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Biden will drag Casey under the line.

Seek help.

Israel are saying they have the proof that the fire was not their weapons.

Yes, a likely story.

We're all trying to find the guy who did this.

we are going to see some Tories run more as individuals rather than Tories, and statistically there probably will be some success stories where this works.

Lots tried it in 1997 as well, only a few succeeded at all (and they were generally MPs who had some prior reputation for "independence" - those with an 11th hour reinvention almost universally failed)

'Trend is your friend.'

Even if not a single person in the country changed their mind since the election announcement you're still going to get these sorts of variances up or down 2 points. JL is also a few days old; fieldwork ended Saturday. And on balance, the newer polls were polling over the Bank Holiday weekend which had there not been an election, would not have happened (most took a pause in the Bank Holiday earlier this month)

What's worth noting is the variance in party share; a 19% to 28% share for the Tories is effectively one that's worth a third of their potential vote share. Labour's variance of 40% to 47% is closer to 1 in 10.

Reform seem to be quite sticky; given the official starting block for the 2019 election was less traditional, Week 2 polls in 2019 started to see Brexit (starting at a similar position then as now) start to ebb. That's something to look out for in the next few days.

There are 3 reasons why I think Reform is sticky:

1. Since 2005, parties to the right of the Conservatives have gotten a larger share than Goldsmith's Referendum party in 1997, for many voters it won't be the first time to vote that way, UKIP was also sticky in 2015.

2. Reform rose by itself in the opinion polls, it has practically no leader and no organisation, it's a shell. Yet that empty shell still rose without any effort, meaning there's genuine demand.

3. The main issue about Brexit was Brexit, Boris ate that issue and it's votes in 2019. Reform now polling that high without Brexit means it's more complex than just 1 thing.

I'd also wonder about the "age cohort question"; that is, whether it's a parking lot for the UK equivalent of the kinds of young European (particularly male) voters who've been drawn to the "identitarian right", and for thom the Tories are just some stale old thing a la France's Les Républicains...

Kind of live in an area so described. Anecdotally, I am seeing nothing showing this.

If you compare 2012 to 2016, the 60ish counties that have the least number of voters and make up 25% of Indiana's electorate, Trump's winning margin from them doubled in size. So Romney won them by a combined ~180k while Trump won them by a combined ~370k. Biden slightly improved in the middle counties but the bottom tier he performed marginally worse than Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile these Democratic Party rural county affiliates have completely atrophied the last 15 years. It's mostly ignored on this message board but local political party organization absolutely does matter as far as electoral performance. I don't consider my local Democratic Party county affiliate to be functional. No one is running for office locally outside of 1 guy that is running for state legislature and will get completely trashed. No one is running for county office and from 2018 onwards they have ran a grand total of 1 county government candidate in 4 elections counting this year.

2016:

Prez: Trump (R) 72.1, Clinton (D) 21.4, Johnson (L), 5.1, Write-in 1.4
Sen: Young (R) 63.3, Bayh (D) 28.9, Brenton (L) 7.8
Gov: Holcomb (R) 64.2, Gregg (D) 31.8, Bell (L) 3.9
Cong: Banks (R) 77.4, Schrader (D) 15.5, Snyder (L) 7.0

2018:

Sen: Braun (R) 67.3, Donnelly (D) 28.5, Brenton (L) 4.1, Write-in 0.1
Cong: Banks (R) 74.3, Tritch (D) 25.7

2020:

Prez: Trump (R) 73.1, Biden (D) 24.1, Jorgensen (L) 2.6, Write-in 0.2
Gov: Holcomb (R) 66.0, Rainwater (L) 18.3, Myers (D) 15.7
Cong: Banks (R) 76.4, Coldiron (D) 23.5, Write-in 0.1

2022:

Sen: Young (R) 74.5, McDermott (D) 21.2, Sceniak (L) 3.8, Write-in 0.5
Cong: Banks (R) 72.5, Snyder (D) 22.2, Gotsch (I) 5.3

Notice the performance of Bayh, Gregg, and Donnelly compared to every other Democrat on that list. Anecdotally for this one county, the Joe Biden presidency has not been Bayh, Gregg, or Donnelly. For comparison to above, McCain won the county in 2008 60.0 to 38.6 and Romney won the county in 2012 68.2 to 29.4.

