gehringer_2

well, that is the thing. If they could draw a random sample, it wouldn't matter if the population has changed because all that would show up in any truly random sample. But they can't get a random sample in the US anymore (they could come pretty close in the post WWII period using landlines and fixed geography area codes), but that's completely gone now.....) so they have to use a model, and the model has to be constructed from the past, so if the population changes, the model can't possibly be adjusted for it with any certainty until after the next election - at least other than by pure guess work. What the pollsters are doing that is dishonest, is to continue to claim their polls have the same validity/accuracy level when they no longer do. Some of them will make the right guesses on their model and get the result, and then claim they are good pollsters, but in most cases that will be a fallacy. They simply made luckier assumptions about how to massage their model - i.e they have a certain expertise, but not necessarily as survey takers.

the good news is 25% of Haley's GOP primary support went to Harris. The bad news is Harris underperformed Biden by 40%.

if the Dems take the House things will certainly be less at play and that should put an end to it. If a suit went to SCOTUS I imagine Harris and Jeffries would call Roberts in for a little chat and ask him if he really thinks a bad ruling or even the future of his court could stand if both the other branches utterly reject it. Roberts and probably Barrett, are not that crazy. If there is a GOP House I wouldn't have the same level of confidence.

The US is not a banana republic quite yet. Trump doesn't control enough of the media. If he starts claiming victory before any non-Fox media call it it's not going to be taken seriously He'd literally have to come out and incite to riot to try to stop the counting to make a impact, and I don't see that working even if he tried. And if he did Biden would be glad to have him arrested. Plus the group of hard core dead enders that were most likely to have responded are still in jail over 1/6.

If Harris wins this election I'll wager an internet beer that X is up for sale by inaugauration day

I think it means you have to take three steps and then you become eligible again, but don't quote me, reception rules change faster than I keep up.

OTOH, they were a better team in the second half with Maeda dropped from the rotation, Meadow and Torkelson back, Sweeney having replaced Javy's black hole in the lineup and Keith having come out of his initial slump. Some of that is real, some is certainly still questionable - esp Sweeney and Tork, so HA is still spot on they can't stand still. Even if Torkelson is better next season that still is not enough offense from the left side of the plate so a RH hitter is a must. We'd all love a signing like bringing Flaherty back, but with so many arms in the system I fear they may not make a major starting pitching move. Do expect to see at least one reliever signed or traded for. but that's sort of standard for any year.

I think the ego stroke on that one isn't so hard to see, how it turned into such a fiasco is a different question altogether! I'm with you on having no clue about the fix on NC. If you think you are in trouble, you don't put all your eggs in one basket - you spend 'em around because once you go somewhere the marginal value of another event in close succession in the same place can only fall. If you think you are winning, go where you can pick up some additional margin? So he's convinced himself he owns the upper midwest and NC would be the cherry on top? I suppose that's a possible take.

And Gore also never learned how to take credit without sounding the the kid in class everyone hated. There is an art to it. Listen to Obama 'take credit' for leaving Trump a great economy and compare it to Gore trying to get credit for being a big technology backer with the faux pas "I invented the internet". All that and he still should have been elected.

yes and no. Why did Gore distance himself from Clinton?- because he made a judgment that Clinton was going to hurt him. Now that may have been 100% the wrong reading, but he never would have made it all if Clinton hadn't dug his own hole so much deeper than he had to. Gore was married to a woman that campaigned against pop song lyrics - the Gore's were not big fans of sex and violence culture.

doc is really running behind for the physical.

which is also the great irony in Clinton's case. He could have told the truth at the grand jury, the public would have forgiven him anyway, there would have been no impeachment, Gore probably beats Bush and Bret Cavanaugh is still a second tier republican lawyer. People underestimate that you can salvage a bad situation more often by doing the right thing than by doubling down with another bad one.

This is the 14th Presidential election I have voted in, and Trump's win in 2016 was not the only time I voted for the loser but it was probably the first time I was really surprised by an election outcome. I had argued a lot on the old forum that the Dems were whistling past the graveyard on Hillary's negatives but I still expected her to pull it out. So I am willing to say again that I will be surprised again if Trump wins this - everything I think I understand about political fundamentals says he should fall short - but since it's Trump and I mis-read him once, I can't say I have any certainty level at all.

It's one virtue of how long and arduous a US campaign is - it is harder, though still not impossible (Trump in '16) to hide who you really are while being out in the public that long. I don't agree with him, but Tim Alberta's whole premise in the Atlantic article that someone posted up thread is that if Trump had just trimmed his sails and gone along with what Wiles and LaCivita wanted him to do, he could have insured himself an easy win - but he couldn't be someone else for that long.

I don't know how he could have lost. Who didn't want to be spared Crucifixion on a cross of gold? (Isn't Frank Baum riffing a little on those gold/silver controversies in "The Wizard of Oz"?)

don't know if he was thinking it for the Lion's sideline or just whoever was on his headset but it sure doesn't look like he said anything loud enough to be heard all the way across the field so basically just an empty gesture if that's even what he said at all.

and this has been part of the problem as well. The 'gotcha' journalism that grew up - mostly after Watergate - with every political reporter trying to be Woodward & Bernstein led every trivial kind of indiscretion being blown up in the media into something it wasn't. Like the boy who cried wolf, someone like Trump comes a long and to many people the carping just sounds like the same old media **** they figure they don't need to care about.

that's the critique of index funds; good for the investor, not always so good for the market.

I think Fontes sort become a caricature of himself at the end, but I give him a lot of credit for figuring out how to win with a team that always had a lot of weaknesses once you got past Barry. If Fontes had been coaching for a Brad Holmes built team, I don't think his name would be a joke in Det today. Of course that might be true for almost any coach with the good fortune to coach a Holmes team!

LOL - I'd never heard that. Werner is priceless.

Maybe it's a place he has a donor willing to pay for the venues..... .....just sayin'

Primaries aren't the same - they never speak to more than a small minority of the population and they often only represent a pol trying to learn how to do the thing. (Harris already a classic example of apparently having taken a lot of good lessons on how not to campaign from her primary dud) Biden has never gone to a GE and lost, incl City Council, Senate, or Pres.

The other thing which sort of sits in the background because you can't really measure it is just that it's very hard in American politics to win an office you've run for and lost. There is an underlying 'loser's' bias against you. Now granted the fact that Trump won before losing takes away some of that, but I think there is still going to be the basic "he's old news" sentiment percolating below the conscious level that works against him with the low intensity/late breaking voter. Nixon did win after losing - but just barely and it was two cycles later, plus '68 was a black swan election because of Wallace and Dems self destructing over VN.

Never saw this film - but Google Lens to the rescue.

He's a good study in how the objective rationality in which the human species takes so much pride is so often actually just the outcome an underlying 'decision' of the emotional/lizard brain. Even as a respected constitutional laywer, French could justify everything inside the GOP as long he he was experiencing the glow of group membership in his sect. But when he found himself outcast by the sect over Trump and the emotional fix was withdrawn, then suddenly everything became clear to him. I don't mean to pick on French because he's just one example of the what is the more common human condition. At least he did figure it out while he was still breathing and has apparently joined the good guys.