Dr. Jack
Dr. Jack's JournalOpposite world electoral vote map
With 6 days to go, Trump is down by about 9 points nationally but still there are some people saying "what if the polls are wrong!" Or "what if Trump turns things around in the final few days". Well, I decided to see what the opposite would look like. What would it be like of Trump was ahead by 9 points nationally to see how confident we would be about winning next week. Here is what I came up with.
https://www.270towin.com/maps/p1Abl
I don't know about you but if that is where the polls were showing the race, I wouldn't feel confident about Biden turning things around by next Tuesday.
NBC News Election Update: Biden 279, Toss Up 134, Trump 125
NBC's electoral vote update it out for today. The major changes is that Arizona moved from a lean Biden to a tossup and Texas moved from lean Trump to tossup. I'm ok with that trade I think.
But anyways that puts the updated electoral vote at
Biden: 279 solid or lean states
Tossup: 134
Trump: 125 solid or lean states
I think it goes without saying that things are looking very promising 7 days before the election
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Ted Cruz: Hunter Biden attacks don't move 'a single voter'
Normally I don't care what the Zodiac Killer has to say about anything but I think this statement by him today is important. He is admitting that the Hunter Biden attacks have fell absolutely flat with voters and he seems to be signaling that Trump has wasted what precious little time was left in the election rambling about a story that most either didn't believe or didn't care about. This is one of Trump's closest allies all but admitting the Hunter Biden narrative was a massive mistake for Republicans to focus on. Say what you will about him but Cruz definitely isn't dumb. He sees the writing on the wall and seems to have given up on trying to help, almost giving a post mortem assessment of Trump's failed campaign or is trying to distance himself by coming out and more or less saying "what a fucking idiot Trump has been". If I was a Republican, I wouldn't feel good about someone like Ted Cruz giving a somewhat somber view of Trump's final days in this election.
Edit: Again, let me reiterate that I'm not posting this and saying "Ted Cruz is one of the good Republicans" or that we should be welcoming Ted Cruz's insights in general. Instead I think it's proof that Trump's enablers, who were more opportunists instead of die hard Trump cult member, are quickly distancing themselves from Trump because they expect a brutal election night. When it comes to the election, that is good news. Beyond that I have no respect or love for Cruz and I'm not saying that "all is forgiven!" when it comes to people like Ted Cruz. Just what he is hinting at in this interview, which is a likely Trump landslide defeat due to his own bullshit agenda and concerns.
Cruz told Jonathan Swan of Axios in an interview that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's "best moment" in the Oct. 22 debate came when he brushed off Trump's attacks on his family and turned to the camera to tell viewers that their families matter more.
"One of Biden's best points was when he said all these attacks back and forth about my family and [Trump's] family, they don't matter. What matters is your family. That may have been Biden's best moment, actually," Cruz said.
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/522910-cruz-hunter-biden-attacks-dont-move-a-single-voter?amp
Trump and the MAGA crowd are severely out of touch with average Americans
Earlier in this election, let's say 6 months ago, for the most part I knew that Trump was very likely to lose when all is said and done. Yes, it's not quite over yet but....I think we all know where this is headed. However, a small part of me wondered, what if the MAGA crowd was right? And I think in a way that is something we have all considered. What if the polls are wrong? Maybe people don't care that much about coronavirus? Maybe that bizarre "law and order" bullshit is what Americans are concerned with? At times, I think we have all thought "oh god, what if that does work?". What if that dumb Hunter Biden stuff does affect the polls? What if people do believe it?
This election, far far more so than any other, is an election of dueling realities. On our side, we are saying "covid is real and it's a problem", "the economy is in shambles", "look at what the polls say", etc. And on their side "no one cares about this fake Chinese virus!", "The economy is fine, look at the dow jones", "the polls are all fake, look at 2016!", "People care about crime in cities and Hunter Biden, not fake news lies about Trump!".
