Scrutable

dyqik wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:37 pm

538 points out that Biden is over 50% in the polls. The last times presidential candidates were over 50% vote share in June were Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84, although Biden's lead isn't as big as theirs were.

lpm wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 4:04 pm

dyqik wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 3:37 pm

538 points out that Biden is over 50% in the polls. The last times presidential candidates were over 50% vote share in June were Nixon in '72 and Reagan in '84, although Biden's lead isn't as big as theirs were.

I'm surprised they said that.

In May, June and July 1988 the Liberal Governor of Massachusetts polled over 50% - he peaked at +17 vs Vice President Bush.

Then he went for a ride in a tank.

Then Read my lips, no new taxes.

Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy.

Willie Horton's weekend pass.

Finally, the outcome: 53-46.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historica ... l_election

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 5:28 pm

Apologies - I can’t look back at the 2016 thread on the old place where this was dissected, but why were the polls wrong in 2016, and is anything different now?

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 5:28 pm

Apologies - I can’t look back at the 2016 thread on the old place where this was dissected, but why were the polls wrong in 2016, and is anything different now?

lpm wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 4:56 pm

Ah, OK.

But it was a huge lead nonetheless - similar to Biden now. Which adds the spice of nervousness to this year's race...

Of course, (a) polling is better than 1988 and (b) the race is highly stable with very high percentages in the completely approve/completely disapprove categories.

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 7:57 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 5:28 pm

Apologies - I can’t look back at the 2016 thread on the old place where this was dissected, but why were the polls wrong in 2016, and is anything different now?

I don't think they were that wrong. As far as I remember, the polls had Clinton slightly ahead in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, but within the margin of error. Complacent people interpreted that as being Clinton ahead, but it would have been better to portray it as being too close to call.

I think the last Fivethirtyeight forecast gave Trump a 30% chance of winning, which shows that the polls hadn't predicted a sure Clinton win.

As for why the polls consistently showed Clinton to be slightly ahead when she was slightly behind, as far as I remember the problem was due to the difficulty in getting a representative sample through calling random phone numbers. Call screening now means that normal people very rarely take part in a survey.

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 1:19 am

Squeak, you forgot:
- purging the electoral rolls of people with black or hispanic names, and not informing them that they may need to re-enroll.
- allowing certain forms of photographic ID, but not all, with some forms of non-photographic ID allowed as single point proof of identity in some areas, but other areas requiring both approved photographic ID and utility bill as dual point proof of identity in other areas.*
- closing polling stations in predominantly poorer areas.
- preventing postal voting due to an invented outbreak of voter fraud.

Although these aren't Trump strategies as such, but Republican party strategies.

[* Great when all utility bills are sent to one person at an address, and no-one else at that address can vote, especially when this dual point proof of identity isn't mentioned in the rules of how to vote prior to getting to the polling station!]

Squeak wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 26, 2020 12:48 am

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 7:57 pm

Vertigowooyay wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 25, 2020 5:28 pm

Apologies - I can’t look back at the 2016 thread on the old place where this was dissected, but why were the polls wrong in 2016, and is anything different now?

I don't think they were that wrong. As far as I remember, the polls had Clinton slightly ahead in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, but within the margin of error. Complacent people interpreted that as being Clinton ahead, but it would have been better to portray it as being too close to call.

I think the last Fivethirtyeight forecast gave Trump a 30% chance of winning, which shows that the polls hadn't predicted a sure Clinton win.

As for why the polls consistently showed Clinton to be slightly ahead when she was slightly behind, as far as I remember the problem was due to the difficulty in getting a representative sample through calling random phone numbers. Call screening now means that normal people very rarely take part in a survey.

The polls were pretty close on the national popular vote, they just missed part of a swing away from Clinton in a particular demographic in those three states. And because those three states have highly correlated voting patterns, a miss in one became a miss in three. Add in the electoral college, which can over-emphasise the effect of a line-ball result in a single state*, and the polls got the binary call wrong, while being numerically very close. Fivethirtyeight were the only people who were accounting for correlations between states, so even the other psephologists were expecting a Clinton win, and the non-numerical pundits were very confident of the Clinton win.

