that's not what that means really. it's true that presidential approval ratings are a metric with which to gauge enthusiasm, but it's not inherently tied together. So far in special elections Dems have been up points in 2016 red districts in many places, while GOP has been steady from 2016, down, or well down in some places. Districts like Tim Kaine were wide open with a good candidate, but the GOP hasn't been able to get enthusiasm back. Even the marketting is geared towards fear mongering with common messaging being "do you want this senator to obstruct in congress" or "Nancy Pelosi would be a disaster as speaker". Rather than "elect this person to help President Trump get legislation done". It's focussed on pealing back support for the dems rather than rallying around Trump.

Dems have the enthusiasm, youth turnout seems up. How many seats that actually results in flipping isn't clear yet tho.

The tape might have been recorded around the time this allegation surfaced in the media.

Omarosa's story has changed on the n-word tape multiple times so she's not credible. I still find it interesting that Pierson thought Trump was lying.


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https://twitter.com/gtconway3d/status/1029352670304370688

Kellyanne Conway's husband is a fun guy to follow on twitter.

This post was edited by IceMage on Aug 14 2018 08:52am

no you don't, neither do I. You'd find it interesting if it was the other way around

Are you trying to say it's apparent to everyone reasonable that Trump is a racist who would use that word? Cause I think many of his supporters and personnel genuinely believe he is not.

I bet this is some foreplay/roleplay for them

well, yeah, approval and enthusiasm are not the same thing. but they are closely related. and lets not forget that Trump was able to win in 2016 with a super-enthusiastic core base which made up around 25% of the electorate, plus a wider base of reluctant republican voters who werent keen on him at all, but stayed with "their" team in the end.

on the other side, clinton also had a core base of maybe 20-25% of the electorate who were really behind her, plus a wider base of democrats who werent enthused by her at all.

in the midterms, trump will not be on the ballot himself, which might bring down turnout among his core base, but it might also raise the turnout from those who were reluctant trump voters in 2016. this should rooooughly balance out.
the bigger issue from the GOP's view is that the democrats arent dragged down by clinton this time around, while they are equally (if not even more) energized by their opposition to trump.

that's fine but you're missing a BIG piece in all this. Trump's approval is in part due to slamming prominent member of his own party. he's had wavering support of most, strong support of a few, and strong disagreement with some. Approval for trump is not even close to tied to approval and enthusiasm for individual congresspeople in individual districts. whereas the left is fairly unified right now, and we're seeing enthusiasm have a more national trend upward for them. Where trump campaigns specifically for people they're getting a bump, but he can also kill a campaign in a single tweet. there really is no equivalent for that on the left right now.

I think you'd find it interesting if Pierson actually believed Trump about anything. Doesn't really matter what.

well... difficult to find tangible points for all of this, but I personally am under the impression that the right is more divided in terms of the message and the optics, but strongly unified on policy, while the left has more message discipline and is producing the more coherent optics atm, but imho they are even more divided on policy than the GOP is.

dont get fooled by the McCains and Kasichs of the world, they are vocal outliers. at least, on the republican side, you dont have half of all fresh candidates (non-incumbents) publicly defying their congressional leaders before the election even took place.

to that point-
Trump's got around 96-98% approval among his voters and 90% among republicans
Is there a single democrat in the country with 90%+ approval among democrats? Before anyone says 'the bern', remember what happens when you leave the social media echo chambers

still, I think the dynamics of how this translates to midterms is a lot more uncertain. penishats right that Trump's support does not translate to approval and enthusiasm for individual congressmen

This post was edited by Goomshill on Aug 14 2018 09:29am