In 2016, I think the Dems made a couple of crucial mistakes. First was attacking people supporting Trump and not recognizing that some them were being pushed in that direction, but could still be pulled back. Shaming them instead of showing how the Dems could help them didn't help. It's partly why the MAGA movement gained more steam. It's one of the reasons why I think Andy Beshear is a good asset for the party.
The other was relying too much on polls to dictate their strategy.
I mean this misses the biggest mistake which was to assume that the blue wall in the midwest was safe, there was essentially zero money or effort put into winning Michigan and Wisconsin.
But I don't think lessons learned or comparisons to a campaign 8 years ago matters. It's a question of what will move the needle the few points necessary this time around to win, one way or another. And I'm not sure what else they can do beyond what they're doing now, yet it doesn't seem to be creating the polling moves I was hoping would be the case two weeks ago. Given that Trump has outperformed polls in the previous two elections this should be making people nervous, yet all I see is cocky "Trump is getting wrecked" bravado, like she's a prohibitive favourite to win. It's a coin flip still, despite a nightmare stretch for the bad guys.
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WTF?! It should be the opposite. Why would Harris want Trump having the ability to talk over her?
Yes! Mics should be off when he’s not speaking or he’ll interrupt and yell at Kamala. He should also be cut off when he goes over his time, and Daniel Dale should do live fact checks. That last one would be epic.
I mean this misses the biggest mistake which was to assume that the blue wall in the midwest was safe, there was essentially zero money or effort put into winning Michigan and Wisconsin.
But I don't think lessons learned or comparisons to a campaign 8 years ago matters. It's a question of what will move the needle the few points necessary this time around to win, one way or another. And I'm not sure what else they can do beyond what they're doing now, yet it doesn't seem to be creating the polling moves I was hoping would be the case two weeks ago. Given that Trump has outperformed polls in the previous two elections this should be making people nervous, yet all I see is cocky "Trump is getting wrecked" bravado, like she's a prohibitive favourite to win. It's a coin flip still, despite a nightmare stretch for the bad guys.
I think polling is in for a big surprise. 18-25s don't answer polls.
I was skeptical like you but I think the DNC was really good and Trump was losing his ####.
I also think Georgia is lost. What is Trump doing going after Brian Kemp? And Duncan is going for Harris, great speech at the DNC.
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Last edited by GirlySports; 08-26-2024 at 12:08 PM.
I think polling is in for a big surprise. 18-25s don't answer polls.
I was skeptical like you but I think the DNC was really good and Trump was losing his ####.
I also think Georgia is lost. What is Trump doing going after Brian Kemp?
Predicting who’s not answering polls is a fools errand. Broad statements like 18-25 years don’t answer polls are meaningless when polls are demographics adjusted to reflect the projected electorate. Most polling is not raw data. It’s polled, then weighted to reflect demographics so you don’t over-represent groups who answer the phones. This weighting can be either based on the demographics of a country or state or based on the demographics of likely voters from the country or state. This demographic adjustment is where you see the bias that the different polling companies have
We don’t know how representative the person who chooses to answer a poll is relative to the voters of that demographic. This creates the non-statistical error in the polling that is of unknown direction and magnitude each election.
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If the polls are made up of people who answered a call from an “Unknown Caller” and took 15 minutes to answer the questions, they are hardly representative of anyone except maybe the elderly who were caught between episodes of The Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune and they weren’t out bringing in their bins mere minutes after the collection truck drove away.
If the polls are made up of people who answered a call from an “Unknown Caller” and took 15 minutes to answer the questions, they are hardly representative of anyone except maybe the elderly who were caught between episodes of The Price is Right and Wheel of Fortune and they weren’t out bringing in their bins mere minutes after the collection truck drove away.
That isn’t how polling works. They are adjusted for demos. They keep calling 18-25 year olds until there is a statistically significant sample or just accept high sample error for those demos.
Polling is reflective of people who answer the phones in each chosen weighted demographic adjusted for likelihood of turnout.
Here’s a good read on polling accuracy from 2020 discussing 2016 failures
All good polling relies on statistical adjustment called “weighting” to make sure that samples align with the broader population on key characteristics. Historically, public opinion researchers have relied on the ability to adjust their datasets using a core set of demographics to correct imbalances between the survey sample and the population. There is a growing realization among survey researchers that weighting a poll on just a few variables like age, race and sex is insufficient for getting accurate results. Some groups of people – such as older adults and college graduates – are more likely to take surveys, which can lead to errors that are too sizable for a simple three- or four-variable adjustment to work well. Pew Research Center studies in 2016 and 2018 found that adjusting on more variables produces more accurate results.
