2020 U.S. Presidential Election - Took place November 3, 2020. Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden assumed office January 20, 2021.

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MrJokerRager said:
A shitload of things have happened this summer and if Trump is going to lose on no more free Chinese virus gibs then America was already fucked by the time the statues were falling.
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People would rather die by the mob, instead of having someone mess with their money (even those it's not theirs technically, but also is technically).
 
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Basham from the Democracy Institute is giving an interview on his polling (link to their poll which I posted over the weekend):

Trump retweeting the poll caused a "tremendous reaction in both directions." Many people have looked at the methodology and numbers and recognize it's something serious. Also they received overwhelming critical responses from people who have emotional/ideological stakes in the election. It's a "visceral reaction." "People reacting this way are quite insecure in their views" and can't tolerate evidence to the contrary.

Some people have claimed the Democracy Institute is owned by Trump. "If that was true, my surroundings would be a little more salubrious than they are."

All of the "adverse" publicity is actually good for the DI. People are terribly concerned about the dissemination of this "terrible" information in a Trumpian "typical act of mania." Basham is amazed at the people saying basically "don't pay attention to this!" because a lot of people have then gone and looked at the poll that would not have before. Also the DI's profile as a think-tank has jumped up many leagues, which is good for business. They don't realize that to some the DI is now more attractive than before. Basically, there's a lack of thinking going on because it's all so emotionally driven.

Biden campaign has taken funding out of Texas, meaning it's not really in play, and you can see similar things with other states to see how "people with skin in the game" actually think. In general, Biden being up 14 or 16 points is better than Obama '08—"I would suggest if Jesus Christ himself were the Democratic nominee, he wouldn't even have a 14, 15, 16 point advantage over the other party." Furthermore, Biden is advertising on "rural black radio in the south because he is so desperate to gin up support in areas that Democrats don't usually have to advertise." "He is in big trouble in relative terms with African American voters." He could lose several states because of low black turnout with potentially, based on the state, Biden getting less than 80% of the African American vote.

Polling data on the debate is mixed, with maybe a small net positive in the short term for Trump, maybe a larger benefit in the long term—not everybody agrees. The media narrative about Biden being the "strong" and "dominant" candidate is not real, but "confirmed" by media polls. The narrative that Trump contracted COVID and this supports the idea that Biden is the choice for people worried about the pandemic is also "confirmed" by media polls. But many polls, like Zogby, have come up with numbers that are good for Trump with a tightening Biden lead that is within the margin of error.

This media creation (post-debate Biden crushing Trump) was dissolved by Trump retweeting the DI poll and changing the entire post-debate narrative. It created "An encore performance" for Trump and a "really good case study for how so much of the media for whatever reason is so committed to this message." The MSM narrative-driving polling doesn't answer the question of why they're so preoccupied with having the only voice in the discussion (e.g. deriding Basham's polling outlet), since Biden is up ahead like 15 points anyways according to them. Trafalgar and Big Data Poll are left out along with DI because they don't have "expertise and level of achievement" but that isn't an adequate explanation for Basham. "On some level they must either know or fear their numbers aren't right." "There's a few doctoral dissertations to be written about this very point."

On law and order being such a highly ranked concern in their polling relative to media polls: methodology. DI is only polling likely voters, using a turnout model with realistic voters, and trying to identify shy Trump voters, so they end up with a final pool of voters more reflective of what they think will be the actual voters than do MSM polls. It's more favorable to Trump and Republicans as a result. It's a more conservative electorate "on these issues" re "law and order, public safety, national security" than other pollsters get. Not just white, but with Hispanics and Blacks in inner cities, more male and blue collar in identified voters than others are proposing.

The DI asks about contrasting issues, e.g. "Since peaceful protests began, should government prioritize law and order...or should they prioritize racial justice, improving race relations?" basically giving a binary choice. With growing numbers, voters prefer law and order. They ask similar questions about voter mindset using binary choices with "black lives matter or all lives matter"—but since that's controversial, almost nobody asks it. They didn't know what the results would be, but overwhelming majorities say "all lives matter," though that option has been a consistent leader over the past months.

Before the protests, the main concern was the pandemic. But after the "peaceful protests" law and order came out of nowhere to be a heavy plurality winner for a number of months. Coronavirus issue has continued to drop and as the economy has approved it (the economy) has become more important, a close second to law and order. He thinks those two issues will continue to dominate, though they won't appear in any media because they favor Trump over Biden. So they'll continue to talk about covid using especially Trump's infection as an excuse to discuss it. This whole law and order thing helps explain why Trump is doing better with minorities but also how it's given him an "exclamation mark" with those voters.

