Clinton Up Four Points In New Arizona Poll
With the lone exception of Bill Clinton in 1996, Arizona hasn't gone for a Democrat since 1948. That streak could end this year.
With the notable exception of Bill Clinton’s win over Bob Dole in 1996, the last time Arizona saw its Electoral Votes go for a Democrat was in 1948 when Harry Truman scored his surprise win over Thomas Dewey. In every election since then, the state has been a solidly red state for the past sixty-four years. New polling out of the Grand Canyon State indicates that Donald Trump’s campaign is going so badly that Hillary Clinton could win there in three weeks:
Hillary Clinton is hanging on to a small but widening lead over Donald Trump in what remains an up-for-grabs race for Arizona’s 11 electoral votes, according to a new Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll released Wednesday.
Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee and a former U.S. secretary of State, was supported by 39 percent of the likely Arizona voters surveyed, while Trump, the Republican nominee and real-estate developer, is backed by 33.9 percent.
Another 20.7 percent hadn’t decided yet who to vote for in the Nov. 8 general election.
The statewide telephone poll was conducted Oct. 10 to Oct. 15, following a turbulent week in the presidential race. The candidates met in a notoriously rancorous second debate on Oct. 9, days after many Republicans across the nation — and, in Arizona, U.S. Sen. John McCain — withdrew their support for Trump over his vulgar remarks about women, captured in a 2005 recording.
And it arrives as the Clinton campaign has this week dispatched a trio of high-profile surrogates to Arizona: U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont was in Flagstaff and Tucson on Tuesday; daughter Chelsea Clinton to Tempe on Wednesday and first lady Michelle Obama in Phoenix on Thursday. There is speculation Hillary Clinton herself could make an appearance.
The Clinton campaign announced Monday that it is putting more than $2 million into its advertising efforts in Arizona.
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian nominee, is supported by 5.9 percent in the poll, while Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, has less than 1 percent support.
The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.
Clinton was leading Trump by less than 2 percentage points, 35.1 percent to 33.5 percent, among likely voters in an Aug. 17 to Aug. 31 Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll. That outcome also fell within the poll’s margin of error.
The still-significant number of undecided voters in the most-recent poll could give hope to either campaign that the race could still break late in their direction.
When including “leaners” in the sample, the number of undecideds drops to 8.1 percent. Clinton’s support rises to 43.3 percent while Trump’s support increases to 37.8 percent. Johnson gets 6.5 percent while Stein gets 4.3 percent. The margin of error for the sample including the leaners is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
“At some point, those undecideds don’t show up,” said Jennifer Duffy, a national political analyst with the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington, D.C. ”Or, if they show up — because I assume a decent number of those are, frankly, Republicans — and if they do show up, they skip the top.”
Of the 20.7 percent of likely voters who said they are still undecided about the presidential race, 26.6 percent are independents, 19 percent are Republicans and 14 percent are Democrats.
About two-thirds of respondents said their opinions were not swayed by the combative Trump vs. Clinton debate, where Clinton said Trump’s campaign was “exploding” and Trump arrived in the debate hall with three women who have accused her husband, former President Bill Clinton, of sexual improprieties.
But 16.5 percent said the debate made them more likely to support Clinton and 9.2 percent made them more likely to support Trump.
Around the state, Clinton is leading Trump in Maricopa County, where about two-thirds of Arizona voters reside, 41.2 percent to 32.4 percent. Clinton also is dominating Trump in Democrat-friendly Pima County, the state’s second-largest county, 54.1 percent to 26.1 percent. Trump is leading in greater Arizona, 41.6 percent to 25.8 percent.
One of the main reasons why this red bastion appears to be in jeopardy? People really, really don’t like Donald Trump:
This is the second poll showing Clinton with a modest lead in Arizona, with the first being an Emerson College poll that gave Clinton a two point lead in the state. The result is that Clinton now has a modest 0.2 point lead in the RealClearPolitics average. Not much of a lead admittedly, but a lead nonetheless.
