had the benefit of being such a formerly dominant energy source that it could defend the territory it has that remained the most profitable while just trimming the edges to stay relevant. The Coronavirus though has shifted the margin needed to stay profitable that for coal just cannot be sustained, which will inevitably lead to closures of minor companies and then the big ones. 


TLDR: The US will run on green energy more than ever because the Coronavirus has been fucking the Coal Industry harder than most actual countries 

https://www.axios.com/youth-vote-2020-democratic-primaries-db5dbbf3-1295-44ae-9d2a-2283c06fbf02.html

Levels of youth voters stagnated or declined from their 2016 numbers in nearly every early state primary that took place by Super Tuesday when Biden launched into the lead. By banking his campaign on the one voter bloc that failed to materialize, let alone expand from previous levels in 2016 to 2018, Bernie was effectively launching his campaign in a rowboat while others were using wave-runners. 

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Reason #2) Bernie didn't bother actually looking around at the surroundings 

Bernie had the youth vote on lockdown, there's no question of that, but it takes a bigger coalition than just one segment of the population to win the nomination, so candidates have to expand their base to other segments in order to build a voter bloc. Bernie far and away failed to accomplish this.... Rather then temper down some of his campaign platforms to appeal to more centrist and moderate Dem voters and expand his base, Bernie instead embarked on a campaign to try to convince moderates to move further to the left into his camp and refused to compromise on anything..... Biden did better with female voters, black voters, older voters, and non-college educated voters than Bernie did, which makes up a vast chunk of the American electorate, and he accomplished this mainly by staying as a centrist and letting Bernie push undecided voters closer to him..... Biden was able to built the coalition of voters that Hillary tried to build in 2016, Bernie just repeated 2016 of dominating the youth vote and trying to convince voters to come to his side rather then alter his platform to appeal to more voters. 

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Reason #3) His platform wasn't practical. 

Medicare for All, free college education, massive Wall Street Reform..... Bernie's biggest campaign cornerstones were very leftist ideas popular among his base, but the simple truth is that none of these things are even remotely able to be enacted into law.... No Republican will green light a single payer healthcare system, free college tuition, massive banking reforms, etc, and in all likelihood the GOP will still hold the Senate going into 2021.... Bernie's platform simply isnt obtainable because of the entrenchment of the GOP in the Senate, and anyone who values legislation actually getting passed and changes being made can see that Bernie was incapable of making that happen.

The only way Bernie could pass a fraction of his legislation would be if the Democrats acquired a massive super-majority in the Senate that could override GOP votes. That was not something that was going to happen if Bernie was the nominee, it wouldn't happen no matter who was the nominee. Yet Bernie acted and campaigned as if it was almost a guarantee that he would walk into office with full legislative capability, and the vast majority of voters who figured out that wouldnt likely be the case therefore would conclude that Bernie would largely fail to accomplish any of the things he was campaigning on, which definitely pushed voters away and more towards the middle where Biden was. 

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Reason #4) Bernie couldnt even win Progressive voters. 

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

Why, in the actual fuck, would left leaning Warren supporters who ideologically have more in common with Sanders supporters than any other candidate, decide to support the campaign of a Gay Mayor of South Bend Indiana who is nearly in the exact same camp as Biden?

Warren and Sanders were buddies throughout much of the early days of the primary, in part because their voters had so much in common, yet when Warren lost half her base and Bernie was looking to expand his to stay viable, they went to Buttigieg instead. If Bernie couldnt expand his base to moderate and centrist voters, that's one thing.... Its an entirely bigger and more problematic issue if Bernie couldnt expand his base to include other leftist leaning liberals already within the Democratic Party. If you argue that Warren supporters weren't 'True' progressives and are closer to the center than Bernie's platform, then that there arent enough voters Bernie could EVER convince to support his platform. 

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Those are the main reasons why Bernie lost the nomination. He banked on the youth vote that never materialized, He failed to expand his base further outward past a fraction of latino voters, almost no part of his platform could have made it through Congress and arrive at his desk for him to sign, and he couldnt bring in Warren supporters to join his base when he desperately needed to. 

Thanks to the suspension of future primaries until later dates + finalized totals from states that already voted but were taking their sweet fuckin time allocating delegates, we not have a super accurate standing for both Biden and Bernie in terms of delegate math and can play around with scenarios for future states. Lets dive into this

Total number of delegates = 3,979

Total needed to win = 1,991

Total already given out = 2,302

Biden = 1,217

Bernie = 914

Others = 171 combined 

Total still up for grabs = 1,677

Bernie needs 1,077 delegates to clinch the nomination, 64% of all that remain 

Biden needs 774 delegates to clinch the nomination, 46% of all that remain 

(The totals add up to 110% because of the chunk of delegates that were won by other candidates before they dropped out) 

=========================================================================================================

Now that we have the numbers set up, we can start diving into future primaries to sort of paint the picture of how things play out. 

OHIO = 136 

If those numbers hold by the time Ohio does vote, Biden would get about 78 delegates, Bernie would get approximately 58 

Biden = 1,295

Bernie = 972 

===========================

GEORGIA = 105 

If we stick to just the 66%-22% that does have a preference for right now, Biden would get about 69 delegates, Bernie would get about 23 delegates 

Biden = 1,364
Bernie = 995 

(The undecided 11% comes out to about 13 delegates left over) Considering Biden's advantage in southern states, lets give him 7 and Bernie 6 

Biden = 1,371

Bernie = 1,001

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast/wisconsin/

If the numbers hold, Biden would get 47 delegates, Bernie would get 35 

Biden = 1,521 
Bernie = 1,099 

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Let me pause right here to go over a few things. 

Biden = 1,521
Bernie = 1,099
Others = 171

Total won so far = 2,791 
Remaining = 1,190 
Needed to win = 1,991 

After Wisconsin votes on April 7th, Bernie will be 892 votes short of winning the nomination, which of the 1,190 remaining means at this point he would need to win all remaining states by 75%. Thats about on par with what he has to do right now

Biden, at 1,521, needs only 470 more delegates to win the nomination.

After Wisconsin votes, the next primary vote take place on April 28th where 6 states cast votes: 

Delaware = 21 delegates 
Rhode Island = 26 delegates 
Connecticut = 60 delegates 
Maryland = 96 delegates 
Pennsylvania = 186 delegates 
New York = 274 delegates 

Total delegates up for grabs = 663 ...... This is is where Biden pulls into the range of winning the nomination 

If we look at polls of the 3 biggest states, MD, PA, NY: 

Biden leads in New York 56 to 26........ 56% of 274 is 153 delegates 
Biden leads Pennsylvania 68 to 30...... 68% of 186 is 126 delegates 
Biden leads Maryland 70 to 29............ 70% of 96 is 67 delegates 

From those three states alone, Biden would get 346 delegates, Which is 124 short of the nomination.... The 3 remaining states combined only have 107 delegates remaining, meaning that Biden will not be able to win the nomination when these states all vote on April 7th. 

If Biden gets about 60 of the other 107 delegates from the smaller states, he still needs about 64 more to finally win 

Kansas and Guam after that have about 46 votes 

And then there is Indiana: 82 delegates 

Joe Biden, The Dem candidate whose odds of winning the nomination are obvious to everyone other than Bernie Sanders himself, pledged to choose a woman as his Vice President for the general election should he win the nomination, and ever since there have been rumors swirling about who he would pick.... The most obvious thoughts were Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, or even Amy Klobuchar. 

Recently though, a leak from Bidens camp indicates that Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto is in the 'top three' of his choices for who he would like as VP. After some casual research, I think she is the best fit to be Biden's VP compared to the three previous I mentioned before. Here's why

Why Kamala Harris is not a good fit = Biden picking Harris as his VP, as a nod to her early strength in the race, would also be a nod to African Americans, who in South Carolina are almost single-handedly responsible for launching Biden back into the race and then well into the lead following up on Super Tuesday.... The thing is though, Biden will almost certainly win the African American vote no matter who is his VP.... Being Obama's VP gives him more credit with black voters than any person of color he could select as his Vice President, so having Kamala Harris fill that spot doesnt really bring anything to the table for him that he doesnt already have. 

Why Elizabeth Warren is not a good fit = To say that Biden and Warren are very ideologically apart from each other, at least by Dem standards, is an understatement. They more often then not have been on differing sides of issues that polarized the Dem base for the better part of 10 years now, and they sure as shit didn't buddy-up in the primary either. One line of thinking was that Warren should be Biden's VP to help bring out the progressive voters, who sure as shit dont like Biden, but Warren no longer really has that voting bloc behind her. A large portion of the progressive base eventually ended up in Sanders' camp who believe hes the only one that represents them and that Warren sold out. Having Warren be selected as VP would not necessarily bring much to the table for Biden since Warren pretty clearly does not have much of the progressive bloc behind her anymore. Where Kamala can give Biden something he already has (African American support), Warren would probably fail to deliver that which Biden doesnt have (The Progressive Base)...... There's also lots of baggage she would bring to the ticket and how she could be a uniting force for the GOP to turn out in opposition, and could make the contest tighter when a VP selection is meant to tip the odds more in ones favor. 

Why Amy Klobuchar is not a good fit = I have openly admitted in the past that if Klobuchar had polled as well as Biden nationally and early in the primary that i would have supported her to be the nominee over Biden. She's a moderate Democrat like Biden with a better speaking ability with 90% less gaffes. The issue for Klobuchar on why she would not be a good fit for Biden as his VP is the same issue for why she didnt get the nomination herself: She doesnt have a national profile. Outside of Minnesota, Klobuchar isnt going to bring voters to the Biden ticket who werent already pretty close to supporting him in the first place. Maybe she would have a good effect in Wisconsin which as a swing state is one Biden needs to carry to win the nomination, but outside of the upper midwest, Klobuchar being next to Biden's name on the ticket isnt going to sway many people. 

Now comes the big differences

Why Catherine Cortez Masto is a good fit = Despite only being a senator for 3 years and not really standing out the way other female Dems have (AOC), Catherine Cortez Masto does bring many things to the table as a possible VP candidate....

For one, she comes from Nevada, a swing state which makes the area of substantial importance going into the general election.

Second, she is Latina. Not only Latina, she is the first Latina Senator to be elected to the US Senate in history. Biden HAS struggled with the Hispanic vote in the country in the primary, that bloc has gone with Bernie more often then not. If Catherine Cortez Masto is able to increase Hispanic turnout for the Dem ticket, assuming she would as the first Latina nominated as VP, that would be a massive boost for Biden. 

Third, if the boost in support from Hispanic voters is great enough, it allows opportunity for Biden to become more competitive in states that have big Latino populations, such as Texas, Arizona, Nevada, and Florida, all of which are either in solid swing state territory or drifting dangerously close to it. Even if a Biden-Masto ticket doesnt ultimately win Texas and Arizona, their increased ability to compete in those states could force the Trump team to focus money on those states in order to keep them, which is less money they will be able to spend on other swing states. In terms of electoral math, appointing Masto as VP opens up many inroads in southwestern states that could make Biden's job of winning much easier. 

Fourth, Masto doesnt have a lot of baggage. Warren has more then enough baggage to fire up GOP opposition, Harris has caught some criticism for actions as Attorney General in the past, but Masto is so new to the political realm that there isn't any glaring problems to her past so far. A VP should do everything in their power to NOT bring negative attention to a campaign while at the same time bringing a lot of positive things to the table, and Masto's short political career in the Senate immunizes her from having to deal with scandalous votes from the past. 

