Did The GOP Convention Lose Trump More Voters? Don't Ask The Facebook Propaganda Machine

On Friday night, Trump hosted another super-spreader event, this one in a crowded airport hanger in New Hampshire. In 2016, New Hampshire was essentially a 47-47% tie, although Hillary had a couple thousand more votes and won the states 4 electoral votes. Trump has always maintained he was ripped off and would win New Hampshire back in 2020. Polling doesn't indicate the race is even close in New Hampshire this year. Trump favorability is way underwater and the latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows Biden beating him by nearly ten points. The most recent poll from the University of New Hampshire shows Trump losing with 40% of the vote to Biden's 53%-- and with a 10% lead among independents. On Friday night in the hangar, while his supporters were giving each other COVID-- Trump blustered and projected ("If Biden wins, which I honestly can’t believe would happen, I will have lost to a low IQ individual") and threatened and raged, blasting "Democrat-run cities" ("We’re going to have an unbelievable year unless somebody stupid gets elected and raises your taxes").

Is it possible that the polls are all wrong-- again? I think it's more possible that the media is trying to make the election an exciting horserace but... there was that study by Cloud Research on who lies to pollsters. It shows that Republicans and independents are more likely to lie than Democrats. And they are twice as likely as Democrats to say they would not give their true opinion in a telephone poll question about their preference for president. What does that mean? Well, it raises the possibility that polls understate support for Señor Trumpanzee. Cloud Research reported that 11.7% of Republicans and 10.5% independents said they would not give their true opinion, as opposed to 5.4% of Democrats. "Shy voters" had 6 concerns:

• A lack of trust in phone polls as truly being anonymous.
• An apprehension to associate their phone numbers with recorded responses.
• Fear that their responses will become public in some manner.
• Fear of reprisal and related detrimental impact to their financial, social, and family lives should their political opinions become publicly known.
• A general dislike of phone polls.
• Malicious intent to mislead polls due to general distrust of media and political pundits (though a sentiment expressed only by a few “shy voters”). 

Slimeball by Nancy Ohanian

And then there's the Kevin Rouse OpEd in the New York Times that has gone viral, What If Facebook Is The Real Silent Majority? Nearly a dozen people sent it to me before noon on Saturday. I never got into Facebook. DWT posts get put up there and I'll occasionally answer requests I notice but I've never once, for example, looked to Facebook for news (or even opinion). I'm the opposite of Rouse, who wrote that since the 2016 election, he's "been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook. I guess he takes Facebook a lot more seriously than I do. No offense, but I tend to think of people who use Facebook as a news source as being just slightly above brain-dead. But what do I know? I still blog all day. To me Facebook has always been a game I never played. To Rouse-- and I suspect, most people, Facebook is, as he wrote, "the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. Every morning, one of the first browser tabs I open is CrowdTangle-- a handy Facebook-owned data tool that offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s popular on the platform. I check which politicians and pundits are going viral. I geek out on trending topics. I browse the previous day’s stories to see which got the most reactions, shares and comments. Most days, the leader board looks roughly the same: conservative post after conservative post, with the occasional liberal interloper... It’s no secret that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of Silicon Valley censorship, Facebook has been a boon to him and his allies, and hyperpartisan Facebook pages are nothing new. (In fact, my colleague John Herrman wrote about them four years ago this month.)

But what sticks out, when you dig in to the data, is just how dominant the Facebook right truly is. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.

The result is a kind of parallel media universe that left-of-center Facebook users may never encounter, but that has been stunningly effective in shaping its own version of reality. Inside the right-wing Facebook bubble, President Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been strong and effective, Joe Biden is barely capable of forming sentences, and Black Lives Matter is a dangerous group of violent looters.

Mr. Trump and his supporters are betting that, despite being behind Mr. Biden in the polls, a “silent majority” will carry him to re-election. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and most online son, made that argument himself at the Republican National Convention this week. And while I’m not a political analyst, I know enough about the modern media landscape to know that looking at people’s revealed preferences-- what they actually read, watch, and click on when nobody’s looking-- is often a better indicator of how they’ll act than interviewing them at diners, or listening to what they’re willing to say out loud to a pollster.

Maybe Mr. Trump’s “silent majority,” in other words, only seems silent because we’re not looking at their Facebook feeds.

“We live in two different countries right now,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist and digital director of Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. Facebook’s media ecosystem, he said, is “a huge blind spot for people who are up to speed on what’s on the front page of The New York Times and what’s leading the hour on CNN.”

To be sure, Facebook is not the only medium where right-wing content thrives. Millions of Americans still get their news from cable news and talk radio, where conservative voices have dominated for years. Many pro-Trump Facebook influencers also have sizable presences on Twitter, YouTube and other social networks.

But the right’s dominance on Facebook, specifically, is something to behold. Here are just a few data points I pulled from CrowdTangle this week:

The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has gotten 56 million total interactions on his Facebook page in the last 30 days. That’s more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, the New York Times, the Washington Post and NPR combined. (Data from a different firm, NewsWhip, showed that Mr. Shapiro’s news outlet, the Daily Wire, was the No. 1 publisher on Facebook in July.)

Facebook posts by Breitbart, the far-right news outlet, have been shared four million times in the past 30 days, roughly three times as many as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the U.S. Senate combined.

