Arizona is a bad fit for Trump. Large latino population, very urbanized, lots of liberals and centrists from California moving there, booming economy, low share of non-college whites.

Romney won it by 209k votes in 2012, Trump won it by just 90k votes in 2016. Not a lot of buffer left for Trump.


If current electoral trends hold up, I'd be very confident about AZ going blue in 2024, and almost sure it'll be blue by 2028. Not sure about 2020 though. I think there's a decent chance it'll be the tipping point state in 2020, but no idea which way it will go.

This post was edited by Black XistenZ on May 19 2020 02:00pm

Biden pledges not to pardon Trump when elected. I hope President Tweety is getting nervous.

If I were Trump I'd be VEEEEEEEEEEEERY nervous. 2020 looks like a coin flip right now. Yeah, we're far out, but he's far from secured to win, and a Democrat getting into office with the FBI being ready to return to normalcy will be very bad for not just Trump, but a lot of his cronies.

No clue what November will bring. Trump might eek out a win. You never know.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on May 19 2020 06:09pm

senators don’t have pardon power. Biden (who announced he is running for US senate) should remember this from his days (35 years) in the US senate

I hope Trump pardons himself before leaving, triggering an enormous focusing event for removal or modification of the presidential pardon power.

Highly doubtful this would be allowed, and it would go all the way to the supreme court.

Totally defeats checks and balances, and fundamental tenets of western law that a man cannot be his own judge.

The supreme court would basically have to say we're abandoning all legal foundation to make an allowance on that.

You're right, but the pardon power as described in the Constitution is also quite ridiculous and powerful. And I have little doubt a Conservative SCOTUS would be tempted to grant a Conservative President that power. The only one I'm on the fence about is Roberts - I think he would be the swing vote.

I think it would be 9-0 against or at best one or two dissenting.

Gorsuch might dissent based on his over reliance on the law as written as in the freezing trucker decision.

These are the words of a person who has never been in, let alone lived in, Arizona.

Just wait until you're a legal immigrant who goes through the entire (expensive and time consuming) process to get here legally, goes through the parole system where you don't break a single law, not even a misdemeanor, to preserve your status, create your own business because nobody will pay for your shit, and finally get citizenship, then end up losing your business because you happen to have an authentic Mexican restaurant, but the same exact food you serve can now be gotten through taco trucks from illegals. Difference? Their shit isn't licensed, isn't following health department or FDA guidelines, isn't paying their taxes or fees, nothing. They spend $10k for a truck, buy bargain basement ingredients, and sell at 10% lower prices than you, without all the overhead. Why should anyone cater to your business? As far as they know, your business and their business adhere to the same policy.

The vote among "minorities" as though "hispanic" is actually a minority in Arizona was really quite high for Trump. Why? Because minorities suffer first due to illegal immigration. Not middle class white tweens who think they know everything and look down on everyone who is less "virtuous" than themselves.

Has there ever been a presidential pardon for a predecessor from the other party? Has such a cross-party pardon even be thought of?