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masterofrants@reddit

Non American and non Canadian here but based in Canada.

Guys how much did stories from the recent Canadian immigration mess led to this trump win. I'm thinking it's huge.

Can some Americans explain?

I'm sure a lot of people in Canada speak to their American friends and relatives and discuss how badly true to us messed up the immigration system here!

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Sorry if this has been asked and responded to before! I know mass deportation is one of Trump's policies that his voters are keen on. From what I know of friends/fam in the US, undocumented migrants do a lot of the manual labour or entry level jobs in the country, like trade labour, food prep, cleaning, childcare, harvesting etc.

If all these people are deported, then who is going to do those jobs? From being in another country, I know that most people - even when unemployed - don't want to do them or can't do them. But also, if you're paying citizens to do it, you're probably paying more, which means the cost of everything goes up. Is there a plan around what happens when this workforce disappears? Or are Americans wanting to do these jobs?

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shnanogans@reddit

Made me think of this clip https://youtu.be/9J_r5ta7o0A?si=7U3VWMdWhiQj7RfV but yes you are correct. Low income immigrants provide a lot on important labor that citizens don’t want to do.

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

There is a lot of wage destabilization and idled Americans.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/men-workforce-work-companies-struggle-fill-jobs-manufacturing/

idk man I'm curious but lost

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flp_ndrox@reddit

why do people want Trump and not Kamala or vice versa

The economy is not doing well for the average American family so it's time for a change.

what are the pros and cons to each of them like what did they both say they'd do to make America great again?

Harris ran this as a referendum on Trump, but it turned out to be a referendum on the post-Covid economy.

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Konigwork@reddit

Whooo boy this is the keystone question isn’t it.

To question 1, there are going to be tens of millions of dollars spent trying to figure out the actual answer to it, but early analysis basically comes down to “the economy”. Incumbents are generally punished for a poor economy (usually high unemployment, but this time high inflation). Also on a global scale right now, incumbent parties are just outright losing.

For question 2, Trump ran on improving the economy and lowering taxes. Kamala ran on….not being Trump and increasing government spending to help fight economic inequality. I’m sure others can go into more detail if they’re more knowledgeable about the full platforms. For what it is worth, “Make America Great Again” is Trump’s campaign slogan, so that is actually a phrase Kamala avoided using.

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michal851@reddit

Question for those who vote republican.

Do you vote for Trump because you actually like him or because he is candidate from the party that represents conservative part of political spectrum?

Would you for example be willing to vote for other parties which would represent you political views if there would be real chance of them getting into congres or senate or is it alway republicans no matter what?

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MonsterHunterBanjo@reddit

I voted because the democratic party is so crazy and out of touch with reality

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Gyvon@reddit

I voted trump this time because the crazyness needs to stop

So I don’t vote Republican, but I think I can help answer this question.

There’s a saying in politics “Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line”. It’s not 100% accurate, but the idea is that Democrats want to have a reason to go and vote for somebody - they won’t vote for somebody they don’t like just because they’re running. The idea is Republicans will vote for somebody they dislike as long as they advance policies that they will somewhat be amenable to.

As for the “voting for other parties” thing, it doesn’t really work that way in practice. We’ve got some independents in the Senate, but they caucus with (and therefore essentially are) Democrats. There have been libertarians and tea party members in the past who win elections, but they caucused with and then were absorbed into the Republican Party.

Think of our two parties as governing coalitions. We elect the coalition we want, we don’t elect parties who can’t rule on their own and then trust them to make the best compromises on their own. This can be seen when a party member breaks with their party (see: former Senator Manchin from West Virginia)

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MonsterHunterBanjo@reddit

I mean just to propose a counter-narrative. Democrats fall in line pretty well too. There's like a solid block on both sides who fall in line, and there's a variable block of people on both sides who "fall in love"

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therealjerseytom@reddit

There are some people who will vote Republican, or Democrat, their entire life. Doesn't matter who the person is.

Here's a better way of thinking of things: When people go to vote, they all see different things. Could be any of the following:

Trump | Harris
Pro-abortion | anti-abortion
Pro Ukraine support | anti Ukraine support
Past 4 years good (keep) | past 4 years not great (change)

Or any number of things. Everyone's got whatever they value most. Not everyone is who voted Trump is "voting for Trump" (the person) as much as some other thing.

Would you for example be willing to vote for other parties which would represent you political views

I think a lot of people aren't even aware of what other parties are out there. I know a lot of folks who, from their social media comments, probably would lean more Libertarian than anything, but may have no idea it's a possibility.

And there are plenty of people out there who do know that they align better with some other party, but the past 10-20 years it's been drummed constantly "You can't vote 3rd party! There's too much at stake!! This is the most important election in the history of America!!!"

Every fucking year.

TriforceShiekah16@reddit

January 6th. He almost overthrew democracy on January 6th because he couldn't cope with losing the election.

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

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JoeyAaron@reddit

According to exit polls, people who placed threat to democracy as an important issue were almost as likely to vote for Trump as for Harris. Lots of Trump voters view the Democrat party as a threat to democracy.

But that makes no sense Trump and his administration is going to make life worse for women and minorities. Republicans hate women and minorities. Why would they vote for him? It makes no sense.

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Konigwork@reddit

So you can easily make the argument that Trump’s administration will make life worse for women and minorities. It would not be a hard one to make, and it’s why Harris still took the majority of those groups (though she did worse than Biden did across the board, about as well or maybe a little worse than Clinton did). Your argument that Republicans hate women and minorities is a Democrat/special interest group talking point and is what I’m saying you want to get away from when trying to deduce the answer “why would they vote for him”.

We don’t have all the answers today, but in a postmortem analysis of an election, you want to put yourself in the shoes of a voter. Because if you know what drew them to vote for Trump, next time you can get out in front of them and address their issues before the opposition can - then you may get their vote. The thought “people vote against their interests” when somebody votes for a republican candidate isn’t helpful. It delegitimizes the issues they voted on. Maybe the women who voted for Trump saw how much more they were spending on groceries and gas now than they were in 2019. Maybe the minority voters saw their paychecks not keep up with inflation, and decided that since although the DNC talking point has been about closing the wage gap and raising wages across the board since 2008, with two sweeps of Congress and the White House since then, and nothing coming of it, they were drawn to Trump’s “no taxes on tips or overtime” proposal.

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BurgerFaces@reddit

This isn't an attitude that is going to help convince people to take a different path.

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TriforceShiekah16@reddit

I'm just having a hard time trying to figure out why someone would support Trump when he's clearly lost his mind.

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BurgerFaces@reddit

Is it clear, though? Do you think the dude working 70hrs a week in the steel mill is watching and analyzing Trump speeches? Or do you think he sees a handful of video clips from Trump favorable pages on social media and then goes to bed because he's tired and has to work in a steel mill again the next day?

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Honestly, no I wouldn't.

The racism is bad, but old news. It stopped being shocking a long time ago.

I don't think most people care about January 6. I don't know anybody who cares about January 6.

Democrats didn't present a plan.

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Mav12222@reddit

I found a postmortem of the Dem performance that seems interesting

Basically it says that:

1) The loss was a repudiation of Democratic ideology as a whole, not Harris. That the Dems lost so much ground in solid Dem states shows the issue is bigger than the individual candidate.

2) The party staff, made up primarily of white progressives, is disconnected with the voter base.

3) The party presumed POC would just support them despite ideological shifts within the party.

4) People interpreted Dem appeals to suburbanite status quo as "more of the same" something which did not appeal to voters who want change.

5) Dems failed to advocate why people should care about the foreign policy issues.

6) People want action on the cost of living and basic economic needs before focusing on social issues.

The greatest crime of this election was ruining my favorite bit of presidential trivia.

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JerichoMassey@reddit

Benjamin Harrison

Kamala Harris

I think I've cracked the code.

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Konigwork@reddit

Also FDR served 12 years total since he bucked the trend of only serving 8 years and at the time there was no constitutional term limit of 2 terms. Elected a total of 4 times to the presidency and died in office

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consuelabananahammox@reddit

Trump won. How will this affect you and the future of the country?

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-sp500-premarket-nasdaq-trump-election-tesla-stock-tsla/

It’s already helping. The bleeding will stop on fallout from Biden policies. If Trump goes after his policy planks in a logical order it will be good times for everyone.

On the downside the Blue City riots will probably come back. There will probably be more assassination attempts.

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Curmudgy@reddit

It’s already helping.

I'm a well-off white male that works in tech. I'll probably personally be fine.

The economy will likely be fine. It was turning around anyway; we're in the same place we were in 2010-2012 where people were mad that the recovery wasn't fast enough but it does mean we're ready to springboard into better times no matter who was elected (and presidents don't affect the economy much anyway). The inflation wave is over and has been for a year.

But...

If he ends up actually making RFK the Secretary of HHS, that's going be hell on earth for all my friends and family that work in health care due to his encouragement of antivaxxing and other outright quackery like the Ivermectin stuff.

My queer friends will experience more hate speech and hate crimes from emboldened bigots just like they did last time he was elected.

My female friends and family members will be constantly in terror knowing they are surrounded by a society that cares so little about rape that they're willing to elect a convicted rapist who publicly brags about getting away with sexual assault. Men will continue to wonder why women are increasingly insular and skeptical of them.

I'm not worried. When you look at the worst parts of his rhetoric from 2016 election, he didn't do any of the bad things he wanted to do. Didn't even bring a lawsuit against hillary clinton despite the "lock her up" chants. If you actually watch him in interviews and his speeches, you understand he's a guy who likes to exagerate, he's been consistant with that for decades, he used to go on the howard stern radio show and exagerate about stuff and howard stern used to be one of his biggest fans. You could say he doesn't take his public persona as president as serious as people want, but he doesn't really want to do things that would make people dislike him because of his ego. He wants to be liked by people who even voted against him.

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Gyvon@reddit

If you actually watch him in interviews and his speeches, you understand he's a guy who likes to exagerate, he's been consistant with that for decades

I hope the Democratic party does some soul-searching and comes back with some identity beyond "not Donald Trump". I don't know what it should be. Maybe minimum wage, maybe abortion, maybe healthcare, maybe weed, but some signature proposal they can attach themselves to so they can start making a case for themselves again.

They've been running against him for 8 years without making an coherent vision of what they want, which is especially impressive because they've had power for the last 4 years.

I feel like anybody with any knowledge at all could tell you that these "save our Democracy" pitches only appealed to online nerds who were gonna vote for Democrats either way, and it blows my mind that the Democratic Party still decided to make that their central pitch.

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Maxpowr9@reddit

Democrats embracing limousine liberals and ignoring the working class since NAFTA was passed, is what's wrong with the Party. They didn't learn their lesson from 2016 and made the same mistake in 2024.

Democrats needed to focus on economic policy and not social policy. There is a reason why the "blue dog" Democrat is extinct now.

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TotallyNotGlenDavis@reddit

Social issues is what galvanizes most of their current supporters. If they drop that a lot of Dems will stay home.

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Maquina_en_Londres@reddit

I disagree with ignoring social policy. I think a Democratic party that embraced things like maternity leave, or weed, or abortion, or minimum wage, or plenty of other popular social policies they would have a better chance.

I think they just need to focus on policy and service, not whatever this BS was.

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Konigwork@reddit

ever since Biden

Konigwork@reddit

Can you name these policies? I’m genuinely curious as to what you’re talking about

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Cheap_Coffee@reddit

So you're agreeing with me now?

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MrRaspberryJam1@reddit

And it still didn’t work for them

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OhThrowed@reddit

I don't think they will. The Democratic Party really feels like the Principle Skinner meme. It's the kids who are wrong.

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E-9teen@reddit

As a Canadian who predicted (not with the greatest degree of confidence, of course) Kamala’s win, I can’t say the Trump victory is surprising at all. His gains in the black and Hispanic communities was impressive. Overall, the talk about democracy among democrats was really excessive. Anyone who seriously cared about democracy was already voting for Kamala. The constant mentioning of Trump’s 34 felonies, as if he had been convicted on serious charges, was ridiculous. If he had been convicted in the election interference case (maybe even the documents case), then I think the election would’ve turned out differently. Still, the number of missed opportunities was baffling. I was completely floored to find out that Josh Shapiro wasn’t selected as the running mate. I’m sure we’ll one day find out why that was the case, but unless if he was asking for an egregious amount of power in the administration, then I’m really not sure how you justify overlooking him. Biden’s decision to pick Kamala as his VP was disastrous. She’s someone who did very poorly in the democratic primaries, and has little charisma to boot. Really, he should’ve decided to be a 1 term president. That would’ve allowed for an actual primary to be held. Much will be made of this election cycle, but I think if it shows anything, it’s that Democratic messaging has to heavily shift towards the economy. Dems win on many social issues (by a decent margin as well), but voters are clearly willing to ignore republican social policies that that are contrary to their values, as long as they believe that a republican victory is better for their wallet. Where do the dems even go from here? They didn’t seem to learn much (at least in the long term, anyway) from Hillary’s loss, and I’m genuinely baffled at just how poorly they’re performing in the popular vote. If a candidate who lost by 3.5 million his first time, and then double that the second time, ends up winning on the third time, despite trying to overturn the election results, & running an even farther right campaign then ever before, then what does that say about the dems? Better messaging on the economy and immigration is really the only way forward for them. Hopefully they’ll spend less time sitting in liberal circles, and spend a lot more time living in reality

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therealjerseytom@reddit

Where do the dems even go from here?

