Harris vs Trump;

[dimreepr]

3 hours ago, MJ kihara said:

I fear politics,hope will not be classified as interference....the kind of intolerance Trump faces from the other side is astonishing.....we can't throw someone off cliff because of a mere fact,his facts are false or he entertains fake news...anyway welcome to the new era of AI we need to know and elvolve to live in the new era....being obsessed with proving facts is also a form of extremizim....am from outside your region where majority would not support Trump.We need a lot of irritation to our ears....given a chance I would vote Trump big time.

What I find astonishing is people like you, you admit that he's lying to everyone but somehow he's not lying to you; talk about burying your head in the sand, at least an ostrich has the excuse of a brain the size of a pea... 🙄

[TheVat]

6 hours ago, MJ kihara said:

...we can't throw someone off cliff because of a mere fact, his facts are false or he entertains fake news.

If the mere fact is they are a deliberately lying sociopath who has openly stated they will begin a dictatorship and use the military to round up enemy Democrats, then the cliff option is an excellent one.

 

6 hours ago, MJ kihara said:

 

 

 

Edited October 17 by TheVat

[MSC]

6 hours ago, MJ kihara said:

We can't throw someone off cliff because of a mere fact,his facts are false or he entertains fake news...

Trump is too old, now if we go with the whole Viking mythology boner that these Nazis seem to have, we can absolutely have Trump throw himself off the Ättestupa!

[swansont]

Saw an interesting comment on Bluesky - there are undoubtedly women respondents in every poll who will vote for Kamala but can’t say that to a pollster in front of their Trumpy husband.

[Janus]

21 hours ago, swansont said:

Saw an interesting comment on Bluesky - there are undoubtedly women respondents in every poll who will vote for Kamala but can’t say that to a pollster in front of their Trumpy husband.

I do know that, of as late, the pre-election polls have consistently predicted that Republicans would fare much better than they ended up doing in the election. So something does seem to be askew.

[swansont]

1 hour ago, Janus said:

I do know that, of as late, the pre-election polls have consistently predicted that Republicans would fare much better than they ended up doing in the election. So something does seem to be askew.

As I mentioned above, there were a bunch of polls known to skew right that were recently released. They did this is ‘22 as well. Makes things seem tighter, which I think is thought to boost turnout some folks stay at home if they’re convinced you’re going to lose

https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/10/harris-vs-trump-analyst-tells-panicky-dems-gop-is-creating-fake-polls-desperate-unhinged-trumpian.html

‘In a tweet thread, Rosenberg explained:

“Of last 15 general election polls released in PA, 12 have right/GOP affiliations. Their campaign to game the polling averages and make it appear like Trump is winning — when he isn’t — escalated in last few days.” ‘

 

edit: more detail about the shenanigans 

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/2024-trump-red-wave-polls

“The methodology was very suspicious. Among the 124 RVs surveyed in Philadelphia, TIPP in its wisdom determined that only 12 (yes, 12) of them were “likely voters.” It basically nearly zeroed out Philadelphia.”

[MSC]

Apparently turnout in Georgia for early voting was just over double what it was in 2020. One demographic polls fail to capture are non-voters voting for the first time for this particular election. Polls seem to underestimate now what will or won't make someone a likely voter worth reaching out to.

[CharonY]

538 forecasts still put Trump slightly ahead of Harris. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/

 

[toucana]

3 hours ago, swansont said:

As I mentioned above, there were a bunch of polls known to skew right that were recently released. They did this is ‘22 as well. Makes things seem tighter, which I think is thought to boost turnout some folks stay at home if they’re convinced you’re going to lose

https://www.nj.com/politics/2024/10/harris-vs-trump-analyst-tells-panicky-dems-gop-is-creating-fake-polls-desperate-unhinged-trumpian.html

‘In a tweet thread, Rosenberg explained:

“Of last 15 general election polls released in PA, 12 have right/GOP affiliations. Their campaign to game the polling averages and make it appear like Trump is winning — when he isn’t — escalated in last few days.” ‘

 

 

 

One of the ‘polling’ sources currently being touted by right-wing MAGA cheerleaders like Elon Musk as showing a decisive advantage for Trump is an online political betting market called Polymarket which gave Trump a 60% chance of winning the election as of Wednesday.

https://www.newsweek.com/who-polymarket-mystery-trader-fredi9999-1969646

The problem is that Polymarket (which is partially funded by sometime Trump ally Peter Thiel) is  apparently being manipulated by  conservative investors. One particular trader known as Fredi9999  has purchased more than 15 milion shares valued at $8.7 million betting  that Trump would win the election - according to reports by Newsweek and The Beast (amongst others).

The same trader also purchased more than 3 million shares betting that Trump would win the popular vote, and nearly 1.5 million shares that Trump would carry the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania. The total holding of Fredi9999’s position is valued at in excess of $14 million on that one platform - which they only joined in June 2024.