So not only does Masto not have a lot of baggage to deal with should she be selected as VP, she would vastly benefit Biden's competitiveness in southern states, increase his support among latino voters who he has struggled with in the primary, and ultimately be able to bring more to the ticket then Harris or Warren or Klobuchar could. 

If Biden's goal is to position his campaign to go into the general election with the easiest path to winning, then having Catherine Cortez Masto as his VP would arguably be the best choice he could make (since he is limiting himself to choosing a female candidate) 

When AOC, arguably the most famous member of the House of Representatives after Pelosi herself, endorsed Bernie Sanders over Elizabeth Warren early in the Dem primary, it was a tremendous win for the Sanders campaign and the beginning of the end for the Warren campaign. Bernie managed to at one point climb to the top of the polls following AOC's endorsement and subsequent early wins, but then Biden's comeback in SC and on Super Tuesday put Bernie in the rearview mirror ever since. 

However, theres an interesting little detail lost in the noise of all of this that few people realized: After a while, AOC stopped campaigning for Bernie 

From Feb 11 to March 8th, AOC declined multiple requests from the Sanders campaign to have her campaign for him, to the point that getting her to rally for him in NH was the equivalent of 'Pulling Teeth' apparently. Following New Hampshire, AOC basically fell off the map for Sanders and left him on his own, and there are two prevailing theories why 

#1) The plan was always a temporary endorsement before AOC had to go back to campaigning for her own seat in the House

#2) AOC was miffed at things Sanders did and treated her, namely accept an endorsement from Joe Rogan 

Whichever the case/excuse may be, it highlights a fundamental problem that ultimately brought down Bernies campaign 

If the case is the first theory, that AOC would only temporarily stump for Bernie before going back to her own business, then it highlights the lack of turnout and commitment by the progressive left..... A single seat in the House of Representatives, which will almost certainly stay blue in 2020, is nothing (to progressives) compared to the prospect of Bernie Sanders becoming the nominee of the Dem Party to go against Trump. Dems have never had a nominee like Bernie, and this was possibly their best chance to get it since Bernie was the frontrunner at one point. But then AOC disengaged....

When AOC, the literal posterchild for the next generation of liberal progressives, cant even stick with Bernies campaign past New Hampshire, then how on Earth could it be expected that anyone else would? AOC at one point worked for Bernie's campaign before she was even into politics herself, they endorsed almost every issue they had in common with each other, and STILL after a while AOC thought a better use of her time would be to focus on her own issues rather then keep stumping for Bernie..... When your biggest supporter (in terms of political clout) pulls out after just two contests, then your campaign and your appeal as a candidate is fundamentally flawed and restricted to a size that can never be big enough to capture the nomination. 

If the case is the second theory, that AOC started to disengage chiefly because Bernie, among other things, openly welcomed an endorsement by Joe Rogan, then it just brings the 'purity' weakness back into question, the idea that Bernie never set out to expand his base from what it was in 2016, and would be openly hostile towards those who were not completely in line with the entirety of his platform..... We saw this towards the end of the primary this year in 2020 when Sanders and Warren supporters became openly hostile with each other over minor details, and even Warren's shift from Medicare for All to a transition plan cost her about half her support over time even though her ultimate goal was to still aim for Medicare for All. 

Do you think Joe Biden's supporters give much of a shit about how in tune all of his supporters are with his overall policy positions? Fuck no, they like him mainly because they think hes the best bet to beat Trump and that he was Obama's VP for 8 years..... When Buttigieg, Klobuchar, and Bloomberg all pulled out of the race, their support almost unilaterally joined up with Biden's base for those exact reasons. Elizabeth Warren dropped out most recently, and there isnt much of a sign that her base went even in a majority with Sanders. (Warren polled at almost 14% nationally before pulling out, Bernie's numbers since then have only increased 6 points from 29% to about 35% https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html) 

If AOC decommitted to focus on her own campaign, it shows that the progressive left are simply not as enthusiastic about Sanders as some of his online supporters loudly claim to be. This is also backed by lack of turnout with the youth vote that Sanders was banking on. 

if AOC decommitted as an objection over Sander's embrace of Joe Rogan, it shows that the desire for purity and uniformity among supporters is more important to the progressive left then the overall number of them, where they would prefer to be at 30% and all on the same page then at 60% and pretty diverse. This can be backed by the hostility between Warren and Sanders campaigns despite the two being the closest together in terms of ideology. 

I realize that the title of this thread makes perfect sense and doesnt need any clarification, but just for anyone who is equally confused as they are curious, here's the deal: Spring Break in FL got extended a week (im a teacher btw) thanks to the Coronavirus. Knowing Florida for being, well, Florida, that week will likely be extended longer as this virus rages harder through the state in the coming days. Since I am getting bored shitless of getting headhshotted in MW by kids who only use the 725 shotgun, and i'm also getting bored of conquering the world as Nazi Germany in Hearts of Iron 4, I came up with this idea of 'trial' debates for politicians. Heres how they would work

1 - Each debate would focus on one politician in the 2020 race.... Beto O'Rourke, Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bloomberg, Sanders, Buttigieg, Biden.... I would be the prosecutor in every case, the other debater would be acting as the defense for the candidate. 

2 - The first round would be a general introduction of the 'charges' against the candidate and the witnesses who will be called to testify. The charges and testimony will be goofy in nature and be limited to just two or three (Example: In Beto O'Rourke's trial, Beto could be charged with Racial Profiling against a sentient AK-47, who has a wife and a family in the state of Texas, as a reference to Beto's policy of mandatory gun buybacks as part of his campaign platform) 

3 - In rounds 2-4 of the debate, a new 'Witness' would be introduced to speak out against the defendant/politician. I would go first in making a case against the politician, then the other person in the debate would get to make up his own testimony using the same witness (Ex: I would ask the Ak-47 what Beto O'Rourke threatened to do to him to make Beto look bad, the other person in the debate could bring up the criminal history of the AK-47 to try to make him look like an unreliable witness and argue that the charges should be dismissed) 

4 - At the end of the debate, there would be a short closing argument like what you see at the end of every Law and Order episode. Voters will decide the guilt or innocence of the candidate and that would be the end of it

I think these debates would be fun, stupid, hilarious, and kind of interesting to read through so im putting this out there to see if anyone would be interested. 

SIGNUPS: 

- You can sign up for any politician you would be interested in being the defense for

- You can sign up for as many trials as you would be interested in. They wont all happen at once

- More than one person can sign up to represent one candidate. If this goes well enough and is funny I might do multiple trials for a candidate

BETO O'ROURKE

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PETE BUTTIGIEG

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MICHAEL BLOOMBERG

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KAMALA HARRIS

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ELIZABETH WARREN

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BERNIE SANDERS

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JOE BIDEN

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DONALD TRUMP

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Ill keep this brief cause im tired as fuck 

2016, as we all know, became known for the inaccuracy of polls conducted by numerous outlets. Hillary had leads in multiple states right up to election day and then lost nearly every state that was even marginally close, sometimes with final results being almost 8 full points different than what was predicted by polls leading up to election day. 

One of the biggest ones to miss the mark was Michigan. 

In the 2016 Dem primary, Hillary vs Bernie, 7 polls in the month of March taken before Michigan went out to vote had Hillary ahead of Bernie by an average of 57% to 37%..... When the results came in though, Bernie ended up pulling out a win, 50% to 48%, in a dramatic almost 10 point turnaround. Since Michigan was the biggest state to be won that day, the surprise win bought Bernie a new lease on life campaign wise and allowed him to stay in the race much longer than before. 

Today, Bidens lead in the state is nearly exactly the same as what was predicted for Hillary 4 years ago, 

With an average lead of 58% to 33%, which is damn near identical to what happened in 2016, Biden is projected to cruise to victory in the state. The state primary takes place tomorrow, and it remains to be seen if polling outlets adjusted from their missed forecasts last cycle and will hit the mark this time around, or if they evidently learned nothing and are as unreliable as ever. 

A surprise Sanders victory could indicate we're still as blind as ever in seeing which candidates are actually doing well. A Biden victory though by numbers being projected would indicate that polling outlets finally got their shit together, and that going into the general election 2020 will not have as much mystery to it. 

Now that Super Tuesday is over and Biden has jumped to the front of the race (Delegate count is 566, Bernie is at 501, all others at 128 combined) the next batch of states hold key influence in deciding who becomes the nominee. The following states will hold primaries between now and March 17th:

Michigan (125)

Missouri (68)

Washington (89)

Arizona (67)

Florida (219)

Illinois (155)

Ohio (136)

Other states will also vote, but the 7 listed above are the only ones where more than 50 delegates each are up for grabs, meaning that they are the states that actually matter..... These 7 states combined have about 860 delegates up for grabs.... Not as much as the 1357 delegates that were available on Super Tuesday, but its the next closest thing and is still gigantic in size and scope. 

Michigan: Biden leads Sanders 29%-23%, but Bloomberg who has dropped out and endorsed Biden held 11% in recent days, which mostly will add to Biden's numbers. Warren hovering south of 7% so even if she drops out and endorses Bernie, Michigan is leaning Biden https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/mi/michigan_democratic_presidential_primary-6835.html

Missouri: Only available polling back in late January had Biden at 39%, Bloomberg at 14%, Warren at 9%, and Sanders at 7% https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/mo/missouri_democratic_primary-6930.html Given Bloombergs endorsement of Biden and the shockingly low numbers from Warren and Bernie in the state as of now, one can conclude that Missouri is leaning heavily toward Biden

Washington: Bernie does really well in the western states so a win here normally would sound expected. Last polls showed Bernie at 21% while Biden was closer to 10%, but Bloomberg had 15% in the state and has withdrawn. If Biden keeps up the momentum from the conquest of Super Tuesday, he may be able to snatch the state away from Sanders. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/wa/washington_democratic_primary-7005.html Admittedly, Sanders THRASHED Hillary in Washington in 2016 (71% to 27%) so Bernie still has to be considered the frontrunner in the state regardless of how much of a boost Biden has going into the state. 

Arizona: Last polls to come out of Arizona were back in fucking November so we are flying blind here. In 2016 though Hillary won the state with a healthy margin of 56% to 41% over Bernie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#Late_March_and_early_April so if we follow the pattern that Biden will do well in states Hillary did well in then he could probably clinch Arizona. 

Florida: This will be an ass whipping. Biden had 34% of the vote just a week ago while Sanders only had 13%. Bloomberg, at 25% support, now out of the picture will almost certainly add most of that to Bidens count by the time the primary rolls around. Biden will win this state, easily, the question is now will Sanders do shitty enough to not even hit the 15% threshhold in the state. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/fl/florida_democratic_presidential_primary-6847.html

Illinois: This is a state with a lot in common with Washington in terms of how it can go. Sanders leads with 22%, but Bloomberg was at 17% while Biden was at 14%. If Biden absorbs much of Bloombergs base following his exit from the campaign, Biden could situate himself to win the state. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/il/illinois_democratic_primary-7036.html A look back at 2016 showed Hillary eeking out a win here 50% to 49%, Bernies odds of winning this state are better than his odds at winning others

Ohio: The last big state up for grabs before late March is Ohio, which has only seen one poll cover the state since October https://www.bw.edu/Assets/community-research-institute/2020-great-lakes-poll-full-FINAL.pdf Scroll to page 12 and you see that most Ohio voters would choose Biden first with 32% of the vote, while Sanders was down near 21%. In 2016 Hillary carried the state 57% to 43%, so its forseeabe that Biden will get a win here. 