A number of pollsters take this lesson to heart. The high-caliber Gallup and New York Times/Siena College polls adjust on eight and 10 variables, respectively. Pew Research Center polls adjust on 12 variables. In a perfect world, it wouldn’t be necessary to have that much intervention by the pollster – but the real world of survey research is not perfect.
Failing to adjust for survey respondents’ education level is a disqualifying shortfall in present-day battleground and national polls. For a long time in U.S. politics, education level was not consistently correlated with partisan choice, but that is changing, especially among white voters. As a result, it’s increasingly important for poll samples to accurately reflect the composition of the electorate when it comes to educational attainment. Since people with higher levels of formal education are more likely to participate in surveys and to self-identify as Democrats, the potential exists for polls to overrepresent Democrats. But this problem can easily be corrected through adjustment, or weighting, so the sample matches the population. The need for battleground state polls to adjust for education was among the most important takeaways from the polling misses in 2016.
Last edited by GGG; 08-26-2024 at 12:37 PM.
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Unless there is a big DNC bump for Harris in Georgia, this is wishful thinking. Last poll Harris was down 4, but that was August 16th. The next poll released for Georgia will be illuminating.
That isn’t how polling works. They are adjusted for demos. They keep calling 18-25 year olds until there is a statistically significant sample or just accept high sample error for those demos.
Polling is reflective of people who answer the phones in each chosen weighted demographic adjusted for likelihood of turnout.
Live phone polling has pretty much disappeared as well.
Dems have had a nice 6 weeks, especially when you consider they were virtually dead after Trump got shot at. They've probably closed the gap enough that I would give Trump a 55-45 advantage at this point. And I know people are gonna say how can you think that, but I'm sorry until Americans are not, relatively speaking, the dumbest people on earth, Trump should be considered the favorite. Assuming otherwise allows for even that 0.5% complacency that will allow him to win. Americans do not deserve the benefit of the doubt, a normal country would have Trump not even nominated, then down 20 if he were somehow nominated, instead of the coinflip this currently is.
I do worry that the Dems might peak too soon. Politics in general, but particularly in America, seems to swing back and forth very quickly. People have short attention spans and many casual people tend to go with the flavour of the week. The good news is that early voting is starting soon and if the Dems and keep the momentum going, it should help them with the early votes.
The funny thing is if Trump does get some momentum back closer to the actual election date and the early votes come in and spoil it for him, you just know that all hell will break loose again.
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Yes! Mics should be off when he’s not speaking or he’ll interrupt and yell at Kamala. He should also be cut off when he goes over his time, and Daniel Dale should do live fact checks. That last one would be epic.
I want the moderator who did the Boebert debate recently to do this one.
I think Harris thinks she can smack Donald well enough if he talks over her. But I'd approve of a mute button controlled by a (good) moderator, not just an automatic one.
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I want the moderator who did the Boebert debate recently to do this one.
I think Harris thinks she can smack Donald well enough if he talks over her. But I'd approve of a mute button controlled by a (good) moderator, not just an automatic one.
God yes. Give me more Kyle Clark live fact checking and stomping down BS.
Last edited by SutterBrother; 08-26-2024 at 02:10 PM.
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I don't understand why people are acting like this is over or that Trump is toast. Yeah, the coverage has been lopsided and the Dems have pitched a no hitter for weeks basically but look at recent swing state polls. They're all within like... 2 points. Recent PA polls have Trump up, again within the MOE. So what happens when something doesn't go perfectly for Harris for a week or two?
I am still very nervous about this outcome.
LOL. who really thinks that? The US is a 3rd world banana republic.
and even if the fatboysings is it really over? he will just claim the voting machines are rigged again.
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Came here to post this too. Really emphasizes the “Coin Flip” nature of this race currently, and why battleground states are basically all that matter in the electoral college. General public polling is a good temperature probe in the country but only a sliver of the population actually has the ability to impact change.
However I’d be hesitant to read too much into any projection model. They are built based on lessons of elections-past, and this round is so unique:
-One of the candidates just entered the race about as late as possible
-One of the candidates is running for a third time and has a huge online presence in the age of social media, making him essentially the most well known candidates to voters ever
-One of the candidates just survived an assassination attempt
-One of the candidates is a felon
-One of the candidates is an incumbent VICE President
-There is a chance the candidates never debate each other
-A third party candidate (with a polling support greater than the margin between the two main candidates in all battleground states) just endorsed one of the main party candidates
I’m sure that I am missing some. There are also other “speculative” possible impacts of race features that haven’t been as prominent in the past, such as the influence of AI targeted propaganda, and the effect of what feels like increasingly diverse voter registration and turnout hurdles. Compound that with the reality that voters increasingly operate in curated echo chambers, and I don’t envy anyone trying to predict this race.
So while I will follow 538’s projections daily because that’s the best we’ve got, unless it gives a candidate >95% chance I’m not going to read too much into it.
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