It’s possible, of course ,that the polls will tighten and that we’ll see the state swing back into the Republican camp. Given the way the polls are going, though, it seems like it’s equally likely that the next three weeks will see Clinton gaining in traditionally Republican states like Arizona and Georgia, while independent Evan McMullen threatens to end fifty-two years of Republicans winning in Utah, and that Hillary Clinton will do even better on November 8th than many are suspecting.
What matters is not that Clinton may be able to win in Arizona, Alaska, Georgia, Texas, etc. What matters is that the RNC would have had to pour money into those states if it still was looking to get Trump elected, money that would have been better spent trying to win in the states that were seen as swing states.
Minor side-beef: I hate when polls ask people whether they were influenced by this or that, and why they decided X or Y. It’s nonsense data. People have no idea why they decide what they decide. If significant numbers of people actually understood the workings of their own minds this would be a very different world.
If you’re an ardent Trumpkin, the fact that Trump is barely edging out Clinton in states such as Arizona and Texas is further proof that the election is rigged.
Even if McCain isn’t really supporting Trump, he’s got to be nervous looking at these numbers. No wonder he’s shooting his mouth off about SCOTUS nominees.
@PJ:
And time.
3 weeks out there are only so many places Trump can visit to stop the bleeding…and having to compete in Texas, Arizona, and Georgia means he has to spend less time in NV, PA, FL, and OH.
BTW – Sam Wang now has Ohio and Arizona as toss-ups; he had them red yesterday, I believe.
538 has them both is blue.
In the meantime Trump was wasting time in Colorado yesterday…he’s not going to be competitive in Colorado. Who is making decisions over there???
@CSK: This “rigged” nonsense is making me crazy. People I know (and thought were pretty balanced) are wading neck-deep into the insanity, fueled by yet another questionably edited James O’Keefe video.
On topic: wow, Arizona. That would be something else.
@C. Clavin:
Who is making the decisions in the Trump campaign? Obviously Trump is. This is a guy who held a rally in Connecticut a few months ago on the grounds that “a lot of New York people live n Connecticut and they really love me.”
I am having a hard time posting very weird. I believe the system is rigged not with voter fraud, but with money. We need to give the other candidates a fighting chance. They should be in the debates too. Media puts fluff stories out there for free, I don`t see where they cannot spend some time with the independents also. It makes me feel they don`t want the public to see a different point of view. I draw the conclusion it`s all about the money or some other quid pro quo going on. Well most of us know that anyway. Why are we the only ones getting nothing. It is rigged. The only way it can change if we all just turn our backs on all of them and vote for the person who is getting very little from the big guys.
If you’re under 30-35ish, your impression of US politics is probably something along the lines of
1) GOP==GWB Disaster
2) Dems==Level-headed Obama, inclusion for all your friends
3) GOP==Trump abusing women, being broad-spectrum racist asshole
There are a lot of older people whose impressions were formed in different times, who haven’t fully internalized just where the brands are at this point, in the minds of young adults.
@Franklin:
McCain has a comfortable lead over his Democratic opponent, actually. I doubt he has anything to worry about.
@Jen:
Well, that’s the whole thing about Trump possibly losing Arizona, which as Doug points out has had a nearly 70 year history of being red, with the exception of 1996. Every time Trump loses another once-reliably red state, it just fuels the rigging conspiracy. The way a Trump cultist sees it is that Trump himself is so overwhelmingly popular that it can’t be anything but a rigged election if he loses.
Not exactly. The Republican nominee has always won the state in this entire period (excepting 1996), but not always by a comfortable margin. Clinton came within two percentage points of winning the state in 1992. And Goldwater in ’64 only won the state by one percentage point, which is notable since it was his home state. If not for the favorite-son effect he almost certainly would have lost it; it was the only state he won outside the Deep South.
@CSK:
It’s not just Trump who has pointed out the system if rigged. Hillary, Obama, Bernie, Lizzie Warren were calling out the system being rigged long before Trump. And the Wikileaks have shown that the Democratic primary was rigged by insiders.
So the shock at Trump saying the system is rigged by the Democrats and those here is rather facetious.
