Right-wing polling of Florida paints the bleakest of pictures for Donald Trump in November, and it’s probably accurate, at least for now. Naturally, the candidates have to have their conventions, pick their running mates, run the gauntlet of a campaign that will last for about 120 days, and see what they can do by why of inspiring organizers to get out in the field to work for them. Things will happen both here at home and in the wider world that could change how the public views their choices.
But…
Donald Trump currently doesn’t stand a chance in Florida and it’s just as likely to get worse for him than it is to get better.
A couple of things are really working against Trump. The first is that Hillary Clinton already has net negative numbers in the Sunshine State, and yet she’s still absolutely crushing him. It’s pretty unlikely that Trump can drive her negatives a whole lot higher, so he’s got to do something first and foremost with his gonorrhea-like popularity with key Florida voting blocs.
The second thing is that she’s disciplined and he’s not. When you combine this with the comparative immutability of her approve/disapprove numbers, it’s clear that Trump is both more likely to make mistakes and more likely to pay a substantial price for them.
Now, it’s true that Trump could still win without Florida, but that would require an acrobatic feat like somehow winning Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, and Colorado. That would give him the near-bare minimum of 271 Electoral College votes.
And, let’s face it, some of the reasons that Trump is doing so poorly in Florida would also screw him in other states. His abysmal rating with Latinos would certainly hamper his ability to win in Colorado, and probably Virginia as well. His crap numbers with suburban women would cause big problems not only in Virginia, but also in Ohio. And I just think New Hampshire is a lost cause for him even if he somehow manages to find some other winning combination.
I know that you can find contrary polling (Rasmussen, for example) and that general election polls don’t mean very much this far out, but this isn’t some left-wing polling outfit.
Whether it’s Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, the Republican presidential nominee looks like a sure loser to Hillary Clinton in Florida because of the Republicans’ lack of popularity with crucial voting blocs in the state, according to a poll conducted last week by the business lobby Associated Industries of Florida.
Clinton would wallop Trump by 49-36 percent if the election were held today and she’d best Cruz 48-39 percent, according to the poll of 604 likely Florida voters…
…One of the most astounding — and depressing — results for Republicans like Tyson was the percentage of likely Hispanic Florida voters who have a negative impression of Trump: 87 percent. Only 10 percent viewed him favorably.
“No, that’s not a typo,” [Ryan] Tyson wrote in the memo.
If we give Trump slightly more than half the undecideds in that poll, it still translates to a 55%-45% victory for Clinton. But my money isn’t on Trump performing at par with Clinton during this campaign. There’s too much dirt on him, too many Republicans on the record bad-mouthing him, and he’s too much of a narcissist and a political novice to go toe-to-toe over four months with a consummate professional whose party is much more united (Sanders notwithstanding) than the Republicans.
Remember, too, that Florida’s popular vote tends to come pretty close to the national popular vote.
FLORIDA
2012- Obama 49.9%, Romney 49.1%
2008- Obama 51.0% McCain 48.2%
2004- Kerry 47.1%, Bush 52.1%
2000 -Gore 48.8%, Bush 48.8%
NATIONAL
2012- Obama 51.0%, Romney 47.1%
2008- Obama 52.9% McCain 45..6
2004- Kerry 48.3%, Bush 50.7%
2000 -Gore 48.4%, Bush 47.9%
As you can see, though, the historic trend is for Florida to be slightly more Republican than the nation at large, so this is even worse news for Trump.
About the most positive thing I can offer The Donald is the prospect that polls like this aren’t intended to be accurate but are aimed at influencing the electorate in the remaining primaries by making him look like a dead duck in the general.
He better hope that that is what we’re dealing with here, but I have a word of caution about believing it.
The AIF poll is the second in two weeks that had Trump in alarmingly negative territory with Hispanic voters. A poll conducted by Dario Moreno, a Florida International University political scientist, found 84 percent of Hispanics viewed Trump negatively.
Factoring in all potential voters, the AIF poll found just 33 percent of those surveyed view Trump favorably, while 62 percent view him unfavorably, for a net favorability of -29 percent. Cruz is in even worse shape, with a net favorability of -30 percent, with 28 percent holding a favorable view and 58 percent an unfavorable impression.