Some things they might consider:

Reality check and accountability for totally fumbling 2 of 3 past elections
Candidates with appeal
Policies and people and a platform other than "we're not Trump"

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MajorKirrahe@reddit

They shot themselves in the foot a lot by trying to force things the last few elections. Clinton winning the nomination in 2016 was a coronation, completely wrecking a proper primary process that would have generated much more support and rallying behind an eventual candidate.

2020 was a write-off because Trump was so awful at his job that even Republicans were sick of him.

History keeps repeating itself and they keep making the same mistakes. Democrats need to lose this idea of it being someone's "turn". It didn't work with Hillary, it barely worked with Biden and it was an absolute disaster with Harris. Their most successful candidate in years was a guy who came completely out of left field. I was hopeful when Biden dropped out, but those hopes were immediately dashed when it was made clear that Harris would be the nominee no matter what.

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Curmudgy@reddit

Their most successful candidate in years was a guy who came completely out of left field.

Who was that? Obama? Or someone more recent being successful at a state level?

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ThomasRaith@reddit

It was Obama. He had only served 1/3 of his first senate term, which he won due to some last minute shenanigans because Star Trek's ratings were bad (seriously). He was a very poor candidate on paper.

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Curmudgy@reddit

He was a very poor candidate on paper.

Just like the current president-elect, 8 years ago.

There’s a lesson there. I don’t think I like the lesson, but I don’t know how to work around it.

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ThomasRaith@reddit

The lesson is that with the advent of the internet people can actually look up career politicians with a few key strokes, and they don't like what they see.

They want outsiders. They hate the machine. Clinton got bodied by Obama first, then Trump because she is the avatar of the machine. Harris is like Clinton DEI edition.

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huhwhat90@reddit

Yes, Obama. Hillary was initially favored to win the nomination in 2008.

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Senior_Ganache_6298@reddit

Can you explain why Newsom wasn't the one to pick up the torch?

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ThomasRaith@reddit

He has the same problem as Harris. He can't run on his record. She couldn't because she really doesn't have one, he can't because California is a trash fire under his watch.

Never use reddit as a reflection of any population, especially the US.

The_Bjorn_Ultimatum@reddit

r/Iowa really clutched onto the Selzer poll and believed Harris would win. The poll was only off by 17 points...lol.

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DBHT14@reddit

which is honestly a wild miss. Like that combination of pollster and result is insane. Even like 5pts off and it would have been egg on the face.

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Coro-NO-Ra@reddit

Hey Americans, can you explain how did Trump win exactly?

There's no single, simple answer. One broad consideration: people aren't feeling good about the economy, regardless of objective metrics.

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Konigwork@reddit

Reddit is an awful place to get insight to the psyche of the majority of Americans. It’s a website that has anonymous teenagers and gen-Z/young millennials with an excess of time that allows them to spend a lot of time online.

It also is easy to astroturf since there’s no identity verification (or verification that a user is not a bot), and is designed to have people enter into their own echo chambers.

If I had to guess, yesterday happened because it was a referendum on the economy, foreign policy, and the priorities of the current (now lame-duck) administration.

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

gen-Z/young millennials with an excess of time that allows them to spend a lot of time online.

The "whats the economy anyway" ad that Progressive came out with recently kills me. Because they got it way more than many pundits and consultants!

Its very often a case of "Not your fault but is your problem" for whoever is in elected office.

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Mega_Dragonzord@reddit

Reddit is extremely left wing in the US, you can’t use it as a guide for what the average American in the street thinks or feels.

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borschbandit@reddit

Reddit is extremely left wing

Woah woah woah, Reddit is not left wing, Reddit is very liberal. Two very different things.

The Democrats are not left wing, they are centre-right on the global scale.

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thetrain23@reddit

left wing in the US

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borschbandit@reddit

I understand what you are saying but if the US doesn't have a left wing, that doesn't make the right wing liberals left wing.

I would just call them conservatives and liberals. Liberalism is not a left wing ideology, its the foundation of the capitalist world order.

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Cheap_Coffee@reddit

Judging by Reddit

ROFL. You're trolling, right? Reddit trends left and is, by design, an echo chamber.

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huhwhat90@reddit

Judging by Reddit I thought Harris is going to win

Never view reddit as something that reflects reality. Those dorks at r/politics were popping corks over a Harris "victory" before a single poll had closed. It is a tremendously out-of-touch place.

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Subvet98@reddit

Reddit doesn't reflect America.

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CupBeEmpty@reddit

For real, using reddit as a reflection of reality in the US is about as bad as using a sitcom.

Wermys@reddit

Best guess. Progressives are going to be in for a bad few months as they are going to have the hatchets taken to their power in Washington. They were warned 2 years ago this could happen. And they chose to go hell bent on their stimulus bill. And congrats they got it past, and this was the result.

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GOTaSMALL1@reddit

That’s what I said in 2016. And they apparently didn’t learn anything.

Already hearing chirping from MSNBC and on the more lefty subs that Harris is losing cause Americans are misogynists. Sigh.

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SonofNamek@reddit

Well, they did learn somewhat in 2020. Hence Biden ran on unity and a moderate Scranton Joe type image.

But he didn't act that way in his rhetoric, his advisor base, and with the DNC's connections to the media. That he HAD to pick Kamala Harris as his VP despite concerns about his age.....

Well, you get what you saw in this election

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JerichoMassey@reddit

Also, this is kinda of what the Republicans said in 2012 after being fully rejected. They did a deep dive and released a mission towards being less extreme and try to court minorities and women by easing up on their platform.

Scrambling?

I'm pretty sure installing Harris was the plan all along.

Now I'm interested to see if all the news on the current administration will stay "Biden-Harris" or if it will go back to just "Biden" like it was a month ago lol

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TheBimpo@reddit

They should have started a succession plan in 2021-22, not July.

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borschbandit@reddit

Which candidate do you think should the DNC should’ve chosen

The DNC shouldn't be choosing any candidate!

The US I grew up in had primary and caucus systems for that exact reason.

The most underreported part of this election was how the Democrats handpicked a candidate and eliminated 50% of the democratic process in the Presidential election.

I've asked people who defend the two party system, why the US can't have more parties. "We sort all of that out in the primary" is the usual answer.

Well not this time.

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00zau@reddit

TBH I think Harris was the least-bad option they had after Biden's debate failure made him non-viable. Snubbing the VP for the position in favor of anyone who wasn't another woman of color would have backfired as they got called out for lacking diversity by their base, and they didn't have another WOC ready to go. They were unfortunate in that Harris just sucked (which they kinda knew given how she cratered in the 2020 primaries).

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gummibearhawk@reddit

They should have kicked Biden to the curb a year ago and held an actual primary.

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MetroBS@reddit

Unironically Joe Biden

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Morgentau7@reddit

Honest question to those who voted for Trump:

Unpopular opinion: I honestly think Trump is being way overestimated, especially after that widely discussed Iowa poll from a couple of days ago. Here’s why: no poll wants to make one side look way better than the other, so they just report it as a tight race instead. I keep seeing online posts about huge crowds outside polling stations daily, which some people who are 70+ have never seen before; huge voter turnout is mostly in favor of democrats..

CaliforniaHope@reddit

You might be right. I think it really comes down to the women’s turnout. If there’s a big turnout of women supporting Kamala—which makes sense—then it could be over for Trump.

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OhThrowed@reddit

Isn't that the same turnout Hillary was relying on?

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Yeah, Maybe,. I just remember those days and those women were demonized as something very - other. "Those girls" got "in trouble" because they were wild or hippies or sluts.

I just feel like it's not a huge group of women that were aware. If you are on any historical, reminiscing page on facebook you'll see just scores of people remembering as this incredibly safe time where nothing bad happened and life was so much better.

I hope there are enough women that are empathetic but surveys show a 50-64 year old women is more likely to want abortion rights than those older.

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

yesterday, I turned on the TV and immediately got served 4 ads in succession that were all railing against Republicans for being against abortion. "extreme [Republican] doesn't believe in exceptions for the life of the mother" "radical [Republican] would put doctors and nurses in jail." literally every ad, same message, different candidates.

and it makes sense. post-roe, we had an old abortion ban take effect. last August, we elected liberal state supreme court justice Janet Protasiewicz with 55.4% of the vote statewide. the election was a referendum on abortion. now the court has a liberal majority & abortion is actually legal here again.

so even though Wisconsin doesn't currently have an abortion ban (like Iowa does), it's still an extremely recent & tangible issue for voters here. I really think it is the issue here.

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Chad-Ironrod@reddit

The votes will tell the tale soon enough!

Though there will certainly be some level of crossover from Republican women, my gut says the vast majority who see it as a significant enough issue already reliably turn up for Team Blue and the potential to grow the coalition via that avenue isn't as strong as the Dems would hope for.

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devnullopinions@reddit

NYT was reporting over the weekend that Trump could plausibly win the popular vote as a Republican for the first time in a while which is fascinating.

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WulfTheSaxon@reddit

One standard deviation on the Silver Bulletin forecast ranges from +5 Harris to +1 Trump, so it’s definitely possible. There’s even a slight chance that Trump loses despite winning the popular vote.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

All I know is that I'm going to be clutching my butt until the ref calls the coin toss.

And then the fans will mob the field and try to beat the tar out of the ref. Oh boy.

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Agattu@reddit

My sister voted for the first time since 2008 and she voted for Trump.

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Keewee250@reddit

This is my hope. And it it's true, then Harris might carry some unexpected Senate wins too *stares in f**k you Ted Cruz*

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

I mean I just hope Biden and Mayor of DC learn the lesson four years ago and supply more police and national guard to the capitol so it doesn't get freaking invaded like last time.

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Plantayne@reddit

The best way the left can fire up their base is to position themselves as the underdog/change candidate. There’s just something about the left-wing mentality that responds well to the idea that they’re the Rebel Alliance desperately facing down the vile Empire against all odds, even when they hold almost all of the power and have been on a nearly unbroken winning streak for years.

This is the reason why, despite Kamala leading in almost every poll everywhere up until relatively recently, she’s always tried to make it clear she considers herself the underdog.

So really it’s been the left that’s overestimating Trump and it’s very much by design.

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beenoc@reddit

The best way the left can fire up their base is to position themselves as the underdog/change candidate.

To be fair, the right does this too. Even when they had the Presidency, both houses of Congress, and a compliant Supreme Court from 2016-2018, they got literally nothing accomplished other than one tax bill - no wall, no Obamacare repeal, etc. - and spent the whole time complaining about the dEeP sTaTe because it plays much better to their base to be the persecuted minority.

Hell, Christian identity overall (which is much more strongly associated with the right but is still a key building block of American culture in general) relies on the "persecuted minority" thing, because for the first few formative centuries of the religion's existence it was illegal, and that "everyone is out to get us so we Have To Fight" mentality is still part of the faith today.

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LadyFoxfire@reddit

Fear is a great motivator. All I’m hearing in left-wing circles is “Go vote, make your friends vote, volunteer and donate, because the race is close and every vote matters!” And as stressful as it is, I’d rather have us panic our way into a landslide victory than get too comfortable and lose narrowly.

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LadyFoxfire@reddit

Yeah, with the actual dynamics of this race, the enthusiasm for Harris, the half empty Trump rallies, huge numbers of Republicans (especially women) turning on him, the early vote tallies… there’s no way this is anywhere close to the 2020 election. The Selzer poll matches the observable dynamics a lot more than the other polls do.

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jyper@reddit

I pray this is true but I'm too sick to my stomach worrying about the future of this country

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Agattu@reddit

Yeah, but let’s be clear. The Iowa poll was still within the margin of error, so it really doesn’t mean what Reddit wants it to mean.

Secondly, early voting statistics are showing that Republican participation is up greatly over 2016 and 2020. Whether or not this means fewer republicans show up tomorrow or not is unclear. The same could go for democrats too. Will their early voting totals detract from the totals that show up tomorrow.

Also, the early voting statistics are showing that young people just are not turning up (color me shocked). Will they show up tomorrow, idk, but if young people don’t show up greater than 2020, that’s going to be hard on Harris considering she is showing down in certain minority segments.

All of that said, early voting doesn’t mean much because no exit polls are done and all it shows is how many registered voters are voting. We don’t know if the registered democrats are voting for Harris or Trump and the same goes for the registered republicans.

All reputable polling companies are saying that there is nothing really to be gained from the early voting tallies. And they are correct.

True but if you’re going to come up with a prediction that has any basis in reality it should be based on data.

If you don’t believe the polling is accurate, then what data are you using to conclude that Trump will likely lose?

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Recent-Irish@reddit

Your mouth to God’s ears but I fully expect a Trump win.

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honey_rainbow@reddit

I don't see it happening honestly.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

Again, I hope you’re right.