On the upside, if you feel the system is rigged, you, the voter’s, best response is to keep your own counsel and not speak to strangers on the phone about your candidate preferences, or to lie to the pollsters. That way, those “rigging” the final tally won’t be prepared and may not have enough ballots in their trunk to cover the turnout.
If the system is “rigged” then the last thing you want to do is participate in polls or pay attention to the polls. The polls would be the feedback loop to keep the rigging from revealing itself through absurdity. We shall see in 3 weeks.
And besides, telling some stranger that you prefer Trump has been shown to be a good way to get your car keyed, beat up, lose your job or other economic opportunity, etc.
What James and Doug should worry about is not Trump’s rhetoric undermining democracy, but rather that people start keeping their own counsel on whom they prefer and render the poli sci game defunct except for the post-game commentary.
@JKB:
But Trump is saying this specific upcoming election is rigged. In the Youtube video, Warren et al are talking about the system being rigged.
These are two different things entirely.
@barbintheboonies:
Well, this is a good point. I think the system is “rigged” but not in the way that Trump thinks. The media clearly favored him as a candidate, giving him $3 billion in free coverage. It now looks like the DNC heavily favored Clinton in the primary. And, yeah, the media does favor Clinton in the general. They also work very hard to keep third parties out. But ultimately, the *votes* are not rigged because we have so much supervision and bipartisan oversight. Every election official and volunteer I’ve spoken to has talked about this, how much they bend over backward to make things as far as possible. There’s certainly room on the margins for vote fraud, but not enough to sway an election that isn’t really close. I do think we should work harder to assuage people’s concerns. This is why I favor voter ID (modulo making it easy to get ID in the first place).
@JKB:
Is it possible you are really that dumb?
At the link you posted they are talking about the economy, which is rigged to benefit Trump…and which Trump plans to further rig in order to further benefit himself.
Trump is claiming…with zero evidence, which of course wouldn’t bother you…that the election is rigged.
According to public records, Trump has received millions in corporate welfare. He readily admits to having paid zero federal income taxes for years. And he has used the legal system to bilk thousands of people out of millions of dollars. The people at your link are correct; the economy is rigged.
There is simply no evidence of the election system being rigged.
You should really try to get to a local community college and get a at least a little bit of education before Republicans like you de-fund them all in order to give people like Donald Trump more tax breaks.
@barbintheboonies:
Johnson doesn’t know what Aleppo is.
Stein flies into the wrong town.
These are not serious candidates…along the lines of a Ron Paul or a Ralph Nader or a Ross Perot.
(Why do they all start with “R”?)
@JKB:
I think there might be a distinction that is being missed here. For a while, yes, both some Democrats and Trump were saying that the *system* is rigged. Trump is now claiming the *vote* is rigged.
Those are two different things. Systems being rigged provide advantage to the powerful at the expense of the average citizen.
Voting being rigged suggests widespread illegal activity is being conducted, and ignored.
@Doug Mataconis: Ahh, so he does! Fair enough, wouldn’t excuse his comments anyway.
@CSK: On the other hand, if he’s legitimately losing those states, any sort of violent uprising is less likely to have widespread support.
So I can take some comfort from that.
@JKB:
Evidence? We already know how Trump supporters treat protesters, often backed up by Trump paying their legal fees.
@Franklin: Has Trump actually made good on that promise?
@Tillman:
I thought the same thing as you–that a landslide loss by Trump would take the wind out of his cultists’ sails. Now I’m not so sure, since they appear to be claiming that the lower Trump goes in the polls, and the more red states he loses, the stronger the “proof” is that the election is being stolen from him. And they’re very, very angry. They were cheated–as they see it–out of Sarah Palin, so they’re not going to be cheated out of Trump.
And I don’t like the sound of Trump’s instructions to his followers to go to the polls in places like Philadelphia to make sure no voting fraud takes place.
@JKB:
You do realize that Trump is saying that the election – the vote – is rigged. This is despite the fact that a Loyola University study of general, primary, special, and municipal elections from 2000 through 2014 found 31 instances of possible fraud out of more than 1 billion ballots cast.