The most-shared Facebook post containing the term “Black Lives Matter” over the past six months is a June video by the right-wing commentators The Hodgetwins, which calls the racial justice movement a “damn lie.” The second most-shared Black Lives Matter post? A different viral video from The Hodgetwins, this one calling the movement a “leftist lie.” (The Hodgetwins also have the 4th, 6th, and 12th most shared posts.)

Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian and Trump supporter, has averaged 86,500 interactions per Facebook post in August, more than twice as many as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has averaged 39,000 interactions per post. (Mr. Trump outdoes them both, naturally, with an average of 92,000 interactions per post.)

A few caveats, before my Democratic readers jump off the nearest pier.

These figures include only posts on public pages, in public groups, and by verified accounts, and they don’t include Facebook ads, where the Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign in recent weeks. Counting Facebook interactions doesn’t tell you how someone felt about a post, so it’s possible some conservative posts are being hate-shared by liberals. And Facebook has argued that engagement isn’t the same thing as popularity.

“These points look mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Osborne added that “when you look at the content that gets the most reach across Facebook, it’s not at all as partisan as this reporting suggests.” (Facebook does not disclose this type of data publicly, except once in a while in response to my tweets.)

Democrats aren’t totally absent from Facebook’s upper echelon. Ridin’ With Biden, a pro-Biden page started in April by the founders of the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, has quadrupled its following over the past three months, and routinely gets more engagement than Breitbart and other right-wing heavy-hitters. Individual posts by Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have broken through in recent weeks.

And political campaigners have pointed out, correctly, that being popular on the internet isn’t a guarantee of electoral success. (“Retweets don’t vote,” as an experienced Democratic operative once told me.) In addition, Facebook’s older, more conservative user base may not reflect what’s happening on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which draw a younger crowd.

Still, the platform’s sheer scale makes it vital to understand. As of 2019, 70 percent of American adults used Facebook, and 43 percent of Americans got news on the platform, according to the Pew Research Center. (Those numbers may have increased because of the pandemic.) We know that the company’s product decisions can make or break political movements, move fringe ideas into the mainstream, or amplify partisan polarization. Registering four million voters before the November election, as Facebook has said it would do, could be a decisive force all on its own. (Typically, higher turnout benefits Democrats, but given what we know about the media diets of hyperactive Facebook users, who knows?)

The reason right-wing content performs so well on Facebook is no mystery. The platform is designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and conservative commentators are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder. The company also appears willing to bend its rules for popular conservative influencers. Recent reports by BuzzFeed News and NBC News, based on leaked documents, found that Facebook executives had removed “strikes” from the accounts of several high-profile conservative pages that had shared viral misinformation in violation of the company’s rules.

Over the past few years, I’ve come to view my daily Facebook data-dive as a kind of early-warning system-- a rough gauge of what’s grabbing America’s attention on any given day, and which stories and perspectives will likely break through in the days to come.

And looking at Facebook’s lopsided political media ecosystem might be a useful reality check for Democrats who think Mr. Biden will coast to victory in November.

And on his own Facebook page, Michael Moore couldn't agree more: "Sorry to have to provide the reality check again, but when CNN polled registered voters in August in just the swing states, Biden and Trump were in a virtual tie. In Minnesota, it’s 47-47. In Michigan, where Biden had a big lead, Trump has closed the gap to 4 points. Are you ready for a Trump victory? Are you mentally prepared to be outsmarted by Trump again? Do you find comfort in your certainty that there is no way Trump can win? Are you content with the trust you’ve placed in the DNC to pull this off? The Biden campaign just announced he’ll be visiting a number of states-- but not Michigan. Sound familiar? I’m warning you almost 10 weeks in advance. The enthusiasm level for the 60 million in Trump’s base is OFF THE CHARTS! For Joe, not so much. Don’t leave it to the Democrats to get rid of Trump. YOU have to get rid of Trump. WE have to wake up every day for the next 67 days and make sure each of us are going to get a hundred people out to vote. ACT NOW!"

I thought Moore was the voice of doom in 2016. His prediction that Hillary would lose turned out to be correct, even if she did actually get 2,868,686 more votes than Trump did (48.2% to 26.1%). Yesterday Jonathan Lemire reported for AP that "The GOP convention’s target audience, according to campaign officials, was mostly former Trump supporters, those Republicans or independents who may have backed him in 2016 but grew unhappy with his rhetoric or handling of the pandemic. The goal, by trying to humanize Trump and demonize Biden, was to set up a permission structure to make those voters feel comfortable enough to vote for Trump again, even if they cared for his policies far more than his personality. Officials believe they accomplished that over the four-day convention and are encouraged by internal numbers that show Trump had begun closing the gap on Biden even before the events of this week in Washington. The campaign’s theory of the election has long been to turn out Trump’s base-- a smaller set of the electorate than which backs Biden, but more enthusiastic-- while also trying to win over nonvoters and drive up negative impressions of Biden so that some of his possible backers stay home.

The president’s advisers privately acknowledge minefields lay ahead in the final nine weeks before Election Day.

Trump aides are warily watching the calendar as Labor Day approaches, concerned that the three-day weekend, traditionally marked by parties and sizable gatherings, could trigger a spike in infections just like they believe Memorial Day did at the other bookend of summer.

Republican Concern About Another Ass-Whooping By The Voters Grows

Yesterday, Gallup released a new poll that shows Trump's job approval cratering, down to 39% for the week ending June 4. "His current level of approval," they wrote, "would make another term as president unlikely, given the historical relationship between job approval ratings and incumbent reelection. With five months to go before Election Day, there is still time for those ratings to improve and get back near the 50% level associated with incumbent reelection in the past, but also time for them to get worse and give the president even longer odds of winning a second term."

