November 1-7, 2020

Nov 01 02:20 The imminent Trump mandate
Nov 01 07:21 My 2020 predictions
Nov 01 18:55 From Joementum to Nomentum

Nov 02 08:03 Another base election? Don't bet on it

Nov 03 01:52 Ridiculing Pete Buttigieg
Nov 03 13:02 Questioning 538's predictions

Nov 05 10:23 Aric Putnam winning the DFL way

Nov 06 05:21 Let's fix Minnesota's early voting system

Nov 07 07:17 Undemocratic Democrats

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Prior Years: 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012
2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

The imminent Trump mandate

Implied in the title is that President Trump will win re-election. That doesn't mean the presidential election is the only important election on Tuesday night. Republicans have a lengthy list of goals to achieve, starting with growing Mitch McConnell's majority in the Senate and finally firing Nancy Pelosi as Speaker for the final time. It's time to drive an electoral wooden stake through that vampire's heart once and for all.

Earlier tonight, Joni Ernst and Mitch McConnell got great news when the final Des Moines Register poll showed Sen. Ernst leading her opponent by a 46-42 margin. Prior to that, Greenfield had led. But I digress.

It's obvious that President Trump will win. Articles like this cement that impression:
Senior officials on Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's campaign are increasingly worried about insufficient Black and Latino voter turnout in key states like Florida and Pennsylvania with only four days until the election, according to people familiar with the matter.

That's quite predictable. Those voters are likely voting for President Trump or they aren't voting. Joe Biden doesn't excite them. This is the chief reason why:
[Video no longer available]
Black voters didn't forget that incident. This didn't help either:
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President Trump will have lots of support to implement the Platinum Plan for African-Americans and broad support for the American Dream Plan for Hispanics.

Once President Trump secures another term, Sen. Tim Scott's police reform bill should become a high priority. Sen. Scott's bill should've gotten serious consideration the first time it was proposed. Sen. Scott should make a public attempt to recruit Sen. Klobuchar and Sen. Manchin as co-sponsors. If they say yes, he's 2 votes closer to passing his bill. If they don't agree, then they have a major explanation to their state on the bipartisanship front. Further complicating things for Sen. Klobuchar is the fact that she represents Minneapolis, which wanted to dismantle its police department.

Democrats don't dare oppose these plans in a serious way if they don't want to be the minority party for the next decade. Republicans better jump on board, too, if they don't want to get primaried. Implementing these deals would put Republicans in the driver's seat for the mid-term future.

Bringing back more of the medical supply chain to the US should be a high priority, too. That was exposed as a national security vulnerability during COVID. That can't continue to be a vulnerability. President Trump should push additional middle class tax cuts as part of the Platinum Plan or American Dream Plan, too. At minimum, push Democrats to help make the tax cuts permanent.

Posted Sunday, November 1, 2020 2:20 AM

No comments.

My 2020 predictions


  1. President Trump will be re-elected. President Trump will likely hold all of the states he won last time, with Pennsylvania being the only loss. He'll likely flip New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada and Minnesota. There's even an outside shot at flipping Maine. That would put his electoral vote total north of 330.

  2. President Trump will win the popular vote.

  3. The lawsuits that seemed imminent a month ago won't be a factor, at least in determining the presidential race. Lawsuits might get filed but President Trump will have enough electoral votes to call it Tuesday night.

  4. Republicans will flip the House, thanks to the recruiting efforts of Elise Stefanik, Dan Crenshaw and Will Hurd.

  5. John James will defeat Gary Peters in Michigan.

  6. Mitch McConnell will remain Senate Majority Leader.

  7. Joni Ernst and Martha McSally will win their races.

  8. Lindsey Graham and Thom Tillis will win their races.

  9. Jason Lewis will pull off the surprise upset in Minnesota.

  10. Republicans will hold onto their majority in the Minnesota Senate.


The polls have been intentionally wrong all year. They're fake news. Still, it's important for Republicans to Get Out And Vote !

Posted Sunday, November 1, 2020 7:21 AM

Comment 1 by MplsSteve at 01-Nov-20 10:51 PM
What are your feelings about the GOP taking control of the Minnesota House?

Also, what are your thoughts on all eight congressional races?