@Franklin:
Scott Adams reports his speaking engagements dried up after he simply started commenting on Trump’s persuasion style.
Cars keyed outside Trump rallies
Trump supporters assaulted in San Jose as they left a Trump event
Veritas has Democratic operatives, one the husband of a Democratic Congresswoman, on tape arranging to hire the homeless and mentally ill to attack people at Trump rallies
GOP headquarters fire bombed in NC, bricks through window in Indiana
Trump supporting teenager beaten
Young Democrat leader arrested for voter registration fraud
Local Democrat politician arraigned for voting multiple times in elections
Illegal and legal aliens found to have voted multiple times under multiple names.
Trump signs stolen to the point people had to electrify them.
You really should look around in the world outside the NY Times.
Feel free to dismiss all that, but that is what people who are paying attention are seeing and reporting. And if people take reasonable actions to protect themselves, then you can’t really say who people prefer when they are alone in the voting booth.
“this party is full of maniacs” -Rick Perlstein, talking about people like the commenter above.
@Franklin: At a rally last week in NH, a dozen cars in the parking lot were spray-painted.
It’s appalling and needs to stop. I don’t care who starts what, damaging the private property of people who are seeing their candidate of choice has no place in this country.
Surely you can see the “voting system” is being rigged to provide advantage to the powerful at the expense of the average citizen is a plausible deduction?
In a democracy, you must rig the voting system in order to rig the other systems to provide advantage for the powerful at the expense of the average citizen. Otherwise, vote simply don’t matter since those elected are powerless to take on the rigged system, or is it that long time creatures of the elected representative system are corrupt and rigged against the average person?
If the “systems” are rigged, then the voting system is rigged to keep those candidates unacceptable to the powerful out of office and ensure the election of the candidate supported by the powerful.
And Wikileaks revealed active voting system rigging in the Democratic party primary to ensure Hillary, the candidate acceptable to the party powerful, even as Bernie was the candidate of the average democrat, was nominated.
This is interesting: lots of email chatter from John Podesta, Hillary, and Senator McCain about planet x ? Just days ago the president signed some kind of order expanding his executive powers. Evidently Podesta and Hillary have a lot of interest in ufo’s. Hillary says that she will release ufo classified documents. I don’t know about that. Years ago a famous senator tried to get into Wright-Patterson AFB to check into ufo claims there. The head of the Air Force stopped that idea cold.
@Doug Mataconis:
And yet he thought he needed to shore up support by telling a reporter that the GOP would block every Clinton Supreme Court nominee.
Makes me wonder about his internal polls.
@CSK:
“And I don’t like the sound of Trump’s instructions to his followers to go to the polls in places like Philadelphia to make sure no voting fraud takes place.”
Under current Pennsylvania law, poll watchers can only observe in the county they are registered. Philadelphia happens to be the largest place in the US where the city and county are exactly the same. So this is less of a threat for Philly than for Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, Chester, etc.
That said, the Republicans in the state legislature made noises this fall that they wanted to change this. The Democratic governor said he would veto it, and nothing more has happened (yet).
@JKB:
Trump isn’t saying the system is rigged. He’s saying the election is rigged.
@gVOR08:
Has Trump ever made good on any promise?
Here’s what the map would look like if only Millenials voted:
link
@Moosebreath:
You don’t think a Trumpkin would be deterred by legality, do you? If one of them traveled from Maryland, say, or Jersey to poll watch, and was denied access, the screeches of a Clinton-Demonrat conspiracy would be deafening.
A bit OT, but Vanity Fair is reporting, via Gabriel Sherman of New York magazine, that Roger Ailes and Trump have had a falling out. According to Ailes’s side, Trump won’t do debate prep.
@dxq: Next Trumpist hashtag: #RepealThe26th
@C. Clavin: So what? They still deserve some time. Look what we have now, Let the people decide. Everyone thinks we have to just keep going along being either R and D something has to give. I`m sure all of them have to learn a lot and they will have advisors for that. I feel they will have a lot to prove to the American people if they do win maybe even be grateful. I do not expect anything from Trump or Hllary.