Just as Gallup was releasing their bad news for Trump, Politico released the latest in-depth Morning Consult survey, which also looks disastrous for an incumbent president. Among registered voters, 39% approve of Trump, while 58% disapprove (47% of them strongly.) Furthermore no one likes the members of two of Trump's key demographics. Only 4% have a favorable opinion of neo-Nazis (81% have an unfavorable view) and just 5% like the most important component of the Trump coalition-- white supremicists-- while 84% have an unfavorable opinion. And compared to other high-profile politicians, Trump looks like a loser. These are the net approval ratings

• Mitch McConnell- minus 25%
• Señor Trumpanzee- minus 18%
• Republicans in Congress- minus 18%
• Nancy Pelosi- 36% (52%) minus 16%
• Kevin McCarthy- minus 15%
• Chuck Schumer- 26% (40%) minus 14%
• Mike Pence- 40% (46%) minus 6%
• Democrats in Congress- minus 6%
• Elizabeth Warren- minus 1
• Joe Biden- 46-46% (neutral)

This has hurt the notoriously thin-skinned and ratings obsessed Señor T's feelings. So he's suing CNN. He had an attorney for his campaign serve them with a cease and desist order, demanding they retract (and apologize for) a poll with results very much like the two from Gallup and Morning Consult. The CNN poll shows Trump with a 38% approval rating and shows Biden beating him 55-41%. CNN laughed at his cease and desist letter, delighted with the publicity.

Republicans in Congress-- especially those up for reelection-- don't find it laughable. Two Washington Post stories in recent days says it all: What Keeps Senate Republicans From Ditching Trump? and Republicans Fear Trump's Weakened Standing Jeopardizes The Party In November. In the latter piece, Bob Costa and Phil Rucker wrote that "there is no sign yet of a mass exodus from the runaway Trump train. If anything, most elected Republicans see themselves as prisoners onboard, calculating that jumping off would lead to almost certain defeat. Conversations at the highest ranks of the party have reached what one veteran operative called the 'acceptance phase of grieving,' where 'there is an understanding that he’s president until at least November, and there is not much we can do about it.' … Strategists over the past week have suggested myriad ways embattled incumbents could tiptoe around Trump’s rolling controversies, as opposed to embracing them."

House districts tend to be more polarized than most entire states are and House incumbents are generally thereby rendered safer. But in another huge anti-red wave year, Republicans who are usually unconcerned about what voters think, are nervous now. I asked Mike Siegel, who nearly beat McCaul in 2018 and is back to finish the job, why McCaul should be worried. "When Joe Biden is polling close to even in Texas," he said, "that signals doom down the GOP ballot. For years office holders like McCaul relied on the 'straight ticket'-- an option in Texas where voters could press one button to select one party in every partisan race. In this way, the gubernatorial and presidential candidates meant everything, and if you were luckily enough to win the nomination in the right district with a decent candidate at the top of the ticket, you rode in without much effort. Now, in 2020, we no longer have straight ticket voting (the GOP legislature repealed it, in a move they may regret), and Republicans like McCaul are faced with the twin challenges of building name ID while avoiding the albatross of Trump. It’s an impossible quest in TX-10. McCaul is already sounding the alarm, telling his donors this is a 'toss up' race. The cavalry is not coming-- he hasn’t kissed up sufficiently to the White House, so Trump won’t help, but he’s simultaneously too right wing and Trump-compromised (family separation, impeachment, COVID-19) to earn moderate support. It’s a perfect storm and we are ready to take advantage."

Audrey Denney had similar thoughts about her race in rural northeast California, where Oregon, Nevada and California all meet up. She told me that Trump enabler Doug LaMalfa "is actually running a campaign for the first time in his 18 years of holding elected office. He’s feeling the pressure and we’re feeling good!"

After Tuesday confirmed that Cathy Kunkel is the Democratic nominee in West Virginia's least red congressional district she told me that "With Trump's approval down in West Virginia, Alex Mooney may be forced to actually run on his record, instead of relying on the down-ballot effect high Republican turnout for Trump. And his record is not a good one: voting to take away healthcare from tens of thousands of West Virginians in his district by supporting repeal of the Affordable Care Act, voting in favor of tax cuts for the wealthy, and voting against the Families First Coronavirus Relief Act.

Some Polls Come Up With Conclusions First-- And Then Fill In The Numbers... Especially When They Think God Is On Their Side

Unscientific Twitter poll makes a point without body language analysis

I ran a little twitter poll on Friday and I was surprised that so many respondents sawbthe possibilities inherent in political polling the same way I did. Three days later I ran across an extremely detailed look at one specific poll that looked completely phony and manipulative when I originally saw the poll a few days ago: Manufacturing Consent-- How Democratic operatives are undermining Bernie Sanders 2020 candidacy. "Manufacturing consent," asserted the author, "has been the modern means by which the few powerful gets to control the many powerless. Since the many won’t give up their power so easily, the powerful must find new ways of convincing the many-- that the candidate of their choice does not enjoy popular support-- so they must pick a more reasonable choice to rule over them." He's talking about the dilemma faced by many in the establishment who know in their hearts Biden could never win an election-- and that their second choice May Pete is a joke-- but who, deep in their souls fear the change Bernie embodies. They may not want Elizabeth Warren, but they'll take her if it will save them from Bernie without having to resort to another four years of a fascist and authoritarian coining into his own. In his own words: "Democratic party insiders are trying manufacture consent in the current 2020 Democratic primary season. Specially, they are trying to prop up the candidates of their choice-- Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren & Pete Buttigieg-- while undermining the candidates like Bernie Sander’s candidacy thru self-serving polls." This is the bullshit poll that made no sense to anyone last week but that has been widely reported:

The somewhat absurd "Focus on Rural America" Iowa "polling" doesn't jive at all with the most recent polling from a credible polling firm, YouGov's CBS News Battleground Tracker for Iowa:

Meanwhile, the author points to patently dishonest political players-- good examples were David Axelrod, whose son was not disclosed as being part of the polling firm and the laughable Nate Silver. Silver:

The poll was published by Jeff Link's "Focus on Rural America." Link, a former Bill Clinton staffer, and another "Focus on Rural America," principle, right-of-center establishment Democrat Patty Judge (Monsanto-IA), no doubt feel they are serving a greater good by sabotaging Bernie. Another "Focus on Rural America" connection is Sam Roecker, until recently the Iowa state director for FRACKENLOOPER. The pollster working for "Focus on Rural America" is David Binder, formerly an in-house Obama pollster who method is described as "qualitative" rather than quantitative. In other words-- much like Rasmussen does on the right, he's just coming up with the conclusion first and then justifying it with cooked top "results." A positive spin on what he does: "Binder specializes in qualitative rather than quantitative research. His focus is on assessing subjective factors such as language, emotion, and attitudes."

To me, all this word salad means only one thing. It means he mind-reads potential voters when conducting his polling. In simple terms the polls capture his fellings of voter’s feelings about politicians.

I have never heard a worse way to describe a pollster than this. Given that only the memo is published without the underlying dataset, I am assuming that this poll is based on the feelings of David Binder staff about which democratic candidate gets what percentage of votes in Iowa in the upcoming democratic primary election.

Also, when you look at the staff page of David Binder Research, one of the name caught my eye. His name is Ethan Axelrod.

He is the son of David Axelrod, who happen to be the chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns.

An organization called Focus on Rural America-- that’s founded by someone who worked for Bill Clinton, ran paid campaigns for Obama-- that’s advised by someone who worked as State director for Hickenlooper-- that’s chaired by someone who has apparent allegiance to one of the Democratic primary candidates-- specifically-- Elizabeth Warren-- publish just memo of the poll where Bernie is getting lower vote share than Pete Buttigieg.

These polls are conducted by ex-Obama pollster-- with a staff member whose father worked for Obama as chief strategist-- publishes just memo of the poll -- with numbers that are complete outliers-- with no information on the methodology/demographic breakdown-- which then are picked-up by mainstream media-- use this poll to push free propaganda for Warren & other corporate dems-- while undermining Bernie’s campaign-- till this propaganda becomes reality in the minds of undecided voters.

Most outlets that reported these finding did not mention that the polling is done by people who worked for corporate democrats in the past & are commissioned by people who are currently batting for Warren, a candidate in the current democratic primary.

What else do you call this other than Manufacturing Consent by democratic establishment-- in connivance with their toadies in the mainstream media-- to push a corporate democratic candidate?

Marie Solis' piece for Vice Friday, Young Women Actually Make Up More of Bernie's Base Than Men Do, comes at the establishment's full frontal attack on Bernie's campaign from another perspective. This time, it's how credible polling shows the establishment's narratives to be false and manipulative, desperately fighting to uphold the status quo, sometimes by sad, well-intentioned morons who don't even understand they're fighting against life itself.

New findings from The Economist show that women under 45 make up a larger share of Bernie Sanders’ base than do men in their same age group, contradicting a popular narrative that says the 2020 Democratic candidate's supporters are overwhelmingly white and male, to the virtual exclusion of other groups.

This narrative often hinges on the “Bernie Bro,” a term Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer coined during the 2016 election to describe a type of mansplaining internet harasser that some came to see as representative of all Sanders voters. Bernie Bros were a “mob” flooding the Twitter mentions of Hillary Clinton supporters; they were “sexist,” even “enthusiastically” so; and they were loud and aggressive when expressing their uncompromising support for their candidate.

Polling has continually proven that Sanders’ base is much more diverse than the figure of the Bernie Bro would suggest: An analysis of polling between November 2018 and March 2019 found both that Sanders was more popular among people of color than among white people, and that women supported Sanders just as much as men did, “if not more,” according to Vox. Earlier this month, a Univision Noticias poll found Sanders was the candidate Latino voters favored most after current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And The Economist’s latest numbers show Sanders in the number-two spot behind Biden with Hispanic and Black voters.

Yet the Bernie Bro concept continues to endure, much to the chagrin of Sanders’ women supporters, who say it ignores a significant portion of the Vermont senator’s base.

...“Why would Democratic voters choose Sanders when Warren is running?” Guardian columnist Moira Donegan wrote the day after Sanders announced his presidential bid in February. “The two are not ideologically identical, but the differences between their major policy stances…are relatively minor, especially compared to the rest of the field.”

Whether there are consequential differences between Warren and Sanders’ campaign platforms is an ongoing subject of debate on the left, particularly as Warren has begun to edge past Sanders in the polls.