Of these 7 massive states, Bernie has decent odds of winning just two of them: Illinois and Washington, and thats only under the massive assumption that Biden doesnt absorb the base Bloomberg has recently forfeited....

Biden on the other hand will almost certainly win Florida and Missouri, and has decent odds of also carrying Ohio and Michigan. 

The biggest tossups at the moment are Arizona (due to the complete lack of polling) and Illinois (looking tight) Since both candidates will likely get at least 15% in those states though any win by a razor thin margin will not provide much wiggle room for one candidate to pull away from another, since other smaller states such as Mississippi, Idaho, or even North Dakota could erode any gains made by one side. 

If Bernie cant turn his campaign around and become more competitive in other states, then the states that will vote some time over the next two weeks will effectively hand Biden the nomination, due to their size, delegate count, and polling that seems to favor Biden who has just come off of a massive Super Tuesday win + consolidation of the moderate vote behind him. 

Let me preface this by saying that if I was the one seeing this headline in the poltiics thread, I would have immediately dismissed it as bullshit without giving it a second thought.... If you're skeptical about the bold claim being made, I completely understand, I find it difficult to forsee happening myself

Just hear me out. 

Warren and Bernie have been competing for the more liberal wing of the Dem party. I dont think anyone really disputes that. If you consider Bernie is further to the left of Warren enough to really establish himself as the representative of the far left is one thing, but at the end of the day the only two candidates who could even make an appeal to the liberal wing of the party was Sanders and Warren..... For that reason, its easy to conclude that should one drop out, they would almost certainly endorse the other. With Sanders now the frontrunner and Warren down to 4th, you could conclude that Warren would likely drop out and likely endorse Sanders 

Heres the counterargument. 

In 2016 we had a clear 1v1 faceoff between a very centrist establishment candidate (Hillary) against a leftist outsider opponent (Bernie) in the primary. Shit, a lot of people wanted Warren to run against Hillary as the leftist representative but instead Bernie was the one who jumped in and carried the torch. You might think that because of how much the two had in common and the legitimate race between the two, Warren would have endorsed Bernie over Hillary since Warren was not campaigning, the primary was a close race, and Bernie clearly was closer to her ideologically than Hillary.... But Warren never endorsed Bernie...... Warren waited until the race was practically over before endorsing Hillary, so even though Warren offered high praise for Bernie all throughout the campaign, she still endorsed Hillary instead. 

Maybe though she just knew Hillary would win, or that it was more important to unite behind whichever candidate won to defeat Trump in the general election. Fair theory, fair conclusion. 

In 2018, Warren handily won reelection to the Senate in Massachusetts by an almost 2 to 1 margin. While her Senate term doesnt expire until 2024, right when the next presidential election would be taking place, at that point she would be 74 years old. While the oldest current senator is Dianne Feinstein from California (86 years old), the ability of ANY candidate to win votes in a presidential contest at that age would become a stark problem that would be borderline impossible to overcome..... If Trump loses in 2020 and a Dem takes the White House in 2020, then the next opening for Dems to jump in would be 2028, where Warren would be approaching 80 if she tried running then. 

To summarize, this election and this run for President was arguably Warren's last good shot where she had decent odds to actually win the nomination. Assuming she doesnt win at this point, she will not get a better opportunity to win in the future and will be relegated to being a Senator for the remainder of her career barring a VP selection of some sort. If this is the end of the road for a run for president, which it very well appears to be, then SANDERS would be the one most responsible. Not Biden, not Hillary, not the DNC, not the media or some sort of scandal or flip-flop on a policy issue, it would be Sanders. Sanders has flat out eaten her base of support and united the progressive wing of the party behind himself and away from Warren..... If Warren is salty enough at missing out on her shot to be President thanks to Sanders taking over her base, she could endorse a more moderate candidate out of spite. 

Biden values Warren, both her voice and her stances, to the point that from the get-go he was considering having Warren be his VP on a 2016 ticket. Warren's hard stance against Wall Street and subsequent legislation on banking regulations really caught Biden's eye when he considered entering the race, and he actively sought out Warren as a possible VP candidate to see if it was worth running in 2016. based on reports, Warren liked the idea but was still skeptical since Hillary effectively had the moderate/centrist vote on lockdown, leaving Biden with a very difficult path to even winning the nomination to begin with. Even when Hillary was campaigning people thought Warren should VP for her, since it would supposedly unite the moderates and progressives in the Dem party behind one ticket.... Warren liked THAT idea too because she figured it would give her some leverage in pulling Hillary more to the left on certain issues in order to secure her agreement to be VP. 

Biden values Warren, and Warren could strategically pull Biden to the left on certain issues if she was VP while also uniting the party behind one ticket to beat Trump. 

Thats not the case with Sanders though. If Sanders was the nominee and Warren his VP, then she doesnt get to have much of a say at all. Sanders as the face of the progressive movement would be able to go with whichever policy or agenda he feels is right since voters have made him the representative of the progressive faction in the first place. Sure, Warren would likely agree with Bernie's policies more regularly than Biden, but thats assuming that they get to the White House in the first place. Preaching purely to the left wing faction of the base to drive out fanatical levels of support is what Bernie is basing his entire argument that he can beat Trump on. Thats a very risky strategy that could very well fall short considering how conservative many swing states in the country are and will be..... Biden's strategy on the other hand would be to appeal to centrist and moderate voters more easily swayed away from Trump while Warren becomes the advocate for the progressive faction in an administration, which has better odds of succeeding just from the nature of politics in America. 

Following Biden's resounding victory in SC, the narrative for the Dem nomination is that it is now a two person race between front runner Bernie Sanders, and in second place now Joe Biden, with everyone else behind them following little to no success. With Super Tuesday just a few days away, pressure was heating up on other candidates to drop out with the hopes of avoiding a contested convention....

Steyer dropped out first, which could be predicted since he never had a win or a close finish in any state. 

But then Buttigieg dropped out next, who had beaten Sanders in Iowa. After failing to hit 15% and win any delegates in Nevada or South Carolina, his prospects didnt look too good going into Super Tuesday either. Still, he was in better shape than Tulsi Gabbard, Amy Klobuchar, and even Elizabeth Warren going into Super Tuesday, so his withdrawal from the race has ramped up pressure on those candidates to do the same.... After Sanders and Biden, now only Bloomberg can really justify remaining a candidate in the race since he polls decently in national polls, in spite of being shat on in repeated debates hes qualified for. 

With Buttigieg out and Klobuchar doing far worse, the moderate bloc of Dem voters are now effectively split between Biden and Bloomberg, while the more liberal bloc of the Dem party predominantly supporting Sanders while a few still cling to Warren. 

Anyone who knows me or has clicked on my threads in the past knows that I support Biden. I like Klobuchar probably the most, but she doesnt have a chance of winning, Biden has that. Buttigieg I dont like his experience level, Warren is too liberal for me, Sanders is even further then that, and Steyer is a billionaire trying to buy the nomination and failing at it badly. Bloomberg I dont like. Same thing with Steyer, hes a billionaire just trying to buy the nomination with about the same amount of experience as Buttigieg since both were mayors. In a contested nomination, if Bloomberg beats out Bernie and he comes in second, half the base would fucking riot. Sanders supporters didnt like Hillary, I know they would hate Bloombergs fucking guts, cause I do for really fuckin things up for Biden 

But then this came out, which made me really have to think about things: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/clint-eastwood-2020-election-just-150921450.html

Clint Eastwood, the guy who was so much against Obama that he went to the 2012 GOP convention and became the star of the show, who went on to support Trump and still even sticks up for some of the things Trump does, wants Bloomberg to win the whole presidency. Not the Dem nomination, the whole Presidency..... Do you have any idea, how fuckin hard it is to flip an openly conservative actor in Hollywood? James Woods and Tim Allen's entire claim to relevancy these days are their undying conservative leanings, and Eastwood was kind of in their camp albeit more reserved. So for ANY candidate of the Democratic party to be able to convince a high profile conservative like Eastwood to flip from TRUMP to the other side, that is really something. 

For those of you skeptical of Eastwoods mental state, RCP polling also shows that the two best candidates in a 1v1 vs Trump is Biden, Sanders, and Bloomberg, at 4.8, 4.6, and 4.6 respectively..... Biden hasnt convinced any conservatives to openly flip from Trump to him, and Sanders is building his support entirely off of trying to appeal to those already in the Dem base. Furthermore, Biden's campaign has inherent flaws to it as we can see from bad performances in the first two states, while Sanders' reliance on increased turnout might not pan out since Dem turnout in the primaries is lower than what was projected

300,000 expected votes turned out to be about 173,000. If Biden cant hold on to the votes he thinks he has, and Sanders cant expand his base past the coalition he already got in 2016, then if the goal is to oust Donald Trump from the White House, Bloomberg unfortunately might be the best candidate for the job 

Andrew Yang, ending his campaign after noting that he faces a shellacking in the New Hampshire Polls, is now one of the biggest ex-candidates whose endorsement of another candidate could actually carry meaning to it https://www.yahoo.com/news/yang-created-buzz-freedom-dividend-010829068.html

Prior to this point, the biggest candidate to drop out of the race was Kamala Harris, who had to pull out of the race due to financing issues and has yet to make an endorsement of her own. Yang, who peaked at 4.9 percent in national polls, never got to the level Harris did, who at one point topped 15% before sliding down to about 4.0% before dropping out..... Yang though managed to make it to Iowa at least, that deserves credit. Candidates who drop out before votes even start getting counted have nearly no weight to their endorsements later on, at least compared to those who stay in.... You think any republican gave a shit about who Rick Perry or whats-his-name from Wisconsin (Scott Walker!) endorsed in 2016? Hell no. Only candidates who actually make it SOMEWHERE into the actual vote have weight to their endorsements. 

Yang, by dropping out after Iowa, has only 6 candidates ahead of him in the race: Klobuchar, and the 5 main candidates (Bllomberg, Buttigieg, Biden, Warren, and Sanders). Since the 5 of them will likely stay in the race for a while (Biden, Buttigieg and Sanders have good support, Bloomberg is a fuckin Billionaire) that leaves Yang and Klobuchar as the ones who could really help break the tie among the front runners. 

Yang could go in any direction.... He might go business and endorse Bloomberg, he might support Sanders in terms of economics.... Maybe he sticks centrist and goes Biden, or makes a daring bet and go with Buttigieg.... Yangs endorsement might not move the needle much in any one direction, but unlike most people in the race at some point, his endorsement matters, and its up for grabs now that hes out of the race. 

