Trump is going to get annihilated.
Hotblack Desiato 26 Oct 20 09:18
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Everyone harks on about the 2016 polls being wrong. At the national level, the "polls of polls" were broadly right - Hilary won the national vote by 2%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2016_U…

So the tracking polls had an aggregate bias to the Democrats of about 1 - 2%.

What the polls failed to pick up was the shift in Wisconsin, Pa. and Michigan. That was a mixture of some white working class voters switching from Democrat to Republican, some Democrats staying at home, some Independents voting for third party candidates instead of for the main parties, and some Republicans coming out to vote for Trump who had stayed home the last two elections.

Pollsters have a terrible habit of bolting the stable door after the horse has fled. Whatever the polling error was last time, they make ad hoc adjustments to correct for that, thereby creating new errors because each election is different.

In 2012, the polls under-estimated Obama's support, suggesting that his lead over Romney was 1% or under, when in fact he achieved 3%, i.e. there was an aggregate bias to the Republicans of about 1 - 2%

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2012_U…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_presidential_election

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that  a part of the 2016 polling debacle was crude ad hoc adjustments to the polls designed to correct for the 2012 bias: adjustments that understated the Republican share by 1-2% would largely produce the 2016 polling error which overstate the Democrat share. 

Why this time is different:

1. The national polls.

One thing that both the 2016 and 2012 national polls had however was that there were various national level polls showing the Republican candidate winning in the run up to the election. Which is what you would expect if the result at the national level was going to be a 2-3% win for the Democratic candidate, due to the margin of error in polling.

What is completely and starkly different this time is that there is not a single national poll this year showing Trump beating Biden. Not one. In fact, the national "poll of polls" is not even close and never has been:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/

While electoral college maths means that Trump could lose the national vote by more than the 2% he managed last time, there is a limit to how far that can be taken because national polls are polls which include battleground states, and while individual battleground states have specific cultural, economic or demographic factors, those factors are found elsewhere in other states.

Even if you assume that the polls are infected with exactly the same bias as they were last time and that no attempts have been made to correct the overstatement of Democratic support, Biden's lead in the national poll of polls is 6-7%. Even if the poll bias were at the upper end of the spectrum, and was overstating his share of the national vote by 2%, that would give him a 4-5% national lead. Any analysis in which Biden wins the national vote by 4% (2% more than Hilary) but fails to win 3 of: Penn, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Georgia is going to involve some contorted thinking.

2. Demographics.

Trump's core support is older white men. They continue to shrink as a percentage of the demographic.

https://www.populationpyramid.net/united-states-of-america/2020/

3. Turnout & Early Voting

Contrary to perceived wisdom, higher turnout does not always favour the Democrats: turnout in Florida and Ohio was higher in 2016 than 2012 which translated into a Trump win. 

More important  is early voting: that bakes in votes before last minute tightening of the polls, and in 2016 Hilary did suffer a wobble in the run up to election day associated with the Comey emails. 

This time round, Biden's lead is solid, and votes are being banked in huge numbers (circa 53 million to date), and the Democrat lead in early voting is marked.

This leaves the Republicans having to have a massive effort to get their vote out between now and election day itself, while the Democrats, having already banked much of their vote, have more time resources available to chase up every last vote.

 

 

Desperate much?

Let's be clear. There is much not to like about Joe Biden. Kamala Harris isn't that great either.

But, Donald Trump is completely and totally unacceptable as President of the USA, for many reasons, most notably climate change denial, and the Republican party is a horrible institution full of closet and not so closet racists, that seems most concerned about:

1. Preventing Americans from having affordable health care

2. Stopping women from having abortions

3. Continuing policies of mass incarceration of blacks and Latinos 

This is the most important presidential election of our life times. If Trump wins, the world is going to burn. Literally.

1. Preventing Americans from having affordable health care

SKIVERS!

2. Stopping women from having abortions

SLUTS!