They have 500 voters out of the 1500 in the polls specifically in battleground states. Recently they're doing specific focuses with closer looks on MN, NH, and FL. In terms of MN, back in April/May Basham saw that on election night people should pay attention to MN specifically. Nobody believed him back when he started saying it, despite the Trump campaign working hard there for years and St Floyd dying there, which was the epicenter of nationwide "peaceful protests." It remains narrowly for Trump, as the underlying variables beneath the campaign in MN favor Trump. Biden isn't doing super well in the urban centers, definitely not well in the Iron Range. Trump has a good opportunity to turn it red or strongly pink this year.

In terms of WI and MI, they're the hardest of the Rust Belt to talk about definitively. They had WI going to Biden in past months and thought Biden was likely to pick it up. Now it's in the margin of error, along with Michigan. Those two are the harder ones for Trump to maintain. Basham thinks due to what's happening with MN and because of the overlay demographically and attitudinally between MN voters and WI voters, those two states are more likely to go the same way than for instance MN and MI going the same way. It wouldn't surprise Basham if Trump lost MI and WI, though he doesn't think it will happen. But overall they're in the margin of error.

Of the battleground states Trump has to keep (though mathematically he doesn't really have to) if he wins this, it's hard to see Biden winning. "It might be everything, it might be the most revealing, illustrative state on election night." The other polls are all over the place, but lean usually to Biden. The DI thinks Trump has a "pretty solid" lead in PA. "Demographically, attitudinally, partisanly, in ideological terms, Pennsylvania is trending strongly Republican" and he doesn't see Biden's path to victory in that state. Basham disagrees a lot with Chuck Schumer's idea that for every Trump blue collar supporter, there are two suburban Democrats. There just aren't enough new voters in the Philadelphia suburbs that will make up for Trump's margin in western Pennsylvania. He would be much more surprised if PA slipped from Trump's grasp than if MI or WI did. Trump won't need any other Rust Belt if he gets PA, AZ, FL, and NC, and that's what the Biden team will have to reckon with in the coming month.

On Trump winning Virginia: anything is possible, but it's highly unlikely. The demographic changes over the last several years have accelerated, making it very difficult. There has been a huge increase in Hispanic voters in VA and they are largely Democrat right now. As the Feds grow exponentially in the DMV area, there are so many more DC-affiliated people whose livelihoods rely on increasingly expanding government. Those trends are accelerating despite pockets in VA that are reliably Republican. There just aren't the numbers for Trump in VA. If Trump wins the popular vote by 4 or 5 points (which Basham doesn't see happening) this could maybe mean, if he got every single R, Indie, and crossover vote, he might win VA. But it's kind of just a pipe dream. There are other states more likely to flip R before VA, unless Trump is ridiculously winning.

Usually the polls are skewed towards females by accident or by design. For instance, women are way more likely and eager to pick up phone calls. And women are more likely to be anti-Trump, even if Republican. If you don't adjust and weight for that, it will skew the polls. The DI thus proposes a national turnout model of D+2 nationally for a number of reasons. The +2 D in the DI polls is generally lower than most serious polls and way lower than the unserious ones. But they don't think it will be a normal/traditional/modern gender breakdown that mirrors the census—not a 53/47 women/men breakdown—rather it will be closer to 50/50. The reason is the enthusiasm gap which is enormous between Trump and Biden. One of the ways it breaks down is that men are more enthusiastic about Trump than female voters are for Trump. There are men very difficult to reach in polling that are ecstatic to vote for Trump, so they believe men proportionally will make up a greater ratio of Trump voters than women. "His vote is very efficient," meaning his voters which are already disproportionally in battleground states are certain to come out. Even if nationally the DI's numbers are wrong, there will be a much smaller gender gap in midwest swing states. This is partly due to the quality of the Trump GOTV campaign, which knows many of these voters and are certain to get them out.

He jokes that MSM and Democrats say there's no fraud, but there's a serious issue in addition to the corruption—incompetence. States like FL have weeded out problems with mail-in ballots over years, but other states really haven't. You can see this over the primaries earlier this year, where they literally just couldn't handle the volume of ballots and their incompetence led to problems. Republican lawyers have succeeded in many state courts regarding the vote-by-mail situation, but it's going to be hugely problematic on election night and the days afterwards. People will be "tripping over themselves, tripping over large numbers of ballots." Only if the numbers are overwhelming in either direction can we be sure the corruption and incompetence/inexperience overwhelms the situation. "Is it harder to prove incompetence than corruption? It's an unpalatable menu there."