The issue is that with the election drawing to a close and the way things are currently playing out, it's starting to come into focus which side was correct all along and it has been us. People do care about COVID. Based on fundraising totals and early voting, the polls do seem to be correct. No one seems to give a shit about "law and order" or some fringe Breitbart stories where Rudy Giuliani hands out child porn and says he got it from Joe Bidens random son that no one has even heard about.
That is why I believe when people look back and study this election, not only will they say "Trump and the Republicans lost badly" but they will say there was a systemic problem on the right in 2020 of the Republicans, particularly Trump and has red hat base, being totally out of touch with what Americans care about. People are going to say "during the worst pandemic in 100 years and the worst economic crash since the great depression, Trump decided to focus his campaign on an exaggerated message of crime in cities and bizarre conspiracy theories about child sex slaves". The view is going to be that Trump and had base got so caught up in their right wing echo chamber that they failed to listen to what the majority of people were saying. And they will say it was to the point where it got so bad that even Republicans were backing the Democratic candidate. People are going to look at videos and articles from Trump and his enablers one day and say "they were living in a totally different universe than everyone else".
The lesson future politicans will take away from 2020 is to take a broad view of the electorate and not to let yourself get caught up in your own media bubble that is increasingly codependent and divorced from reality.
Biden's national lead is trending back up at 538
Normally I wouldn't make an entire post about such things but with that bullshit Rasmussen poll out today showing Trump up by 1 point, I have seen a small number of people freaked out. If, for some reason you still think Rasmussen isn't total trash that has zero value, then take heart, Bidens national lead actually trended up on 538 today. He was hovering around +9 the last few days (still an absolutely amazing lead a week before the election) but now he is at +9.4. With a week to go until the election, Trump's deficit in the polls is actually increasing. No guarantees it will stay at 9.4 or keep rising but right here, right now, with only a week to go, our boy had another great day.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/
Can we just say it? At least once?
Every piece of good news I have read this year about the election always ends up spawning tons of comments along the lines of "dont get complacent!", "the only poll that matters is the one of election day!", "Just vote!", etc. Yes yes, that's all well and good but can we just say it, at least once, right now that Trump is going to lose and it isn't going to be close? The mother fucker is down by double digits with a week to go before the election, he has never polled ahead, is out of money and the country is collapsing around us. Yet those of us on the left are still like "I don't know, anything could happen, remember 2016, I don't want to get me hopes up." I get that attitude but at the same time, come on! Can we just, among us, say what is clearly staring us right in the face? Can we just say that we are going to win this election? Are we going to keep going with this PTSD "oh my god just vote!" attitude until all of the votes are counted? Are we really going to act like Biden having realistically a 95% chance of winning like it's a toss up?
I mean I get it but at the same time...come on
8 days to go: Biden's lead over Trump is holding, while Clinton's was collapsing at this point
Here is the newest article from Harry Enten. He's always worth the time to listen to.
But perhaps most worrisome for the President: Trump's clearly behind his 2016 pace. By this point four years ago, he was rapidly closing the gap with Hillary Clinton. No such advancements can be seen in the 2020 polling against Biden.
Right now, Biden is up by about 9 to 10 points nationally, depending on the average you examine. He is, importantly, over 50%. Biden's edge may be down a point or so from early October, though it is well within the historical average from the beginning of the year.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/10/25/politics/biden-leads-trump-polling/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
White House lawyer helped shop controversial Hunter Biden story to Wall Street Journal: NYT
Source: The Hill
A controversial story alleging wrongdoing by former Vice President Joe Biden's family in foreign business dealings was pitched by Trump allies to the Wall Street Journal before it appeared in the New York Post, The New York Times reported.
