Here’s a recent poll where Michele Obama came out more than two margins of errors of ahead of Trump.
Also, here’s a pile of salt.

It is most certainly not a small sample size. It’s what allows for a margin of error of ±3.5%* at the 95% confidence level. Here’s a graph of the margin of error vs sample size for 95% confidence interval.

With an 11 point margin, there’s a clear separation of the upper limit bar for Trump and lower limit bar for Obama. For a single poll, assuming the rest of it was well designed and executed, this is an important spread. And the reasons are obvious if you look at the report. She’s able to get 10% more Democratic support and 20% more independent voter support.

Ipsos is a high quality polling company. They don’t make rookie mistakes like sample size. There may be other reasons beyond my reasoning that make this a bad use of polling, but sample size is not it.

* The source incorrectly reported the margin of error for the full survey, both registered and unregistered participants.

This quote from the article really hits home:

Afterward, his aides would try to explain that he had been sick. He had seen two doctors before the debate. He had a fever, a virus. He wasn’t himself.

But while he may have been sick, he was himself. That was the problem.

You’re using rationality to defend your behavior instead of connecting emotionally around a fundamentally emotional issue. This doesn’t mean that her behavior was justified either, but rationality will only get you so far in solving this problem. Arguably, there’s an intimate and emotional reason you’re together. If you’re both not engaging in protecting and growing that first, then you’ll end in a you vs her situation.

First, you don’t have to, it’s a useful convention.
Since the middle ages, the west has used a seven note scale with five whole steps and two half steps. This gives one scale, c major, with seven natural (neither flat nor sharp) notes.

As an aside, I believe there are six note scales.

I think the distractions are partially a user issue and partially a company issue. Companies make their programs noisy with notifications by default that I only change it once I’ve found it annoying. They also make their program so bloated that they are slow to load and execute. By the time the app loads, I’ve lost my flow and now the tool is a nuisance. My mind is already cluttered. I don’t need tech to slow it down.

I want those things and I want a phone that’s easy to use, doesn’t constantly advertise to me, and is more of a helpful tool than a distraction.

So two things and I’ll let it be.

First, the migration issue has gained traction among voters in swing states [2]. Our system doesn’t reward the most popular candidste, but the one who can garner the most votes by state.

Swing states matter. And small, undecided groups in swing states matter most.

All the data and risk assessment mean very little. Politics are emotional. They are in the pain of today and worries of tomorrow.

I think your confidence is on shaky ground. And worry that Biden and the Democrats aren’t doing enough of the right things to be seen as better than anything else.

People of a certain level and type of education think data and policies mean more than sentiment and messaging. But for many,t he data is secondary. You can see my comment on gas prices and unemployment being rooted in data and vibes. But the vibes for most people are what matters. And the vibes on election day are what matter most to undecided voters. I don’t think either party really gets the sense of dread that most people have and may never get it.

Which midterm are you talking about? I’m assuming you’re talking about the 2018 mid-term when Democrats picked up 41 seats since they lost the House in 2022. But another way of looking at the last five midterms, you see the midterms going to the party that is not the president’s. So I don’t think that the 2018 midterms provide a great reference point for the presidential election. Additionally, those gains in the 2018 election have slowly eroded giving control in the house to the Republicans.

But I wanted to address your strategy first and foremost since you address messaging. The projected map has Biden at 226, Trump at 235, and 77 to close to call. Those 77 electoral votes are spread across six states:

• Nevada (6 electoral votes)
• Arizona (11)
• Wisconsin (10)
• Michigan (15)
• Pennsylvania (19)
• Georgia (16)

In 2020, all six went Biden by less than 5%. In the 2022 midterm, Republicans gained seats in the house from Arizona, Wisconsin, and Georgia. If those three switch to Trump, Trump wins with 272. Having a record showing in California or New York does little to help with these strategic areas.

I’m not too certain what matters to the voters in these six states, but in Arizona, the BoRDEr cRiSis, as you condescendingly noted, probably matters to them. In all six of those states, you’ll need a get out a vote drive to convince people to vibe with Biden. Usually those people are young and have a little more free time. But not when they see a genocide unfolding in Palestine and the Biden administration being complicit. Are the Arab Americans of Deerborn, MI going to come out and vote for Biden and Tlaib again? Will Tlaib stump for Biden? Are young Blacks in Atlanta or Philly going to come out in droves for Biden? I don’t know.

I don’t know what ground work the DNC has been doing, but I hope they’ve built a trusted network to get people to the polls. Either way, I don’t think the “Republicans are fucked”. It think we are looking at a close election again.