Take on +16 Biden CNN/+14 Biden WSJ-NBC polls released in the past two days: he has no reason to suspect ulterior motives, but "they've produced these numbers out of whack with any tangible evidence of how the campaign is going." These results do not cohere with lawn signs, primary voting, voter registrations, pretty much any metric outside other polls. "If you came from another land and didn't know anything about the candidates, issues, arguments, you would observe by every tangible metric the Republican candidate was ahead." Basham mentions demonstrable enthusiasm, larger number of donors (not just amount of money, but the actual number reflects voter intentions) for Trump. It all points to Trump, but the "one other area [is] the polling" that exclusively presents a picture more contrary to all those other metrics. "Is this going to be the first time when that one metric, the polling, which measures intention and projected behavior, outdoes overwhelmingly all these other tangible data?" If the polling is inaccurate, even if those polls should really be around +4 Biden on average instead of +8 Biden, everything else would suggest a very close race. Hillary had everything except enthusiasm and personality, but it's different this time. Trump has the ground game, Biden can't even decide whether to knock on doors—Trump's been doing it for years already. Even if you go with the MSM polls, all this suggests a competitive race. If DI is wrong then it will be more likely that they underestimate Trump than that they underestimate Biden.

The DI hasn't really seen the disparity the democrats need so far. Though even if one side is up, it will be cannibalizing the election day vote. But if dems are going to have a landslide for Biden, then it will have to approach '08 or '12 levels. And there's no evidence to date that those numbers exist. You can see some of those assumptions in that major polls are using registered voters and will continue to do until the election. The reason for that is that RV includes voters that don't actually vote and the pollsters believe there will be an expanded electorate to the degree Biden outdoes Obama.

It will be unprecedented turnout if they're correct, and that's what's required for a Biden landslide. Basham doesn't see that at all. Where the democrats get this extra turnout, as in Obama's elections, is increased black turnout, more hispanic voters, young voters, etc. But where is that? There's no evidence at all of that. As so many colleges are closed down, all that collegiate organizing and peer pressure will disappear. College towns in some swing states are critical, as some states only went Trump/Clinton by thousands of votes. Registration numbers heavily favor Republicans. There is no evidence young people are keeping up with other age cohorts in terms of voter registration. Again, partially because of abysmal Democrat ground game.

There are issues with modes of polling. DI uses Interactive Voice Response with a recorded voice. You answer with a keypad and not by speaking. They think social desirability bias is highly reduced through that, allowing you to find shy Trump voters. Live caller approaches are more susceptible to social desirability. This is all why there's a growth in online surveys. It eliminates a lot of these issues, but there are new problems with those. It's not discussed, but in online polling usually people participate because of rewards, but good pollsters should be adjusting to minimize selection bias. There are many different ways of polling and each methodology has its own issue. "The truth is, there is no silver bullet." Each election they have to make way more calls than they did the last time. They have to end up with 1500 completed questionnaires, but they get far more that are incomplete, and even exponentially more people who don't answer or hang up. They go for 3 nights because they worry about skewing due to the events on a single news day, but would like to go even up to 5 nights if they had more money.

God, this is a long interview. I'll come back to it later and finish recapping.
 
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CrippleThreat said:
Check the comments on this beast:


People would rather die by the mob, instead of having someone mess with their money (even those it's not theirs technically, but also is technically).
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Their money was already being fucked with when the lockdowns happened and the mob burned down their businesses. At this stage, ending all lockdowns is needed.
 
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Tathagata said:
You can see some of those assumptions in that major polls are using registered voters and will continue to do until the election. The reason for that is that RV includes voters that don't actually vote and the pollsters believe there will be an expanded electorate to the degree Biden outdoes Obama.
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If pollsters actually believe this, they're incredibly stupid or they don't really believe it and are incredibly in the tank to their clients.
 
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Harvey Danger said:
"Reasonable people" can look at him denying aid to "Democratic States" as retaliation against the entire state because the governor insulted him. I don't think that's what he meant, but functionally it comes out the same as if he did,
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I reject this in its entirety.

Take the riots in Minneapolis for example. Trump denied $500 million of federal relief. That money will now have to come solely from the state. No Minnesota Republican or intellectually honest independent faults Trump for that decision even though it will be detrimental to them since they now have to foot the whole bill. It's patently obvious that the failure lies completely with local authorities. No sane person considers that retaliation. As for the crazy person who does, who cares. You can't convince crazy.
 
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RockPaper said:
If pollsters actually believe this, they're incredibly stupid or they don't really believe it and are incredibly in the tank to their clients.
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Pollsters reside in a bubble and don't actually know what people outside of the coastal elite centers think.

They're doubling down on their mistakes made in the 2016 election, so it's pretty hilarious to see people on this site still taking the mainstream polls seriously.
 
