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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 8, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Polls for Kamala seems to be bad lately. And Nate silver model is bearish (last prospect is almost 60/40 for trump). And today there was NYT/Sienna poll that showed Trump leading her narrowly. She seems to be sliding almost unexplainable mirroring her rise. And there hasn't been some major errors on her side.

Can anyone toss some suggestions. I don't think that there exist sizeable sliver of people that were enamored and then disillusioned with her.

Nate's model is designed to be bearish after convention, though. Basically, it assumes a candidate ought to get a substantial bump based on historical records, and if they don't, it adjusts accordingly. For Harris, it's arguable that circumstances are unusual enough that having a convention bump exactly like a normal candidate was not to be expected.

Is his model telling us what the probability distribution of the result would be given the election were held today or is it a prediction for the actual election?

Hold the presses, though, because Trump is not exactly a whiz with PR. He has tweeted a happy birthday message. To Mary.

I am guessing he means the Virgin Mary?

Yes, it was literally the feast day of the birth of the virgin Mary.

Well, the common wisdom in the Dem party has been that Biden is the albatross around their neck, and they'd surely lose the election if he keeps running. That's why they booted him after all. So, after that happened, there was a certain bump of excitement, as befits the removal of albatross from one's neck. However, the problem is while Kamala is the "logical" successor by the internal logic of partisan mechanics, she still is a completely horrible candidate, with negative charisma, no original ideas (and her un-original ideas make AOC seem conservative) and an annoying habit of launching into an irritating cackle when she doesn't know what to say, which is very often. Objectively, she is a bad candidate and her performance in the past elections proved that. However, now that she has been anointed, the party machine has no choice but to line up behind her and power through, to whatever end there would be. And make no mistake, the Dems have a powerful machine which should not be underestimated. We know they can elect a candidate which has been formerly charismatic but now running on mere fumes of the old brainpower. Can they elect a candidate which is as anti-charismatic as Kamala? I don't know, but it's not about excitement, it's about power and execution of this power. This power will be applied in multiple routes, regardless of Kamala's personality which will be only sparsely shown. E.g. the Russian collusion is back, did you hear? Probably some sexual accusation of Vance will pop up too (too late for Trump I assume). It may swing some votes, in general I think very little of what's going to happen for the next two months would be about her and a lot would be about power.

The more people see of her, the less they like her. I really think it's that simple. Every time she's in the public eye for anything other than not being Trump or Biden she declines in popularity.

I mean she seems better than Joe Biden as a candidate, but it's hard to be excited about nothing for a long time.

Once the excitement of her not being Joe Biden wears off, there isn't much she has been saying or doing to get people excited or interested.