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 03-Nov-20 03:40 PM
I don't have a good feel for the House. If I had to guess, I'd say it stays in DFL hands. As for congressional races, I could see a 5-3 split in the GOP's favor, though 4-4 is more likely. Collin Peterson is history, though. I'd love to see both Kistner & Qualls win. I think Feehan (DFL) falls short again.

From Joementum to Nomentum

After his Super Tuesday victories, Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden insisted that he was riding a wave of " Joementum ." At the time, Biden was riding wave of momentum. At the time, Biden said "People are talking about a revolution. We started a movement."

In the final days of this election, virtually no momentum is visible regarding the Biden campaign. Democrats are worried, especially in Florida :
Democrats are concerned about lower enthusiasm among Latino voters in the final days of the 2020 campaign, warning it could cause the party and its presidential nominee Joe Biden to come up short in key states on Election Day.

Latino voters make up large portions of the electorate in a number of crucial states, including two top battlegrounds, Arizona and Florida, as well as Texas, where Biden's campaign is mounting a late push, and Nevada, where President Donald Trump is seeking to broaden his own map.

That's what nomentum looks like. I don't know what these pundits were talking about:
[Video no longer available]
I know what this looks like:


That's what Trump momentum 2 days out from the election looks like. With a huge anticipated wave of GOP voters expected in the battleground states, things are looking good for Team Trump.

Posted Sunday, November 1, 2020 6:55 PM

No comments.

Another base election? Don't bet on it

For months, I've heard that this year's presidential election would be a base election. I've been skeptical of that declaration, to say the least. Saturday, President Trump held a rally at the Pittsburgh-Butler Airport. According to the Secret Service, more than 57,000 people attended the rally . According to RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel's tweet, Democrats have reason to worry:


One-fourth of the crowd at Butler didn't vote in 2016. That's almost 14,000 new votes from Butler alone. Newt Gingrich puts things into perspective in this article :
A victory for Donald Trump would be an American populist uprising against all the large systems that would sell out to the Chinese, give up the American dream, and suppress the political right.

But will President Trump be re-elected? I think so. If you examine the crowds at the president's rallies, you'll find not only a significant number of people who have never before voted but also many Democrats. Plus, in virtually every state-wide poll, we see Trump, at a minimum, doubling his share of the African-American vote.

President Trump's share of the Hispanic vote is increasing, too. That's mostly because of his economic record but it's also due to his American Dream Plan. While Joe Biden says that he'll unite the nation, President Trump has brought people of different backgrounds together through prosperity.

President Trump has expanded his base through outreach. It'll become apparent when votes start getting announced.

Posted Monday, November 2, 2020 8:03 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 03-Nov-20 08:34 AM
Joe Biden said nothing would fundamentally change. Honest once is better than Trump. Changing one band of brigands for another leaves us at the mercy, still, of brigands.

Comment 2 by Chad Q at 06-Nov-20 06:17 PM
Joe Biden couldn't tell the truth if his life depended on it. Even if HE doesn't want things to fundamentally change, those around him do and they will push the doddering old fool out of the way to get what they want.

Ridiculing Pete Buttigieg

Pete Buttigieg is a thoroughly annoying person. He's also exceptionally dishonest. This article quotes Buttigieg as saying "He inherited the Obama-Biden expansion, slowed it down, but, the economy continued expanding until his disastrous handling of the pandemic--ran it into the ditch that it is [in] now in where we still have something on the order of 20 million Americans out of work."

Democrats have tried peddling this BS for months. It's time to expose it as BS. First, is Buttigieg saying that President Obama's energy regulations created jobs while making the US energy independent for the first time in 75 years? Is Buttigieg saying that cutting corporate taxes didn't lead those corporations to repatriate international profits that then triggered higher wages? Is Buttigieg saying that President Trump's renegotiated trade deals didn't have a positive impact on the economy? Finally, is Buttigieg saying that stopping illegal immigration didn't have a positive impact on blue collar wages?

Then there's this:
"President Trump's idea of a good economy is one where the wealthiest are doing well. Joe Biden's idea of a good economy is one where we all of us are doing well," Buttigieg said.

This is dishonest. Income inequality shrunk during the Trump administration. It exploded during the Obama-Biden administration. This is how dishonest Buttigieg is:
[Video no longer available]
The hole wasn't created by mismanagement of the pandemic. It was created by the pandemic. Last Thursday's GDP figure of 33.1% is a miracle compared with the pace that Obama-Biden achieved.

