US Presidential Election, Nov 5th 2024

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So if Harris wins no matter by how many electoral votes the orange shitgibbon will dispute it but even if he wins by 1 of those votes he accepts the result. Sounds fair!
 
kaz7 said:
Question . If it is the six or seven swing states that decide the election why do the other states need to vote ?
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I know this is a rhetorical, but it's important to explain again: state demography and politics change over time. When I was young, CA was fairly red, and OR/WA/CO were absolutely dead red. All those have become blue strongholds now. Swing states change over time. Colo(u)rs are not written in stone. Obviously the deep south was once all blue when the Dixiecrats were the majority of the Democratic party, which eventually migrated Republican.
 
SebastianBlue said:
The dynamic of this is thread is very interesting.

You’ve got a small contingent of us that have been intently following, analysing, discussing, and debating this election for months (even years) in the other US politics threads (that are currently locked). Most with skin in the game as either Americans or, like me, non-Americans that live in the US (and have American children).

You have others—probably most participants—that are just interested in the election on the day and aren’t looking to make any predictions or bold assertions about the why or how or what of the election, they just want to follow along.

Then you have a contingent of posters that were rarely, if ever, seen in the US politics threads, going full Wolf Blitzer, sharing dubious claims, making ignorant but exceedingly confident proclamations, and generally wanting to appear as experts on the subject they have just now decided to care about for the day.

This really is the match thread for the Election.
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I follow global politics quite closely though tend to avoid posting in the politics threads on here as, as this thread perfectly demonstrates today, they tend to be full of absolute cranks and weirdos.

(Not you!)
 
kaz7 said:
Question . If it is the six or seven swing states that decide the election why do the other states need to vote ?
Click to expand...

It’s a bit like being in a safe Labour / Conservative seat here in the UK.

Your vote matters, it’s just beyond the realms of realistic probability that it’ll go a certain way so they’re ‘banked’ by pollsters.

Technically Manchester City council could be run by the Tories, if people voted that way, but they won’t.

Technically California could be won by the Republicans, but it won’t be.

So the focus is always on the swing states. They’re the ‘marginal seats’ of the US electoral college system.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
I know this is a rhetorical, but it's important to explain again: state demography and politics change over time. When I was young, CA was fairly red, and OR/WA/CO were absolutely dead red. All those have become blue strongholds now. Swing states change over time. Colo(u)rs are not written in stone. Obviously the deep south was once all blue when the Dixiecrats were the majority of the Democratic party, which eventually migrated Republican.
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Thanks. How do you see the election going ? I wouldnt wish trump on anyone
 
Johnny Mars Bar said:
It’s a bit like being in a safe Labour / Conservative seat here in the UK.

Your vote matters, it’s just beyond the realms of realistic probability that it’ll go a certain way so they’re ‘banked’ by pollsters.

Technically Manchester City council could be run by the Tories, if people voted that way, but they won’t.

Technically California could be won by the Republicans, but it won’t be.

So the focus is always on the swing states. They’re the ‘marginal seats’ of the US electoral college system.
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Thank you
 
kaz7 said:
Question . If it is the six or seven swing states that decide the election why do the other states need to vote ?
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Because otherwise their lack of voting would decide the election. ;-)

But, in all seriousness, every state must provide an election, it is just a quirk of the composition of the electorate (and heavy gerrymandering, mostly by Republicans) that has lead to the small number of battleground states being the decider. That is because the other states (with the possible exception of Iowa, it seems) are set to very likely fall for either Harris or Trump based on careful analysis of many different factors.

Now, that is not to say that there could not be a surprise or two (looking again at Iowa), but the vast majority of states are effectively “locked” for one candidate or another based on the make up of the voters and the voting districts in those states.

The battleground states are where that is not the case—they could conceivably go either way. So they are the ones most closely watched and scrutinised by political junkies, pollsters, analysts, and operatives, and courted by candidates and campaigns.

And this is why, to paraphrase a recent comment by the French minister, we are in a position where a small number of voters in Wisconsin can have a large role in setting the security policy of Europe.
 
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kaz7 said:
Thank you
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These do shift over time (recently Florida was the king of swing states and is now a fairly safe Republican banker) but by and large the pollsters know which are safe and which are in play.

It’s all about the rust belt these days. They almost always vote together too which is why all the talk is about Pennsylvania.
 
Gabriel said:
If Harris loses the race, one does wonder what it means for the likelihood of a woman becoming president via election. The Democratic Party will then have run two candidates from a party position of incumbency and lost both times, while the Republican Party appears to have adopted an ever more masculine image. Should Harris lose, even if winning the popular vote like Hilary Clinton, then the system is such that it's terribly difficult to see either party putting a woman at the top of the ticket in 2028.
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Perhaps the first woman president will be a Republican?
 
I'm careful to not get away with optimism, years of Tory victories, Brexit and Trump has been a kick in the guts.
 
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