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Arleare13@reddit

It's also interesting that if Trump wins, Harris as Vice President will be the one who has to certify the election results.

That kind of thing is pretty common, because VPs often run for election after their president's term is up. Al Gore had to certify George W. Bush's incredibly controversial win over him (and he did so in a dignified way so as to ensure a peaceful transition of power, without whining that the election was rigged).

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honey_rainbow@reddit

I sure as heck don't

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No, most people voting for Trump will completely deny reality and say the rape and the fraud and the coup attempt simply didn't happen.

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Wx_Justin@reddit

Really goes to show you how much people hate to admit when they're wrong. When they're set in their ways and beliefs, their inflated egos act as a barrier to reason.

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Iamonly@reddit

Who do y'all think the swing states (AZ, GA, MI, NV, NC, PA, WI) are going to be won?

SnoopySuited@reddit

Cool! Enjoy your second round of inflation and wrecked economy!

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Meilingcrusader@reddit

Polls in both 16 and 20 underestimated him. Why do you think he has no chance there? Polls and intangibles both suggest he has a pretty good chance

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SnoopySuited@reddit

This is the cycle that will prove the art of polling is dead.

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Meilingcrusader@reddit

Ok why specifically do you think polls are underestimating kamala in these states

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SnoopySuited@reddit

Because polsters are overestimating Trump to avoid another embarrassing cycle. And they went too far.

high likelihood that the polls are bunk this year due to herding where otherwise trustworthy pollsters started with a conclusion and backwards

But banned is not the same thing as killed. You saw it on January 6. You saw it in Charlottesville. You see it when they want to make women with entoptic pregnancies carry fetuses until their bodies burst. You saw it in the rhetoric around Nancy Pelosi‘s husband and the Proud Boys and people armed to the teeth with weapons that would blow a deer into a million little pieces. There’s an underlying violence, a death wish behind the Trump movement that just doesn’t square with the admittedly annoying tendency of liberals to be dismissive or condescending.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

This is the kind of outrageous rhetoric that is a big part of the problem.

No one is killing democrats, no one is rounding american citizens up, the language of fear and outrage needs to stop. And on reddit it's pretty much all coming one direction.

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Maquina_en_Londres@reddit

There are proposals to round non-citizens up, and that makes me profoundly sad.

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Eyebeamjelly@reddit

Don’t be outraged. A lot of your neighbors are feeling exactly the same thing right now. Millions of them actually. if you care about them, you should realize this is much deeper than a political disagreement. There’s a feeling that something terrible is about to happen, something violent, and cruel that consume all of us. Forget about me, some Reddit asshole, go and take care of your friends and family. They’re afraid right now.

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borschbandit@reddit

It's the Trump supporters who are more often unwelcome or banned.

I voted for Jill Stein, I'm not a Trump supporter, but I would agree with you there.

The Democrats created a hostile environment and tried to create some sort of holier than thou (ironically given their record) environment designed to make people feel uncomfortable, isolated, and belittled for being Trump supporters.

Over the last 8 years, all of that melted away with their hypocrasy and I think more and more people see right through them.

That's exactly one of the things that has isolated them into being mostly a party of smug elitists in liberal bubbles in the major cities, and is one contributing reason to why they were dealt this devastating defeat.

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Eyebeamjelly@reddit

I understand that desire to watch it all burn.

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The_Bjorn_Ultimatum@reddit

Of course they are welcome.

I don't feel any different about them. I don't care who they voted for. I disagree with the policies of the democrats but they exercised their right to vote.

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Eyebeamjelly@reddit

But honestly, wouldn’t the world that Donald Trump envisions, the MAGA world, be such a better place if it didn’t have all these goddamn liberals running around ruining everything?

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

That’s why we keep converting them.

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

I’ll pay a dollar for it. I won’t run it good but I’ve always wanted a country to run

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Konigwork@reddit

See the problem is that even if you gave it away for free, within one year you’d have to pay $1 billion to service the debt payments they make annually. Plus, their budget is consistently in the red. FEMA would no longer be supporting the rebuild whenever Puerto Rico is hit by a hurricane, so those costs would need to be absorbed by you. And there’s not a significant wealthy tax base there you could raise taxes on to pay for these things and cause it to become more self sufficient

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

My solution is to go the North Korea route and just not pay anything, then build statues of myself everywhere

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Deolater@reddit

Yeah, these people are underestimating just how bad someone can be at governing.

I'll add a dollar to your bid if you give me a cool title and a state pension, and promise not to execute me for at least 10 years.

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

You can be the Minor Regional Czar of Cabo Rojo with a local militia force under your command to ensure citizen cooperation and happiness. You will receive 50k USD torwards your retirement every year and a house on Coffin Island.

You will address me as Lord Kaiser Burgermiester Meisterburger, God-Emperor of San Paulo.

Santa Claus is to be treated as an enemy of the state and will be shot on sight

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GASC3005@reddit

So you’re saying that in the event of the possibility, you would like for the USA to move on from Puerto Rico?

I don’t know man, I hope they don’t sell us off to anyone if I’m being honest

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Konigwork@reddit

No, I’m not in favor of that at all. Just saying that even if there was a political motivation for the country to get rid of Puerto Rico, there’s no feasible way to.

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GASC3005@reddit

True, I don’t think it’s cost efficient

USA, sorry for the hassle😅🥸

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Konigwork@reddit

Oh it absolutely isn’t cost efficient, though as a whole governments aren’t designed to be.

IIRC colonization has never really been profitable for a country, but at times has been for corporations who exist within said countries (there may have been some exceptions to this however). While Puerto Rico isn’t necessarily an “overseas colony”, it is a fully occupied territory and is relatively expensive to support. It also provides non-monetary benefits in the region such as a larger port, which helps with direct power projection in the eastern and southern Caribbean.

Honestly if I had to choose between keeping Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands from a cost-benefit analysis (the positives and negatives of each outweighing each other), I’d pick Puerto Rico. But theres also no reason to start cutting loose territories of ours. There’s no mandate to from a domestic or international perspective, and from what I can tell, the citizens of said territories either enjoy or accept the current situation as-is.

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GASC3005@reddit

Yeah, most of us do, others want to be an official state (it ain’t happening) and very few want Independence.

The Eastman scheme was never going to work, even if Pence hadn’t done his civic duty of not blatantly violating electoral procedure. We should all probably take a few days off Reddit. This place is a dumpster fire when it comes to politics.

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therealjerseytom@reddit

From my view, it looks like American democracy barely survived last time.

I honestly think that's a really dramatic stretch.

We'll figure it out.

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MajorKirrahe@reddit

There's only so much damage a President can do in one term - even if the GOP take the Presidency, the Senate, and the House, they'll have to contend with state legislatures and a slow-moving, entrenched federal bureaucracy. Plus they'll probably lose the House and/or Senate in 2026 before much can be done anyway.

On top of that the US as a nation is pretty resilient long term. We have a stable population, large reserves of natural resources, and a geographic advantage over every country in the world.

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VirusMaster3073@reddit

Apparently a lot of voters in GA and NC have the memory of goldfish

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DoubleFlacko@reddit

A bunched of unarmed dumbasses that stormed the capital did not even get close to a coup that’s how.

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concrete_isnt_cement@reddit

Man, that really doesn’t match the footage I saw of the event, but I hope you’re right.

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Konigwork@reddit

Well the first thing to remember is that the democracy survived and while there were certainly laws broken and threats made, the congress building isn’t a base in a Halo/CoD lobby, and capturing it doesn’t make you “win”. There are plenty of checks and balances in the constitution, and as long as the other two branches follow their job descriptions, then there’s nothing to worry about.

And while there are many who in congress or the courts feel some kind of loyalty to Trump, self-preservation is the name of the game in politics. The Court has to keep Congress happy in order to keep the status quo. Congress is up for reelection every two years (or every 6 for the senate), and Trump is term limited. Also, for what it’s worth, the VP last time did not succumb to pressure from the President or from the mob, and power was passed relatively peacefully, unobstructed, and on schedule.

Not to diminish the concerns at the capitol on Jan 6, but our democracy didn’t “barely survive”. There was just an angry mob.

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Current_Poster@reddit

As a guy living in a blue state who turned out and voted, I can't wait to see how writers make this my fault (demographically).

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To what extent do you think that republican voters agree that Trump's a narcissist who only cares about himself, is a felon, is a lier, behaves as an autocrat, is damaging the institutions of democracy, etc. And what then made people still favour him?

I just cannot wrap my head around it. Are people mislead by media? Is half of the people blind, selfish and stupid at the same time? I cannot believe that (and I wouldn't dismiss so many people just like that) , so there must be some kind of explanation. It's freaking scary. I want to understand.

I reject the premise that they’re ignored by democrats.

The DNC runs a platform that in theory is labor-friendly which you would think would talk to rural rust belt Americans. They don’t do a great job of reaching that group, probably relying a bit too much on the unions that endorse them to do so.

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ThomasRaith@reddit

LOL even the labor unions couldn't bring themselves to endorse a democrat this year.

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Maxpowr9@reddit

Seriously. The autopsy is the same as 2016.

Democrats embracing limousine liberals, who hate the working class; is why they lost again.

The blue dog Democrat is extinct because of it.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

Because the Democrats leaned heavily into being the party of the urban progressive class.

They shed the last of their working class vote and that came right as they shed their voters who care about Gaza over American democracy.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

voters who care about Gaza

I as a German have just one question: Why?

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TheBimpo@reddit

I as a German have just one question: Why?

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zugabdu@reddit

I'll copy an answer I gave a British person to the same question:

Scope out and look at the big picture internationally. Incumbent governments have been losing/on the defensive everywhere in the developed world over the past couple years. People are angry about post-Covid inflation everywhere and blaming whatever government happens to have been in power at the time for it. The United States is not different in that regard. The Democrats have been in trouble here for the same reason the Tories were in trouble there.
Donald Trump has been president once already. What a lot of voters will be thinking is "well, Trump said a lot of crazy things, but the sky didn't fall and the economy was great when he was in charge (for the stretch from 2017-2019 it was, although not because of anything Trump did), and I want that back!" You'll see people on this very comment section making this argument. Someone who is not paying attention to the details (which is most people), won't realize that Trump was constantly being "managed" by people who prevented him from acting on his worst and dumbest instincts and that a concerted effort is being made by his would-be transition team to ensure that this time, those guardrails won't be in place.
Whenever people start feeling economically insecure (as many people do now because of inflation), they start getting angry about immigration and the border. It's not a huge issue for me personally, but for a lot of voters, this is their main thing and it's Trump's signature issue. It's very easy to mobilize large numbers of voters around a bad decision when you make it about outsiders you want to claim are taking advantage of your people.
I'm going to add a fourth point here - Trump has been leading the Republican Party for nine years now. An entire cohort of the population has grown up not knowing anything different. For them, Trump's rhetoric is normal; they don't have any adult recollection of a Republican presidential candidate not being like this.

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huhwhat90@reddit

Copying my answer from another thread:

It's the economy. It's always the economy. Economic uncertainty almost always bodes poorly for the incumbent party. When you couple that with the fact that Harris was seen as basically just a continuation of an unpopular Biden presidency, you get your answer. She was a poor candidate who did not do enough to differentiate herself from an unpopular president.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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DBHT14@reddit

Not the result I hoped for, and don't love the career prospects of my federal public health worker fiancée. But woke up today and is what it is.

But none of us can change anything at once. If you are feeling down check in with your circle of loved ones and friends. Find the ways to support yourself and others on the personal and local level. That often matters so much more than someone far away in the White House.

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

I’ll be finishing a public administration focused degree in a few months because I wanted to get out of the grueling 16 hour a day blue collar job I’m in and start working for the government so my mid-30s course a time to relax after 12 years in a metal fabrication shop. I don’t think I’ll be doing that now however

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DBHT14@reddit

Worth remembering there are lots of opportunities at the state and local level too!

May not have the same compensation, though some are better depending on the field! But it can also mean having a more immediate impact on your local community.

Or there is always the non-profit and professional society world. Its not too bad either.

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p0ultrygeist1@reddit

Oh definitely. I’m eyeing a future as my town’s town manager as a possibility. Once the fellow in the position right now retires in about 10-15 years I’ll put in an application and hopefully have a career to back it up. It’s a fairly undesirable position since the town is so small, it took them a year to find someone willing to relocate to the town the last time the position was open.

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DBHT14@reddit

Best of luck, sounds like a realistic perspective, and awesome that you at least have an idea of the kind of role you would like to have in the future!

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Photo_Dove_1010220@reddit

Yeah I think we'll be okay but I do worry a little about the funding my job will have as a government employee with Trump in office. At the end of the day I voted and it didn't go my way. I still have to get up and go to work and pay my bills. Life moves forward even if your candidate loses.

But what does trump campaign entails then? All we hear is him talking about Haitians eating pets and the evil left and "how great" everything he does is.

But he never gives examples, like he nuked free trade, didn't bring any manufacturing to America (god knows why you people want that I've worked factory floor and working in the office it's 20 times better)

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Working in a factory floor means better wages for low education people, more opportunities for unions, and a stronger overall local economy.

