Democrats 2020

[J842P]

Before the election, the results are a "sure thing" according to the best calculations by the smartest people.

After the election, you're an illiterate idiot if you don't know that statistics and polls have only limited predictive power.

No, it was a "sure thing" to the clowns on television. I distinctly remember tracking 538 and seeing that they were giving increasingly better odds to Trump in the month running up to the election, and not knowing where people were getting these figures like "99.9% chance Clinton wins the election."

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

No, she didn't.

Yes, she did.

Koy is right that Hillary won the popular vote, and that is all that the polls predicted. They were not set up to predict an electoral winner, because that would have required comparable polling in many of the states. In fact, 538 was doing a running commentary on the chances of Trump pulling off an electoral victory. I don't recall the odds

They ended at around a 10.6% chance if memory serves. That was Trump just winning the EC without also winning the popular vote. Which, in 538 terms is nearly an impossibility.

I think that they predicted something like one in four odds that Trump would win, and the election timing just happened to be at its most favorable for Trump, thanks to Comey's intervention in the politics of the election.

And the unseen influence of the Russian warfare, which could not possibly have been picked up by any polling, since all such polls only sample a very small number of people (typically around 1,000) and from across the United States, so where would be no way for any pollsters (or pundits for that matter) to factor in anything as small as a 1% voting differential in select counties within key battleground states.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Before the election, the results are a "sure thing" according to the best calculations by the smartest people.

After the election, you're an illiterate idiot if you don't know that statistics and polls have only limited predictive power.

No, it was a "sure thing" to the clowns on television. I distinctly remember tracking 538 and seeing that they were giving increasingly better odds to Trump in the month running up to the election, and not knowing where people were getting these figures like "99.9% chance Clinton wins the election."

Well, again, she did win the election. What she lost was the EC and she did so by a less than 1% voter differential in three key states (not 1% against the entire voting population). Again, 538 gave the odds of Trump winning just the EC without also winning the popular vote at around 10%. Factor in the odds of winning the EC by such a miniscule percentage in just three traditionally blue states, no less, at your not far away from 99.9%.

 

[Copernicus]

It is also worth pointing out that odds (chances) of winning are different from probability of a win. What 538 was saying was that, given any random four days, Trump was going to win the electoral college on one of those days. Hillary's probability of winning was extremely high, but the odds went against her. Had the election been on another day, she probably would have won the electoral college.

 

[Politesse]

Before the election, the results are a "sure thing" according to the best calculations by the smartest people.

After the election, you're an illiterate idiot if you don't know that statistics and polls have only limited predictive power.

No, it was a "sure thing" to the clowns on television. I distinctly remember tracking 538 and seeing that they were giving increasingly better odds to Trump in the month running up to the election, and not knowing where people were getting these figures like "99.9% chance Clinton wins the election."

Well, again, she did win the election. What she lost was the EC and she did so by a less than 1% voter differential in three key states (not 1% against the entire voting population). Again, 538 gave the odds of Trump winning just the EC without also winning the popular vote at around 10%. Factor in the odds of winning the EC by such a miniscule percentage in just three traditionally blue states, no less, at your not far away from 99.9%.

You being in denial about how the country's electoral system works does not make it any more reasonable to deny the results thereof. She did not win the election if she didn't "win the electoral college".

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

It is also worth pointing out that odds (chances) of winning are different from probability of a win. What 538 was saying was that, given any random four days, Trump was going to win the electoral college on one of those days. Hillary's probability of winning was extremely high, but the odds went against her. Had the election been on another day, she probably would have won the electoral college.

Considering that she only lost the EC by a differential of less than 40,000 votes in just three key states--and blew out the popular vote by almost three million--I'd say it's 99.9% certain that she would have won on any other day even if all things that conspired against her remained the same. The percentages in those three states were so small that the weather alone could have changed the outcome.

