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From a Data for Progress poll (B-), commissioned by Vox:
The ethnic breakdown, same question:
Trump's 39 "won" percent is merely his base, though it's still shockingly high given, well, the debate.
What, however, is positively striking about this poll? Remember all that punditry chatter about Biden's troubles with the Hispanic community?
Breitbart's editor at large, John Nolte, gives us his thoughtful opinion:
The corrupt national media are not demanding the two remaining presidential debates be canceled because they believe Joe Biden wiped the floor with Donald
Trump.
The corrupt national media are not demanding the two remaining presidential debates be canceled because they believe the spectacle of all the norm-violating that occurred Tuesday night is bad for democracy. This is the same media out there encouraging riots, looting, arson, and assault.
The corrupt national media are not demanding the two remaining presidential debates be canceled because this one made children — LOL — cry.
No, the corrupt national media want the two remaining presidential debates canceled because they know Trump won and Biden lost.
How was it that Trump won? Because he was his own man, says Nolte. He refuses to be caught in the "norm-trap," which, Nolte further asserts, "allows Joe Biden to get away with laughing and heckling and interrupting while Trump loses to a separate set of rules that require he be steamrolled as he tries to appear presidential."
I'm sure Nolte believes that assbackward explanation, since he's part of Trump's separate reality.
Stated with the most brow-wiping brevity I can conjure, Trump bullied, interrupted, distracted, ignored questions and repeatedly lied. Joe Biden discussed facts and reality, or at least he tried in the face of Trump's unremitting discourtesy.
And that's the only substantive assessment of tonight's one-sided brawl needed.
Biden's debate superiority aside — was there ever any question?; Trump doesn't debate, he just salivates like a rabid cur — I suggest if America wishes to ever recover its respected standing in the world, every video-taped copy of that distressing mayhem be confiscated and heaved into the world's largest, hottest incinerator.
Otherwise, the globe's denizens yearning for freedom will understandably conclude that if American democracy and its present political system are what both have to offer universally, then they'll pass, thank you very much.
In the world's oldest and once-greatest representative democracy, if a monstrously corrupt president can hang onto power through lies, distortions, voter suppression, blustery and demagogic arrogance, then that democracy and its electoral procedures deserve to be put to the sword by this bloated, felonious, unstable, non-taxpaying, unpresidential incumbent.
Or, Biden can kick Trump's ass in November. And then you can throw this post into the incinerator instead.
The Atlantic's McKay Coppins:
One day in 2015, Donald Trump beckoned Michael Cohen, his longtime confidant and personal attorney, into his office. Trump was brandishing a printout of an article about an Atlanta-based megachurch pastor trying to raise $60 million from his flock to buy a private jet. Trump knew the preacher personally—Creflo Dollar had been among a group of evangelical figures who visited him in 2011 while he was first exploring a presidential bid. During the meeting, Trump had reverently bowed his head in prayer while the pastors laid hands on him. Now he was gleefully reciting the impious details of Dollar’s quest for a Gulfstream G650.
Trump seemed delighted by the "scam," Cohen recalled to me, and eager to highlight that the pastor was "full of shit."
"They’re all hustlers," Trump said.
For once I agree with him.
But, my socially conservative fellow Americans, do you genuinely believe that a documented, cynical opportunist exploiting your pious ranks is the kind of earthly representative your god would appoint to accomplish your aims?
Trump is laughing at you. And not even your god is so divinely cynical as to work at that devilish level of mysterious ways.
With a mere 35 days to go, FiveThirtyEight and the Center for Politics (University of Virginia) summarize the national race as unwinnable for Trump, barring some unimaginable change in political circumstances:
"Biden is predicted to do better than Clinton in all 50 states with an average improvement in margin of about seven percentage points. The only place where Trump is predicted to improve on his 2016 margin is the District of Columbia. Crucially, Biden is outperforming Clinton by a substantial margin in several key swing states, outperforming her by seven points in Arizona, seven points in Michigan, eight points in Minnesota, five points in North Carolina, six points in New Hampshire, five points in Pennsylvania, and seven points in Wisconsin."
Based on tens of thousands of computer simulations, the potential magnitude of a Biden victory is breathtaking.
If Trump is indeed stealing this election, as more than a few Democrats fear, then he must have a meticulously secretive army of political operatives spread everywhere across the republic. If, however, Trump is only planning on shrieking voter fraud! in the post-election period, he's going to have a mighty hard time convincing any court, no matter how right wing, how roughly 10 million fraudulent ballots were cast.
Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza concludes a lengthy piece on Trump's 2016 debating "style" against Hillary Clinton and what it might portend for Joe Biden:
"Last time around Trump learned to master and dominate the debates in the Republican primary, and he was extraordinarily effective against someone as skilled as Hillary Clinton in the three general election debates. He shouldn’t be underestimated."
