It’s Better Than You Think
Polls cannot accurately predict a likely voter. Even more difficult to predict is what a person likely to vote is likely to do. Measuring “enthusiasm” based on self-reporting is even more of an iffy proposition. “Yes, I will vote,” and “Yeah, I guess so,” are two different answers that could mean exactly the same thing.
Donald Trump’s support is enthusiastic among certain types, less so among other types, and predicated on different reasons from person to person. For a protest voter, or an anti-Hillary voter, or even an enthusiastic voter – one prone to march into the polling place every first Tuesday after the first Monday in November in snow and sleet and rain and gloom of night – it’s hard to say which of the myriad sins of Donald Trump is likely to be the last straw.
For Clinton, on the other hand, because she was a well-known political entity who has been thoroughly raked over the coals for much of the last 25 years, there are fewer “surprises.” Even the deplorable Comey letter to his leaky friends is merely a weak attempt at keeping yet another non-scandal soap bubble on life support. It’s not even a NEW non-scandal, but rather a retread.
I’m telling you why
But.
The polls appear to be tightening, along with Democratic pundits’ throats. Especially worrying to some are the early reads on who is voting early. Per this Slate article, Democrats are out-polling Republicans in Nevada, North Carolina, Colorado and Iowa. This is good news in these swing states.
However, Republican early voters outnumber Democrats in Arizona and Florida, the latter a must-win state for Trump – BIGLY. Polling has tightened there but, again, there’s so much secret sauce in trying to discern not only intent but enthusiasm, that it’s hard to say what the real number is.
But here’s a real number you might like.
Among real people casting real votes in Florida thus far, Republicans outpace Democrats by a few tenths of a percent: 40.4% to 40%. TargetSmart/William&Mary has polled those people who have actually voted already in Florida, thus removing some of the uncertainty from the equation.
28% of Republicans who have already voted in Florida… have voted for Hillary Clinton!
It’s these little tidbits of info that tell us the true nature of the race. Keep the pedal to the metal, and bring a friend to the polls. But be of good cheer, my friends; it’s not as close as some would have you think.
I appreciate the postings of Primo.
1Thoughtful and well informed, they enhance my favorite web site.
Yeah, Primo! How about that FL crossover vote! Just be cool everybody. Hang tight and hang tough. We will do this.
Then rest up. Cause after this is over I’m in the mood to royally kick some R ass for.putting us all through this crap!!
2Don’t even look at the polls, Get out the vote. Election’s are not won in the polls, they are won by getting out the vote.
3And making sure every vote is counted.
When I saw the TargetSmart on M$NBC I felt a 3-day celebratory drunk coming on! Flow-rider. For once I love you!
4Nate Silver still has her at a 70/30 favorite. I’m comfortable with that.
5Seen in Amish country-
6https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwJFsdGWEAE6QYo.jpg
Hi All,
I sent this to Juanita but realized she is busy this week so thought I’d give you another fun story about Drumpf. Living in New Jersey does have some good things about it.
http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/11/video_shows_trump_in_ac_with_mob_figure_he_denies.html#incart_2box_nj-homepage-featured
He has the “best memory” NOT.
7Hey, Jean Kuhn! Yep. Saw that. “Don’t know the guy. Never met him!” Bwahahahaha…
What number lie is this? I’ve lost count.
8Let’s hope at least some of that crossover carries over to the down-ticket races. We need the Senate!
In 2012 I was a follower of Nate Silver at 538. I still am, but my poll aggregation Bible is http://election.princeton.edu/. Sam Wang seems more academic and objective. He also puts Hillary’s odds much higher, so I may be a little prejudiced in his favor. He already did better at predicting the Repub primary than 538 did. I sure hope Wang is right.
9OK
Drumpf is NOT stupid, but he is a fool.
Hillary is one of, if not THE most closely scrutinized political figures *ever*. She knows the extent the (truly) vast right wing conspiracy machine will pull out ALL the stops to not allow a woman to be “seen” to be acceptable as the world leader, and she ISN’T GIVING UP! If she isn’t, then we shouldn’t either.
Don’t piss off people; in other words don’t give them motivation. Go high, and give contrast to, um, the people that believe the world was a better place 60 years ago. Don’t let the modern equivalent of Andrew Johnson make us retreat from civility.