People who think that manufacturing should be relegated to countries where they can pay 1/4 the cost in labor are delusional.

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chabon22@reddit

Then be prepared for much more expensive items. To think that you can still have the same amount of consumption paying factory floors as much as you would need in order to live in bumbfuck America is delusional at best.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Isn't that what we should want anyway?

If you want:

More local income
Better environmental oversight
More humanely resourced goods
Long term economic stability and quality

Don't you want manufacturing to come home?

Sure, it's at a cost, but so much more of that cost stays within the local economy that it is better for everyone.

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Froyo_Muted@reddit

I am not American, but it is clear that you have a very skewed view of Trump and have been influenced heavily by liberal/leftist media. I don't like either candidate, but Trump is not the crazy psychopathic destructive man you think he is. And to be honest, I think he had a much more productive and memorable 4 year term than Biden ever did.

If anything, the democrats only have themselves to blame. They simply have no cohesion and no real leader to rally behind. As unlikeable as you may think Trump is, he is much more charismatic to his supporters than any democratic leader in recent memory. Trump has been the face of American politics for close to a decade now, even when Biden was in power. That is saying something.

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skepticalbureaucrat@reddit

>Your depiction of Trump as a lunatic falls very far from reality.

Too prone to gerrymandering of congressional districts.

A million fucking people died from his ilk's mismanagement of public health last time, and he's promised a role in health care policy to an anti-vaxxer. As someone whose entire family works in healthcare, don't even try to tell me the sky "didn't fall last time" when we all still have the bruises from that sky.

Like California. Concentrate in California.

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Joseph_Suaalii@reddit

Trump’s vote increased in the NYC metro area

My guess that those votes were mainly: 1. Jewish Americans 2. Highly paid blue collar workers 3. Wall Street finance bros

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Minimum_Tip_3259@reddit

I’m British so I might be wrong but I thought that Jewish Americans tended to vote Democrat more than Republican.

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Did you watch Trump directly on something like Joe Rogan or filtered through traditional media?

Most of the reason people picked Trump is policy. If you’re a cultural American you didn’t have a choice. The Democrats have been on a strong cultural change vector for a long time. That come with trying to transform US basic concepts of equality of totally foreign ones like Equity. Remember Trump was president before and everything was fine until the global Covid freak out.

Harris is probably the most socially divergent candidate ever run in a U.S. election. She wasn’t even popular with Democrats until she was what they were forced to run with after the primary. A lot of people think she was installed as a base pleasing radical candidate for a throw away ticket as the democrats expected to lose. People will point to the Dems assigning very unpopular but also Radical Walz to the ticket. In reality they would have been terrible as President and Vice President doubling down on the policies that made Democrats so appealing under Biden. The unrestricted border, the embrace of critical theory in the federal government. Deep reaching bureaucratic regulation of everything economic. Ukraine. Middle East conflict. The inflation crisis. On and on and on.

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chabon22@reddit

Ukraine?????

And the border? Dear God you Americans are really pissy about immigrants considering your country was founded by them. You don't even have public healthcare that immigrants can access, come to the north of argentina and then you will see what an actual immigration problem looks like. We have Bolivians coming in, getting treated and actually living.

You have people desperate to go and work in America in order to better their lives and actually pay taxes there.

I think you guys really need trump to go through with all his policies so you can actually see what the effects of those policies have in your pockets.

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Dookiet@reddit

Harris is horribly unqualified for the presidency. She was unelected and ordained as the candidate. She was unable to complete an interview without editing, and is therefore seems unqualified for diplomacy. Plus people know life was easier under Trump. The economy was booming, the world was more stable, and he started no new military engagements.

what's wrong with Harris?

I was never a Harris supporter, but he one thing that shocked me was podcasts.

Trump and Vance both went on JRE and Theo Von, that's like 6 hours each of them talking about their positions, why they have them, their lives, etc etc etc. it humanized them, it made them give answers that weren't 8 second clips or canned answers edited to sound different.

Harris didn't do that. Made me, at least, wonder why. I would have loved to hear a 3 hour conversation with her. Now I'm wondering if she even could have done that for 3 hours, or if she would have came apart.

I'm not saying that these podcast made or broke anything, but long form discussions are way, way better than garbage we see on the mainstream media, and I think going forward that format will be the gold standard

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00zau@reddit

Harris not going on Rogan was kinda killer.

People were getting the impression that she was incapable of talking without a teleprompter or spouting canned responses; she was having bad performances in short interviews with people who wanted her to succeed. Going on a long unscripted podcast could have allayed those suspicions... unless she really was that bad of a free speaker.

Refusing to do so just confirmed that suspicion for a lot of people, that she's basically an NPC that can't talk without a script.

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Current_Poster@reddit

On the flip side: what's wrong with Harris? The only tangible thing I've seen people upset with was her support of Israel, and everything else was just either "Harris would destroy the country" or "the country is fucked either way". Why would Harris be a bad president?

There's a stupid-but-accurate saying that Republicans want to fall in line, Democrats want to fall in love. That is, the GOP tends to whittle down to the most electable guy and then everyone backs that guy. Democrats tend to want a candidate they can feel passionate about before they'll vote for them.

That's basically what was working against Harris. She didn't make a terribly strong impression during her first term as VP and her Presidential campaign before that.

In a normal chain of events, Biden would have stepped back (preferably during a second term, like Clinton and Gore) and let her develop the presence she'd need to run for President on her own terms. Go court the traditional blocs like labor or something while she was at it.

As it was, Biden was 100% running, how-dare-you-doubt-it until he wasn't, and Harris was substituted in after the primaries were over. Even in a "we'll vote for anyone with the right party affiliation" environment that would be tricky. In a "well, I may not vote if I don't feel it's Love" environment, that was obviously a hill too far.

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gummibearhawk@reddit

I really will be curious and excited to do a postmortem on this one. Well, excited may not be the right word for it because that’s probably not the right way to think about this, but I would be very interested to see if suburban white women really came out “in secret” for Kamala or not. With these results I’m thinking no, but I can’t be sure.

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Wermys@reddit

My gut tells me the youth vote had little to do with this. Its inflation and job security. People just saw Harris as continuing the same policies as Biden and didn't want to go down that road. They are hoping that Trump will change things no matter how illogical that is. Trump message wasn't coherent but it amounted inflation was the Democrats fault Partly True, other person whose fault it was however was Trump And people were better off with him as president partly true if you don't understand lag times in economics and covid happening gave him plausible deniability.

My gut tells me the biggest tell on how Trumps own administration is going to go is going to be in the fall of 2025 when the Senate seat for Vance comes up in Ohio.

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Agattu@reddit

Agree, I’m thinking no… and I think a campaign telling women that they should secretly vote for her just reeks of people out of touch with reality.

Independent voter calling it a night. Not surprised so far. Economy usually ends up being a key issue, and perception is that Trump is better there.

Outside of that, foreign policy matters and the world went to hell the last couple years no matter who is at fault.

No, then you'd get more of the same, Trumped up process crimes that wouldn't get brought against anyone else.

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00zau@reddit

"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime".

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Ross Perot back in 1992 had a fifth of the popular vote.

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MetroBS@reddit

Yes but that wasn’t my lifetime

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

It was that high?

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MetroBS@reddit

Just checked it was 3.28%

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Crayshack@reddit

The way that the US party and primary system works is that all of the other actually viable candidates fought it out during the primaries. By the time we get to the general election, it's really just been sorted down to two people. There are a few other candidates on the ballot, but no one expects them to get more than a handful of votes. They are more about trying to make a statement than actually trying to win.

Meilingcrusader@reddit

Trump's margin in cities are way better this time. He is sitting at over 40% in San Diego, he won Miami outright, he's doing well in Houston, he scored 30% in Chicago and overperforming in the NYC area (He pulled off 38% in Queens and only lost New Jersey by 5).

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Gyvon@reddit

he scored 30% in Chicago

It could be depending on how coward the repubs are in Congress, but I believe it's unlikely.

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

No. Trump has four years of power and two of that with electoral majority. If he was a dictator it already would have happened. That rhetoric was just fear mongering.

The government will actually be losing some central authority not becoming a grand dictatorship.

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Hoosier_Jedi@reddit

Guess you guys might actually have to get off your asses and get your hands dirty then.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

lol you think we’re the first or last democracy to have a populist phase over shitty economic conditions?

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Morgentau7@reddit

If your Supreme Court Judges wouldn’t be elected for life and if Trumps election wouldn’t have heavy consequences.. yeah

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vegemar@reddit

I bet you're a German. (I was right and a supermoderator to boot).

You know your country has fucked Europe far more than Trump ever could. You handed your energy independence to Russia on a silver platter, your former chancellor sits on the board of Gazprom, and your moronic anti-nuclear lobby scuppers any pan-European nuclear project.

The worst Trump can do is to do nothing. Germany has, out of naivety or malice, put Europe in just about the worst position possible.

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Arcaeca2@reddit

God damn lmao

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vegemar@reddit

There's more.

https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/10/31/former-trump-staffers-fascist-kelly-milley

A couple excerpts about using the military to attack American citizens:

KELLY: This issue of using the military to go after American citizens is one of those things I think is a very bad thing, even to say it for political purposes to get elected. I think it's a very bad thing. Let alone actually doing it.

This goes back to my, when I was in the White House, for that matter, DHS, I was, originally the conversation would be, Mr. President, that's outside your authority, or, that's a routine you really don't want to do that inside the United States. But now that he's talking about it as, I'm going to do it, is, again, it's disturbing.

CHAKRABARTI: That's General John Kelly speaking to the New York Times. Olivia Troye, when she spoke with us, she says when she hears Trump talk about using the military against quote, the enemy from within, she believes what he says.

TROYE: This isn't hyperbole. And so when Donald Trump says things like this, he will absolutely do it, because we saw him try to do these things the first time around.

We were just, there were people in the room who kept it from happening. And like I said, those people will be gone.

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2024/10/17/mattis-feared-trump-would-order-a-surprise-nuclear-strike-book-claims/

Good job Americans, you almost lost your identity to the aliens.

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Tongatapu@reddit

Do you realize that every other country in the world views you as pathetic? For different reasons, obviously.

Putin just won the election, and so did Netanjahu. You're just pawns for their Social Media bots, apparently.

Every person with an ounce of decency would never vote for a child rapist (we literally have the Epstein papers as proof).

Like, I get that the Dems never really gave any plans for the poor folk. But Trump/Musk are just conman that want a libertarian dystopia. The exacf opposite of workers rights. And don't even get me started on Project 2025...

[-]

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With Clinton sending out John Podesta, Trump "frankling we won" in 2020 and now Kamala going radio silent....

The most recent Election Night Concession Speech still belongs to Mitt Romney.

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Brother_To_Coyotes@reddit

Good observation.

I don’t know what to expect from someone who can still lose an election with the full backing of the media and the WEF corporate trust.

What do you think Kamala will do next?

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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A lot of things he says are pretty much playbook from Adolf's book.

calling immigrants to poisoning the blood is word for word from mein kampf.

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WhatIsMyPasswordFam@reddit

Might as well chime in: crazy.

Sucks that the Dems suck at reaching people.

I don't even like em but fuck if they weren't the better vote obviously this time slaround.

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Confetticandi@reddit

I really can’t take the term “constitutional conservative” seriously after this. It’s become an oxymoron.

Arcaeca2@reddit

That's unfortunate. I would have gladly voted for Amash.

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ThomasRaith@reddit

p0ultrygeist1@reddit

They can’t seem to find a charismatic person to save their lives. You either have Jo Jorgensen’s blandness or a candidate like Oliver whose campaign was a mess because he can’t pick a lane and stick with it. His unofficial campaign slogan needed some work too, as “Chase-ing Freedom” doesn’t have the same power as the oldies like “the buck stops here” and “Some People Talk Change, Others Cause It“

sanesociopath@reddit

Is there a particular state who's model you'd like to adopt?

If this campaign couldn't win, no Democrat's campaign could have won this one. We were doomed from the start this cycle

I call BS on that, and that take just avoids any responsibility.

The Democratic party had four years to figure out who to run. For the longest time they were stuck on Joe Biden, and only at the last minute figured, "Ah crap that's not a good choice, erm, who else we got??"

Too little too late.

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zugabdu@reddit

Oh, I don't disagree that Biden's decision to try to run for a second term was incredibly bad. Not every election every cycle is winnable though, and the scale of this defeat suggests that there's probably no one thing that would have prevented it. You can correctly point out strategic errors, but it doesn't follow from that that those strategic errors are but-for causes of the result.

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konchitsya__leto@reddit

Every other democratic country has campaign lengths this short. The US is just weird

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d-man747@reddit

I do not like the orange man one bit. But even though I voted blue, I have not been satisfied with any of the Democrats policy decisions in Congress. Hell I'm in the target age group for them. If these results arent the wake up call for them, I do not know what is.

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I can't believe we're about to vote in the oldest person to be president again. I hope the next president is between the ages of 35-50. I'm sick and tired of living in a gerontocracy.