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legalkochi said:
They're doubling down on their mistakes made in the 2016 election, so it's pretty hilarious to see people on this site still taking the mainstream polls seriously.
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I still don't why even though this shit was the same case in regards to Hillary, who is ultimately Joe's better against Trump.

With all of these fake polls where the numbers are reaching into +20, they're going to agitprop themselves by making Democrats think Biden is smoking Trump, so why bother voting?
 
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heyitsmike said:
I reject this in its entirety.

Take the riots in Minneapolis for example. Trump denied $500 million of federal relief. That money will now have to come solely from the state. No Minnesota Republican or intellectually honest independent faults Trump for that decision even though it will be detrimental to them since they now have to foot the whole bill. It's patently obvious that the failure lies completely with local authorities. No sane person considers that retaliation. As for the crazy person who does, who cares. You can't convince crazy.
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That example is exactly what I had in mind when I started bitching about this.

Trump didn't turn down Minnesotans or Minneapolis residents. He turned down Mayor Frey, specifically, called out the city's leadership and city council for their failures, and blasted Governor Walz for not sending in the National Guard.

He withheld that aid and made it clear it was because of the politician's screw-ups, which was in line with blaming the politicians back when it all began. The people on the ground have a very easy path to agreeing with Trump and blasting the failures they previously elected.

This is how you separate a political machine from its base:

Screenshot 2020-10-06 at 8.12.18 PM.png


He praised the city, blasted its mayor, and addressed the citizen's concerns. That's a far cry from saying you're stopping negotiations for money that the citizens badly need, because their entire state is a failure and they've got the wrong party registration.

Trump knows how to do this right, and today he failed to get it right.
 
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Harvey Danger said:
That example is exactly what I had in mind when I started bitching about this.

Trump didn't turn down Minnesotans or Minneapolis residents. He turned down Mayor Frey, specifically, called out the city's leadership and city council for their failures, and blasted Governor Walz for not sending in the National Guard.

He withheld that aid and made it clear it was because of the politician's screw-ups, which was in line with blaming the politicians back when it all began. The people on the ground have a very easy path to agreeing with Trump and blasting the failures they previously elected.

This is how you separate a political machine from its base:

View attachment 1645813

He praised the city, blasted its mayor, and addressed the citizen's concerns. That's a far cry from saying you're stopping negotiations for money that the citizens badly need, because your entire state is a failure and you've got the wrong party registration.

Trump knows how to do this right, and today he failed to get it right.
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All those things you mentioned I consider distinctions without a difference. You yourself say you understand what he meant. So your only concern seems to be optics and how people might interpret it. People who already go out of their way to find offense in everything. Those people will never be won over. This is a victimless crime without the crime.
 
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Best thing we can do is to just let the new drama regarding the stimulus check play out. It's too early to call if this will be an election-killing move or a smart move like how he handled his battle with COVID-19 (which granted he's still doing but he demonstrated strength from being infected until coming back to the White House). We still need to get through the Vice President (and possibly 2nd debate if he's cleared for it) and the latest Pennsylvanian's registration voter data before we conclude this sinks him.
HTTP Error 404 said:
View attachment 1645884

As we all expected, the coward is trying to bail on the debate.
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Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, didn't he brag about how he's so excited to debate Trump at the second debate days ago? Granted, I can see why he would back out, but initially bragging about how he wants to face Trump when his health was more precarious and then backing out shows fear from Biden.
 
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heyitsmike said:
You yourself say you understand what he meant. So your only concern seems to be optics and how people might interpret it.
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I'm a politics-obsessed autist who examines zip codes in polls and commas in the Constitution. I pay attention to what Trump does second only to the Krassenstein brothers and @It's HK-47; even still, I only think I know what Trump meant.

He spent the summer railing against Democrats, calling out the party itself, and blaming them for the riots. He also takes everything personally, and he'll hold a grudge against people who mildly oppose him for years. So it is entirely possible that Trump's pissed off at the entire state at this point and won't send aid or cut deals to help them.

Outside of A&N there are normal people who have been doing normal jobs that only hear about politics once a month or less. Those people heard Trump blame Democrats for months; now they'll see him appear to say he's withholding stimulus to Democratic states. Reasonable people who might be in that last 5-7% undecided can reasonably interpret that as Trump deciding to hold a grudge against their state.

The only reason I don't assume that is because I give the guy the benefit of the doubt, a nicety no one is required to do after 4 years.
 
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Someone Awful said:
Waitwaitwaitwaitwait, didn't he brag about how he's so excited to debate Trump at the second debate days ago? Granted, I can see why he would back out, but initially bragging about how he wants to face Trump when his health was more precarious and then backing out shows fear from Biden.
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I think the difference is, back then, Biden assumed Trump would not be able to show up to the 2nd debate.
 
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