Following the fuckfest that was Iowa where the clear winners were Bernie, Buttigieg, and Paper Ballots, the next four contests are as follows:

1 - New Hampshire (2/11)

2 - Nevada (2/22)

3 - South Carolina (2/29)

4 - Super Tuesday (3/3)

New Hampshire looks like it will end up being a clean version of what Iowa was supposed to be, with Bernie and Buttigieg being the winners while Warren and Biden finish in the second tier. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-6276.html This shouldnt come as a surprise since Sanders has pulled away in the state since Jan 23rd, though Buttigieg leapfrogging Biden thanks to his win in Iowa is noticeable and spells problems for any other candidate looking for a bounce back. If Buttigieg manages to pull off a clean win there, he could make a legitimate case as the candidate for moderate centrists and really challenge Biden

Nevada is now a tossup, only because Bob Steyer being the fuckstick he is by trying to buy the nomination himself now has 10% support in the state which can really fuck with the rest of the candidates who actually have a shot at winning the nomination. Whether they will flake from Steyer following a drubbing in NH remains to be seen, but with 2-4 points separating Sanders and Biden in the state that doesnt vote for another 2 weeks, its anyones ball game there

South Carolina Will be the definitive early win Biden needs to legitimize his candidacy, he can thank the large African American vote in the state for that much. Whether he wins by a smidge or by a massive margin could determine the validity of his campaign going into the next stretch of the primaries, but he will almost certainly be able to get a W in SC barring some sort of massive fuckup by his part

Super Tuesday........ Here's where shit really gets interesting...... With Super Tuesday taking place just 4 days after SC, a lot of candidates may be willing to surrender the state to Biden and campaign elsewhere to pull out some upsets. FOURTEEN states are up for grabs, some of which are major prizes

Alabama

Arkansas

Colorado

Maine

Massachusetts

Minnesota

North Carolina

Oklahoma

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Vermont

Virginia

Some of these states will almost not even be competitive..... Based on polling and whether or not its someones home state, I reorganized the states listed above into groups based on who they are likely to be won by bases on polling, and which are genuine tossups

North Carolina = Likely Biden https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/north-carolina/

Texas = Likely Biden, Southern State and he polls well https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/texas/

Virginia = Likely Biden, Southern State and he polls well https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-primary-d/virginia/

Massachusetts = Likely Warren, its her home state

Colorado = Likely Sanders. No polling available but Sanders carried the state by 20 points against Hillary during the 2016 primary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries#March_1,_2016:_Super_Tuesday

Ill keep this brief

1) Warren and Sanders are competing for the same bloc of liberal voters in the Dem primary, with Biden courting the moderates in his camp. Anyone who has basic understanding of the candidates can observe that. 

2) In order for one of them (Sanders or Warren) to be the representative of the liberal faction of the Dem party, one of them has to beat out the other, and do so quickly to have any chance at beating Biden in the second half of the primary season

3) Hillary Clinton, the polar opposite of what the liberal faction likes and in fact rather loathe due to 2016, just heavily criticized Bernie, calling him unlikable, without allies in Congress, etc. 

4) Since Hillary is the virtual representation of a democratic centrist career politician, criticism from her is effectively a certification of being a 'radical outsider' which Warren fans and Sanders fans are drawn towards. 

Conclusion:

With Warren and Sanders competing to be the 'radical outsider' among the liberal base, and with Hillary Clinton herself singling out Sanders for criticism, she has effectively made Sanders THE outsider candidate, which he could use to cement his claim that he is the forebearer of the liberal faction of the party, since the spokesperson (one of them at least) of the center of the party identified him as the person to be aware of. 

This, combined with AOC's previous endorsement and Warrens continued slide in numbers, should give Sanders a major boost in cementing his claim as #2 in the Dem primary 

Of the last 2 noteworthy endorsements that have been made in the presidential primary, (AOC endorsing Bernie, Kerry endorsing Biden) the AOC endorsement is the only one that really held any weight to it. AOC's endorsement of Bernie was a massive statement to the more liberal faction of the Dem party that Bernie may be the true flagbearer of the faction and not Elizabeth Warren, who was polling better than Sanders at this point and is now trailing both Sanders and Biden. Kerry's endorsement meanwhile doesnt hold much weight since anyone who really valued Kerry's opinion likely would have already been a big supporter of Biden due to the extensive similarities between the two. 

About a day ago though, Biden secured an endorsement that is very different from the one he received from Kerry, because unlike that one, this endorsement could actually convince voters to support Biden if they didnt do so already. https://www.courthousenews.com/biden-endorsed-by-a-leader-of-house-hispanic-caucus/

Tony Cardenas, A Democratic House Representative from California, is not really a household name by any stretch, especially compared to other House members like Pelosi or even AOC and the Squad. However, Tony Cardenas still holds more influence then about 90% of other House representatives since he is the Chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, making him the top ranking Latino in the entire Democratic Party. 

Up to this point, the Hispanic vote has been pretty up for grabs. Biden does well with older while men (since he is one) and also african american voters (since he was Obama's VP). Sanders does incredibly well with youth voters (As he did in 2016) and Warren has kind of a mosh-pit of support from different groups that Sanders and Biden havent locked down.... The Hispanic vote has not been in anyone's camp up to this point, even though Julian Castro is running for president and was in Obama's cabinet in his 2nd term. 

By securing Tony Cardenas's endorsement, Biden has a decently strong opportunity to increase his base of support from Hispanic voters since Cardenas for the most part is the highest ranking Latino politician in the country. If Cardenas doesnt have national influence, his location in California does at least carry regional influence, which is still quite important since California and Nevada are the 3rd and 5th states to vote in the primaries once they begin. 

There's no point in summarizing how we got here or what happened recently, we're all pretty up to speed with that and the forums made to talk about it predictably descended into partisan bickering regarding things that anyone could have predicted months ago when the Ukraine story first broke:

- Dem voters think he is guilty and massively corrupt, no one can change their minds

- GOP voters think he is not guilty and did nothing wrong, no one can change their minds

- House Dems would vote in favor of impeachment

- House GOP would vote against it

- Senate Dems would likely vote in favor of impeachment

- Senate GOP would likely vote against impeachment

- Due to GOP majority in the Senate, Trump likely would not be removed from office

- Its possible that Trump loses re-election anyways and makes the whole thing irrelevant by this time next year

The main issue though that everyone is missing is regarding who benefits the least from the impeachment trial in the senate itself. By rule, all sitting senators have to attend the proceedings, all of them, vote accordingly at the end of the trial, and THEN return to what they normally do in their other time. There are FIVE Dem senators running for president right now who would have to attend the entirety of the impeachment trials if they take place:  Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, and Michael Bennet.

In a primary as tight and packed as this one, every day and even every hour counts in terms of campaigning. Candidates who cant be out campaigning lose our on fundraising, giving speeches, meeting with voters, the critical parts of running for president right when the primaries are about to begin.....

For Senator Bennett: He can't even qualify for debates since he polls at <1% so his candidacy is pretty fucked regardless 

For Senator Klobuchar: While she is doing better than Bennett, she still only averages 3% in polling and isnt far from the bottom herself

For Senator Booker: He's at around 2.5% so he is about as equally irrelevant and out of luck as the other two

For Senator Sanders: He has repeatedly stayed amongst the top 3 candidates and would be somewhat harmed by being absent from the campaign trail, but he has a bit of a fallback option to resort to: AOC. The highest profile endorsement of Sanders, is a member of the House and could certainly get attention and maybe even voters for Bernie if he gets stuck in DC. Considering how rock solid steady his support has been over the campaign (He's stayed between 15% to 20% for almost the entirety of the primary so far), Sanders could actually weather the storm of being off the campaign trail and still be doing good in polls when the time to vote rolls around. 

For Senator Warren: She's fairly fucked. After a slight bounceback from a month-long slide in the polls from 26% down to 14% ( https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html ) She has ground she needs to make up if she is going to position herself as the representative for the liberal electorate in the Dem party to try to rival Biden. Not only does she have ground she needs to make up, she doesnt really have a high profile endorser to step up for her. Warrens biggest endorsement so far has been Megan Rapinoe, the star US Womens team Soccer Player who got into the news by butting heads with Trump. 

Rapinoe, in no way shape or form, could step in as a campaigner for Warren the way AOC could for Sanders. A lacking of high-profile endorsements with a fragile voter base combining with forced time away from the campaign trail could very much fuck over Warren, especially if the Impeachment trial drags out for a lengthy amount of time. Short of Hillary or Obama themselves endorsing Warren and being willing to campaign for her, Trump Impeachment could end up dooming Warrens future in politics the most. 

Great Britain's election recently resulted in a large majority for the Conservative Party headed by Boris Johnson, a pro-Brexit party, where Brexit itself was the defining issue in the election that caused people to vote for certain parties accordingly. With this majority and the failure of the Labor Party to secure a similar size of the government, Britain is now almost surely ready to proceed with Brexit 

However, results from Scotland and Northern Ireland have shown almost the exact opposite reactions. A majority of the seats up for grabs in Northern Ireland went to Irish Nationalist parties, the first time that has happened since 1921, where the region voted heavily in favor of staying with the EU while Britain voted to leave. https://www.yahoo.com/news/first-irish-nationalists-overtake-unionists-070759388.html

In Scotland, the SNP party (Scottish Nationalist Party) OVERWHELMINGLY swept the area with 48 out of 59 seats going to this minor party. The SNP is very pro Scottish independence and also in favor of remaining within the EU. https://www.bbc.com/news/election-2019-50789131

With Great Britain decisively voting into power the Conservative Party that will bring about an exit from the EU, while Scotland and Northern Ireland going in the exact opposite direction in wanting to both leave the UK and remain part of the EU, should these areas be granted independence, be granted the opportunity to hold referendums to decide independence, or should remain with the UK on its way out of the EU? 

With John Kerry giving his endorsement to Joe Biden yesterday afternoon, there are now two high-profile democrats who have endorsed someone early in the race, AOC and the Squad being the clear big one and now Kerry being second on the list. While Kerry has been overall irrelevant among the political news junkies, his history in the Dem party still puts him leagues above most other possible endorsements 

Former nominee for the Dem party in 2004

Secretary of State for Obama from 2012 to 2016

Former Senator from 1984 to 2012 

Short of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi, Kerry is still one of the higher ranking Dems in the entire party based on resume and televised exposure. Its quite tempting to dismiss Kerry as a now irrelevant has-been, but his endorsement of Biden does have one particular ramification: It shows the limits of how far Buttigieg can lure voters

Sanders and Warren voters likely dont give a flying fuck what Kerry thinks or who he endorses. You can easily put him in a group with Biden and Hillary as 'establishment' Dems who have spent decades in public service and want to use the system to make changes to it, rather then overhaul the system entirely. Kerrys endorsement of Biden may only convince them more to back Warren or Sanders if anything. 

But consider this. What if Kerry didnt endorse Biden, and instead endorsed Buttigieg? Or Klobuchar? Or Bloomberg? Had Kerry endorsed someone outside of Biden that was in the moderate/centrist faction of the party, it would be a MASSIVE vote of no confidence in Biden as the potential nominee, and cause a lot of Biden supporters to reevaluate their support for him. Kerry and Biden's political resumes are almost identical if not parallel in terms of the positions theyve held and how far theyve gone and how they have served the white house directly after failing to win it themselves. For Kerry to have endorsed someone else other than Biden, THAT would have been noteworthy. 

By endorsing Biden, Kerry is not going to convince many people who werent already leaning towards Biden to switch over, and overall the endorsement will probably have little effect on overall polling (compared to AOC, whose endorsement of Bernie over Warren was so high profile that now Sanders is leading Warren in most major polls). The effect his endorsement DOES have on the race is less conspicuous. It lowers the ceiling on how high candidates like Buttigieg or Klobuchar or Bloomberg can go in trying to show they are a viable replacement to Biden for those who are more moderate and dont quite like Sanders and Warren. 

