76.7% 14.0% 7.0% 2.3%

The implication that I don't know how politics work because I understand the fact that modern political parties have confused the input and intensity of the organizers with the output and the will of the voter is amazing... Organizer intensity only matters if it converts into voter output. In modern Democratic presidential politics, the only successful example is Obama 2008. Everything else failed to win the nomination.

I promise, I’m not trying to shit on Buttigieg. I don’t care about that part. My point is that activists are a political class. Their preferences can diverge wildly from the median voter. Your Cuban lesbian example is exactly what I mean: someone can be politically engaged, part of the primary electorate, and still not be plugged into the convention/activist ecosystem. So you put 300 activists in a room in Wisconsin, and that tells me something about that room. It tells me Buttigieg and Cortez have strength with the highly engaged activists who showed up. That’s real. What it doesn’t do is measure the Democratic electorate as a whole. So, yeah, when I said that all that straw poll and a dollar will buy is a bag of chips, I meant it.

Just so you know, I'm not saying activists don't matter. I'm saying that these straw polls are polling activists. They're not polling the median voter, they're polling hyper engaged politicos. I'm not making any commentary on who won the damned thing, I'm making commentary on who is voting in it.

I won’t be disingenuous and pretend my reaction wouldn’t have been more positive if my preferred candidate had come out on top. You wouldn’t believe that, and I couldn’t say it with a straight face. But it isn’t Pete Buttigieg specifically that provoked my reaction. Trolling and needling people on here I have the occasional back and forth with aside, I can respect any candidate who has an advantage with the activist class. That can prove extraordinarily useful down the road. And I’m not saying these straw polls don’t matter. They do. My point, stated in my own ham handed way, is that this is a straw poll of a few hundred highly engaged Democratic activists. That is not the same thing as the Democratic electorate. Those activists can absolutely help bridge the gap between the activist ecosystem and the broader electorate. But that only underlines what this was measuring in the first place. So, it wasn't Buttigieg I was dogging, it was this process in general.

This too 👇

Like the people that come to these things are highly engaged activists looking to create momentum, party insiders, and people who love this early stage stuff. Ultimately the party chooses, but we have to be clear which part of the party we’re measuring. Convention straw polls measure the hyper engaged slice. National and primary polling measure the broader electorate. Both matter, but they are not the same thing. For Harris, her problem is with the loudest and earliest participants, and with the elite. Not the the actual electorate. It's very Trump 2024 coded to a certain extent.

This is a very good point. We must keep in mind the people vast majority of people that attend these conventions. Harris's weakness with the activist class, and elite is not news. That's... generally... who populates these rooms. Even Newsom to a certain extent falls into this. It's the same reason why the state polling is out of whack with the national polling, and some firms are picking up on results contrary to the vast majority of the polling universe. The state polling is measuring these people.

Lord jesus. Yeah… moving on from this nonsense straw poll.

That and a dollar will buy you a bag of chips. There’s a reason we don’t do it this way anymore. Bye!

I can already hear someone saying Obama said the same thing in January 2006 and had changed his mind by October. But Barack Obama and Jon Ossoff are not in the same position in their cycles. Obama had already broken through nationally in a way Ossoff has not. By the time the 2008 race was taking shape, he was already a serious second tier contender behind Clinton. And Obama wasn’t trying to launch a presidential campaign while defending a Senate seat in a toss-up state. Ossoff’s reelection, Democrats’ fragile position in Georgia, his low national standing, and the first visible 2028 campaigning all collide in less than 10 weeks. He'll have a cycle, it's just highly unlikely that it'll be 28.

Like he's sitting at 1.5% - 2% in the national averages. Not to suggest that low national name ID is insurmountable, but in order to go into next year fully armed, the prime time to drive that name ID up is now. It's not the last runway out, but it's the last most effective one for someone in his position. But he's hyper focused on Georgia, as he should be. I've said it before, but his re-election, the question of whether Democrats take over Georgia, and the first public campaigning all more or less converge within a 10 week period. It just feels wishcasty from the consultant class.

Bet you money it'll be one of Trump's kids.

These guys just chucked her off the bridge. Meanwhile no one is noticing that the safety rope not attached to the human being thrown off the bridge? Everyone in that video, including the person filming, is going to jail.

As potent as I feel Ossoff would be as a VP candidate, and as much as I think it would work, the entire push for him to be on the national ticket does seem to be a little... I don't know, consultant-push coded? Like a bunch of suits in a think tank in DC are throwing shit at the wall, and hoping it'll stick. Similar to how the political press had almost everyone convinced that Harris was going to run for Governor of California last year. Ossoff is very young, but so is his family. And when you pile on all of the political reasons as to why it's impractical in this next cycle, I just, I'm willing to take him at his word.

Vice President Kamala Harris and actress Sherri Saum at the DGA African American Steering Committee’s annual celebration last night honoring @reghud. 📸: saumdays

Send her back to the grift factory for reset.

I'm not sure he has what you would call a national constituency right now. But one common thread we've found throughout these post Prop 50 surveys is that it's 65 and older white people. It sometimes ping pongs back between him and Harris through the month to month, but that's the only area he has some traction with. Trouble is that it's only ever been a simple plurality. Not out and out dominance. That's just simply not going to be enough if this dynamic doesn't change.

RT @virtueemoir29: NEW: @KamalaHarris with Drag Queen Jo Lopez-Halston at The Abbey today 🥹🏳️‍🌈 🎥: justjolopez

👀

I mean, it's RIGHT there. Here she is, same place, October 2019.