"How charges of 'voter fraud' became a political strategy" and more last-minute election scattershooting

-- Republicans believe many more urban legends than Democrats do.

In asserting that the presidential election has been rigged against him and casting accusations of widespread voter fraud, Donald J. Trump has tapped deep into an increasingly prevalent theme of Republican Party politics: that Democrats try to steal elections, not win them.

It is the culmination of roughly two decades of alarms, investigations and political gamesmanship in which remarkably little voter fraud has been documented, but the conviction that it is widespread has gone from a fringe notion to an article of faith for many Republicans.

Many facts to read and absorb there, defanging the wolves cried about by little boys.  Some of which we already knew ...

(A) study by Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who currently works in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, uncovered only 31 credible claims of voter impersonation between 2000 and 2014, out of one billion ballots that were cast. An Arizona State University journalism project reviewed 2,068 allegations of election fraud between 2000 and 2012 and concluded that only 10 had involved misrepresentation.

Greg Abbott is a disciple of this sub-religion, and we're still waiting for the big reveal in Tarrant County.  I'm surprised we've had to wait this long, frankly; there's a lot of early votes that need suppressing beginning Monday. 

-- The Homo Haters return to Houston once again for some last-minute GOTBV (Get Out the Bigot Vote).  This is protest-worthy, so I hope some of the HERO organizers and HGLBT Caucus folks have some energy left over after all of the blockwalking for Landslide Hillary to represent for themselves outside the Marriott Hobby next weekend.

-- Was your internet broken yesterday?  Mine wasn't.  Gadfly has been complaining about his for awhile now and has gone the full socialist about it, as in 'Wifi is a human right'.  Seriously though, it's probably not the Russians but somebody's smart thermostat gone sentient like the Hosts in Westworld.  This is probably what we have to look forward to in a brave new (overheating) world, and a good enough reason why we shouldn't be voting online.  Paper ballots, goddammit.

Off to enjoy this beautiful day; back tomorrow with the Funnies.

Latest UH poll has Clinton, Ogg building momentum

The blue wave is gathering strength.

A survey released (October 20) by the University of Houston Hobby School of Public Affairs illustrates Harris County’s continuing move toward the Democratic Party, with Democrat Hillary Clinton beating Republican Donald Trump by seven points and several high-profile down-ballot Democratic candidates showing similar momentum.

Clinton received support from 43 percent of Harris County voters who said they are certain or very likely to vote, compared to 36 percent for Trump. If those numbers hold, they would mark a far higher margin of victory for Clinton in Texas’ largest county than that for Barack Obama, who beat Republican John McCain by 1.63 percent in Harris County in 2008 and Mitt Romney by less than 1 percent in 2012.

Gary Johnson gets 6%, Jill Stein has 1%, and 15% are 'undecided', 'none of the listed candidates', or declined to answer.  Not wild about this poll or its mostly undisclosed demographics, but the results don't feel particularly wrong to me, save the high number of undecideds for a "certain to vote/likely to vote" screen.   For example, look at these:

• Among Republican voters, 4 percent are voting for Clinton while 1 percent of Democratic voters are voting for Trump.
• Ten percent of Democrats are undecided about who to vote for in November’s presidential contest. Only 6 percent of Republicans are undecided. 
• Almost a third (31 percent) of all independents are undecided about who they will vote for in the presidential contest.
• Third party candidate Johnson is receiving 18 percent of the independent vote.
• Among independents, Clinton leads Trump 32 percent to 14 percent. 
• Forty-three percent of Johnson’s supporters identify themselves as ‘leaning Republicans.’

But the screwiest part includes this item:

• Males support Clinton's candidacy over Trump by 39% to 38%

Really?!  Some ethnicity was oversampled (and it wasn't white men over the age of 50).

In the race for Harris County District Attorney, Democratic challenger Kim Ogg leads incumbent Republican Devon Anderson by 7 points, 40 percent to 33 percent. Incumbent Republican Sheriff Ron Hickman is in a statistical tie with Democratic challenger Ed Gonzalez, with Hickman ahead by 1 point, 37 percent to 36 percent.

The latest survey appears to show a decided shift toward the Democratic Party in Harris County over the past four weeks, when an earlier Hobby School survey showed district attorney candidates Anderson and Ogg in a virtual tie, 30 percent to 29 percent, and Hickman beating Gonzalez 36 percent to 30 percent. Because the wording of questions on the two surveys was not identical, Hobby School officials said it is difficult to draw direct comparisons.

Gonzalez is the last candidate I would have thought would need to come from behind, but it looks as if he's doing exactly that.  I think these results bode well for other county executive races, like Vince Ryan's and Ann Harris Bennett's, and certainly the Democratic judicials.  Since early voting begins on Monday and so many folks that I know are ready to get it over with, it's going to be interesting to see how the EV totals match up with Election Day.  (That's what we have Charles for, thankfully.)  One last thing to note about this poll.

A Hobby School statewide survey released Tuesday found that Trump leads Clinton by only 3 percentage points in Texas, equal to the margin of error.

I just don't think it's going to be that close.  More like Trump by six or seven points, almost certainly less than ten, but not three or even four.  Who among you reading this is waiting until the last minute to decide?  Who's holding out until November 8 just in case there's an October (or November) surprise?  Let's hear from you in the comments.

Can the Dems flip the House in 2016?

The few prognostications available show it remaining out of reach.  Nate Silver has nothing new that I could find, but Larry Sabato is on the case.

Last updated Oct. 20, 2016. Current outlook: Democratic gain of 10-15 seats, short of the 30 net seats they need to gain to win the House.

