fivethirthyeight--2020-07-30--Trump Can’t Postpone The Election, But He Can Delegitimize The Results.

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight ’ s politics chat .
The transcript below has been lightly edited .
sarah ( Sarah Frostenson , politics editor ) : Earlier today , President Trump tweeted that the 2020 election should be delayed “ until people can properly , securely and safely vote.
” Postponing the election , of course , is not something the president can legally do .
But it ’ s also kind of besides the point .
Trump has already been fighting to delegitimize the results come November , claiming that voting by mail can lead to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s dive into that .
How would you describe Trump ’ s efforts to throw November ’ s results into question ?
He did something similar in 2016 when facing Hillary Clinton .
How is this different ?
clare.malone ( Clare Malone , senior political writer ) : Well , in many ways it ’ s exactly what Trump was doing in 2016 .
It ’ s just that he ’ s president now .
And thus , his words are even more damaging ( and they were already very damaging in 2016 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ elections analyst ) : There ’ s also a very important distinction here .
Before , Trump was just a candidate casting doubt on the election , but now he ’ s a sitting president doing that .
julia_azari ( Julia Azari , political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor ) : I ’ d characterize this as an exercise in control and influence over his party and the news cycle .
Everyone is forced to respond to what he says , even if they ’ re not responding positively .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ many aspects of the job , but he ’ s pretty effective at agenda control .
clare.malone : I would also say that calling for the delay of the actual vote feels VERY dictatorial in nature .
Like , we ’ ve perversely gotten used to the “ fake votes , ” “ fake news ” stuff .
But encouraging a change in the election date feels sort of explicitly over a line .
sarah : And to ask a somewhat obvious question — but one that has to be asked — this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ jeopardizing moment , right ?
To put it another way , has another sitting president ever done this ?
julia_azari : I ’ m always nervous about the “ never ” question with past presidents , but yeah , most presidents have not been willing to take on all the formal rules , the legal system and other branches of government while in office .
Congress — which has the power to change the date of an election — used to be stronger , too , and there was no Twitter .
My @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had a presidential election in 1864 , during the Civil War .
geoffrey.skelley : And in modern times , incumbents who have lost reelection have exited office without too much of a fuss .
Take George H.W .
Bush and Jimmy Carter , or if we go further back , Herbert Hoover .
Granted , incumbents don ’ t often lose .
So it ’ s important to note that each of those incumbents lost decisively , meaning there wasn ’ t much to stand on even if they had wanted to fight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not like Gerald Ford created a stir in 1976 when he lost narrowly .
julia_azari : Candidates have also conceded even when the election was a mess .
See Al Gore in 2000 , Samuel Tilden in 1876. sarah : But on this question of actually changing the election date .
How much power does Trump have to do that ?
clare.malone : He does not have the power to change the date of the election .
julia_azari : None .
It ’ s up to Congress , and elections are administered by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s my question , though : What happens if Trump refuses to leave the White House on Jan. 20 , and there are no official election results at that point ?
Like , in that dire scenario ( Trump not leaving , no clear winner ) does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi become president and someone has to haul him out of the building ?
geoffrey.skelley : If for some reason the Electoral College hasn ’ t acted or the electoral votes haven ’ t been certified by Congress , Trump ’ s term @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 20th Amendment .
So there ’ d be an acting president , who would be the Speaker of the House per the order set out by the Presidential Succession Act — assuming congressional elections occurred .
But of course , that ’ s how it ’ s written , not how it might go .
julia_azari : I keep imagining this scenario , and I have to say , I have a hard time imagining that Trump refuses to leave office .
I don ’ t want to be complacent , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump seems to be comfortable tweeting out bold ideas and not as great at standing firm under political pressure .
So as I see it , there would be a couple of components needed for this to actually happen .
There would be the political pressure — what are advisors , including Jared and Ivanka , telling him to do ?
This would help us understand if there are people who have influence over Trump who have some interest in seeing the system remain intact and legitimate .
The second thing would @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Secret Service force him out ?
Does the military gets involved ?
These are wild scenarios .
I would be surprised if these institutions don ’ t have plans for this somewhere , even if they are not publicly known .
geoffrey.skelley : Not to take things down an even darker road , but in this scenario , I think it ’ s important to consider how other institutions like the military act and how the president ’ s supporters behave in the face of attempts to delegitimize the election results .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s where many people ’ s minds go , too .
And as a country , I think we are deeply uncomfortable ( and rightly so ) with the military being involved with a power transition .
I mean , I personally find it incredibly chilling to consider .
geoffrey.skelley : I ’ ve seen Seven Days In May .
Great movie but , uh yeah , disturbing .
But it ’ s a sign of the times when you have Biden actually saying he thinks the military would escort Trump out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to leave .
sarah : Because that ’ s the thing , as you ’ re all saying , there are mechanisms via the 20th amendment to ensure Trump leaves office .
But there ’ s still a very real question of how some of this would actually be enforced if it came to this , right ?
julia_azari : Exactly .
The 20th amendment was ratified to shorten the period between the presidential election in November and the inauguration , which had been in March .
There was growing instability around the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1932 election , and that ’ s some of what it intended to deal with , but it wasn ’ t really designed with this problem in mind .
I ’ m trying to stake out the ground that acknowledges a lot of people won ’ t have much incentive to let Trump violate the rules in this way .
clare.malone : Julia , when you say that a lot of people won ’ t have incentive to let Trump act contrary to the rules , whom are you thinking of ?
julia_azari @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of people who might want to run for president later .
julia_azari : Or make money off the Trump brand .
This includes his kids , and yeah , other Republicans .
clare.malone : That is , people with sway over him .
Got it .
julia_azari : Military leaders , too , as we saw many of them push back after the D.C. protesters incident in June .
sarah : So let ’ s talk about the other big doomsday scenario here : The results aren ’ t considered legitimate .
What @ @ @ @ @ @ @ already taking root ?
julia_azari : That ’ s a good way to frame that , but I ’ m not sure there are signs that it ’ s taking root any more than it ’ s sorta been lurking in the conversation since 2016 — and even before .
geoffrey.skelley : In the face of COVID-19 , states are expanding absentee voting and , in some cases , vote-by-mail .
But the president is making the case that mailed ballots are illegitimate and highly vulnerable to fraud — this is not true @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aspersions , he ’ s setting up the potential for delegitimizing the results as they come in , on and after Election Day .
And the after part is probably what really matters , especially if the election is close .
clare.malone : Yeah , I was going to say , we ’ ve spent the past 4 to 5 years conditioning a certain segment of the population to distrust most everything in American life , unless it comes from the president ’ s mouth .
Someone shared this 2017 survey that found @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ok with delaying the 2020 election .
Granted , the question was framed around whether people would support delaying the election to make sure people weren ’ t voting illegally ( a big claim of Trump ’ s in 2016 ) .
But I still thought that was surprising .
It ’ s especially striking when you get to 2020 , and the questions revolve around the pandemic .
I was shocked to see , for instance , the share of Republicans and Democrats who were willing to delay the election because of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans supported delaying the election , according to that survey from April ) .
sarah : Yeah … it is mind boggling .
That finding is also at least somewhat corroborated in this paper FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman published with the Voter Study Group earlier this year .
In an examination of democracy in the U.S. , Drutman and his coauthors found that both Republicans and Democrats were open to their preferred presidential candidate “ rejecting the legitimacy of the election if they claim credible evidence of illegal voting or foreign interference.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Republicans said it would be appropriate for Trump “ to refuse to leave office because he claims that he has credible evidence of illegal voting.
” julia_azari : One quibble with that study , though , knowing I have the utmost respect for Lee and his coauthors , is that each scenario lays out a justification for delaying the election , which I think makes it harder to say no .
And I think people ’ s willingness to tolerate this in practice is conditional on their evaluation of that evidence , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person making the claims .
( E.g.
, Trump , who isn ’ t very popular . )
I was pretty shocked in general to see how amenable people were to changing this very foundational thing !
Even with the reasonings the survey questions provided them .
julia_azari : I was , too , but I think it ’ s not unreasonable for people to have limits on how much they trust elections if they think those elections were not administered fairly .
geoffrey.skelley : And if the election is close and a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any questions about administration could become explosive .
See : the 2000 election .
julia_azari : Right .
It ’ s actually amazing how explosive that wasn ’ t .
But things are different now — I wonder how this plays out if we flip it around .
But let ’ s say it happens again , and he wins narrowly once again ?
Who questions the results ?
And would that be the right thing to do ?
geoffrey.skelley : Yes , I wanted to bring this up !
Trump said there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an election he won — conveniently undoing Clinton ’ s popular vote margin .
And then he set up a task force to investigate fraud after he took office .
It found nothing .
julia_azari : But there will likely be this question of “ credible evidence , ” as they cite in that Voter Study group paper .
What if Trump wins , and people were standing in hours-long lines in Black neighborhoods in Ohio ?
In other words , I think there will be a question of how much skepticism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ much is chaos ?
clare.malone : I think there is just going to be skepticism about this election , full stop .
geoffrey.skelley : I would not discount opponents of Trump taking to the streets in that scenario .