@JKB: Stop. Just stop.
Go read @C. Clavin: — was worded more precisely than my comment.
That’s hilarious coming from a Trump supporter…Trump himself is one of the powerful and doesn’t give a damn about the average citizen even though so many of them seem to think he cares…
@JKB: “Scott Adams reports his speaking engagements dried up after he simply started commenting on Trump’s persuasion style.”
My heart goes out to him in his time of need. Surely there must be some way of forcing people to listen to people blather on about Trump and pay for the privilege.
@Tyrell: Please, tell us more
@C. Clavin:
Trump (and Johnson) failed to meet the deadline for his candidate statement to appear in the Alaska voter’s guide.
@barbintheboonies:
Yes, we have the first ever student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. Distinguished graduate of Yale Law School. Former Director of the Arkansas Legal Aid Clinic. Former civil litigation attorney. Former Law Professor at the University of Arkansas School of Law. Former First Lady of Arkansas. Former First Lady of the United States, and the first FLOTUS in US History to hold a postgraduate degree. First ex-FLOTUS in US History to be elected to the United States Senate. Elected by the… State of New York to serve two terms in the United States Senate. Former US Secretary of State. GRAMMY Award Winner.
She helped negotiate the renewal of the START treaty and a historic treaty with Iran that brought together Russia and China in a coalition. Plus she has been vetted by over two decades of Republican investigations which have found…wait for it…nothing.
I know her accomplishments don’t match up to the things you’ve done with your life…but then…who’s do?
Nothing more ‘Murican than that.
@C. Clavin: There is probably even more that could go into your list.
In objective terms, Mrs. Clinton is one of the most qualified Presidential candidates in American history. She has a high level of experience both in the legislative and executive branches, and is clearly very intelligent, neither of which is true of her opponent (to say the least).
But 20+ years of Republican bullshit have cumulatively obscured her extensive qualifications and unfairly tarred her as unusually dishonest, when in fact she’s done very little different from others who’ve held her positions.
@barbintheboonies: “They still deserve some time. ”
By the same argument, so do I. Even though I have no national following, I deserve to be on that debate stage with the other candidates. I certainly deserve it as much as Jill Stein. So why can’t I be?
@Mikey:
Exactly.
Even our host, James, a man of above average intelligence has been bamboozled by the bullshit.
@Doug Mataconis:
Last poll there was 10/4. My sister lives in AZ and I spend alot of time there. He’s not up 16 anymore. I’m sure of that.
I’m guessing it’s a 5 point race for McCain.
@Gustopher: See interview with Thomas Carey, goodreads.com for information about Senator Goldwater trying to get into Hangar 18. General Curtis LeMay said no way Jose !
I have heard Hillary say more than once that she wants to release ufo files if she gets elected. Won’t happen.
After the new president is elected they are told certain top secret information and are sworn to secrecy. Part of this information is said to contain factual information about alien encounters. Of course she would know all this from Bill.
Even the president would not be allowed into certain security areas: Area 51, Ft. Knox.
This is not the first time that when he didn’t win Trump has whined about things being rigged
@EddieInCA: I’m guessing he is also worried about voter turn out as Trump’s numbers drop.
When told the result of the poll Hillary asked “what planet am I on?”
@Tyrell:
Do tell, Tyrell, how one would know what is contained in said information if the President is sworn to secrecy once s/he comes by this information?
Are you trying to imply that one of the past POTUS’s spilled the beans, and you came by thsi information?
When I saw the graphic for this article, I thought “So what is North Korea up to now…?”
Re: Scott Adams losing speaking engagements: I’ve read a few of his posts on Trump, and although he is only admitting to “commenting on Trump’s speaking style”, he definitely comes across as a fan boy. Maybe even an obsessed fan boy.
And when an entertainer gets involved in politics, it’s the risk they take. Scott Adams is associated with Dilbert and gets hired to talk about that and add a little levity to Engineering Conferences and so forth. If people start to associate him with a political figure, especially a polarizing one, then the organizers will just move to the next person on the list. They are there to entertain, not cause a lot of controversy. Having recruited speakers for conferences I can tell you that if he had become associated with Clinton it would have had the same effect.
