It’s a little silly to look at a whole nearly 10 years and not recognize culture has changed significantly, but here’s an example considering the other reply failed to produce one:
Merely 1 year before, the internet was roiled by absolute massive drama that was basically masterminded by proto-incels upset that women were in the video game industry. They were extremely successful in framing a jilted ex’s story as somehow a question of ethics. It was not only impressive how seriously they were taken, but some aspects were just unquestioned as just “how the internet was” like making depictions of these public figures being beaten to a bloody pulp, when nowadays the kids have been having to make euphemisms for implying someone dying in any way to get around censors. It even spilled over into 2015, which is why I can even use it as an example for that year.
In comparison, Gamergate 2 happened a few weeks ago. Its likely not many people here will even realize that even happened, and those that do recognize it was a whimpering yelp at best compared to the OG.
It kinda makes them look even more short sighted tbh. Like yeah, you can look at “there’s a few polls where he takes from Biden” and call it a day, but it’s kinda missing the fact he’s lost a lot of relevance already with no signs of stopping.
It’s kind of a catch 22: he’s stealing votes from the low-info pool, but at the same time if he’s not defined at all he’ll make no impact by election day. Elevating him can fix that, but that risks those low info voters realizing what they’re getting into and then start biting into Trump’s numbers as expected.