Biden's Best Shot Lies In Three 'Blue Wall' States

[applegrove]

Biden’s Best Shot Lies In Three ‘Blue Wall’ States

March 14, 2024 at 7:34 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 7 Comments

https://politicalwire.com/2024/03/14/bidens-best-shot-lies-in-three-blue-wall-states/https://politicalwire.com/2024/03/14/bidens-best-shot-lies-in-three-blue-wall-states/

"SNIP............

“President Joe Biden’s reelection prospects largely hinge on the so-called Blue Wall, a trio of industrial states that offer the ultimate test for his message of a manufacturing revival,” Bloomberg reports.

“In Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, his campaign sees signs for optimism, even as recent polling shows Biden trailing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in those key battlegrounds.”

“The Biden campaign says it ranks no swing state above another — and is focusing on all of them keep open multiple paths to get to 270 Electoral College votes. It has ramped up sharply, doubling its battleground state staffing this month.”

............SNIP"

[bucolic_frolic]

1. It's not possible these are even close, is it?

[MistakenLamb]

18. yes it is majority of white people are ok with Trump fascism

it’s gonna a be a dog fight the next few months

[617Blue]

2. Fuck Bloomberg. Their political analysis is biased and dumb.

[applegrove]

3. Tells us we have work to do. And work hard.

[617Blue]

4. Newsflash - we need to win PA and MI. Thank you Bloomberg.

They always spin every damn thing surrounding Pres Biden like it's this big ominous negative cloud. Meanwhile they have literally giddy headlines about The Rapist every day.

[Demsrule86]

48. These polls are intended for us go give up...not cause any sort of enthusiasm. Make no mistake.

[applegrove]

56. I think we should be on top of the numbers. Doesn't

help to stick our heads in the sand. I mean what and how would you say we are doing if you want to ignore the polls?

[Demsrule86]

58. These shitty polls are useless...and let's see how the specials went...Oh wait, we won

them all now didn't we.

[All Mixed Up]

7. The union vote is overrated.

It will be minorities more than union voters who win Biden those three states.

Union voters made up 18% of Pennsylvania voters in 2020, and Biden actually lost union households there 51-49 and won non-union homes 51-48.

[SoFlaBro]

8. The union vote will deliver all of those fucking states. 2020 ain't 2024.

[All Mixed Up]

9. The union vote will be even smaller in November.

[Demsrule86]

28. What do you base this opinion on?

[All Mixed Up]

29. The fact union membership continues to decline.

Every four years, the share of union voters nationally decreases.

https://fortune.com/2024/01/23/union-membership-2023-record-low-strikes-hot-labor-summer/

The last few years, we've seen a new 'record low' for union membership.

Union members made up 20% of the workforce in 1983. Today? 10%.

They actually saw a blip of an increase in 2020 to 10.8% but fell to 10.3% in 2021, 10.1% in 2022 and 10% in 2023.

When Obama ran for reelection in 2012, and won unions by 18-points, they made up 11.3% of the workforce.

[Demsrule86]

30. First of all...union membership is on the upswing...secondly Trump came out as right to work.

My son is UAW...and he thinks the support is for Biden and not Trump. Thus, I think you are wrong.

[All Mixed Up]

32. First off, no it's not.

I literally just linked you to the report that shows union membership hit its lowest total of the workforce in recorded history. That is undeniable fact.

Union membership as a share of the workforce is declining.

[Demsrule86]

34. Oh really. Well I just linked you a 'fact filled' article.

'By sector, private-sector unionization rose to 6.9% in 2023, while public-sector unionization declined to 36.0%. Unionization among workers of color accounted for the entire increase in the union level in 2023, and Black workers had the highest unionization rate at 13.1%. Jan 23, 2024'

Unionization increased by 200,000 in 2022
Tens of millions more wanted to join a union, but couldn’t
Report • By Heidi Shierholz, Margaret Poydock, and Celine McNicholas • January 19, 20

Tens of millions more wanted to join a union, but couldn’t...facing union busting and all.'

So you are incorrect. Union membership is on the upswing.
https://www.epi.org/publication/unionization-2022/

[All Mixed Up]

35. Did you even read your own article lmao

LITERALLY said what I just said:

At the same time, the share of workers represented by a union declined from 11.6% to 11.3%.