A recent simulation by a group of experts about what could happen in these sorts of scenarios did not bring me much comfort .
They found that every scenario — Trump winning or losing but someone defying the result — ended in street-level violence and political gridlock .
sarah : Oof .
It ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the desire to delegitimize results isn ’ t purely a Republican thing , as that Voter Study paper found .
Democrats also showed signs of also being willing to reject the legitimacy of the election if it helps their preferred candidate .
clare.malone : Stacey Abrams ’ s non-concession concession speech in 2018 provided an interesting template for a potential Biden response ( in case of a loss to Trump ) .
Though I do think Biden is such a conventional politician and institutionalist that he wouldn ’ t respond in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not .
sarah : Yeah and Biden obviously isn ’ t waging a campaign of disinformation in the way that Trump is either .
But perhaps one unintended effect of all this is , to Clare ’ s point , that skepticism of the election ( depending on its margin ) is going to be rampant .
julia_azari : Although Biden seems like … truly angry at times about the Trump presidency .
It ’ s not obvious what the institutionalist move is in that scenario , IMO .
julia_azari : I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ skepticism is persistent and embedded in Trumpist ideology and among his followers , but not that widespread if the election is not close .
clare.malone : I mean , let ’ s go back to 2016 .
If Trump had lost , we were all preparing for the launch of Trump TV , a perch from which he would rail for the impeachment of President Clinton .
I can sort of see something similar happening if Trump loses ( unless , of course , he ’ s too tired to start the Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would love to have him .
julia_azari : Again , I don ’ t want to be complacent .
I spend way too much time on politics Twitter .
I spend all my time on politics Twitter .
But if Biden wins by a lot and Trump tweets a bunch , most Americans will just go on about their lives .
That ’ s sorta how 2000 played out , and that was obviously really close and subject to questions , too .
geoffrey.skelley : Thing is , I can ’ t imagine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the way Gore eventually did .
clare.malone : Of course , 2000 is the election that a lot of people point to as the start of mistrust in elections as institutions .
And like , the era of “ voter fraud ” alarmism really ramped up under George W. Bush .
julia_azari : But the angry minority has demonstrated that it can drive politics and policy to a great degree .
So I don ’ t want to be complacent , but I do want to be specific in my fears .
clare.malone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on with their lives , but there were corrosive effects .
julia_azari : If he loses , I sometimes imagine that people around Trump will say , “ People will say nice things about you if you do a good concession speech , ” and so he does .
But it ’ s not encouraging that that ’ s what it might come to .
clare.malone : Right , the integrity of democratic institutions might come down to a pep talk from “ Javanka ?
” sarah : So at the outset of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s tweet to postpone the election was different from what he ’ s already done to try and delegitimize November ’ s result .
And we ’ ve also pointed out that there have been prior points in American history where voters have mistrusted election results .
But I think given the abnormal aspects of Trump ’ s presidency , it ’ s easy to point to historical comparisons without really probing whether the moment we ’ re in doesn ’ t have a historical comparison , as historian Rick Perlstein did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he didn ’ t want to do more interviews on how this moment might compare to 1968. julia_azari : I think Perlstein is right , but I also think that we should be precise about how abnormal politics interacts with normal politics , because that has been the story of the Trump presidency IMO .
clare.malone : So , I mean , I take Rick ’ s point in this tweet ; there ’ s this instinct that we have to comfort ourselves with history ( i.e.
, American democracy has weathered much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we sometimes dwell a bit in history without facing the new challenges that Trump presents us .
We sort of have to respect the new paradigm that ’ s been created and understand that there are limits to what history can teach us in this particular case ; i.e.
, Twitter , plus Trump , plus 20 years of diminishing electoral trust .
geoffrey.skelley : It ’ s interesting that people would comfort themselves with history — I take little comfort from it .
We ’ ve been on the brink before with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ julia_azari : I think that ’ s absolutely true .
I don ’ t see history as a comfort but rather as a guide to how much luck and skill it takes to maneuver through this stuff .
I also think history is helpful because it shows what ’ s not normal .
( And what shouldn ’ t be , but is . )

Welcome to a special edition of FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.
sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Earlier today, President Trump tweeted that the 2020 election should be delayed “until people can properly, securely and safely vote.”
Postponing the election, of course, is not something the president can legally do. But it’s also kind of besides the point. Trump has already been fighting to delegitimize the results come November, claiming that voting by mail can lead to mass voter fraud.
So let’s dive into that. How would you describe Trump’s efforts to throw November’s results into question? He did something similar in 2016 when facing Hillary Clinton. How is this different?
clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, in many ways it’s exactly what Trump was doing in 2016. It’s just that he’s president now. And thus, his words are even more damaging (and they were already very damaging in 2016).
geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): There’s also a very important distinction here. Before, Trump was just a candidate casting doubt on the election, but now he’s a sitting president doing that.
julia_azari (Julia Azari, political science professor at Marquette University and FiveThirtyEight contributor): I’d characterize this as an exercise in control and influence over his party and the news cycle. Everyone is forced to respond to what he says, even if they’re not responding positively. Trump isn’t effective at that many aspects of the job, but he’s pretty effective at agenda control.
clare.malone: I would also say that calling for the delay of the actual vote feels VERY dictatorial in nature. Like, we’ve perversely gotten used to the “fake votes,” “fake news” stuff. But encouraging a change in the election date feels sort of explicitly over a line.
sarah: And to ask a somewhat obvious question — but one that has to be asked — this is another unprecedented, norm-defying and democratic-value jeopardizing moment, right? To put it another way, has another sitting president ever done this?
julia_azari: I’m always nervous about the “never” question with past presidents, but yeah, most presidents have not been willing to take on all the formal rules, the legal system and other branches of government while in office. Congress — which has the power to change the date of an election — used to be stronger, too, and there was no Twitter. My go-to example for this is we still had a presidential election in 1864, during the Civil War.
geoffrey.skelley: And in modern times, incumbents who have lost reelection have exited office without too much of a fuss. Take George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, or if we go further back, Herbert Hoover. Granted, incumbents don’t often lose. So it’s important to note that each of those incumbents lost decisively, meaning there wasn’t much to stand on even if they had wanted to fight the result. But it’s not like Gerald Ford created a stir in 1976 when he lost narrowly.
julia_azari: Candidates have also conceded even when the election was a mess. See Al Gore in 2000, Samuel Tilden in 1876.
sarah: But on this question of actually changing the election date. How much power does Trump have to do that?
clare.malone: He does not have the power to change the date of the election.
julia_azari: None. It’s up to Congress, and elections are administered by the states.
clare.malone: Here’s my question, though: What happens if Trump refuses to leave the White House on Jan. 20, and there are no official election results at that point?
Like, in that dire scenario (Trump not leaving, no clear winner) does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi become president and someone has to haul him out of the building?
geoffrey.skelley: If for some reason the Electoral College hasn’t acted or the electoral votes haven’t been certified by Congress, Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, according to the 20th Amendment. So there’d be an acting president, who would be the Speaker of the House per the order set out by the Presidential Succession Act — assuming congressional elections occurred.
But of course, that’s how it’s written, not how it might go.
sarah: Did someone mention 🥁the 20th amendment🥁?
julia_azari: I keep imagining this scenario, and I have to say, I have a hard time imagining that Trump refuses to leave office. I don’t want to be complacent, but like a lot of people on Twitter, Trump seems to be comfortable tweeting out bold ideas and not as great at standing firm under political pressure.
So as I see it, there would be a couple of components needed for this to actually happen. There would be the political pressure — what are advisors, including Jared and Ivanka, telling him to do? This would help us understand if there are people who have influence over Trump who have some interest in seeing the system remain intact and legitimate.
The second thing would be the actual formal power — does the Secret Service force him out? Does the military gets involved? These are wild scenarios.
I would be surprised if these institutions don’t have plans for this somewhere, even if they are not publicly known.
geoffrey.skelley: Not to take things down an even darker road, but in this scenario, I think it’s important to consider how other institutions like the military act and how the president’s supporters behave in the face of attempts to delegitimize the election results.
clare.malone: Totally. I think that’s where many people’s minds go, too. And as a country, I think we are deeply uncomfortable (and rightly so) with the military being involved with a power transition. I mean, I personally find it incredibly chilling to consider.
geoffrey.skelley: I’ve seen Seven Days In May. Great movie but, uh yeah, disturbing.
But it’s a sign of the times when you have Biden actually saying he thinks the military would escort Trump out of the White House if he refused to leave.
sarah: Because that’s the thing, as you’re all saying, there are mechanisms via the 20th amendment to ensure Trump leaves office. But there’s still a very real question of how some of this would actually be enforced if it came to this, right?
julia_azari: Exactly. The 20th amendment was ratified to shorten the period between the presidential election in November and the inauguration, which had been in March. There was growing instability around the time it was ratified, after the 1932 election, and that’s some of what it intended to deal with, but it wasn’t really designed with this problem in mind.