Go get ’em folks!
10Oh yah,
Don’t forget to appreciate what we *have* accomplished!
11There was a day I respected numbers. That was circa 2015 or before.
However, I’m with you Primo on the significance of that 28% figure. Extrapolated numbers speak volumes. Two is a solid number, too. Two of Donnie’s most loyal and connected trust fund kiddies failed to register and thus couldn’t vote for him in the NY primary.
I extrapolate that Donnie’s supporters may be even dumber than his kids. But it’s a sad day for the snacilbupeR, when their ‘best and brightest’ are too cowardly to speak the truth about Donnie. Looking at you, Lyin’ Ryan.
12I’ll take any hopeful report I can get and hope it’s true.
This is also hopeful– voting preferences of kids K-12 are blue in most states, 439 D to 99 R:
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/11/02/demographics/#more-18439
13I know I should not be biting my nails, but this election is so nerve wracking I can’t help it. Why it is so nerve wracking is another reason to worry. I can’t wait to vote against self-delusion and lies. I’m with her!
14Note to e platypus etc. That looks like one of our local Amish — it even looks like one of our local roads. It takes 2 different kinds of courage for an Amishman to put that on his buggy. 1) is risking the wrath of the elders and 2) is risking the wrath of one of the local Trumpsters in their pickups who wouldn’t think twice about running him off the road.
15The real significance of that Florida MarketWatch poll, giving Hillary a projected 8 point advantage, is that Drumpf has to win Florida in order to win the election. (According to MSNBC)
16If Hillary takes it along with all the blue states, he’s toast.
Is Florida the key?
Susan, ice cream. Eat lots and lots of ice cream! The calcium in this dairy product can adjust your anxiety level to a very manageable level and maybe even put you in a cruise mode.
17I saw this on The Last Word last night. And then I began to extrapolate:
Northern Florida is on a par with Georgia. The demographic of southern Florida is more like New Hampshire or Pennsylvania. Average them together and you get something like – what? – Colorado?
So if 28% of Florida is crossing over [assuming some rabid Trump supporters didn’t decide to throw a spanner in the works by claiming to have crossed when they didn’t] let’s say 25% of Republicans in states not called Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee crossed over . . . well, last night Lawrence and Eugene Robinson were using the word, “landslide” fairly freely.
18two crows, I’ve been throwing the word “blowout” around for 5 whole months. As difficult as this population is to predict, demographic trends gave her a 270 electoral vote head start. Softness in Trump’s state-by-state numbers put many more states in play. Softness in his head, hardness in his heart ensured he wouldn’t be expanding much beyond his base. The only 3 X-factors are 1) turnout – which is driven by the much bandied-about “enthusiasm” – 2) crossover effect and 3) no polls in many states.
No matter what anyone tells you, there are no models (yet) for how to quantify a candidate this bad personally, running a campaign this bad professionally. An entire generation of statistical and poli sci and sociology and comp sci PhDs are going to be earned with theses on this election.
If you want to stay up long after the election is called next week, plotting red/blue seats on big schematics of the House and Senate, as I know most of you will, just like me…
I say, if you’re going to be up – watch what Alaska does. As I said in May, it’s weird sometimes. It could be really weird this time. The last four prez margins of victory have been declining: +31 +26 +22 and +14 points – for the Repub.
19Well folks let’s see what happens after 6:00pm tonight – should be some interesting tweets from the Orange Rapist at 3:00am
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-rape-case_us_581a31a5e4b0c43e6c1d9834
Seriously – Hillary has emails!!!! This is RAPE!!!!
20Primo- back when I was actively engaged in raising hogs-the old fashioned way- we used the term blowout to describe a porker whose insides decided to come out the back end to see the light of day. It might be apropos for what spouts out of Drumpf’s pie hole.
21What concerns me is learning that North Carolina counties are yanking voters off the rolls (in quantity) because of a state law that lets anyone send a letter and if it comes back as undeliverable, they can complain to the county official in charge of the voting rolls and have that person removed. Apparently it’s being used specifically in mostly African-American neighborhoods, and NC’s county officials have been ignoring federal courts on a variety of things for some time.
And I also saw that in some other states there’s been a similar mass disenfranchising of *registered* voters along racial and income class lines, not just the kind of refusal to register because you have the wrong documents that we’ve seen so much of.