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Meilingcrusader@reddit

To be fair, Trump can only serve one term. Honestly I think in 28 you'll have two young candidates

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I fully expect the person I voted for to not win.

(There's more than 2 choices on our ballot)

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devnullopinions@reddit

I’m gonna get drunk regardless.

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Iamonly@reddit

What poison you going for? I’m having angry balls. Angry orchard with a shot of fireball added in.

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devnullopinions@reddit

I’m going to a “let’s forget about the election” party but I’m bringing Jell-O shots and ingredients to make Old Fashioneds

JRHThreeFour@reddit

Yes you can look up sample ballots online and it is perfectly fine. I googled the sample ballot for my state, Missouri, today.

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d-man747@reddit

Nah its ok to look at the ballot. Its public record. Public record is for anybody to look at.

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The_only_F@reddit

What about the actual form application on the actual government website? For example the FPCA online assistant website. If I click on the "I agree" option under the privacy policy it would take me to a page to chose a state, I know this by searching on google on what the FPCA form looks like but I am curious on the actual information section just to see what is stored on the ballot but dont want to submit anything.

Would it be legal for me to select a random state and than select a random classification such as "US citizen living outside the country" progress through the application but not enter anything on the personal information section this is the only part I am interested in. Would that be illegal?

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machagogo@reddit

IANAL but government documents are public record.

So long as you don't try to register you're fine, but even then you'll just be rejected, and lastly... No One is coming to get you wherever you are.

Here are sample ballots in NJ. Just choose a town.
No privacy policy, no name, address or whatever. Just browse around PDF

https://www.monmouthcountyvotes.com/elections/sample-ballots/ https://www.monmouthcountyvotes.com/elections/sample-ballots/

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The_only_F@reddit

Yep my registration would never work as it would ask me for a social security number and address details etc which I obviously do not have but before I can even get to that stage it would ask me to select if I am a US citizen. Say I was to choose an option to confirm I am a US citizen but I am obviously not would that be illegal in itself? I just want to advance to the personal information section to see what it says exactly on the online form but would not submit anything once I get to that part.

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crispy_towel@reddit

Nope, plenty of example ballots online that anyone can look at. Just google by the county.

MSNBC after Fox “Hoo Rah”ed, danced a little jig and called Pennsylvania:

“Well… Other networks might call it but we’re not doing that yet. But here’s all the ways a Trump presidency will destroy the world.”

Good to know that there are things you can always count on.

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insaneintheblain@reddit

Are you concerned that if you re-elect Trump the world's perception of America and Americans will be cemented forever?

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therealjerseytom@reddit

The world got over perceptions of Germany, Japan, and Italy.

"Cemented forever" is hyperbole.

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Agattu@reddit

Nope.

Because when shit hits the fan, they will still come to us.

Also, Trumps FP is going to be way better than anything Kamala would bring to the table.

Meattyloaf@reddit

As I've stated on here several times abortion rights should've been protected under the 9th amendment as it was a right in the colinial period. Even under the 14th it was a right granted to the people not the state nor feds. Trump fumbling the national response to Covid was a disaster instead of uniting the people he divided the people. Oh before you want to start pointing at stimulus checks, let's not forget who fought so hard to have his name put on them. Besides it wasn't the fumbling that played a major role. It was the numerous economic policies that he enacted in office such as dropping interest rates to near zero and provided businesses with numerous tax cuts.

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insaneintheblain@reddit

Because they have trouble changing their mind - psychologically they have come to believe that Trump supporter is who they are - and so they fight tooth and nail to not have their mind changed, because they think this would be like a personal affront.

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AskAnAmerican-ModTeam@reddit

Your comment was removed as it violates Rule 14 which is “Do not comment with the intent to push an agenda, soapbox, sealion, or argue in bad faith."

Please consider this a warning as repeated violations will result in a ban.

If you have questions regarding your submission removal - please contact the moderator team via modmail.

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Diamond--95@reddit

I'll post the reply I had typed up to your removed comment:

Plenty of people who have never voted for Trump before are doing it this time, including a lot of Black and Hispanic people that Reddit insists will be systematically killed under Trump. I don't know where you're getting this perception of the Trump years, but you can't believe what you see on the Internet. The mainstream forums on Reddit have systematically banned anyone remotely pro Trump and the DNC uses the platform to astroturf the hell out of their propaganda, so you don't get the real story. If the Trump years were full of chaos and turmoil, it's because his detractors made it that way. The Dems and their policies are not as popular as the Internet makes them seem. Marijuana legalization referenda are failing. Tough on crime initiatives are passing overwhelmingly even in California. The progressive ideology is not popular among regular, working Americans and tonight is showing it.

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AskAnAmerican-ModTeam@reddit

Your comment was removed as it violates Rule 14 which is “Do not comment with the intent to push an agenda, soapbox, sealion, or argue in bad faith."

Please consider this a warning as repeated violations will result in a ban.

If you have questions regarding your submission removal - please contact the moderator team via modmail.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

Then if you’re willing to have such a nuanced opinion then I’d hope you’d realize that when economic conditions are in the shitter and the media is as fucking bad as it is in the United States you get right wing populism.

We are not the first nor will we be the last to elect a right wing populist government because of crappy economic conditions.

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insaneintheblain@reddit

My dad wen't to Argentina recently and was speaking to a taxi driver - a young guy. He was telling my dad that he "didn't believe in Democracy" - and my Dad, who is old enough to remember the History in that country - the disappearances and the violence under the old regime - was appalled.

Poverty is one thing - wilful ignorance is another.

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Recent-Irish@reddit

If you’re desperate to afford groceries you’ll throw shit at the wall and it’ll stick.

And even though he didn’t cause it, things are perceived as being better under Trump.

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d-man747@reddit

Point proven.

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MajorKirrahe@reddit

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zugabdu@reddit

The takeaway, at least for intelligent people running to lead nations, is that voters will severely punish you if greater than average inflation happens on your watch, even if it's not your fault. Leaders will choose unemployment-causing solutions instead of inflation-causing solutions to economic problems.

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Konigwork@reddit

It makes sense to a point. Voters may punish you for your job being eliminated, but they won’t reward you for saving it. And when prices skyrocket (or even increase at a rather standard though higher than normal rate), voters are going to be mad at you for things costing more - even if the alternative is more job losses. People care more about themselves and their family than they do their next door neighbor.

It’s one of the reasons I do not envy the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. It’s not feasible to meet two conditions (stable 2% inflation and maximum employment) while only being given one tool (setting federal funds rate). If I remember correctly, the ECB only has one mandate: stable inflation.

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zugabdu@reddit

Of course, I don't know if Trump will learn this lesson. His tariffs and mass deportations, whatever else you may think of them, will cause inflation. He also plans to pressure the Federal Reserve to drop interest rates faster, which won't help.

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Konigwork@reddit

It will not.

However, Trump (if he wins, I’m still not fully convinced until the networks and AP/Reuters confirm) will be term limited. He’s not a career politician who has worked in the GOP his entire life and wants to ensure that the Republican Party remains strong when he’s done. He’ll be president, he’ll probably try and throw his weight around during the midterms, but he won’t try and protect a legacy that doesn’t really exist. Not at the expense of making sure the Trump Organization can refinance debt in a favorable market when they’re likely to collapse if the loans get called in. His legacy is his wealth, politics was a hobby/ego trip for him.

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d-man747@reddit

It's the economy.

Seriously, last 2 elections, seemed like gas prices went down towards the election. This time, they didn't.

MotownGreek@reddit

It'll all come down to PA. If President Trump secures PA, it'll be very hard for VP Harris to win the election. It's possible, but not looking likely as of right now.

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Crayshack@reddit

PA has the highest EC vote count of all of the states that AP hasn't called yet and it's also the state that a lot of polling was expecting to be the closest.

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MMARapFooty@reddit

Pennsylvania and Georgia are basically the knockout strikes

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Recent-Irish@reddit

It’s Joever

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Commercial-Truth4731@reddit

Why do we let these old states vote

If you've been in the union more than 200 years you need to be retired

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PartyPaul2@reddit

I've been looking at the results coming in and noticed something that appears weird to me, but maybe someone here can explain it. How come that some states already have a winner declared, even though counting is not even close to be finished and the declared winner is losing according to the current results? Does this have to do with the general voting system of the United States or how come?

I would have like to post a screenshot, but I'm not allowed, but two examples are:

Nebraska: Trump declared winner, but only 29% of votes counted, and Trump has 44% and Harris 55% of votes
Maryland: Harris declared winner, but only 1% of votes counted, and Harris has 36.5% and Trump 60.6% of votes

source: https://apnews.com/live/trump-harris-election-updates-11-5-2024

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Kittalia@reddit

Specifically, AP has exit polls and calls a state as soon as the polls close if the winner is over 15% ahead in their polls. It is possible that they are wrong but fairly unlikely. Other media outlets might have slightly different rules so different states are called in different places.

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liberletric@reddit

Because Nebraska is an extremely red state every election and Maryland is an extremely blue state every election lol, it would be weirder to pretend like either of these states was a toss up.

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MajorKirrahe@reddit

Maryland is a decidedly blue state by a huge margin. Nebraska is unique in that it is one of very few states that splits its electoral votes, and it doesn't have many so the numbers are easy to predict.

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sanesociopath@reddit

Because there's a race to announce first, and they can always technically "reannounce"

The states they do this are ones so out of play usually that they can safely do it.

Though the states called with 0% reporting are a it ridiculous

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PartyPaul2@reddit

Why is there a race to announce first? What could they gain from that?

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FivebyFive@reddit

These are news agencies "declaring" it. These are not official declarations.

News agencies want you to watch. The faster they make predictions ("declare") the more people are tuning in.

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collapsingrebel@reddit

attention

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The immunity decision was shocking, but there are still some checks and balances there. I wouldn't write off the long term stability of US institutions just yet.

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FivebyFive@reddit

There is always hope. Hope that if he gets back into office our well established checks and balances will prevent some of what he says he wants to do. Hope that he's more talk than action.

But we are nearing a very scary place here.

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Remember-The-Arbiter@reddit

Apparently he wants to get rid of the FBI lol good luck

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MajorKirrahe@reddit

There *are* some pretty radical policy items in the Project 2025 stuff, but a lot of them would be hard to fully execute in a four year term. One of the most notable items, the "re-classifying" of certain civil service jobs so Trump could effectively fire long term civil service employees (something he started trying to do in his first term) and replace them with political appointees sounds scary, but the idea that the President could actually do such a thing en masse is legally dubious at best, and would be met with a flurry of lawsuits and injunctions.

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Diamond--95@reddit

The Heritage Foundation, which is behind Project 2025, literally outlines their vision for every Republican presidency every cycle. This one's only blowing up due to Internet astroturfing trying to convince people it's actually Trump's plan. Very little, if any, of it will actually be pursued, and don't listen to anyone insisting otherwise.

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zeezle@reddit

Yeah, this. I would also note that you'll see things like "80% of their agenda was implemented during X presidency!" but if you actually read their full agenda, a lot of the points are things like "The USDA will support continuing research education in agricultural science" and similar extremely obvious 'duh' non-issues, and then they count that as "implementing their recommendation" to make it seem like they have way more power and control over past presidents than they actually had.

NYT Trump likely winning most of the swing states right now.

In case there are any Mainers here: How is the flag referendum looking?

So there are two main types of voting "machines." There are the scan-tron types, where voters fill out a paper ballot, the machine scans it and tallies it, and keeps the ballot as a backup. Then there are the big machines that people actually cast there votes on. Those still create a machine tally and a paper ballot, but its more like an old computer punch card.

In both cases, the votes are counted on a machine by machine basis, with the tallies being collected and and then counted. If there's a re-count they'll use the stored original ballots.

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patopansir@reddit

I think I understand, but I am not sure.

The humans collect the count that the machine is reporting, and also the original ballots. What the machine says is what goes, and the machine does all the counting. A human will do the counting only when a recount is ordered (I am ignoring the methods that aren't with a machine in person. A human has to do the counting in other cases)

You say there are two types of machines, and I assume it's the same case for both, because from what I understand is that they both count the votes.

A key difference, is that unlike scantron, DRE (direct recording electronic) goes straight to the count, so no human has to collect the count from the machine.

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

here's a news article about how it's done in Wisconsin. every state is different. https://www.fox6now.com/news/wisconsin-elections-how-ballots-counted-2024

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patopansir@reddit

I don't think those are electronic

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

the paper ballots are counted by an electronic machine. the paper ballots are kept as a backup record (aka, what they count in a recount)

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patopansir@reddit

after reading the website again, I am still not sure if I understand, and I don't know if it's just me missing something. It tells me about how the votes are counted but it doesn't tell me how they are taken from the machine

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dangleicious13@reddit

Is the data sent over the internet?

d-man747@reddit

I'm well aware how it works.

Crayshack@reddit

She didn't give a speech that night, but I suspect she had one prepared. From what I remember of that night, many of the states were still really close as the night got late, and she told people to go home before anything was really clear.

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MMARapFooty@reddit

Allred and Cruz are close for Texas

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ameliaSea@reddit

Sorry in advance for the ignorant question. I am clueless about these details. How does the importance of swing states affect policy? Do officials give extra funding and attention to swing states to gain their favor? Do people there vote in larger or smaller percentages than average?

