American Politics 3.0 - Back to Brunch

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

There's oceans of difference between 66% chance of a Trump victory and a coin flip.

If you look at RealClearPolling, it is flooded with right-wing partisan polls and is therefore predicting a Trump win. The betting odds are, well, betting odds.

I think more can be read from the early voting data than polls or betting odds.



Trump is not making it through a 4 year term. If he wins, a Project 2025 ghoul (be it Vance or someone else) is taking over at some point.

If by Ocean you mean 2% in the nantional polls then sure “ocean of difference”. Dems need plus 3 nationally to win so Dems plus 2 is right in the range above.

[Rutuu]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

The problem with reading too much into the early voting is that the rules in states for early voting change constantly, and COVID kept moving early/mail in voting to be more the norm.

The electoral map shifted a lot with Trump's 2016 win, shifted again in 2020 and will shift again with Harris as a candidate.

A Harris +2 nationally might not play out the same as a Hillary or Biden +2 in the electoral college.

That's the part I was struggling with in the data on early voting on NBC. It said 60m something votes out with 50m something cast.

Now where I live you get an election card, and I can use that card to go anywhere in the state / nationally to vote 2weeks prior to the day. Is that the same or similar in the battleground states? So there could be another 25m early votes as walk ups? Or are the other 90m voters now locked in to vote on election day?

[calgarygeologist]

Biden had a Clinton moment today and said that Trump supporters are garbage.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Biden had a Clinton moment today and said that Trump supporters are garbage.

And they say politicians always lie

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by GGG

If by Ocean you mean 2% in the nantional polls then sure “ocean of difference”. Dems need plus 3 nationally to win so Dems plus 2 is right in the range above.

I think you missed the point of my 2-point-lead comment. I was just commenting on the plausibility of the early votes being an indicator of how things will ultimately unfold. A 2 point popular vote lead is likely in the ballpark of where the final number will be. It's been said that leaks in support from CA and NY is the reason for the dip from 2020. So a smaller win in popular vote does not necessarily mean a lower chance of winning the swing states.

As for the polls, there are problems this year that make it hard for me to take them too seriously. They're adjusting quite aggressively to make up for the errors in 2016 and 2020. And some of them are fake right wing polls meant to deliberately boost the perception of an imminent Trump win.

[dino7c]

Republicans are also pushing for early votes this time instead of telling people not to vote early...so comparing the early vote from 2020 and then thinking they still have the same turnout in the bag on election day is misguided.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I think you missed the point of my 2-point-lead comment. I was just commenting on the plausibility of the early votes being an indicator of how things will ultimately unfold. A 2 point popular vote lead is likely in the ballpark of where the final number will be. It's been said that leaks in support from CA and NY is the reason for the dip from 2020. So a smaller win in popular vote does not necessarily mean a lower chance of winning the swing states.

As for the polls, there are problems this year that make it hard for me to take them too seriously. They're adjusting quite aggressively to make up for the errors in 2016 and 2020. And some of them are fake right wing polls meant to deliberately boost the perception of an imminent Trump win.

I agree with not using the RCP but the 538 and Silver report are showing a very similar number of about Harris 1.4 and Harris +1.2. So early vote + 2 is slightly more favourable but really all the same number. Harris plus 2 is really the coin flip number in these models of support.

I see the the early voting data as not changing the message of this race is still two close to call and is inline with quality polling.

[Mathgod]

Agree to disagree about the quality of the polling. Both sites have Trump winning PA, but the early voting shows a very different story. It could go either way but in the end I think Harris wins PA by a fraction of a point.

[dino7c]

Dems would rather have the polls tight to ensure a high turnout
Trumpers want to show a big Trump lead for "stop the steal"

Read into this how you wish but I think the biases on both sides are making Trumps poll numbers look better than final results will

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I never said it was. But I do put a lot more stock in these numbers than betting markets flooded with dumb money.

Some potential warning signs for Harris: 6.2 million people have voted in Texas, where Rs lead by a margin of 52% to 37%. In Florida, 5.1 million votes have been cast, and Rs lead 45% to 34%.

That said, Harris has significant leads in the blue wall states. I have no idea how this is all going to shake out, but my heart is in my mouth.

Not to say either of those states are in play but in Florida the reps have a 6 point advantage in voter registration. Texas I couldn't find data, but I assume it's worse. That said while seemingly in the midst of a party re-alignment, and Harris pretty explicitly targeting anti-trump republicans accepting endorsements from the Cheneys and Romney. So if She is going to do better in some states she will need to win republicans (and she will win many repbulican votes). Likewise with a large registration edge for Dems in Penn. and an expected 1 point margin, it's likely many voters will vote outside of party lines. This is why early voting data if hard to look at as meaningful.

It would probably be a lot more useful to look at early vote share by district compared to a prior year. for example, If Atlanta holds a larger share of early voting this year than in 2020 when compaired to rural Georgia, I would buy that as a very good sign for Dems. I'm not sure if that kind of data exists.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Will we have a GDT for election night?