I’m trying to stake out the ground that acknowledges a lot of people won’t have much incentive to let Trump violate the rules in this way.
clare.malone: Julia, when you say that a lot of people won’t have incentive to let Trump act contrary to the rules, whom are you thinking of?
julia_azari: I guess I’m thinking of people who might want to run for president later.
clare.malone: Republicans?
julia_azari: Or make money off the Trump brand. This includes his kids, and yeah, other Republicans.
clare.malone: That is, people with sway over him. Got it.
julia_azari: Military leaders, too, as we saw many of them push back after the D.C. protesters incident in June.
sarah: So let’s talk about the other big doomsday scenario here: The results aren’t considered legitimate. What are the signs that that idea is already taking root?
julia_azari: That’s a good way to frame that, but I’m not sure there are signs that it’s taking root any more than it’s sorta been lurking in the conversation since 2016 — and even before.
geoffrey.skelley: In the face of COVID-19, states are expanding absentee voting and, in some cases, vote-by-mail. But the president is making the case that mailed ballots are illegitimate and highly vulnerable to fraud — this is not true, of course, but by casting aspersions, he’s setting up the potential for delegitimizing the results as they come in, on and after Election Day. And the after part is probably what really matters, especially if the election is close.
clare.malone: Yeah, I was going to say, we’ve spent the past 4 to 5 years conditioning a certain segment of the population to distrust most everything in American life, unless it comes from the president’s mouth.
Someone shared this 2017 survey that found that around half of Republicans would be ok with delaying the 2020 election. Granted, the question was framed around whether people would support delaying the election to make sure people weren’t voting illegally (a big claim of Trump’s in 2016). But I still thought that was surprising.
It’s especially striking when you get to 2020, and the questions revolve around the pandemic. I was shocked to see, for instance, the share of Republicans and Democrats who were willing to delay the election because of the pandemic (roughly 39 percent of Americans supported delaying the election, according to that survey from April).
sarah: Yeah … it is mind boggling. That finding is also at least somewhat corroborated in this paper FiveThirtyEight contributor Lee Drutman published with the Voter Study Group earlier this year. In an examination of democracy in the U.S., Drutman and his coauthors found that both Republicans and Democrats were open to their preferred presidential candidate “rejecting the legitimacy of the election if they claim credible evidence of illegal voting or foreign interference.” And in that vein, 29 percent of Republicans said it would be appropriate for Trump “to refuse to leave office because he claims that he has credible evidence of illegal voting.”
julia_azari: One quibble with that study, though, knowing I have the utmost respect for Lee and his coauthors, is that each scenario lays out a justification for delaying the election, which I think makes it harder to say no. And I think people’s willingness to tolerate this in practice is conditional on their evaluation of that evidence, the credibility of the claims and the person making the claims. (E.g., Trump, who isn’t very popular.)
clare.malone: Totally fair.
I was pretty shocked in general to see how amenable people were to changing this very foundational thing! Even with the reasonings the survey questions provided them.
julia_azari: I was, too, but I think it’s not unreasonable for people to have limits on how much they trust elections if they think those elections were not administered fairly.
geoffrey.skelley: And if the election is close and a state or two is in doubt, any questions about administration could become explosive. See: the 2000 election.
julia_azari: Right. It’s actually amazing how explosive that wasn’t. But things are different now — I wonder how this plays out if we flip it around.
Let’s say Trump wins.
(I mean, this sorta already happened in 2016. Trump won, yet he went right ahead and tried to delegitimize parts of an election he had won.)
But let’s say it happens again, and he wins narrowly once again? Who questions the results? And would that be the right thing to do?
geoffrey.skelley: Yes, I wanted to bring this up! Trump said there were at least 3 million illegal votes in an election he won — conveniently undoing Clinton’s popular vote margin. And then he set up a task force to investigate fraud after he took office. It found nothing.
julia_azari: But there will likely be this question of “credible evidence,” as they cite in that Voter Study group paper. What if Trump wins, and people were standing in hours-long lines in Black neighborhoods in Ohio?
In other words, I think there will be a question of how much skepticism about elections is reasonable, and how much is chaos?
clare.malone: I think there is just going to be skepticism about this election, full stop.
geoffrey.skelley: I would not discount opponents of Trump taking to the streets in that scenario. A recent simulation by a group of experts about what could happen in these sorts of scenarios did not bring me much comfort. They found that every scenario — Trump winning or losing but someone defying the result — ended in street-level violence and political gridlock.
sarah: Oof. It’s interesting to me, though, that the desire to delegitimize results isn’t purely a Republican thing, as that Voter Study paper found. Democrats also showed signs of also being willing to reject the legitimacy of the election if it helps their preferred candidate.
clare.malone: Stacey Abrams’s non-concession concession speech in 2018 provided an interesting template for a potential Biden response (in case of a loss to Trump).
Though I do think Biden is such a conventional politician and institutionalist that he wouldn’t respond in the same way Abrams did, justified or not.
sarah: Yeah and Biden obviously isn’t waging a campaign of disinformation in the way that Trump is either. But perhaps one unintended effect of all this is, to Clare’s point, that skepticism of the election (depending on its margin) is going to be rampant.
julia_azari: Although Biden seems like … truly angry at times about the Trump presidency. It’s not obvious what the institutionalist move is in that scenario, IMO.
clare.malone: A good point!
julia_azari: I think there’s a strong possibility that skepticism is persistent and embedded in Trumpist ideology and among his followers, but not that widespread if the election is not close.
clare.malone: I mean, let’s go back to 2016.
If Trump had lost, we were all preparing for the launch of Trump TV, a perch from which he would rail for the impeachment of President Clinton.
I can sort of see something similar happening if Trump loses (unless, of course, he’s too tired to start the Trump TV experiment!)
geoffrey.skelley: OANN would love to have him.
julia_azari: Again, I don’t want to be complacent. I spend way too much time on politics Twitter. I spend all my time on politics Twitter.
But if Biden wins by a lot and Trump tweets a bunch, most Americans will just go on about their lives. That’s sorta how 2000 played out, and that was obviously really close and subject to questions, too.
geoffrey.skelley: Thing is, I can’t imagine Trump conceding in a 2000-esque situation in the way Gore eventually did.
clare.malone: Of course, 2000 is the election that a lot of people point to as the start of mistrust in elections as institutions. And like, the era of “voter fraud” alarmism really ramped up under George W. Bush.
julia_azari: But the angry minority has demonstrated that it can drive politics and policy to a great degree. So I don’t want to be complacent, but I do want to be specific in my fears.
clare.malone: So you could say people went on with their lives, but there were corrosive effects.
julia_azari: If he loses, I sometimes imagine that people around Trump will say, “People will say nice things about you if you do a good concession speech,” and so he does. But it’s not encouraging that that’s what it might come to.
clare.malone: Right, the integrity of democratic institutions might come down to a pep talk from “Javanka?”
sarah: So at the outset of this chat, I asked how Trump’s tweet to postpone the election was different from what he’s already done to try and delegitimize November’s result. And we’ve also pointed out that there have been prior points in American history where voters have mistrusted election results.
But I think given the abnormal aspects of Trump’s presidency, it’s easy to point to historical comparisons without really probing whether the moment we’re in doesn’t have a historical comparison, as historian Rick Perlstein did in his tweet, telling the media he didn’t want to do more interviews on how this moment might compare to 1968.
julia_azari: I think Perlstein is right, but I also think that we should be precise about how abnormal politics interacts with normal politics, because that has been the story of the Trump presidency IMO.
clare.malone: So, I mean, I take Rick’s point in this tweet; there’s this instinct that we have to comfort ourselves with history (i.e., American democracy has weathered much worse) but I do think that we sometimes dwell a bit in history without facing the new challenges that Trump presents us.
We sort of have to respect the new paradigm that’s been created and understand that there are limits to what history can teach us in this particular case; i.e., Twitter, plus Trump, plus 20 years of diminishing electoral trust.
geoffrey.skelley: It’s interesting that people would comfort themselves with history — I take little comfort from it. We’ve been on the brink before with the 1876 election, for instance.
julia_azari: I think that’s absolutely true. I don’t see history as a comfort but rather as a guide to how much luck and skill it takes to maneuver through this stuff.
I also think history is helpful because it shows what’s not normal. (And what shouldn’t be, but is.)


fivethirthyeight--2020-07-30--Gun Sales Are Surging, But Background Checks Aren’t Keeping Up

Gun sales were so slow earlier this year that in February , The New York Times ran a piece on how some gun manufacturers were looking to rebrand to make up for the “ Trump slump.
” But then the pandemic hit .
And on Friday , March 13 , when President Trump declared a national emergency , the number of background checks went through the roof , according to the FBI system that vets gun buyers .
In March , the FBI received almost 1.5 million requests for background checks , according to data the bureau released to FiveThirtyEight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On Friday , March 20 alone , 104,084 background check requests were sent to the bureau ; according to a slightly different measure that includes checks run by state systems , that day saw the highest daily number of background checks on record .
In fact , by that broader measure , five of the gun background check system ’ s 10 busiest days were in March 2020 .
While March is usually a busy month for background checks , it was off the charts this year .
But the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up .
As you can see in the chart below , as the number of background checks sent to the FBI rose , so did the percentage that were delayed more than three business days — a critical deadline after which federal law allows dealers to legally sell a gun without a completed background check .
This is significant because it means that it may have been easier for guns to get into the hands of people who can not legally own them .
