mtutiger

The frequent deploying of AI by the Trump-adjacent lot in this campaign.... doesn't it come off cringey?

Two North Carolina polls (SurveyUSA and Quinnipiac) showing leads as well... To the extent that Trump's campaign appears to be prioritizing PA/GA above all other states, NC being this close throws a wrench into that strategy

Gonna go out on a limb and say that the "Haitian cat stories" will not factor into anything debate related

Conspiracies everywhere.

There have been news reports over the past couple of months about retailers cutting prices as well (ie. Walmart) as people have modified behaviors due to higher prices, some of that stuff appears to be showing up (personally noticing that when shopping).

Gas prices are a huge factor.... nationally prices have been trending way down the past few weeks, and locally to the Midwest, some of the refining capacity issues (such as Exxon Joliet Refinery being down after the Chicagoland tornado outbreak a month or two ago) have subsided. Suspect that will continue for both seasonal and just market based reasons.

My sense in day to day life is that people are talking about inflation less today than they were two years ago at this time, FWIW. It doesn't mean that it isn't still a big factor that people will consider as they vote, but I do think the environment is different as well.

It was, and that was when actual inflation was higher than it is today (upwards of like 8% YOY versus 2-3ish% today). The issue is that a combination of other issues (ie. abortion / democracy related issues) as well as just terrible candidate quality mattered a lot too I don't mean to pick on Ed, but "Dems are getting nailed on inflation" is about the most conventional wisdom take in politics today. I suspect a lot of Dem partisans wish it weren't the case, but that's different than assuming that it isn't a big challenge to Harris or her candidacy.

He hardly has any core beliefs, but tariffs are the biggest, most consistent belief he has. And it's something he can do without Congress. So I absolutely would not assume he's full of **** on that.

I don't think it's being underestimated, it seems pretty much like conventional wisdom.

Exactly.... she isn't Jesus, but it's about who she's being contrasted with. And it's stark.

When you cut through the noise of social media and everything else... The contrast between these two candidates on a human level is stark

Jan 6th does matter at some level for sure. And just anecdotally, I know a couple of Trump-Trump-Harris folks in my own life.

In Year of Our Lord 2024, there is nothing bigger than defeating Donald Trump. Nothing. At least if one believes he's a threat to our form of government and way of life. **** Cheney, I don't like the guy. But if it creates a permission structure for a certain type of Republican to defeat Donald Trump, I don't care. No matter how small that number of voters is, just ****ing win.

The mask slipped a bit with COVID... prior to, he was much more focused on the data, but he kinda veered off and became what he had previously loathed, a pundit. That continues apace today, along with the gambling (which, tbh, should instantly make people skeptical of his model for ethics reasons IMO). There's a bit of a historical parallel to a figure that comes up in engineering ethics in my field: William Mulholland. Mulholland is the man most responsible for making Los Angeles what it is today, a thriving metropolis, completing the LA Aqueduct and other public works projects that delivered water from the Sierra Nevadas down the otherwise dry and barren LA Basin. Mulholland was a self taught civil engineer, no formal schooling, and, from the ground floor, worked his ass off to climb the food chain to become Chief Engineer at the DWP. (Obviously a lot of the work he did in the early years wasn't good, such as swindling landowners in Rural California, but strictly from an engineering perspective, the body of work was impressive). At his height, he could have run for Mayor... and to this day, Mulholland Drive and other things in LA are named after the guy. But as his career went on, he got distracted. He got lazy. He became further and further resistant to criticism. And eventually his career ended: the St. Francis Dam, which he inspected hours prior, collapsed and killed over 400 people. The parallel to Silver is that he hustled and built a model that saw great success in prior election cycles, particularly in 2012. And who knows, maybe he's got it all figured out this time too.... but he seems... distracted to me. He seems like he dedicates a lot of time to other pursuits, such as sports gambling and poker, and he's incredibly resistant to any sort of criticism that he gets. Gets really defensive. And is just coasting on his reputation. That's when I start asking questions.... as adults, no matter what we do for a living, you always have to be learning, you always have to be trying to improve yourself, and you should never be getting high off of your own supply. Because that's how you lose a step, and that's when bad things can start happening career wise.