@Tyrell: Don’t worry, there are concerned Americans on it:
@Neil Hudelson:
Because it’s in the Big Book of Secrets.
@Tyrell: Uhhhh…what was that again?
If you believe any of what you have spouted, good grief. Go get some help. And pick up a book on How To Write English, while you’re at it, please.
P.S. I think I’m going to go on a no-media diet until the election. The stupidity of my fellow Americans is too infuriating for my blood pressure.
Plus, I have a book proposal to write.
At least there is one person who understands the corrupt Hillary Clinton.
Hint: it’s not an OTB commenter. Watch carefully, though. One of those gosh darned CNN satellite feeds lost and this might not be seen again (snicker).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CpcSriByVA8
Somebody this weekend said “Hillary Clinton’s like a black person driving through a white neighborhood, and the cops are the republicans. They keep pulling her over, and they keep getting angry and frustrated when they have to let her go every time, and they just keep on pulling her over.”
“Rigged” is the excuse a certain entitled demographic always uses when they lose fair and square to women and minorities — to delegitimize the success of women and minorities. We saw this in the primary, and we’re seeing in the general, and women and minorities see it all the time in their lives. Entitled, privileged kids are used to getting way cannot accept losing to their perceived inferiors. Whenever women and minorities beat white men at their own game, the claims of rigging/cheating/affirmative action etc. will soon follow.
The primary wasn’t rigged; Hillary won 6 million more votes because more Democrats preferred the Democrat in the race. This is not shocking. The DNC favored a Democrat over a Johnny-come-lately (who is still not a Democrat) who stole voter data, lied about it, then played the victim and sued the DNC — while allowing his supporters to doxx and threaten officials who have actually spent years building the party. Gosh, I wonder why there would be bad blood. If Bernie had tried that against Obama, Gore, or Kerry he would have been run out of the primary. His people should be luck there were just emails that weren’t acted upon, by the way.
Hillary is winning a process setup for the benefit of white men by the same rules that elected white men for years without any whining and complaining about rigging. Bernie had no problem with superdelegate endorsements all those years he was a superdelegate endrosing before the primary was over. The only difference this year is that a candidate not preferred by a majority of white males is winning both the primary and the general. There’s nothing rigged about it.
@Guarneri: Since you are an OTB commenter, then you are clearly not the one person who understands(sic) the corrupt(sic) Hillary Clinton.
No surprise there.
@grumpy realist: “”Book of Secrets: Obama says he’s seen it, won’t say what’s in it. “I would tell you, but I would have to kill you ” Obama joked.
al.com
@Tyrell:
The shark has been jumped!
Sadly, since it would take intervention from interstellar aliens for Trump to get elected he’ll most likely keep their secrets.
That said, it is a much more colorful theory than rigged voting machines and there is a better chance of alien intervention in the election throwing it than voter fraud doing so.
Good on you for playing the smart odds!
@wr: Well if you got on the ballad you should
@C. Clavin: I never said she was not smart, she`s very smart. I just don`t trust her or her big donar friends. I would like to have better choices.
@C. Clavin: These guys were not serious candidates? Says you or who I still say the media can make or break a candidate That`s all, I refuse to be their sheep. Just go along day aft6er day spouting the sos and expect things to change.
@barbintheboonies: Until Obama I have never once liked my choices in the general election. Not even once – that goes back to Reagan vs. Carter in 1980.
Get used to it.
@C. Clavin:
So what you are saying is that if ever there was a long time creature of the system rigged for the powerful against the common citizen, it’s Hillary Clinton.
@JKB: No, in Hillary Clinton we have someone who earned her way into her position through intelligence and hard work. She’s the one with the track record of accomplishment.
Your boy Trump is the one who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. He’s the one with the track record of using the rigged system to screw the common man, especially if that common man has dark skin.
Interesting about this poll Doug is touting. Seems they polled twice as many Democrats as Republicans, more women than men and a lot more college graduates than non-college graduates.
And Hillary is still only barely up?