When cable news media in the US start uncritically confounding electoral polling stats with manipulable betting trends on forums like Polymarket, then you really are entering LaLa land.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2024/10/17/trumps-polymarket-odds-top-60-how-election-betting-markets-differ-from-polls/

[Airbrush]

Here is my question about polling.  When pollsters call a phone number in households that are dominated by a male, does the subservient woman, who can also vote, in the house hand the phone to the man, because the man is in charge, so HE can answer the poll?  The woman may be for Harris, but would not tell her husband that, out of fear, and plans to vote secretly for Harris, but she promises her domineering husband that she voted for Trump?

Many of us thought Hillary Clinton was going to win, based on the polls, and were shocked that she didn't win.

[CharonY]

There is a report on pollsters that you can read here. While it does not cover all the details, they refer to sources where the information might be included (or not).

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/PM_2023.04.19_Polling-Landscape_FINAL.pdf

Quote

The number of national pollsters relying exclusively on live phone is declining
rapidly. Telephone polling with live interviewers dominated the industry in the early 2000s, even
as pollsters scrambled to adapt to the rapid growth of cellphone-only households. Since 2012,
however, its use has fallen amid declining response rates and increasing costs. Today live phone is
not completely dead, but pollsters who use it tend to use other methods as well. Last year 10% of
the pollsters examined in the study used live phone as their only method of national public polling,
but 32% used live phone alone or in combination with other methods. In some cases, the other
methods were used alongside live phone in a single poll, and in other cases the pollster did one
poll using live phone and other polls with a different method.

Quote

Use of probability-based panels has
become more prevalent. A growing number
of pollsters have turned to sampling from a list
of residential addresses from the U.S. Postal
Service database to draw a random sample of
Americans, a method known as address-based
sampling (ABS). There are two main types of
surveys that do this: one-off or standalone polls
and polls using survey panels recruited using
ABS or telephone (known as probability-based
panels). Both are experiencing growth. The
number of national pollsters using probability-
based panels alone or in combination with
other methods tripled from 2016 to 2022 (from
seven to 23). The number of national pollsters
conducting one-off ABS surveys alone or in
combination with other methods during that
time rose as well (from one in 2016 to seven in
2022)

 

[MSC]

I had a thought; with mail in and early voting underway, is it possible that owing to the fact that more Democrats use mail in voting, is it possible there are likely voters who are being reached out to by current polls, whom would normally respond, but don't see the point as they have voted already? 

I suppose I'm just trying to account for Donald Trump's gains in both polls and betting markets recently, because I just can't figure out what event or events could have led to Harris momentum plateauing and declining, while Trump's only improves even though he's ducking interviews and debates and is in worsening cognitive decline. Is it the middle east conflict or is it a problems with the polls and as Toucana noted about Polymarket, manipulation of the betting odds with oversized bets or organized small bets by many trumpers?

6 hours ago, toucana said:

The problem is that Polymarket (which is partially funded by sometime Trump ally Peter Thiel) is  apparently being manipulated by  conservative investors. One particular trader known as Fredi9999  has purchased more than 15 milion shares valued at $8.7 million betting  that Trump would win the election - according to reports by Newsweek and The Beast (amongst others).

 

[swansont]

13 hours ago, CharonY said:

There is a report on pollsters that you can read here. While it does not cover all the details, they refer to sources where the information might be included (or not).

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/04/PM_2023.04.19_Polling-Landscape_FINAL.pdf

 

At one point phone polling called landline phones, which skewed the demographic older, since younger people were more likely to only have a cell phone. And I think older folks are more conditioned to answer the phone when it rings, so the response rate might still skew toward older respondents even if they call cell phone numbers.

[iNow]

11 hours ago, MSC said:

I'm just trying to account for Donald Trump's gains in both polls and betting markets recently

Most voters busy with their lives and jobs and children and paying bills are only just now tuning in for the first time. They hear his lies for the very first time and have no baseline understanding against which to evaluate their truth.

Those same not tuned in voters also have selective memories about the economy being good and inflation not being an issue during the Trump years. They don’t understand that the challenges we’ve faced during Biden’s term were a result of poor decisions during Trumps. 

They’ve also memory-holed the daily chaos, and the lies about Covid, the way he abandoned allies and encouraged racial hatred and is basically only their to enrich himself and his family. 

It’s easy to be fooled when you’re paying attention, and even easier when you’re not. That’s how you account for his strength in the polls. 

[TheVat]

6 hours ago, iNow said:

They don’t understand that the challenges we’ve faced during Biden’s term were a result of poor decisions during Trumps. 

This not seeing beyond immediate effects is what the party out of the WH tries to encourage every election cycle.  Our party system stinks.

Edited October 19 by TheVat

[iNow]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

This not seeing beyond immediate effects is what the party out of the WH tries to encourage every election cycle.  Our party system stinks.

If Trump wins, he’ll get all the credit for the benefit we’ll see next year and beyond from lower inflation and more jobs Biden helped achieve.

Republicans drive us into ditches, democrats tow us out, then republicans get the credit for the car being on the road again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. 

