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My point here is that I just can't see Trump or any other Republican getting beyond "striking distance" from Biden or any other Democrat.  I think the Democrat literally no matter who it is can safely rely on at least the above districts and their 167 EV's.  Realistically I think the same applies to NJ, CO, NM, and VA as well and that brings the D (whoever it is) to a minimum of 209 EV's.  Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota are arguably among that group and if you include them then any D has 225 EV's in the bank before the campaign even starts and thus only needs 45 to win. 

For that reason I just don't see this getting beyond "striking distance" so I think the election will be at least theoretically competitive. 

That's all true. The Democrats could run a cognitively limited old man and the Republicans could run lh320's cat, and both would have a certain floor of safe electoral votes. 

However if the Democrats run a cognitively limited old man, they may still be within theoretical "striking distance", but not against any competent Republican candidate. In fact, the only reason anyone thinks Biden might still have any sort of chance is that the Republicans have nominated Donald Trump. They're relying on anti-Trump voters, not pro-Biden voters. (Which admittedly worked in 2020.) 

Obviously, if Trump won NY, it's over and then some.  But this means the Dems will need to spend resources there, and the republicans may be tempted to do the same.

You're overthinking it, Sam.

The whole point is that none of the prosecutions are Trump's fault for the wrong he's done and the crimes he's committed. It's all someone else's fault.
If you can't defend his actions, sometimes all you're left with is "malicious/selective prosecution "

Pretty much every convicted criminal ever alleges malicious/selective prosecution so I get where you are coming from.  The Comedian Ron White has a joke that his DUI was bogus because "they were stopping every car driving down that sidewalk and that is profiling".  

From that perspective, I get where you are coming from.  

That said, all those "34 felony convictions" are from one prosecution in a district that voted ~90% against him, by a prosecutor who essentially ran on "I'm going to get Trump".  That is a bit stronger than the typical thug just randomly saying that the cops were out to get him.  The prosecutor literally was out to get him and said so in his campaign and was elected at least in part BECAUSE the heavily democratic voters of his district saw that as a worthwhile pursuit.  

That is my submission #1.  

#2 is what I submitted in one of these threads on here somewhere about the NY case.  I've read up on it.  The legal issue fascinated me way back when the DoJ went after Edwards for more-or-less the same thing and FAILED to get a conviction.  That very same DoJ publicly announced that they would NOT prosecute a case against Trump for it because of the Edwards precedent.  

It is, was, and should be a Federal case and the Feds (Biden's Feds, not Trump's) chose NOT to pursue it because they don't think it is a crime.  

To my knowledge, all the NY felonies are based on covering "another crime" and the "other crime" is the Federal Election Law violation that the DoJ said wasn't a crime.  On that basis, I'm comfortable stating that I think the whole NY Prosecution is a political charade and an unfortunate weaponization of the Legal System for Political Purposes.  

I'll add this:
If there is some obscure count that I am unaware of that doesn't rely on the Federal Elections Law Violation that the DoJ said wasn't a violation then I'll assert right now upfront that it isn't MY fault that I didn't realize that.  It is the NY Prosecutor's fault for tossing a bunch of garbage in with one actual case.  Also, the prosecution of an Elections Law Violation that the DoJ said wasn't a crime by a State Prosecutor (who has no business prosecuting Federal Election Law) taints everything else he throws at Trump and gives credence to Trump's "malicious/selective prosecution" argument.  Again, that isn't MY fault nor Trump's, it is the fault of the NY Prosecutor who brought the ridiculous case in the first place.  

Next I'll move to the GA cases:
I know that at least one prosecutor got tossed for "issues" but beyond that, everything that I have seen has been an effort to prosecute Trump for aggressively pursuing his case.  If you use that as the standard, Al Gore and ALL of his minions should STILL be in jail for aggressively pursuing their case in Florida after the 2000 election.  

The have Trump on the phone saying "I only need (whatever number) votes."  An anti-Trump prosecutor can read that and say "He's trying to create false votes".  A Trump defender can look at that and say "He's looking for whatever is available just like Gore was."  My issue with the prosecution is that the criminal standard is "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt" and you just don't have that.  You've got a question of what he meant and reasonable people can disagree about the answer but to say it is "beyond a reasonable doubt" is a bridge too far.  And once again you have a prosecutor from a HEAVILY democratic district pushing the prosecution.  

