Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Alabama

A poll released today  by FM3 Research shows Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in the heart of Dixie by a comfortable 14%. Of course no one who has spent more than fifteen minutes, give or take, on this planet would think that Joe Biden has any chance of carrying the state. Alabama is as conservative and reliably Republican as California is liberal and Democratic.

And therein lies what may be a warning sign. In 2016 Trump beat Hillary Clinton by 63% to 35%. That's a margin of 28%. Which is about what one would expect in what is effectively a one party state. But somewhere along the line, Trump's support among Alabama voters has eroded, severely.

Nor is this an isolated case. Georgia and Texas are generally safe states for the GOP but polls have been consistently showing both to be very close. (Texas has not gone Democratic in a presidential election since 1976.)

In those cases population demographics may also be at play. Texas has seen a rise in Hispanics and an influx of migrants fleeing left wing states, especially California. It is deeply ironic that so many who are fleeing the train-wrecks of the left coast are nonetheless clinging to their liberal beliefs. In the case of Georgia there has also been some incoming migration, chiefly among Afro-Americans who now perceive parts of the South to be more hospitable to blacks than many of the Northern states to which their ancestors fled during the era of Jim Crow.

However, none of this is true of Alabama. Trump's sharp decline in the polls cannot be laid at the feet of changing demographics or other similar causes. The plain fact is that somewhere around one in five people who voted for the president four years ago are not, as of the moment, planning on doing so again this year.

Of course the election is still far enough off that much could change. At least some of the polling data was collected before the current wave of left-wing mob violence reached its current level, so I am taking these numbers with a grain of salt. But with Trump trailing by wide margins in many of the traditional swing states that he carried narrowly in 2016, a statistically significant loss of support in a state so firmly Republican that it generally doesn't rate many polls in presidential election years, is worth taking notice of.

2 comments:

Stephen said...

Uh huh. The article, like so many, completely fails to take into account the degree to which the Democrats will do things that will drive people to vote for Trump. Can you say Seattle??? Hello, McFly????

James the Thickheaded said...

Democrats have a wide open opportunity to capture a new generation... and they've nominated a septuagenarian. Okay. Feel the enthusiasm? Yes, Trump is no Kumbayah candidate, but looking ahead would be a nice thing, and if anything, his is the ticket to replaying the 1950's as if the Civil Rights struggle could have run differently. That's a pipe dream that seems to get mileage in the GOP, but it doesn't travel well. Yes, it is true that we got bored with civil rights and never delivered. Should we be surprised to be called out on that? I don't think so. But Jim Webb had it right in 2016 and in a look back and look ahead, suggested a manly, tough solution.

But I'm still holding that Trump loses in a landslide... the way the Washington Redskins are on their way to the Superbowl in September but somehow last in the league and ending up 1st in the draft in January - again. Biden could be up by 30% in the polls and still blow it. His great credit is that Trump is weary and the nation is weary of him, but can we turn the page and cancel a second season? Maybe. Maybe not.

So long as the country is content to either not vote and leave governing to others on one hand, or allow voting to become irrelevant through a combination of gerrymandering and campaign pricing on the other... neither party intends to be accountable to the public. The dirty secret of Gore vs. Bush is that BOTH parties were content with cancelling votes and the argument was about which rules to use in doing so.

Perhaps Trump's primary sin is simply trying to jump the gun and cement the autocracy before its time. If only it were limited to that, I'd be fine. Basically.... I just want my TV and internet to leave me alone, and the country to give me a President who doesn't need to be on everyone's mind all the time like a needy toddler. Gimme a functioning adult that doesn't want to posture, but simply do the boring work of government, and I'll be fine.
And yes, I have a messiah, and I'm not asking any president or would-be president to fill that role. Show me a humble president who believes the rule apply to him too, and I'll show you a man who actually believes the people are the true strength of this nation - not some lone guy who can "fix it". Have we turned away from that ambition? Maybe. As they say, "Stay tuned."