Mia Arievitch, a 24-year-old socialist who attends the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies, believes Sanders and Warren are running completely different presidential campaigns, with Sanders focusing on grassroots movement-building while Warren homes in on federal policy. Lauren Christianson, a native Wisconsinite now based in New York, said that while she loves Warren for “supporting many of the same progressive platforms as Bernie,” she doesn’t find her to be “as progressive” as Sanders. Magray said she believes there’s a “wide gulf” between the two candidates’ politics, emphasizing that Sanders is a democratic socialist while Warren is a self-professed capitalist “to her bones.”

...A significant share of Sanders supporters-- Magray included-- consider Warren their second choice, and if she wins the party’s nomination, would cast a ballot for her with little to no hesitation. But in the meantime, many of them will continue to be frustrated by the way Sanders’ supporters are portrayed, and the looming specter of the Bernie Bro.

In 2016, the idea that Sanders supporters were, by default, white and male made Christianson “feel like [she] had to choose between being a woman and supporting the candidate who inspired me the most.”

“It was also a quick way to stop any conversation about actual policy and ideals,” she added. “I hated it. I still hate it.”

The Primary Takes Shape-- Biden, Bernie, Elizabeth Warren

So many new polls! And they all pretty much say the same two big things, neither of which, so far out from the primaries, let alone the 2020 election day, should be taken as a sure thing:

• Any Democrat could beat Trump
• Status Quo Joe will be the nominee

Before we look at the newest polling data, let's take a quick peak at the RealClearPolitics national polling averages (which already include the Fox poll numbers).

• Status Quo Joe- 32.2%
• Bernie- 15.8%
• Elizabeth Warren- 11.2%
• McKinsey Pete- 7.8%
• Kamala- 6.6%
• Beto- 3.6%
• ooker- 2.4%
• Klobuchar- 1.2%
• Yang- 1.0%
• Gillibrand- 0.6%
• Castro- 0.6%
• Tim Ryan- 0.6%
• Michael Bennet- 0.6%
• Tulsi- 0.4%
• Jay Inslee- 0.4%
• Delaney- 0.4%
• Frackenlooper- 0.4%
• de Blasio- 0.3%
• Marianne Williamson- 0.2%
• Eric Swalwell- 0.2%

Fox's numbers are national and CBS' are of the early battleground states. We'll look at Fox first but one more thing before we do-- the Señor Trumpanzee internal polling numbers, you know, the ones that Trumpanzee denied even existed after they started leaking out. Yesterday, writing for NBC News Chuck Todd, Kristen Welker and Ben Kamisar reported that the Señor Trumpanzee campaign fired the pollsters of the "nonexistent polls," polls that showed Bernie and Status Quo Joe kicked Trump's fat ass. Trump is flipping out because all their internal leaked polls show him trailing across swing states seen as essential to his path to re-election and in Democratic-leaning states where Republicans have looked to gain traction and also show him "underperforming in reliably red states that haven’t been competitive for decades in presidential elections."

This morning, the Washington Post reported that "Trumpworld is trying to wave a red flag in front of the president to warn him that his 2020 reelection battle is going to be a tougher fight than he’s willing to acknowledge. That’s why, people close to the campaign, said that unflattering internal poll numbers leaked about matchups with Joe Biden and other Democratic contenders in key states. Trump at first denied the internal numbers existed (his campaign manager Brad Parscale confirmed they did indeed exist, but were from March) and his campaign then took action to dismiss those suspected of revealing them." Meanwhile a UT poll released by the Texas Tribune and mind-blowing results for the GOP: "Half of the registered voters in Texas would vote to reelect President Trump, but half of them would not. Few of those voters were wishy-washy about it: 39% said they would 'definitely' vote to reelect Trump; 43% said they would 'definitely not' vote for him. The remaining 18% said they would 'probably' (11%) or 'probably not' (7%) vote to give Trump a second term." Among independents, the news was even worse-- 45% said "definitely not" and just 26& said "definitely." Joshua Blank, manager of polling and research for the Texas Politics Project said that "Overall, Texas independents tend to be more conservative than liberal and tend to look more like Republicans than like Democrats ... and things have gotten worse among independents."

So... shoot the messenger, always the first sign of an executive with the worst leadership skills imaginable. Trump is down double digits in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan. Without at least 2 of those states, there is no path to victory for Trump in 2020. On top of that, he's down against Biden in Iowa by 7 points, in North Carolina by 8 points, in Virginia by 17 points, in Ohio by 1 point, in Georgia by 6 points, in Minnesota by 14 points, and in Maine by 15 points. That's an end-of-the-world scenario for Trump, although... it could get worse. Trump is only ahead of Biden by 2 points in Texas. The last time a Democrat won there, it was Jimmy Carter against Jerry Ford in 1976. Trump's response after being questioned about why he is losing so badly was to deny, deny, deny, calling polls showing him losing as "fake polls" conjured up out of thin air by his political foes and claiming his campaign has "great internal polling... We are winning in every single state that we've polled. We're winning in Texas very big. We're winning in Ohio very big. We're winning in Florida very big." The only thing big in his polling are the lies he tells about it.

After Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, tried explaining the bad results in rationale terms (they're old, they're incomplete, they were done before Mueller cleared Trump...), he was forced by the White House to issue a typically absurdist Trumpist statement: "All news about the President’s polling is completely false. The President’s new polling is extraordinary and his numbers have never been better." If Shakespeare were to write a play based on the statement would it be a tragedy or a comedy. How about Arthur Miller? Sam Shepard? Stephen Sondheim? Rodgers and Hammerstein? Andrew Lloyd Webber?