Compared to the Republican candidates, Clinton’s -6 favorability index (46-52 percent) looks enviable.
In other words, the results here have been replicated, and recently…and by a more independent pollster.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone to see numbers like this. The Republican crack-up has been noticed, and it’s going to have some real consequences.
Yoiu write:
I wouldn’t bet on it, if I were me….which of course, I am.
A month is thee or four or five news cycles.
Mid-November…? 20 or more news cycles.
For the smart money? All bets are off until mid-October.
Watch.
AG
You’re always telling us to “watch” in order to find out how right you are, later, and you’re always doing it in this sneering, Mr. Rogers pedantic condescending tone, as if addressing wayward children…and the thing is, you’re never right, ever. And then you put up a bunch of pictures that are supposed to convey this sardonic tonality you think is so witty.
Feel free not to read my posts. Some people here generally agree with what I am saying or are perhaps learning something that they hadn’t yet realized about the two-party Permanent Government and its ongoing 50+ year old electoral fix. Most of them have no trouble whatsoever with how I say it. Interestingly, the people who complain the loudest about how I write are the ones who think that what I write is full of shit.
So it goes.
I say “interestingly” above because, as they say in the boxing world, “Styles make fights.” My style is fairly individual. So is what I am saying using that style. Free thinkers usually like what I am doing. More conservative types do not. You are a conservative in liberal’s clothes-the very definition of one sort of centrist. That’s OK by me…y’all and your centrist opposite numbers run the world as it exists. But free thinkers are the people who…gradually but inexorably… change that world.
The next generation of rulers…again “ruler” and “centrist” are pretty much interchangeable except during really violent, unsettled times (Hitler, Mao Zedong, etc.)…will be different because of the influence of freer thinkers. That’s called ‘evolution” on the sociopolitical level.
The title of this article is “I’m a Rock, You’re Water.
Well…in this case you are the rock and I’m the water.
So that goes as well.
Prepare for the coming erosion.
Later…
AG
I’ve been reading “The Deep State” by Mike Lofgren and I appreciate your posts. They make me laugh, because Lofgren’s book makes me cry too much.
http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/34912-illicit-surveillance-and-the-deep-state-an-inte
rview-with-mike-lofgren
P.S. I called Trump’s rise here in mid-July of last year (The Trump Problem. You Cannot Laugh A Clown Offstage.)…way ahead of the curve both here and in the media…and I have continued to try to raise people’s awareness of his true power…and danger…ever since.
I am decidedly not “…never right, ever.”
Wake the fuck up.
AG
That August vacation gets Democrats every time. Except when it gets Republicans.
I hear that Florida in August is great place to nail down a lead.
I wouldn’t be too confident that Hillary’s negatives can’t go higher. She’s the ultimate Washington insider in an election cycle where voters on both sides are screaming for radical change. And Trump is unlikely to be as chivalrous on the subject of her email protocols as Sanders was. And regardless of the legal merits, that’s a story that feeds into the worst preconceptions that people have of her.
As for discipline, Ted Cruz was disciplined. We see how well that turned out for him.
Actually, most people aren’t “screaming for radical change.” The people who aren’t hanging out on blogs, when confronted with Trump, just want someone competent who isn’t going to burn the place down.
I’m not sure where you get that people are “screaming for radical change.” Trump’s voters, sure, are screaming, but the radical change they want is public executions without benefit of trial. The saner, and much larger population isn’t really screaming for any such thing. To be sure, there is Bernie’s Children’s Crusade, but last I saw he had HUUUGE crowds at his rallies in New York and still got beat like the proverbial drum.
Consider, too, that he’s getting to the point where he is going to have to actually answer questions instead of spouting lame schoolyard names like “Lyin’ Ted” and “Crooked Hillary.” Especially where he clearly has no idea of the facts of the email controversy or even what, exactly, she may be guilty of. If he pulls that in a debate, one-on-one, she will own him, because he no more understands the law than he understands government. But I suspect she understands four bankruptcies, scam “universities,” vanity magazine follies, and non-existent “Trump Steaks.”
Trump has always been, at bottom, just a sleazy real estate hustler and scammer. They could fill up the Pentagon with oppo research on him and still need to rent additional space. When you lay down with the Gambinos and the Genoveses, you just might have to answer for it someday. Like, say, in August.