Union membership as it relates to the workforce continues to decline.

So I am correct. You are wrong.

Union membership as a percentage of the workforce is not on the upswing.

You're looking at raw numbers which is stupid.

That's like saying Biden won a bigger landslide than FDR in 1936 because he won 53.5 million more votes than FDR. Well yeah. The US population in 1936 was only 128,053,180.

Unions are decreasing as a share of the workforce. Just as I said. And just as the article you sent me stated. Again, this is undeniable.

[Demsrule86]

49. You are just plain wrong. And one wonders why you hate unions so much?

'TROY, Mo. – Workers at a critical Toyota plant in Troy, Missouri have launched their public campaign to join the UAW after more than 30% signed union authorization cards. It is the first Toyota plant and the fourth non-union plant nationwide where workers have gone public with their campaign to win their union.

Workers at Critical Toyota Plant Launch Campaign to ... - UAW" Unions gave birth to the middle class. And millions of workers now see their value...which I pointed out.

[elocs]

17. They won't until they do so best not start counting your chickens just yet. n/t

[elocs]

19. Minority voters didn't show up in expected numbers here in WI in '22.

Our white governor Tony Evers got reelected when Lt. Gov. Black Mandela Barnes lost the Senate seat held by Ron Johnson when it was expected that the Black vote from Milwaukee would elect him. And I've read that Biden is not doing so well with Black males either.

[Demsrule86]

50. We won the most imortant court seat though didn't we?

[elocs]

52. So why, how was the State Supreme Court seat won and the Senate seat lost?

Inquiring minds want to know.

[Demsrule86]

59. We lost the Senate seat in 22 during the red fizzle midterm...when Roe had recently

been decided. And incumbent Senators are hard to beat. The court seat was in 23...they were not even the same year. Google is your friend and very useful for inquiring minds.

[Scrivener7]

10. Wow. As a union member, I'll say this whole conversation about unions between you two is kind of ridiculous.

Unions are made of people of both parties. We can't say they'll deliver these states.

On the other hand, unions are growing. There's no reason to believe the union vote will be smaller in November.

[All Mixed Up]

6. Agreed. I think Georgia and Arizona are out of reach at this point.

Might change in a few months but polling has been awful for Biden in both.

He's got a better chance in the old Blue Wall. Unfortunately, he's struggling to keep the coalition that won him Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. At this point, it's probably fair to say he's the underdog in those states at the moment and therefore the election.

The good news is that the polls are generally very close. Two new PA polls were released today by Emerson and FOX. He's losing by four in the Emerson poll and two in the FOX poll.

So, it's withthin the MOE.

One little swing and he can win it.

If the economy improves, that might be enough.

But November is going to be a turnout game regardless. Right now, Biden seems to have a harder hill to climb in energizing his voters. But it's early yet. Let's hope by summer, that's changed.

[doc03]

53. Boy you really can cheer us up, the union vote means nothing. Georgia and Arizona are already lost.

Biden is in the MOE in PA, Michigan and Wisconsin. He may have a chance if the economy improves?
We have the lowest unemployment rate in decades for two years, The stock market is at an all time high.
We are producing more oil than any country on earth. Wages are rising and we have the lowest inflation
of any developed nation. "If the economy improves" What do we all need to hit the lottery too for Biden to win?

[All Mixed Up]

54. I never said it means nothing.

I said we can't expect it to deliver Biden the White House. We need to really focus on minority voters. Biden isn't going to win Pennsylvania in 2024 with the union vote. It'll help but it's not enough to get him over the line.

My point is that in 2020, Biden lost the union vote in Pennsylvania. Maybe Biden does better, and that will certainly help, but if he loses a bit of support among Black voters, it's not going to make much difference.

For Biden to win in Pennsylvania, he'll need to win Black voters by as close to 90% as possible (he won them by 92% in 2020 there). Latinos he needs to win by margins close to 70% (he won them by 69% in Pennsylvania).

If he loses five-points off his total with both Blacks and Latinos, and narrowly wins the union vote over losing it, that probably won't be enough.

That's all I'm saying, especially with fewer percentage of the workforce actually belonging to unions.