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Current_Poster@reddit

Only in the broadest sense that it pays to reward people who helped you, politically.

I will also point out that the NH Democratic Primary was "rescheduled" by the then-Biden campaign because he did poorly there before, and he didn't want that happening. So petty acts of vengeance are a thing, too.

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An_Awesome_Name@reddit

Swing states are areas where there’s a lot of representation of both parties. It doesn’t really affect policy, but it does affect campaigning.

Since the US presidential election is essentially an election of the states, not a direct election by the people, politicians are focused on winning the election on a per state basis, not overall. Trump didn’t win the overall vote in 2016, but he did win enough states. It’s rare for that to happen but it is possible.

Swing states are just the most contested states, that’s all.

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ThomasRaith@reddit

Policy is a little bit determined by swing states.

Arizona being a swing state -> a lot more focus on illegal immigration than otherwise

Pennsylvania and Michigan being swing states -> more focus on manufacturing

Florida used to be a swing state and thus relations with Cuba got more attention then, now its solid red and they are an afterthought.

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SingingGal147@reddit

It is more we get a visit by someone from each campaign seemingly every week if not more. Last night my city, Pittsburgh, had Kamala and Trump led events, though Kamala's got moved from its original location. That is ignoring the amount of text messages and mail ads.

Biden in general has visited us a lot but we are trying to improve manufacturing in the area plus he was born in PA.

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Kielbasa_Nunchucka@reddit

ugh, I am working an evening shift right now, and I had to drive thru Downtown at 930pm... got to Grant Street just as trump's motorcade was passing, so I had to wait for them to pass before going home

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My usual choice is 3 screens.

FOX on one side, MSNBC on the opposite side, various online maps in the middle.

Just carrying a little bit of extra freedom into the booth.

Exactly. I’ve known about the importance of tomorrow’s election for a long time, but have definitely been reminded via campaign signs or even a reddit post day of that a local election was going on.

albertnormandy@reddit

What would they gain by stopping?

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mallardramp@reddit

yep!

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GeorgePosada@reddit

I suspect it’s about motivating the base to actually show up on Tuesday more than it is about swaying undecided hearts and minds

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joepierson123@reddit

Many people register but never end up voting, because you know their favorite shows on tonight or something, it's more of a reminder

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nyki@reddit

Visibility is important. If one candidate stops airing ads it'll seem like they've given up and know they are going to lose.

Also, a lot of voters aren't 'undecided' so much as apathic and unmotivated. They might have a favored candidate but aren't enthusiastic enough to actually get out and vote. Ads keep the energy up until the polls close.

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Conscious-Divide-633@reddit

Yes. Especially for lower level races. It also is to drive out voters who may not intend to go vote, but know who they would vote for.

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KDY_ISD@reddit

lol God forbid we find out how many total people voted for each candidate, right? That would be undemocratic.

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veive@reddit

We are a republic, not a democracy.

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devnullopinions@reddit

Yeah we also used to genocide native Americans and own slaves. Doesn’t mean we can’t improve things that are clearly broken.

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KDY_ISD@reddit

Yes, that's why we're electing representatives and not voting directly on laws, thank God. That has nothing to do with the Electoral College lol

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veive@reddit

Incorrect, it has everything to do with the electoral college.

Representative democracy is not the same as a republic.

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KDY_ISD@reddit

So you're saying that to be a republic, you must have an electoral college?

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veive@reddit

Not necessarily an electoral college, but there must be measures in place to protect the rights of political minorities. The electoral college is one such measure. It contributes to the country being a republic, but it is not the only feature.

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KDY_ISD@reddit

I'd be curious to see what definition of a republic you are using here, because I doubt the electoral college is going to be a defining feature mentioned in any such definition.

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veive@reddit

Where did I say that?

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KDY_ISD@reddit

Incorrect, it has everything to do with the electoral college.

Representative democracy is not the same as a republic.

This pretty clearly indicates you think an electoral college is a defining characteristic separating a representative democracy from a republic. It has "everything to do with it."

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veive@reddit

Nope.

Not necessarily an electoral college, but there must be measures in place to protect the rights of political minorities. The electoral college is one such measure. It contributes to the country being a republic, but it is not the only feature that does so.

Ban them ban them ban them

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d-man747@reddit

ur banned

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WhatIsMyPasswordFam@reddit

D:

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d-man747@reddit

UNACCEPTABLE!!!!!!!!

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sics2014@reddit

Do other states send registered voters a packet that has information about the ballot questions? And offers views from both sides?

Always gotten them in Massachusetts but wondered if other states do it.

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crown-jewel@reddit

Washington does!

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I'm in Texas and I've never gotten one.

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slepnir@reddit

We get two in Washington. One that has the State level offices, and one that has the more local offices.

In the 2000 election (Bush v Gore), the result was decided by a few hundred votes. It’s plausible to me that voter fraud could have influenced that result, but it’s also plausible that counting errors influenced that vote (and it was potential counting errors that was the subject of the lawsuit).

In 2020, the closest states were a bit over 10,000 votes. I find it implausible that election fraud could have occurred on that scale without detection. But I’ll admit I didn’t study all the possibilities. The point is that we don’t need 100% perfect counts and that creating a system that discourages legitimate votes by adding stumbling blocks just to remove some illegitimate votes is questionable. (An obvious analogy is that we’d rather a small number of guilty criminals go free than risk condemning innocent people to prison.)

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00zau@reddit

Because 2020 must be the "most secure election in history". If you think any fraud may happen, you must be a MAGAt and therefore basically hitler.

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jannies_cant_ban_me@reddit

Because there really isn't any way of determining the scale of voter fraud in elections, and there's a lot of powerful interests that are against trying to figure it out.

Recently, a Chinese foreign student cast a ballot in Michigan, and he was only caught because he asked for it back. The vote will still count. Nobody knows how many other similar cases there are where the perpetrator didn't just turn themself in.

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motpol339@reddit

Because there really isn't any way of determining the scale of voter fraud in elections

Disagree. The US government knows who it's citizens are. Individual poll workers may not, but the government as a whole absolutely does. Want to find out, try not paying for your taxes.

Someone with intent to fraud cannot be stopped. You can, in theory, fake even a birth certificate enough to fool a low paid DMV worker into getting you an appropriate id... or by flashing it to a poll worker. These people in all likelihood are not document authentication experts... meaning someone with enough intent can forge their way to a ballot.

Presenting photo identification is in itself not exactly effective. People have a 20-35% failure rate matching an unknown live person in front of them to an id photograph (Because people's appearance can vary so much that it takes repeated exposure for our brains to understand we're seeing the same person). So that failure rate means both it's possible to let someone in that isn't who they claim to be because they resemble the photograph as well as possible for someone who is who they say they are to be denied simply because of appearance variability.

But, you can always audit registered voters after the fact. The US and state governments have all the time in the world to go through every registered voter that was reported to cast a ballot. That's expensive, but it can be done.

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An_Awesome_Name@reddit

It’s pretty hard to cast multiple ballots if that’s what you’re asking. In order to get a ballot in the first place you must have the correct voter registration information, even if your state doesn’t require ID.

Everyone also has a specific polling place to go to, which keeps a master record on hand of everyone who is eligible to vote there. There’s also lots of oversight at the state level to ensure that someone is not registered in two places at once. If you do move and have to register again, your old precinct usually gets a letter of some type from your new precinct instructing them to cancel your old registration.

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culturedrobot@reddit

Voter fraud happens at such a small scale across the entire electorate that it really isn't a concern, even with early voting and mail-in voting. Everyone still only gets one vote and there are safeguards in place to make sure they don't vote more than once.

For instance, in Michigan, we have no-reason absentee ballots, so anyone can vote by mail just by filling out an application to do so. The state has my signature on file, so they send me a ballot, I fill it out, sign the back of the envelope, and send it back. They match the signature to the one I have on file to make sure it's me and they add my vote to the pile, then mark down that I've voted.

So, voting by mail is still secure and still limits it to one per person. I could try to go vote in person and hope the poll workers in my precinct don't take my name down (which would make it clear to election officials later on that I voted twice) but that's a felony that's punishable by five years in prison and/or $10k in fines - and that's just the at the federal level; states can impose punishments of their own for trying to vote twice. It just isn't worth it to try and vote twice, especially when your precinct/city/state knows when you've cast your vote.

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sanesociopath@reddit

The most prominent reason is we only really stated doing this enmass in 2020

And yeah faud has been a topic from the losing side

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Daebongyo574@reddit

why hasn't electoral fraud been such a hot topic in the past?

Electoral fraud isn't a significant issue. Yes there are isolated cases but it's not a systemic problem. What has changed is a major candidate first elected 8 years ago called legitimacy of US elections because he didn't win by enough. Essentially the reason it is a hot topic now is because it's been politicized as an issue to mobilize and polarize voters.

And what measures are taken to assuage people's concerns on this?

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e-m-o-o@reddit

Depends on the state. Voter ID laws are widely viewed as voter suppression tactics and relics of the Jim Crow era.

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AnnaBaptist79@reddit

I don't know if this is the same in other states, but in NY, when a voter checks in, the voter states their name. The poll worker looks up the name on the screen, then asks for the address. Then the voter has to sign with an electronic pen, and the signature has to match the one on file. (So please do not dot an "i" with a heart when you are 18 and put down your signature for voter records - you will regret it.) Once the voter is checked in, they have to vote immediately. If the voter tried to come back and vote again, they can't because the records indicate that they have already voted.

If the voter has requested a ballot by mail, the screen will indicate this, and they won't be able to vote in person.

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

Oh this NY system is interesting. How do they verify people without ID. They verify signatures on the spot instead of at the center where votes are counted.

But wth, you have to vote immediately, what if the voter makes a mistake?

In Arizona, the records only update once the vote is actually counted and we get a text once the vote is counted.

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Blue387@reddit

I have a voter ID barcode in my Google Wallet which I scanned before voting early last Sunday

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AnnaBaptist79@reddit

If the voter makes a mistake, they can come back and request a new ballot. This has to be authorized and signed off by the supervisor and noted on the voter record. The old ballot is marked "void" and is put in a special orange envelope that has a slot to put in the ballots, but is sealed at the top. Once you put the old ballot in the envelope, you can't get it out again without breaking the seal. The main election headquarters, not the polls, is where the seal is broken to verify that the old ballot is accounted for.

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brazilian_liliger@reddit

Thank you!

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Keewee250@reddit

This varies widely by state. I live in VA. You can request a mail-in ballot, but you have to do it proactively. Anyone can vote early starting 45 days (I believe) before election day, but it's in person at the election office. Virginia requires an id. A few years ago it was state-issued only, but I think the list of accepted ids has widened.

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drillbit7@reddit

Also, whats the end date for voting by mail? Is possible doing it tomorrow?

Each state varies in it's acceptance time frame. In some states, it must absolutely be received by a certain date to be counted. Some states have more leeway: a postmark of election day and arrival of the ballot within say a week of election day is on time. Remember, most states don't officially certify their election totals for a few weeks. It's the media that tries to announce a result on election night based on early returns and exit polling.

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brazilian_liliger@reddit

Thank you. I use to follow USA Presidential elections and I remember a guy who worked for a sort of counting votes comission in Nevada and he was saying that press was putting a lot of unfair pression on them because their counting was actually ahead of several states.

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JoeyAaron@reddit

Nevada is viewed as a very corrupt state within the USA, and Republicans generally believe that Las Vegas is an epicenter of urban political machine dirty tricks.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

I'm a Vegas voter. In 2020 I imagine one of Trump's lawyers tried, and hopefully failed, to have mine tossed out. I'm an overseas non-military voter living in fancy-ass Europe, so I'm sure they zeroed in on it.

I imagine it'll be the same shit this year. Well, as long as my vote gets counted in the end, as is my right as a Nevada voter.

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Arkyguy13@reddit

In Washington it's only vote by mail. (There may be exceptions but there aren't polling places that I'm aware of) When you get an ID they ask you if you want to register to vote. When you do that gets you in the system. Once you're in the system you get a ballet and a voter information packet in the mail every election. The packet contains a statement from every candidate that submitted one as well as an explanation of any ballot issues with a for and against argument and rebuttal section.

The ballot you are sent is associated with the information on your ID card and you sign the ballot which is matched against the signature on your ID card. You can also check at any time the status of your ballot and see whether it's been submitted/accepted. If for some reason you decide not to vote then you can check the status of your ballot to make sure that no one else voted in your name. Basically, the only way someone could vote with your ballot is if they commit a felony by stealing your mail and then accurately forge your signature. Then they have to count on you not asking why you haven't received your ballot or checking the status of it.

As far as turning it in, I think you can actually mail it (for free) but I usually just drop it in one of the ballot boxes around town.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

So yeah this is where rules can seem to be inconsistent.

In Arizona, to vote in person you either need to show a photo ID or two forms of non-photo (more detailed than that but general rule).

But to vote by mail you just need to sign and date the envelope provided you use to return the ballot.

