But will it impact voters in November?

[SLD]

From a Facebook post and not a Russian bot:

<Trumpsucker noise>

It’s hard to even know where to start. He has drank the Kool aid something fierce.

Yeah, I get it. I have evangelical proud redneck in-laws that fawn over Clownstick and post the dumbest of shit politically on Facebook.

But, they are not anything close to the plurality of voters. They may be 15-20%. They are not the 5-10% of swing voters that both sides covet and hope to get their notice. Bill Clinton's adviser was spot on with "Its the economy, stupid". The 'health care system' is teetering ever more so with it more broken than it was 3 years ago, coal is not great again, farmers are not exactly happy (not that many would change their vote, but some could stay home), the opioid crisis is still here, Clownstick did nothing on infrastructure, et.al. Don's con is old and tired. I really think that tons of voters are energized and pissed and will help provide a referendum on the 3 year old cesspool growing in DC.

I hope you’re right, but I know that you don’t win elections by going to the middle, you win by energizing the base. That’s what Hillary forgot. She lost because black female voters failed to show up in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s as simple as that. They felt no real drive to vote for her. I think Biden is different but I think he needs to pick Kamala Harris as his running mate.

 

[J842P]

On the positive side: T's approval rating stands just shy of 43%, and he needs key independent/disaffected Dems in states like WI, MI, PA to give him the breakout he needs. Right now, the polls aren't showing a replay of '16, and his behavior over the past 40 months hasn't shown that he can inspire those votes. He's a malignant "genius" at suckling his base, but as he says "dumb as a rock" at understanding how to drag others aboard.
On the negative: Presidential elections tend to be close -- Trump is already calling an election with a preponderance of mail-ins to be fraudulent. How hard will it be for T and his subservient wretch of an AG to find "substantial fraud" in any number of the hundreds of Congressional districts in the country -- they will take any hints of fraud and add T's pixie dust of crazy conspiracy theories and cook up a demonic brew (er -- make that legal brief) to take to SCOTUS. He could demand that the election results be declared invalid or that some eons-long new process be devised to recount. A man with no moral compass won't care what this does to the country, as long as he can avoid the most dreaded word in Trumpistan: loser.

I learned in 16 that the polls are fucked up. I don’t trust them. For years we’ve been hearing that the latest scandal from FFvC should spell his doom. He can’t possibly recover from this. And yet he won the nomination. But he can’t possibly win the general election. But here we are. Now I hear the same thing from the media I heard in 16, and I hope they’re right. But I am skeptical.

You learned the wrong lesson then. The polls weren't particularly fucked up, and any serious analysis (i.e. not the sort of thing you'll get on cable news) had a Trump victory as a very real possibility.


The fact that MSNBC was showing numbers like 99% chance of going to Clinton is more of an indictment of MSNBC than of polling.

 

[SLD]

On the positive side: T's approval rating stands just shy of 43%, and he needs key independent/disaffected Dems in states like WI, MI, PA to give him the breakout he needs. Right now, the polls aren't showing a replay of '16, and his behavior over the past 40 months hasn't shown that he can inspire those votes. He's a malignant "genius" at suckling his base, but as he says "dumb as a rock" at understanding how to drag others aboard.
On the negative: Presidential elections tend to be close -- Trump is already calling an election with a preponderance of mail-ins to be fraudulent. How hard will it be for T and his subservient wretch of an AG to find "substantial fraud" in any number of the hundreds of Congressional districts in the country -- they will take any hints of fraud and add T's pixie dust of crazy conspiracy theories and cook up a demonic brew (er -- make that legal brief) to take to SCOTUS. He could demand that the election results be declared invalid or that some eons-long new process be devised to recount. A man with no moral compass won't care what this does to the country, as long as he can avoid the most dreaded word in Trumpistan: loser.

I learned in 16 that the polls are fucked up. I don’t trust them. For years we’ve been hearing that the latest scandal from FFvC should spell his doom. He can’t possibly recover from this. And yet he won the nomination. But he can’t possibly win the general election. But here we are. Now I hear the same thing from the media I heard in 16, and I hope they’re right. But I am skeptical.

You learned the wrong lesson then. The polls weren't particularly fucked up, and any serious analysis (i.e. not the sort of thing you'll get on cable news) had a Trump victory as a very real possibility.


The fact that MSNBC was showing numbers like 99% chance of going to Clinton is more of an indictment of MSNBC than of polling.