You can use 270towin.com's map to go granular and fiddle with the numbers.  The best-case scenario for the Blues that I could come up with is 232 R and 200 D (there are three House seats awaiting a special election after November to be filled.)  Sabato's projection above matches mine, and has those vacancies blue for a fifteen-point swing, still short of Democratic control by the same number.  So the Dems are only halfway to the count they need to take the gavel away from Paul Ryan and give it back to Nancy Pelosi.

Could it get better for them in the remaining two-and-one-half weeks before Election Day?  Does Trump have any more suicide bombs to detonate?  Could the Republicans retreat and retrench using the 'block President Clinton' maneuver?  We'll just have to wait and see, but I'll go ahead and predict that the House stays in conservative hands.

Downballot Repubs try to avoid going down with the SS Trump

They got on the Trump Train, now they're fleeing the sinking ship.

Republicans are despondent that Donald Trump threw away his third — and final — chance to win votes for himself and GOP congressional candidates at Wednesday night’s presidential debate.

Trump appears increasingly unlikely to win the 270 electoral votes needed to gain the White House, but the party that nominated him is growing more concerned that they’ll lose majorities in both the U.S. Senate and House, reported Politico.

“The biggest loser (Wednesday) was not Trump — the presidential race is over,” said GOP pollster Robert Blizzard. “Instead, down-ticket Republicans lost tonight. They needed some help and got absolutely none.”

Paul Ryan is busy trying to unshackle R-bots like Will Hurd from Trump, but I think it's too late.

With polls showing Trump is headed for a resounding loss, Republicans may start trying to salvage their congressional races by promising to serve as a “check and balance” against a likely Hillary Clinton presidency.

“Trump was already behind,” said Bill Kristol, a Trump critic and editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard. “He didn’t help himself (Wednesday), indeed he hurt himself. He’s very likely to lose, and to lose badly. He’ll drag the Senate and House down with him unless Senate and House candidates can make the case they’re needed to check and balance Hillary.”

Nate Silver sees the US Senate flipping with R incumbents Mark Kirk (IL), Pat Toomey (PA), Roy Blount (MO), Kelly Ayotte (NH), and Ron Johnson (WI) all losing.  Indiana (D Evan Bayh) and Nevada (D Catherine Cortez Masto, recently surging) are holds for the Blue team, while Florida (Little Marco Rubio) and Ohio (Rob Portman) stay Red.  North Carolina (incumbent R Richard Burr and D challenger Deborah Ross) is rated a toss-up, but Burr has maintained a small lead throughout.  That would also be a hold for the Pachyderms if he hangs on.  All of that coming true leaves a Senate majority going to the Democrats by a count of 52-48.

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Later: Is the House in play or not? (The Dems need thirty seats).

"I'll keep you in suspense"

Donald Trump looked more prepared for policy questions and attacks Wednesday night than he did in the first two presidential debates.

But after the final debate in Las Vegas, commentators and even Trump's fellow Republicans focused mostly on one moment. Trump repeated his assertion that he may not accept the outcome of the presidential election.

"What I'm saying is that I will tell you at the time. I'll keep you in suspense," Trump said when asked if he would accept the election results.

No presidential candidate in our history has ever done more damage to himself than Hair Furor.  It's testament to our American division that 40% of the nation's electorate eats this shit up with a spoon, and the rest of us draw back in revulsion.

Even after the most substantive debate of the general election, GOP lawmakers, commentators and cable news shows focused mostly on Trump's statement about the election results. Public officials have alleged election tampering before, but not weeks ahead of the results are known, as Trump repeatedly has this week.

After the debate, conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt told MSNBC that Trump won almost all of the debate but "hit himself in the head and knocked himself out" with the comment.

Former and current Republican officials also seized on the comment. Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who was among the Republican presidential hopefuls during the primaries, called Trump's comments about a "rigged" election "a great disservice" to the party and the United States.

Reuters:

Trump's statement may appeal to his anti-establishment followers, but it was unlikely to reverse opinion polls that show him losing, including in key states that will decide the election.

"That is not the way our democracy works," Clinton said during the debate. "We've been around for 240 years. We've had free and fair elections. We've accepted the outcomes when we may not have liked them. And that is what must be expected of anyone standing on a debate stage during a general election."

Later she told reporters: "What he said tonight is part of his whole effort to blame somebody else for where he is in his campaign."

[...]

Neoconservative Bill Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard political magazine, tweeted: "I deplore what Trump said and refused to say about accepting the election results. Confirms one's judgment he shouldn't be president."

Trump's running mate, vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, said Trump "will accept the outcome" because he is going to win.

But Republican strategist Ryan Williams found Trump's statement "deeply concerning."

"You have to accept the results of the election unless there are grounds for a recount and at this point it does not appear that we're heading for a close election," he said.

The GOP is going to have to get a divorce from itself.  Irreconcilable differences.

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona tweeted that Trump's inability to say he would accept the results is "beyond the pale." Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele called his comments "dumb."

Many lawmakers and commentators have challenged Trump's comments about election rigging because state and local officials — many of whom are Republicans — control voting.

Trump will accept the results "absent irregularities and widespread fraud," his campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told MSNBC after the debate.

Ivanka Trump said earlier in the day that her father would 'do the right thing'.  The Trump camp is having a special kind of discordant moment, and I'll assume that cooler heads within it will soothe the savage breast, but The Barking Yam has spoken.  And We The People are about to silence him.

It's a good thing this election isn't close; it frees up people from voting their fears instead of their hopes.  There are lots of Democrats and Republicans who will do the opposite, of course, but that's just shallow thinking.  There are going to be many teachable moments coming out of 2016 that can be analyzed without the din and roar of the present clouding folks' judgement.

There was more last night about other topics, many of them with greater substance than the two previous encounters, but Trump's deflation of democracy is the only one that mattered.