So for in-person verification, that ID is used to verify the person, and for mail voting, they do signature verification (comparing the signature on the ballot return envelope with previous ones.)

So there's a database to make sure people don't vote twice whether it be at different locations, different days, etc. I even get a text sent to my phone once my ballot is counted.

They recommend mailing back the ballot seven days before election day. There are also secure drop boxes around and at voting centers to return the ballot by election day.

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brazilian_liliger@reddit

Thank you for the answer!

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

You're welcome!

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PeddarCheddar11@reddit

Each state has different rules for everything. Some states want mail ballots to be received by tomorrow in order to be counted, some states just want them to be marked as received by the post office by tomorrow, and they’ll still count them if they come in later.

As for I. D., there can’t be a federal requirement for it because there’s no national I. D. Card. Some states lean on signature matching your ballot with your voter registration application, and validate your identity by asking you questions like your name, birthday, and address when walking into the voting booth.

I didn't know to be honest! I was just reading up on the more recent policies that were being proposed and trump had said he planned to overhaul the entire thing but didn't specify. Plus with the tax reduction it would be much more difficult to budget for the reduced prices!

Thank you :)

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MotownGreek@reddit

This election is very reminiscent to the 2016 election. The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics by Zito and Todd is a great read and still relevant today.

As far as your concern, the president has very little influence over your day-to-day life. Your local elected leaders and ballot issues are far more impactful to your individual life.

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SnoopySuited@reddit

Tell that to the people dying from poor obgyn care in anti-abortion states.

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voting without the full picture

This is a derisive statement. "Voters who don't think like I do are ignorant, whereas I am fully educated." Do you not think it's possible you have your own blinders on?

voting for themselves

You don't vote in your own interest, ever?

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strkr34@reddit

I was asking if that's what it was... also no.. that's not what I meant. People may see a main point of a campaign and dedicated their vote to that. Behind that however is a range of other policies not otherwise aligned with someone's wants- voting without the full picture. I'm not saying it's strictly a thkng done in the USA at all- it happens everywhere im just trying to gather the points and get a full picture myself to answer my question.

As previously stated I'm not from the USA so I'm curious as to why people vote for trump when from an outside perspective it seems as though he is the less attractive choice for the general public (from reading the policies).

Due to the support I presumed there was either: 1. Something I was was missing or 2. People had reasons for voting outside of the policies.

And not as a main point. I voted in favour of the NHS, voting for another party would have favoured me more but I wanted people to have access to free health care and avoid privatisation. I'm healthy and don't require any perscriptions currently nor do I have any medical needs- there are many older people and people of less means that would suffer and die if the NHS and by default the public didn't subsidise them.

I'm sorry if my question or responses have offended you.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

Behind that however is a range of other policies not otherwise aligned with someone's wants- voting without the full picture.

That's not what "without the full picture" means. Policies not aligning with your wants can mean you impart less significance in your weighing or it can weigh against your main issues. If you don't care about one way or another about a policy, you won't factor it in at all. Neither of those cases mean you don't have "the full picture." For example, if someone knows the complete details of each candidate's abortion policies, but the subject doesn't have any meaning to them or factor in their decision at all, that doesn't mean they are ignorant of the subject.

The phrase "voting without being in total agreement the complete package" seems to suit your intent better than "voting without the full picture."

I'm sorry if my question or responses have offended you.

I wasn't offended, it just comes across as somewhat arrogant.

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strkr34@reddit

I apologise that it came off as arrogant! It wasn't intended that way- I was quite worried I had offended you.

Perhaps I mean that- either way my interpretation is kind of like fine print. Everyone reads the big print and sometimes misses the small- even if the small can reveal other details. I was attempting to summarise the response ei was given into a chunk that was more easy to gather, not attempting to establish myself as educated or such. I was more trying to establish if that was the point being made.

I'm trying to educate myself more as I have seen a lot of stuff on the news but don't really anticipate to take that as gospel over people living in the country and experiencing the problems there currently.

Admittedly I don't have a good view of Trump and the news here certainly doesn't favour him. So for many people to vote for him I feel there must be something more.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

I apologise that it came off as arrogant! It wasn't intended that way- I was quite worried I had offended you.

Thanks, all is well!

Admittedly I don't have a good view of Trump and the news here certainly doesn't favour him. So for many people to vote for him I feel there must be something more.

Something that I do for every subject and candidate is to look for the entire context of what someone has said. For example, the "very fine people" Trump clip and the "stroke of a pen" clip for Harris. When you view what they said in the entirety, what their opponents portray is dishonest.

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devnullopinions@reddit

Trump: in four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

I’d say it’s ignorant to vote for the guy who admitted he wants to be a literal dictator and repeated his claims later even when Fox News host gave him an out.

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PrimaryInjurious@reddit

Also I'm terrified that trump is going to get in because it just seems like a really really bad idea.

He was already president and the world didn't end.

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strkr34@reddit

Yeah but I'm not optimistic for the sequal ft. Ukrainian war continued :(

He even said that he would end the war in 24 hours by sitting down with Putin and experts already said this was a bad idea and would give Russia the idea they had power. He also plans to thereafter withdraw from the rest of the world and tax the he'll out of improts :/

So i feel like it's gonna be pretty bad for everyone not just America.

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gummibearhawk@reddit

The war is a lost cause, the sooner it ends the better it'll be for everyone.

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devnullopinions@reddit

Yeah man Russia is bringing in NK troops because it’s just going so well.

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gummibearhawk@reddit

Allegedly. And Ukraine is kidnapping people of the streets to draft them because it's going so well

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strkr34@reddit

Well.. certainly not everyone. Every war has a loser or a side that comes out with the less favourable outcome.

But that's a whole other issue besides this- that was an example of a policy that seemed a little strange to me personally but probably makes sense overall for America :)

Thanks for your response.

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gummibearhawk@reddit

Yeah, Ukraine is going to lose. But if they fight for another year, they'll just lose more.

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Meilingcrusader@reddit

Things haven't been great the last 4 years with inflation and all the wars that have started, a lot of people are just voting for change in the party in charge

I've not heard that before but it puts alot of things into perspective, thank you!

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Renovvvation@reddit

Basically, people who vote for Trump do it because they like what he plans to do or what he did the first time and they really don't care about every single word he says

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

the wrong places

"Wrong places" to you are "right places" to others.

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strkr34@reddit

Fair enough. As stated o have a skewed view of certain things so I find other people's opinions useful.

All my information has come from the main points of the policies outlined rather than people's experiences and options, which is why I'm here.

Thank you for your response.

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Scrappy_The_Crow@reddit

You're welcome.

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I can not wait until the ads are gone. I hate watching a show and it has back to back ads saying the exact opposite lol. Especially because they are always ads from where I don’t live. I have heard so many ads about the marijuana bill in Florida!

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Brock_Hard_Canuck@reddit

I can not wait until the ads are gone

Don't be silly, you know now is gonna be the prime time for the politcal consultants to get working on releasing the 2026 midterm ads and the 2028 presidential ads

/s

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norecordofwrong@reddit

Yeah all my local politicians are literally the devil or pure goodness and joy.

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Dear-Old-State@reddit

Yeah, if my young son and I could bond over college football without ads talking in graphic detail about rape, murder, and abortion that would be great.

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No. The slates of electors by each party are selected prior to the election and filed with the state election official (usually the Secretary of State). This is typically done at the state level nominating conventions held shortly after the state primaries earlier this year.

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PhysicsEagle@reddit

Well that’s silly, since we are at least nominally voting for electors

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sanesociopath@reddit

Indeed.

I hadn't really considered your question and all things "normal" it shouldn't matter but it's actually a great point that we should know.

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MotownGreek@reddit

You can't. Each state has a slate of electors, who are mostly symbolic anyway.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

I want to be Secretary of the Interior!

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Good_Football4168@reddit

So I am worried that I accidentally voted in a state I shouldn’t have. What do I do? I moved recently but I haven’t gotten around to changing all of my residency and registration stuff yet, though I did change my license and insurance; like all my mail still gets sent to my previous address. I paid a visit to my previous state recently, and an absentee ballot was sent to my old place of residence in my old state. I filled it out and had my friend/previous roommate mail it in, but now I’m wondering if that’s wrong since I technically don’t live and work there any more. Is there any way to fix this?

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sanesociopath@reddit

Most importantly don't vote a second time now in your new state, but other than that from what you've put here you should be good.

ColossusOfChoads@reddit

Italy has that. Usually it's some dignified elder statesman type guy. And by elder I mean elder. From what I gather, aside from ceremonial duties they don't do much, aside from registering mild displeasure/disappointment whenever the government does something crazy.

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Deolater@reddit

Republics have ceremonial Presidents too in all fairness

Oh yeah, I didn't mean to say that it doesn't happen, I just don't see the point. I don't see how a democratically-elected figure can be unifying in the way people want a separate head of state to be.

I do think that our Head of State should wear top hats again

I really want hats to make a comeback, so I'll support this constitutional amendment

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sanesociopath@reddit

Seems pointless and just being more government even if they don't have official power so I'd be against it.

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Adept_Thanks_6993@reddit

Fair enough.

I think it could have some potential ability to dial down the polarization by re-directing sentiment towards an apolitical figure instead of the chief executive, but that's just me.

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sanesociopath@reddit

Maybe.

I'd much rather we "refederize" and drastically reduce the federal governments power, handing it back to the states.

At that point the presidency would become much less polarized as it wouldn't be all that important for all but foreign negotiations and rapid national response.

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Adept_Thanks_6993@reddit

I have mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, yes-I would like New York to be less subservient to the Feds. I'd like us to invest more in our region. On the other, I think we need to have a unified policy for a lot of things otherwise many states just won't do them.

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sanesociopath@reddit

You don't want your state doing things your state doesn't want to do but other states want you to do

You also want other states to do what you want them to do even if they don't want to.

My desire for the first is heavily greater than my desire for the second.

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Based on my experience there’s a lot of closeted xenophobic people in Anglo countries.

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Mad-Hettie@reddit

It's so incredibly hard to tell. Polls haven't been particularly helpful in the last few elections because it seems a lot of them use models that are pretty unreliable in the current climate.

Plus the press has a vested interest in reporting a "horse race" election because it keeps the audience engaged and tuned in.

We're genuinely not going to have any kind of idea until the polls start closing, and even then it could take awhile longer if things are as close as the current polls indicate they are.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

So you haven’t got an idea from being out and about or are people being tight lipped?

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Mad-Hettie@reddit

It's kinda complex and nuanced, so I'll give you a short example. I'm in Kentucky, and Kentucky is notoriously a red state on the federal level with more and more people registering Republican as time goes on.

Part of this is a reaction to entrenched State-level Democratic control that had a history of questionable judgement, and part of that is the state is very rural and rural areas tend to vote more conservatively anyway.

I live in one of our two major cities; both cities are reliably blue. Kentucky has a winner-take-all electoral college; whoever wins the most popular vote in our state gets all eight (??) electoral votes from Kentucky.

Historically, the turnout in the reliably blue cities isn't great enough to overwhelm the red turnout in the rural areas and we hand our eight votes over to the Republican candidate.

HOWEVER. This year there has been a huge upswing in people voting during the early voting period which is normally a strong indicator for a good Democratic turnout...

HOWEVER. The demographics of early voting is that most of the people turning out are registered Republicans which is obviously good for the Republican candidate...

HOWEVER. The most recent poll in Iowa indicates that Republican women are breaking for Harris in record numbers which is good for the Democratic candidate...

HOWEVER. We won't know how reliable that poll is until after the election.

So I don't know. When I voted this morning at 6:44AM (polls open at 6) there was a half hour wait, again, good for Dems. However, I'm in a reliably blue area, and have no idea what the lines look like in the red rural part. If there is enough turnout here, could we finally overwhelm the red votes? Maybe? I'm hopeful? But the state takes 8ish hours to drive from east to west, there's no way I'm getting a clear picture of all those people based on polling places in one city.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

Thanks, that’s very informative. I have been watching the various American news channels and saw Anne’s poll which is very interesting.

I’m surprised it’s so close tbh. Most of us outside America are rooting for one person and don’t understand why it’s so close.

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Mad-Hettie@reddit

And that's the thing, it may not be in actuality. Poll models come loaded with certain underlying assumptions and methodologies that are proving more and more unreliable.

As an example from Kentucky, our voter turnout here has gotten so bad, that it's below the threshold for most polling models to produce accurate results and so internal, Kentucky, polling (like for governor) is almost always wrong.

Polls are relying on "shy Trump" voters not being honest about who they are voting for, so they are weighting a bit more for Trump to some extent, and that would've been a fair assumption in 2016, but that may no longer be the case since the MAGA movement has gotten a life of its own.

@ /u/CupBeEmpty do you get NH political ads in Maine too?

Some-Air1274@reddit

Hi everyone, good luck I hope it all works out for you. We are all praying all over the world for America. 🙏

I am in the UK and would like to keep tabs on the results. What times do the results actually come out? We are 5 hours ahead of EST so I am trying to work out if the results will be announced in the middle of the night or the following day?

