2020 just gets more chaotic with every passing day.
Tragic to die so young. What was the cause of death?
It wasn't released....
Just to round off what happens in a tie, in another example of how daft US rules are, the new Vice President would be chosen by the Senate, so wouldn't necessarily be the new President's running mate. They could end up with a President and Vice President from opposing parties.
And if the House can't decide on the new President, the new Vice President becomes Acting President until they do, no matter how long it takes.
A drug addict has died in Minnesota at the early age of 38. So what? So, it could change the course of history by determining who becomes President of the USA.
If the Trump campaign recovers and the election ends in a 269-269 tie, the winner is decided by the House of Representatives, but it's not a one-man-one-vote situation. Each State gets one vote, irrespective of how many Representatives they have (so Wyoming's one Rep is equal to California's 53), and 26 votes are needed to win. Although the Dems have a majority in the House, the GOP currently leads 26-23 in States (Pennsylvania is tied), but that could change in November, so it could be another knife-edge situation. The new members don't take their seats until 3 Jan, but it is the new House that makes the decision some time after that.
Which brings us to Minnesota.
This is the website of Adam Weeks, the Legal Marijuana Now Party's candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 2nd District - https://www.weeks2020.com/. Adam managed to reconcile his opposition to herbicides and pesticides with his marijuana use but, unfortunately, has died suddenly from unknown causes, which probably doesn't help sell the party's message.
Minnesota law is that, if the candidate of a major party dies in the run-up to an election, it is postponed until the following February, a major party being one that achieved 5% of the votes in the most recent election for the primary State positions. Currently, there are four - the Democrats, the Republicans, the Legal Marijuana Now Party and the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party. The Greens, Libertarian and Independence Parties didn't make the cut.
So the November House election in District 2 is off. Angie Craig's term expires on 3 Jan and the District will have no representation until the election is held on 9 Feb. Minnesota has eight Representatives, who are currently split 5-3 for the Dems, so seven seats will be contested in Nov. Five of these are safe, three Dems and two GOP and the other two are toss-ups that are held one each at present. With Craig sidelined, if the GOP holds its seat (which it's looking like it will), it just needs to flip one seat to snatch the majority and the Presidential vote. The Democrat incumbent in that District has done 15 terms, but it's feasible that they could do it - the District has become more Republican over time and Trump won there by a massive margin in 2016, 61%-31%, his largest margin in any District represented by a Democrat in the House. So we could see a 4-3 GOP majority and Democrat gains elsewhere could mean that Minnesota is the decider.
Expectations for Kamala are high, but she needs to be careful. Pence is an old hand who can stonewall anything, and he could be dangerous. She should resist the temptation to go for a star performance and try to temper it down for a nice quiet forgettable debate.
Mike has let it be known that he is going to attack Biden’s record on terrorism - you know, about the tenth most important topic on everyone’s mind right now. Maybe it’s a ruse.
The Trump campaign has just withdrawn ads again from Iowa and Ohio. They won these States by 8% and 9% in 2016, but they have recently become toss-ups, with Trump up 1% and down 0.5%. They have presented the move as one of strength, saying they are confident of these States and “unlike Joe Biden, campaign ads aren’t the only way we know how to campaign.” Forecasters have Biden at about 43/44% chance of winning here, though one has Biden a slight favourite in Ohio. The likelihood is that Trump will get home by a small percentage in both, but they can’t afford to lose any States they won last time, so it’s hard to understand why they are gambling unnecessarily.
2.0 is even money, so Biden is closing in on 1/2 if it keeps moving that way.
Right, well there is money to be made by betting types, cos Biden should be shorter than that. I wouldn’t give Trump much more than a 10% chance at this stage. All the indications are that there aren’t many undecideds available to win over this time, and those that do exist are moving to Biden. Trump’s challenge now isn’t to win - it’s to hold onto enough of his voters to avoid a humiliation.
Nibbling at the edges with good campaigning isn’t going to be enough to stop Biden now. It will take a dramatic incidence such as him having a health scare or scandal, or disintegrating in a debate. Trump being replaced for medical or other reasons might give the Republicans a chance, but that would be a nightmare, as over four million people have already voted, and it’s not clear what would happen with the Trump votes.
Interesting to watch Trump’s return to the White House.
As being reported, he was clearly trying to get his breath whilst stood outside.
The obsession with image and votes might just cost him dearly.
I watched the video and just thought he looked sick too.
I assumed this can't be good for him but just checked the betting market and Biden is 1.62/1.64 which is about where he was before Trump got sick.
It is probably because Trump is at the stage he has done so many awful things that the new ones just don't make any difference to his supporters. I do too much shrugging and thinking that is Trump too, so it isn't just his supporters.
Just stay the fk away from people, it isn't that hard. Especially given he has free access to the greatest technology and has people to shop and cook for him.
Does that mean you get £1.62 back for a £1 bet, ie 3/5? So Trump would be something less the other way round, eg 5/4? That seems crazy. All the polls are pointing one way, the only difference being that Biden is getting further ahead, not just in national polls, but also in the Swing States. He isn't as far ahead in those States as nationally, but he is far enough in front for it not to matter. The polls weren't that far out in 2016 - Trump outperformed by 2%, but several States were very close and that was enough to tip them his way. Now Biden is 5-6% ahead in a lot of them, so dropping 2% wouldn't matter. Those that are marginal are ones that should be safe Republican, such as Iowa or Ohio. No Republican has won the Presidency for 100 years without claiming Florida and, with the situation elsewhere, Trump can't win without it, but Biden has his nose in front there too.