There was also a very high undecided vote late in the campaign, and those undecideds broke for Trump the challenger, rather than Clinton the pseudo-incumbent/known quantity or one of the high profile Others. This year, Trump is very much a known quantity so likely won't get benefit-of-the-doubt voters and third party campaigns tend to do badly the year after they've seemingly affected the outcome.

In Fivethirtyeight's polling average (which weights for pollster quality, so is a little more sophisticated than other averaging tools), Biden currently has an average of 50.6% and Trump gets 41.1%, with an undecided/other vote of 8.3%. In 2016, Clinton's highpoint in the 538 polling average was 46% and the Libertarian Johnson polled 5-10% through most of the campaign, which added uncertainty.

So, Trump needs to peel off voters who have actively chosen to support Biden, rather than scoop up undecideds, and that is much harder. Also, the last few polls that I've seen crosstabs for have the undecided votes concentrated in younger age brackets, which isn't exactly productive ground for Trump. He has a particular problem in that 4 years of usual mortality (plus the pandemic ones) disproportionately affect his voters because they're older, and the younger generations aren't becoming Republicans as they age. So he *has* to find new voters to replace the dead ones, even if he hangs onto every group that he got last time. There is one path to a second Trump presidency and it requires hanging on to every state he got last time, despite demographic change, a base-only campaigning strategy, an economic crash, a mishandled pandemic, and a black lives matter that is actually changing white people's minds about racism in America. In contrast, Biden has many possible states that he could pick up and he only needs a couple of them. The political environment this year is highly volatile but something is going to have to go extremely strangely for Trump to get back in again.

*At the moment, the EC helps Republicans. If/when Texas goes blue, it will almost certainly become a Democratic advantage. Watch all the pundits switch positions on whether it should be abolished...

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 7:03 pm

I reckon he's gonna try and do a coup, but this time will actually be confronted by a system that's not packed with his yes-men. It'll be hilarious and incompetent, fuelling rumours and jokes and conspiracy theories for decades.

At that point, reality will have truly jumped the shark, and I'll probably stop watching it.

THE VAST SILENT MAJORITY IS ALIVE AND WELL!!! We will win this Election big. Nobody wants a Low IQ person in charge of our Country, and Sleepy Joe is definitely a Low IQ person!

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 7:03 pm

I reckon he's gonna try and do a coup, but this time will actually be confronted by a system that's not packed with his yes-men. It'll be hilarious and incompetent, fuelling rumours and jokes and conspiracy theories for decades.

At that point, reality will have truly jumped the shark, and I'll probably stop watching it.

Martin Y wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 9:42 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 28, 2020 7:03 pm

I reckon he's gonna try and do a coup, but this time will actually be confronted by a system that's not packed with his yes-men. It'll be hilarious and incompetent, fuelling rumours and jokes and conspiracy theories for decades.

At that point, reality will have truly jumped the shark, and I'll probably stop watching it.

Well if he wants to stage a coup, the police might back him.

https://twitter.com/jessiedesigngal/sta ... 9246260224

(Riot police march into a peaceful violin concert vigil for the young man they killed, managing to make themselves look so sinister and evil you'd think it was overblown if it was a movie.)

Has anyone told the NRA they're finally vindicated as that tyrannical government they warned everyone about is here?

(Sorry this is a bit wrong-threadish, but the coup thing. Seemed pertinent.)

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:05 am

He's got a way to go before his approval drops to its lower realms (36.5% in Dec 2017) - since the end of Jan 2018 he's only gone below 40% approval on two occasions, most recently Jan 2019. Currently he's got 40.5% approval.

Little waster wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:17 am

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 30, 2020 11:05 am

He's got a way to go before his approval drops to its lower realms (36.5% in Dec 2017) - since the end of Jan 2018 he's only gone below 40% approval on two occasions, most recently Jan 2019. Currently he's got 40.5% approval.

Which begs the question* short of being caught on camera being paid a dollar by Putin to curl out a steaming log on the Stars'n'Stripes while handing him the nuclear codes what exactly does Trump need to do to lose the support of these dead-enders?

El Pollo Diablo wrote: ↑

Tue Jun 30, 2020 1:31 pm

The times where trump has dropped lower are when he's done stuff that offends the republican side without gaining support from independents. I think the point where he insulted the family of a dead soldier, for instance, led to a brief drop in support.