[Looch City]

You know what?

#### Harris. Yeah I said it. She's a miserable candidate that wasn't even democratically chosen.

And before you start with MAGA this and that, #### Trump too. Fascist piece of ####.

The only person that deserves to be President more than ANYTHING...

Is Bernie Sanders.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by Looch City

You know what?

#### Harris. Yeah I said it. She's a miserable candidate that wasn't even democratically chosen.

And before you start with MAGA this and that, #### Trump too. Fascist piece of ####.

The only person that deserves to be President more than ANYTHING...

Is Bernie Sanders.

lol

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Biden had a Clinton moment today and said that Trump supporters are garbage.

Everyone: “It backfired when Clinton called Trump voters deplorable”

Biden:

[Mathgod]

Not a good look. But he didn't say they were garbage. He said "the only garbage I see out there are his supporter's... his, his demonization of latinos is unconscionable".

The unfortunate pause was due to his speaking difficulties and him dealing with the emotion of the topic. He needed to say "and" instead of pausing.

Nevertheless, it's another own-goal for team Harris. Just like her comment about shooting a house intruder.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by #-3

Not to say either of those states are in play but in Florida the reps have a 6 point advantage in voter registration. Texas I couldn't find data, but I assume it's worse. That said while seemingly in the midst of a party re-alignment, and Harris pretty explicitly targeting anti-trump republicans accepting endorsements from the Cheneys and Romney. So if She is going to do better in some states she will need to win republicans (and she will win many repbulican votes). Likewise with a large registration edge for Dems in Penn. and an expected 1 point margin, it's likely many voters will vote outside of party lines. This is why early voting data if hard to look at as meaningful.

It would probably be a lot more useful to look at early vote share by district compared to a prior year. for example, If Atlanta holds a larger share of early voting this year than in 2020 when compaired to rural Georgia, I would buy that as a very good sign for Dems. I'm not sure if that kind of data exists.

Does cross-party voting play a big role in these races, or does it more or less cancel out? I would think it does cancel out, not exactly, but roughly. In this election there will be disaffected Rs voting for Harris, but there will also be (if what we're hearing is true) quite a number of Latino men registered as Dems voting for Trump.

A much larger factor for each party, I think, is getting your base to turn out. Hillary lost in 2016 due to a lack of voter turnout from the Dem base in the 3 key states. In 2020 the Dems turned out just enough of their base to win. Ultimately I think the overturning of Roe is helping with Dem turnout this year, and will be what gets Harris over the finish line, if just barely.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Does cross-party voting play a big role in these races, or does it more or less cancel out? I would think it does cancel out, not exactly, but roughly. In this election there will be disaffected Rs voting for Harris, but there will also be (if what we're hearing is true) quite a number of Latino men registered as Dems voting for Trump.

A much larger factor for each party, I think, is getting your base to turn out. Hillary lost in 2016 due to a lack of voter turnout from the Dem base in the 3 key states. In 2020 the Dems turned out just enough of their base to win. Ultimately I think the overturning of Roe is helping with Dem turnout this year, and will be what gets Harris over the finish line, if just barely.

The only two questions that really matter for this election are

1) Who will turn out. Trump is going hard after low propensity voters, it's a big risk.
2) Who will have more cross party voters. Harris feels she's lost a portion of traditionally union traditionally dem voters (white working class), so she has pivoted hard towards lost republicans. It's a risky strategy.

The other 92% of the electorate is locked in, It's the 8% above.

Given that early turnout numbers do a bad job of telling you if Trumps bet paid off, and a horrible job of telling you if Harris' bet paid off, they are particularly un-meaningful at this time.

[Strange Brew]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

I never said they were. I'm just saying that if Trump is winning those states by 10-15 points, it could be a bad sign of what's to come in the country as a whole.



Well aware of this. But this election cycle is different from 2020. In 2020, Trump told his supporters not to vote by mail and not to vote early. This time around, he's encouraging all voting methods. That's why this year's early vote is much more likely to be somewhat in line with the final election results than any early vote in the past.

And look at the share of the votes that have been cast thus far: Democrats have a 2 point lead. That's more or less in line with what the final popular vote is likely to be.

So, while it's still not a reliable predictor, it's much more reliable than partisan polls or silly betting odds.



It's likely to be much higher this time. For example, there were 11.2M votes cast in Texas last time. There are already 6.2M cast this time!

No I absolutely disagree. Early voting is not a representative sample and therefore on its own, is nowhere near as indicative as a high quality poll.

That's great that more registered Republicans are voting early but unless you compare to previous trends, it's not telling you anything. What do you think bigger early voting numbers in Texas are telling you?

[Strange Brew]

I don't really get the comments that seem to imply all polls are the same. They're not. There are several high quality polls and doesn't take much research at all to figure out which those are.

[activeStick]

Biden posted an explanation to his Twitter for his "garbage" comments...

https://twitter.com/user/status/1851436643498037614