Nationally the lead is stretching to landslide proportions. And the demographic splits are getting away from him too. He had a 13% lead in men over 50 - now it's down to 1%. With Seniors, Biden is up 62%-35%. With suburban women, it's 58%-33%. These were Trump's best constituencies - now they're abandoning him.
This has got less coverage than it should have due to everything else that's been going on.
Trump has had a terrible run of Campaign Managers, and it is still continuing.
Brad Parscale ran Trump's social media campaign in 2016 and was upgraded in 2018 to be Campaign Manager for the 2020 re-election. In June this year, Trump was polling badly and he blamed Parscale, probably rightly, though Donald also contributed to the situation. Pascale certainly made mistakes, like stating that there had been a million requests for tickets for the Tulsa rally that only 6,000 came to, and spending $1m on ads for the DC area so Donald would see them, despite Republicans having no chance of winning anything there. In July, Trump announced that Bill Stepien was taking over as Campaign Manager and Parscale was returning to his previous social media role; effectively a demotion. Since then, it has come to light that the campaign spent almost $40m with companies owned by Parscale during his tenure.
Last week, Parscale's wife called police to say he was depressed, had been drinking and was holed up in their house with a several guns and threatening to harm himself. He was arrested and ten guns were seized.
Just been looking at some comments on Breitbart. Those guys know what's going on. It seems that Trump's Covid is an assassination attempt and infected swabs are the reason so many were infected at the Rose Garden event. Other methods suggested are an aerosol device discharged into the air and infected saliva smeared on the cutlery, but infected swabs is the strong favourite.
So who is responsible for trying to kill the President? The CIA has been mentioned, as has George Conway (by deliberately infecting Kellyanne), but it was most likely China or the Democrats. Remember Pelosi said that nothing is off the table. And isn't it suspicious that no Democrats have got the virus?
My favourite comments:
"That's why I refuse to let them shove their infection up my nose."
"A couple of weeks ago, I was taken by ambulance to the Cleveland Clinic ER for something unrelated to the WuFlu. In order to get treatment, I had to have a covid test. After the nurse jammed the swab up my nostril to my brain, she left the swab wrapper on the table. I picked it up and guess what? It was made in CHINA. I called her attention to this and asked her and her supervisor how accurate could this test be? They had no answer."
The Donald has tested positive for Covid19 went to check see what that has done to betfair and they have suspended the market
Market is back, Biden has shortened a touch. Though that is just following the trend since the debate.
I would consider myself to be very against conspiracy theories, but can’t help thinking that this might be the Trump campaigns last throw of the dice, hoping for some sympathy and “rally around the flag” effect.
You're not the only one. Michael Moore made a long post on Facebook this morning along those lines, ie that it could be to generate sympathy at a time when negative stories are about to kick in. He also had some other theories:
“But most dangerously, HE MAY USE THIS TO PUSH FOR DELAYING/POSTPONING THE ELECTION. The constitution does not allow for this, but he doesn’t give a f*ck about the Constitution. He and his thug Attorney General Barr have no shame and will stop at nothing to stay in power. He may even use this as an excuse for losing.
Then there’s this: He may use his Covid as a pretext to drop out of the race and move Pence to the top of the ticket. Pence would temporarily become President, and then Pence could pre-emptively pardon Trump for all of his crimes.”
Thing is, even if Trump takes some of Joe’s debate drug, and has a great night, you know he’ll destroy any gains with some off-script stuff within a couple of days.
Tonight's when the gloves come off. The first debate usually gets the biggest audience and can have the most impact. It's not always the case - Obama had a stinker in 2012 and was thrashed by Romney, but came back in the later ones. The campaign suffered for a while and it was actually Biden who got it back on track with his performance against Paul Ryan.
This race continues to slip away from Trump, the latest news being that Iowa and Ohio have been reclassified as Toss-Up. These are States that he won well in 2016 and were 'Likely Trump' at the start of the Summer, before becoming 'Lean Trump'. Now they're not even that. He is doing badly just about everywhere. States all over the place are moving from 'Lean Biden' to 'Likely Biden' or from 'Toss-Up' to 'Lean Biden'. There aren't any States that Hillary won which Donald could take, so he has to retain all of those he won, which is proving to be very tough. Regular Swing States like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are all looking to be Biden's, but it's not just them. Some GOP States, that shouldn't be in the equation, are closer than they should be and are consuming resources just to make sure they stay where they belong. So the Party is spending to defend Georgia and even Texas, while Arizona is lost.
The possible results of the election now are a narrow Trump win (still possible), narrow Biden win, a substantial Biden win or a massacre. The third is the most likely at this point, but it could happen that Trump's support falls apart everywhere and he takes a drubbing.
To change the flow of the race, he has to cause a disruption at some point soon - and this is the best opportunity. I would expect him to produce something extreme, maybe even shocking, during the discussion. Something has to change so, in my opinion, he has to take the risk of alienating people in order to damage Biden somehow. Frankly, there's little point in coming unless he does so. I'm sure Stephen Miller will feel the same and prepare him accordingly.
It's hard to beat Biden at this game though. Hillary would meet Trump with great arguments, and Joe can do that too, but he can also drop into a folksy demeanour that is actually an additional killer weapon. Responding with "Come on man, that's just not true" will undermine Trump's spiel more effectively than a reasoned argument.
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