@JKB:
I can only assume that you never passed a statistics class.
(Hint: Go figure out what “weighted results” are.)
@JKB: You have no real idea how polling works do you?
Random sampling means inevitably you’re going to come up with unweighted samples that don’t reflect the general population. That’s when weighting adjustments are made to compensate. Part of that adjustment included an up to date registered voter list.
@Pch101: Indeed this stuff is covered in basic college level statistics.
@Matt:
It’s just more evidence that conservatism has become the temple of the stupid.
It’s not just a matter of disagreeing with them, but of their inability to get even basic facts right. And when you correct them, they respond by doubling down on stupid while alleging that the elites are lying to them. To claim that they are useless would be to overstate their value.
@Pch101: Modern conservatism reminds me too much of the jocks in high-school who made fun of anyone who tried to learn in school.
I’m not really sure when this started happening but I personally left the party after the response to 9/11 occurred. When anyone who dared question the wisdom of invading Iraq were declared traitors I knew I couldn’t be involved anymore.
The GOP won a majority of the popular vote for president one time since the 1980’s, and you’re proudly bragging that you’re not getting beat too badly?
Do you understand how this works?
@JKB: If the voting (election?) system is really rigged, how did you guys end up with Trump? Why did the GOP allow themselves to be victimized that way?
@Tyrell: Are you reading the Weekly World News again ?
http://NastyWomenGetShitDone.com
@JKB:
OK I have to single this bit of insanity out. This is EXACTLY what people mean when we say Trumpkins are nuts. It’s a freaking sign. Cardboard and ink, maybe a touch of metal for the stands. Cheap as hell and they’re being giving away free so it’s not like the homeowner is suffering a financial loss. To run an electrical current with the intent of harm a human being to save a cheap piece of cardboard is flat out maliciously insane. It’s literally not worth the money, time and effort spent on wiring the damn thing. Add in that you have NO IDEA if these people know what they are doing in terms of wiring/current and it becomes a legal nightmare. What if someone needs medical treatment because of this? Could be considered negligent homicide at best, premeditated murder at worst since it’s a deliberate trap left out in plain sight. Castle doctrine doesn’t cover this as the gentlemen who lured thieves inside his house to kill them found out.
A third point is accidental contact. They’re assuming only the guilty party will come into contact and thus “get what they deserve.” What happens if a kid grabs it accidentally and gets a poor man’s taze? Someone with a bad heart? What happens if the postman brushes up against it (a felony to interfere with the mail, dontcha know)? What if it shorts out in rain, cause property damage to the neighbors or a short starts a fire in the dry areas with flammable grass?
Annoyance doesn’t mean you can hurt people. Political signs get stolen all the time; Trump hardly has the market cornered on this. Consistent petty theft is a problem but this is above and beyond the pale in terms of poor solutions. Anyone who would do this is frankly a little out to lunch. Don’t expect sympathy for people who willingly create dangerous situations out of sheer stupidity and spite.
@KM: Agree 100%.
That particular bit of the comment was completely eye-rolling. Stealing political signs is so common it’s not remotely noteworthy, but these people are wiring them? This is insane behavior. Insane.
@KM:
Trump seems the type of person to charge for his signs. So I thought I would google the answer.
https://shop.donaldjtrump.com/products/official-trump-pence-2016-yard-sign-blue-set-of-2?id=0&utm_campaign=a_djt_1573_k&utm_medium=ad&utm_source=k_google_pla&utm_term=k_store_cpc
2 for $20.
https://shop.hillaryclinton.com/products/hillary-sign-combo?utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=googlepla&variant=6603426369&utm_medium=om2016&utm_source=gs&utm_campaign=mc-shoppingads&utm_content=100882036625&utm_term=c&gclid=CIbo2M_U6c8CFUJbhgodjI8Esg
Same for Hilary.
