Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 5 2020 06:45pm)

Trump couldnt hold his rallies for half a year, and even when he resumed them during the final stretch of the campaign, his choice of locations for his rallies was limited to cities with an airport. Without covid, he could have held larger rallies; and he could have held them for many more months.
By contrast, months on the conventional campaign trail would have exposed how frail and uninspiring Biden is. It would not have benefitted him all that much, perhaps even hurt him.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 5 2020 08:38pm)

Absolutely. Covid was a quintuple-whammy for Trump:

- it shredded "his" great economy which he had planned to make the centerpiece of his reelection pitch.
- it created a huge public health crisis which he oversaw. more generally, it pushed the topic of healthcare to the forefront of the political debate again, an issue where Democrats have the upper hand.
- it badly exposed Trump's weaknesses as the chief executive and leader of the country. it made people value technocratic competence more.
- Trump is a great campaigner, Biden is not. Thus, covid hampering Trump's rallies and giving Biden an excuse to hold little rallies was a big plus for Biden.
- Covid caused a shift toward mail voting, which has historically been favorable to Democrats. Moreover, due to widespread mail voting, there were millions of votes which got locked in during Trump's nadir, after the chaotic first debate and his covid diagnosis.

So yes, Trump would have beaten Biden decisively without covid. But at the same time, he would also have beaten him if he had handled covid at least somewhat professionally. He didnt even have to nail it, just good enough would have sufficed to take this election imho.


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A different question: it looks as if far stronger turnout than in the previous cycle in the heavily black cities of Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta will be the factor that gets Biden across the finish line. Therefore, my question is: would Trump have won without Derek Chauvin?

Quote (Bazi @ 6 Nov 2020 03:51)

A lot of people were single issue anti riot

I think BLM stuff will end up being a wash imo

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 5 2020 06:55pm)

I really doubt that there were that many folks who only turned out to cast an anti riot vote, voters who otherwise would have stayed home.

Blacks, by contrast, tend to be a low(er) turnout demographic, and they're a D+85 bloc.

Quote (proccy @ 6 Nov 2020 03:57)

he's had gains in portland and oregon this cycle

could be the anti riot vote there for sure

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Nov 5 2020 07:00pm)

Yeah, but does that increase his margins in Pittsburgh or in Luzerne county? By contrast, the "summer of BLM" did definitely juice black turnout in Philly.

Quote (proccy @ Nov 5 2020 10:01pm)

no no no

but i was personally surprised about his gains in OR

i also thought the rioting would hurt biden in certain places, definitely wrong

Quote (Mangix @ Nov 5 2020 07:21pm)

Broken windows matter less than being the clowns of the world to most people who voted Biden if I had to guess.
Also the police response to them made it really hard to actually poison public views of them.
No amount of goofs larping in Chad were gonna stop vanilla ass liberals like my sister from voting to get rid of trump.

Quote (proccy @ Nov 5 2020 10:22pm)

broken windows aren't going to stop pissing people off it doesn't matter who is in power

also. no blue wave. so no real clear answer in terms of voters to this question. They may reject trump because he fans the flames. But want repub lawmakers to prevent the rioters from getting their ways legislated

Quote (Mangix @ Nov 5 2020 07:23pm)

There was definitely a blue wave dude, look at the votes. There was just also a red wave. Trumps supporter base is way larger than anything I expected.