3. Continuing policies of mass incarceration of blacks and Latinos 

CRIMINALS!

eh i won’t deny tulsi performed fairly well in the debates but she primarily seemed to be one of those candidates who was very popular with people who aren’t democrats
 

warren would have been best imo but i imagine the HRC factor prevented her getting the nom

There's also the following factor:

COLD. HARD. CASH

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/20/858347477/money-tracker-how-much-trump-a…

Biden's campaign, include affiliates, has got a lot more cash in hand than Trump to spend between now and election day. Which given it has already banked more votes than Trump means that it has that wall of cash to chase fewer votes - and it can start to make Trump chase around like crazy: 

polls suggest historically safe Republican states like Texas, Arizona and Georgia are in play. Lob some more dollars on TV, internet, radio ads and "get out the vote" campaigns in those areas and Trump is then faced with either having to re-allocate funding from the likes of Wisconsin, Pa, and Michigan (at least one of which he has to win to stay in the race) or run the risk.

What HD said (which is a more detailed, more thought through version of what I said on the other thread). 

Ultimately it is very hard to see a route to 270 electoral college votes for trump that is different to the one he took last time and in Wisconsin, and Michigan he is getting absolutely slammed in the polling.  Pennsylvania seems to be holding very safely Biden as well. I think a lot of democrats in those states feel personally responsible for letting Trump in last time. 

Personally I think he is going to lose Florida as well. 

i think that barring GOP shenanigans with the polls/courts Biden will win - the polls have been remarkably consistent with a 7-9 point lead throughout the race, and that broadly tracks with trumps approval ratings over the past four years

Biden is simply more popular than Clinton was whereas trump is the same or less popular than he was in 2016. when you win with as small a margin as he did that is fatal

however i do not discount shenanigans (in fact i understand the GOP campaigns are prepping for it) so Dems have a duty to make the win as uncontestable as they possibly can

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/early-voting-numbers-swing-sta…

The above analysis of early voting is very telling. The early voting results in Michigan, Penn, and Wisconsin (which, by the way, are all that Biden needs to win to win the White House) are so massively in Biden's favour that it is difficult to see how Trump can recover, as these are states which are traditionally blue, and currently have Democrat governors.

Said otherwise, the Trump win there was likely down to abnormally high Republican turnout and lower than usual Dem turnout in 2016 with there just not being enough "reserve" voters for the Republicans for them to win in a high turnout scenario.

I'm 90% sure Biden will win this time round. For the reasons HB Set out. I think there's something similar to normalcy bias going on where people can't quite believe he's losing because they were all surprised he beat Hilary. There was a similar thing in the UK at the last election where many people massively overestimated Corbyn's likely performance because of the 2017 election. 

My only real worry at this point is basically cheating. If Trump can get things in the courts, engage in enough voter suppression etc. It might get him over the line. I think it's unlikely though. Particularly as I don't think it will even be particularly close. 

I’d bet on Trump if the odds were really 50-1, which fooking obviously they aren’t. 50-1 in a two horse race? Have you ever placed a bet in your life?

I have a couple of US clients who think it’s very close. One takes the view he is leaving anyway as living in a county with 45-49% trump supporters is just not an option.

Good question Sumo, if the relatively sensible people in the Repub party can't seize back control then expect an Ivanka or Trump Jr (or both) 2024 attempt.

Amazingly I think Romney is the most likely to lead them out of the abyss. I doubt he will run again but more as someone to point the strays in a less mental direction for a couple of years.

Because politics in America is incredibly tribal DD. Much more so than even the UK. Also much more so than the UK or Europe Americans live in the post truth world of echo chambers and incredibly biased media (on both sides tbf although Fox News is a quite remarkable thing)

DD - because politics in America is racist. The GOP heartland is now the unreformed bits of the confederacy. Mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of felons takes millions of blacks and Latinos out of the electorate. If the US had normal incarceration rates and didn’t disenfranchise felons even after release, there wouldn’t have been a Republican president since Bush senior. Concerns about crime and immigration are just coded concerns about race. Trump has demonstrated just how much enthusiasm you can generate by being fairly overtly racist. Note in this regard the complete absence of prominent blacks in his Cabinet, cf. Bush junior.

