9:28am
9:28am, 11 Oct 2024
6,031 posts
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Cheeky’s Dad
I have no clue which way the US election is going to go and no insight, apart from my personal prejudices. However, what seems to be clear, is that it will be close and decided by a very small number of votes, which makes it difficult to predict. What I actually I find more worrying than the thought of another Trump presidency is that a sizeable portion of the American population seem to have lost touch with reality (see the immediate conspiracy theories arising from Hurricane Milton). How large and how permanent that dislocation from the truth is, remains to be seen but the potential impacts are really concerning and, of course, this trend is far from unique to the USA. Governments come & go but the eccentricities (dare I say stupidity) of humans is enduring.
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9:30am
9:30am, 11 Oct 2024
6,032 posts
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Cheeky’s Dad
On which gloomy note, I’m going to do the only thing possible in such desperate circumstances- make a cup of tea.
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9:32am
9:32am, 11 Oct 2024
6,669 posts
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paulcook
Cheeky’s Dad wrote: (see the immediate conspiracy theories arising from Hurricane Milton) How did mankind in the 21st century get to this point?! |
9:42am
9:42am, 11 Oct 2024
33,241 posts
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Johnny Blaze
Two things were interesting to me on that podcast 1 The very first thing that the pollsters on that podcast refer to is the average 4 point error in previous election poll results versus actual results. 2 They say that "if you believe we have fixed all our polling prediction problems it will be very close; if you don't, it could be up to 360 EC votes for Harris or up to 312 for Trump". So, caveated up to the kazoo then. I'm going for the former. |
10:03am
10:03am, 11 Oct 2024
22,242 posts
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Chrisull
Reasons to be hopeful: 1) The Republicans under Trump have no ground game, they've done none of the grunt work so have no team of door knockers come election day to get the vote out. Harris has loads. This will make a difference, I've worked on get out the vote teams and most people have already voted, but it gives an idea of numbers, where to focus on etc etc. 2) Trump's campaign trail is batshit. He's doing New York and California. The New York one is rumoured because he wants to say he pulled bigger crowds than Coachella. Complete waste of time as neither state is going his way. (Caveat: I've said in an earlier post election campaigns very rarely change voters minds, this is well documented - but at best case scenario for Trump it's making no difference) |
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10:15am
10:15am, 11 Oct 2024
22,243 posts
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Chrisull
Also some polls are deliberately biased garbage to bring back the averages for Trump (surprised fozzy didn't ask me to provide a reference - although guessing it's not a contentious point). Here's a good case study. This one from TIPP last night, who are a reputable poller (think they're graded A) for Pennsylvania. Registered Voters: Harris: 49% Trump: 45% Harris+4 Likely Voters: Trump: 48.6% Harris: 47.3% Trump+1 Ok you might say - sounds possible. Do some crosstab diving (which some say is garbage), it turns out in the likely voters, they've excluded Philadelphia from the figures. x.com The likely voters has 12 voters out of a sample of 821 (1.4%). In the last election 11% of all voters were form Philadelphia. And as you can probably surmise, Philadelphia is a deep blue territory. He thinks at first most likely a coding error, but doesn't exclude partisan interference, and indeed when he asked the pollsters (if you read the entire thread) they say no the result is accurate, which leads him to conclude they've deliberately tried to engineer a Trump +1 result in Pennsylvania. |
10:17am
10:17am, 11 Oct 2024
70,273 posts
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LindsD
On conspiracies, recommend the new season of The Coming Storm on BBC Sounds. bbc.co.uk |
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10:20am
10:20am, 11 Oct 2024
22,244 posts
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Chrisull
Thanks Linds - keep on meaning to listen to that and forget to!
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10:35am
10:35am, 11 Oct 2024
6,033 posts
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Cheeky’s Dad
If people haven’t heard it, The Rest is Politics US podcast series on how Trump won in 2016 is very interesting. I also find their regular podcasts fascinating. A couple of points which I picked up and which may be relevant this time too: 1. Trump got a huge amount of free media just by being “Trump”. I wonder, does that still apply and because everyone knows him so well now is all his Xitter lunacy baked in, so less effective l? 2. Trump was massively more energetic on the campaign trail than Clinton. Has being 8 years older slowed him down? There is some concern that Harris is not as active as she should be. Could this be a factor again. One doesn’t imagine Harris will fall prey to complacency but when the vast majority are entrenched in their views, the number of voters up for grabs are really small & something left field could have a massive impact. The states hardest hit by the hurricanes (Florida, North Carolina, Georgia) could come into play. Nobody knows what effect the disruption might have on voting |
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10:37am
10:37am, 11 Oct 2024
6,034 posts
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Cheeky’s Dad
LindsD wrote: On conspiracies, recommend the new season of The Coming Storm on BBC Sounds. bbc.co.uk Good call Linds. It’s fascinating (if depressing) Things Fell Apart similarly so, if more historic now |
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