Is the Blue Wave turning into just a ripple?

If you are that sure, sell your house, your car, wife, children and anything else you own and place it all on Trump winning in 2020. Right now oddsmakers have Trump paying 3 to 1 = you will triple your fortunes !

Just because you claim not to "love" either party does not mean you are not partisan. It is the criticizing one side while ignoring flaws on the other. Red is just as childish and fraudulent as Blue.

 

Your use of the term "dude" refutes your credibility. If you had actually conceptualized my OP, you would know that I didn't think that one race meant much, yet you seem to think it does. Well, it doesn't.

What I did say meant something is that the "blue wave" had dwindled from an 8% generic advantage to a 4% generic advantage. Well, guess what. It's still at a 4% generic advantage; and that's not a very big "blue wave".

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/mood_of_america/generic_congressional_ballot

 

How does using a colloquial expression refute my credibility. My apologies if you were deeply offended by the use of the term "dude".

A red candidate barely winning in a overwhelmingly red state may not mean much to you .. but it to me it is significant.

In terms of the overall "Blue wave" - we still have a few months to go and it seems the tide turns on a weekly basis with respect to polls.

The difference between polls and an election is that - its an election ! That is why it is significant. Red better hope this was a one hit wonder.

 

Two new polls - since after the Woodward book - have Blue extending thier advantage over Red.

• The Kaiser Family Foundation showed Democrats leading Republicans 49 percent to 37 percent, up from an 8-point 46-38 lead in April.
• Quinnipiac had Democrats leading 51 percent to 39 percent over Republicans, up from a 9-point lead in late June.

https://www.vox.com/2018/7/25/17613518/2018-midterm-elections-polls-generic-ballot-democrats-kff

 

I tend to look at this Gallup poll on a regular basis. It's true that it doesn't get a great rating from fivethirtyeight.com because flaws in the polling process but as far as I know, it's the only poll, updated weekly which tracks the President's popularity as a whole and broken down by party affiliation.

In this poll, President Trump's approval rating is holding pretty steady and his support in the GOP is rock-solid. The disapproval numbers are up somewhat as Democratic and Independent don't-knows have shifted to disapprove a bit but there doesn't seem to be any kind of major change.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/203198/presidential-approval-ratings-donald-trump.aspx

Before people start running around claiming victory, I'd like to see a bigger shift in the numbers and for those numbers to be permanent. A one week dip is not unusual for this President.

 

Lately, the Rasmussen generic poll has consistently varied from Dems +8 to even. So Dems +4 is not what I'd call a one hit wonder, but instead, about the mean for Rasmussen.

Who do you think is most likely to be biased in their polling, Rasmussen at Dems +4, or Kaiser Family Foundation at Dems +12?

 

Tough question - there is all kinds of things that can bias polling results - some of it done intentionally no doubt. I have been a research scientist for decades and have so much "bad science" in certain areas and disingenuous and flawed use of statistics that I am not even surprised when it happens anymore.

When something is political ? Damn - never mind being surprised - I expect hanky panky. This is why I attribute a whole lot more significance to election results than polls.

One thing I found fascinating about the last election cycle was folks like Michael Moore who predicted a Trump win at a time when it was thought that this was impossible and odd makers were giving high odds on a Trump bet (odds makers have little political bias).

Moore had crossed the nation doing town halls. He said that it was not that the people liked Trump so much as it was that they wanted to throw a moltov cocktail into the establishment.

The anti establishment movement was significant on both sides of the fence in the last election. Many Dem leaning voters disliked Hillary so much that they just did not bother to vote - rather than vote Red. Even Dem women disliked her.

There is no doubt in my mind that the anti establishment crowd has only gotten bigger since Trump was elected. While Trump has a base of folks who will follow him regardless of what he does - the big swath in the middle is getting really tired of his "platitude speak".

The raging masses are ignorant - meaning not well informed about the issues but, they are getting far better at recognizing platitude speak.

Trump was an unknown in the last cycle. That is no longer the case. In the last cycle we knew Hillary was an Establishment wonk - we now know that Trump is an Establishment wonk as well so he no longer has that Trump card (pardon the pun )

I do not know what is going to sway the anti establishment crowd in the midterms but, I do believe that it is this crowd that will determine the outcome.

My guess is that the next couple of months will matter ... the dial moves back and forth almost on a weekly basis.

On the one hand I do not like to see Trump being ganged up on - people tend to dislike bullying and rally to underdogs. On the other hand Trump is his own worst enemy in many ways.

The other factor is that the Republican party is in complete disarray. The Dem party is as well but, they do not hold both houses of congress. We have a Red President and both houses of congress are Red. In such a case it gets really difficult to blame the Dem's for Gov't ineptitude except perhaps for complete partisanship.

I believe that if the Dem's had stood up and acted like adults - and called for the Mueller investigation to come to completion - giving say one more month - they would have done themselves a big favor in doing something completely unexpected.

I believe that if the Dems would have done this one simple and logical thing - their chances in the midterms would have greatly improved. The people are tired of the partisan childishness and the corruption. This would have done "something" to show that there is some integrity in Gov't ...

but alas ... there is not.

 

I'm a Democrat and I'm pretty disappointed that they've been silent and letting Trump do everything he wants to do. Which fortunately seems to be tweeting about investigations and the ball of s*** surrounding him

I'm sure there's a few evil Democrats out there thinking hey I can do what Trump does

Beto O'Rourke is just starting to appear on my radar

 

What is Trump doing, other than MAGA, that bothers you so?

 

I am having a tough time dealing with a president that openly lies to me

I know I know the conservative argument is that every president has always lied to you so just deal with it

But the blatant lies and mistrust within his own Administration it's not really that satisfying

 

Trump's shooting off at the lip bothers me too. He could MAGA better and faster otherwise. But he is MAGA, so I can live with it.

If Obama had done as well, or even tried, his lies would have been easier to accept.