2020 US General Election

[GP]

Orange man bad

[HCZ_Reborn]

Like with much of the media circus on Trump won’t make a blind bit of difference. Almost certainly won’t result in a custodial sentence (and I have to say rightly so) so won’t change a single persons opinion of the guy.

You either think the guy is a crook so it’s a confirmation of what you already thought, you think the institutions are all irredeemably corrupt so this is confirmation of that. Or you kind of accept he’s a crook but don’t really give a shit because you want lower taxes, and more done to stop immigration.


We are where we were yesterday, there’s an election in the US in November and Trump is favourite (although not resoundingly) to win

[Letters]

I’ve heard people say this will make no difference.
I dunno.
Obviously Trump’s cult will vote for him come what may, this verdict will make them more entrenched in their positions. It feeds into the narrative that “they” are out to get him. Which they are, but holy shit he gives them a lot of ammo.

But there are surely floating voters who would think twice about voting for a convicted felon. I don’t think it will make a seismic difference, but I raised at the assertion that it won’t make any.

[HCZ_Reborn]

I’ve heard people say this will make no difference.
I dunno.
Obviously Trump’s cult will vote for him come what may, this verdict will make them more entrenched in their positions. It feeds into the narrative that “they” are out to get him. Which they are, but holy shit he gives them a lot of ammo.

But there are surely floating voters who would think twice about voting for a convicted felon. I don’t think it will make a seismic difference, but I raised at the assertion that it won’t make any.

I can’t really see how it would

Do you honestly think it’s a surprise to anyone that Trump engages in dodgy financial practices?


Nothing about this guilty verdict is revelatory. If you were prepared to vote for him despite this, there’s nothing this verdict will have done to change that.


Anymore than I think Johnson’s partying antics actually swayed anyone.

You can say well then why is Labour on course to win a landslide after the Tories won a big majority in 2019. Largely because a) the Truss/Kwarteng mini budget scared the living shit out of the market and fucked up a lot of peoples savings and investments and b) There’s less of an overall switch to Labour than it’s likely that a lot of Tory voters will just stay home.

[HCZ_Reborn]

But we will see, give it a week and you’ll presumably see some new polling both nationally and in the swing states. I suspect the dial will not have changed an inch…but if it has you will possibly see a very small percentage of undecideds shifting towards Trump

[Letters]

I saw this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnll59r891xo

Polls indicate he is in a statistical dead heat with President Joe Biden and maintains a slight edge in many key swing states that will decide the election. But those surveys also provide evidence that this conviction might change all of that.
In exit polls conducted during the Republican primaries this winter, double-digit numbers of voters said that they would not vote for the former president if he were convicted of a felony.
An April survey by Ipsos and ABC News found that 16% of those backing Trump would reconsider their support in such a situation.

I don’t think it’s news that he’s doing dodgy stuff but if it’s deemed actually illegal, which it just has been, then that surely is going to make some people reconsider. And in a tight race, as it looks like this will be, that could be enough.

It’s obviously impossible to tell, but this surely has to have some impact

[HCZ_Reborn]

I saw this.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnll59r891xo



I don’t think it’s news that he’s doing dodgy stuff but if it’s deemed actually illegal, which it just has been, then that surely is going to make some people reconsider. And in a tight race, as it looks like this will be, that could be enough.

It’s obviously impossible to tell, but this surely has to have some impact

A statistical dead heat in national polls means very little given that Trump won the EC vote reasonably comfortably but lost the national popular vote in 2016 by about three percent. The polls I’ve seen at the moment suggest he’s ahead in every swing state barring Arizona which is tied and Pennsylvania where Biden has a two point lead (which isn’t a lot considering he’s a favourite son there)

Being crooked suggests illegality, so being convicted is just confirmation of that. And as I’ve said it’s either confirmation to people of a crooked justice system (which is not entirely an unfair accusation) and more importantly whilst he may be the first president/presidential candidate convicted of campaign finance fraud he’s certainly far from the first one guilty of it.

So this may in fact result in undecided voters moving towards Trump, although I think even that will be marginal as most likely you’ll have a settled view of him one way or the other.

If we were talking about the election interference stuff, or the misuse of classified documents I’d say there was a chance people might change their mind but not with something like this I don’t think.

A lot of his real dodgy stuff (including Trump university) have been settled out of court with pay offs

[Letters]

The polls I’ve seen at the moment suggest he’s ahead in every swing state barring Arizona which is tied and Pennsylvania where Biden has a two point lead (which isn’t a lot considering he’s a favourite son there)

But those polls must have been from before the trial outcome.
The polls the BBC cited indicate that a fairly significant number of people said they’d reconsider their vote if Trump was accused of a felony, which has just happened.
Whether it will really make a difference and, if so, whether it will be enough difference to affect the result of the election is unclear. But it seems odd to me to claim that this won’t affect things at all.

Being crooked suggests illegality, so being convicted is just confirmation of that.

Being convicted also suggests incompetence too.
I’m struggling to believe that everyone has settled on who they’re going to vote for. We’re that true why would anyone campaign?

[HCZ_Reborn]

But those polls must have been from before the trial outcome.
The polls the BBC cited indicate that a fairly significant number of people said they’d reconsider their vote if Trump was accused of a felony, which has just happened.
Whether it will really make a difference and, if so, whether it will be enough difference to affect the result of the election is unclear. But it seems odd to me to claim that this won’t affect things at all.


Being convicted also suggests incompetence too.
I’m struggling to believe that everyone has settled on who they’re going to vote for. We’re that true why would anyone campaign?

Do you think the campaign will make even the slightest difference to the election in this country?


Campaigns are really a throwback to a time where a lot of people hadn’t made up their mind, but the pool of undecideds both in this country and the United States has got smaller and smaller


So what you’re talking about is a hypothetical being posed to someone. And most likely asked at a time when the Republican primary was still active and people in the Republican Party who make up that 13% wanted a candidate other than Trump to be their nominee. Trump is now the nominee and these same 13% of Republicans are not going to avoid voting for Trump especially if they fear it may cost him the election.

These are people as I say who disapprove of Trump to begin with. But they’ll vote for him because they want Biden out

[Letters]

Do you think the campaign will make even the slightest difference to the election in this country?

Of course. Why the hell would parties spend any money on them if they didn't? The polls always swing around before an election.
In the context of our election where Labour are all but guaranteed a big win then the campaigns won't end up changing who ends up in power, but on a local level of course they make a difference. If they didn't then they wouldn't happen.

So what you’re talking about is a hypothetical being posed to someone.

Up to a point, but the context being Trump facing a trial. It wasn't a completely out of the blue "what if", the people answering that question would have known it was a distinct possibility.

I'd agree that a lot of people are so entrenched in their pro or anti Trump views then it literally doesn't matter what him or Biden do, they'll vote the way they were always going to. I believe the verdict will give some people pause though. How many people and whether it's enough to change the end result is questionable. But we won't be able to tell the difference anyway. It's like speculating whether Arsenal would have won the title had we beaten West Ham and Fulham. All other results being equal yes we would, but it doesn't work like that. Results affect other results, there are different pressures when you're leading from the front. So the honest answer is we'll never know.