[elocs]

11. Just remember, Hillary was so convinced she had Wisconsin in the bag

that in the general election campaign she didn't bother to make a single campaign appearance here. Especially in this election, Biden is not making that mistake.

[NanaCat]

12. That's a lie

And an egregious one. She had a stop planned there, but the Pulse shooting happened. She canceled the visit because she and Obama felt it would be inappropriate to hold a campaign rally when so many were mourning. If she'd kept her schedule, then you can bet everyone would have eviscerated her over it.

So she could not win, no matter what she did.

As it is, studies have shown that a campaign visit wouldn't have made all that much difference in the state:

Document Type
Article

Publication Date
8-2018

Publication Source
The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics

Abstract

Hillary Clinton’s failure to visit the key battleground state of Wisconsin in 2016 has become a popular metaphor for the alleged strategic inadequacies of her presidential campaign. Critics who cite this fact, however, make two important assumptions: that campaign visits are effective, in general, and that they were effective for Clinton in 2016. I test these assumptions using an original database of presidential and vice presidential campaign visits in 2016. Specifically, I regress party vote share on each candidate’s number of campaign visits, at the county level, first for all counties located within battleground states, and then for counties located within each of six key battleground states: Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The results of this analysis do not clearly support either of the assumptions made by Clinton’s critics. In general, none of the presidential or vice presidential candidates – including Clinton – significantly influenced voting via campaign visits. However, Clinton is one of only two candidates – along with Mike Pence, in Ohio – whose campaign visits had a significant effect on voting in an individual state. Specifically, Clinton’s visits to Pennsylvania improved the Democratic ticket’s performance in that state by 1.2 percentage points. Also, there is weak evidence to suggest that Clinton might have had a similar effect on voting in Michigan. It is unclear from this evidence whether Clinton also would have gained votes, or even won, in Wisconsin had she campaigned in that state. But two conclusions are clear. First, Clinton’s visits to Democratic-leaning battleground states did not have the “backfiring” effect that her campaign reportedly feared. Second, Donald Trump did not win in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin as a direct result of his campaign visits to those decisive states.

https://ecommons.udayton.edu/pol_fac_pub/116/

But, yeah, keep clinging to the oh-so-convenient delusion that she lost Wisconsin because she didn't visit.

[NanaCat]

13. Also:

She had a major health scare in September 2016 that threw her schedule off entirely.

[Autumn]

14. Did she visit Wisconsin?

[All Mixed Up]

15. I don't think your argument is as convincing as you think it is lol

You do realize that a campaign lasted longer than just a week in the month of June (when the shooting happened), right?

Hillary absolutely took for granted Wisconsin. That isn't up for debate. If she thought Wisconsin was a state trending away from her, or was essentially a toss-up, she would have found time to visit it. How do I know this? Because in the month of October alone, she had four rallies in Pennsylvania, seven rallies in Ohio, five in North Carolina and one in Michigan. In November, she had five rallies in Pennsylvania and two in Michigan.

Her campaign clearly saw the warning signs in Pennsylvania and Michigan. But clearly either missed them in Wisconsin or ignored them.

Do I think a handful of rallies in Wisconsin would have tipped the state in her direction? Maybe not. But her absence from the state, when she was out campaigning in Arizona a week before the election, still reinforces the idea that her campaign absolutely thought they were likely to win Wisconsin.

This is only reinforced by Kaine's schedule too. He didn't visit Wisconsin once in October. Though he did campaign the Sunday before the election in Wisconsin. But you don't stake the state on your VP candidate if you think you're losing the state or it's turned into a toss-up.

Even Obama, maybe the most effective Clinton surrogate, someone who won Wisconsin in 2008 and 2012 handily, held zero rallies in Wisconsin.

So, it's clear the campaign felt the state was not at that big of risk of being lost.

The poster didn't lie. And it certainly wasn't egregious.

I'm not going to get into whether Hillary dropped the ball or not and her not campaigning in Wisconsin was the actual egregious part. I think the campaign went on its best knowledge and clearly their internals must have remained positive in Wisconsin, even when they started seeing a shift in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

But it doesn't change the fact Hillary didn't step foot in Wisconsin, a state four years earlier Obama held four rallies in the final month of the campaign.

