2024 Elections: One Last Chance for Democracy

[bronconick]

Look I have said 538 is trash for quite a while now (no I dont care that Nate isn't involved) but they used to at least explain why the math didn't match. Anything here or is the answer just "ABC owns us and they want to fudge the numbers"?

Heck the long time editor of the LA Times just quit because the right wing owner refused to allow the paper to make an endorsement.

[rufus]

Refused to allow them to endorse Kamala.

I'm sure he'd be perfectly fine with them endorsing Dementia Donnie.

[Chuck Murray]

Hey rufus, saw this one of you circulating on the 'net this week ... very flattering, I must admit ...

[Chuck Murray]

Democrats Explain Trump Was Going To Be Hitler During His First Term, But He Forgot | Babylon Bee




SWAMP CITY (DC) — Democrats have warned that if elected a second time, Donald Trump will be an evil dictator just like Adolf Hitler. When asked why Trump didn't become Hitler during his first term, Democrats explained that he simply forgot.

"Trump meant to be Hitler, but he forgot," explained Vice President Harris in a press conference at the White House. "Being Hitler just totally slipped his mind. Make no mistake, if Trump is elected again, he absolutely plans to turn into Hitler and probably will write himself a reminder this time."

According to retired General John Kelly, former President Trump often talked about how he kept meaning to find time to be Hitler, but he kept getting distracted by other things. "On several occasions, Trump told me word for word, 'This is it. This is the week I'm going to go be Hitler.' But then, Trump would get started doing something like handing out candy to Minions and he would completely forget," explained Kelly. "This time he has written himself lots of notes telling himself to not forget to turn into literal Hitler. It's terrifying."

At publishing time, Democrats had warned that Trump would have seized the military to install himself as Emperor God during his first term, but luckily he got distracted by making red hats.

[Chuck Murray]

Frustrated Democrats Reportedly Consider Letting Voters Pick The Presidential Candidate Next Time | Babylon Bee





WASHINGTON (DC) — A leak from within the Democrat party recently alleged that frustrated Democrat leaders have gone as far as considering letting voters pick the presidential candidate next time.

According to the anonymous source, Democrats are so irritated about how poorly Kamala is performing that they might even decide to run a candidate who received more than zero primary ballots next election cycle.

"How did we even get here?" cried a distraught Chuck Schumer, cursing the incompetent bungling that stuck his party with an extremely "dumb and incompetent" presidential candidate. "Fine. FINE. I guess we can get a little bit of voter input on who we run next time. Just don't get too used to it, voters!"

Democrats are reportedly so mad that they're even considering proposing policies that don't involve murdering unborn children or mutilating grade-schoolers. According to several Democrat sources, however, "those are just our last-resort ideas — we're gonna try everything else first."

At publishing time, the DNC had decided to let voters pick the presidential candidate in the next election cycle, but only if it matched the one they had hand-picked themselves.

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Long time GOP Rep Fred Upton, who used to represent a broad swath of SW Michigan counties (basically Trump Country once you're outside of Kalamazoo) before retiring last year, has endorsed Harris.

[Handyman]

Hazarding a guess:
Trends are towards Trump, however slightly, and 538's model is designed to give weight to trends over static numbers.
Likely Voter vs. Registered Voter adjustments - Harris does better with the latter, but the models are typically based on the former.
The most recent poll is an Emerson College one, which is a typically very good one and has Trump at +2, so it's probably given outsized weight, especially if it marked a shift from Emmerson College's last poll.

If they end up being wrong they will never admit what the problem was...recency bias as a means of weighting polls is not a smart plan no matter who is benefiting. I would hope they took more into account but based on what I remember of 538 they didn't.

(honestly I would argue recent history has shown polling at this point is rather worthless...once voting starts polling is just not a viable means even if the polls aren't flawed on their face)

[unofan]

recency bias as a means of weighting polls is not a smart plan no matter who is benefiting.

A poll taken the week before an election, all else being equal, is inherently more likely to say what will happen on election day than the same poll taken 6 months earlier.

Your point about accounting for early voters is valid, but that only really impacts the likely voter calculation, not the poll itself.

[Handyman]

A poll taken the week before an election, all else being equal, is inherently more likely to say what will happen on election day than the same poll taken 6 months earlier.

Your point about accounting for early voters is valid, but that only really impacts the likely voter calculation, not the poll itself.

I dont think your first point is true anymore. I would agree if polling didn't have the issues it has even getting people to participate but now I just think you are pulling from an increasingly smaller group of people. In theory though yes you are correct.

Honestly, I think there are ways to fix that issue but it would require long term following of the same group of people. Then you can say what you are seeing now is closer to what will actually happen. (note: I have no idea how Emerson does their polling)

Remember back in 2002 when part of the NCAA Selection Criteria for hockey was "Last 16 Games" or something like that. The theory was to reward teams on a hot streak at the end when they were playing conference games which in theory would be tougher and show they were best prepared for the NCAA Tournament. Then they got rid of it because it gave too much weight to teams that got hot at the end or maybe a team that racked up wins against weaker conference competition. I think part of my issue with putting more weight on polls now as opposed to say a month ago (I agree 6 months ago would be completely different and not just cause Harris wasn't the nominee) is in part because of things like that.

(I am not explaining it well because I honestly dont have the vocabulary to say what I am trying to say and I fully admit I might be way off base its just a thought I have)

[Handyman]

USPS mailbox with ballots lit on fire in blue county: https://abcnews.go.com/US/phoenix-ba...y?id=115110037

So that is at least 2 federal crimes right? (destroying ballots and destroying mail) Genius move...

[psych]

Hazarding a guess:
Trends are towards Trump, however slightly, and 538's model is designed to give weight to trends over static numbers.
Likely Voter vs. Registered Voter adjustments - Harris does better with the latter, but the models are typically based on the former.
The most recent poll is an Emerson College one, which is a typically very good one and has Trump at +2, so it's probably given outsized weight, especially if it marked a shift from Emmerson College's last poll.

Harris does better with likely voters, not registered. She averaged 49.67% within the 113 likely voter polls conducted in PA since 7/30 and only 46.97% within the 38 RV polls conducted. Didn’t break it down by high-quality versus sh*tass polls, but you get the gist.

I went ahead and did the math for PA. Since 538 started tracking Trump/Harris, which was 7/30 on their interactive graph, until 9/24 (since I picked 9/25 for my last analysis), there were 93 polls, 47 of which were/are, by 538 standards, considered high-quality polls. Harris averaged 48.43% in those high-quality polls between 7/30-9/24, which is .57% less than the 49.0% she’s averaging now in said polls. Trump averaged 46.38% in the quality polls, which is .83% less than the 47.21% he’s averaging now. Ironically, including the junk polls made Trump move up less than the high-quality polls between 7/30 to 9/24. So, if 0.26% movement toward Trump in 3 months is considered significant, using the high-quality polls, to push his average above hers, despite his averages never reaching the 47.9% he’s, well, averaging, then I’m afraid your explanation can’t be it.

[Jeb2020]

And you are a ****ing idiot.

[Handyman]

Lol: https://www.rawstory.com/trump-tattoo-voting-harris/

“He’s insane. Maybe he always was. But he is now. Did you see him dancing like he was j–king off two giraffes? Or how about what he said about Arnold Palmer?

That's an amazing quote!

[Jimjamesak]

Color me skeptical that it’s actually real.

[Handyman]

Color me skeptical that it’s actually real.

Oh I take it with more salt than I put on my french fries...doesn't make the quote any less hilarious!