Real clear politics poll of polls showed a pretty clear electoral vote win for HRC. Even Texas was supposed to be in play. Nate Silver’s five thirty eight also clearly predicted a win for HRC. On these boards I stated it wasn’t over yet, and I was roundly trounced on.

 

[J842P]

You learned the wrong lesson then. The polls weren't particularly fucked up, and any serious analysis (i.e. not the sort of thing you'll get on cable news) had a Trump victory as a very real possibility.


The fact that MSNBC was showing numbers like 99% chance of going to Clinton is more of an indictment of MSNBC than of polling.

Real clear politics poll of polls showed a pretty clear electoral vote win for HRC. Even Texas was supposed to be in play. Nate Silver’s five thirty eight also clearly predicted a win for HRC. On these boards I stated it wasn’t over yet, and I was roundly trounced on.

No, this is just you apparently not understanding probability. Here's 538:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

A 30% chance of winning is not particularly low.


Let me put it this way, playing Russian roulette with a regular 6-shooter gives you a 83% chance of "winning". Still want to play?

 

[SLD]

You learned the wrong lesson then. The polls weren't particularly fucked up, and any serious analysis (i.e. not the sort of thing you'll get on cable news) had a Trump victory as a very real possibility.


The fact that MSNBC was showing numbers like 99% chance of going to Clinton is more of an indictment of MSNBC than of polling.

Real clear politics poll of polls showed a pretty clear electoral vote win for HRC. Even Texas was supposed to be in play. Nate Silver’s five thirty eight also clearly predicted a win for HRC. On these boards I stated it wasn’t over yet, and I was roundly trounced on.

No, this is just you apparently not understanding probability. Here's 538:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

A 30% chance of winning is not particularly low.


Let me put it this way, playing Russian roulette with a regular 6-shooter gives you a 83% chance of "winning". Still want to play?

This is what I was looking at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/national-polls/

The polls still had HRC well ahead throughout the race. Certainly it’s not much different now.

 

[J842P]

No, this is just you apparently not understanding probability. Here's 538:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/

A 30% chance of winning is not particularly low.


Let me put it this way, playing Russian roulette with a regular 6-shooter gives you a 83% chance of "winning". Still want to play?

This is what I was looking at https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/national-polls/

The polls still had HRC well ahead throughout the race. Certainly it’s not much different now.

No, again, *that's not what they show*. A 3 point margin is not "well ahead", indeed, it is within the standard polling error for these sorts of polls. The fundamental problem is that people aren't well equipped to understand polling. And in any case, the national polls were *pretty much accurate* when predicting the *national outcome*, i.e., the popular vote, which Clinton won. The electoral predictions were much closer, and Nate Silver himself stated that a Trump win was a real possibility. Certainly nowhere near the 99% figures that people were trotting out.

 

[lpetrich]

HRC was ahead, but not by a large margin. To assess that issue, I considered  Historical polling for United States presidential elections - it has polls for all the Presidential elections since 1936.

I compared June/July polling to final polling and the vote. June/July was usually close to the final result, though with some exceptions, like Dewey beating Truman until the election, and Dukakis beating GBI in May-August. FDR had a smaller margin than his actual victories, and LBJ a larger margin.

Trump losing at this time by a sizable margin suggests that he will likely lose in November.

I also considered  United States presidential approval rating - what were typical average approval ratings of one-term vs. multiterm presidents, counted by how many times they were elected.

• One-term: HT 45.4, LBJ 55.1, GF 47.2, JC 45.5, GBI 60.9
• Multiterm: FDR 62, DE 65.0, RN 49.1, RR 52.8, BC 55.1, GBII 49.4, BO 47.9

Trump's low average approval rating, 40, is consistent with him being a one-term President.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I learned in 16 that the polls are fucked up. I don’t trust them. For years we’ve been hearing that the latest scandal from FFvC should spell his doom. He can’t possibly recover from this. And yet he won the nomination. But he can’t possibly win the general election. But here we are. Now I hear the same thing from the media I heard in 16, and I hope they’re right. But I am skeptical.

You learned the wrong lesson then. The polls weren't particularly fucked up, and any serious analysis (i.e. not the sort of thing you'll get on cable news) had a Trump victory as a very real possibility.


The fact that MSNBC was showing numbers like 99% chance of going to Clinton is more of an indictment of MSNBC than of polling.

Note that the polls were almost all before Comey pulled his dirty trick.