How will RBG confirmation vote impact the 2020 Senate and Presidential races?

[Buddy2]

The 1964 election was important to defeat the far right Barry Goldwater.

The 1932 election in electing Roosevelt not the sitting president Hoover

[tassojunior]

16 hours ago, stevenkesslar said:

John Zogby of Zogby Polls would agree with you.   I posted it already in some other thread.  He told some academic writing about predictions and polls about 2016 that he could not say who was going to win in 2016.  He could tell you what the polls said on any given day.  And he said he could make a pretty good guess - if you told him the turnout.  But he couldn't predict turnout, of course.  Therefore he could not predict who would win.

That's even more true in 2020, as you say.  There's this idea that President Toxic has the best organized ground game ever.  And Democrats are freaking out that Biden folks are not knocking on doors.  So maybe the Trumpians will just roll over Biden.  Then there's also the idea, which is showing up in poll after poll, that youth turnout will be through the roof.  Much higher than in 2018 when it was enough to win a strong House majority.  We won't know how any of that plays out until it happens.  (Although we will have a preview in terms of the number of mail in ballots.)

The state polls are almost always weaker.  Usually they have higher margins of error.  And another problem is they tend to be older:

Pennsylvania 2016 Clinton Trump

I keep bringing up Pennsylvania as an example, because it's a good one.  The final poll average ( Clinton + 1.9) was not horribly wrong.  But that average included poll data that was up to a week old.  A lot can change in a week.  Especially if it is the LAST week of the campaign.  If you only count the two most recent state polls, which are themselves 3-5 days old, one says toss up and the other says Trump + 1.   The final result was Trump + 0.7 %.   Those last two polls were both very close.

Ohio 2016 Clinton Trump

Wisconsin 2016 Clinton Trump

Those are two good examples of what you are talking about.  Ohio was off by 4.5 %.  Wisconsin was off by 7 %.  In all four Rust Belt states Trump way did better than expected.  But it's not clear why Wisconsin would be off so much, compared for example to Pennsylvania.  That said, I think every one of those polls used to arrive at the Wisconsin average was a week or more old.  So the idea that nothing changed in a week is just not realistic.  In Pennsylvania the two most recent polls, several days old, turned out to be correct.

I think one big clue is that in all four Rust Belt States Hillary's percentage was pretty much dead on.  In Wisconsin she was predicted to get 46.8 and she got 46.5.  The real driver was President Toxic got 7 more points than the polls said he would.  That trend happened in all four states to one degree or another.

We know for sure from exit polls that the last minute deciders broke for President Toxic.  We also know that nationally Hillary got 100,000 fewer votes than Obama, and President Toxic got 2 million more than Romney.  That suggests it was likely most of the pollster's turnout models were all just off.  If they were going from 2012, which I'm sure was part of the model, they would overestimate Hillary's turnout and underestimate Trump's turnout.  

I don't find "quiet" Trump voting to be a good explanation.  These are states where White working class people were proudly saying this time they were voting for Trump.  I think the obvious thing is that there was a sort of grassroots movement, built on anger and frustration, that President Toxic tapped into - by design or luck or both.  There's just no way the pollsters could measure that.  Even though if you were paying attention, it was obvious.

We are both saying the same thing.  We both agree that polls can't tell you who is going to win - at least not when it's relatively close, which it was in 2016.  And we both agree that the national polls are marginally better.  In part because they are marginally fresher.  All the polls used to predict the final national popular vote  in 2016 were from November.  And they appear to be mostly Nov 3-7 data.  Again, all the Wisconsin polls were taken before then.  The oldest Wisconsin state poll used in the final average was Oct 26-27, almost two weeks before the election.  That is just asking for trouble in a fluid race.

Texas 2016 Clinton Trump

Arizona 2016 Clinton Trump

Nevada 2016 Clinton Trump

I posted those polls as well because they were wrong, too.  But in exactly the opposite way.  In Texas President Toxic won decisively, but by 3 points LESS than expected by the final polls.  He won Arizona, and it was close to the expected result, but still 0.5 % LESS for Trump.  In Nevada, the polls were also off by about 3 points.  The final average showed President Toxic winning narrowly.  He ended up losing by two points.  So in all three states, in a different region with different voters, the trend seemed to be going in Hillary's direction.  Hispanic voters in the Southwest seemingly were acting differently than White voters in the Rust Belt.

Again, the age of the polls matters.  The last two state polls in Nevada were 3-4 days old, and they indicated a small Clinton lead.  The state poll showing a big Trump lead was from the end of October.

I know for a fact that the last few days before the 2016 election I was worried.  I noticed that the final poll up on RCP in both Michigan and Pennsylvania showed a very small Trump lead.  I noticed that in the last week the race was tightening pretty rapidly.  That alone scared me.  It's not good news when the trend is going against you in the last week of an election.  So if people thought these polls were wrong, a big part of it is that just don't have much experience interacting with polls.

