US Election Week 2020

[Sheilbh]

With the Latinos in Florida wasn't it the single issue of trump rolling back Obamas detente with Cuba that did it?

Though will say my partner has a relative in florida. Immigrant, son of immigrants to elsewhere, who is married to a central American immigrant...and they are on board the Trumptardo train.

It's also got the largest population of Venezuelan-Americans who are probably not keen on a "socialist" candidate either.

But there's signs that Latinos swung to Trump in other areas like Texas too. But not, from what I've seen, in Nevada or Arizona.

The truth is "Latino" is an incredibly broad label and there's probably more of an answer in breaking down that demographically/regionally etc.

[Maladict]

It seems I could have gone to sleep much earlier last night. 

Yeah, I've needlessly aged considerably. And of course there was a big ass shitstorm at work today, after weeks of not much happening. 
Worst thing is I still need to go to the gym tonight, last chance before the lockdown.

That said I'm happy to see some blue appearing in the Midwest, shame about the Senate though.

[Josquius]

With the Latinos in Florida wasn't it the single issue of trump rolling back Obamas detente with Cuba that did it?

Though will say my partner has a relative in florida. Immigrant, son of immigrants to elsewhere, who is married to a central American immigrant...and they are on board the Trumptardo train.

I think you guys are being a bit racist here, unable to look past colour of skin and how Trump is glad when white supremacists cheer his clown act on.

Having a non-white skin does not predestinate you of being rid of the same, let's say "conservative" "religious" views that prompt white folk to vote for Trump apparently. ESPECIALLY if you are from an immigrant background then there are good odds you come from a culture/family background where openness toward progressive ideas is lukewarm at best.

It's culture, not race, stop being fixated on race it's not becoming of you.

I never mentioned race?

[alfred russel]

Biden up to 80% on PredictIt.  I have to eat a humble pie here; I kept trashing PredictIt, but it seemed to have a better evaluation of the race all along compared to 538.  It seemed to indicate it was a 50/50 race or thereabout all along, and that was probably closer to the mark than 90/10. Clearly polls have missed something in a big way this year, much more so than they did in 2016.

I had this in the back of my mind even before the election.

I wonder if the problem is that the best polls in a Trump presidential election year are the "trash" republican ones. Everyone, including Silver, seems to dunk on Trafalgar, for example. And he gives it a shit rating that basically removes it from the model. But it was quite accurate in 2016.

I know that there are legit questions about the integrity of Trafalgar, but other pollsters don't get hit with such vindictive despite Silver talking about more general and widespread integrity issues that he thinks are prevalent (such as herding). If you hamstring the R leaning pollsters but not the D ones, you get a D bias, and if best in practice techniques have a D bias themselves (for whatever reason), that just exacerbates the issue.

The Selzer Iowa poll generated massive discussion/consternation/controversy when it was released a few days ago and showed Trump +7. In the event, Iowa was Trump +8.

[Sheilbh]

One other thought - how much will the experience of election night shape the narrative around Biden. Seeing lots of takes that are critical of Biden and the campaign etc and I wonder about it.

It looks to me like, of the remaining states, only NC is leaning to Trump. This might not happen but if Biden won Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada in normal election time would Biden be getting criticised for his campaign or would Dems be happy (even if it was similarly close)?

If he wins it'll be alright. If he loses a scapegoat will need to be found, because obviously it cannot just be that half of the country is so shitty that they are genuinely quite ok with the likes of Trump leading them.

Yep. We would then hear endless of how he was a terrible candidate. Should have gone with Bernie!

Yeah - I'm already seeing them. And I think there are queries for the Dems - they've done badly in the Senate, they've lost House seats etc.

But I'm not sure that (possible) map is that bad for Biden, it's just a stressful route to actually getting it

[The Larch]

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           13%   699,000                    66,387             Trump

So, Michigan has started to count the remaining votes and the Dem advantage in those votes seems to be quite clear. 159k votes counted and Trump's advantage has gone down drastically.

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           10%   540,000                    13,057            Trump

[Maladict]

Good point raised on 538 (if you forget it's Trump we're talking about)

You go on Twitter and there's a lot of Biden supporters hand-wringing about how it could possibly be this close — and it feels like a negative story for Biden. But, like, in any normal election year, if an incumbent president were fighting this hard for his seat, wouldn't that be seen as a positive story for the challenger?

[The Brain]

I don't see how normal election years are relevant.

[Caliga]

Right Mal, Trump should be embarassed... but he has no shame, so he's not of course.

[Tamas]

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           13%   699,000                    66,387             Trump

So, Michigan has started to count the remaining votes and the Dem advantage in those votes seems to be quite clear. 159k votes counted and Trump's advantage has gone down drastically.

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           10%   540,000                    13,057            Trump

OMG voter fraud confirmed.

[FunkMonk]

1) It's hard to unseat an incumbent President
2) Polls were way off in a lot of the country
3) Said polls created expectations for big Democratic wave
4) Now everyone feels like shit

[The Larch]

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           13%   699,000                    66,387             Trump

So, Michigan has started to count the remaining votes and the Dem advantage in those votes seems to be quite clear. 159k votes counted and Trump's advantage has gone down drastically.

State          Votes left to count (est.)   Current margin   Current leader
                        %   votes   
Michigan           10%   540,000                    13,057            Trump

OMG voter fraud confirmed.

It has gone up with the next batch. 

Michigan   9%   484,000   24,248   Trump

[Duque de Bragança]

It seems I could have gone to sleep much earlier last night. 

Yeah, I've needlessly aged considerably. And of course there was a big ass shitstorm at work today, after weeks of not much happening. 
Worst thing is I still need to go to the gym tonight, last chance before the lockdown.

That said I'm happy to see some blue appearing in the Midwest, shame about the Senate though.

I knew it was not worth staying up all night.

[alfred russel]

Just going back to some of the Senate races, a bunch of polls showed Lindsey Graham in trouble in South Carolina. Nate Silver thought he would win by 5.1%. He is winning by about 13%. He didn't include any polls that had Graham up by double digits.

In Alabama, it looked surprisingly competitive, with the republican expected to beat the democratic challenger by 8.8%. He is winning by 22.8%. Silver didn't include any polls with the republican doing better than +15, and he included one with the democrat ahead.

I could go on. Everyone is going to focus on the swing states, but when you step back to see the bigger picture you can see the problems more clearly. If the polls have a bias, and then you weight the polls with possibly additional bias, and then you feed them into a model, you are going to get skewed results.

[DGuller]

I do think Nate Silver has some explaining to do.  I don't think his 10% thing is going to bail him out.