[troutman]

https://www.niskanencenter.org/bitec...tember-update/

Hopefully, you are also noticing how high a probability independent “leaners” have of voting for the candidate of the party they lean towards. Again, most independents are “leaners” and will admit when asked by pollsters that they “lean to the Democrats” or “lean to the Republicans.” These leaners are “closet” partisans– voting like their partisan counterparts and holding issue preferences that are similar to their partisan counterparts. And as you can see, as of June 2020- they are firmly heading to their partisan “homes” in vote choice and have modeled probabilities that are almost as strong as their partisan counterparts.

This suggests then, that many independents are not “persuadable.” For any campaign- using analytics that allows you to sort out the party “leaners” of the opposition party to avoid wasting resources on them (unless you are in a PVI +10 district (for the opposition) you do not need these voters to win and cannot convert them as these data clearly shows. Instead, finding your race’s “pure” independents, latent partisans (already registered partisans with “iffy” turnout), and registered new partisans and focusing your efforts on convincing them to show up is a dominant strategy in most “swing” contests.

Electoral College Predictions:
https://www.270towin.com/maps/niskan...ge-predictions

September 15: Alaska moves from Safe Republican to Toss-up; Arizona and Florida from Leans to Likely Democratic; ME-2 from Toss-up to Likely Republican; Nevada and New Hampshire from Likely to Safe Democratic; South Carolina from Safe to Likely Republican.