There's a whole bunch of things that could explain why Hillary lost those Rust Belt states that only have to do with Hillary:  1)  mediocre Black turnout, 2) medicore youth turnout, 3) votes for Jill Stein that exceeded Hillary's losing margin in all the key Blue Wall states.  Any one of those three factors, by itself, is sufficient to explain why Hillary came up 70,000 or so votes short.  Combined, those three factors account for way more than 70,000 votes.  That said, the polls were not that far off on Hillary in any of those states.

Where they were way off was on President Toxic.  They dramatically underestimated his turnout.  But that DID NOT happen in Texas, or Arizona, or Nevada.  They actually overestimated how well he would do in those states.

So if I had to pick one bumper sticker to explain 2016, it's this:  WHITES WITHOUT COLLEGE DEGREES ABANDONED HILLARY.

That's just a known fact.  It was stunning.  Bill Clinton is the only Democrat in my adult lifetime that split the vote of Whites without college degrees in both his 1992 and 1996 races.  His ability to appeal to the "Bubba" vote is what won him the Presidency, twice.  Hillary did way worse than any other Democrat, including Obama in 2008 and 2012, with Whites without colleges degrees. 

At this point, it's not a shocker that happened in 2016.  And now it's also not a shocker that a lot of those people have left Team Toxic in disgust.  

I would not be at all surprised if President Toxic in 2020 underperforms with his base, like Hillary did in 2016.  He's not just throwing red meat at them every day.  He's throwing the whole fucking cow at them, every hour.  It could be that means that they'll have record turnout.  Or it could mean he's desperate. 

I don't think we'll know until it happens.  But poor Brad.  He's supposed to be riding this wave of enthusiasm.  Not in a hospital on suicide watch.  That can't be a good sign.

When it's all said and done, the single best day of the year for me so far, in terms of this election, was when I read Lichtman saying Biden would win.  Obviously I pay a lot of attention to the polls.  But I agree with Lichtman that ultimately the election is about the big picture fundamentals.  He'd say 100 % of what happens with polls is just noise.  I'd say more like 80 %.  Either way, I agree with him.  It will be very hard for President Toxic to win this election, as long as Biden doesn't massively fuck it up in the last month. 

I don't mean that to say we should be overconfident.  We should donate and volunteer like we are losing.  But to me it is motivating to think that if we do this right we are on the cusp of bringing the baby home.  This feels more like 2008 than 2012 or 2016.  It feels like the task now is to be confident, execute, and bring the baby home.

 

 

 

We agree on this I guess. Battleground state polls are all that matter and in 2016 they were off by 2-8 points. In 2020 the margin in these states is 2-8 points so, in effect, they're all in the margin of error. Whatever the precision in national polls, state polls aren't anywhere as reliable.  

I still have serious doubts how pollsters can adjust their polls to account for all the new mail-in and absentee ballots too this year. "Turnout" always matters immensely.  

Edited September 28, 2020 by tassojunior

[TotallyOz]

5 hours ago, Buddy2 said:

The 1964 election was important to defeat the far right Barry Goldwater.

The 1932 election in electing Roosevelt not the sitting president Hoover

Both before my time. I wasn't even conceived during those times. I'm glad you know your history better than me for sure.

[Pete1111]

 

The midterms gave a good clue the impact of mail in ballots, eg Orange County.

IMO Trump's chances look grim, and got worse with the passing of Justice Ginsburg.  But a lot can happen in the next month.  Hang on tight.

[tassojunior]

7 hours ago, Buddy2 said:

The 1964 election was important to defeat the far right Barry Goldwater.

Yes. It was critical to stop Goldwater or he would enlarge Vietnam into a full war. So the "sane" people won and immediately burned alive 7 million yellow people because they were yellow. 

It seems standard in America for the winner to do a 180 and implement exactly what the voters thought they were voting against. 

[Buddy2]

1 hour ago, tassojunior said:

Yes. It was critical to stop Goldwater or he would enlarge Vietnam into a full war. So the "sane" people won and immediately burned alive 7 million yellow people because they were yellow. 

It seems standard in America for the winner to do a 180 and implement exactly what the voters thought they were voting against. 

It is standard to take the most nasty position without taking into consideration that communism was seen as major threat to democracy when Kennedy was president

[Pete1111]

Here is a video of Senator Klobuchar getting all up in Ted Cruz's shorts, that people are voting in droves now, knowing what the Republicans are trying to pull with this nomination.   A powerful message getting a lot of attention.

A great Minnesotan!!

 

 

[Pete1111]

On 10/3/2020 at 12:11 PM, Pete1111 said:

Here is a video of Senator Klobuchar getting all up in Ted Cruz's shorts, that people are voting in droves now, knowing what the Republicans are trying to pull with this nomination.   A powerful message getting a lot of attention.

A great Minnesotan!!

 

 

....more on Cruz.    (a little Saturday night humor)