mtutiger

There you have it folks: Having urticaria and allergies are disqualifying for the Presidency. Versus whatever Trump was doing on stage last night

This is getting really really weird

I want to highlight this comment by this Trump account - as much as people like to harken back to Hillary, stuff like this shows why, win or lose, Harris isn't doing what she did. And would suggest, again, that the 2016 Hillary candidate allegory in this election, if there is one in this election, is Trump...

Internal polls are generally slanted a bit toward the party taking them (upwards of 3-4 pts)... Aggregators like 538 usually account for that as well when they enter them into their models as well. So they aren't necessarily good numbers in that context for Trump and I have zero clue why the SLF would be releasing numbers showing numbers like these for him and (generally) worse numbers for their candidates in the Senate races. My guess is that their fundraising sucks?

The poll from a couple of days ago of PA-10 (from Susquehanna) looms large IMO.... South Central PA (ie. Harrisburg/York/Lancaster) is a highly populated area and is historically GOP leaning. If they are losing ground there versus 2020, coupled with the counties around Philadelphia and in Allegheny (ie. Pittsburgh), it's hard to offset those losses with what's remaining in the Commonwealth. Doesn't mean he can't lose, but it's more uphill than I think it gets framed IMO.

On the subject of polling, TIPP (who holds a good rating 538) released a poll with American Greatness (a right wing organization) today of Pennsylvania: Quite a difference between likely and registered voters right? Well (thread below).... This is a really extreme case where the pollster effectively eliminated the impact of the largest city in the ultimate swing state... they aren't all doing this, but this is good example of why "chuck it in the average" might not be all that effective anymore.

And then there's this... it's always the part that gets me, he wouldn't be able to keep or hold a job as a normal person... or if he were a member of any of our families we would be finding alternative living arrangements for him. But as President? Greatest democracy in the world, yet he's better (or the same) as the alternative because reasons I guess. It's farcical.

I think you are right that it matters to at least a small extent. *But* when you look at Big Gretch's numbers with Arab/Muslims in 2022 (doing worse than Biden 2020 by a significant margin despite winning the state by 11 pts), we do have to consider whether some of the erosion is cultural and tied to Dobbs as well. Put another way, Gaza isn't the only risk factor there, yet it's the only one considered when the subject comes up

Worth remembering he made similar comments ****ing on Milwaukee earlier this year, but it was behind closed doors with the Congressional GOP.... seems to confirm he meant what he said there too

Even beyond the questions of capturing change, they only can tell you the electorate that you model.... ultimately what's modeled and what actually shows up on EDay can be two totally different things

The usual caveats about yard signs not voting apply, but the county seat (~58% Trump 2020) in my county (~63% Trump 2020, rural/exurban in nature) has roughly an equal amount of Harris and Trump signs. And in general, there aren't a ton of signs or regalia period. Granted IL isn't a competitive state (if my county was in MI or WI maybe it looks different), but while I don't think it says anything about vote intention, in general this doesn't look like a 2020 high enthusiasm environment where we are at least. It may be different elsewhere though.

A lot of it is just people voting on culture versus voting on economic policy IMO. Hispanic Ds tend to be more culturally conservative than other Ds, so maybe makes some sense that things like Dobbs or immigration have a pull with at least a sliver of those voters. In general though, I kinda wonder whether this moment is a reverse 2016 where discussions about minority groups and their voting trends overlook the elephant in the room: white voters. Particularly with suburban areas being a real problem for Trump (the PA district level polls showing significant erosion case in point) and particularly if Harris gets black voters to close to where Biden 2020 levels were (looking more likely), what rural white voters do and whether Trump squeezes enough out of that Demographic looms large.... frankly don't think it's being talked about enough.

Didn't see that, but his framing is basically the million dollar question to me.... and I'd be putting $100 on (1) as well. I think about the incentives a lot.... the polling industry has taken a beating for the last eight years, really ever since Trump rode down the escalator. They have every single incentive imaginable *not* to underestimate Trump, because doing so would be existential to the business. Doesn't mean that tweaks can't lead to other issues that could benefit either side, but going "but 2016" or "but 2020" all the time reinforces the idea that polls are these static tools that never change. And that isn't accurate.... there's reporting to this effect that pollsters have modified their methods in different ways for this election (with a few exceptions, such as Quinnipiac)

It's not clear the degree, but I think there's enough evidence to suggest that Latino voters are an issue for Harris.... the degree to which its the case is still a fair question (I'd guess Trump still pulls less than 40%, but improves). It's probably a factor in why Arizona has polled worse than the other swing states. To a much lesser degree, black voters as well. Overall, non-white demos have gotten a lot of attention this cycle, but rural white voters and what they do matters a lot.... I genuinely don't know, both in terms of share and turnout, what will happen there. Some of that is influenced by what I see in day to day life where I live and just, in general, not really having any numbers to look at.

Tangentially, one thing that the polling miss in 2020 taught me was that aggregators and analysts spend way too much time talking about margins and not enough time talking about share. Biden had some big margins at times in a number of different states and nationally, but he was generally always stuck in a band between 50-52% in terms of share. And, wouldn't you know it, low and behold, what did Biden end up getting nationally??? 51% It's a tighter race today, but Harris is pretty regularly hitting Biden's 2020 share in national and swing state polling.... nobody should feel comfortable with the outcome of this race, it's a coin flip, maybe slightly favoring Harris, but I think we need to step back and understand how the circumstances of each of these races might be different.

The polls said there were a lot of undecided voters between the two candidates, as well as third party voters... more than in the polling aggregates today. And as we would later find out, most of those undecideds broke for Trump and the third parties were far less impactful than expected. Fast forward to today, in the aggregate, there are far fewer undecideds, third party candidates are basically a non-factor and Kamala is a lot closer to 50% than Hillary ever was in 2016. I don't know if she wins or not, the race has overall has been pretty stable and frankly hasn't changed much since the DNC.... I just think "but 2016" is a really tiresome framing for a completely different election with a completely different electorate.

There are just so many ways it could go wrong, not the least of which as Cohn describes in the second tweet, people misremember and tend to associate their vote with the winner / incumbent. Or also people saying they voted for a candidate and didn't even vote at all! Really really glad I'm not in that line of work....

Leon Musk.... Well known Commonwealth-knower lol

Why?

This was a really interesting read... I still remember Cohn saying at one point in 2020 that recall vote was unreliable, yet many of his colleagues are now engaged in using it to weight samples

I would also add that, at least my from my understanding, Michigan has made a number of changes (opening mail-in voting, automatic registration, etc.) that make it easier to vote - wonder if one of the impacts of these changes would result in a higher baseline turnout for a city like Detroit that, historically, is really low turnout. Ultimately won't know until November 5, but it's something to consider.

With the usual caveats about early voting analysis, Detroit's return rate here is... something. Could just be processing speed, although again that cuts against perceptions too lol

One key difference beside the dollar figure is that, in all likelihood, Kamala Harris would enter office with divided government due to how terrible the Senate landscape is for the Dems this year. If Trump wins, he likely has the entire legislature, and if the Rs do control both the House and the Senate, the likelihood of any resistance to his plans is very low.

This feels overdue.... anyone that has watched him for any length of time can see he isn't what he used to be.