I'll guess that regular readers of Fox.com went into shock yesterday when they opened to the headline: Fox News Poll: Democrats want a steady leader, Biden leads Trump by 10 points. It wasn't so much that "Democratic primary voters want someone who will unite Americans, provide steady leadership, and who has high ethical standards," as it was that "Democrats best President Trump in hypothetical matchups and keep his support at 41 percent or lower... Biden tops Trump by 10 points (49-39 percent) and Sanders is up by nine (49-40) -- both of these leads are outside the poll’s margin of error. Warren has a two-point edge over Trump (43-41), and Harris (42-41) and Buttigieg (41-40) are up by one (within the margin of error)."

But... it is Fox, so a few words of encouragement for the racists and fascists who get their news from Trump-TV:

The president’s current standing is actually better than where he stood at this point in the cycle four years ago. In June 2015, Democrat Hillary Clinton was ahead of Trump by 17 points.

"Trump's current position in the polls is far from ideal," says Shaw. "But he's definitely in the game. His base is on board and he'll have ample opportunity to frame the choice set moving forward while the Democrats battle for voter and media attention in the debates."

A 60 percent majority doesn’t think a politician with low moral standards can be a good leader, yet voters say they will place greater importance on supporting a candidate who shares their views (55 percent) than one who is highly ethical (40 percent).

...Some 70 percent of Democrats don’t believe a politician with low moral standards can be a good leader compared to just 48 percent of Republicans.

Democrats prioritize supporting a candidate who is highly ethical over one who shares their views on major issues by 6 points. It is more lopsided, in the opposite direction, for Republicans, as they put issues over ethics by 42 points.

Perhaps more important than people-polling at this point might be banister polling-- and only checks count, Shane Goldmacher reported for NY Times readers that Wall Street has placed its bets: Satus Quo Joe, Kamala and McKinsey Pete (who speaks their language of deception). "The behind-the-scenes competition for Wall Street money in the 2020 presidential race," he wrote, "is reaching a fevered peak this week as no less than nine Democrats are holding New York fund-raisers in a span of nine days, racing ahead of a June 30 filing deadline when they must disclose their latest financial hauls... Among those spreading the money around is Brad Karp, the chairman of the Paul, Weiss law firm and a top attorney for Wall Street institutions. He is hosting Mr. Biden for a reception at 9 a.m. on Tuesday; he is a co-host for a “lawyer’s lunch” for Ms. Harris that same day, according to invitations obtained by The New York Times. Mr. Karp, who donated to Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Booker in the first quarter, did not respond to a request for comment. The momentum of big money in New York toward Mr. Biden, Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Harris is mirrored in contributor circles nationally, according to donors and campaign advisers, as well as in poll results: The trio is usually among the top five candidates in early primary states and national surveys... Biden made explicit at a fund-raiser last Monday in Washington that he does not plan to demonize the financial industry like some rivals have, saying that 'Wall Street and significant bankers' can 'be positive influences in the country.' (As a senator for Delaware, Mr. Biden was regarded as an ally of financial institutions in the state, such as the credit card industry.)"

What Goldmacher couldn't say but our own Skip Kaltenheuser did: "Considering that the greatest threat to our democracy is the rapidly increasing wealth and commensurate political power of the finance sector, and the likelihood of it ushering in another economic debacle, it’s very easy to winnow the democratic party candidates for President. The chaff to be removed are those candidates, tin cups in hand, doing a kowtow to an approving Wall Street. All that primary voters need to know to make their first cut is who is in the pocket of the Big Money, and who isn’t. The short list of major players who will owe nothing to the finance sector is Sanders and Warren, both of whom terrify Wall Street. We want candidates who terrify Wall Street, not who are terrified by it."

CBS' polling was about early states, not about the even less useful national surveys.

Democrats across the early contests say their field is too big, so they're focused on a narrower list of options. They're hoping to find the person who can beat President Trump, which is their top criteria.

Democrats have different thoughts on what "electability" entails, on what swing voters will want, and there is some division over what the party's message ought to be. They are split on whether the party's message should emphasize returning the country to how it was before Mr. Trump (47%), or whether they should argue for an even more progressive agenda than they had under President Obama (53%.) This something-known-versus-something-new dynamic helps explain some of the candidate preferences across key states.

Former Vice President Joe Biden does extremely well with those preferring the return argument, and he is in much tighter competition with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders in the group who want a more progressive argument. In fact, a slight majority of those who want a more progressive agenda are not considering Biden at all, and most of them are considering Warren.

Democrats are already assessing each candidates' chances against Mr. Trump and what specifically they believe it will take to win: they think their nominee ought to be a known national figure, not someone new to politics; someone who can motivate other stay-at-home Democrats to turn out.

When Democrats imagine what will appeal to America's swing voters next November, they believe the swing voters who'd consider gender would prefer a man more than a woman; that swing voters who'd consider race would prefer someone white more than someone of color; and those who would consider ideology would pick a moderate centrist more than a progressive.

Seventy-eight percent of Democrats say it's extremely important that a nominee must convince them of their ability to beat Mr. Trump to earn their primary vote. And when they assess the chances for candidates they like actually doing so, Biden stands out. Seventy-five percent of those considering Biden think he probably would beat Mr. Trump, a far higher number for Biden than among those considering other candidates.

Thirty-nine percent of those considering Warren say she'd probably win. More-- 50%-- would put her chances at "maybe"-- and 51% of those considering Sanders say he'd probably win.