Again, still kinda ambivalent, but wow nonetheless.

Your comments re: response rates are spot on. And pollsters do try to weight and correct samples based on various factors to try to correct for the issues. Silver's model is a different discussion.... the polls show somewhere around a 3-4% nationally, and aggregate averages of the swing states, at least at this moment, show Kamala over 270 *based on polling today*... yet, unlike every other aggregator, he's showing a 62% probability that Trump wins. Ultimately, the aggregator discussion is a discussion about nothing, the difference between Kamala having a 55% win probability (what 538 and DDHQ show) and what Silver shows isn't that statistically huge. But given his reputation, a lot of people do hang off of his every pronouncement and, lo and behold, here we are talking about it.

Setting aside the quality of polling hasn't been great (ie. a lot of Rasmussen/Trafalger fly-by-night stuff) and Silver seemingly takes these entities at face value, my understanding is that he built in an expectation of a Convention bounce into his model. Polls since the convention have shown maybe 0.5-1% gain nationally, which is below whatever the model expects, so the model penalizes Harris and will do so until this effect is no longer taken into account in the model. If that is indeed the case, one would expect to see Harris' odds in the model increase starting next week and run closer to DDHQ or 538 (debate impacts nothwithstanding). Of course, a lot of folks don't trust Nate Silver these days (TBH, I'm not sure he's the God that he's treated as in the pundit world myself) and, if said effect doesn't wear away and bring about odds changes, it will end up raising more questions IMO

I'm ambivalent just because of how bad Liz's dad was as VP... but it's still a sentence I never would have expected to read 10 years ago

I would add Tallahassee as well if for nothing else because of it's proximity to Rural GA / sizable black population in SW Georgia. Population-wise, North Florida is a drop in the bucket, but it's a good way to maybe test the waters in a way that isn't a frivolous use of money. Texas is a tougher case just because the big media markets are where the potential votes are for D's, and those places cost a lot of money. And relative to Florida where you can pass it off as an investment in a border market, it really doesn't border anything competitive. There's still long-term reward there with real investment.... Overall, it's something they should explore.... obviously job number 1 is to win the White House, but if Tester really is in trouble in Montana and if Scott/Cruz are only leading by low to mid single digits, it starts to become justifiable to make some strategic investments with the kind of resources they have.

Just to flesh this out a little more, because everyone thinks about 2016 and Hillary's mistakes in investing time and money expanding the map, I am as cognizant as anyone to the idea that her campaign cannot take their eye off of the generally accepted swing states (ie. PA/MI/WI/AZ/NV/GA/NC). Certainly don't think Kamala or Tim Walz need to be having many rallies or bus tours outside of these states. But at some point, when you have 60 days left and $400 million in the bank (a little over $100 mil more than Trump's campaign), you are going to reach the point of diminishing returns really quickly if you only focus on these seven states.... and you cannot take this money with you, it needs to be spent and put towards something. Whether it's through contributions to Congressional/Senate CCs, state parties, and/or investing in targeted expansions of the map. The other part is that states along in the future takes time and money. HRC lost in 2016 while investing in GA and AZ, but money spent in these states no doubt had some impact with bringing them along in 2020 and building more infrastructure to compete in these places. Particularly with Texas, a state that has seen movement toward Dems in recent years but has no near-term history of voting for Dems, and a state that is massive and has expensive media markets, you cannot wait for change to happen organically.... it takes some long term investment. Just think these things get framed as "either/or" way too much, particularly when more $$$ gives more latitude to an "all of the above" approach.

As always, laser focused on the important issues like *checks notes* defaming his accusers

Real "Layla Scene from Goodfellas" vibes going on here lol

Maybe the NYT should get in contact with *check notes* the person who asked the question and see what she thinks apparently.