Hopefully if Trump gets eviscerated, the GOP will realise that the ignorant white racist electorate is a dying breed and that you’ll never ever win the presidency again without significant black and Latino support. Which means less hostility to immigration, less mass incarceration, less war on drugs, more federal funding for schools and housing, less on military hardware and prisons.

Yawn!!

Even if Texas and Georgia turns Dem, the state can cast an electoral ballot against the wishes of the voting public. 

Do not underestimate the zealots. 

I mean if it goes well, Trump could lose Texas, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, if a Republican can’t win those states then Nixon’s Southern strategy (babelfish translation: racist strategy) is finally dead.

Oh sorry I forgot. Trump has one black in his cabinet: Carson. In charge of Housing and Urban Development. Not quite on a par with Defence or Secretary of State

It also puts an end to yet another Brexit fantasy 

Don't be silly Jonatton, the Italian prosecco exporters will be along in just a minute to force the EU into concessions. 

Invictus. There can be faithless electors, but there are 38 electors in Texas, and 15 in Georgia, and there is no way more than a handful are going to turn faithless, as there are civil, criminal and social sanctions for turning faithless.

it's too easy to yell "them is racists" 

I suspect the US and the UK have suffered from the same problem, which is basically ignoring poverty and hoping it would go away. Coupling this up to the prevailing election logic up until about 2014/2016 being to target small groups and ignore the base you end up with a situation where big swathes of people who don't have a good life are being told that they do and that they have to eat more shit so someone else can jump the queue. 

A good example is "white privilege". It's 100% a thing but it is a terrible terrible phrase that creates a barrier between poor minorities and poor indigenous people. Things like that shouldn't matte but they do (marketing is sadly a thing). So you have these pockets who are ignored and genuinely feel like they're being downtrodden, when in fact everyone not at least in upper middle class territory is being shat on. 

WTF are you talking about? Both Both Texas and Georgia are controlled by a GOP governor and do not underestimate the party faithful. 5 years ago, I would have agreed but today's GOP has no morals or ethics. And the rules are too vague to prompt any penalties for an electoral collage vote against the statewide outcome. 

heh @ the idea that faithless electors are going to be a determining factor for fvcks actual sake.  Even the current GOP packed supreme court is not going to let that stand. It would rip the USA apart at the seems. 

 

Interesting podcast on fivethirtyeight about Michigan, Wisconsin and Pa polls. In 2016, each of those states showed Hilary in the lead, but were won by Trump. This time Biden is in the lead, and his lead in Wisconsin and Michigan is noticeably larger than Hilary's. His lead in Pa. is somewhat tighter, but still greater than Hilary's was.

But the critical difference is this:

Hilary wasn't polling above 50 in those states, and a lot of voters were undecided. That reflects a low approval rating for Hilary - people just weren't that enthusiastic about voting for her. In the run up to the election there were further leaks about her emails which may well have pushed undecideds into voting for Trump, or made her fairly anaemic supporters decide to stay home.

This time round, Biden's approval rating is higher than Hilary's and the Hunter Biden scandal isn't damaging him in the same way for whatever reason, and more importantly:

Biden is polling above 50% in Mich, Wis, and Penn

All three states are having early voting on an unprecedented scale.

So there are fewer undecided voters, and more of the Biden votes are baked in. In order to win, Trump has to persuade the ever dwindling pool of people who say that they are going to vote for Biden but haven't yet, to switch to Trump. It is difficult to see that happening given that Trump and Biden are both known quantities.

heh @ the idea that faithless electors are going to be a determining factor for fvcks actual sake.  Even the current GOP packed supreme court is not going to let that stand. It would rip the USA apart at the seems. 