Biden's saving grace for rural areas is I don't think his share of the vote will go up at all and may go even a little lower, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will run and his votes will reduce Biden's losing margins. (The reverse should be true to some degree where Biden is naturally more dominant however.) But I see nothing to support your hypothesis based on what I see on the ground as one involved in politics to a minor degree. Democrats continue to have no message for rural areas and that leads to them losing those areas by 50-point-plus margins.

I mostly agree returning to my parent's home in rural New Hampshire with one exception. Dobbs brought to life the Democratic performance in state legislative races where they went from around 33% to 44% while the rest of the ticket remained non existent. It's often not enough to win seats, but some previously apolitical folks have run for legislature posy Dobbs in 2022 and recieved crossover support.

However, I also know plenty who voted Democratic for legislature for the first time in 2022, may do so in 2024 but would never think of voting for Biden.

Right to Life are grassroots strong here. If Democrats choose to campaign on abortion Biden might get less votes than RFK Jr.

Comparing to 2016 and 2020, I don't see how Biden gets 24.1% of the vote in my county he got considering his 4 years in office and a potential RFK Jr. candidacy. Johnson in 2016 got 5% in a similar "we hate this election" vibe from the electorate, but RFK Jr. should outperform Gary Johnson. He'll have more money and media attention. When you consider that, I don't know if Biden cracks 20%. Trump at the 70% benchmark or s little under sounds right, he's going to lose votes to RFK Jr. too.

Come on, he's as much as a partisian democrat as the Clintons and those who cried when Trump won in 2016 combined.

Israel are saying they have the proof that the fire was not their weapons.

Yes, a likely story.

A bit surprised it is that overwhelmingly SDLP, you might think the UUP would do a bit better there.

I was in a Catholic charity group for some time, and most people were there mainly to aid others in need, not to evangelize. And it was an incredibly rewarding experience to take time to help others in greater need than me. Just my two cents on why Christianity isn't a one-size-fits-all, even if it falls on deaf ears.

That’s because Catholicism preaches doing good deeds and needing to earn your way into heaven. Vs the American evangelical “you’re all going to hell unless you become a fundy too, and you can do whatever you want as long as you’re saved”.

People in the West often refer to the rule of Ngo Dinh Diem which ended in 1963. But by 1969, South Vietnam was doing " okay ". Of course it was never going to be fully democratic and non corrupt, but Nguyen Van Thieu was already on track to implement major reforms, that unfortunately didn't come fast enough.

But think about this : South Vietnamese Cultural life was THRIVING. Songwriters such Trinh Cong Son ( who wrote songs against the Vietnam War, without much repercussions ), Tu Cong Phung, Vu Thanh An, they were all thriving, while in North Vietnam, similar songwriters were banned from even writing, even mildly critical songs. And by 1970, Saigon had 27 newspapers criticizing the South Vietnamese Government.

You never had any of this in North Vietnam, AT ALL. But of course, I'm Vietnamese, and I know about these songwriters, and musicians ( Thank You Thuy Nga Paris By Night ! ). As Pham Duy, the most famous Vietnamese composer in the 20th century, said he chose to live in South Vietnam rather than North Vietnam for the artistic freedom.

3. The main problem with the mainstream Western Narratives, is that it made South Vietnam into a proxy, a patsy for the West, when new historical research showed that South Vietnam was far more independent than the US would have liked it to be.

Actually, there's been new research that shows that Ngo Dinh Diem, was far more visionary than his critics ( or supporters ) assumed, and that the US killed him off, or approved of his killing, because he din't tow to the Western Line. https://www.amazon.com/Misalliance-United-States-South-Vietnam/dp/0674072987

But, that started the downfall for South Vietnam.

All very interesting and to an extent I might agree. But wasn't the main problem with Diem's regime that he basically tried to impose Catholicism on a fundamentally Buddhist realm? By all accounts that made him extremely unpopular and led inter alia to that forever iconic Thich Quang Duc episode?? And indeed its not impossible it weakened support for the idea of South Vietnam longer term.

There's still no getting away really from how rapidly the entire country just collapsed in spring 1975, or how there was no serious attempt to carry on some sort of insurgency loyal to the idea of SV after that (it could have happened, significant numbers of AVRN troops remained even when Saigon fell) Its hard to avoid comparisons with Afghanistan three years ago isn't it - and in both cases the winners were not just astonished, but maybe even somewhat ill-prepared, for how quickly total victory came.