REpublicans just can’t resist cheating in every possible way, including ones I sure hadn’t thought of.
22Primo: Alaska is not weird sometimes. Alaska is weird all the time. It’s part of the reason I live here.
23Thank you Primo, and JJ commenters. I’m certain I now feel much better [she said while breathing into a paper bag.] Now if only my scalp would get and understand the message, which is my way of saying that my hair is falling out from the stress. No, that’s not overstatement, nor imagined. A bout with c. diff. triggered YUUGE hair loss, and now whenever I have a major stressor, my hair goes on a suicide mission. There are tumbleweeds of hair on the floor, and since my hair is long, they can wrap around your ankles and bring you crashing to the floor. Kidding. OK, I’m better.
24Anxiety is one of the things I do best, though I’m trying to change that. So any encouraging words I hear are most welcome. Thank you Primo and all the rest of the beauty shop denizens. I love y’all and cannot wait for 11/9/2016. 124 hours to go.
25Myrnatoo and the other stressed out JJ/TWMDBS denizens,
4x strength rum “Painkillers” can ease the wile away…
Let’s all hope the apricot hellbeast goes away in just six days. And his ’empire’ dissolves away, and his ‘friends’ and creditors the Russkis, et al., come looking for his sorry butt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painkiller_(cocktail)
26Spent two weeks in Iowa.
Learned that a significant fraction of female Trump voters are single-issue anti-choice women for whom it’s ostensibly about religion. For decades they’ve been promised a Supreme Court that would overturn Roe, and a few years ago it seemed to be within their grasp. Now they see it slipping away, the nation slipping irrevocably into perdition! and they’re willing to vote for a sociopath and damn everything else if it preserves a slender hope that the next confirmed Justice is someone like Alioto or Thomas or Scalia.
27joel hanes, good points. It’s difficult to understand the “single issue” voters from the perspective of those of us who care about everyone and everything. And, it’s not just Iowa. Given what Donnie has said about Muslims, imagine my shock speaking with a well-educated young Muslim voter who had previously voted Democrat, but because of her religion would be voting for Donnie because of his newly adopted position on abortion. Forget the Access Hollywood tape. If they learned about Donnie’s previously held attitudes or worse yet learned about how many abortions he may have paid for in his alley cat hustler days, would they regard him differently? Save the fetal cells and forget about Donnie’s jihad against you.
As for the military brass supporting Donnie, they’re not fighting the Cold War, they’re back somewhere in a WWII bunker. Sneak attacks are their answer. Sure let’s ‘sneak’ more than 10,000 personnel and equipment into Mosul on dirt roads and hope no one notices. Guess they haven’t read the GDP regarding urban combat in the Middle East, or they might know about the blow back from killing innocent civilians who are friendly to your cause. They won’t be supportive of being dismissed as ‘collateral damage.’ Riiiiight Dick Cheney?
Economic plan? A guy with a 70 year history of helping himself and only himself is the new poverty crusader? GMAB “What else do you have to lose?” Probably the roof over your head and anything else Donnie would steal from you. But that person is frustrated. With 16 solid years of bad economy following everything that Reaganomics wielded, there’s frustration there. President Obama has effected a turn around, but they don’t see it yet. Their desire for change would be understandable, if not for that aspect of Donnie bringing a change they won’t survive.
28@pkm
29Beating the dead horse, I know, but, at work in the next group over there’s a black guy, a team lead. A guy I’ve worked with on projects since 1990 or so. Competent. Company guy. etc etc
My god he has a “What do you have to lose?” Drumpf bumper sticker stuck on his motor car. Well here’s what you got to lose bud for daring to be “not white” in a zone Drumpf intends to be lilly white: every-damn-thing. Everything.
Micr, there are more questions than answers when trying to understand the “single issue” and voters who vote against their own interests. Tax cuts? Unless you have a trust fund with $millions tucked away, don’t count on benefiting from Donnie’s tax ‘plan.’ He plans to protect his money from beyond the grave while using our money to finance him.
30LynnN, I’ve followed Sam Wang since 2008 and (1) he nailed every election, and (2) he’s ALWAYS more accurate than Nate Silver.
31You are so right about polls.
32Good points and It is nice to see someone with an audience point this out. The talking heads seldom do this.
Thanks.
33