Harris dropped out of the race due to campaign funding issues, others like Booker, Castro, Gabbard, and Klobuchar are likely on their way. Buttigeig can rely on his massive fundraising to keep him around, while Steyer and Bloomberg can continue to try to buy the nomination themselves, but Kerry's endorsement shows that these other lower tier moderate candidates have effectively run out of time if they are still in the single digits at this point. 

Did i fuckin miss something? I havent really been keeping up on the 'running primary poll' thread cause ive had a lot of shit going on in real life, but checking the usual site I go to it shows Warren has slid down nearly 10 points since mid October where she peaked at almost 27 points.... Ever since, she has slowly been losing fairly noticable chunks of support to Sanders, Biden, and now even Buttigieg based on recent trends, who is now within FIVE POINTS of overtaking Warren in NATIONWIDE polling. 

Here's how I know something is up: Prior to this point in the race, the only times that Warren ever sank to 15% in national polling were in polls conducted by TheHill/HarrisX, which repeatedly put her at 15% when all other polls had her at least up in the 20's.... Now though, 4 of the last 5 polls have Warren at 15%, and none of them are polls by TheHill/HarrisX..... What the hell caused this though? There hasn't been any massive policy shift on her part that im aware of that could have caused her to lose voters, Sanders Buttigieg and Biden havent really done anything to suddenly sway voters more their way, and the only high profile endorsement (AOC + 'The Squad') that went against Bernie happened a month ago and knocked Warren from 25% to 20%.... Now though she is quickly approaching 15% from November 18th onwards 

Anyone know anything on this? 

The first meeting of the Grand Politics ShitPiss Society Forum is called into order, I wish to thank the wealthy lords of the realm for attending, I know that your horse carriages must be quite worn from the distances you traveled through the countryside hills in order to get here. 

Our first order of business is more of a festive formality than anything of substantial importance. In order to symbolize our distaste for the peasant class of citizens who occupy our lands and consume resources while not contributing anything of their own to the greater good, it has been ordered that a grand Piñata is to be constructed of a US politician to make a mockery out of them, and that all other piñata's in the realm can only showcase the face of the person we select. The point of this is to remind the peasants in our lands of who really holds the power in this realm, and that those they look up to who promise them things they cannot deliver are to be mocked and derided rather than respected and considered. 

So, we must select a US politician we consider to be the bane of existence in modern politics, and make them the official punchline of the realm. Due to the somewhat sensitive nature of this kind of discourse, the person we select should be someone we ALL agree is terrible, rather then a majority vote that could lead to conflict and division among our ranks. 

I propose 3 candidates to be our shame mascot Piñata thingy

1 - Mitt Romney, since he is unfortunately still relevant as a Utah Senator, and I think everyone Republican or Democrat has at some point wanted to shit in his mouth

2 - AOC, since she literally holds no power or influence as a House Representative yet somehow is fueling the discourse between Dems and Reps alike almost entirely just by existing

3 - Mitch McConnell, since he is a diseased turtle with no regards to tradition or custom and sets an alarming precedent. 

If someone wishes to propose their own candidate for Shame Mascot Piñata you may do so, just try to make it someone who is relevant TODAY, as in they still are a player in US politics and not some has-been with no real influence anymore 

Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Bernie Sanders all get on a plane together

Due to a maintenance hiccup, both engines and wings fall off the plane and it crashes into the side of a mountain, killing everyone on board. 

If you had to support a candidate from the remaining candidates running for President, who do you pick and why?

Pete Buttigieg

Kamala Harris

Andrew Yang

Amy Klobuchar

Corey Booker

Tulsi Gabbard

Bob Steyer

Julian Castro

(All other Dem nominees still in the race at this point are irrelevant)

REPS:

Mark Sanford

William Weld

Joe Walsh

Mike Pence (Assumed to be running since as VP he is now President) 

Let me preface this by saying this is not a shot at the GOP specifically. The point Im trying to make here is more encompassing: that politicians in Congress just don't know how to properly bluff or pick their battles wisely anymore. This is just the most recent example that took place that clearly demonstrates the case that I think will help spark a conversation about this. 

As for the example, one of the GOP's main objections to the hearings held over an Impeachment Inquiry against Donald Trump being held in the House of Representatives is that the meetings where details about the Ukraine scandal are being held in secret. A lot of the meetings are 'Closed door' meetings where info is kept confidential and is not released to the public. The GOP have been up in arms over the hearings being held in secret, to the point that some House Republicans have literally stormed into meetings to demand that info be made open to the public. (They have also demanded that the GOP be able to ask questions, completely ignoring the fact that House Republicans sit on the committees of many of these meetings and can already ask questions on behalf of their party)

To summarize, the GOP are mad at how Impeachment hearings are being held in secret, and want to open them up to the public. If a vote was held to make the proceedings public, the GOP would then presumably be willing to do so in order to have public meetings that would allegedly vindicate the president. 

They all voted against making the meetings open: https://news.yahoo.com/house-approves-trump-impeachment-resolution-paving-way-for-the-start-of-open-hearings-153013481.html

To complain about some aspect of the hearings and stage a number of publicity stunts to try to raise awareness about the secrecy of the meetings, only to unanimously vote against revealing the testimony in the meanings to the public, is just ass-backwards stupidity that highlights what is happening to Congress.... In the past, both parties were at least smart enough to know when to roll over and concede ground on a dispute or disagreement, and when to dig deep and fight tooth and nail for your position. Now though there is only fighting tooth and nail on every issue which is adding to the disfunction and animosity between parties in DC and through the nation. 

Kevin Spacey in House of Cards once said 'Dont start a war you're not prepared to lose" or something along the lines of that, Congress has clearly forgotten that advice. Everything, no mater how trivial, has now become a requirement for elected officials to dig in and fight like hell over, even issues that could easily backfire right into their own faces.

One of the more legendary examples I can recall was how Mitch McConnell had to filibuster and block his own bill that he proposed where Obama would be able to define the financial limits the government could borrow for spending (a power that traditionally was handled by Congress). The Democrats called the bluff, McConnell had to organize votes against his own resolution, and was soundly defeated by the whole fiasco which could have been entirely avoided if people in Congress had any tactical foresight. 

This universal stupidity in Congress is contributing to the death of bipartisanship and total gridlock in legislation for the last almost 10 years. Its better off for everyone if Congressmen know when to be tactical and not fight the fights that will surely be lost, compared to going all-in at every opportunity when there is almost nothing to be gained or even lost. 

Following the abdication of Bsh1 as the chief mod, I, the self-appointed overseer of this forum based on no support or reasoning whatsoever, hereby decree the construction of a new order to this forum in light of the lack of leadership and direction from the rest of the site. This new society, henceforth known as the "Grand Politics Forum ShitPiss Society" will strive to achieve numerous goals and agendas under my leadership which is to remain secret between myself and other members of this site who frequent the politics forum I have selected for their contributions to the betterment of the kingdom. 

Because I do not give a fingle suck about actual political stuff in this new society, my first order of this new society is to grant titles of nobility and land to those who frequent this forum most frequently. The following people, whom shall be tagged, shall be granted the right to participate in the foundation, shaping, and goals of the Grand Politics Forum ShitPiss Society due to the number of threads theyve made in the forum and/or the number of posts within threads within the forum. (We'll have a group PM to fuck around in) 

Based on my super scientific analysis of glancing around page 1 randomly, the following are granted titles of lordship and elite-i-tude over everyone else within this forum from this point onwards, in no particular order: 

1 - Me (No shit)

2 - TheRealNihilist (For Thread Participation)

3 - DrFranklin (For Thread Creation and Participation)

4 - Bmdrocks21 (For Thread Participation)

5 - Rationalmadman (For Thread Creation and Participation)

6 - GreyParrot (For Thread Participation)

7 - 3RU7AL (For Thread Creation and Participation) 

8 - HistoryBuff (For Thread Participation) 

7 being my favorite number, lucky number, and also an odd number which will help with decision crafting, prohibits any additional users from being granted lordship or a seat on the council unless a seat be vacated by a named member who declines to participate in these functions which require zero responsibility and actual participation. 8 people are listed because I am assuming at least 1 will request to not be involved in this, but should all agree to participate, then 1 more will be allowed to join should they request to do so and be granted approval by a decent number of users within the society (2) 

If tagged in the subsequent post following this one, please state Yay or Nay based on your desire to be part of this grand program 

(If you're still confused about what this is, basically we'll all be in a group PM and do a bunch of harmless and hilarious shit that wont actually require you to have to do a lot to participate, but still be kind of fun to play along and go with since we all hang out in here and know each other pretty well anyways) 

I didnt even watch the last Dem debate on CNN because rather then split the debate up between two nights to sort of balance things out, the host opted to cram TWELVE candidates all onto one stage and try to speed through all the questions. I didnt even have to watch to know ti would be a forgettable clusterfuck, and at this point Im tempted to not watch another debate until the field has been whittled down to 6 or so candidates. 

That being said, if you could invite AT MOST 6 candidates to a Dem debate, which ones would you invite?

For me it would be the following candidates:

- Biden, Warren, and Sanders (Naturally they are the frontrunners who can get at least 5% support in most states, a rare feat in the race at the moment)

- Buttigieg (Bit of a rival towards Biden in terms of being a moderate, also is in the top 3 in polling in the first primary of Iowa which is a big accomplishment. Also doing superb in fundraising, and took the rare step of hosting a Town Hall session on Fox News and performing pretty well at it while other Dem candidates would dismiss the invitation on face because of Fox News's more notorious TV personalities)

- Klobuchar (MN Senator who is doing unacceptably poorly in the race despite being an impressive speaker, extensive and recent experience in politics, a respectable platform, and only one of the two candidates that I have been impressed by (the other being Tulsi Gabbard))

- Yang (Political Outsider who has greater knowledge of healthcare and business from a citizen side compared to politicians, has arguably the most unique signature policy position with UBI, and polling half decent compared to other lower tier candidates)

Beto, Booker, and Gabbard I'm not impressed enough to really value any of their input in debates due to their low polling numbers and lack of experience (Failed Senator, Freshman Senator, House Representative in that order). Castro's campaign may not even survive another week although he has done the most homework of any candidate on immigration issues by far. Bob Steyer is a billionaire who is trying to buy his way into the conversation and doing so poorly. Harris's moment came and went following the first debate and she is still sliding back into obscurity after failing to impress anyone. Everyone else I cant even remember their names and are irrelevant. 

For those of you who dont know but want something hilarious to laugh at, Billionaire Dem candidate Bob Steyer, who recently entered the crowded Dem field later than anyone else, has been using his massive personal wealth to fund his political campaign, doing so at such a crazy ass degree that he has outspent every other Dem candidate COMBINED on tv ads in the first four primary states, which do not begin voting for another four months. 

Steyer has spent approximately $48 million of his own wealth on about 53,000 tv ads in the first four primary states. 20,000 have those aired in just the state of Iowa alone. This is about 8 times as many TV ads as the rest of the field COMBINED, but theres an interesting detail to this story that could easily be overlooked. 