7 hours ago, iNow said:

They’ve also memory-holed the daily chaos, and the lies about Covid, the way he abandoned allies and encouraged racial hatred and is basically only their to enrich himself and his family. 

* there

[MSC]

33 minutes ago, iNow said:

If Trump wins, he’ll get all the credit for the benefit we’ll see next year and beyond from lower inflation and more jobs Biden helped achieve.

Republicans drive us into ditches, democrats tow us out, then republicans get the credit for the car being on the road again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat

Yup. Trump pretty much stole credit for any positive impact had by Obama era policies. Meanwhile Democrats have to fix everything the Republicans fucked up, while receiving the blame for it being fucked up in the first place. I also despise the two party system, but I just don't see how America is supposed to break free from it. I tried joining the forward party a few years ago and honestly it just felt like it was a bunch of people who knew the issues with the country that were doomed to stagnate in that group, because of massive bias against the very idea of a third party due to the strength of the main two. It's just a loop where you need other parties to dilute the power of the main two, but first need to dilute the power of the main two in order to have other parties. 

[iNow]

6 minutes ago, MSC said:

I also despise the two party system, but I just don't see how America is supposed to break free from it.

Easier said than done, but eliminate the electoral college and implement ranked choice voting would help tremendously 

[MigL]

I really don't think K Harris can win this election, as there is no way some Americans can be convinced there is a better way, and not all Democrats are evil incarnate.

However, if D Trump keeps spouting stupidities, and demonstrating his incompetence, pettiness and ill will towards those that don't agree with him, he may just alienate enough reasonably sensible Republicans that hands K Harris the win.

I've got my fingers crossed ( and two 24s of Peroni beer, two trays of pizza, 8 lbs of hot Buffalo style chicken wings riding on it ) that half of America is not as stupid as D Trump.

[iNow]

8 minutes ago, MigL said:

that half of America is not as stupid as D Trump.

She’ll win by several million votes. It’s whether they come from the 2 or 3 correct podunk counties in the middle of bumfuck nowhere that matters. 

“Half of America” isn’t a problem. It’s “a dozen dudes” in Pennsylvania and “3 Karens” from Michigan that matter. 

[Genady]

14 minutes ago, MigL said:

he may just alienate enough reasonably sensible Republicans

He may: my wife's brother, a registered PA Republican, wrote to her a couple of days ago, "I’m making a Felon - Hillbilly - 2024 sign today to post near our township election location. It’ll be my first democratic vote since McGovern in 1972." 

Edited October 20 by Genady

[KJW]

4 hours ago, MSC said:

I also despise the two party system, but I just don't see how America is supposed to break free from it. I tried joining the forward party a few years ago and honestly it just felt like it was a bunch of people who knew the issues with the country that were doomed to stagnate in that group, because of massive bias against the very idea of a third party due to the strength of the main two. It's just a loop where you need other parties to dilute the power of the main two, but first need to dilute the power of the main two in order to have other parties. 

I don't know to what extent it applies to American politics, but in Australia, minor parties and independents can have an exaggerated level of power in the case where the winning party failed to win the majority of seats and must negotiate with the minor parties and independents who won their seats. (Firstly, it must negotiate with the minor parties and independents to actually be the winning party because if no party wins the majority of seats, it is NOT the party that won the most seats that wins government, but the party that gains the majority of seats with support from the minor parties and independents who won their seats. Then once the winning party is in government, it has to negotiate with minor parties and independents on policy.)

 

Edited October 20 by KJW

[swansont]

13 hours ago, KJW said:

I don't know to what extent it applies to American politics, but in Australia, minor parties and independents can have an exaggerated level of power in the case where the winning party failed to win the majority of seats and must negotiate with the minor parties and independents who won their seats. (Firstly, it must negotiate with the minor parties and independents to actually be the winning party because if no party wins the majority of seats, it is NOT the party that won the most seats that wins government, but the party that gains the majority of seats with support from the minor parties and independents who won their seats. Then once the winning party is in government, it has to negotiate with minor parties and independents on policy.)

 

There are independents and third-party elected officials, but not large blocs of them. It rarely crops up as a problem. There are blocs within each party that are more of an issue

[TheVat]

Reading The Power of the Powerless, by Vaclav Havel, came across this bit.

"Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves."

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23

 

[geordief]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Reading The Power of the Powerless, by Vaclav Havel, came across this bit.

"Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them. As the repository of something suprapersonal and objective, it enables people to deceive their conscience and conceal their true position and their inglorious modus vivendi, both from the world and from themselves."

https://hac.bard.edu/amor-mundi/the-power-of-the-powerless-vaclav-havel-2011-12-23

 

 

That "ideology" would apply to  any sub group of society an individual might identify with.

They all seem to embody their own code of behaviour.

I was just watching a documentary (Sam Willis) about  the pirates in the Carribean and Africa who developed their own rules  and apparently  became something  of an attractive counter culture in the 18th century Britain ("live a short but licentious life or a Puritanical one if you joined up with Captain Bart")

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartholomew_Roberts

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06qn3lr

Edited October 23 by geordief