I honestly haven't looked all that close at this one but from my perspective I did look closely at the NY one and it is complete BS.  From my perspective that taints all the rest.  

On the classified docs.  I think both investigations are kinda making mountains out of mole hills.  I don't think either Trump or Biden did anything appreciably "wrong" in those cases.  

I don't find him to be incompetent in the sense that he doesn't know who people are or what people are talking about. He's old and slow and mixes up names and loses his train of thought. Does that mean he doesn't have the "mental capacity" to be president? Not sure what the standard is for that, but I suppose he does have the mental capacity to be president. But people are clearly concerned about it for good reason, and it ain't going to get better.

I'm trying to view this in as non-partisan a way as I can and I just think this is wishful thinking.  I've seen dementia up close and personal and that is what I think we are seeing.  

I will say that, having seen it, it is fairly likely that Biden actually IS fully competent most of the time and just has these lapses where he doesn't know what year it is (saying a few days ago that he'll beat Trump in 2020), who his is introducing (Introducing Zelensky as Putin and Harris as Trump), etc.  

As I see it, there are two problems with that:

• As unlikely as it is, there *MIGHT* be a serious nuclear attack.  Let's say Putin gets pissed about us arming his enemy and interfering in his neighborhood and nukes a USN CAG in the North Sea.  What is NSA supposed to do if they tell Biden and he tells them to go ask President Eisenhower what to do?  (I'm lifting the President Eisenhower part from personal experience because at one point my dad (born in 1940) that that IKE (left office in 1961) was President).  
• Dementia gets worse and Biden is running for a four year term that ends 4.5 years from now.  

Fulton County voted 73-26 for Biden, so it isn't HEAVILY democratic.  The prosecutor is for Fulton County.  This doesn't change your point of course.

I didn't look it up before I posted, but I'd call 73-26 "HEAVILY".  That is damn close to 3:1.  It is heavy enough that a Democrat does not have an appreciable chance of losing to a Republican and thus they have no political incentive to appear even-handed.  

You're overthinking it, Sam.

The whole point is that none of the prosecutions are Trump's fault for the wrong he's done and the crimes he's committed. It's all someone else's fault.

If you can't defend his actions, sometimes all you're left with is "malicious/selective prosecution "

wow-- a little "out there" for your normally rational posts.

I hate the guy- as I have said a million times.  He is Egotistical, bombastic, narcissistic, and has diarrhea of the mouth. But I am not convinced he committed a single crime.

When the "prosecutions" are made up, (just like the impeachment hoaxes') he does have a right to cry foul.  And you cant deny the MSM and Dem Party have tried their best to "get him" with things that have proven to be corrupt in their intentions and "evidence."   Just like the Dem talking point "nobody is above the law"  

Except appointing a civilian (jack Smith) to investigate with unlimited authority and subpoena power and prosecute Trump is WAYYY outside the law. There is no law or legislation or constitutional precedent to even allow something that obviously political and illegal.  That's Banana Republic stuff.  Talk about a threat to democracy.    I think that's why the recent poll I saw had Trump as less a threat to democracy than Biden.

I will disagree with you here.  To me- and many, he has been mentally declining, rapidly, for years. Obvious.  And here is where it is a problem for him:

-it has been covered up  ( I loved the headline on CNN the other day  "Top Dems Furious over Biden's condition being Hidden from them")  The White House staff called unedited videos of his stumble and falls and freezing "deepfakes" right up to the debate.

-who is running things?

I said somewhere in one of these threads that I truly believe that this is a case of the pro-Democrat media bias backfiring and HURTING Democrats.  Follow me here:

Suppose the situation were reversed:  An 81 year old Republican in significant cognitive decline was in the WH and seeking re-election.  His decline would have been BEATEN into us for the past four years.  SNL's "News" would have been running "Biden forgets what year it is" and "Biden forgets he is President" jokes for the past four years.  That would have led to a seriously contested Republican Primary.  With a seriously contested primary, the debate debacle would have happened at a Primary debate and the Republican incumbent would have lost the Primary.  He would now be a lame duck serving out his term.  

Instead, the media treated Trump's "sleepy Joe" comments and the like as COMPLETELY baseless and failed to look into it AT ALL.  Thus, there was no serious Democratic Primary, Biden didn't have to face Primary Debates and consequently the debacle didn't happen until a point in the cycle where it was too late to replace him through the Primary process and possibly too late to replace him period.