Agreed. Also:

1. If you think that Georgia and Texas's electors turning faithless en masse would determine the outcome of the electoral college vote, you would have to assume that Biden hadn't won Michigan, Wisconsin + any of the following:

Arizona + Nebraska 2 or Maine 2, Pa., North Carolina, Florida, Ohio

Biden is 9 points ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin, and not making Hilary's mistake of taking those states for granted. They are also early voting, so Biden's early lead is getting baked in. Biden is going to win both those two comfortably.

Now just explain to me as a matter of demographics and polling how Biden could win Texas but not Arizona or Florida (all three of which have Hispanic, or could win Georgia but not North Carolina (the latter of which, by the way, has a Democrat governor)

2.  The moment that Trump loses (or looks like he has lost) the GOP will abandon him like rats abandoning a sinking ship, because there are the 2022 Congressional and Senate Elections and Gubernatorial Elections to think about and the 2024 presidency (which they are quite likely to pick up given the economic catastrophe that is baked into the pie). A lot of the GOP have gone along with Trump because he has the winner's aura. Once that slips, they will abandon his like the Italian's abandoned Mussolini, and the Germans abandoned Hitler. People who play the strong man card become hated, ridiculed and despised the moment that their weakness is exposed. So once Trump has lost, no-one with any power is going to risk anything for him.

Trump's 2016 coalition - (1) Evangelicals, (2) traditional conservatives, (3) poor white working class, (4) portion of women - more than Hillary, and (5) some independent or undecideds.

His new expected coalition - (1) Evangelicals, (2) traditional conservatives (some losses expected), (3) poor white working class (this group is fairly stable for him and will double down on draining the swamp), (4) portion of women (again some losses expected here too), (5) all the libertarian voters from the independents and (6) some black and latino voters in swing states to make up the difference in 2 and 4. 

Will he succeed? Only time will tell.  

Hot black - you’re making a fundamental mistake: The Polls Are Wrong. 
 

of course any analysis based on polls is going to show Biden winning. But they are wrong

I'm pretty confident the polls aren't wrong enough for Trump to win Struandirk. How about a charity bet on it? If Trump wins I'll pay £20 to a charity of your choice (reasonable ones only) and if Biden wins you do the same for me? What do you think?

You'll have to define more precisely what constitutes winning. What if by all accounts (exit polls, the initial election night "call") Biden could be concluded to have won enough electoral votes, but Trump and his henchmen created a big enough stink about "voter fraud" and the Supreme Court handed him the victory?

I also think the polls are wrong. I think Trump is fairly unusual amongst politicians in that a lot of people actively don’t like him and think he’s a tit, will tell pollsters they’re not going to vote for him, but when voting in private they forget those things and vote for the optimistic pipedream he offers them. And yes, vote for the pomp, lies and bluster. 

Horatio your analysis may be educated but it won’t come to pass on Election Day. He may well lose but it will be close. He’ll win PA I’m sure. 

Deal Struandirk. We might not see on election night if it's close, but I'm sure we can both treat it sensibly without extensive T&C's, in the end it's just a £20 charity donation!

I also think the polls are wrong. I think Trump is fairly unusual amongst politicians in that a lot of people actively don’t like him and think he’s a tit, will tell pollsters they’re not going to vote for him, but when voting in private they forget those things and vote for the optimistic pipedream he offers them. 

Hot black - you’re making a fundamental mistake: The Polls Are Wrong. 

The whole "the polls are wrong" thing from 2016 is almost entirely attributable to undecided voters. The polls were not therefore really wrong at all. Undecided voters by definition are neither showing as Trump or Clinton supporters. In 2016 Trump as a politician was an unknown quantity. Clinton as a politician was a known quantity. If with one week to go you were undecided about whether to vote for Hilary Clinton or a reality TV star for president, you were going to vote for the reality TV star all along.

