IA Des Moines Registar: Hubbell +2

[Zaybay]

Excellent, looks like the IA governorship may finally be ours, all because Trump made the invincible titan Branstad ambassador to China!

[Zaybay]

Strong Lean R.

You have got to be kidding me...

[Zaybay]

Bloomberg said he would run third party if Sanders win nomination. Dems are gonna nominate BIDEN, Booker or Gillibrand

If anything, a run by Bloomberg as a 3rd option should pull away more moderate voters who held their nose last year for Trump, not the voters from the Democrats.

Sort of like a 1992 situation.

[Zaybay]

Bloomberg said he would run third party if Sanders win nomination. Dems are gonna nominate BIDEN, Booker or Gillibrand

If anything, a run by Bloomberg as a 3rd option should pull away more moderate voters who held their nose last year for Trump, not the voters from the Democrats.

Sort of like a 1992 situation.

Bloomberg would appeal to approximately 5 Trump voters. If anything he'd be an outlet for Romney-Clinton voters who the Democrats very well may end up needing.

The idea that Romney-Clinton voters exist in large quantities is rather unfounded.


As you can see, only 8 seats are actually Romney-Clinton seats, compared to the 11 Obama-Trump seats. Their location is also important. All of the Obama-Trump areas are in the midwest and North East, areas the Dems need to win the presidency. The Romney-Clinton seats, however, are in rather unimportant areas, where them going for a 3rd party wont make a real difference.

Also, the way to win the EC in 2020 is through 3 states, MI, WI, and PA. Trump was able to win MI and WI on the backs of suburbanites who didnt really like him, and rural Rs who loved him. If Wakasuha county were to have a significant amount of votes go to Bloomberg, then Trump loses the state. Same with MI. PA is a bit more complicated, and as the suburbs there are more D friendly. But, if say the Democrat is a person who wins back Obama-Trump voters while losing Romney-Clinton voters, then the state is D once again.

Also, if you think that only white hicks voted for Trump and not, as data shows, a large amount of upscale suburbanites who didnt like Trump, and were open to a third option(like a rich guy former R who argued for good old Republican policies), then you may be in for a surprise.

[Zaybay]

There are many problems with your argument as it stands.

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This is true, but leaves out important key information. 2016 had a lot of votes siphoned to 3rd party candidates. The Libertarian and Green Parties got record amounts in votes. By pointing out how badly Trump did misses how great 3rd parties did, and also misses that these 3rd party voters would likely revert to Trump, unless a Bloomberg were on the ballot, considering the GCB was R+1.

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Yeah, he is currently approved by 90% of Republicans. When he started office, and in the first year, he wasnt. Republican support hovered around 60-70%, until shooting up around January. It also misses how many Republicans have jumped ship to independent. They are still partisan Republicans, just not in name. They voted for Trump, didnt like him, may possibly be open to him, and would certainly vote for him against a likely Left Democrat. Bloomberg fixes that.

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Wow, so many strawmen, so little time to deconstruct. Well, lets start.
1. The voters who voted for Trump constitute a large amount of Obama Democrats, and those have been swinging back. The Romney Republicans, however, have become more open to Trump as time has gone on. There are large portions of Republicans who dont agree with Trump on some of those issues, but would still vote for him over a Democrat. That is one of the biggest motivators for voting, to stop the other side.

2. I dont know what your obsession with beating down on rural voters is. Many of these guys have had the biggest swing towards Democrats. Its been the suburbs, the ones who voted for him by plugging their nose, and swung a bit Clinton, that have been the biggest obstacle. The fact that we are competitive in MT, and not in the GA suburbs show this.

3. You still dont understand the dynamics of what would happen with Bloomberg. Bloomberg would run as the centrist moderate, a guy on both sides, a guy who can bridge the gap, blah, blah, blah. Who would that attract? The Republican who hates Trump but cant stand Democrats? Or the moderate Democrat who is a bit irked by the Democrat but Hates Trump? Most likely, due to the patterns we have seen in 2017 and 2018, the Republican who jumps ship, just like they did in 2016.

Anyway, the idea to win the suburbanites over is maybe good for the house(according to data, it isnt), or the senate(again, it isnt), but for the presidency, it completely is. The Democrats dont need the Romney-Clinton voters in TX, CA, and UT to win, they need the Obama-Trump voters of WI, MI, and PA to do so. Even if, in whatever world it happens to be, more Ds go to Bloomberg than Rs, it doesnt matter if its all suburbanites in these states. What matters is that the Obama-Trump voters, who would have little reason to vote for Bloomberg, come back.

[Zaybay]

(psst the real number is 13, you add the C-R-M and the C-R-O seats together)

True, but doing the same for the other side, adding T-O-O and T-O-M gets 12 seats, and, as my argument goes, these seats are more critical to the presidential race than the C-R-M and C-R-O seats.

[Zaybay]

2. I dont know what your obsession with beating down on rural voters is. Many of these guys have had the biggest swing towards Democrats. Its been the suburbs, the ones who voted for him by plugging their nose, and swung a bit Clinton, that have been the biggest obstacle. The fact that we are competitive in MT, and not in the GA suburbs show this.

That seems a little disingenuous. GA-06 might not have swung any further left, but it maintained it's 2016 swing more or less, and that is a big deal given how Republican-leaning it was before. Something I think you are not really noticing is that not only have Democrats improved somewhat on 2016 in some places, but a lot of suburban districts that flipped to Democrats at the presidential level in 2016 still reelected Republicans, but now appear poised to kick them out. Orange County, CA is an example (although Latino voters may necessitate waiting to 2020 to finish flipping all of those districts). Districts like CO-06, MN-02, MN-03, KS-03, IL-06, a smorgasbord of New Jersey districts and even some North Carolina districts.

Point being that I think you're undervaluing suburbs here. The evidence of their continued swings to Democrats is pretty well-established by now. Lastly, Montana is an interesting example. Democrats tend to do well there in statewide/federal races. They've had a bad run in the House seat, but not Senate elections. So it really shouldn't be that surprising. All this is to say that regardless of the merits of your argument, Montana isn't a good example for it.

What you say is true, and I agree. The 2016 shift has been maintained in suburbs. What I am pointing out is that its only been maintained. And in some areas, like in IL and Orange County, its subsided since 2016. This is why some places, like VA-10, are voting Dem by large margins, they were D to start off with. But areas like PA-01, or IL-06, which are closer to the mean PVI, or are just plain stubborn, are seeing tight races. In rural areas, however, the swing has been large, though it has not equaled to a victory. What I am arguing, in that comment, is that the suburbs have been tougher to win over, and have needed more resources and investments than rural districts, which seem to be naturally swinging over.

Its also a matter of resources. Most resources of the D party have been going to these suburban areas. If we look at the FCC numbers for places like Orange County and other suburban areas, its rather massive in D spending. But compared to rural areas, even with rather large media markets, its not that high, yet Ds are competitive. It can also be seen in the swings from the congressional specials, where

To summarize, my point is that its taking a Trump presidency and a Blue wave to finally make the suburbs vote like they do for presidential races, and even then, its tenuous, while a lot of rural areas have experienced shifts that havent been expected, even though these large swings wont result in many wins.

I would rather not start an argument over the ability for different areas of the US to swing in a poll tab, though.