Fetishizing numbers
Nate Silver makes lemonade from lemons:
“Is Trump less popular than he was a few weeks ago? Yes. Is he now firmly underwater on his best issue (immigration)? Also yes. But he’s still more popular today than he was at this point during his first term. On day 159 of term 1, Trump’s net approval rating was -14.5. That’s about 8 points worse than his term 2 approval rating.”
So the fact that he isn’t quite as unpopular now as he was at this point in his first term means . . . what, exactly?
Trump’s polls don’t suck as bad as they did eight years ago
“Is Trump less popular than he was a few weeks ago? Yes. Is he now firmly underwater on his best issue (immigration)? Also yes. But he’s still more popular today than he was at this point during his first term. On day 159 of term 1, Trump’s net approval rating was -14.5. That’s about 8 points worse than his term 2 approval rating.”
So the fact that he isn’t quite as unpopular now as he was at this point in his first term means . . . what, exactly?
Trump’s polls don’t suck as bad as they did eight years ago
Most people still don’t understand what he is doing. Same reason as for the recent NYT report that a higher turnout would not have helped Harris.
His business model is based on the value of name recognition.
Arne:
My posting of the numbers for the 2024 election back to 2016 have pretty much identified an issue. It is not so much a matter of turnout as Clinton surpassed Tr__p and still lost. Much was lost to voting for others in 2016 for the family dog, Mickey and Donald, themselves, their neighbor, etc. In 202o, a white male candidate beat the crap out of T__mp. In 2024 a minority woman ran for the presidency after a Biden debate with T__ump revealed he was greatly exhausted from the process. It is a younger person’s game.
People will blow themselves up in protest to a woman candidate or a woman candidate of color. This was done even though they would have an idiot in the presidential suite. America does not want a woman as a president, They will pick an idiot like RFK over a woman.
Even so, the turnout for others was big enough to cause the issue.
2016: Reg: 157M; voted: 137.1M, Others: 8.3M
2020: Reg: 168M; voted: 158.6M, Others: 3.1M
2024: Reg: 174M; voted: 155.5M, Others: 3.2M
In 2016 12 million did not go to the polls.
in 2020, 7 million did not go to the polls.
In 2024, 16 million did not go to the Polls.
Nah, he’s mostly a professional gambler (really! He earned about $216K over the last 12 months on poker alone!) who does well for himself without any publicity at all. He’s always liked analyzing and betting on the probabilities of events, and he got into the 538 deal as a side effect.
John:
We are talking Nate and not T__mp now?