The New American Politics thread

[Street Pharmacist]

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruyk

Whites in new Monmouth poll:

Men w/o degree: Trump +31
Women w/o degree: Trump +17
Men w/ degree: Trump +11
Women w/ degree: Clinton +30

[jayswin]

haha, oh Peter.

[peter12]

Polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes. Based on recent experience in Scotland, GOP primaries, Brexit, the outlier turned out to be the reality.

I still don't think anyone in here really understands the mindset of the Trump voter.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by peter12

Polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes. Based on recent experience in Scotland, GOP primaries, Brexit, the outlier turned out to be the reality.

I still don't think anyone in here really understands the mindset of the Trump voter.

Polls accurately predicted all of those. Opinions change with time. Just depends when you test them

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Polls accurately predicted all of those. Opinions change with time. Just depends when you test them

Not with any real degree of confidence.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by peter12

I still don't think anyone in here really understands the mindset of the Trump voter.

Actually that's more or less been figured out. What hasn't been figured out is just how strong the true level of support Trump really has. But it's pretty clear what the mindset of a Trump voter is.

[ResAlien]

Haha, quite the Trumpian turn for peter

"This poll proves Trump is getting back in this."

"Maybe but these polls all show him being soundly trounced."

"POLLS ARE CRAP!"

[peter12]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

Haha, quite the Trumpian turn for peter

"This poll proves Trump is getting back in this."

"Well this multitude of polls show him being soundly trounced."

"POLLS ARE CRAP!"

No, I laid out my thoughts on Trump quite clearly earlier in the thread.

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by peter12

No, I laid out my thoughts on Trump quite clearly earlier in the thread.

You literally posted a poll showing he's closer, then immediately said "polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes" as soon as it was shown to be an outlier. This isn't rocket appliances.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Actually that's more or less been figured out. What hasn't been figured out is just how strong the true level of support Trump really has. But it's pretty clear what the mindset of a Trump voter is.

As I said before, this election is probably becoming more of a referendum on Clinton's actual abilities than it is about a choice between Trump and Clinton.

That said, as Trump mainly attracts the support of isolated, uneducated, and poorly civilized white males, their problems are shared by just about every similar socio-economic group across the ethnic spectrum.

There is enormous potential for a decent, virtuous political movement in America. There is also great risk for even more brutish, vicious populism.

Clinton is the safe bet now, but she does not have the capacity for either, and in the case of the latter option, Thank God.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

You literally posted a poll showing he's closer, then immediately said "polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes" as soon as it was shown to be an outlier. This isn't rocket appliances.

And I pointed out, albeit briefly, that its status as an outlier really doesn't mean much. For all we know, the outlier could be correct!

[CliffFletcher]

The Atlantic has posted a sobering article about the history of poor whites in the U.S.:

The Original Underclass

The barely veiled implication, whichever version you consider, is that the people undergoing these travails deserve relatively little sympathy—that they maybe, kinda had this reckoning coming. Either they are layabouts drenched in self-pity or they are sad cases consumed with racial status anxiety and animus toward the nonwhites passing them on the ladder. Both interpretations are, in their own ways, strikingly ungenerous toward a huge number of fellow Americans.

In my own reporting in Vance’s home ground of southwestern Ohio and ancestral territory of eastern Kentucky, I have encountered racial anxiety and antagonism, for sure. But far more striking is the general aura of decline that hangs over towns in which medical-supply stores and pawn shops dominate decrepit main streets, and Victorians stand crumbling, unoccupied. Talk with those still sticking it out, the body-shop worker and the dollar-store clerk and the unemployed miner, and the fatalism is clear: Things were much better in an earlier time, and no future awaits in places that have been left behind by polished people in gleaming cities. The most painful comparison is not with supposedly ascendant minorities—it’s with the fortunes of one’s own parents or, by now, grandparents. The demoralizing effect of decay enveloping the place you live cannot be underestimated. And the bitterness—the “primal scorn”—that Donald Trump has tapped into among white Americans in struggling areas is aimed not just at those of foreign extraction. It is directed toward fellow countrymen who have become foreigners of a different sort, looking down on the natives, if they bother to look at all.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by peter12

And I pointed out, albeit briefly, that its status as an outlier really doesn't mean much. For all we know, the outlier could be correct!

Maybe, but for Trump that is now 3 straight polls in Georgia showing Hillary winning, and that's not looking like an outlier. If he's spending any significant time or resources keeping Georgia red, this is going to be a slaughter.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by peter12

Polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes. Based on recent experience in Scotland, GOP primaries, Brexit, the outlier turned out to be the reality.

I still don't think anyone in here really understands the mindset of the Trump voter.

My theory involves lead poisoning.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by peter12

Polls have increasingly fallen short of actual political outcomes. Based on recent experience in Scotland, GOP primaries, Brexit, the outlier turned out to be the reality.

I still don't think anyone in here really understands the mindset of the Trump voter.

I do think the difference is that the 538-style model has an absolutely phenomenal record of predicting electoral college results. It's possible these sorts of models get one or two states wrong, or miss the national result by a couple points. But in the past, the tendency has been for these models to miss on states that are low-polled because of an unlikelihood to affect the national outcome (either small population or only likely to flip in the event of a landslide national victory).
Even in the primaries, the polls were generally accurate at predicting the outcomes at well-polled state-level events, with the occasional big miss like the Democrats in Michigan. The problem on the Republican side was pundits (including Nate Silver by his own admission acting like a pundit) thinking that Donald Trump was somehow an exception whose front-runner polling status wouldn't hold. There's been nothing fundamentally different about Trump voters that makes the numbers less believable.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by peter12

No, I laid out my thoughts on Trump quite clearly earlier in the thread.

I don't think he was accusing you of being a Trump supporter. More that quoting a poll, and then shortly after saying you don't trust polls to predict outcomes, is something Trump would do.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

I don't think he was accusing you of being a Trump supporter. More that quoting a poll, and then shortly after saying you don't trust polls to predict outcomes, is something Trump would do.

Peter12 knows exactly what Res was getting at, and knows exactly what he did. Peter's just being Peter.

[peter12]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Peter12 knows exactly what Res was getting at, and knows exactly what he did. Peter's just being Peter.

No, like Corsi, I tend to make rapid posts on the fly while working. I just happened to see the poll, briefly remarked upon it, and then, kind of remarked upon my distaste for polls generally.

It was clumsy, but not really deserving of the response. Sneering is how I would put it.

Anyway, as I laid out above, I think a leader like Trump could appeal to a much larger group of Americans. I am not sure Trump is capable of turning things around, but if he did, you would see polls shift remarkably.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Totally out of nowhere question: what are the odds that polls are under-representing Trump's support in that they poll likely or registered voters, whereas he seems likely to get a more-than-usual chunk of his support from unlikely voters?

I suppose one response could be that you could've said the same thing about Sanders but polls remained normally predictive in his case. Just curious.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Totally out of nowhere question: what are the odds that polls are under-representing Trump's support in that they poll likely or registered voters, whereas he seems likely to get a more-than-usual chunk of his support from unlikely voters?

I suppose one response could be that you could've said the same thing about Sanders but polls remained normally predictive in his case. Just curious.

I don't have a great answer to this, but 538 says that overall, Clinton has been doing slightly better in 'likely voter' polls than otherwise, so there may be a bit of truth to what you're saying; however it's not a huge difference. However, traditionally, 'likely voter' polls tend to have a slight Republican bias, as likely voter polls may also discount things like youth vote that tend to be more Democrat. In the primaries, Trump consistently underperformed his polls slightly (despite the fact that he would always talk about how he overperformed his polls by an amazing amount).