Trump's Reelection

I will defend my case, address various others points, and present voting issues. I. Polling ReliabilityA. Dropped PointsPro fails to substantively rebut many of the arguments I made defending the credibility of polling, particularly that my source (538) was especially reliable. He never really responds to my "aggreGreat" argument or to my Jim-Ursula example, which illustrated that just because polls don't call races exactly right doesn't mean they aren't good. Polls are indicators of the general tenor of the race, and they shouldn't be interpreted as anything but. Pro also fails to respond to the idea that it was a failure in conventional wisdom, rather than a failure in polling, which produced the sense of shock which pervaded post-election America. The false confidence that Clinton was bound to win made small polling leads of 2-4% look like insurmountable obstacles for Trump. In reality, these leads were small and indicated a competitive race in which either candidate could have won. B. Where's the Beef? Pro asks where were the accurate polling aggregates during the election. Well, I cited a few in my last speech, including one from RCP (quoted from Pro's own source). There has just been no believable reason provided in this debate to not trust polling. Polling aggregates might be off by 2-4 points, but not by the whopping margins that show Trump's net approval at -18.1%. In fact, projections show that 90% of all polls would have to be wrong for Trump to have an approval rating above 45% (as of today). [1] Additionally, Pro writes: "The reason why i mention the Republican polls was this, They won the election for trump. So that's the only good piece of evidence. All the other polls was still wrong, on predicting a Hillary win. " I can't really think of many ways to read this except that only polls which predict Republican victories can be accurate, since Trump won last time. This fundamentally misunderstands the role of polls as indicators. By this logic, a pollster that said Trump would beat Clinton by 30 points is more reliable than a pollster that said Trump would lose to her by just 1 point, because, hey, the first one predicted correctly that Trump would win (even though its prediction is 31 points farther off the actual result than the second). C. Hemorrhaging, and the Bleeding ain't Goin' Stop Pro drops my second contention (Miscellaneous), which gives several reasons for why Trump will continue to lose support and credibility moving forward. The Mueller investigation is still going full-throttle, Trump's losing his deal-making bona fides, Trump can't stop making serious gaffes, and Trump is annoying allies which handicaps his effectiveness. D. The Unpopularity ProblemBecause polling is trustworthy, you can cleanly extend my case's first contention (Unpopularity Problem). This has several impacts. Firstly, the fact that Trump is more unpopular today than the last three Presidents to lose reelection bids were at this point in their presidencies suggests that Trump is on course to endure their fates. Secondly, Trump's unpopularity is likely to depress turnout among reluctant Trump voters. These voters were ones who despised Clinton enough to hold their nose and vote for Mr. "Grab 'em by the P*ssy. " They never liked Trump in the first place. A more likable Democrat, like Biden or Sanders, could woo these voters over. Finally, the special elections combined with the data I cited early about strong approval/disapproval ratings suggests that there is a distinct enthusiasm gap which favors the Democrats. II. Re-litigating 2016Pro spends a lot of time in round 2 explaining why Trump won in 2016. Trump was a better campaigner than Clinton; Trump had a better platform with more enticing promises than Clinton; Trump was less hated than Clinton in many quarters; etc. Okay, so what? The Democrats aren't nominating Clinton in 2020. Even if all of Pro's arguments are true, they don't mean that Trump will win against a different nominee. Trump might not be a better campaigner than Sanders or Biden. He might have worse promises than Warren. Certainly, no one hates Kamala Harris the way Clinton was reviled. Whatever Clinton's failings, it is fallacious to assume that a future Democratic nominee will share her flaws. Plus, Democrats have learned much since 2016. I don't think any Democrat will forget to campaign in Wisconsin, for example. Pro's reasoning here just doesn't hold up to even the meanest level of scrutiny. III. Umm. .. it's the Economy, Stupid. .. I guess? Pro says that higher pay checks as a result of Trump's tax plan will result in better approval ratings for Trump in the future. This only tangentially responds to my argument that Trump's gaffes distract from and overshadow growing economic confidence. It only tangentially responds to the argument because it assumes that the savings people receive would somehow outweigh Trump's