But what exactly makes a candidate "electable"? Seventy-four percent say that starts with someone known in national politics, and 67% say that involves motivating their fellow Democrats who stayed home in 2016, even more so than trying to win over Trump voters.

Biden backers are a bit more likely than those supporting Warren or Sanders to say that a nominee needs to win over some 2016 Trump supporters.

The 2020 Democratic field is the most diverse in history, but we asked these Democrats what they believe swing and undecided voters would ultimately want in a candidate in terms of race, gender, age and ideology.

Many Democrats felt race or gender won't matter to others. But they think swing voters who do consider those factors would lean toward a white male, moderate candidate: a white candidate over a candidate of color by a by a six-to-one ratio; and that a man would be preferred by swing voters over a women by a four to one ratio, among those who'd care about gender.

Voters have some different reasons explaining their candidate picks. When voters in these states considering Biden are asked why, almost nine in 10 pick his time as vice president as a reason (86%), outranking his policy stances (57%), his time in the U.S. Senate (54%), and that he's familiar to them (49%).

In the survey, respondents were permitted to pick more than one reason. But voters considering Warren and Sanders are more likely to cite these candidates' policy stances as a reason why. A third of Democratic voters considering Warren say they are considering her because she is a woman (a similar percentage of those considering Kamala Harris say the same about her.)

Buttigieg stands out in that six in 10 of those considering him like his style of campaigning. Most also like his background before entering politics, and his policies.

Finger To The Wind-- Wet Index or Dry Middle?

Axios reported on Engagious focus group findings of Obama voters who flipped to Trump in Sioux City Iowa. There are not voters who like any of the Democrats running for president-- but do love the progressive policies being espoused by Bernie and by Elizabeth Warren. As you can imagine, they were a typical basket of deplorables, against the idea of a woman in the presidency, unaware of Medicare-For-All or the Green New Deal, unaware of the names of any of the Democrats running other than Bernie, Biden and Elizabeth Warren-- and willing to re-elect Trump. Only one was willing to come out of the Darkness and back to American values.

Also out yesterday was a new poll from Politico by Morning Consult. The general stuff:

• Country's on the wrong track- 62%
• Trump's disapproval- 56%
• Trump's reelection number- 37%
• Generic congressional election- 43% Democrat, 37% Republican

When he came to testing matters of fact, though, the respondents were so ignorant that it has to make someone question whether democracy is a even viable form of government. Some examples:

Q- Generally speaking, do you think President Donald Trump has been successful or unsuccessful in business?

• Very successful- 31%
• Somewhat successful- 23%
• Somewhat unsuccessful- 11%
• Very unsuccessful- 25%
• Don’t know / No opinion- 10%

A followup question: As you may know, a review of Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts found that President Trump reported a total of $1.17 billion in losses between 1985 and 1994. Based on what you know now, do you think President Trump has been successful or unsuccessful in business?

• Very successful- 24%
• Somewhat successful- 19%
• Somewhat unsuccessful- 13%
• Very unsuccessful- 29%
• Don’t know / No opinion- 16%

Another followup: Thinking about how President Trump has handled his responsibilities as president, would you say the following helped him, hurt him, or did it make no difference either way? His business experiences

• Helped a lot- 28%
• Helped some- 20%
• Hurt some- 12%
• Hurt a lot- 21%
• No difference either way- 11%
• Don’t know / No opinion- 9%

A question for you now: Should these people lose their right to vote?

• 2% think North Korea is an ally
• 2% think Iran is an ally
• 4% think Russia is an ally
• 1% think France is an enemy
• 2% think Germany is an enemy
• 1% think the U.K. is an enemy
• 1% think Canada is an enemy
• 4% think Mexico is an enemy
• 5% think Israel is an enemy
• 12% never heard of Mitch McConnell
• 6% never heard of Nancy Pelosi
• 15% never heard of Chuck Schumer
• 31% never heard iff Kevin McCarthy
• 5% never heard of Mike Pence
• 1% never heard of Donald J. Trump

Democratic primary voters may be as dumb as Trump supporters:

• 21% say they are more likely to vote for Biden because of how he handled Anita Hill
• 21% say they are more likely to vote for Biden because of his vote in favor of invading Iraq in 2002
• 45% say they are more likely to vote for Biden because of "his role in passing sweeping crime legislation during the 1990s."
• 51% say they are more likely to vote for Biden because of "his advocacy for free-trade deals including the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Trans-Paci􏰀c Partnership (TPP)"

As I've been saying Change Research is doing the best polls this cycle and they're the firm whose work I'm most interested in following. They have a new one out this week of New Hampshire Democratic primary voters. Findings include-- ZERO percent of these voters have a "very favorable" view of Trump (90% very unfavorable) or Pence (83% very unfavorable) and 30% have a very favorable view of Pelosi (9% very unfavorable). 92% think the country is on the wrong track. The two top issues, overwhelmingly so, are healthcare (23%) and Environment/Climate (15%). No other issues above 4%.

Now the favorability of the Democratic candidates-- this is a combination of "very favorable" and "somewhat favorable"

• Bernie- 73%
• Biden- 66%
• Elizabeth Warren- 65%
• Kamala- 58%
• McKinsey Pete- 56%
• Beto- 48%
• Cory Booker- 45%
• Stacee Abrams- 33%
• Amy Klobuchar- 28%
• Kirsten Gillibrand- 28%
• Julian Castro- 25%
• Tulsi- 21%
• Frackenlooper- 21%
• Eric Swalwell- 15%
• Andrew Yang- 15%
• Jay Inslee- 12%
• Seth Moulton- 11%
• John Delaney- 9%
• Tim Ryan- 8%
• Michael Bennet- 8%
• Marianne Williamson- 6%
• Mike Gravel- 5%
• Steve Bullock- 2%
• Wayne Messam- 2%

And who will they vote for in the nation's very primary?