Steyer's financial fuckery aside, the Wall Street Journal article (first link) also includes a table showing the Dem candidates who have purchased the most ads on television. In first place by an almost retardedly large margin is Steyer with over 53,300 tv ads, compared to Buttigieg in second place at just under 1,700.... Where the list gets interesting though is the noticable LACKING of big name candidates who are polling incredibly well.... Of the candidates with the most ads purchased on television, none of the top 5 have regularly polled above 7% (Buttigieg), and a majority have never polled higher than 3% (Steyer, John Delaney, Tulsi Gabbard, and Michael Bennett) 

Biden comes in at 6th place with almost 900 tv ads (remember, Steyer has purchased 53 THOUSAND), while Bernie comes in at 8th at 730. Elizabeth Warren is not even on the list, and you can tell she didnt release any ads because the list does include Joe Sestak, who only has 10. 

With Biden, Warren, and Sanders far and away being the leaders of the race with what must be 75% of all votes, all three of them put together have aired fewer tv ads in early states combined (about 1,600) then Buttigieg and Steyer, and the big 3 almost aired fewer ads combined then Tulsi Gabbard or John Delaney (1,400 + 1,300 respectively) 

With Steyer polling less than 4% in a majority of early states that he has spent a literal fuckton of money on, and with the hyper-big candidates combined being outspent on tv ads by political nobodies, all evidence indicates that (at least for primary elections) tv advertising is just a giant money pit that doesnt improve performance. Candidates who have spent massive amount of money on tv advertising are still at the bottom of the barrel in polling, while big candidates have hardly spent any money on ads and still get 20% or more percent of the vote. 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman representative from NY more commonly known as the bane of existence to Republican politicians and republican supporters despite the fact that she is essentially irrelevant and holds no actual power, might have just done the exact thing Biden needed to happen that Warren was trying to avoid at all cost: Endorse Sanders and bring new life to his campaign. 

Just when it seemed that Warren was finally coalescing the left wing part of the Dem base around her candidacy, AOC as well as other members of 'The Squad', which also consists of freshmen house representatives with no actual power but somehow have influence simply because the right wing vilifies them so much, have thrown their support behind Bernie Sanders in the Dem primary. This is a big development because, despite how little AOC and 'the Squad' matter, they are perhaps the highest profile endorsement that was up for grabs as of right now.

- Barack Obama wont endorse anyone until the general election begins (As he did last time when it was Hillary vs Bernie)

- Hillary herself has remained VERY quiet and almost certainly wont give an endorsement until much later in the nomination race, if she doesnt wait until the general election to endorse someone as well

- Bill Clinton would almost be a liability as an endorsement and because Hillary's endorsement carries more weight he will stay quiet

- Jimmy Carter is basically irrelevant since a good chunk of voters werent even alive when Carter was president

- The far left senators in Congress that hold the most influence are themselves running for president and not available to endorse anyone

There basically was not a high profile endorsement that could be won at this point in the race outside of AOC and members of the Squad, and their endorsement of Sanders is a big deal. 

Just about anyone could have figured out that Biden would not have received their endorsement, nor any of the other candidates who poll below 6% apart from maybe Harris (a fellow woman of color), leaving Warren and Sanders as the ones most likely to get their endorsement. Given the fear that left wing voters have that Warren and Sanders splitting the base could hand Biden the nomination, and also the facts that Warren has done better than Sanders for a good chunk of the race now and is even rivaling Biden as the frontrunner, this endorsement for Sanders is a substantial problem for Warren and her camp.... Sanders was on the verge of slipping out of contention since just recently he was at risk of not winning any delegates in 3 of the first 4 primaries (his numbers have since improved, and will continue to do so). With this endorsement though, Bernie has fresh ammunition to argue that he is the flag-bearer of ultra-liberal policies, which will surely lure voters from the Warren camp over to his side.  

Ever since Beto O'Rourke announced his intention to have a forced gun buyback for Assault weapons and Ak 47's (An idea I dont think will even have any effect, let alone be legal) there's this other idea that I've been weighing around in my head that might be something Dems and the GOP could actually go with. The overall idea is that rather then having a gun buyback program, where the government gives cash for guns they want to see off the streets and offer market value for them, to instead use a gun exchange program. In this program, people who own guns that the US or the public has, for whatever reason, decided they dont want out on the streets, can bring in those guns and trade them for different guns and ammunition, where the exchange is in their favor and is still optional. 

Here's what im basing this off of

1 - Democrats seem to have it out for AR15's and any weapon that looks like it could be used by the military 

2 - Democrats are overall very okay with the idea of citizens owning pistols and handguns 

3 - Republicans are very against any program that forces citizens to give up or exchange weapons that were legally purchased

4 - Republicans are against any program that would seemingly be in violation of the broad rights defended by the 2nd Amendment

5 - Republicans are wary of what the government would decide is 'fair value' compensation for the guns they want out of private ownership. 

A gun buyback program, especially one that is forced and not optional for gun owners to decline, would run into a literal fuckton of problems in terms of becoming law, staying legal, and being enforced and carried out. A gun exchange program on the other hand could incentivize owners of AR15's and other 'scary' weapons to trade in those guns in exchange for more socially acceptable guns, and do so at a rate that financially is more in their favor. An AR-15 goes for about $700 to $2500 depending on options/upgrades that go with the gun. The average rifle goes for $600 to $1000, while shotguns go for $500 to $800. (based on a quick google search and admittedly not much deeper research). Pistols and handguns come in at the cheapest, ranging from $250 to $400 

In a hypothetical Gun Exchange Program where sellers get 15% more credit than the market value of their gun (to incentivize AR15 owners to sell their guns for a good deal), An owner of an AR-15 that is worth $1500 could trade that in for ANY of the following options: ($1500 +15% = $1725 to spend)

- 2 Hunting Rifles priced at $850 each

- 1 Hunting Rifle, 1 Shotgun, and 1 Pistol (Priced $800, $600, and $300 respectively)

- 2 Shotguns at $650 each and a very high quality pistol for $400

- 4 high quality handguns at $400 each with $125 left over for ammo

- 6 basic handguns at $250 each with $225 left over for ammo

- $1725 worth of ammunition for other guns that the gun owner also owns besides the AR15

Not only would this help get the 'bad guns' that Dems seems to have a huge issue with off the streets, it would not infringe on 2nd Amendment rights since it does not force people to make the exchange, and also allows sellers to exchange those guns for other guns as part of their 2nd Amendment right. The rifles and shotguns and pistols could come from leftover military supplies not being used (mainly handguns for this one) or weapons that local law enforcement took as part of criminal proceedings they do all the time (Rifles and other shotguns). A 15% bonus would incentivize gun owners to consider making the exchange since the exchange is considerably designed in their favor where they could trade in an AR-15 for anywhere from 2 to 6 other guns + ammo with cash left over. 

This is still something Im really toying with because there doesnt seem to be a lot of instances of this being tried in the US. All the research I can find only points to gun buyback programs where gun owners turn in weapons for straight cash rather then exchanging them for other firearms. Just from the details that I have described about this though, would you guys support an idea along these lines? If so or not, please explain why and list your political ideology with it, I kind of want to see where people with different views would stand on an idea like this

For those who dont know, Trump recently announced a withdrawal of US troops from northern Syria as part of an agreement where Turkish forces to the north will swoop in and handle the areas themselves. This would most negatively impact the Kurds, a religious minority located in Northern Iraq and parts of neighboring countries along the northern Iraqi border, who have long been the subject of persecution and attacks by Turkish forces. The fact that Turkey has grown far more authoritarian over a very short period of time also does not bode well for the well being of the Kurds, who played a key role in rolling back ISIS out of Iraq since Iraqi forces themselves are laughably inept. 

Basically, the pull out out of Syria leaves maybe the one decent ally the US has in the Middle East at the complete mercy of a corrupt authoritarian regime after they did us a massive favor in beating the shit out of ISIS for us while we relied on drone warfare. 

Democrats and Republicans alike have condemned the move, even Pentagon officials commented that they were not consulted about the decision before Trump went ahead with it, but I am in favor of the move... My personal belief is that the Middle East is an overall shitshow where a complete withdrawal from the region would be in the US's best interest. No country in the Middle East is worth allying with at the moment and havent been for at least 10 to 20 years now, either because of instability, inherent corruption, or both. 

- Egypt at one point was governed by the Muslim Brotherhood and is now basically under military occupation after multiple regime changes made by force took place all within this decade. 

- Syria has triggered the biggest migration crisis in the world and is ruled by a man who has used chemical weapons against his own people and is being propped up by Iran and Russia

- Yemen is in the middle of a Civil War themselves as part of a proxy war being fought between the Saudis and Iranians

- Iran is funding factions in Syria and Yemen that have intensified ongoing conflicts there already, as well as funding hyper religious groups like Hezbollah actively attempting to destabilize Israel and other countries in the region

- Saudi Arabia is an oppressive oil kingdom that is using its military might to bend neighboring countries to their own will rather than being a stabilizing force in the region. 

- Israel is ruled by a religious fundamentalist who has been itching to go to war with Iran for a decade now while repeatedly trampling the rights of Muslims within the country to turn Israel into a truly Jewish state, all while spying on the US at rates that almost rival China. 

-  Qatar is using its wealth based off of natural gas to try to muscle its way into the power struggle, and is actively trying to interfere with the goals and ambitions of both Iran and Saudi Arabia rather then use their wealth to focus on themselves. 

- Iraq is basically an Iranian satellite state since the Shia minority government we put in power have effectively ceded authority of the area to the Iranians in exchange for bribes and/or religious beliefs

- Jordan is teetering on collapse because of rampant austerity cuts made by their king that bludgeoned the lower and middle classes while also disproportionally funding any initiative that undermines Israel. 

- Afghanistan is once again being swallowed up by Taliban forces because they still rank near the bottom of the world in every economic quality despite nearly 20 years of occupational security by US forces

- Pakistan has used the wealth granted to it by the US to beef up its faceoff with India rather then be a security safezone in the eastern part of the region

The only countries that have at least not contributed to regional instability are Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates, though each has a number of concerning human rights abuses and disproportionate wealth gap between the very rich and the middle class. 

The point is, I dont see any country in the Middle East that is worth risking region wide instability or accepting the risk of future terrorism attacks just to prop up. The entire region is basically the grounds for a three way religious holy war between Jewish Israel, Sunni Saudi Arabia, and Shi'ite Iran where any country the US sets up shop in just becomes another target for either regimes or terrorist radicals to potentially target. Our newfound oil wealth thanks to fracking has also reduced our national energy dependence on the region, so we can afford to get out of the entanglement now more than ever. 

By pulling out of Syria, and effectively saying 'you know what, fuck it', we take that first step towards getting out of the mess. The next steps are to pull out troops from Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. The smaller of a footprint the US leaves in the Middle East, the smaller of a chance that the US or its citizens and allies becomes from targeted by forces that could attack us, or inspire those within our borders to launch attacks of their own. 

Quick crash course on Dem primaries: While GOP primaries occasionally utilized a 'Winner Take All' system as they did in 2016 that awards all delegates to whoever wins the state overall in a primary, Dem's always use a 'Proportional Allocation' system in primary contests. In this system, the number of delegates that are up for grabs for a state are divided among candidates based on how well they poll in the state during the time of the vote. If the top candidates get 28%, 22%, and 17% of the vote from voters, then they get 28%, 22%, and 17% of delegates in the state accordingly..... Both systems have advantages and disadvantages, but the key detail for Proportional Allocation is the cut-off line. After a certain percentage, any candidate who falls below that line and fails to get a certain percentage of the vote fails to qualify for ANY delegates, due to general irrelevancy. 