Simply put, Mayor Pete will never be president, partially because he's dishonest, partially because he's insufferable but mostly because he's a know-it-all little punk who is wrong on the issues and has a failed record with African-Americans.

Posted Tuesday, November 3, 2020 1:52 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 03-Nov-20 08:31 AM
Why feature an overly ambitious town mayor? Grant Pete what he deserves most. Obscurity.

Response 1.1 by Gary Gross at 03-Nov-20 03:41 PM
Great point, Eric. He's earned obscurity.

Comment 2 by Chad Q at 07-Nov-20 07:16 AM
What does a failed record with blacks have to do with anything? We (as in the US, not me) elected a guy who has failed blacks for 47 years, said he didn't want his kids going to school in a racial jungle and told a black guy that if he didn't vote for him, he wasn't black. It doesn't matter how racist you really are (Biden), just how racist the media says you are (Trump).

BTW, Joe's idea of a good economy is when everyone is miserably equal and he and his family and political class buddies are looking down at us from their mansions.

Questioning 538's predictions

In Election Day 2016, 538 predicted that Hillary Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. I'm still waiting for Hillary Clinton's first executive order. This year, they've stated that Joe Biden has a 90% chance of winning the presidential election. This year, they'll be badly wrong again.

Inside this article , it says "The electoral math is pretty simple. Biden needs to find 38 electoral votes on top of the 232 in the contests that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. He's likely to win the one from Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District. Remember, the state of Nebraska allocates an electoral vote to the winner of each of its congressional districts."

This isn't just partisanship. It's sloppy work. Joe Biden was in Nebraska once. Ditto with President Trump. The difference is that President Trump's event attracted 43,651 people to it. Of those 43,651 people, 40.2% of them weren't Republicans. Biden's event attracted reporters and a handful of supporter. Further, Nebraska is a deep red state.
On top of that, Biden holds clear and significant leads in two states Trump won by less than a point in 2016: Michigan and Wisconsin. A CNN/SSRS poll on Saturday put Biden up 12 points in Michigan among likely voters, while Biden led in Wisconsin by 8 points in a CNN/SSRS poll and 11 points in a New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday.

A week ago, Trafalgar, which got 2016 right, had Biden leading by 1 . That Biden lead is gone now. Wisconsin is trending Trump now. Insider Advantage has Trump trailing by 2 in Michigan. Trafalgar has Trump leading by 2 in Michigan.
[Video no longer available]
This is ridiculous:
Biden could also get to 270 electoral votes with North Carolina and its 15 electoral votes. A CNN/SSRS poll had Biden up by 6 points there yesterday, while the polling average puts the race closer to a 3 point edge. This is a race that Biden is favored to win, though one where an average sized polling error (about 3 points in competitive presidential races dating back to 1972) would be enough for Trump to emerge victorious.

Trump wins NC by 2-3 points. This tells me that the CNN poll is worthless and shouldn't be counted.

In terms of vote counts from battleground states, it's likely to be a close race. From an electoral vote count, though, Trump will finish with 306-330 votes.

Posted Tuesday, November 3, 2020 1:02 PM

No comments.

Aric Putnam winning the DFL way

DFL Senate candidate Aric Putnam is now leading Republican Jerry Relph in the Minnesota Senate District 14 race. He's leading by 277 votes after trailing by more than 1,000 votes Wednesday morning. Suddenly a batch of mail-in ballots were found and Putnam's fortunes changed. According to the Stearns County Auditor, there's a set of 4,200+ mail-in ballots out there that nobody knows where they came from.

That's a 1,300+ vote swing in 4,200 ballots. Further, the chain of custody on these ballots can't be corroborated. They should be thrown out since the integrity of the ballots is suspect. This is part of an email chain between Stearns County Commissioner candidate Jeff Johnson and a local official:

Saying that the odds of making up 1,300+ votes in a batch of, at most, 4,200 ballots isn't high is understatement. Saying that this is common DFL practice isn't controversial. It's as surprising as finding out that Chicago or Philadelphia elections aren't always legitimate.