This time round, both Trump and Biden as politicians are known quantities. You know exactly what a Trump presidency will be like - more of the same - and you have a pretty good inkling of what Biden - Harris will be like (the Obama years).

This time round, there are almost no undecided voters.

This time round, Biden's lead in the national polls is much greater than Hilary's. It is also greater in all the background states. 

So saying "the polls are wrong" this time means you are saying that the polls are a lot more wrong than they were in 2016, despite four years of Trump, so everyone knowing what they are going to get if they vote Trump.

 

ok just to give this shy trumper theory some credence for the sake of argument:

if we take the premise that people aren’t voting for trump because they’re racist (or probably more accurately, those who are will vote for him anyway) then the reason he won was because the democrats ceded the economic argument to the republicans back in clinton’s era and passed NAFTA, destroying American manufacturing and allowing them (encouraging them in fact) to get undercut by mexico

so trump rails against nafta, rails against Mexico and picks up loads of voters in the primaries and general who were disillusioned with both parties, non-voters and independents, and so weren’t being picked up in the polls

but the problem is he hasn’t done anything in the last four years to help manufacturing. he has passed a fairly standard republican tax bill benefiting minorities and started a trade war with china

so i don’t see why those people would be motivated to vote for him again, as opposed to just not voting (as they likely have done in the past)
 

unless i suppose they are worried about a biden lockdown and see trump as the lesser of two evils on that score. but there’s not much evidence for that - his approval on handling of coronavirus is awful (though i haven’t looked at it on a state by state basis, that could be interesting)

i suppose thinking about it my other point would be why are these trump supporters not currently factored into the polls given they voted in 2016 (unless there are many more shy trumpers who didn’t vote in 2016 but will in 2020)?

as always when i kill a thread i assume it’s because ive made such an unimpeachable argument that all other posters just sit nodding in awe

Heh!!

Your logic is not wrong but as someone said politics does not work on logical thinking. Most people vote on feel good factor. If you go to the rest belt - all the way up to MN. Lots of dairy farmers and steel plant workers killed by his tariffs but still want to vote for him - cause they know the system is fighting back and it takes time to fix things. 

what invictus said. “shy” trumpers aren’t voting on facts - they vote trump because he ISN’T a sleek coastal elite traditional politician, he SAYS the sort of ill informed but somehow reassuring crap that he and his mates say to each other in the bar, what he’s achieved doesn’t matter, it’s theatre and a vote for trump makes them feel better regardless of facts. 
Trump could very easily win. The pollsters still make the same mistake of assuming that everyone votes for a reason that can be established by logical deduction.  
Hope I’m wrong. 

I hope you’re right Risky - everything is so febrile that it’s impossible to predict with any certainty. I don’t like the complacency that’s creeping in in some quarters and I think some of the Dems messaging is off. 

Have a look at the weather forecast for Florida. It’s going to hoy it down between now and Election Day. That should help Biden, who is already leading in Florida: Trump still has to get far more votes out.

I think Trump is going to lose North Carolina and Georgia. 
 

In North Carolina lots of registered democrats and independents have already voted, including a lot of people who didn’t vote in 2016. I cannot imagine that a majority of those NC voters who didn’t vote last time are Trump voters, given that turnout was up in NC from 2012 and he won by a larger margin, and Trump is polling less well in 2020 than in 2016.

 

In Georgia, the Dems only lost the governorship by 60,000 in 2018 with a black female candidate and voting access issues affected black turnout. This time there is massive early voting and while Georgia does not publish party affiliation data it does publish race and sex data. Lots of black early votes, lots of female early votes.

I also think he might lose Texas. Apparently if turnout gets to 12 million in Texas, demographically it is hard for the Republicans to win because it is mostly blacks and Latinos who don’t regularly vote in Texas (so the increase is disproportionately black and Latino and thus Democrat). Turnout is already 7.8 million.