If you don’t think 42% of Democratic primary voters choosing an avowed socialist over a Clinton represents a demand for radical change, we’ll have to agree to disagree. And if a Children’s Crusade has $180 million to throw around on vanity political candidates, millennials must be in much better financial shape than they say.
Meanwhile, no one is looking forward to the debates more than I am. But here’s how I see the email exchange going:
Trump: Hillary had 22 Top Secret emails on the private servers she set up to keep people from knowing what she was doing!
Clinton: [Technical explanations of retroactive classification, Republicans did it too, mumbled acknowledgement that she wouldn’t handle it this way if she could do it over again]
Who do you think wins that round?
I love that phrase “avowed socialist” when was Sanders is actually proposing is akin to New Deal policies.
I wish he were an avowed vegetarian. I’d love to see how his choice would be turned into a profoundly anti-American act.
What consequences? I’d seriously like to see you game out the consequences of a substantial (though perhaps not ‘wave’) Clinton victory in the general, through the next two House election cycles.
“a consummate professional whose party is much more united (Sanders notwithstanding) than the Republicans. “
Given the frequent paralleling of Sanders and Trump by the media, I think it should be stated loud and clear that Trump is no less a nemesis for Sanders than he is for Clinton. And again, despite media caricatures, Sanders is also a consummate professional with 25 years of experience in public office.
This is one issue where the very real divisions in the Democratic Party are nullified. Truly, Trump, while he may destroy the GOP, is a uniter, not a divider, of the Democrats.
Odd state polling:
Civitas in NC has Clinton up 49-37
PPP has Clinton up only 3 in Ohio
Marist has Trump up 7 in Indiana
Behavoral Research Center (which is just about as bad a pollster as they get) had Clinton up 7 in Arizona
IBD/Tipp (who has a pretty good track record over the last 12 years) has Clinton up 7 nationally
Suffolk had Clinton up 7
Battleground had Clinton up 3 nationally
State numbers on the whole look a little better than the national numbers.
I think Trump is going to get absolutely annihilated.
But, but, but . . . Rasmussen has Trump up 2 points nationally on Hilary.
Just you wait until the polls get unskewed.
“…with a consummate professional whose party is much more united (Sanders notwithstanding) than the Republicans.”
Well, that’s a good one for sure with Sanders supporters being half of the Democratic Party, especially when you consider that Sanders supporters are more than half of the Democratic Party in all the blue states that matter except where DNC shenanigans or outright primary Establishment voter fraud occurred.
I know you’re counting on a win because…Republicans, especially considering how bad Trump is. If your issue is for you to get your job back that went to Mexico or China, or your issue is worrying about the Corporations not only being above the law but getting a new international law to take over the world or if your issue is about the potential of starting yet another perpetual regime change war, the choice becomes less clear.
Is the best way to defeat Clinton style neoliberalism really to help drag her over the line in November?
Obviously not.
The best way to defeat Clinton style neoliberalism is to get Trump the White House, and a nice solid Senate and House.
For America.
“The best way to defeat Clinton style neoliberalism is to get Trump the White House, and a nice solid Senate and House.”
The DNC has already handed them two out of three but thanks for that bit of inspiration, I had never thought of the third one. That’s not a bad idea, come to think of it. At least the Republicans would have to implement their agenda on their own without having a triangulating Democratic President help them think it up then give it to them as was done (by Bill) or was attempted to be done (by Obama) so often in the past.
I would agree with you your way to defeat Clinton style neoliberalism works because Trump doesn’t exactly share the Republican or Democratic neoliberalism, their trade deals or their taste for perpetual war. He just seems to be anti establishment all around, sort of a populist. I suppose the Democratic Establishment will just have to fight back with another pack of Blue Dogs to once again save the day.
Oh, Strongman Trump is a total anti-establishment populist. I’m sure he’ll usher in a wonderful era of progressive economic programs and policy, and an isolationist foreign policy.
#̶W̶a̶l̶l̶a̶c̶e̶/̶L̶e̶M̶a̶y̶ ̶6̶8̶
#Trump/Arpaio 16
Please don’t tell me you believe Hillary “will usher in a wonderful era of progressive economic programs and policy, and an isolationist foreign policy?” She is already bought a paid for and she will stay bought plus she can’t wait to start taking some regime change action.