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Keewee250@reddit

It really depends on how the big states swing. Several big states are guarantees for the presidential race -- CA and NY will go Harris. TX and FL will likely go to Trump, although it's much closer than NY and CA, so maybe?

If the big states all swing one way, then the election is pretty much over. If Harris manages to get FL or TX, then Trump has almost no chance.

States to watch are:

Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia

But yeah, in the UK you won't know until at least Wednesday night unless it's a landslide.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

What’s your sense of things on the ground?

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Keewee250@reddit

IDK. My sense on the ground in 2016 was that Trump didn't stand a chance.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

I’m concerned that’s there’s a lot of closeted T voters. I keep coming across tweets about how it’s not close and he’s going to win.

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Ok_Fact_1938@reddit

Things won’t be interesting until Wednesday. You could go to sleep on Tuesday and wake up on Wednesday and CA might still not be called with the time difference.

The states that will actually determine who wins the election or will be heavily contested will take days (Georgia, Pennsylvania, Arizona). If the election is as close as we all have been told, there won’t be anything final called until Friday/Saturday.

No one knows when the results will come in, so unfortunately, there’s no real answer to when you should be prepared. I recommend setting up google alerts. If anything really interesting happens, like a candidate planning to make a speech or big updates from key states, there will be alerts that go out to news networks before it happens so you’ll know.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

Ok thanks I think I will just sleep. Just scared of waking up with a shock/disappointing result.

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JoeyAaron@reddit

The first polls will start closing at 7pm Eastern US time. You can see how things are going by comparing the results they announce to how things went in the 2020 election. Some states will be quicker than others. I heard it suggested that New Hampshire will indicate how things are going. It's a blue state where the polls have tightened somewhat in the last week. Trump lost by 7 points in 2020, but less than 1% in 2016. If Trump's number falls closer to the 1%, things will be looking very good for him.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

Aw right ok. I think I might stay up to the first polls close as that’s around my bed time.

Really hoping for momala.

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sanesociopath@reddit

my response to someone asking a very similar question just before you

How do they count the votes so quickly?

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sanesociopath@reddit

By having it very decentralized.

I’ve only gotten a couple this go-round.

My phone number is still a CA number though and you don’t get many of those type of calls or texts out there since it’s not exactly a swing state.

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zffch@reddit

I'm in CA and get constant election texts, calls, and junk mail, but that's mainly from the thirteen (13) mayoral candidates in my city, and the roughly 2 dozen state and local propositions.

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xxxjessicann00xxx@reddit

I've gotten 3 texts today, plus a phone call. And a dozen fliers in the mail. Living in a swing state is stupid.

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Rhomya@reddit

I’ve gotten a couple… per day… for months…

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GhostOfJamesStrang@reddit

Remind me! 48 hours.

Ill send you one 6 times a day and then gradually work down to 3 and then none, so it isn't so abrupt. Let you acclimate.

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NorwegianSteam@reddit

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=frVn9N0WdO4&t=20s

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velociraptorfarmer@reddit

Registered to vote for the year in Wisconsin back in February, then moved to Arizona in July and voted here.

I'm still getting 6 calls a day from Wisconsin asking me to vote despite me telling them to take me off their list and that I no longer live there a week ago.

Jesus fucking christ is that annoying...

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C21H27Cl3N2O3@reddit

My dad still gets mail from a state he hasn’t lived in for 25 years. It’s crazy.

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Bundt-lover@reddit

I’ve never lived in Wisconsin, I just donated back in 2020 so I could watch the Princess Bride cast reading. I still get texts.

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Substantial_Set_6464@reddit

I moved out of Wisconsin 13 years ago, have voted in MN ever since, and I'm still getting Wisconsin-targeted texts this fall (at a phone number I didn't even have when I lived there!). I guess I need to figure out how to get off of whatever list I'm still on.

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velociraptorfarmer@reddit

After the 5th call in a single day, I broke and chewed the person out and told them to take me off their goddamn list and that I don't live in the state anymore.

I really chewed in to the 2 people in the next 2 calls I got the following day before they must've finally got the message.

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PPKA2757@reddit

Fellow Arizona resident.

Because of my local area code, I’ve been getting about a dozen texts and half a dozen phone calls a day, for weeks (probably even months now).

Fun fact: you know how there is a “do not call list” law? Guess who it doesn’t apply to: political candidates seeking election. No matter how many times you reply “STOP” or “report number as junk/delete” the same organization can and will continue to call/text you from different numbers because there’s nothing stopping them.

I got the standard vote sticker in Brooklyn but other folks got borough specific ones

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stvbnsn@reddit

We used to have one that was like I Love Voting, but the heart was an Ohio. Now they look like this https://www.ohiosos.gov/elections/voters/ivoted/ and it's like

OHIO

VOTED

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anneofgraygardens@reddit

I just filled in my ballot and it came with a sticker, with instructions to wear it on election day. It's super boring though, just a flag and I voted, Yo voté. zzzzz I want a cool werewolf sticker.

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

Las Vegas has a really cool one, but they don't give it to you when you're 9 time zones away.

Among the swing states, here are the poll closing times, starting with the earliest closers:

7 PM ET: Virginia, Georgia

730 PM ET: North Carolina

8 PM ET: New Hampshire , Pennsylvania

7 PM MT / 8 PM CT / 9 PM ET: Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan

7 PM PT: Nevada

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ColossusOfChoads@reddit

I'm a Las Vegas voter.

My vote matters a shitload more than anyone in California or Alabama. It's an undeserved privilege. In fact, it's just fucked up.

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Some-Air1274@reddit

Oh so do you think we will know by 2am gmt?

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CupNo2547@reddit

lol. what a german question.

no one knows could be at midnight, could be several days from now. youll know when we know cause one side will be having an emotional meltdown on the internet

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sanesociopath@reddit

Tbh I'm not certain we will have good first projections. A lot of states are saying they plan on continuing the counting of votes for a couple days past election day like they did 4 years ago.

Usually I'd say around 8pm central time (CST).

Enough polls will have closed and counting/reporting in swing that you can start the projections

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dangleicious13@reddit

A lot of states are saying they plan on continuing the counting of votes for a couple of days past election day like they did 4 years ago.

In Washington, a lot of offices are a top two primary where every candidate is voted on by every voter and the two securing the most votes advance to the general election regardless of political affiliation. That's how we got two republican candidates for our congressional representative in the general election.

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Jakebob70@reddit

some states have you register by party, others don't. Illinois doesn't.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

In Virginia, we don't register as Democrat or Republican. Only some States do that. And it really doesn't mean anything.

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SiRyEm@reddit

TBH it really just decides which party will send you trash mail to donate to the party. Census for who's supporting who in your city/state. That's how they know red/blue states.

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smapdiagesix@reddit

No, it's not like party membership at all. Registering doesn't make you a member of any party organization at all, doesn't mean you pay dues, etc.

Registering as a Democrat is closer to joining r/democrats or some other informal fan club than it is to being a party member.

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1174239@reddit

Is this the same as being a member of the party?

Technically yes, but it isn't the same as how party membership works in the UK where you pay dues and get active in party activities like campaigning.

As others have already replied, it mostly affects what primaries you can vote in.

When you go to register to vote, you have the option of checking a box for which party you want to register as. It doesn't mean you become part of that party's official operational structure.

For example, Labour in the UK has a membership of around 400,000, but that's a very small fraction of the overall electorate.

Here in the US, though, there are around 45 MILLION registered Democrats. Of course, if you want to get more involved in party life, you can always do that with a state-level or local-level party office.

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cherrycokeicee@reddit

some states have closed primaries, which means you must be a registered member of a party to vote for which candidates will represent your party in an upcoming election.

some states have open primaries, which means you can participate regardless of party affiliation.

Wisconsin is unique (I think?) because we do not have party registration at all. we have open primaries, but you must only participate in one party's primary. you couldn't switch parties for different races. you must only fill out "one side of the ballot."

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The_Real_Scrotus@reddit

What does it mean if someone is a registered Democrat or Republican?

In some states you must register as a member of a specific party to participate in that party's primary elections.

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

Must rule 1 be followed for all comments in this thread?

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WhatIsMyPasswordFam@reddit

Generally megathreads are a lot looser in terms of format.

What’s everyone “favorite” ad from this election?

Mine has to be the one from Kelly Ayotte, running for New Hampshire governor, where a bar owner says the opponent, Joyce Craig, cares more about homeless people than himself.

That seems like a good prioritization to me? I would rather the government focus on managing homeless more than bars.

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Expensive_Ad2510@reddit

HMP's ad about a guy trying a "fake" a family is pretty funny.

Fake | House Majority PAC

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The_Real_Scrotus@reddit

The one where they've taken like three different clips of Harris talking out of context and spliced them together into some deranged narrative about giving all prisoners sex change operations. The audio is so bad the whole thing sounds like a parrot trying to mimic human speech.

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Jakebob70@reddit

that's just her normal voice.

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Scratocrates@reddit

some deranged narrative about giving all prisoners sex change operations

I dunno what ad(s) you saw, but she has indeed said she's in favor of paying for transition for prisoners and detainees.

From CNN: Harris told ACLU in 2019 she supports cuts to ICE funding and providing gender transition surgery to detained migrants:

As Kamala Harris pivots to the political center in her campaign for president, a 2019 questionnaire from a leading civil rights organization spotlights her past support for left-wing causes such as taxpayer-funded gender transition surgeries for detained immigrants and federal prisoners.

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LadyFoxfire@reddit

My favorite was the George Conway one where he was telling Trump not to listen to his advisors because they were plotting against him. I’ve never seen political ads used for psychological warfare against a candidate before, but if it works, it works.

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1174239@reddit

I'm in North Carolina where there's a lieutenant governor's race to fill Mark Robinson's seat.

The Democrat, Rachel Hunt, has an ad where she's saying she'll clean up Mark Robinson's office with a bottle of peroxide.

If you know anything about our governor's race this year, you can probably fill in the blanks yourself.

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Deolater@reddit

What's the best time to vote in your area?

No, other polls are starting to see Harris pulling ahead in swing states.

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sebsasour@reddit

It depends on the polls. She's improving in most polls, but where is she "pulling ahead"?

Of the last 7 polls in Pennsylvania, she's trailing 5 of them and tied in 1

She's trailing 6 of the last 9 polls in North Carolina

Of the last 9 polls to come out of Georgia, she leads 1.

And I want to be absolutely clear here, a lot of polls that she's trailing in are fishy particularly from Atlas who has flooded the polling averages. She's improving in almost every poll and is doing decently in more credible polls.

This is not a doomer post, I'm actually slightly upbeat about tomorrow, but the fact of the matter is there is not any polling basis that points to a "Harris Landslide".

She could go 7 for 7 in the swing states if she slightly outperforms her polling, it's very much in the cards, but if we're talking something like Texas, then you're really starting to bank on a massive polling miss. I'm not telling anyone to not be hopeful about tomorrow, but let's not exaggerate

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Bundt-lover@reddit

The polls were wrong in 2020 and there’s no reason to think they’re any more accurate now.

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sebsasour@reddit

What are you disagreeing with me on exactly? I responded to an individual who said the polls point to a blowout, that's just not true.

jyper@reddit

I mean if America defeats Trump and leave maga politics in the garbage where it belongs then maybe we have small chance of actually moving forward or solving problems or coming together. If Trump wins we are screwed

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willtag70@reddit

Heard about a news site and podcast today that looks seriously at both sides of the political spectrum and analyzes them both very carefully, separating fact from fiction. It's called Tangle News. Worth checking out if you are on either side, or are having difficulty communicating with someone on the other side of the divide.

https://www.readtangle.com/

https://shows.acast.com/tangle

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Technical_Plum2239@reddit

I heard about and it seems like a really good option for those who are - well radical? It takes even conspiracy theories and treats them seriously, which might help someone get their parent back. It's sad that this has divided people so much. It's easy to distract people from things like shutting down the EPA, when you think people are eating babies.

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willtag70@reddit

Yep. Heard an episode that interviewed a couple where the man was deeply into believing the 2020 election was likely stolen by choosing to only consume right wing media, and his wife was on the left convinced there was zero evidence. Was causing a major division in their marriage. They discovered Tangle, which by it's tone and neutrality he was able to accept and trust, which led him step-by-step through why each claim in 2000 Mules was false. He became convinced the election wasn't stolen, which got them back to being able to communicate again. That requires a measure of openness to evidence based facts, but at least finding a neutral source to sort that out can be a big step in the right direction.

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ThatMuslimCowBoy@reddit

I can’t wait to see who Israel picks for us

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Folksma@reddit (OP)

This might be a little stupid, but doesn't anyone else feel like Obamas vibes/attitude feels...different this election cycle?

Not sure if it's just that he is getting older, they both realized there going to be forced to do this song and dance every 4 to 8 years until they die or if Kamala (or even Waltz) wasn't who Obama originally supported behind the scenes

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Peacock-Shah-III@reddit

He’s 63.

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Folksma@reddit (OP)

Which is why I included age in my original comment 😅

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Blue387@reddit

Dear mods, thank you for posting this but I recommend using Crowd Control tool to filter out trolls, spam, etc.