 

[Copernicus]

Well, again, she did win the election. What she lost was the EC and she did so by a less than 1% voter differential in three key states (not 1% against the entire voting population). Again, 538 gave the odds of Trump winning just the EC without also winning the popular vote at around 10%. Factor in the odds of winning the EC by such a miniscule percentage in just three traditionally blue states, no less, at your not far away from 99.9%.

You being in denial about how the country's electoral system works does not make it any more reasonable to deny the results thereof. She did not win the election if she didn't "win the electoral college".

You are being annoyingly pedantic. Nobody disagrees that she won the electoral college, and that supersedes the popular vote in the US.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Well, again, she did win the election. What she lost was the EC and she did so by a less than 1% voter differential in three key states (not 1% against the entire voting population). Again, 538 gave the odds of Trump winning just the EC without also winning the popular vote at around 10%. Factor in the odds of winning the EC by such a miniscule percentage in just three traditionally blue states, no less, at your not far away from 99.9%.

You being in denial...

You being a pedophile....oh, I'm sorry. What well were you fallaciously attempting to poison?


This disclaimer edit is for Derec, who evidently can't understand what a fallacy is and why I used the phrase, "You being a pedophile" to mirror and illustrate the fallacy Politesse was committing in spite of the fact that I clearly indicated it in the next sentence.

Lest there are others on this sight who likewise could not figure out that I was in no way actually accusing Politesse of being a pedophile.

 

[Derec]

Koy is right that Hillary won the popular vote,

And in the US system, that's about as useful as scoring more total points while losing the NBA finals 3-4.

 

[Politesse]

Well, again, she did win the election. What she lost was the EC and she did so by a less than 1% voter differential in three key states (not 1% against the entire voting population). Again, 538 gave the odds of Trump winning just the EC without also winning the popular vote at around 10%. Factor in the odds of winning the EC by such a miniscule percentage in just three traditionally blue states, no less, at your not far away from 99.9%.

You being in denial about how the country's electoral system works does not make it any more reasonable to deny the results thereof. She did not win the election if she didn't "win the electoral college".

You are being annoyingly pedantic. Nobody disagrees that she won the electoral college, and that supersedes the popular vote in the US.

He has repeatedly claimed that she did not win the election, including in the post I quoted.

 

[Emily Lake]

It is also worth pointing out that odds (chances) of winning are different from probability of a win. What 538 was saying was that, given any random four days, Trump was going to win the electoral college on one of those days. Hillary's probability of winning was extremely high, but the odds went against her. Had the election been on another day, she probably would have won the electoral college.

I do not follow the distinction you're drawing between probability and odds here.

 

[laughing dog]

Koy is right that Hillary won the popular vote,

And in the US system, that's about as useful as scoring more total points while losing the NBA finals 3-4.

It is for that election, but it shows that Mr. Trump is vulnerable in an election if the votes are "distributed" a little bit differently.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

You are being annoyingly pedantic. Nobody disagrees that she won the electoral college, and that supersedes the popular vote in the US.

He has repeatedly claimed that she did not win the election, including in the post I quoted.

Actually, I claimed that she did win the election, just not the EC. As has been exhaustively pointed out in dozens of other threads, there is nothing but the "popular vote" in our elections. There used to be a separate vote where Electors could vote as they pleased, but every state except two have since established the rule that whatever the popular vote in their state turns out to be is automatically the way their electors are restricted to vote. Iow, a rubber stamp, effectively making the popular vote the only vote.

The problem being, of course, that it's a national election, not a state election and there is nothing defensible--particularly in light of the irony of the above--in artificially weighting one state over another state. Because you stand five feet away from, my vote counts twenty to yours. That's utterly ludicrous and indefensible, even without the sordid history of why such weighting began in the first place.

The President isn't the President of United States, he/she is the President of the United States. Iow, he's the President of the People by the People for the People, not of the States, by the States, for the States as Trump is ironically proving with every petty fuckery going on right now in regard to blackmailing only the blue states during the pandemic.

Which is why I said she did win the election, just not the EC--since "popular vote" effectively means the exact same thing as "the election"--but fine, I'll amend it to "She won the only vote that exists, just not the EC, which is no longer a vote, but a rubber stamp."