Up to this point, I was under the assumption that the cutoff line for the Dem Primaries was around 10% at most due to the number of candidates in the field. It turns out though that the cutoff is at 15% https://www.270towin.com/content/thresholds-for-delegate-allocation-2020-democratic-primary-and-caucus

This is a MASSIVE fucking problem for Sanders, and it considerably fucks Warren as well...... Warren and Biden can hit 15% in just about any state in their sleep, but Sanders on the other hand has struggled in many early contests to get past 15% based on polling. Of the first four primaries in the Dem presidential primary (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina), Sanders only hits north of 15% in ONE of those states, and its not even the state you think it would be. 

In Iowa, 3 polls had Sanders at an average of 12%, with one poll putting Sanders at 16% max, a hair above the 15% threshold needed to get delegates: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/ia/iowa_democratic_presidential_caucus-6731.html

In New Hampshire, the two most recent polls indicate Sanders has hemorrhaged half of his entire support in the state to Warren, and is now down to about 11.5% support if both recent polls prove to be accurate: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-6276.html

In South Carolina, Sanders can barely hit 10% total, let alone 15%, making is almost assured he will walk out of the state empty-handed: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/sc/south_carolina_democratic_presidential_primary-6824.html

Only in Nevada does Sanders poll north of the 15% threshold needed to win delegates within the state. Recent polls put him at 14% and 22%, with an earlier poll from a month ago having him near 29%... Regardless of where his support truly lies, its safe to assume its somewhere in the high teens above 15% for now: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/nv/nevada_democratic_presidential_caucus-6866.html

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Because you need 15% to win delegates in a Dem Primary, and because Sanders only regularly polls above 15% in Nevada due to the recent downslides he's suffering, it's quite possible that Sanders does not win a single delegate from 3 of the first 4 presidential primaries in the contest. 

If he stays below 15% early on, it could effect his level of turnout later on, (Sanders supporters might begin to reconsider their support if it appears that Sanders cant even win delegates, let alone the entire primary, and flip their support elsewhere) but it could effect Warren in a massively negative fashion as well

Prevailing belief up to this point, which included myself, was that if there was a contested nomination where no Dem candidate gets an outright majority, Sanders as the likely 3rd place finisher would choose to support Warren over Biden, and give her enough votes to make her the nominee. This assumption though was based off the idea that Sanders would have a good chunk of delegates he won from the primaries to transfer in the first place.... But because primary rules require a hefty 15% support in a state to win delegates though, Sanders may not have a large enough faction to swing a contested primary at the very end to begin with, or even get enough delegates to force a contested election and someone instead wins an outright majority. 

That effects Warrens odds in the long term, Here's where it impacts Warren in the short term though.... Warren and Sanders share a lot of the same base, the more leftist wing of the democratic party. Up to this point, it was believed that any voters Sanders siphons away from Warren would cause her to lose delegates to Sanders. If they split enough of of the liberal wing, then Biden could walk away with the primary. That was the prevailing theory a lot of people bought into.

But now, if Sanders isn't even GETTING delegates, then that means that left wing voters are not just splitting delegates between Warren and Sanders. Instead they're actively throwing away their votes since every vote in support of Sanders equates to zero delegates won because of the requirement is 15% to win delegates of a state. For every state primary where Sanders keeps left-wing voters from Warren, and also fails to hit 15%, thats free delegates that goes to Biden without him even having to do anything. Naturally, this MASSIVELY benefits Biden, because now delegates that could be won by Sanders or Warren are essentially disappearing into thin air, rather than being split between the candidates to possibly be combined later on. 

I thought about making this a general 'predictions thread' where people can post their theories and outcomes of 2020 electoral stuff, but there was something else I wanted to talk about instead that I didn't want to shove into my primary thread that I update every now and then. 

While on RCP, the site I use to check on primary polls, I found out that the home page only lists the primaries from Iowa through Massachusetts at the top, since those are the first primaries that will actually take place and therefore have substantial influence and importance on the rest of the race.... https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/2020_democratic_presidential_nomination-6730.html

Turns out though that the site still collects polling data from other states outside of the first primaries, which you can find in the general ongoing section shown here:https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/democratic_nomination_polls/

It was while prowling through this list that I found polls from other states and noticed a remarkable trend, hence leading to the title of this thread. Joe Biden holds such massive leads in the southern states that I am willing to believe he will ultimately win the nomination, due to the size of his lead in these states as well as the size of the states as well. 

The four states I want to highlight are arguably the three most important states in the south that will be voting.... Florida, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina. Whlie South Carolina is hardly the largest state in the south, because it's one of the first primaries to be held, it still holds great importance. 

In South Carolina, Biden has regularly averaged around 40% in the three polls that were taken between September and October. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/sc/south_carolina_democratic_presidential_primary-6824.html Both Warren and Sanders in the same polls are hovering only slightly above 15%, meaning that their combined support if one of them dropped out would still be far short of enough to beat Biden in the state..... Regardless of how close or badly Biden might lose in Iowa, New Hampshire, or Nevada, he can almost certainly bank on a strong win in South Carolina to revamp his campaign and prepare to stay in the race for a long time. 

In Texas, which actually is two states after South Carolina and is fairly early in the primary contest, Biden is somewhere between 25% and 30%.... https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/tx/texas_democratic_primary-6875.html This normally would make it competitive since Sanders and Warren also poll in that range in some states, but Texas is different because another candidate is standing in the way: Beto O'Rourke, who is polling at around the same rate as Sanders and Warren near 15%.... While Sanders and Warren will do well enough in the early states to hang around in the primary, Beto might not.... Beto only polls around 3% max in national polls and only gets a bump in Texas because it's his home state..... If he falters early in some states, and hard too, he could pull out of the race before Texas comes up to vote.... Even Jeb Bush pulled out right after South Carolina in 2016, and he had a far bigger war chest and name recognition than O'Rourke..... If Beto drops out, his support liekly goes towards Biden. If he tries to stay in, his same supporters may see him doing poorly in earlier states and transfer to Biden anyways. If nothing at all happens, Biden still holds double digit leads over the rest of the competition, and will be able to score a massive haul of delegates by winning the state. 

In Florida, Biden pulled in a whopping 34% in the most recent poll, and topped 40% several months earlier https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/fl/florida_democratic_presidential_primary-6847.html While Warren has polled better in the state going from 14% to 24%, Sanders has been flatlining at 14%, and did about as shitty as that the last Florida primary in 2016 where Hillary won 64% to 33% when it was just her and Sanders...... Seince Biden polls very well with older voters, Florida being a giant retirement state favors Biden in this contest, meaning that the massive number of delegates to be won in Florida is Biden's to lose, which he likely wont. 

Finally in Georgia, the lead Biden holds in that state mirrors his lead margin in South Carolina. A recent poll showed Biden getting 41% of the vote in the whole state whlie Warren only gets 17% and Sanders falls to 8% https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/ga/georgia_democratic_primary-6953.html 

The South belongs to Biden, which is remarkably similar to the last Dem Primary between Hillary and Sanders. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Democratic_Party_presidential_primaries In 2016, Hillary cleaned up in southern states, cleaning up across the board while Sanders struggled. If we assume Georgia and South Carolina are similar to other states nearby such as Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, etc, then we can assume that Biden will clean up in those states given his massive leads he holds in states similar to those ones (Georgia and South Carolina in particular)..... Due to the population size in southern conservative states, Biden's ownership of races in these states could very well deliver him the nomination since other states that swing more liberal could be divided between Sanders, Warren, or even Biden himself if he pulls off a surprise win every now and then. 

I had this fairly weird idea recently (the title) and just wanna think aloud in this thread about why this could arguably be the best move for Trump to pull off at this moment, both for himself and for the country as a whole

As part of this side gig I have (online transcriptionist: I type out shit that is heard in videos for cash) I somehow managed to score a job transcribing a gig where Ivanka Trump visited a Lockheed Martin HQ in I think Colorado as part of a meeting to discuss closing the skills gap in the workforce and stuff. The way Ivanka Trump handles herself is unlike her father Donald Trump in damn near every regard. You can probably google any speech she's given and can tell that she is at least 7 levels above her father in terms of having her shit together and being able to form rational thoughts. 

I believe that if she were the one who was representing the GOP in 2020, running in place of her father, she would win the election and beat whoever the Dems put out (Warren, Trump, or Biden).... Not only do I think she would win, I think it is something the GOP should do and that America would overall be better off compared to where we are now. Here's why. 

1 - Ivanka would not carry Donald's baggage. 

Donald Trump has no shortage of actions that Dems can use as rallying cries against his re-election. Locking kids in camps at the border, Russian interference in elections, cozying up to dictators and alienating our allies, the Ukraine thing currently playing out, tax reform that screws over the middle class, etc. All of that are massive issues the Trump campaign has to overcome in order to get re-elected. If Ivanka is made the nominee though, everything that her father did becomes pretty much irrelevant. Ivanka can put forth her own policies and recycle the "I would have done things differently' line as much as needed to, and given how articulate and rational she is compared to her father, Im fairly certain that most people would believe her. Even Democrats I think would be willing to buy the idea that Ivanka would not have done even 7% of the stuff her father has done over time, it would essentially be giving the GOP a clean slate to work with in terms of campaigning for the White House in 2020. Should she win, her administration would almost certainly be smoother and more beneficial than Donald Trumps administration, simply due to the astounding rate of fucking up that her father carries out. 

2 - The GOP would coalesce behind her and support her as the nominee. 

The percentage of Republicans who approve the job that Donald Trump has done is I think around 88%. I'm willing to bet that the portion who like the President and also like Ivanka is even higher then that, and that even Republicans who don't like Trump would support Ivanka if she were the nominee. Ivanka could unite the base in a way that Trump could not, since Ivanka could play up the beneficial pieces from Donald's administration as much as she wanted while also offering her own vision on how she would do things a bit differently. Trump republicans will support her since she is from the family, and Non-Trump republicans would be open to supporting her since she is also different from her father, in that she is not a vile person and can speak in complete sentences that stay on topic, among other things..... The GOP does have a bit of an issue with alienating longtime conservatives who have been part of the party, Ivanka as the nominee would do a lot to bring them back into the base which would help them in 2020

3 - Things would be (somewhat) civil again. 

Regardless of your opinions on Trump, I think everyone of all political beliefs would believe that things would be a lot less ugly and scandalous if Ivanka was the one representing the GOP in the election compared to Donald. I cant name a single Ivanka tweet that caused a scandal or ended up on the media that wasnt reported out of irony for what her father is doing at around the same time the tweet is sent out. Everyone regardless of political beliefs would also probably buy the idea that Ivanka would show a lot more restraint when it comes to attacking her opponent, whoever they may be, in both terms of quantity and quality..... if she won the election, I am also certain that things would be more civil compared to if a Democrat was put in the White House, since under a democratic administration there will likely be outright dogfighting (so to speak) when it comes to passing legislation, whereas an Ivanka administration would likely operate things more smoothly. If people prefer just having a sense of normalcy and calm in Washington more than anything else, they would gravitate more towards Ivanka as the GOP nominee since she has the best opportunity to make things orderly again. 

