A whole swath of GOP voters appears firmly committed to not voting for Trump in November.
Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee.
It’s an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it’s a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire.
“I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.”
If 2 of the people in your example, who dislike trump, decide to not vote(while everyone else does); It is misleading to say that they are supporting trump by not voting. The only people supporting Trump are those who vote for him. Ditto for Biden.
I understand the problems with first past the post. I regularly encourage people to support alternative voting systems like RCV through local initiatives like ballot measures. Represent.us is a great org that pushes for democracy reforms such as RCV, campaign finance reforms, and independent redistricting.
You seem to be confusing “helping” and “supporting”. They mean two different things, especially when put in context.
When did anyone say they were supporting Trump? They said it would be helping Trump. Are you saying their votes, or lack thereof, didn’t matter? That their choice to stay home and not vote made no difference?
In what way are they two different thing? Support could be a more specific form of help but that’s about the only difference imo. They have essentially the same meaning to me. I don’t really want to quibble over semantics.
I never said that. Not voting is not supporting anyone. Voting for Biden is supporting Biden. Voting for Trump is supporting Trump. Any claims that not voting supports a certain candidate are political rhetoric. Trying to conflate an individual not voting with supporting a certain candidate is nonsense.
I don’t deny that there are organized actors who are trying to convince certain people not to vote and that some people saying that may be a part of such a campaign.
I also don’t deny that on a national scale not voting does harm democrats, but that is entirely different than on the individual scale. It is a political trend in our current culture not a fact.
Support: giving assistance to someone
Help: making it easier for someone to do something
Your lack of understanding doesn’t have any bearing on this discussion. That is your failing, and not my responsibility.
This is why understanding what is being talked about is important. No one is saying a person not voting is supporting anyone. They are saying that it helps another individual by doing so. And you yourself are saying so, when you admit that those individuals not voting are effecting the outcome of the election, and because they didn’t vote, it helped the individual they didn’t want to be elected to win the election.
It’s ironic you say this when your entire argument is “they didn’t intend to support anyone so they aren’t helping anyone win.”
Pasting the two definitions does not clarify what I was asking. You claim that they are two different things. In what way are they different to you?
Actually the OP explicitly said that. “Every single person who doesn’t vote for Joe Biden and could is supporting Donald Trump”
Once again, I agree with the main idea of the OP. It is their false claims that are embedded within it that I am challenging. I do agree that not voting in some cases is helping Trump. But saying it is a mathematical fact is misleading. There is nothing mathematical about it.
Nice strawman. I did not say that.
They “support” (i.e. provide assistance to) Trump by lowering the bar to his success.
Not all support is explicit.
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