[Demsrule86]

22. Jill Stein and her Russian buddies target Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania...Trump

barely barely won at all. And I predict he will lose badly in November. Hillary was screwed over by Jill Stein voters and others. I often wonder how they sleep at night since the right-wing judges, the loss of Roe and all the other crap can be directly viewed as happening because they voted for Stein, voted for Trump, or stayed home. The misery and the bloodshed Trump caused is on their heads. A million Americans died of flu which Trump did nothing to stop. When Biden arrived there was virtually no vaccine.

[Cha]

36. Yes Stein did & Lied her Ugly Ass head

Off

Stein & co RF did this to America and the world 🌎

[Demsrule86]

37. She sure f'ing did... I can't stand her or the GREEN in party...which stands for get republican elected

every November.

[Cha]

39. Their GRIFTER Lies are Sadistic & they're Traitors to America.

[Demsrule86]

43. Agree completely!

Hey just heard if true that the House may pass Ukraine and Israel funding...

[Cha]

45. Wow.. I Hope So Much.. Mahalo!

💙🌊🇺🇸🕯️🕊️

[TheRealNorth]

23. I believe she also went to AZ in the last few weeks....

Because there were some optimistic late polls coming from there.

[elocs]

16. No, it's not a lie. Either she came here or she didn't and she didn't.

I voted for Hillary because that's what a good Democrat does in the general election.
Perhaps you should wait awhile before you call posters here a liar.
In the meantime I will just place you on my ignore list so I won't need to read you call a good voting Democrat of over 50 years a liar.

[MistakenLamb]

20. people are also convenient to not mention the gutting of the VRA between the 2012 and 2016 elections

[betsuni]

33. Thank you. Ridiculous to think that a few rallies would change anything.

[TheKentuckian]

57. Usually when you call something a lie you don't acknowledge it is a fact immediately.

Perhaps you intended to say that there is more to the story.

[Demsrule86]

21. This is always the case...has been for years. Rust belt wins or loses elections...

And since Ohio is not as purple as before, we need Virginia...no different than any other presidential race.

[Celerity]

24. Even if Biden wins WI, PA, MI, VA, NH, CO, and NM, it still may well come down to NE-2.

If GA and AZ revert to their Red norm and NV flips Red (and those 3 all are very plausible occurrences atm, plus I highly doubt NC flips Blue, it has went Blue once since 1976, it barely went Blue in the 2008 Obama landslide, and it is looking grim there in 2024 as well, plus TX and FL will go Trump, almost (95+% chance) for sure), then the entire POTUS election very likely comes down to NE-2, as Blue Maine stupidly will (almost for sure) gift Trump an EV from ME-2 (rural Trump lovers) via their EV-splitting scheme.

If Trump also wins NE-2, along with NV, GA, and AZ, then it's a 269-269 nightmare tie, with the House electing Trump (due to illegal gerrymandering in WI, NC, FL making it impossible to pull the Rethugs under 26 State delegations).

Biden will again win the popular vote by millions and millions, yet lose the POTUS due to 18th century arcane systems and procedures, one of which (the House delegations) has been illegally gamed by the Rethugs.

Nationwide violence will unfortunately very likely ensue, and Trump will be even more crazed and incentivised to try to go full dictator when he seizes the levers of power on January 20, 2025.

Blue Maine can sod off with their EV splitting, especially if ruby Red Nebraska ends theirs (Nebraska's unicameral (only one in all 50 States) legislature came within one vote of doing so a few years back).

I so hope the Biden campaign is prepared to go to Omaha (which constitutes by far most of NE-2's population) multiple times and dump a tonne of money there.

[Demsrule86]

25. First of all, there is no reason for what you suggest to happen. Nevada isn't going to flip.

We will not lose everything...but we win if we lose Georgia and/or Arizona. But no matter how you look at it. Michigan, Wisconsin ( to a lesser extent) and Pennsylvania are must-wins. The first map shows us winning as we did in 20 but removing GA and Arizona, we still win. And the GOP has won nothing of importance except one Governor's race.








https://www.270towin.com/

[Celerity]

26. Way too early to call the final results, but Maine needs to stop splitting EVs, as my scenario with it coming down to

NE-2 for a nightmarish 269-269 tie is far from impossible at all. NV, btw is far from a lock. Immigration is a huge issue there and we are doing fairly shite in most all of the polls there over the past 5 months or so.