• Bernie- 30%
• Biden- 26%
• McKinsey Pete- 12%
• Elizabeth Warren- 9%
• Kamala- 8%
• Beto- 3%

Everybody else is at 1%, 2% or zero percent. Kirsten Gillibrand is still at zero percent-- and still insisting it's because voters are against women. The candidate who was picked most frequently for second choice was Elizabeth Warren (19%), followed by Biden (15%), Bernie (14%), Kamala (13%) and McKinsey Pete (13%). No one else into the double digits. And this morning we get a new contestant, the mayor of New York City. I'm sure Trump will have fun with him. Why the hell is de Blasio doing this? Will he get out of the 1% Club? Nice video enough video though.





Now, where were we? Oh, yeah...which candidates do they think are smart? (Spoiler: not Biden, the front-runner.)

• Elizabeth Warren- 65%
• Bernie- 62%
• McKinsey Pete- 50%

Who do they think is tough?

• Elizabeth Warren- 62%
• Bernie- 56%
• Biden- 51%

Who do they think is likable?

• Biden- 64%
• Bernie- 56%
• McKinsey Pete- 52%

Who do they think is honest and ethical?

• Bernie- 62%
• Elizabeth Warren- 48%
• Biden- 47%

Who do they think is most likely to defeat Trump in 2020?

• Biden- 68%
• Bernie- 58%
• Elizabeth Warren- 35%

Yesterday Judd Legum did a Q&A with Bernie at Popular Information and Bernie made it clear he has a vision that goes beyond just beating Trump:

Our campaign is not designed to just defeat Donald Trump, but to also create a government that works for all people, not just the top one percent. What that means is that election day is not the end, it is the beginning. Our slogan is “not me, us”-- and by that I mean that no president can transform America alone. We need a mobilized movement of millions of people across America to defeat Trump, the most dangerous president in modern history, but to also then demand that their lawmakers in Washington start representing the 99 percent.

When we introduce a Medicare for All bill, our $15 minimum wage bill, serious gun reform, criminal justice reform to end private prisons, and legislation to repeal tax breaks for corporations and billionaires -- we are not going to be doing that in a vacuum. We are going to have millions of Americans demanding that their representatives reject the pressure from corporate lobbyists and pass this agenda.

American history tells us that this is not some pipe dream. Our country managed to pass the New Deal, Medicare, Medicaid and civil rights legislation. Despite powerful opposition and difficult congressional rules, those initiatives were ultimately able to pass because they had mobilized mass movements behind them. That’s what this political revolution is about.

Judd: One critical issue for a lot of Democrats is nominating someone with the best chance of beating Trump. The party itself is younger, female, and diverse. Some people think Democrats would be better off nominating someone who better reflects the composition of the party. Why are you the best person to take on Trump?

The Democratic Party must have a nominee who can take on Donald Trump, and I will support whoever we nominate out of the great group of people who are running.

I believe we need a nominee who is not afraid to directly challenge Trump and his billionaire backers. We also need a nominee with a proven record fighting for working people and also repeatedly winning elections when they go up against powerful Republican opponents. That is why I believe I am the best positioned to defeat Trump.

I have spent my entire life as a champion for working people, and I believe voters understand that our campaign is truly about challenging the establishment at a moment when that establishment has created so many of the crises we now face. This is why we already have an unprecedented grassroots movement behind our campaign: 1 million people have signed up to volunteer for the campaign, we have more than 525,000 individual donors, and we just had more than 4,700 organizing events across the country.

Now, let me be clear: this isn’t going to be easy. We’re going to have to take on the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies, fossil fuel CEOs, corporate agribusiness, the prison-industrial complex and so many other opponents. I am more confident than ever that by doing this, we are going to defeat Trump and transform this country.

One last poll for today: Survey Monkey did one for Business Insider that shows support for the Bernie/AOC plan to cap credit card interest rates-- the anti-loan shark bill.

The vast majority of both Republicans and Democrats who said they plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primary support legislation rolled out by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Bernie Sanders last week that would cap credit-card interest rates at 15%.

Nearly 70% of Republican primary voters and 73% of Democratic primary voters said they either support or strongly support the proposal to cap rates at 15%, according to a new Insider poll. Just over 60% of respondents who don't plan to vote in the 2020 presidential primaries also said they support the bill, known as the Loan Shark Prevention Act.

Just 13% of GOP primary voters were opposed to the idea, while 7% of Democratic primary voters were opposed.

...[T]he bill would impose the cap on credit-card interest rates at the federal level and allow states to establish even lower interest rates. The bill would also give the Federal Reserve flexibility to allow lenders to charge higher rates if it's determined the federal cap "would threaten the safety and soundness of financial institutions."

The median credit-card interest rate was 21.36% as of last week, compared with 12.62% a decade ago, according to Creditcards.com. Meanwhile, Americans collectively hold more than $1 trillion in credit-card debt, according to the Federal Reserve.

The law would implement a 15% interest-rate cap on all federal loans and also institute postal banking-- allowing the US postal service to offer banking services as an alternative to payday lenders and commercial banks.