Latest Polling and Other News

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This Fox News poll makes Donald Trump so sad, particularly the Elizabeth Warren part
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California proves that stay-in-placesaves lives; Florida and Texas hurl toward 6-figures dead
This Fox News poll makes Donald Trump so sad, particularly the Elizabeth Warren part
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So delicious.

Some people are freaking out about Donald Trump’s slight uptick in approvals from the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. That slight rally-around-the-flag effect, much smaller than that of other world leaders, won’t just fade as the crisis drags on, with the US suffering worse effects because of its incompetent leadership, but even that slight uptick isn’t enough to help his standing versus Joe Biden. And the numbers get even better for Biden when vice-presidential potentials get thrown in the mix—especially Elizabeth Warren.

Read the full piece, as I go into some depth on the current state of coronavirus polling, and the meager “bump” that Trump has received. But in short, what slight bump he has gotten on his handling of the pandemic is not translating to better numbers in matchups against Joe Biden. Things are fluid on public opinion in regards to the coronavirus, but they’r not in regards to Trump’s reelection. Whether you’re looking at Fox News polling, or our Civiqs data, fact is, Trump is in deep electoral trouble.

But, Fox News offered an additional nugget of information:
Yup, when paired with three of the most likely vice-presidential possibilities, Biden performed best against Trump when picking Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. (I’ve written about picking both Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Warren.) It makes sense—she would be a unifying force for the party, not just boosting his numbers against Trump, but also sparing the party additional ideological convulsions at the convention (or whatever passes for one in this Age of Covid).

Best part of it? You know Donald Trump was watching when THIS flashed on the screen:

Again, read the full piece here, as I dig pretty deeply into the polling. If you’re at all freaked out about the current Trump polling, this should help put you at ease.
California proves that stay-in-placesaves lives; Florida and Texas hurl toward 6-figures dead
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On March 16 six San Francisco Bay Area counties announced a “shelter in place” order—Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, Santa Clara, and San Mateo. They were the first in the nation to take that drastic step, and can you believe that that was less than two weeks ago.

Three days later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio suggested that his city needed to follow suit, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, the same guy getting so much praise today, thought it was the dumbest f’n idea possible. “Look at your words, ‘shelter in place,’ you know where that came from? That came from nuclear war,” Cuomo told reporters on March 19. “What it said is people should go into an interior room of their home with no windows, stay there until they get the all-clear sign. Now, that’s not what people really mean, but that’s what it sounds like. Misinformation, emotion, fear, panic,“ he added, are “truly more dangerous than the virus.”

He added, “I would have to authorize those actions,. It’s not going to happen.” Two days later, Cuomo ordered a shelter in place for his state, calling it a “pause” so de Blasio wouldn’t win. But even that delay cost the city dearly.

Now look at the growth of cases in New York City and the Bay Area:
Using a log scale, one that increases exponentially rather than linearly, and adjusting the times so that the chart begins at a time when both regions had the same number of cases, and you can clearly see how a single week of shelter-in-place made such a massive difference:

In the time that NYC went from around 800 cases to over 3,000, the Bay Area’s case numbers increased only around 300-400. And even now, things are relatively calm here. Keep in mind, the divergence in responses at the time was controversial.

Ten days later, not much to discuss, is there?

Here’s the thing, at least New York shut down. And New Yorkers are the longest-lived people in the country—they are healthiest, from walking everywhere, to a lack of elevators and escalators in old apartment buildings, to low rates of obesity, to a world-class healthcare system. The city is slammed with cases right now, and the worst is yet to come, but there are ongoing efforts to “flatten the curve”—the slow and extend the transmission of the diseases, so that hospitals aren’t slammed with patients all at once.

What happens as the disease spreads to less healthy areas of the country (which is almost everywhere else)?

Click here to read the full piece, but spoiler alert: it means that we’re on pace to hit several hundred thousand dead in large states like Florida and Texas that have been slow to shut things down. Even smaller states like Tennessee could see 100,000 dead each from lack of drastic action.

It’s not too late to avert the worst-case scenarios! But every day that passes without action is a death sentence for untold thousands of people. Seriously, it’s dire. Read the piece.

Other News
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I compose piano music
Yes, this isn’t political, but I finally uploaded a bunch of my old piano compositions online. If you’re looking for something soothing in these difficult times, give my music a shot.

Self-care is a big part of surviving this nightmare. For me, that’s what piano is for.
Keep fighting!

Markos Moulitsas
Founder, Daily Kos

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