Trade is the issue that will actually defeat her and it’s far too late for her to walk that back.
Trump and Bernie are both populists. Trump is the Authoritarian Populist while Bernie is the Political Populists. Take your pick, Hillary is not an option. Populists will decide this election, good or bad.
Of course not. She’s running for the third term of Obama. If she can turn out the Obama coalition she has a good shot. The President will be out campaigning strongly against Trump.
There’s nothing Hillary is going to do that Obama hasn’t paved the way for. Regime change? The likeliest hotspot for intervention is Syria but it’s rather late in the game there. She will likely continue Obama’s policy in Yemen. The nuclear deal will hopefully prevent regime change in Iran and North Korea is too risky. There aren’t too many other regimes out there that aren’t our allies, sad to say.
TPP is Obama’s baby. There are arguments to be made for free trade agreements but our social insurance systems are too weak for me to support them in principle.
All that said… Hillary is easily superior to Trump. He actually wants to get things done so he will sign anything a Republican congress would send him. That would be a disaster.
I think it’s interesting for you so say “[Hillary’s] running for the third term of Obama” then say right after that, “TPP is Obama’s baby.” Obama has really shown his colors trying to put a Republican on the Supreme Court plus doing everything he can to push TPP through, both being an enormous departing gift to neoliberalism. Obama was elected on a wave of hope and change. Obama was a blank slate and we were encouraged to write what we wanted there. He even helped us along with his book `The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream’ where he said all the right words. All we had to do was take the leap that he would act on those words.
What we got was something quite different, something we had already rejected, the Clinton team of neoliberals and their third way politics. As a direct result of this we lost our ability to get anything done after only two short years of half measures carefully crafted not to upset our Big Money masters. Obama continued to lose more congressional seats and state houses that any other President in modern times, now he’s going to hand the White House to a Republican because of his misguided support of Hillary. Obama could have kicked some serious ass when the DNC shenanigans first started but he did nothing. That was quite a monument to the era of hope and change.
So you think Hillary being a hawk is safe because we are fresh out of enemies, imagined or real. You sound like the patent clerk who said after the invention of the light bulb, everything that can be invented has been invented so we might as well close up shop. It was Hillary who caused Obama to regret his actions in Libya because no thought had been given to what happens next. Hillary has been on the wrong side of every American military blunder since she has had any influence at all.
“[Trump] actually wants to get things done so he will sign anything a Republican congress would send him. That would be a disaster.”
Hillary wants to get things done so she will sign anything congress is willing to give her. This makes the Koch brothers quite happy. Hillary, just like Bill will be great Republican Presidents, something I cannot support. The problem is that the youth, the people under 45 don’t support that either. Bernie showed us that it is possible not to accept the status quo and neoliberalism, that political revolution is possible after all.
The question now becomes; what is the best course of action to get that political revolution? Maybe the Democrats in our convention will recognize the risk of running our most hated Establishment candidate against their most hated Populist candidate in the face of an electorate engaged in an open populist revolt.
“put a Republican on the Supreme Court” WTF?
You really must start paying attention.
Ah, yes.
“Wake up sheeple”.
Right.
#Trump/Arpaio 16!
What is this crazy nonsense? Any argument that puts Trump in the white house “to prove a point” is simply insane. It makes the pro-Nader arguments from 16 years ago look reasonable by comparison.
I mean, come on. This isn’t a game; its our country. I don’t know what makes you think you’re not invovled; that you can “sit it out” somehow.
Yes, I’m just as sick as you are hearing the same crap people were spewing in 2000 about how Gore and Bush were basically the same.
It wasn’t true then, and it’s not true now.
You can only take the position that both sides are the same if you have exactly zero understanding of how Supreme Court appointments work.
We’ll never know if Gore and Bush were the same because Gore was too weak of a candidate to make it to the White House against a maniac like George W., same as Hillary is too weak of a candidate to make it to the White House against a maniac like Trump. One thing that Gore and Hillary have in common is Bill Clinton. Gore was running from Bill Clinton because Bill couldn’t keep his pants zipped up in the oval office while Hillary stayed married to him. All this was even before we found out that Bill’s actions had laid the seeds for the 2008 meltdown.