The danger here isn ’ t theoretical .
Dylann @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he used to kill nine black churchgoers in Charleston , South Carolina , in 2015 because of this loophole .
Roof had a record for drug possession that meant he couldn ’ t legally own a gun , but after the three-day period passed , the gun dealer sold him a gun anyway .
To be sure , these numbers aren ’ t a perfect portrait of gun sales : They don ’ t include data from 20 states that process some or all of their background checks themselves rather than through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represents a gun sale — many checks are run when people apply for gun permits , when states check on the status of gun permit holders , or for other purposes .
A single background check can also represent multiple gun sales .
[ Related : Where The Latest COVID-19 Models Think We ’ re Headed — And Why They Disagree ] We also don ’ t know how many background checks from March the FBI never completed .
When a background check drags on for 88 days , the bureau stops researching @ @ @ @ @ @ @ check request from its systems to comply with federal regulations .
The bureau hasn ’ t yet released data on purged requests made in March .
We do know that the bureau never completes the overwhelming majority of background checks that take longer than three business days .
For instance , 79 percent of such checks were never completed in 2019 .
This year , it purged over 80 percent of such checks from January and 78 percent from February .
Still , Jurgen Brauer , chief economist at Small Arms Analytics and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the spike in background checks in March represented a real surge in retail gun sales .
For instance , Brauer ’ s consulting firm analysed FBI data and found that retail gun sales drove the surge in March , along with a second surge in June that was likely tied to Black Lives Matter protests .
In total , the firm estimated that gun sales rose year-over-year by 85 percent in March and 145 percent in June .
And a team of researchers at the University of California , Davis ’ s Violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gun background checks to gun violence data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive , finding a nearly 8 percent increase in gun violence over expected levels from March through May 2020 .
This study hasn ’ t yet been peer reviewed , but if it ’ s accurate , that ’ s 776 additional fatal and nonfatal injuries , not including suicides and accidents .
[ Related : How Americans View The Coronavirus Crisis And Trump ’ s Response ] This surge in gun sales during the pandemic has meant that an already @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , causing massive delays , according to Brauer .
He compared background checks to a drainage system that backs up during a big storm .
“ There ’ s a massive flow of rainwater , and the systems can ’ t handle it , ” he said .
The FBI , however , disputed that characterization in a statement to FiveThirtyEight .
Holly Morris , a spokesperson for the bureau , said the agency hasn ’ t found a relationship between the rise in the share of delayed background checks and the increased @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the percentage of delayed transactions and any extended processing times can be attributed to a number of variables , ” Morris wrote via email , adding that staffing levels for the background check system have remained the same throughout the pandemic .
There are signs that the influx in gun sales might not be slowing anytime soon .
The initial spikes in gun sales in March lined up closely with events related to the pandemic , including Feb. 26 , when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first confirmed that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not just being brought back by travelers , and Trump ’ s national emergency declaration on March 13 .
But as the pandemic has worn on , the reasoning driving the spike in gun sales has changed , too .
By the time gun sales soared even higher in June , research suggests it was no longer the coronavirus on buyers ’ minds but the protests over the police killing of George Floyd .
Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight of Wellesley College compared the FBI ’ s state-by-state background check data with data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ see if states with more searches for the racist slur saw a larger increase in gun sales .
They found what Levine described as a “ modest correlation ” in June , suggesting that at least some of those sales were driven by concerns over Black Lives Matter protests .
“ As the pandemic settled down , gun sales settled down too , until it got to June , ” Levine said in an interview .
“ In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing , there was another very dramatic spike.
” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gun sales in the U.S. will continue to progress , as we don ’ t yet have data for July .
The data released to FiveThirtyEight did not include June , but less-detailed data the FBI published online shows that last month the agency ran more background checks than any other month on record .
And , of course , sales rose in 2016 in part over fears that Hillary Clinton would take the White House and impose new gun regulations , so with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden ahead in the polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not be far behind .
Not to mention that another surge in coronavirus cases could again drive a spike in sales like the one we saw in March .
Whatever happens , more gun sales will likely mean more delays — potentially putting guns into the hands of people who can ’ t legally own one .
Nate Silver doesn ’ t buy that Trump ’ s fate is sealed , ‘ a lot could change in 100 days ’

Gun sales were so slow earlier this year that in February, The New York Times ran a piece on how some gun manufacturers were looking to rebrand to make up for the “Trump slump.”
But then the pandemic hit. And on Friday, March 13, when President Trump declared a national emergency, the number of background checks went through the roof, according to the FBI system that vets gun buyers.
In March, the FBI received almost 1.5 million requests for background checks, according to data the bureau released to FiveThirtyEight in response to a public records request. On Friday, March 20 alone, 104,084 background check requests were sent to the bureau; according to a slightly different measure that includes checks run by state systems, that day saw the highest daily number of background checks on record. In fact, by that broader measure, five of the gun background check system’s 10 busiest days were in March 2020. While March is usually a busy month for background checks, it was off the charts this year.
But the number of background checks didn’t just go up. As you can see in the chart below, as the number of background checks sent to the FBI rose, so did the percentage that were delayed more than three business days — a critical deadline after which federal law allows dealers to legally sell a gun without a completed background check.
This is significant because it means that it may have been easier for guns to get into the hands of people who cannot legally own them.
The danger here isn’t theoretical. Dylann Roof was able to buy the gun he used to kill nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 because of this loophole. Roof had a record for drug possession that meant he couldn’t legally own a gun, but after the three-day period passed, the gun dealer sold him a gun anyway.
To be sure, these numbers aren’t a perfect portrait of gun sales: They don’t include data from 20 states that process some or all of their background checks themselves rather than through the FBI. And not every background check represents a gun sale — many checks are run when people apply for gun permits, when states check on the status of gun permit holders, or for other purposes. A single background check can also represent multiple gun sales.
[Related: Where The Latest COVID-19 Models Think We’re Headed — And Why They Disagree]
We also don’t know how many background checks from March the FBI never completed. When a background check drags on for 88 days, the bureau stops researching the potential buyer and purges the background check request from its systems to comply with federal regulations. The bureau hasn’t yet released data on purged requests made in March.
We do know that the bureau never completes the overwhelming majority of background checks that take longer than three business days. For instance, 79 percent of such checks were never completed in 2019. This year, it purged over 80 percent of such checks from January and 78 percent from February.
Still, Jurgen Brauer, chief economist at Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting, and other experts agree that the spike in background checks in March represented a real surge in retail gun sales. For instance, Brauer’s consulting firm analysed FBI data and found that retail gun sales drove the surge in March, along with a second surge in June that was likely tied to Black Lives Matter protests. In total, the firm estimated that gun sales rose year-over-year by 85 percent in March and 145 percent in June.
And a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis’s Violence Prevention Research Program compared FBI data on gun background checks to gun violence data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, finding a nearly 8 percent increase in gun violence over expected levels from March through May 2020. This study hasn’t yet been peer reviewed, but if it’s accurate, that’s 776 additional fatal and nonfatal injuries, not including suicides and accidents.
[Related: How Americans View The Coronavirus Crisis And Trump’s Response]
This surge in gun sales during the pandemic has meant that an already brittle background check system is getting overloaded, causing massive delays, according to Brauer. He compared background checks to a drainage system that backs up during a big storm. “There’s a massive flow of rainwater, and the systems can’t handle it,” he said.
The FBI, however, disputed that characterization in a statement to FiveThirtyEight.
Holly Morris, a spokesperson for the bureau, said the agency hasn’t found a relationship between the rise in the share of delayed background checks and the increased volume of requests. “The influx in the percentage of delayed transactions and any extended processing times can be attributed to a number of variables,” Morris wrote via email, adding that staffing levels for the background check system have remained the same throughout the pandemic.
There are signs that the influx in gun sales might not be slowing anytime soon. The initial spikes in gun sales in March lined up closely with events related to the pandemic, including Feb. 26, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first confirmed that the virus was spreading within the U.S. and not just being brought back by travelers, and Trump’s national emergency declaration on March 13. But as the pandemic has worn on, the reasoning driving the spike in gun sales has changed, too. By the time gun sales soared even higher in June, research suggests it was no longer the coronavirus on buyers’ minds but the protests over the police killing of George Floyd.
[Related: The Latest Political Polls Collected By FiveThirtyEight]
Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight of Wellesley College compared the FBI’s state-by-state background check data with data on Google searches for the N-word to see if states with more searches for the racist slur saw a larger increase in gun sales. They found what Levine described as a “modest correlation” in June, suggesting that at least some of those sales were driven by concerns over Black Lives Matter protests.
“As the pandemic settled down, gun sales settled down too, until it got to June,” Levine said in an interview. “In the aftermath of the George Floyd killing, there was another very dramatic spike.”
It’s hard to know how gun sales in the U.S. will continue to progress, as we don’t yet have data for July. The data released to FiveThirtyEight did not include June, but less-detailed data the FBI published online shows that last month the agency ran more background checks than any other month on record. And, of course, sales rose in 2016 in part over fears that Hillary Clinton would take the White House and impose new gun regulations, so with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden ahead in the polls, another surge in gun sales may not be far behind. Not to mention that another surge in coronavirus cases could again drive a spike in sales like the one we saw in March.
