Decisive winning and GOTV will be important now that we know many of the things that Trump is obviously trying to do to “rig” the election. Belarus shows us that we also know what bad elections look like and why external actors are engaged in the process.
— SV News 🚨 (@SVNewsAlerts) August 9, 2020
In the lead-up to the polls Sunday, reports of intimidation by Lukashenko’s government came thick and fast: candidates were jailed; opposition activists, supporters and journalists arrested; news websites blocked; independent election monitors harassed.
As Lukashenko faced the toughest election of his 26 years in power, authorities tried to clear the field of competition, detaining his two main opponents and barring another from running. But Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, the wife of jailed candidate Sergei Tikhanovsky, united the three strongest opposition camps to fight Lukashenko in a campaign fronted by three women.
Long queues formed outside polling stations Sunday as voters heeded the opposition call to turn up in force. Yermoshina called the queues “an organized provocation” and “sabotage” by the opposition.
A heavy police and military presence in Minsk, the capital, blocked major roads and prevented people from approaching Independence Square.
One of the three women, Veronika Tsepkalo, had fled the country, the independent media site Tut.by reported Sunday. Another, Maria Kolesnikova, was seized by police as she left campaign headquarters Saturday, but was released after a public outcry. Authorities arrested Tikhanovskaya’s campaign manager on Saturday for the second time in three days. Seven campaign volunteers were detained and another was missing, according to the opposition campaign.
CNN is now beginning to worry about the margins and how Biden can lose, even if they’re a bit obsessed with comparing the 2020 election to 2016.
Biden's doing about 10.4 points better than Clinton in those same Great Lake battleground states that CBS News/YouGov polled. In the same Sunbelt states, he's doing only 8.1 points better.
You'll note two things here.
First, Biden's doing better in live interview polling overall than online polling, which is true nationally as well.
Second, Biden's doing disproportionately better than Clinton in live interview polls in the Great Lakes. The same cannot be said of CBS News/YouGov.
The regional breakdown of the live interview polling makes a lot of sense given the live interview national polling. Biden's been doing much better than Clinton among White voters. And, as I pointed out last week, the Great Lakes have a lot more White voters as a proportion of the electorate than the nation as a whole.The regional breakdown difference between CBS News/YouGov and the live interview polls may seem trivial, but it could make all the difference in the world if the race were to tighten.Right now, CBS News/YouGov polling indicates that Biden would be wise to devote as much energy and time to the Sunbelt as the Great Lakes. The live interview polls recommend that Biden might be better off putting more energy into winning in the Great Lakes.[…]Put another way, Biden would likely win in the electoral college if the national margin were the same as it was in 2016.Meanwhile, CBS/YouGov polling suggests a different fate could occur. Biden's margin over Trump is no greater than six points in any of the states polled by CBS News/YouGov. This includes all the Great Lake battleground states. In other words, the tipping state in the electoral college (i.e. state containing the median electoral vote plus one) gives Biden a six-point margin.At the same time, the one national poll CBS News/YouGov has done had Biden up 10 points. (This mostly matches other YouGov polls done over the same period.)If the CBS News/YouGov were exactly correct, the difference in margin between the tipping point state and the electoral college would be at least as large as it was in 2016 and conceivably greater. In the CBS News/YouGov universe, Biden would likely lose if the national margin were the same as it was in 2016.
Again, this doesn't really matter if Biden continues to lead by a fairly wide margin nationally. If Biden's national margin shrinks, this would turn into potentially a very big deal.
We can also obviously see that the GOP is about stealing money, especially poorer people’s money.