If you want to understand how Supreme Court appointments work, just take a good look at Joe Biden’s role in putting Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court for life. The lazy way to find this out is to watch the movie Confirmation. BTW, David Brock played a role in that as well.
You’re deliberately missing my point about the Supreme Court. I really don’t care what Biden did during the Thomas hearings. It’s totally irrelevant.
But who cares about abortion rights, gun laws, and Citizens United?
He’s auditioning for the Wrongest-in-Retrospect Award, 2016 version.
Your revolution is over, Mr. Lebowski. Condolences. The bums lost.
Heighten the contradictions! Because that has always worked out so well.
I doubt they’re anywhere close to half the party, since they aren’t really Democrats to begin with. And if you look at who reliably goes to the polls (hint: it ain’t college kids), Clinton is in very good shape indeed.
A few more “woman cards” and this could be just about over…
Oh really. National polls remain near a statistical tie between Bernie and Hillary. Those kids you claim Hillary does not need are 45 and younger, the future half of the Democratic Party.
What will sink the Clinton Machine is that other group no one seems to want to talk about; the Independents. This group is actually larger than the Democrats or the Republicans. Hillary only wins in primaries where they are excluded. They will all vote in the general.
Another big mistake Hillary makes is to assume these Independents are some kind of pool of third way voters just waiting for her expected harder turn to the right. This is pure wishful thinking. Most of these voters are angry populists, angry at the establishment and all it has done to ruin their lives. This is the year the populists will decide the election. The Democrats could win this group if the Democrats had the good sense to pick their populist candidate; fortunately it’s still not too late. The Democratic Establishment candidate will never get a majority of these voters but Trump certainly will.
When Independents are allowed to vote, Bernie wins in a near landslide against Hillary explaining why in match up polls against Trump, Bernie always beats Trump while it is often within the margin of error with Hillary.
Are you part of the David Brock million dollar team?
I understand that all delegates to the Democratic convention have been instructed to ignore their commitments to particular candidates and instead to cast their votes on the basis of a cherry picked opinion poll.
Florida may be less typical this time because Clinton seems to to quite well with people who were adults during her husband’s presidency. Still, that’s a heck of a lead, and I agree Trump lacks discipline and that will be even more offputting as people start to seriously consider him being president.
the comparative immutability of her approve/disapprove numbers
I don’t believe this- maybe in Florida (I’d be surprised if there was enough polling to say at this point) but nationally, it is the exact opposite. Hillary Clinton’s numbers have gotten pretty much consistently worse since she started campaigning. Actually, I think that she might get close to Trump territory before the convention (she’s currently -14): HuffPo Clinton Favorable Rating poll tracker
And the Generalissimo’s numbers seem pretty stable (he’s currently -28): HuffPo Donald Trump Favorable Rating poll tracker
Sam Wang has Clinton +8 nationally, and indicates that said polling might actually be (somewhat) predictive.
As a native, I’ll eat my hat if she wins Florida by 13. Or if a GOPer were polling with those sorts of numbers, for that matter.
Nobody on either side is going to win FL by that kind of margin. And were it the case that anybody were in position to win with anything like that kind of margin, it’d be a landslide anyway. We’d be talking about GA, AZ and TX on the Dem side or PA, NH, WI, MN and MI on the Rep side.
Anything above five points is basically an ass-whipping here.
But, yeah, I do think she’s likely to win Florida if she’s up against Trump.
I’d disagree with the wording here though:
I’d say the levels tends to favor the GOP relative to the nation as a whole for now, but the trend has been slightly blue.
…adding:
Also, obviously an unknown poll, in terms of quality.
This is only from my own eyes, but I was in Sarasota for a couple of weeks and I saw THREE (3) different roadside Trump t-shirt stands.
Trump calls her “crooked Hillary”. The story of the Hillary Victory Fund hasn’t really been circulated by the mainstream press.
As an aside, we have the two least-liked candidates in history about to duel it out. The long short, can the Dems generate enough hate to counter the Repubs hate?
I have to take a shower just thinking about it.