Whatever happens, more gun sales will likely mean more delays — potentially putting guns into the hands of people who can’t legally own one.
Nate Silver doesn’t buy that Trump’s fate is sealed, ‘a lot could change in 100 days’


fivethirthyeight--2020-07-30--Confidence Interval: Will Biden Choose Kamala Harris As His VP?

Welcome to another episode of Confidence Interval , where we make a persuasive case for a hot take … and @ @ @ @ @ really feel about the idea .
This time , elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich argues that @ @ @ @ @ Kamala Harris as his running mate .

Welcome to another episode of Confidence Interval, where we make a persuasive case for a hot take … and then reveal how confident we really feel about the idea. This time, elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich argues that Joe Biden will pick Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate.


fivethirthyeight--2020-07-30--The Players To Watch On The NBA Teams Just Trying To Hang Around

Twelve NBA teams have already clinched their place in this year ’ s playoff field , but 10 others made the trip to the league ’ s Orlando bubble with the hopes of playing their way into the four remaining unfilled spots .
Some of those bids have a better chance than others ; for instance , our prediction model thinks the Dallas Mavericks and Orlando Magic have effectively zero chance of missing the playoffs , no matter how the restart goes .
For the other eight teams , though , there are at least some stakes in the prelude @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ re mostly along for the ride .
With that in mind , let ’ s highlight the players on those eight clubs — the Brooklyn Nets , Memphis Grizzlies , New Orleans Pelicans , Phoenix Suns , Portland Trail Blazers , Sacramento Kings , San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards — who rate highest this season according to our RAPTOR player ratings and who might have the biggest impact on the pre-playoff bubble action .
[ Related : Who ’ s Who In The NBA Bubble : The Teams Just Along For @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Dame Time ?
RAPTOR thinks Lillard is the best player among all the playoff hopefuls , after yet another outstanding season that saw him rank sixth among all NBA players in RAPTOR wins above replacement ( WAR ) .
Despite maintaining a usage rate north of 30 percent , Lillard also set a new career high in true shooting percentage — 61.9 percent — thanks in large part to his glossy conversion rates from 2-point ( 51.8 percent ) and 3-point ( 39.4 percent ) range .
Add in a career-best assist rate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an incredible offensive machine , even if RAPTOR considers his defense ( -2.0 points/100 ) subpar .
Lillard has been hobbled in practice with a foot injury , but reports are that he should be ready when the real games tip off — essential news for an offensive-minded Portland team trying to gun its way into the postseason .
Other Blazers to watch : C Hassan Whiteside ( +3.2 RAPTOR ) ; SG CJ McCollum ( +1.4 ) What , were you expecting Zion Williamson here ?
It ’ s true that Zion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ since his debut on Jan. 22 , posting a RAPTOR of +2.4 points/100 in 19 games .
But the rookie might not hit the ground running in the restart ; he hasn ’ t been practicing with his team over the past few weeks because of a family emergency ( though he has now cleared quarantine in the bubble ) .
And besides , Holiday has been better according to RAPTOR anyway , with a +4.8 rating per 100 .
That might be surprising , but Holiday has rated better than +4.0 per @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seasons , making him one of the more underappreciated two-way players in the league .
Only four players this season — Giannis Antetokounmpo , Anthony Davis , Kawhi Leonard and Holiday — have a RAPTOR offensive and defensive rating of at least +2.0 points/100 .
And that might actually understate the breadth of Holiday ’ s contributions , between his mix of efficient shooting from the field , low-turnover playmaking and disruptive perimeter defense .
Without question , the Pels need Williamson at his best to crash the playoff party , but they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ quiet brand of all-around excellence in order to have a chance .
Other Pelicans to watch : C Derrick Favors ( +3.4 RAPTOR ) ; PF Zion Williamson ( +2.4 ) ; F Brandon Ingram ( +1.1 ) [ Related : Which NBA Contracts Were Gems This Season , And Which Were Stinkers ? ]
Mills doesn ’ t even start for San Antonio — in 63 games , his lone appearance in the opening lineup came in late November .
But he has still managed to make his presence felt this season @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( 4.6 ) despite coming off the bench .
Mills has long been an unsung player for the Spurs , dating back to their dynasty days .
But at age 31 , the creaky veteran still scores plenty ( 18.5 points/36 minutes ) , knocking down nearly 150 3-pointers this year ( at a 38 percent clip ) while almost never giving the ball away ( 7.6 percent turnover rate ) .
The Spurs have little chance to make the playoffs , sitting four games out of the West ’ s No .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ them and highly paid big man LaMarcus Aldridge out for the year .
But they are a markedly better team with Mills on the court , evidence of his value even in a down year for coach Gregg Popovich ’ s crew .
Other Spurs to watch : C Jakob Poeltl ( +3.3 RAPTOR ) ; SG Derrick White ( +2.6 ) ; SF DeMar DeRozan ( +0.1 ) Guard Ja Morant has had a fine debut season ( 1.8 WAR ) and is overwhelmingly likely to win Rookie of the Year honors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in last year ’ s draft was not RAPTOR ’ s pick as the best Grizzly of 2019-20 .
That distinction goes to Valančiūnas , who ’ s enjoying an outstanding year in his second season with Memphis , posting a career-high +2.7 RAPTOR ( including a +2.2 mark on defense ) .
Valančiūnas has been at his hyper-efficient best all season , ranking 12th in the league in effective field-goal percentage while averaging 14.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per game and playing tough D. According to Basketball-Reference.com , Memphis ’ s defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court , 3.0 points/100 fewer than when he sat — a big part of why Memphis is even here .
( Its defense is exactly average , while its offense has been 1 point/100 worse than the league norm . )
Valančiūnas has looked good in warmup games , so watch for more efficient play from him if the Grizz are going to hang onto the eighth seed in the West .
Other Grizzlies to watch : PG De ’ Anthony Melton ( +2.5 RAPTOR ) ; C Gorgui Dieng ( +2.3 ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; PG Ja Morant ( -0.8 ) [ Related : Who ’ s Who In The NBA Bubble : The Inner-Circle Contenders ] The Nets have been absolutely devastated by injuries , opt-outs and COVID-19 diagnoses , costing them Kyrie Irving , Spencer Dinwiddie , DeAndre Jordan , Taurean Prince and Wilson Chandler , among others .
However , Brooklyn does have a couple of solid RAPTOR-rated starters left over in Allen ( +1.9 ) and guard Caris LeVert ( +1.3 ) , plus a six-game buffer to work with over the No @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in danger of missing the playoffs .
The 22-year-old Allen has been one of the most improved players in the NBA this season , following up a dreadful -4.3 RAPTOR in the 2018-19 regular season to post a rating 6.2 points/100 better this year .
The improvement came mostly on defense , where Allen went from -2.8 to +2.5 points/100 , with much better numbers in our player-tracking measures like shot defense and opposing matchup performance .
Allen ’ s offense is still negative ( -0.6 points/100 ) , but he did improve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , offensive rebound rate and fouls drawn per 100 shots this season .
In tandem with LeVert ’ s scoring and passing skills and forward Joe Harris ’ s shooting , Allen leaves the Nets with at least some productive options in the bubble going forward .
The Suns have a good ensemble cast of starters , so a few of them could make a case as Phoenix ’ s player to watch .
But the team ’ s best RAPTOR rating ( +1.8 ) belongs to Rubio , whose arrival via free @ @ @ @ @ @ @ enough to even be in this position .
With Rubio on the court , the Suns score 6.7 more points/100 than when he sits , and they allow 3.3 fewer points/100 — meaning Phoenix ’ s overall performance is about 10 points/100 better when Rubio is in the game .
Why ?
Rubio has great chemistry with running mates Devin Booker and Kelly Oubre Jr. — two strong scorers — because he is such a good facilitator , leading the team in assist rate ( 39.9 percent ) , and his ability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ option on offense .
Defensively , Rubio ’ s RAPTOR has slipped some this year ( from +1.2 last regular season to +0.1 points/100 ) , but he still ranks among the league leaders in steal rate ( 2.3 percent ) , long one of the “ hidden ” ways Rubio ’ s value exceeds his reputation .
Other Suns to watch : SF Mikal Bridges ( +1.7 RAPTOR ) ; SG Devin Booker ( +1.0 ) ; C Deandre Ayton ( +0.8 ) ; SF Kelly Oubre Jr. — if healthy ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s Who In The NBA Bubble : The Potential Party-Crashers ] Holmes isn ’ t exactly a household name , but in the restart , he ’ ll lead a crop of six Kings who have played at least 1,000 minutes with a positive RAPTOR this season .
Holmes had spent the previous four years of his NBA career carving out a niche as a shot-blocking big man with good finishing ability around the rim , but this year he ’ s upgraded his rating from -1.3 to +1.5 points/100 — a huge @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a career-best true shooting percentage ( fifth-best in the league ) and slightly expanded shooting range , plus improved defensive numbers in terms of both RAPTOR ’ s on-versus-off court and player-tracking categories .
