The 2016 US American Election Thread

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Not to scare anyone but the odds of Hillary losing the election in two weeks are roughly akin to an NFL kicker missing a 30-yard FG. Which just happened twice in about 4 minutes.

I totally appreciate this, and I like The Upshot using this metaphor. However, keep in mind that in the average week, there are more field-goals attempted in the nfl then there have been presidential elections in US history. Every game, there are so many different things that happen, every game is likely to have something that is a statistical outlier or quirk.

However, it's also worth pointing out that these estimates are based entirely on polls (or in the case of 538 polls plus, polls + fundamentals such as economy). On those rare cases that there's a miss, you would expect to be able to see, through some non-polling-preference metric, something that would suggest the possibility of a polling miss. An enthusiasm gap, a ground game gap, late movement that polls were not able to react to, October surprises, popularity of incumbent, etc. So far, none of these non-polling factors favor Trump, and a couple significantly favour Clinton.

[Snuffleupagus]

Don't worry folks, the lying hypocrite quiff won't loose to the crazy billionaire.

Hope everyone sleeps well at night with this news

[GGG]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Not to scare anyone but the odds of Hillary losing the election in two weeks are roughly akin to an NFL kicker missing a 30-yard FG. Which just happened twice in about 4 minutes.

I think the shape of the graph makes a difference here.

We know the distribution with confidence of missed field goal attempts so we expect them to happen.

The reason for the 538 % is the uncertainty. Because of the small historical sample size and the potential error in polling and the way elections can move of scandal you have wide error bars in what is possible. The model for example doesn't know that Hillary is running against Donald trump. It only knows the polls that have been conducted.

So I see the 538 number as conservative. Other models put her in the high nineties.

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Don't worry folks, the lying hypocrite quiff won't loose to the crazy billionaire.

Hope everyone sleeps well at night with this news

[photon]

Trump says polls are phony, while Conway admits they are behind in those same polls, she knows they're not phony.

"Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump . We are going to WIN!"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...34428942622721

EDIT: "Major story" seems to be from Drudge. It's awesome that the US is within spitting distance of having a president where things can go from the Drudge Report to policy in just minutes!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...hy-hes-losing/

In short, then: This is an eight-year-old email talking about a common polling technique for ensuring accuracy among demographic subgroups from a guy who was not working for or representative of a media outlet.

It is not, in other words, an explanation of why Trump is losing.

Trump's also bringing up his desire to change the system so he has a better chance to successfully sue the media.

[Drak]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Don't worry folks, the lying hypocrite quiff won't loose to the crazy billionaire.

Hope everyone sleeps well at night with this news

Just how many accounts have you made?

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by photon

Trump says polls are phony, while Conway admits they are behind in those same polls, she knows they're not phony.

"Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump . We are going to WIN!"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...34428942622721

One of the many silly things about this is that polls are likely more detrimental to the person in the lead (by causing complacency) than the person trailing.

If I was on Clinton's staff and I had the power to rig polls, I'd make bluish swing states close, and reddish swing states appear to be runaway wins for Trump. The idea is to make sure that your supporters have urgency in the states where high turnout favours you, and that your opponent's supporters might get complacent in states where low turnout might give you an upset or two. I'd also try to put myself slightly behind on the national race.

This is almost exactly the opposite of what's actually happening in the polls, where bluish swing states are looking like runaways for Clinton, reddish swing states are looking like Clinton has an advantage but are still competitive, and more red states are entering play, while Clinton has a massive lead nationally.

EDIT:
That WP write-up on what's going on in that email makes perfect sense... certainly far more than any vast conspiracy.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by photon

Trump says polls are phony, while Conway admits they are behind in those same polls, she knows they're not phony.

"Major story that the Dems are making up phony polls in order to suppress the the Trump . We are going to WIN!"

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...34428942622721

EDIT: "Major story" seems to be from Drudge. It's awesome that the US is within spitting distance of having a president where things can go from the Drudge Report to policy in just minutes!

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...hy-hes-losing/



Trump's also bringing up his desire to change the system so he has a better chance to successfully sue the media.

I think it is a little bit extreme to attack the source as "Drudge". It's an original source from WikiLeaks.

Here is the following Podesta email about "oversampling" in the polls.

https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/26551

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

Wikileaks has a very clear agenda here, and it's not "whistleblowing"

Yup, it's called "get a President that Julian Assange thinks will feel indebted to him and thus allow him to leave his pseudo-house arrest".

[Senator Clay Davis]

Took two pages, but the NYT printed every single insult from Trump's Twitter since the election began. Which of course means it would take the entire paper to print every insult he's ever uttered on Twitter.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

Took two pages, but the NYT printed every single insult from Trump's Twitter since the election began. Which of course means it would take the entire paper to print every insult he's ever uttered on Twitter.

This is impressive. While this is all fact, presenting it this way feels partisan and might support the Donald's view that the mainstream press is out to get him.

[Senator Clay Davis]

More lol's



https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...9132&tid=ss_tw

[MarchHare]

Originally Posted by edslunch

This is impressive. While this is all fact, presenting it this way feels partisan and might support the Donald's view that the mainstream press is out to get him.

"The mainstream press is out to get me...by reprinting things verbatim that I myself wrote to my millions of Twitter followers!"

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by edslunch

This is impressive. While this is all fact, presenting it this way feels partisan and might support the Donald's view that the mainstream press is out to get him.

Sure, in a similar way that a serial killer probably feels that the police are out to get him.

[edslunch]

Originally Posted by MarchHare

"The mainstream press is out to get me...by reprinting things verbatim that I myself wrote to my millions of Twitter followers!"

Several of Clinton's ads also just use his quotes verbatim. He is a dbag and I'm happy to see him hung with his own words. I just think that printing them this way as a full two page spread is clearly designed for maximum negative impact and seems more like something a campaign would do rather than an 'impartial' newspaper. Imagine if the Wall Street Journal printed two full pages of factual but damning comments and testimony from Clinton's past - wouldn't we see that as partisan?

Anyway it was more of a curiosity to me, not a big deal.

[PsYcNeT]

Yeah the Times is definitely wearing their Trump-hate on their sleeve this season, which is a pretty huge shift from their usually non-partisan reporting during other elections.

That said, I would guess they have had more historical run-ins with Trump than any other paper (other than maybe the WSJ or the NYPost), so they may have been biased against him long before the election.

[Senator Clay Davis]

But Trump has also been outwardly hostile to reports and has consistently made statements that suggest he'd changed the first amendment to suit his own desire to sue newspapers more. He's effectively villainized them, so it's no shocker they are showing more and more contempt for him in return.

[CaptainCrunch]

To me they're playing into Trump's narrative that everyone is out to get him and perception can be reality in an election.

I think it probably would have been wiser for the Times not to do this since it probably wasn't going to help Hillary all that much.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Yeah the Times is definitely wearing their Trump-hate on their sleeve this season, which is a pretty huge shift from their usually non-partisan reporting during other elections.

That said, I would guess they have had more historical run-ins with Trump than any other paper (other than maybe the WSJ or the NYPost), so they may have been biased against him long before the election.

Is this a function of the assessment that trump is unfit to be president rather that two individuals with policy disagreements

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

But Trump has also been outwardly hostile to reports and has consistently made statements that suggest he'd changed the first amendment to suit his own desire to sue newspapers more. He's effectively villainized them, so it's no shocker they are showing more and more contempt for him in return.

Don't pick fights with people that buy ink by the barrel.