Better?

Regardless, the POINT is that the only vote that exists shows the preference of the country. That preference was unquestionably Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump, on the order of millions of votes.

He didn't have the numbers then and he has only lost more since.

 

[Derec]

It is for that election, but it shows that Mr. Trump is vulnerable in an election if the votes are "distributed" a little bit differently.

Of course Trump is vulnerable! But Democrats should not succumb to being overly confident that they will surely win, because look how it turned out last time!

 

[Derec]

Actually, I claimed that she did win the election, just not the EC.

Winning the EC == winning the election.

That's utterly ludicrous and indefensible, even without the sordid history of why such weighting began in the first place.

Ought-is distinction. Just because you can make a good case something ought to be a certain way, does not mean you get to pretend that it applies in the here and now.

Note also that you can't just take the popular vote counts as they were and pretend that they would be the same had there been national popular vote.
For one, both Hillary and Trump would have campaigned very differently if the system was different.
Second, Hillary did not win the majority of the vote, just the plurality. How do you know that if we had a popular vote system that it would be based on plurality and not majority (with runoff election) like for example France?

Which is why I said she did win the election, just not the EC--since "popular vote" effectively means the exact same thing as "the election"--

No it doesn't!

but fine, I'll amend it to "She won the only vote that exists, just not the EC, which is no longer a vote, but a rubber stamp."

Better?

Not really. EC is the only vote that counts.

 

[Politesse]

You are being annoyingly pedantic. Nobody disagrees that she won the electoral college, and that supersedes the popular vote in the US.

He has repeatedly claimed that she did not win the election, including in the post I quoted.

Actually, I claimed that she did win the election, just not the EC. As has been exhaustively pointed out in dozens of other threads, there is nothing but the "popular vote" in our elections. There used to be a separate vote where Electors could vote as they pleased, but every state except two have since established the rule that whatever the popular vote in their state turns out to be is automatically the way their electors are restricted to vote. Iow, a rubber stamp, effectively making the popular vote the only vote.

The problem being, of course, that it's a national election, not a state election and there is nothing defensible--particularly in light of the irony of the above--in artificially weighting one state over another state. Because you stand five feet away from, my vote counts twenty to yours. That's utterly ludicrous and indefensible, even without the sordid history of why such weighting began in the first place.

The President isn't the President of United States, he/she is the President of the United States. Iow, he's the President of the People by the People for the People, not of the States, by the States, for the States as Trump is ironically proving with every petty fuckery going on right now in regard to blackmailing only the blue states during the pandemic.

Which is why I said she did win the election, just not the EC--since "popular vote" effectively means the exact same thing as "the election"--but fine, I'll amend it to "She won the only vote that exists, just not the EC, which is no longer a vote, but a rubber stamp."

Better?

Regardless, the POINT is that the only vote that exists shows the preference of the country. That preference was unquestionably Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump, on the order of millions of votes.

He didn't have the numbers then and he has only lost more since.

If you feel that the system ought to be different, it is within your power as a citizen to attempt to affect change. Perhaps a letter to your senator would be a good start. However, refusing to personally accept that this is how our elections work does not actually change them, until your proposed Constitutional alterations are in fact made.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Nothing AT ALL about what I've written has anything to do with personal "acceptance" about how our elections do or do not work.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

nm

 

[Politesse]

Nothing AT ALL about what I've written has anything to do with personal "acceptance" about how our elections do or do not work.

You note that you do understand how, constitutionally, our elections work. Then you call it "indefensible". That's fine, but if you want to change the system to make it a straightforward popular vote, or to change how the votes are apportioned to the states, that's going to require two votes in the legislature and presidential agreement, like any other constitutional amendment. Get canvassing.

 

[Derec]

that's going to require two votes in the legislature and presidential agreement, like any other constitutional amendment.

No, that would be a regular law. Constitutional amendments are much more difficult. You need 2/3 of both House and Senate (or a constitutional convention) and ratification by 3/4 of all states. But at least presidential assent is not required.

Get canvassing.