Before the season was put on hold , Holmes had just returned from an injury that sidelined him from early January into March ; now he should be one of the best-kept secrets of the playoff chase , even if his Kings are up against long odds to snag the No .
8 seed and extend their season .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ RAPTOR ) sitting with a shoulder injury and efficient forward Dāvis Bertāns ( +2.4 ) opting out of the bubble , the Wizards are running low on decently rated players for the restart .
According to RAPTOR , their only above-average guys left are center Moritz Wagner ( +0.6 ) , who has logged just 707 minutes this season , and Bonga ( +1.2 ) , who may prove to be Washington ’ s under-the-radar MVP if it manages to overcome the Nets or Magic to make the playoffs .
Bonga doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s averaging just 4.6 points per game this season .
But he is efficient with what chances he gets — producing 121.4 points per 100 possessions he personally ends — and he ’ s been stellar when he gets corner threes , on which he ’ s gone 11-for-23 this season .
On defense , Bonga creates havoc with both steals and blocks , and the Wizards play more like a competent NBA defense with him on the court , a huge bonus for the league ’ s worst defensive team .
Other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( +0.6 RAPTOR ) ; PG Shabazz Napier ( -0.1 ) ; C Ian Mahinmi ( -0.1 )

Twelve NBA teams have already clinched their place in this year’s playoff field, but 10 others made the trip to the league’s Orlando bubble with the hopes of playing their way into the four remaining unfilled spots. Some of those bids have a better chance than others; for instance, our prediction model thinks the Dallas Mavericks and Orlando Magic have effectively zero chance of missing the playoffs, no matter how the restart goes. For the other eight teams, though, there are at least some stakes in the prelude to the postseason, even if they’re mostly along for the ride.
[Related: Our NBA Predictions]
With that in mind, let’s highlight the players on those eight clubs — the Brooklyn Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs and Washington Wizards — who rate highest this season according to our RAPTOR player ratings and who might have the biggest impact on the pre-playoff bubble action.
[Related: Who’s Who In The NBA Bubble: The Teams Just Along For The Ride]
Damian Lillard
PG, Portland Trail Blazers
RAPTOR plus/minus: +5.9 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 12 percent
Will the restart be Dame Time? RAPTOR thinks Lillard is the best player among all the playoff hopefuls, after yet another outstanding season that saw him rank sixth among all NBA players in RAPTOR wins above replacement (WAR). Despite maintaining a usage rate north of 30 percent, Lillard also set a new career high in true shooting percentage — 61.9 percent — thanks in large part to his glossy conversion rates from 2-point (51.8 percent) and 3-point (39.4 percent) range. Add in a career-best assist rate of 34.1 percent, and Dame is an incredible offensive machine, even if RAPTOR considers his defense (-2.0 points/100) subpar. Lillard has been hobbled in practice with a foot injury, but reports are that he should be ready when the real games tip off — essential news for an offensive-minded Portland team trying to gun its way into the postseason.
Other Blazers to watch: C Hassan Whiteside (+3.2 RAPTOR); SG CJ McCollum (+1.4)
Jrue Holiday
SG, New Orleans Pelicans
RAPTOR plus/minus: +4.8 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 45 percent
What, were you expecting Zion Williamson here? It’s true that Zion has been a revelation for the Pelicans since his debut on Jan. 22, posting a RAPTOR of +2.4 points/100 in 19 games. But the rookie might not hit the ground running in the restart; he hasn’t been practicing with his team over the past few weeks because of a family emergency (though he has now cleared quarantine in the bubble). And besides, Holiday has been better according to RAPTOR anyway, with a +4.8 rating per 100. That might be surprising, but Holiday has rated better than +4.0 per 100 in each of the past three seasons, making him one of the more underappreciated two-way players in the league. Only four players this season — Giannis Antetokounmpo, Anthony Davis, Kawhi Leonard and Holiday — have a RAPTOR offensive and defensive rating of at least +2.0 points/100. And that might actually understate the breadth of Holiday’s contributions, between his mix of efficient shooting from the field, low-turnover playmaking and disruptive perimeter defense. Without question, the Pels need Williamson at his best to crash the playoff party, but they also need Holiday to keep up his quiet brand of all-around excellence in order to have a chance.
Other Pelicans to watch: C Derrick Favors (+3.4 RAPTOR); PF Zion Williamson (+2.4); F Brandon Ingram (+1.1)
[Related: Which NBA Contracts Were Gems This Season, And Which Were Stinkers?]
Patty Mills
PG, San Antonio Spurs
RAPTOR plus/minus: +3.5 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: <1 percent
Mills doesn’t even start for San Antonio — in 63 games, his lone appearance in the opening lineup came in late November. But he has still managed to make his presence felt this season, leading San Antonio in RAPTOR WAR (4.6) despite coming off the bench. Mills has long been an unsung player for the Spurs, dating back to their dynasty days. But at age 31, the creaky veteran still scores plenty (18.5 points/36 minutes), knocking down nearly 150 3-pointers this year (at a 38 percent clip) while almost never giving the ball away (7.6 percent turnover rate). The Spurs have little chance to make the playoffs, sitting four games out of the West’s No. 8 seed with four teams ahead of them and highly paid big man LaMarcus Aldridge out for the year. But they are a markedly better team with Mills on the court, evidence of his value even in a down year for coach Gregg Popovich’s crew.
Other Spurs to watch: C Jakob Poeltl (+3.3 RAPTOR); SG Derrick White (+2.6); SF DeMar DeRozan (+0.1)
Jonas Valančiūnas
C, Memphis Grizzlies
RAPTOR plus/minus: +2.7 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 34 percent
Guard Ja Morant has had a fine debut season (1.8 WAR) and is overwhelmingly likely to win Rookie of the Year honors, but the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft was not RAPTOR’s pick as the best Grizzly of 2019-20. That distinction goes to Valančiūnas, who’s enjoying an outstanding year in his second season with Memphis, posting a career-high +2.7 RAPTOR (including a +2.2 mark on defense). Valančiūnas has been at his hyper-efficient best all season, ranking 12th in the league in effective field-goal percentage while averaging 14.9 points and 11.2 rebounds per game and playing tough D. According to Basketball-Reference.com, Memphis’s defense allowed 109.2 points/100 with Valančiūnas on the court, 3.0 points/100 fewer than when he sat — a big part of why Memphis is even here. (Its defense is exactly average, while its offense has been 1 point/100 worse than the league norm.) Valančiūnas has looked good in warmup games, so watch for more efficient play from him if the Grizz are going to hang onto the eighth seed in the West.
Other Grizzlies to watch: PG De’Anthony Melton (+2.5 RAPTOR); C Gorgui Dieng (+2.3); PF Brandon Clarke (+1.2); PG Ja Morant (-0.8)
[Related: Who’s Who In The NBA Bubble: The Inner-Circle Contenders]
Jarrett Allen
C, Brooklyn Nets
RAPTOR plus/minus: +1.9 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 95 percent
The Nets have been absolutely devastated by injuries, opt-outs and COVID-19 diagnoses, costing them Kyrie Irving, Spencer Dinwiddie, DeAndre Jordan, Taurean Prince and Wilson Chandler, among others. However, Brooklyn does have a couple of solid RAPTOR-rated starters left over in Allen (+1.9) and guard Caris LeVert (+1.3), plus a six-game buffer to work with over the No. 9 Washington Wizards to avoid being in danger of missing the playoffs. The 22-year-old Allen has been one of the most improved players in the NBA this season, following up a dreadful -4.3 RAPTOR in the 2018-19 regular season to post a rating 6.2 points/100 better this year. The improvement came mostly on defense, where Allen went from -2.8 to +2.5 points/100, with much better numbers in our player-tracking measures like shot defense and opposing matchup performance. Allen’s offense is still negative (-0.6 points/100), but he did improve his true shooting percentage, turnover rate, offensive rebound rate and fouls drawn per 100 shots this season. In tandem with LeVert’s scoring and passing skills and forward Joe Harris’s shooting, Allen leaves the Nets with at least some productive options in the bubble going forward.
Other Nets to watch: SG Caris LeVert (+1.3 RAPTOR); SF Joe Harris (-0.5)
Ricky Rubio
PG, Phoenix Suns
RAPTOR plus/minus: +1.8 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: <1 percent
The Suns have a good ensemble cast of starters, so a few of them could make a case as Phoenix’s player to watch. But the team’s best RAPTOR rating (+1.8) belongs to Rubio, whose arrival via free agency last summer helped the Suns improve enough to even be in this position. With Rubio on the court, the Suns score 6.7 more points/100 than when he sits, and they allow 3.3 fewer points/100 — meaning Phoenix’s overall performance is about 10 points/100 better when Rubio is in the game. Why? Rubio has great chemistry with running mates Devin Booker and Kelly Oubre Jr. — two strong scorers — because he is such a good facilitator, leading the team in assist rate (39.9 percent), and his ability to draw fouls makes him an efficient fallback option on offense. Defensively, Rubio’s RAPTOR has slipped some this year (from +1.2 last regular season to +0.1 points/100), but he still ranks among the league leaders in steal rate (2.3 percent), long one of the “hidden” ways Rubio’s value exceeds his reputation.