So many things are yet to unfold until election day. The delta is crazy high this time, as there are just so many variables, and the possibility for truly impactful exogenous shocks is also far too high to make any calls with certainty at this point in time.

[Demsrule86]

27. I would like this too. But I would rather be us than Trump. I think he will lose badly if we don't

blow up TIK TOK which would be a mistake.

[All Mixed Up]

42. I agree that Nevada is far from a lock but I think Nevada to Republicans is like North Carolina to Democrats...

...on paper, it seems like it'll be a state that can flip, as they do elect Republicans to statewide offices (like NC with Democrats) but in national elections (president and senate) it just doesn't seem to budge.

It's also a state Democrats traditionally overperform vs the polls when Republicans have the lead.

Just look at the 2022 senate race.

Adam Laxalt led on average by 3 points and he lost by .9.

And the only reason his lead wasn't larger is because there was just one tiny poll, USA Today, that had Catherine Cortez Masto leading.

I think Biden wins Nevada. But I don't know if he wins Michigan.

And if he loses Michigan, beyond winning Arizona (which I think he can win) and Georgia (which seems unlikely at this point), he loses. Even with NE2.

[WarGamer]

40. If you can't trust polling... what are you basing your opinion on?

Polling shows Nevada flipping... Trump has a 5.6% aggregate lead and Biden hasn't lead a poll since October.

I mean, 8 different pollsters... they could all be wrong, right?

[Celerity]

44. as I always state, it is way too early, and there is crazy delta, but I see large flashing red lights atm

A large blow for us would be no federal criminal Trump convictions before the election. Also, I do not trust major petrol states who prefer Trump win to not fuck with the supply/price linkage as we near the election.

I call the main Biden risk factors we face atm 'A3I':

A - Age in terms of perceived vitality need for the next 5 years as POTUS

I - Inflation, especially in terms of consumer prices (especially food and petrol) and housing costs

I - Israeli/Palestinian conflict

I - Immigration and border security


Obviously Trump has a HUGE amount of baggage and legal issues. We can but hope these blow up in his face in a myriad number of levels and ways.

[WarGamer]

46. I call it the shit sandwich vs bologna sandwich challenge...

Once in the polling place... you might not like bologna sandwiches... but you're sure as hell not going to eat the shit sandwich.

So Biden squeaks it out.

[Demsrule86]

47. Polling show us losing the Senate seat too...but we didn't. The polling out there sucks.

And you should pay no attention to it. Nevada will not fall...mark my words.

[Rstrstx]

31. Didn't Biden win NE-2 by a fairly comfortable margin?

I recall it being like 6 points, certainly closer than MI, WI and PA. I was under the impression it has a lot of those suburban “soccer moms” who really don’t like Trump. If AZ puts abortion on the ballot in November I also like our chances there.

Regardless, NE-2 should be given heavy attention. Every electoral vote matters. In the 2000 election if the Gore campaign had been better at math they would have realized that with NM and NH they would not have needed FL (Gore actually won NM but the margin was even narrower than FL).

[Celerity]

38. The new NE-2 map makes the district slightly redder by keeping Douglas County whole but pairing it with a

Republican-leaning rural county. In the old map, the 2nd District had an even partisan lean; in the new map, its partisan lean is R+3.

That would make the 2020 results almost a dead heat, if turnout was the same, and a win for Trump if the shifted new map results are anything like 2016, when Trump won it over Clinton.

Also, in 2020 there were no remotely significant 3rd party LW votes who drew from Biden. This time we have RFK Jr, Cornel West, and Stein to deal with. We need a RW 3rd party run to draw votes from Trump (BUT that is fraught with danger, as some of those non MAGAt RW Trump votes drawn off may have went to Biden).

[WarGamer]

41. thanks Celerity... I hadn't read that.

[Model35mech]

51. Haven't seen any WI polling from March, Trump led WI slightly in Feb

I really wouldn't count on a comfortable lead in Wisconsin unless the right to choose can be made to boil.

I suspect it will be close all the way thru the election.

[Elessar Zappa]

55. As always, this election will be decided on turnout.