Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Discussing Michigan primary results (particularly democratic results)

 So, in an upset that no one could have ever predicted, Donald Trump won the republican primary, and Joe Biden the democratic primary! Shocking, I know. Trump won with 67.7% of the vote to Nikki Haley's 27.7% of the vote as of now, with 52% of the vote in. Joe Biden won with 80.7% of the vote with 41% reporting. Marianne Williamson is at 3%, and Dean phillips is at 2.8%. 

So...why do I want to talk about this? Because 13.5% of voters are currently "uncommitted". There was a write in campaign in Michigan to show support for Palestine with a "cease fire now" type thing. Basically all the uncommitted votes are intended to be cease fire now. 

And I'm going to be honest, what my reaction to this campaign would be was gonna depends on turnout. As you guys know, I have a disdain for the ceasefire now people. I cant imagine why so many people on the left are so deranged to make this their red line. And if we ended up with another 1.2% like we did in New Hampshire, I was just gonna laugh it off.

But at 13.5%....that gives me pause. As we know, Biden is down roughly 4.8% in michigan last I checked. And if half of the people who vote in the general voted in the primary, a 9% amount or higher for uncommitted could represent an amount of support that could shift the election away from Biden. 

To put things into perspective, in 2016, Trump won Michigan by 10000-11000 votes. In 2020, Biden won by around 155,000 votes. Right now, at 43% (another percent came in as I was writing this), we got 53,575 votes for uncommitted. If the same rate applies overall, to 100% of the votes, we're talking around 125,000 votes give or take. In 2016, we had a total of 4,548,382 votes. In 2020, we had 5,453,892. This doesn't involve third party votes obviously. I dont know what turnout will be in 2024, 2020 had absurdly high turnout, but if I had to guess, say 5,000,000 votes. 125,000 is about 2.5% of the voting population. 

We are down 4.8%. Admittedly, even if Biden did a cease fire, and every one of these votes switched to Biden, we still gotta get 2.3% more, or an extra 100,000 people or so. But we could cut our deficit in half with these people.

Given how close michigan often is, this is a close margin. Again, this is more than 10x what the actual margin was in 2016 that gave the state to Trump, and just 25,000 short of the margin that gave the state Biden in 2020. 

If we had like 500, or even 5000 votes for cease fire now, I'd be kinda laughing, not gonna lie. But 100,000+ is significant enough to shift the state. And I would highly advise Biden to use some tough diplomacy to rein Netanyahu in if this many americans are actually gonna stick their necks out and make this statement. Really, we NEED michigan. I mean let's go back to my latest prediction. Say we get everything up through Minnesota including NE2, idk how NE2 is actually gonna vote, Im doing an estimate, but let's assume Biden has 226 electoral votes. What's the easiest path to 270? Well, Pennslvania and Wisconsin are in precarious territory. But say Biden can win those. Ok, we got 245 with PA, and 255 with WI. We need 15 more. What's the best way forward from there? Well, that's where it gets HARD. Because then we face the red wall, a cliff of states where we need 4.5% or higher to win. AZ is the easiest one to flip, and it would bring us up to 266, from there, we'd still need another state. Or....we can just go for Michigan. Michigan is 15 electoral votes. 255+15 = 270 = gg no re. Ideally we would win TWO more states, especially since if NE2 defects we'd end up with a 269-269 tie, but assuming we win NE2, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, all we need is Michigan. And Michigan might actually be the path to least resistance. If we get PA and Wisconsin, we should be able to get Michigan too. If we don't, well need to rely on a southern state from the sun belt strategy clinton wanted, and that's highly reliable. Idk about you but Im not gonna put the fate of the country in Arizona, North Carolina, or Georgia. I'm just not. I mean, those arent states that typically vote dem. Michigan does often vote dem. But if they're pissed off at Biden over Gaza, and middle eastern voters make up enough of the state to ensure that we cant get it, well....that's really not good. 

So....if Biden is serious about winning, he needs to muzzle the Israeli war criminal NOW. I know that it's hard for him to actually negotiate a cease fire, but he should probably, at this point, threaten to pull funding like Reagan did that one time. If he doesn't, well, I'm not sure if he can win reelection. im not sure if he can win regardless, but this is a necessary step to bring Michigan within reach. If Biden cuts the deficit there in half from 4.8% to 2.4%, it would increase Biden's odds of winning the election from 11.5% all the way to 27.4%. Still not great, but it would help. 

If he doesnt do this, and we lose by because of Michigan in particular, and some slim margin of <100,000 then yeah, that loss would be preventable, and we're gonna look kinda stupid giving the country over to a fascist because Biden wouldnt appease left wing voters. I might not personally agree with this cause, but they are using the kinds of strategies i encouraged people to use in 2016 and 2020, rally around a cause, get out there and vote, and say "hey, we're voters, our votes are on the table, you need to do XYZ if you want me to vote for you next time." I hate that they're using THIS ISSUE to push this rather than something that actually helps Americans, but the voters of Michigan have spoken, and Biden ignores them at his own peril. That's just how it is.

EDIT: the final number seems closer to 100,000, not 125,000, but my point stands. That's roughly 2% of what the turnout in Michigan is likely to be in 2024, and while not significant enough by itself to shift the race given the current margins for Trump, it's still a very significant margin that could impact the outcome. And given, as I said, we NEED Michigan to win, and it's the most likely path to victory for us, we can't mess around here. The voters have spoken, Biden can either rise to the challenge or throw up to 100k votes away. That's how I see it. 

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