Tom, does this analysis align with Rachel Bitecofer's fierce "negative partisanship" frame: the idea that voters don’t vote for their candidate so much as they vote against their candidate’s opponent?
We kept seeing surveys throughout the summer that showed many voters didn't believe that Trump would actually ban abortion, nor carry out many of the other published Project 2025 plans.
The key question is why people seem to believe what Trump says compared to any other candidate. Literally any reason they give for voting for him includes "well, he said he wouldn't do _______, so I voted for him."
Harris didn't carefully explain how the Dobbs decision allows for Congress to pass a national abortion ban. Too many people believed Trump's lie that the Dobbs decision means it's solely up the states to decide which is false.
Ugh. It makes me sick to my stomach that the Harris campaign didn’t go negative with ads blanketing the swing state about Trump’s abortion stance! It easily got everyone over to Harris once they were reminded of it! Seeing this data just confirms that the DC consultants brought a plastic knife to a gun fight. They had the money this time but as usual, not the fight. 🤢 While they were afraid of going too negative, Trump was bombarding Harris with the prisoner sex change ad. Everywhere. This was political malpractice! The threat of a national abortion ban was very real and now it’s probably the first thing Trump will do while he has both chambers of congress. Thank you for this important information.
Interesting analysis but leaves out the why-corporate media put their fist on the scale for T refusing to report truth and instead always repeated his lies-eg, “T says he knows nothing about P 2025” “ T said he will be the best for IVF and make govt pay for it” or “ Harris wants to allow abortion after 9th month “ These lies were mainstreamed and injected into brains of voters with a ferocity we have never seen bc Russia was helping to scale it up and corporate media cooperated. That will never be addressed if Biden admin stands down and pretends we had a fair election. 2026 will be whatever this was only more so as T consolidates power and oversees elections. There was microtargeted disinformation from Russia/EM -a young MI woman said she got personal ads telling her T would never enact an abortion ban-you also ignore the active efforts over four years to purge Dems from voter rolls and possible adding of spurious R voters-I cannot believe EM sole role here was his purse-lots of other money men but none w tech knowledge
Definitely agree the MSM sane washed and put their first on the scale for Trump. Elon Musk? Well, now he has even more influence. I still maintain that voters knew who Trump is and his voters voted for him bc of what he stands for whether they admit it or not.
Trump told everyone at every rally, "his judges sent abortion back to the states which is what "everyone" wanted". He lied.
So, perhaps it wasn't entirely Harris campaign messaging.
Perhaps it was the failure of media messaging to call out his lies and educate voters on how our system of governance works.
Perhaps when four states swing an election, voters no longer beleive their vote reflects their voice.
Perhaps voters have become redundant and obsolete in this era of new age pollster politics.
Perhaps education is a civic duty and responsibility.
Tom, does this analysis align with Rachel Bitecofer's fierce "negative partisanship" frame: the idea that voters don’t vote for their candidate so much as they vote against their candidate’s opponent?
We kept seeing surveys throughout the summer that showed many voters didn't believe that Trump would actually ban abortion, nor carry out many of the other published Project 2025 plans.
Yes, for the most part
The key question is why people seem to believe what Trump says compared to any other candidate. Literally any reason they give for voting for him includes "well, he said he wouldn't do _______, so I voted for him."
It also looks like people who might remember what it was like before Roe were most concerned about protecting abortion rights.
Harris didn't carefully explain how the Dobbs decision allows for Congress to pass a national abortion ban. Too many people believed Trump's lie that the Dobbs decision means it's solely up the states to decide which is false.
Ugh. It makes me sick to my stomach that the Harris campaign didn’t go negative with ads blanketing the swing state about Trump’s abortion stance! It easily got everyone over to Harris once they were reminded of it! Seeing this data just confirms that the DC consultants brought a plastic knife to a gun fight. They had the money this time but as usual, not the fight. 🤢 While they were afraid of going too negative, Trump was bombarding Harris with the prisoner sex change ad. Everywhere. This was political malpractice! The threat of a national abortion ban was very real and now it’s probably the first thing Trump will do while he has both chambers of congress. Thank you for this important information.
Interesting analysis but leaves out the why-corporate media put their fist on the scale for T refusing to report truth and instead always repeated his lies-eg, “T says he knows nothing about P 2025” “ T said he will be the best for IVF and make govt pay for it” or “ Harris wants to allow abortion after 9th month “ These lies were mainstreamed and injected into brains of voters with a ferocity we have never seen bc Russia was helping to scale it up and corporate media cooperated. That will never be addressed if Biden admin stands down and pretends we had a fair election. 2026 will be whatever this was only more so as T consolidates power and oversees elections. There was microtargeted disinformation from Russia/EM -a young MI woman said she got personal ads telling her T would never enact an abortion ban-you also ignore the active efforts over four years to purge Dems from voter rolls and possible adding of spurious R voters-I cannot believe EM sole role here was his purse-lots of other money men but none w tech knowledge
Definitely agree the MSM sane washed and put their first on the scale for Trump. Elon Musk? Well, now he has even more influence. I still maintain that voters knew who Trump is and his voters voted for him bc of what he stands for whether they admit it or not.
So basically, we didn’t campaign enough on Abortion. Sigh.
Thank you for this - It really helps to have this data aggregated for use in educating others.