faux pas. There are a few reasons not to give too much credence to that assumption. Firstly, a median household is only going to save about $1,100. It's not tiny, but it's not huge either. [2] Certainly not the kind of "wowza" savings that might give people amnesia re: "sh*thole countries" or similar comments. It's plausible even that many families won't notice the difference. Secondly, as I argued earlier, economic confidence is growing but Trump's approval rating isn't. If Pro's argument is that improving economic conditions causes improvements in Trump's approval ratings, why hasn't Trump's approval rating recovered already? Why is he still in the polling equivalent of Tartarus? For the record, his approval rating right now stands at 38.4%, by 538's count. [1] Pro asks us to give it some time, but when Pro's argument doesn't comport with reality, he can't just say that he hopes it maybe will at some indefinite point in the future, and then claim that this hope is itself a credible argument. That's literally absurd. Thirdly, because comments like the "sh*thole" countries remarks dominate news coverage in a way the economy doesn't, there is no reason to believe they will not continue to distract from the economic "good news" stories Pro has cited. To coin a phrase: it's the media, stupid! IV. Candidate-a-ramaPro literally cites Briebart to discredit Jerry Brown. Does anyone trust what Breitbart says? Their political commentary is massively biased against Democrats. This source can be dismissed basically out of hand. It has no credibility as a legitimate journalistic outlet. It's Steve Bannon and the alt-right's personal mouthpiece. Beyond that, it's ridiculous to think that 1 bill is somehow going to doom Brown, who has been a darling of the left largely because of his scrappy resistance to Trump. It's not like Brown couldn't tie his primary opponents or Trump to unpopular bills. Pro's attacks on Sanders and Biden basically boil down to "Trump is making Republicans happy. " But Republicans were already going to vote for Trump in the first place, irrespective of who the Democratic nominee is. It's not the partisans that matter (except in the sense that there is good reason to believe that Democrats will have a turnout advantage in 2020). It's the independents that need to be courted and enticed. I cited in my case an argument (which Pro flat out dropped) which said that Trump is losing ground with independents because his image as deal-maker-in-chief is eroding. That creates an opening for a Sanders or a Biden to use their own brand of populism to win those voters back. Pro also talks in vague terms about the strategy of the left, but it is never made clear what this strategy is and why it's failing. As I said last round, these assertions are totally unsupported. V. The Electoral ExtravanganzaPro basically concedes my assessment that Trump barely won. If you realize that the effective margin of difference between a Trump win an a Clinton win was only around 77,000 votes out of 13.6 million, you realize that Trump's position is extremely tenuous. If the Democrats nominate someone more likable than Clinton--and it appears that they will, because no major political figure but Trump is more disliked than she is--the Democrats are in an excellent position to defeat Trump. Flipping the handful of votes needed to win the Electoral College should not be hard for Democrats when their opponent is about as popular as a sharp stick in the eye (shout out to Max). Please extend my third contention (Trump Barely Won in 2016). VI. Voting Issues1. A Blue Turnout AdvantageDemocrats are more enthusiastic than Republicans, per dropped data I introduced. Moreover, reluctant Trump voters may be less inclined to vote for Trump when the alternative is not Clinton. Turnout matters when the effective margin of victory for Trump last cycle was so small.2. Historic UnpopularityTrump is the most unpopular President in this history of modern polling. His own gaffes and ongoing headaches (e. g. Mueller) make that reality unlikely to change. The gaffes also suppress good news stories, making it difficult for Trump to get a positive message out there to help rehabilitate his image.3. IndependentsTrump is likely to lose moderates and independents as his image as a deal-maker erodes. These are the voters that decide the election; the partisans are predetermined.4. Electoral MathDemocrats would have won the electoral college in 2016 by flipping just 77,000 votes. Trump barely won, and his weak position makes him a much easier target for Democrats, particularly a non-Clinton Democrat. In sum, Pro has not made a convincing, well-supported case for why Trump is more likely to win. In contrast, I have a wagon-load of warranted, largely dropped arguments showing just the opposite. VI. Sources1 - . https://tinyurl.com...2 - . https://tinyurl.com...Thank you to the judges, the readers, and Nd2!