According to the Times, White House lawyer Eric Herschmann and former deputy White House counsel Stefan Passantino were among those within President Trump's circle who had pitched the Biden story to Wall Street Journal reporters. Trump's allies reportedly hoped the story in the Journal, a trusted paper, would play in Trump's favor ahead of the November election
The story pitched by the White House insiders alleged that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was involved in his son Hunter Biden's foreign business dealings related to China and Ukraine. Herschmann and Passantino handed over emails and told the Journal that Hunter Biden's former business partner Tony Bobulinski was willing to go on the record with them.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/522706-white-house-lawyer-helped-shop-controversial-hunter-biden-story-to-wall
Prediction: Biden wins by a lot more than people are expecting
Let me say right off the bat, I of course don't have any secret insight or super special expertise on elections so take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.
With that said, I am going to predict that Biden will win by quite a bit more than people are expecting. I'm not basing this on claims like you see from Republicans that the polls are fake or "skewed" in some way. Instead I think the polls showing Biden hovering around 14 or 15 points nationally might prove to be the accurate ones and polls showing him around 8 or 9 are playing it too safe. Here is my reasoning:
1. Following 2016, many pollsters changed up their polling methodology to weigh heavier towards non college educated whites, or in other words Trump supporters. They did this of course to not underestimate Trump in places like Michigan, where they got it a bit wrong in 2016. I think however, that 2016s turnout models don't apply to 2020. 2016 was an anomaly and polls are somewhat overestimating the electorate being more trump friendly than it will be.
2. Nate Silver is suspicious that right wing leading pollsters like Trafalgar and Rasmussen are fucking with their numbers to force Trump's averages in the polls to be closer to where they want it to be. He doesn't think this is 100% malicious or that they are lying. Instead he seems to believe that these right wing pollsters want desperately for Trump to win and they are unintentionally finding evidence to prove their point. Also he thinks they are paranoid and that other non trump friendly pollsters are in the bag for Biden so they are releasing as many as their extremely generous polls to trump as often as they can to change the averages in Trump's favor. If right wing polls are indeed very inaccurate, which is looking pretty likely, and are way overestimating Trump then Biden's average lead could very well be understating democratic support.
3. Nate Silver also says he thinks his model may very well be too conservative right now. He said he doesn't entirely buy that Trump actually has a 12% chance of winning and that his model might be adding too much uncertainty to the projection which favors Trump.
4. The massive turnout this year will not be people turning out for Trump. Yes, Trump is going to get tens of millions of votes and Republican turnout will be high. However, experts think turnout will be between 6 million and 20 million votes higher in 2020 compared to 2016 (most likely about 12 million more). While I don't doubt some of those are Republicans, I think a significant majority are coming out for Biden. Between the pandemic, the economic collapse, the increased flirting Trump is doing with fascism and white supremacy, I believe a lot of people that sat on the sidelines in 2016 are now desperate for a "return to normalcy". I believe most of those extra 12 million votes are people that just want to be done with Trump and never have to deal with him again. And you have to ask yourself, what has Trump done to increase the size of his base or electoral coalition since 2016?
5. The massive amounts of money that Biden and the Dems are raising compared to Trump's campaign and the Republicans being nearly bankrupt shows that there isn't some hidden enthusiasm for Trump. Again, going back to point 4, if those extra 12 million voters this year were coming out in large part because of a "hidden Trump vote" then you would see him bringing in money like crazy and his rallies wouldn't be just 35 people all crammed together to make him look more popular than he is. Trump has his fanatical base, I don't deny that, but beyond that 35% of the country, no one else seems to be excited about the idea of a 2nd trump term.
6. Early voting turnout. Clearly the pandemic is affecting this quite a bit. Some people who would have turned out on election day during a normal year but I don't know if that entirely accounts for what appears to be a massive increase in turnout we are seeing in early voting amount democratic leaning demographics. Early voting among people under 30 for example is up some 1000% in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania. First, I highly doubt they are trump supporters. Second, if people were happy with Trump or fairly "meh" on the democratic candidate this year (like in 2016) why the high turnout among Dems and Biden voters? If people weren't all that motivated to get rid of trump or wanted to keep him around, why bother voting early in such massive numbers? Why would people wait in a 8 hour line a month before the election to cast a ballot? If people loved trump and hated Biden they would what's the rush to vote for Biden?