4 - She would defeat any primary challenger from the GOP ranks. 

The fact that Ivanka is from the Trump family would convince 80% of potential GOP candidates from trying to primary against her. She basically represents all the positive aspects of the Trump family compared to Donald and his eldest sons. Because Donald has such high support from the party, it's logical to assume that support would transfer over to Ivanka, arguably in even greater numbers since conservatives pissed off at Trump would find Ivanka more acceptable, and make a possible primary challenge against her unwinnable. Who in the GOP would even try to campaign against her? Pence? Lindsey Graham? You need to have a spine in order to run for president, neither of whom have that..... Ivanka would coalesce support of the GOP base behind her since she could play off the traits people like about Donald while also distance herself from him on issues where there is controversy. It's the same shit that Biden has been doing as Obama's former VP, and he's currently leading the Dem nomination (mostly)

Before I dive into this let me just bring up a few basics

1 - Bill Weld is a politician who is currently 'challenging' Trump for the GOP nomination

2 - Last cycle, Bill Weld was the VP candidate for human airhead Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party

3 - In his attempt to build up legitimacy for his primary campaign, Bill Weld recently appeared on MSNBC and accused Trump of committing Treason

Here's where it goes into crazy town

4 - Without literally ANY prompting from the interviewer, Weld immeidately brought up the penalty for treason in the US being execution after accusing Trump of committing it. 

His literal words were: 

"Talk about pressuring a foreign country to interfere with and control a U.S. election. That's not just undermining democratic institutions. That is treason. It's treason pure and simple, and the penalty for treason under the U.S. code is death. That’s the only penalty"

Now that we're up to speed on things, lets dive into this.

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Of all the stupid FUCKING things that have EVER been said in presidential elections. I don't think that a single one ever had an instance of one candidate implying that another candidate/incumbent should be EXECUTED for actions they made in their tenure. Not John Adams vs Thomas Jefferson, not John Quincy Adams vs Andrew Jackson, not Roosevelt vs Taft vs Wilson, not Kennedy vs Nixon, not even Trump vs Clinton..... NO candidate of any major or minor party has ever advocated or implied that a sitting president or another candidate should be executed for their actions. 

Im sure there have been some colorful insults between candidates that might have come close to at least suggesting such a thing, but this is something entirely different. What makes this even more outrageous is that THEYRE PART OF THE SAME PARTY. Trump and Weld are both members of the GOP. 

Sure, Weld could be accused of being a turncoat since he literally campaigned as a Libertarian candidate in 2016 only to then 2-3 years later flip back to being a Republican, but the fact that one candidate has suggested another should be executed for their actions is such an unprecedented claim for anyone to make that all other details are just silver linings at this point. 

If a (supposed) GOP candidate accuses a fellow GOP candidate of being worthy of execution, I shudder to think what the hell happens in future election campaigns. 2016 certainly had its lows in terms of civility as most of us remember, but if we're getting this type of stuff in a primary that is already over (for the GOP at least), then it can really go downhill from hill barring some sort of existential threat that unites people together.

Theyre screwing around with intros at the moment which should buy me enough time to get this put together before anything interesting actually happens. Ill go ahead and dive into this

1) I'll be shocked if I actually make it through the whole thing. 

I've been up since 3am because my sleep schedule is nice and fucked for whatever reason, so the odds I'm able to bear with this for 3 hours is pretty slim in the first place. Even though we have all the top performing Dem candidates on one stage for onec rather then split up half-equally among two debates, I still have my doubts that this will unveil anything new or interesting

2) Im only slightly interested in what happens this time

If the past 4 debates put together are any indication, a good 80% of the questions asked to candidates tonight will be repeated questions or rephrased versions of questions already asked earlier in the campaign.... Healthcare, Immigration, Climate Change and Trump in general will probably dominate the question topics tonight, with other issues such as foreign policy being shelved or barely getting light at all

3) There probably wont be an interesting clash between candidates

Biden has been receiving broadsides from candidates all throughout the campaign, and apart from Harris the first time he's weathered them fairly well. Still, the liberal leaning candidates will take shots at him, some of the lesser tier candidates might take a shot at Warren or Sanders for the implausibility of their proposals, but it won't stick since Sanders and Warren have the most unshakable support of any of the candidates on stage right now. 

MAYBE one of the middle tier candidates goes at it with another middle tier candidate (Buttigieg vs Beto, Yang vs Klobuchar, etc). If that happens it will certainly catch my attention and be an interesting talking point for a split second, but overall it wont have much of an impact on the race since the top tier candidates (Biden, Warren, Sanders) either have support that never wavers, or is massive enough where a slight dip in numbers following the debate would be fairly meaningless and return back to normal weeks later.... Only a Rick- Perry-esque 'oops' moment at this point could dramatically shift the landscape of the nomination, and while its easy to think Biden would be most likely to have such a moment, you do have to realize that he's been at this for so long that he's immunized himself from having big screw ups by having controlled smaller ones pop up every now and then, or by waiting for Trump to do something 5 times stupider that everyone remembers instead. 

Warren is giving her intro now and Biden is up next, so lets get started. 

While we know them as Hurricanes in the Atlantic, Huge storms in the Pacific are known as 'Typhoons' even though they are virtually the same thing as Hurricanes. Typhoons in the Pacific normally impact the Philippines more than any other country in the Pacific, with Japan and China right behind them (China in particular has a nasty history with typhoons due to their population and historical poverty). For the first time though, North Korea is now on the list as a country at risk. 

Typhoon Lingling (I swear to God thats the actual name of the storm) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Pacific_typhoon_season#Typhoon_Lingling_(Liwayway) Known in the Philippines as Typhoon Liwayway, at one point was a Category 4 storm when it swept through the southern most islands of Japan before it continued northwards. It gradually weakened as it skirted around the coast of China, but it made landfall in North Korea sometime two days ago with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour. 

Category 1 hurricanes average wind speeds between 74 and 90 miles per hour

While the storm pushed 122 miles per hour in wind speed while slashing South Korea, resulting in three deaths, the storm eventually made its way further north right over Pyongyang before crossing into Russia and eventually weakened into a tropical depression. 

Now im willing to bet that North Korea's shitty infrastructure and government handling of just about everything made it that the country is woefully unprepared to handle the effects of even the lowest tier of major storms. Short of an outbreak of a war itself, hurricane strikes like these may very well bring the country to its knees more then sanctions ever could. Unlike poorer states such as Haiti, Puerto Rico, or the Bahamas, North Korea likely wont be able to get the same sort of financial outreach from sympathetic nations to recover from heavy storms that strike the nation, so the storm and future storms that take aim at North Korea could have profound geopolitical implications for North Korea and the current security situation in East Asia. 

(Anyone who wants to make a troll debate\claiming that global warming is good can also use this as an example for why its good, since it arguably makes hurricanes strike North Korea) 

Now I normally dont get into UK politics due to how differently things are done there and how arbitrary it can appear to be. (Case in point, elections can be ordered at almost any time requested by the prime minister, whereas US elections for legislative bodies of Congress take place every 2 years regularly), but some crazy shit has gone down over there that I feel should be discussed. 

Recently: A bill was passed by both houses of Parliament (House of Commons and the House of Lords) that would bar the UK from exiting the EU without a deal in place for the country to exit the EU should they go through with it. Previously, that outcome was a possibility since the EU's terms to the UK should they leave were not accepted by the UK government, meaning that they would have to either stay in the EU or exit with no trade deal to fall back on and effectively be on their own. 

Now though, the UK is in a position where they can only exit the EU if other terms are agreed upon, or they cannot exit at all. 

Thats normally where this story would end, but it gets crazier:

1 - That whole law passed requiring an exit agreement to be in place in order to formally leave the EU, that was passed with members of the party that holds control of the government: The Tory Party (UK Republican Party).... The Tories were pretty hellbent on exiting the EU regardless of whether or not a plan was in place at the time of withdrawal, while every other opposition party that has any power is not.... Those opposition parties combined power with 21 Tory legislators to pass a bill making it illegal for the UK to undertake Brexit without a deal being in place upon exiting. 

2 - Because 21 Tory party members went against their own party to require there being some deal in place should the UK go through with exiting the EU, Boris Johnson (PM + Tory Party leader) kicked them out of the Tory party, essentially for defecting to the other side even though some of them may indeed support exiting the EU as long as a deal is in place should they exit. 

3 - As a result of ousting 21 members of his own party, Boris Johnson now does not have a majority in Parliament to do his bidding. He can no longer call for new elections because the majority that is now the opposition will reject such a measure, he cannot undo the law forbidding Brexit without a deal being in place to transition into since legislators just voted to create that law, and he likely will be unable to ask the EU for more time or to renegotiate conditions since theyve already made their terms clear and are in a position of power in regards to the UK. 

As a result of those 3 developments, Boris Johnson and the tory party have basically painted themselves into a corner with only two options:

 - 1 - They can abandon their drive to carry out Brexit, which would be borderline suicidal since they are the party that currently represents the portion of the population that wanted Brexit to happen 

 - 2 - Boris Johnson can resign, which will force power to be handed over to a coalition of opposition parties who would select an interim Prime Minister from their own ranks, and then the next time elections are held try to make a comeback and get the numbers to make a new push for Brexit in the future. 

And thats it. Those are the two options that the ruling Tory Party in the UK is currently facing. Give up on the top issue facing the UK where they represent the entire side in favor of leaving the EU, or they can stand down from power in the hopes that they will play their cards right better than the opposition and in the next round of elections increase their numbers in Parliament to take up the issue again. 

Either way though puts them on the track towards staying in the EU, since option 1 basically gives up on pursuing Brexit, while option 2 temporarily puts power into the hands of opposition parties that are heavily against exiting the EU. This dramatic shift in the future of the UK regarding Brexit was all caused by a recent vote where a number of Tory defectors sided with opposition parties to require there be a deal in place for Brexit to occur. Beacause of that, The Pro-Brexit ruling Tory party now lacks the ability to go through a no-deal exit from the EU, lacks the numbers to call for new elections to maybe get more numbers on their side in Parliament to pursue Brexit further, lacks the ability to convince the EU to allow for more time or renegotiate terms of a Brexit, and basically lacks the ability to pull out of the EU since previous terms offered by the EU were soundly rejected by Parliament back when Theresa May was the prime minister. 

So, barring any crazy development where a number of legislators suddenly deflect back to the Tory Party and to support a no-deal Brexit policy, the UK appears to be heading towards remaining in the EU, and Boris Johnson could be effectively forced to resign and hand power over to the opposition 

DDO, as bad as it got in the end, did manage to maintain at least one thing right towards the end in that when users were creating posts. There was a little counter at the bottom of the screen showing how many characters you had left before you hit the max limit of a forum post, and if you started approaching the max limit you could edit your sentences more carefully so that you could say what you wanted to say while keeping it all in a single post.... On here though, not only is there no counter at the bottom to give you an idea of how much space you have left, but the limit of 5000 characters is substantially smaller than the DDO max of 8000 which close to all of us were used to since nearly all of us came from DDO in the first place.

Rather then raise the cap on how many characters a forum post can have (5000 I can work with, I dont post massive things THAT often), would it be possible to just have the little counter so that we can still figure out how close or far we are before hitting the cap limit on a post?