I was glad to see Lizza setting exceptions for Trump perhaps far higher than they have been. Since the president has taken two brutal beatings in only the last month — from Woodward, immediately followed by the New York Times — viewers may expect to see a broken grifter take the stage with his tie between his legs. But given Trump's congenital nastiness of historic proportions, adversity is more likely to make him even more aggressive in assaulting Biden and acting the strongman.
It won't be enough, though, as long as the former vice president's behavior is the presidential one. That is just about the only bar Biden must meet.
From Monmouth's latest polling, released yesterday:
"About 3 in 4 voters (74%) plan to watch the first presidential debate live on Tuesday night, although just 3% say that they are very likely to hear something that will impact their eventual vote choice. Another 10% say this is somewhat likely to happen.... These results are practically identical to a Monmouth poll taken right before the first debate in September 2016, when 75% planned to watch that event live while very few said it was likely to affect their vote (2% very and 10% somewhat)."
Since about a quarter of voters don't intend to watch tonight's debate, we may assume that they are part of the largely resolute 87%. Patrick Murray, Monmouth's director of polling, framed the viewership in a sports metaphor: "The audience for these debates are voters who already have a rooting interest in one side or the other." After all, how many spectators, indifferent as to who wins, attend a baseball or football game?
Added Murray: "The spin and media framing after the fact is more important for potentially moving the small group of persuadable voters who remain." According to Monmouth's polling, that persuadable group hovers somewhere in the 10% to 13% range, unless a significant portion just wanted to impress the surveyor by sounding open-minded.
To me, however, any persuadable voter — at this late stage — is just plain frightening. Anyone who isn't by now convinced that Trump is an irredeemable, treacherous scoundrel is either so ill informed or uselessly naive as to be nearly as dangerous as Trump to the republic's welfare. There is, quite simply, no excuse for any unincarcerated citizen to entertain even the temptation to cast a ballot for a shockingly unAmerican US president.
But they're out there — millions of them. And so Biden must play the debate game. Yesterday E.J. Dionne populated his column with five recommendations on how the former vice president should proceed (remind — often — the audience that "they cannot believe a word Trump is saying," don't be defensive, etc.).
Biden should be able to go on stage, point at Trump, say to the audience, Are you kidding me? — and then leave. But, no, he must play the game.
I'll wager the NYT story on Trump's tax returns and remarkably incompetent business career will change the polling numbers not one bit. This presidential miscreant will simply say his tax avoidance "makes me smart." And his gullible base will applaud him for it.
The chief question still hangs. Where has Trump been getting his cash? To that, we all know the answer, which, one hopes, the Times will definitively expose soon. As the paper concedes, his tax returns do not reveal any previously unreported connections to Russia, however "additional articles will be published in the coming weeks." Not that that will disillusion his base, either. But for now, I see the Times' tax-return preview, if you will, as something less than a "blockbuster" story — hence the following numbers are quite likely to hold.
Released yesterday, the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Joe Biden with another double-digit lead over Trump, whether among registered voters (53 percent to 43 percent) or likely voters (54 percent to 44 percent). Yesterday's New York Times-Sienna poll showed roughly the same: Biden leading by 8 points. Both polls are rated A+ by FiveThirtyEight.
The Post notes that "national polling reflects only the potential popular vote for president and is not a direct indicator of the state-by-state competition for electoral votes." An 8-10 point lead is, however, a strong indirect indicator of rather uniform leads in battleground states, since absent those, the nominee could not be significantly ahead nationwide.
As with other major surveys of late, the Post-ABC poll finds Biden pretty much mopping up the floor with Trump. The latter, once again, has a secure lead among males (55 percent to 42 percent), because we're idiots. Yet Biden crushes Trump among women (65 percent to 34 percent), which, observes the Post, "is more than twice as large as Clinton’s was." Astounding.
Less astounding but more commanding is the former vice president's lead among all non-white voters 53 points (76 percent to 23 percent). He also captures the 65+ vote by 5 points (52 percent to 47 percent).
And dumbfounding is the way I'd describe the enthusiasm gap of nearly 20 points: "65 percent of those currently favoring Trump say they are very enthusiastic about that support," reports the Post. "Among those backing Biden, 47 percent of registered voters say they are very enthusiastic about their support for him."
Democrats finally have the opportunity to dethrone the nation's most dangerous man and only about half are "very enthusiastic" about it? One would think they'd all be doing Daffy Duck backflips, no matter the nominee's name. That half of them are not is simply baffling.
***
But, whatever. That's Dems for you, as always, so I shan't fret. Besides, it's time for my $1,000 haircut, so I can mask my balding little head and deduct the ridiculous thing from next year's taxes on my vast, invisible income.