Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's Eggs Are Mostly in One Basket - wasting money
Trumps Eggs Are Mostly in One BasketWhile Democrats can feel good about the record number of early voters, I believe the most important story now is tactical.
The Trump campaign spent millions of dollars sending mailers encouraging his supporters to request mail ballots and vote in-person. The Trump campaign sent three mailers to my household, addressed to the prior occupant, encouraging him to request a mail ballot and vote in-person early. (Who hasnt lived here in several years and is no longer on the voter file. That is some poor targeting.) His money has largely been wasted because Trumps supporters are listening to his rhetoric about mail ballot fraud. Even if occasionally he grudgingly tells his supports to vote by mail or vote early, Republicans arent doing it yet. Maybe Trump feels he can waste his money this way, but throwing away money only means the Biden campaign has even more of a cash advantage over Trump.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is analyzing the same early voting data of individual voters available to me. They are merrily scratching names off their target universe and re-concentrating their efforts onto voters they want to vote who havent participated yet. This means that Biden is able to more effectively use the money he has.
Trump is putting his eggs into the Election Day basket, and that is risky. It is not unheard of for bad weather to happen on Election Day a snowstorm, rain, or even a tropical disturbance. Bad weather is known to depress turnout. There will be fewer polling locations because of COVID, so Election Day lines could be unusually long and miserable to stand in with bad weather. A COVID issue could unexpectedly shutter an election office or polling location, creating last minute chaos.
Again, maybe Republican start voting in-person over the next two weeks. If I were running a campaign, Id much prefer to be the one where Ive already banked millions of votes more than my opponent.
https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/Early_Vote_Analysis_10_18.html
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
2 replies, 581 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (0)
ReplyReply to this post
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Trump's Eggs Are Mostly in One Basket - wasting money (Original Post)
Demovictory9
Oct 2020
OP
bullimiami
(13,085 posts)1. The purpose is to launder money. Has been since day one.
Explains all the seemingly odd and extravagant spending.
Johnny2X2X
(19,042 posts)2. This is an aspect not being talked about
Sure, early voting doesn't mean you'll win, but what it is is a risk mitigation strategy.
If Trump was up 11 points and 30 million people had voted early, you know it would be bad for Biden. We're at roughly 1/5th of the vote being locked in now, perhaps as many as 1/4th of Biden's votes are locked in. Banking those votes, figuring out who those people are, and then going after different voters is a massive advantage.
Joe has at least 20 million votes in the bank, nothing that happens will change that now, the risk of a major event changing the shape of the race is being mitigated by this.