Other Suns to watch: SF Mikal Bridges (+1.7 RAPTOR); SG Devin Booker (+1.0); C Deandre Ayton (+0.8); SF Kelly Oubre Jr. — if healthy (+0.6)
[Related: Who’s Who In The NBA Bubble: The Potential Party-Crashers]
Richaun Holmes
C, Sacramento Kings
RAPTOR plus/minus: +1.5 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 9 percent
Holmes isn’t exactly a household name, but in the restart, he’ll lead a crop of six Kings who have played at least 1,000 minutes with a positive RAPTOR this season. Holmes had spent the previous four years of his NBA career carving out a niche as a shot-blocking big man with good finishing ability around the rim, but this year he’s upgraded his rating from -1.3 to +1.5 points/100 — a huge improvement. Fueling the change has been a career-best true shooting percentage (fifth-best in the league) and slightly expanded shooting range, plus improved defensive numbers in terms of both RAPTOR’s on-versus-off court and player-tracking categories. Before the season was put on hold, Holmes had just returned from an injury that sidelined him from early January into March; now he should be one of the best-kept secrets of the playoff chase, even if his Kings are up against long odds to snag the No. 8 seed and extend their season.
Other Kings to watch: PF Nemanja Bjelica (+0.8 RAPTOR); PG De’Aaron Fox (+0.6); SG Bogdan Bogdanovic (+0.3); SG Buddy Hield (+0.2)
Isaac Bonga
SF, Washington Wizards
RAPTOR plus/minus: +1.2 points/100 possessions
Team playoff odds: 5 percent
With high-scoring guard Bradley Beal (+1.5 RAPTOR) sitting with a shoulder injury and efficient forward Dāvis Bertāns (+2.4) opting out of the bubble, the Wizards are running low on decently rated players for the restart. According to RAPTOR, their only above-average guys left are center Moritz Wagner (+0.6), who has logged just 707 minutes this season, and Bonga (+1.2), who may prove to be Washington’s under-the-radar MVP if it manages to overcome the Nets or Magic to make the playoffs. Bonga doesn’t produce big numbers; he’s averaging just 4.6 points per game this season. But he is efficient with what chances he gets — producing 121.4 points per 100 possessions he personally ends — and he’s been stellar when he gets corner threes, on which he’s gone 11-for-23 this season. On defense, Bonga creates havoc with both steals and blocks, and the Wizards play more like a competent NBA defense with him on the court, a huge bonus for the league’s worst defensive team.
Other Wizards to watch: C Moritz Wagner (+0.6 RAPTOR); PG Shabazz Napier (-0.1); C Ian Mahinmi (-0.1)
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fivethirthyeight--2020-07-30--What Trump Could Learn From NASCAR

What Trump Could Learn From NASCAR

NASCAR is niche .
A recent Morning Consult survey of the sport ’ s fans found that they ’ re much more male , white and Southern than other sports fans are .
It ’ s a subculture status that some fans have relished but which NASCAR itself seems eager to shake — in the last two years , its TV ratings bottomed out after peaking in the mid-2000s , according to SportsBusiness Journal .
They ’ ve declined for six years running , in fact .
Since the mid-aughts , the sport has actively sought to expand its fan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South , for example — and in doing so , sometimes drawing the ire of its core fans .
“ We believe strongly that the old Southeastern redneck heritage that we had is no longer in existence .
But we also realize that there ’ s going to have to be an effort on our part to convince others to understand that , ” then-NASCAR President Mike Helton said in 2006 .
Like so many institutions in American life , the sport was grappling with what its place would be in a more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the NASCAR Cup Series ’ only Black driver , Bubba Wallace , called for a ban of the Confederate flag earlier this summer , saying “ No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race , ” NASCAR readily complied .
It had already formally asked fans to stop bringing the flags to events in 2015 following the murders of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston , S.C. , by a white supremacist .
President Trump weighed in on NASCAR ’ s decision , tweeting that its flag ban was to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ !
” ( ratings are actually up following the flag ban ) .
But according to the Morning Consult survey from June , 44 percent of NASCAR fans agree with the president and said that fans should be allowed to bring the flag to races .
Only 30 percent were fine with the ban .
And at NASCAR races in June and July , Confederate flags reappeared .
Not in the stands , but high above them ; a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans rented planes to fly the flag over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leader , Paul Gramling Jr. , told the Columbia Daily Herald that “ The Sons of Confederate Veterans is proud of the diversity of the Confederate military and our modern Southland .
We believe NASCAR ’ s slandering of our Southern heritage only further divides our nation.
” [ Related : Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History ] Gramling ’ s statement about the “ diversity ” of the Confederate army and his use of the term “ modern Southland ” speak volumes .
Enslaved men were conscripted as soldiers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were hardly volunteers for the Southern cause — and Gramling ’ s “ Southland ” conjures the image of a cohesive nation , as if the Confederacy , which existed for less than five years , had not been decimated long ago .
The SCV and NASCAR ’ s oblique tussling might seem like a fringe issue in an election year when a pandemic and an economic crisis imperil millions of lives , but their divergent visions of what the culture of the American South is — who it ’ s for and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and cultural climate in which we find ourselves .
Trump and NASCAR are in similar positions : overly reliant on a slowly shrinking , mostly white base .
NASCAR is trying to expand its audience in order to stay relevant ; Trump is not .
The sport has realized something that the president can ’ t seem to grasp , which is that overt shows of racism turn most Americans off .
Electoral politics has played a role in normalizing on a national level the kind of neo-Confederate views that the SCV — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in recent weeks .
You don ’ t have to have grown up in the American South to have thought that the Confederate flag was inextricably tied to what the SCV calls “ Southern heritage , ” but which really means a particular slice of Southern white culture .
Going back decades , blocks of white votes in the South have been courted aggressively by non-Southerners who have played to the culture that has grown around these symbols and a particular nostalgic language about the Confederate past .
During his 1980 presidential campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Illinois birth , appeared in Neshoba County , Mississippi — where Freedom Rider activists were famously murdered in 1964 — and gave a speech about “ states ’ rights , ” which was read by many as euphemistic in the most loaded way possible , given the context of the place .
The country had gotten comfortable with delicate work-arounds like that — the Civil War wasn ’ t about slavery , it was about states ’ rights .
For decades , parts of the country have tolerated a semantic category that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Confederate defeat .
Sometimes the language is more blunt , of course : the War of Northern Aggression , “ the South will rise again ” or “ It ’ s only halftime.
” According to the 2010 census , 55 percent of the country ’ s Black population live in the South .
While the region is still nearly 60 percent white , its Black and Hispanic populations are significant , and while traditionally rural , diverse , growing cities like Atlanta and Charlotte have become important business hubs .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ boasts the sort of academic power and national draw often associated with the Northeast Corridor ’ s Ivy League .
NASCAR ’ s bid to diversify , geographically and otherwise , is in keeping with the modern South ’ s changes .
But strong vestiges of the racist Confederacy have held on in the region .
Mississippi removed the Confederate stars and bars from its state flag only last month , becoming the last state in the Union to do so .
While the majority of Americans — 52 percent — favored the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to a Quinnipiac University survey from June , 52 percent of those from the South opposed removal , the only region of the country where a majority supported keeping the statues .
In the midst of a floundering campaign , Trump grasped onto Southern white culture — that particular strain of it — as a way to pull his head above water .
A large base of his support does indeed lie in the South , as has been the case for all recent Republican presidential candidates ; Bill Clinton won @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and West Virginia in 1996 , but no Democrat has since .
Trump ran a race-baiting campaign in 2016 , and his 2020 campaign has continued to play on long-standing tropes of racial fear , like violent “ liberal Democrat ” cities .
Ironically , his use of federal law enforcement officers in Portland , Ore. , is about as far from states ’ rights as you can get .
But Trump seems to be speaking to the SCV types and not the more “ mainstream ” white voters he actually needs to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s worth , is more than the “ historical , patriotic , and non-political organization ” that its website says it is .
Its branches have donated to Republican politicians and it controversially purchased the Silent Sam Confederate statue that was torn down at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill .
In other words , the group is representative of the types of ( white ) voters who are Trump ’ s ride-or-dies .
But Trump has misjudged — or refuses to see — that much of white America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ issues .
A Monmouth University survey from June found that 49 percent of white Americans thought police were more likely to use excessive force against a Black person , up from only 25 percent in 2016 .
A Morning Consult poll from May and June of this year found that 49 percent of white Americans supported the protests unfolding across the country , and 54 percent of suburbanites supported them ( white people are the majority in 90 percent of America ’ s suburban counties , according to Pew Research Center ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s ear and told him he needs these white suburbanites in order to have a fighting chance of winning in November .
Last week , he called on “ The Suburban Housewives of America ” — as if harkening to a membership organization from 1955 — and said that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would “ destroy ” their American dream by promoting affordable housing for all in the suburbs .
In Trump ’ s framing , by hoping to diversify the suburbs , Biden would destroy the “ Suburban Lifestyle Dream.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pew survey conducted in 2019 said Trump had made race relations in the country worse , and while white , Black and Hispanic people still differ in their views on racial issues , it ’ s clear that recent events have brought greater racial awareness to the forefront of white Americans ’ minds .