After factoring in chain of custody irregularities, the likelihood of shenanigans increases. I can't repeat enough that these ballots should be thrown out since we don't know if they're legitimate. Further, there isn't a way of determining whether they're legitimate. How can a judge rule these ballots legitimate without a form of chain of custody?

It's important to remember that these are allegedly absentee ballots. There's a painstaking process that absentee ballots go through for verification. These ballots don't come close to meeting that standard.

Posted Thursday, November 5, 2020 10:23 AM

No comments.

Let's fix Minnesota's early voting system

After hearing about the shenanigans involving Jerry Relph's state senate race, its' safe to say that it's time to fix Minnesota's early and absentee voting systems. I've been warning about the imperfections (that's polite for 'horrific flaws') in the system for months now. First, early voting shouldn't be neverending.

This year, Minnesotans started voting early on Sept. 18th, almost 2 weeks before the first debate. Early voting ended the day before Election Day. That's over 6 weeks of voting. That's far too long. If this is early voting, why does it last until the day before the election? The answer is that Democrats want to catch as many voters as possible. I don't. My highest priority is to give everyone a reasonable amount of time to vote. If people don't vote within a 2 week window, then it's apparent that voting isn't a priority for them. If it isn't their priority, then it shouldn't be our priority either.

Next in terms of changes, early voting shouldn't start until after the first presidential debate. Historically, the first presidential debate (going back to 2004) has been held between Sept. 26 and Oct. 3. It's perfectly reasonable to start early voting on the Monday closest to Oct. 10. Further, to avoid Election Day confusion, ending early voting on the Saturday closest to Oct. 25 is thoroughly reasonable. That gives people more than 2 weeks to vote early. If they don't vote early within that 2 week period, they can vote on Election Day. If that still isn't enough, then that's the person's problem, not society's.

Third, it's apparent that most states don't do a good job of updating their Statewide Voter Registration System, aka SVRS. This must become a priority for elections to be free of corruption. Today in Nevada, Ric Grenell talked about 23,000+ ballots that were sent out to a) people who don't live in Nevada anymore, b) dead people and c) people that've move within Nevada:
[Video no longer available]
I know a little about this from my past career. At Fingerhut, we used to run something called NCOA, aka National Change Of Address. There's no reason why county offices in charge of the SVRS shouldn't get a monthly report of people who moved to another state, people who died and people recently convicted of a felony. The person in charge of updating the SVRS must be required to make all updates within a week. Also, the legislative auditor's office should be required to audit this new office 4 times a year.

Posted Friday, November 6, 2020 5:21 AM

Comment 1 by Chad Q at 06-Nov-20 06:20 PM
Yes, lets fix it so there is no early voting, no mail in voting, and no absentee voting without a good excuse. You make it to the polls the first Tuesday in November or voting isn't that important to you.

Undemocratic Democrats

Donna Brazile's op-ed is disgustingly dishonest. First, she wrote "Long after our nation's founding, the right to vote was denied to millions of Americans. Black people had no rights as slaves and were denied voting rights in many parts of the country for another 100 years after Emancipation. Women were denied the vote until 1920. And other groups, including Native Americans, were excluded from voting for many years as well." Brazile omits the fact that Democrats denied people the right to vote, even after Emancipation. If anyone is un-American when it comes to voting rights, it's Democrats.

Then Brazile wrote "There is nothing underhanded, corrupt or fraudulent about the delay in counting votes - no matter how many times Trump falsely says there is." That's true but that isn't what's at issue here. In Philadelphia, Detroit and Milwaukee, RNC pollwatchers were prevented from inspecting whether the signature on the absentee ballot application matched the signature on the voter registration file. RNC poll watchers weren't allowed within 30 feet of each counting station until a judge ordered the Democrats to follow Pennsylvania's well-established law. Prior to that judicial ruling, Philadelphia corrupt Democrats just forced non-Democrat poll watchers off to the side.

Republicans had plenty of poll watchers at every vote-counting location in every battleground state. In place after place, Democrats either prevented GOP poll watchers entrance to the building, prevented GOP poll watchers proximity to vote-counting stations or they put paper on the windows to hide their actions. Now they want us to trust them after acting in such a corrupt fashion? I don't think so.

