Two interesting comments on polls

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- July 4, 2026 at 7:26 pm #11242
 Mick
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 1. On RealClearPolitics, Kamala Harris (27.3%) leads Gavin Newsom (17%) , Pete Buttigieg (12.%), AOC (11.0%), Shapiro (6.6%), Kelly (5.6%), and Beshear (3.7%).
 2. Harris is the leader among other Democratic candidates in 18 of 19 cited polls. The only poll she doesn’t lead is the AtlasIntel poll, currently led by AOC (26%), Buttigieg (22%), Newsom (21%), then Harris (13%). Why is this so interesting? Because in the 2024 Presidential election and the 2024 presidential primaries, AtlasIntel was the most accurate pollster.
 2028 Democratic Presidential Nomination | RealClearPolling
 
 AtlasIntel was accurate because its online recruitment, non-response adjustments, prior-vote/likely-voter modeling, and willingness to show a more Republican electorate all matched what actually happened in 2024.
- July 4, 2026 at 8:41 pm #11243
 Mick
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 Personally, I find it stunning that a voting populace would consider a low-information Socialist like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes. For people who want an actual summary of reasons, she shouldn’t be President, here you go:
 1. She is stronger at agenda-setting than lawmaking. AOC is highly effective at moving national conversation around climate, student debt, housing, health care, ethics, and economic inequality. The perceived weakness is that her public influence still appears larger than her record of turning major personal proposals into enacted law. That said, the “she gets nothing done” attack is too crude: the House passed her geothermal cost-recovery measure, and the Center for Effective Lawmaking listed her as the top House Democrat on energy policy effectiveness in the 118th Congress.
 2. She has an intraparty coalition problem. She inspires progressives, younger voters, and online activists, but some establishment and swing-district Democrats remain wary. Her 2024 loss to Gerry Connolly for ranking Democrat on House Oversight, by a 131–84 caucus vote, was a clear sign that many colleagues still valued seniority, trust, experience, and caucus relationships over her public profile. AP also reported that New Democrat Coalition members had concerns about her past support for primary challenges against Democrats.
 3. Her district does not test swing-state appeal. NY-14 is a very safe Democratic seat; Cook Political Report rates it Solid D with a D+19 partisan voting index. That does not diminish her legitimacy, but it does mean her electoral incentives differ sharply from Democrats who have to win Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, or purple suburban districts.
 4. She is nationally polarizing and already well-defined. YouGov shows her with very high name recognition — 81% fame — and 41% popularity, but also 27% disliked and 14% neutral. For a presidential candidate, the challenge is that many voters already have a fixed mental image of “AOC,” shaped by both her own prominence and years of conservative media framing.
 5. Her ideological brand is an easy target. Her association with democratic socialism, the Green New Deal, Medicare for All-style politics, and left-populist Socialist economics makes her a hero to many progressives but also gives opponents a simple “too radical” frame. That would likely be a major Republican line of attack in a national race.
 6. Her policy vision is more morally forceful than operationally complete. The Green New Deal is the classic example: it was hugely influential as a movement document, but critics saw it as broad, aspirational, expensive, and light on legislative detail, cost structure, implementation sequencing, and political path to passage. Axios described the original resolution as ambitious but lacking detail and a clear route to becoming policy.
 7. She lacks executive experience. Like most House members, she has not run a state, a large agency, a city government, or a major bureaucracy. She hasn’t even run a bar. A presidential race would force the question: can a movement-oriented legislator become a chief executive responsible for personnel, crisis management, budgets, agencies, and national-security decisions?
 8. Foreign policy and commander-in-chief readiness are fundamentally nonexistent. Her official foreign-policy framing emphasizes human rights and moving away from interventionism and “forever wars.” Supporters may see that as principled restraint; critics would press whether she has enough depth on military strategy, great-power competition, Taiwan, China, NATO, Israel, Ukraine, and crisis decision-making. Recent criticism of her foreign-policy comments at the Munich Security Conference shows how quickly that issue could become a presidential-campaign vulnerability.
 9. Her fundraising model is powerful but structurally limiting. She can raise serious grassroots money: Politico reported that she raised $9.6 million in the first quarter of 2025, with an average donation of $21, while rejecting lobbyist and corporate PAC money. That is a strength. The perceived weakness is whether a small-dollar, anti-corporate model can reliably match the financial infrastructure, bundler networks, and institutional donor support needed for a full presidential primary and general election.
 10. She is a movement leader rather than a governing manager. Her strengths are communication, moral clarity, media fluency, and agenda-setting. But presidential voters often also look for steadiness, executive judgment, managerial competence, coalition discipline, and reassurance. Opponents would likely argue that she is better at defining the fight than managing the government.
 11. Her online and media power should not translate into institutional power. AOC is unusually good at commanding attention, but Congress still rewards seniority, relationships, procedural fluency, trust, and internal deal-making. Her Oversight defeat illustrated the gap between public visibility and caucus control.
 12. She creates down-ballot anxiety for moderate Democrats. Swing-district Democrats may worry that elevating her would let Republicans nationalize House and Senate races around socialism, spending, crime, immigration, climate mandates, or “the Squad,” even when local Democratic candidates are running more moderate campaigns. AP’s reporting on New Democrat concerns during the Oversight race reflects that broader anxiety.
 13. She faces structural identity-based headwinds. AOC herself has expressed doubt that the country would elect someone like her, citing misogyny, racism, and hostility toward women of color. Those barriers are not “shortcomings” in her abilities, but they are real perceived obstacles in national electoral politics.
 14. Her core appeal is too concentrated. She is very strong with progressives, younger voters, activists, and parts of the multiracial urban left. The open question is whether she can expand that appeal to older Democrats, suburban moderates, union households skeptical of cultural left politics, independents, and persuadable voters in battleground states.
 15. Her candidacy invites a referendum on ideology rather than competence. A national AOC campaign could become less about individual policies and more about whether voters want democratic socialism, aggressive redistribution, climate-industrial policy, and a generational confrontation with political and economic elites. For supporters, that is the point. For critics, that is the liability.
 AOC doesn’t lack talent. It is that her talent is currently most proven in movement politics, media, agenda-setting, and ideological mobilization — while a presidential campaign would test broader coalition-building, executive readiness, foreign-policy fluency, institutional trust, and swing-state persuasion.
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