Michael Dukakis (and the Democrats) convincingly blew a 17 point national lead, and Dukakis enjoyed that national lead in late July of the 1988 cycle. It’s still early May. Hillary Clinton is not the most naturally gifted politician. She could blow this one; it is possible. If not for herself then in other races. Obama had a Democratic supermajority for a while, and that made all the difference to his presidency. Will Hillary Clinton? She doesn’t think so. She doesn’t even have a theory of change in that direction. It doesn’t help that the Democrats can’t even manage to get a name on the ballot in so many districts.
The other point I would make in not underestimating Donald Trump is that he could shake up the electoral map. The state-level polling is “strange” because he (and she) are odd candidates, and electoral maps shift over time anyway. That’s particularly true since the electoral map has been relatively static for a few cycles now, and we’re overdue for a reshuffling. Taking a look at the 2012 map, it wouldn’t surprise me too much to see Trump getting some traction in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maine, Oregon, New Jersey, and Illinois. At least some of these states have elected Republican governors, even wacky Trump-esque ones (e.g. Maine). I think Trump is going to pick Joni Ernst as his running mate (a fairly deft pick), and she will help to some degree in Iowa.
Then there’s the press. The press cannot stand Hillary Clinton, but the press loves Trump’s ratings. They’ll be pulling for him or at least for a close race. Everybody loves a drama.
Obviously Hillary Clinton is favored. But so was Michael Dukakis, another candidate who ran on the inspiring message of “competence.”
As I recall, Michael Dukakis came out of the convention and essentially went on vacation. One of the worst-run campaigns ever.
I don’t see Jim Carville and Paul Begala letting that happen. I seem to recall they ran a presidential run before, now who was that for?
The problem was picking Willie Horton as his running mate.
… according to a single pollster (Gallup) taking polling samples once every month until after the conventions. Polling in the modern era is a completely different kettle of fish. But it is worth taking the results of a single pollster with a huge grain of salt.
One other thing to remember, is that Floridians elected this guy. Twice.
Sure, they were both non-presidential election years, but still… pretty damn unbelievable.
And guess who he has endorsed?
I would never trust Florida to be the bulwark of the Democratic party.
It’s fascinating. If she gets the nomination, HRC will be the most disliked major party nominee in the modern era.
Except for Donald Trump.
It’s less remarkable when you see the historical trend of approval after election. Clinton is already starting with explicit name and platform recognition that stretches back to her husband’s administration. This is markedly different from GW Bush who ran a campaign that didn’t resemble his fathers’ at all.
It’s fascinating to read many self-described liberals here responding to a post about how very badly Trump polls against Clinton by essentially ignoring all that real evidence and writing their own very enthusiastic fan fiction about how the election will play out to Hillary’s detriment. It reads as if they each want Trump to win.
One “liberal” writes here not only that they predict Trump will win, but that they consider a Trump win “not a bad idea.”
Sophisticated analysis, or HOT TAKE! I feel like I’m on sports talk radio.
His negatives with Hispanics is the killer. Unless something else changes and someone points to me that he’s getting a better % of White votes than Hillary…..
I’ll believe it when I see it.
I watched the Hispanic polling in 2012, and because it didn’t change…..
Never thought it was close.
OT:
Republicans’ voter-ID laws `work’ as intended
05/03/16 08:00 AM
By Steve Benen
In recent weeks, we’ve seen some high-profile examples of Republicans accidentally telling the truth about voter-ID laws. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), a far-right freshman congressman, admitted a month ago, for example, that these laws are likely to make a difference boosting Republicans in the 2016 elections.
Former Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), now the head of the Heritage Foundation, added last week that Republicans have kept up the crusade in support of this policy “because in the states where they do have voter ID laws you’ve seen, actually, elections begin to change towards more conservative candidates.”
But what sometimes goes overlooked is the fact that anti-voting policymakers aren’t just spinning their wheels, pushing an idea that may or may not have some effects on the margins. As the New York Times reported yesterday, Republicans are championing voter-ID laws precisely because they have the intended effect.
Since their inception a decade ago, voter identification laws have been the focus of fierce political and social debate. Proponents, largely Republican, argue that the regulations are essential tools to combat election fraud, while critics contend that they are mainly intended to suppress turnout of Democratic-leaning constituencies like minorities and students.