Newt Gingrich laid things out beautifully in this interview:
[Video no longer available]
How can you accumulate evidence when you aren't allowed onto a crime scene? How can you diagnose a patient if you aren't allowed to run tests on the patient? If you're kept 20-30 feet from where they open the ballots, how can you tell whether the signature on the envelope matches the signature on the person's voter registration form? How can you tell if the postmark shows that the voter got it in on time?

When a group of Democrats prevent GOP poll watchers from watching by keeping them at a distance or by papering over the windows so nobody can watch, that's proof of the Democrats' corruption. Philadelphia Democrats apparently aren't interested in democracy. It's apparent that they're only interested in Democrat-led mob rule.

Posted Saturday, November 7, 2020 7:17 AM

Comment 1 by eric z at 07-Nov-20 09:07 AM
The Dems are not Wooodrow Wilson on race anymore; nor are the Republicans Teddy Roosevelt on malefactors of great wealth. So? 21st century these days, not 19th. So?

Comment 2 by Nick at 07-Nov-20 09:28 AM
I feel like the US election in 2020 is very similar to Mexico's 1988 elections: rigged.

Comment 3 by Chad Q at 08-Nov-20 08:38 AM
No the dems are worse than Woodrow Wilson on race. They just elected a guy whose family owned slaves, created the 1994 crime bill that locked up blacks, and said recently that if blacks don't vote for him, they ain't black. He picked a minority VP based only on her sex and the color of her skin. Of course there is a whole host of other racist remarks Biden has made over his 47 year political career but why look at that huh.

Why do people such as Donna even get to have their op-eds printed and why would anyone take her seriously knowing she is such a progressive sycophant?

Lastly, if there's no fraud, what are they hiding by not allow the GOP to watch?

Comment 4 by eric z at 09-Nov-20 09:22 AM
If there was Dem fraud, the Dems would be ahead in the Senate. Go figure. Don't bite and then swallow anyone's baited hook.

Especially Lincoln Project's. Bloomberg's. Or Trump's.

Bernie would have had coat tails, and the Dems WOULD have a Senate majority, had he not been scuttled by Dem inner party corporate GOP-lite operatives on the Biden-Perez-Clinton axis.

Response 4.1 by Gary Gross at 09-Nov-20 07:56 PM
It isn't a matter of if there was voter fraud. It's a matter of how much voter fraud happened. When Philadelphia Democrats stopped GOP poll watchers from watching the inspection of absentee and early ballots, what was the Democrats' motivation? Why should I immediately accept as Gospel fact that it's purely coincidental that an hour later, a huge batch of Biden-only ballots was added to the mix?

When Mark Ritchie was MN Secretary of State, he'd insist that voter fraud didn't happen. At the time, I coined the phrase that "It's impossible to find what you refuse to look for. This year, I've added another cliche to that -- It's impossible to find what you aren't allowed to look for.

This election reeks of corruption from head-to-toe. IF Biden now wants unity, it's incumbent on him to make the first good faith step.

Response 4.2 by Gary Gross at 09-Nov-20 08:02 PM
The so-called GOP-Lite candidates were simply terrible candidates. We're still a center-right nation. I get it that you don't believe that but it's the truth. There are too many people making $$$ to buy Bernie's & AOC's socialist BS.

As for Bernie the Revolutionary, that's a myth. Both times, he ran preaching revolution, only to curl up like a little puppy once he was defeated. Capitalism works because people have an incentive to do extraordinary things. Socialism fails because people don't have an incentive to do anything extraordinary.

Comment 5 by Chad Q at 09-Nov-20 05:16 PM
That's exactly why there's fraud. Biden wins but the senate stays with the GOP (for now) and the GOP picks up house seats? Democrat voters are not splitting the ticket to vote for Biden and then voting for the GOP. Again, if there's no fraud, why not be open and honest about it?

Bernie would have lost in a landslide. No one really wants what he's selling other than 18-25 years old college students who want everything for free. I'd suggest you spit that hook but you were reeled in long ago.

Comment 6 by eric z at 10-Nov-20 10:15 AM
Gary, weigh your last post against Lindsey Graham's Trump stances. People adapt. Bernie closed ranks once he'd been scuttled. Each time. So?

Comment 7 by J. Ewing at 11-Nov-20 09:22 AM
Hey, let us give credit to Joe Biden for once being both honest and clear when he said, "We have built the greatest voter fraud operation in history."

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