Republicans are increasingly worried about Trump losing a state like Ohio — once thought solidly in Trump ’ s camp — in large part because of the president ’ s diminishing support in suburban areas .
( I wrote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back in 2019 . )
His embrace of the racist totems of the white South — which large swaths of the white South itself eschews — could now potentially cost Trump with the Midwestern or Northeastern ( whatever you want to call Pennsylvania ) voters he needs to hold onto in order to win .
Trump , a New York City-born pol who doesn ’ t quite seem to “ get ” the ‘ burbs — and has never been a particularly subtle political thinker or communicator — crucially misunderstood that the muscular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ represented doesn ’ t work in the white suburban realms of respectability anymore .
That cohort — Republican and Democratic — absorbs and displays its biases more mutedly in 2020 .
Trump , who came to political power riding a wave of racist conspiracy theory — it was only fair to ask questions about whether the first Black president was actually American , wasn ’ t it ?
— now suddenly seems ill-equipped for the political times .
He forgot that most of the country requires a modicum of plausible deniability in its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t buy that Trump ’ s fate is sealed , ‘ a lot could change in 100 days ’

NASCAR is niche. A recent Morning Consult survey of the sport’s fans found that they’re much more male, white and Southern than other sports fans are. It’s a subculture status that some fans have relished but which NASCAR itself seems eager to shake — in the last two years, its TV ratings bottomed out after peaking in the mid-2000s, according to SportsBusiness Journal. They’ve declined for six years running, in fact. Since the mid-aughts, the sport has actively sought to expand its fan base — seeking race venues outside the South, for example — and in doing so, sometimes drawing the ire of its core fans. “We believe strongly that the old Southeastern redneck heritage that we had is no longer in existence. But we also realize that there’s going to have to be an effort on our part to convince others to understand that,” then-NASCAR President Mike Helton said in 2006.
Like so many institutions in American life, the sport was grappling with what its place would be in a more diverse county and culture.
So when the NASCAR Cup Series’ only Black driver, Bubba Wallace, called for a ban of the Confederate flag earlier this summer, saying “No one should feel uncomfortable when they come to a NASCAR race,” NASCAR readily complied. It had already formally asked fans to stop bringing the flags to events in 2015 following the murders of nine Black churchgoers in Charleston, S.C., by a white supremacist. President Trump weighed in on NASCAR’s decision, tweeting that its flag ban was to blame for its “lowest ratings EVER!” (ratings are actually up following the flag ban).
But according to the Morning Consult survey from June, 44 percent of NASCAR fans agree with the president and said that fans should be allowed to bring the flag to races. Only 30 percent were fine with the ban. And at NASCAR races in June and July, Confederate flags reappeared. Not in the stands, but high above them; a group called the Sons of Confederate Veterans rented planes to fly the flag over the racetracks. The group’s leader, Paul Gramling Jr., told the Columbia Daily Herald that “The Sons of Confederate Veterans is proud of the diversity of the Confederate military and our modern Southland. We believe NASCAR’s slandering of our Southern heritage only further divides our nation.”
[Related: Confederate Statues Were Never Really About Preserving History]
Gramling’s statement about the “diversity” of the Confederate army and his use of the term “modern Southland” speak volumes. Enslaved men were conscripted as soldiers and servants in the Confederate Army — they were hardly volunteers for the Southern cause — and Gramling’s “Southland” conjures the image of a cohesive nation, as if the Confederacy, which existed for less than five years, had not been decimated long ago.
The SCV and NASCAR’s oblique tussling might seem like a fringe issue in an election year when a pandemic and an economic crisis imperil millions of lives, but their divergent visions of what the culture of the American South is — who it’s for and of — embodies much about the political and cultural climate in which we find ourselves. Trump and NASCAR are in similar positions: overly reliant on a slowly shrinking, mostly white base. NASCAR is trying to expand its audience in order to stay relevant; Trump is not. The sport has realized something that the president can’t seem to grasp, which is that overt shows of racism turn most Americans off.
Electoral politics has played a role in normalizing on a national level the kind of neo-Confederate views that the SCV — and Trump — have condoned and promoted in recent weeks. You don’t have to have grown up in the American South to have thought that the Confederate flag was inextricably tied to what the SCV calls “Southern heritage,” but which really means a particular slice of Southern white culture. Going back decades, blocks of white votes in the South have been courted aggressively by non-Southerners who have played to the culture that has grown around these symbols and a particular nostalgic language about the Confederate past. During his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, a California governor of Illinois birth, appeared in Neshoba County, Mississippi — where Freedom Rider activists were famously murdered in 1964 — and gave a speech about “states’ rights,” which was read by many as euphemistic in the most loaded way possible, given the context of the place. The country had gotten comfortable with delicate work-arounds like that — the Civil War wasn’t about slavery, it was about states’ rights. For decades, parts of the country have tolerated a semantic category that blandly normalized a strain of white resentment at the Confederate defeat. Sometimes the language is more blunt, of course: the War of Northern Aggression, “the South will rise again” or “It’s only halftime.”
[Related: Our 2020 National Polling Averages]
According to the 2010 census, 55 percent of the country’s Black population live in the South. While the region is still nearly 60 percent white, its Black and Hispanic populations are significant, and while traditionally rural, diverse, growing cities like Atlanta and Charlotte have become important business hubs. North Carolina’s Research Triangle region boasts the sort of academic power and national draw often associated with the Northeast Corridor’s Ivy League. NASCAR’s bid to diversify, geographically and otherwise, is in keeping with the modern South’s changes.
But strong vestiges of the racist Confederacy have held on in the region. Mississippi removed the Confederate stars and bars from its state flag only last month, becoming the last state in the Union to do so. While the majority of Americans — 52 percent — favored the removal of Confederate statues from public spaces, according to a Quinnipiac University survey from June, 52 percent of those from the South opposed removal, the only region of the country where a majority supported keeping the statues.
In the midst of a floundering campaign, Trump grasped onto Southern white culture — that particular strain of it — as a way to pull his head above water. A large base of his support does indeed lie in the South, as has been the case for all recent Republican presidential candidates; Bill Clinton won Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia in 1996, but no Democrat has since. Trump ran a race-baiting campaign in 2016, and his 2020 campaign has continued to play on long-standing tropes of racial fear, like violent “liberal Democrat” cities. Ironically, his use of federal law enforcement officers in Portland, Ore., is about as far from states’ rights as you can get.
But Trump seems to be speaking to the SCV types and not the more “mainstream” white voters he actually needs to win. The SCV, for what it’s worth, is more than the “historical, patriotic, and non-political organization” that its website says it is. Its branches have donated to Republican politicians and it controversially purchased the Silent Sam Confederate statue that was torn down at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In other words, the group is representative of the types of (white) voters who are Trump’s ride-or-dies.
[Related: How Popular Is President Donald Trump?]
But Trump has misjudged — or refuses to see — that much of white America is changing how it thinks about racial issues. A Monmouth University survey from June found that 49 percent of white Americans thought police were more likely to use excessive force against a Black person, up from only 25 percent in 2016. A Morning Consult poll from May and June of this year found that 49 percent of white Americans supported the protests unfolding across the country, and 54 percent of suburbanites supported them (white people are the majority in 90 percent of America’s suburban counties, according to Pew Research Center).
Someone seems to have leaned into Trump’s ear and told him he needs these white suburbanites in order to have a fighting chance of winning in November. Last week, he called on “The Suburban Housewives of America” — as if harkening to a membership organization from 1955 — and said that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would “destroy” their American dream by promoting affordable housing for all in the suburbs. In Trump’s framing, by hoping to diversify the suburbs, Biden would destroy the “Suburban Lifestyle Dream.” A majority of Americans in a Pew survey conducted in 2019 said Trump had made race relations in the country worse, and while white, Black and Hispanic people still differ in their views on racial issues, it’s clear that recent events have brought greater racial awareness to the forefront of white Americans’ minds.
[Related: A Tale Of Two Suburbs]
Republicans are increasingly worried about Trump losing a state like Ohio — once thought solidly in Trump’s camp — in large part because of the president’s diminishing support in suburban areas. (I wrote at length about this Ohio suburban phenomenon back in 2019.) His embrace of the racist totems of the white South — which large swaths of the white South itself eschews — could now potentially cost Trump with the Midwestern or Northeastern (whatever you want to call Pennsylvania) voters he needs to hold onto in order to win.
Trump, a New York City-born pol who doesn’t quite seem to “get” the ‘burbs — and has never been a particularly subtle political thinker or communicator — crucially misunderstood that the muscular Southern racism the Confederate flag has long represented doesn’t work in the white suburban realms of respectability anymore. That cohort — Republican and Democratic — absorbs and displays its biases more mutedly in 2020. Trump, who came to political power riding a wave of racist conspiracy theory — it was only fair to ask questions about whether the first Black president was actually American, wasn’t it? — now suddenly seems ill-equipped for the political times.
He forgot that most of the country requires a modicum of plausible deniability in its dog whistles.
Nate Silver doesn’t buy that Trump’s fate is sealed, ‘a lot could change in 100 days’