As the general election nears – in which new or strengthened voter ID laws will be in place in Texas and 14 other states for the first time in a presidential election – recent academic research indicates that the requirements restrict turnout and disproportionately affect voting by minorities.
The Times highlighted a study published by Zoltan Hajnal, a UC San Diego political science professor, whose research found that “strict voter ID laws double or triple the gap in turnout between whites and nonwhites.”
None of this is accidental. It’s a feature, not a bug, of a deliberate assault on democracy. Republicans, frustrated by a series of defeats, had a choice: change and adapt in order to appeal to a larger group of American voters, or take steps to rig the game in order to give GOP candidates a built-in advantage.
In recent years, the party has preferred the latter, finding it vastly easier than actually earning more public support.
This is a damn shame.
This is MEDICAID funds, people. They should investigate to see if someone got kickbacks from the Nursing Homes that these people were funnelled into….uh huh
………………
South Dakota Wrongly Puts Thousands in Nursing Homes, Government Says
By MATT APUZZO
MAY 2, 2016
WASHINGTON — When patients in South Dakota seek help for serious but manageable disabilities such as severe diabetes, blindness or mental illness, the answer is often the same: With few alternatives available, they end up in nursing homes or long-term care facilities, whether they need such care or not.
In a scathing rebuke of the state’s health care system, the Justice Department said on Monday that thousands of patients were being held unnecessarily in sterile, highly restrictive group homes. That is discrimination, it said, making South Dakota the latest target of a federal effort to protect the civil rights of people with disabilities and mental illnesses, outlined in a Supreme Court decision 17 years ago.
The Obama administration has opened more than 50 such investigations and reached settlements with eight states. One investigation, into Florida’s treatment of children with disabilities, ended in a lawsuit over policies that placed those children in nursing homes. With its report Monday, the Justice Department signaled that it might also sue South Dakota.
While the administration has received widespread attention for investigating police abuses and supporting the rights of gay and transgender people, the Justice Department has also steadily made these cases part of its civil rights agenda. The government says that those efforts have allowed more than 53,000 Americans with disabilities to leave institutions or avoid them altogether. It is a small number compared with the 250,000 working-age people who are estimated to be needlessly living in nursing homes, but advocates say the federal campaign has had significant effects.
That’s fascinating. I didn’t know that North Dakota had been annexed by Florida.
Or South Dakota. Or, say, Montana.
UH HUH
UH HUH
Michigan Governor Backtracks, Seeking to Meet Obama in Flint
By JULIE BOSMAN and SCOTT ATKINSON
MAY 2, 2016
FLINT, Mich. — Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan has a question for President Obama: Want to get together?
In a rare overture by a Republican governor to the Democratic leader, Mr. Snyder said on Monday that he had made a formal request for a meeting with the president, hoping to sit down with Mr. Obama during his visit to Flint planned for Wednesday.
Mr. Snyder’s comments reversed a statement he made last week during a trip to Europe when he was asked whether he would meet with Mr. Obama. In response, the governor appeared to give the president the brushoff.
“I’ve got a pretty full schedule next week,” Mr. Snyder told The Detroit News by telephone from Zurich, adding that he did not plan on being in Flint on Wednesday.
On Monday, Mr. Snyder seemed eager to amend those remarks, saying that he had made a request to Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, to meet with her and Mr. Obama.
Obama should tell him screw you, but of course he’s too classy to do that. It would be lovely, though, if he could somehow find that his schedule is too full for a meeting.
I don’t know why this is even here in a thread about Florida, but no, Obama will not tell Snider to fuck off, and it’s not because Obama is “too classy to do that.” It’s because Obama is actually committed to ideas like dialog and working with difficult people, even when those difficult people have repeatedly dissed him.
Quite true, which is what makes him “too classy to do that.” Unlike the GOP, which has met all his efforts with spiteful defiance.
Only one of those states, Iowa, don’t have some form of voter ID law. Technically Colorado, having the least onerous since they are mostly vote by mail, could be counted as not having one.
Except for Wisconsin, the others allow for a Provisional Ballot (PB). The rules for those PB’s vary–mostly requiring you to provide a valid ID in a certain time frame–Three days for Virginia, 10 for Ohio. Florida has election officials compare it with a signature on record, and New Hampshire sends you mail, investigating you for voter fraud if you don’t respond.