@Tony W: Loser.com
@Jen: @JKB:
Yesterday afternoon a Trump supporter told me: ‘ Some motherf**er touches my sign I’m gonna teach ’em a lesson with my second amendment rights’ (BTW his sign is in the street right-of way)
This is crazy insane talk, but in any segment of the human population there will be a sub-segment of nut jobs. Republicans and democrats are not immune to this. So I’m not shocked that the individuals actions JKB has claimed may have some grain of truth. More concerning is when insane or illegal activities become standard operating procedure.
When I lived in upstate NY and Hillary was running for the senate, all the Clinton signs in the area were regularly stolen. I remember a neighbor describing a couple of 50 year old fat men running across her yard late one evening, giggling and snorting and hitching up their pants to keep them from dropping. The Republican town supervisor (a good guy and a good neighbor) lived across the street from me and I woke up one morning to see a couple of hundred Clinton signs piled in his yard.
You know who messes with yard signs? Teenagers and frat boys. Fifty year old men are just embarrassing themselves.
@Andrew: And your point is?
I obtained my signs by simply going to the campaign office and asking, no cost.
Regardless, if the value of a yard sign is 0-10 dollars, does that warrant infliction of violence?
C’mon man !
@Bob@Youngstown:
My point is not everyone is going to go to the local office and get them.
Does it justify booby-trapping them? No.
But, we should not assume that everyone gets their signs for free.
Now, I don’t recommend this, but it is funny.
And perhaps you city folks should get out more. You can get everything you want to safely electrify a sign from your local farm store in the fencing section. Cheap to, and often solar powered.
@JKB: anticipated that JKB would find that “funny”
@Andrew: Given how few Trump campaign offices there are, I’m guessing those signs have almost all come at some expense. Clinton’s campaign can afford to give them away, and they also have the offices from which to do it.
@ptfe:
You explained my point better than I could. Thanks.
OT:
I would like think that President Obama is smiling on the regular. Thinking about how after eight years of Republicans questioning him as a man, an American… and now he gets a front row seat to Republicans facing their own Frankenstein’s monster.
@JKB:
You Trumpkins are so f’ing stupid you don’t even know the meaning of…
electrocute
[ih-lek-truh-kyoot]
verb (used with object), electrocuted, electrocuting.
1.
to kill by electricity.
2.
to execute (a criminal) by electricity, as in an electric chair.
@JKB:
Some of us aren’t city folk. Some of us regularly work with electricity and understand proper wiring. Some of us have been unexpectedly shocked repeatedly during repair sessions and understand even mild shocks can cause medical issues. Some of us pass 10 Trump signs for every Hillary one. Some of us are aware that not being city folk doesn’t grant automatic electrician or handiwork skills on rural dwellers. Morons be morons regardless of their address. Someone *IS* going to screw it up, that’s just statistics.
Furthermore, the type of person who’d do this is someone who isn’t particularly interested in getting it right because pain is the whole point. If it delivers a stronger then expected shock, excellent! That’ll learn ’em!! If someone unintended gets shocked, oh well. Their fault for not knowing you’re crazy enough to electrify cardboard. It’s not anti-theft, it’s massively antisocial and somewhat psychotic. It’s inflicting pain when you have no legal right to do so – a crime in other words. Think of it this way: why aren’t cars or houses electrified in such a manner if it’s so easy and harmless? Surely they’re worth protecting more then a sign. Why isn’t’ this a thing? Wire up your car or the windows/doors of your house and see what happens. 10 to 1 the police will be coming to get you shortly for reckless endangerment and being a menace to society. The chances of someone getting low-end tazed is exponentially higher then some criminal being deterred. The law and insurance companies will take a dim view of it, that you can be sure.
Quite frankly, anyone who’d do this is more a threat to public safety then the sticky fingered sign boosters. They are ready, willing and able to cause physical pain for a minor infraction arbitrarily. Depending on your jurisdiction, this could easily be considered assault regardless of the severity of it. But hey, it’s a Trump sign! That’s more important then inflicting harm some random human being.
@Bob@Youngstown: I`m afraid this polarization could cause a civil war, if it hasn`t started already. What has happened to our country? We all need to seek the truth, and find the good in both sides and stop eating up BS that is being dished out by the party of our choice.Just going along and fighting each other helps nobody. This keeps getting worse by the day.