7. Congressional district level polls are showing massive Biden leads. I left this point to the end because it is the least certain but might prove to be a critical data point that people are missing. Nate Silver talked a bit about this on their Friday podcast. He said that polls on the Congressional district level, some of which ask about presidential candidate preference while polling house races (those polls are not included in state or national averages therefore aren't taken into account by much of anyone right now) are showing a very different story on the election. Specifically a massive Biden lead. Far larger than the national or state polls. Since these polls aren't used in averages then they aren't susceptible to Trafalgar and Rasmussen fucking around, like I mentioned in point 2. District level polling in presidential elections is somewhat new and experimental in the context of polling models like 538 but there is some evidence that they might actually be far more accurate than national or state polls. If that is the case Biden's lead might actually be closer to 14 or 15 points.
Again, don't take what I am saying as gospel but I from my personal prospective, I think Biden is going to end up winning by a lot more than most people are expecting.
The MAGA crowd is living in a totally different universe from the rest of world
I like to lurk on right wing forums just to keep tabs on whatever nonsense the right is bitching about today. I find human behaviour to be fascinating so I can't help but take a peek at what the ultra right wingers are doing and saying.
Their grip on reality is typically quite tenuous but usually they are talking at least in part about the same things as the real world but typically with their own deluded spin on things. But lately I have noticed that it's like they are living in a totally different universe from the rest of us. I'm not sure what the breaking point was exactly, although I suspect it was a combo of the RNC and first debate not providing the major Trump comeback they were expecting. Instead of accepting that Trump's reelection is going down in flames, they have since crafted an entirely different reality. Here are some highlights of you're interested:
First, you need to understand that the polls are 100% wrong. Polls on the election, polls on how people feel about various issues, polls about either of the two candidates, all fake. Not just wrong but made up entirely by evil liberal media forces to make Trump look bad.
Second, 2016 has an almost mythological status where Trump minimally out performing his polls (by less than 1 point overall and not unusual in the slightest) had become Trump came back from impossible odds, made up a double digit deficit in the final few days of 2016, and that literally no one thought he would win.
Third, Americans don't care about coronavirus. Only fringe liberals care and again all to make Trump look bad. The vast, vast majority of Americans couldn't care less about coronavirus.
Forth, the economy is in amazing shape (look at the stock market!) and again most Americans are super happy with the state of the US economy.
Finally, the real issues Americans care about are: Crime in Democratic run cities, "cancel culture", and of course, the greatest threat to America, Hunter Biden's emails. You might have thought the NY Post "bombshell" had fizzled out like a week and a half ago and that no one cares. Wrong! According to Breitbart and The Daily Caller, this is the greatest political scandal in American history. While most mainstream news either never touched the story and even more mainstream conservative outlets have largely moved on since the whole thing seems too difficult to believe and even if true, people don't care. But that's only if you don't visit far right, quasi neo Nazi "news" sites. The claims on those sites about what's on Rudy Giuliani's....I mean Hunter Biden's laptop is become more and more extreme. Massive loans and bribes to Hunter and Joe from pretty much every country and group that the right hates "China, Ukraine, Iran" and of course you can't have a right wing conspiracy theory without vast claims of child pornography and sex slaves.
To summarize here is what the MAGA crowd is currently thinking: all of the polls are fake, coronavirus isn't real, Hunter Biden's emails are the biggest issue to Americans and constitute a scandal so horrifying and vast that the Democratic party is likely going to be wiped out, and Trump is going to win an historic landslide reelection. This includes Trump winning states like California, New York, and Illinois by large margins. Essentially the polls are off nationally by 30-40 points. Trump will likely win with 60ish percent of the vote nationally and Biden will be in prison before the end of the year.
Now I need a stiff drink and a shower. Excuse me for a bit.
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Member since: Fri Jan 20, 2017, 02:43 PMNumber of posts: 675
