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So it appears 2 weeks out. I’m a politics student & junkie going back to Nixon / McGovern 1972 as a kid. Midterm elections almost always favor the party not in the White House, yet I’ve never seen in them, electoral peril this high for either party.
Think of that number above. It’s monumentally against an incumbent president and you have to be doing the job very poorly to earn it. That is barely higher than his falsely-informed base voter, which is around 25 – 30% of the electorate. 2 to 1 against.
As I’ve indicated for 10 months, independents are virtually gone this cycle for Republicans. If those voters fell for Trump’s nonsense in 2024, they had left the tent by last December. Over tariffs and DOGE lunacy, before Minneapolis and the Strait of Hormuz.
Elections are won in the middle – which is why November 3 could be a disaster for GOP candidates. Each side has it’s core supporters and then about 1/3 of the electorate is independent. The swing voter who goes by what they see each cycle, not ideology. If you can’t win most of them you are usually going to lose.
How Can This Go Wrong >
Probably it cannot. However it’s now a different media landscape than was once the case in America. Nearly all major news outlets are owned by larger corporations, and we’re now about 30 years in to those buy-ups. The daily news is littered now with right-wing slant and outright propaganda, as those owners have supplanted 4th Estate obligations of truthful reporting, with table-tilt which will help the candidate who will deal them lower taxes & less regulation.
One example (of daily) ; In 2024 Joe Biden had an early cycle, unprecedented actually, debate with Trump in June. He looked sluggish to put it mildly. The press crucified him over questions of acuity and age, for weeks until he had to drop out of the race over it (war chest $ was backing out). In short, the press Swift Boated him. (ref: 2004 cycle). Trump has the same & worse acuity question marks, and has since 2024 or earlier. Pull up his debate with VP Harris in Sept 2024. “Haitian illegals” you see, were stealing pets to eat them… 😄
Venture 5 minutes on YouTube of one of his speeches in red states this month, to apparently make things worse for the local GOP’er who did not want him there. It’s gibberish. The press? Not A Peep. Trump’s mind is a non-issue by golly…
That glaring discrepancy is part & parcel, not aberration. News Media Inc has a thumb on the scale for Trump, and has since 2016, for the – fully evident – ownership reason above. Mega-corporations did not buy press outlets to make money, most press operations struggle as a business proposition. Rather they buy outlets to influence perceptions & belief, and to limit scrutiny and critique of candidates favorable to their financial interests. It will matter less this cycle, than how it helped Trump when he was on the ballot.
Will Trump try to cancel, tamper with or rig the vote, in 2 weeks or the aftermath? Very likely. Will it keep his rubber stampers in power? No. It will fail as all of his attempts did in 2020.
This below, from a very broad poll sample concluding October 12. This stat is the single most telling of all, for how the nation will vote. You can’t be on the side of Wrong Track, especially if the gap with Right Track is large.