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The State of the Union, Week 3 – politicalbetting.com
The State of the Union, Week 3 – politicalbetting.com
This really couldn’t be tighter: the models seem to be converging on a very narrow win for Harris, with the only difference at the moment being ev-com having Harris winning North Carolina but losing Michigan, whereas the others have those two flipped. Even with that narrow EC advantage, most of the states, with most of the models, are in one camp or the other by small margins, often just a fraction of 1 per cent.
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This raises the question: if all the forecasts are missing something, what might they be missing?
Either that or PB is talking through its heart not its head.
How Ferrari became genuine rival to McLaren (just in time for Hamilton)
Italian team may decide where drivers title ends up this season, and are very much in contention for constructors’ championship themselves, which bodes well with British driver joining in 2025
Lando Norris said it so matter-of-factly, that it could almost have been missed. “From a constructor point of view, we’re probably more worried about Ferrari than we are about Red Bull.”
For weeks, the title races in the drivers’ and constructors’ championships have been fought between McLaren and Red Bull; barbs exchanged between Zak Brown and Christian Horner, the respective team chiefs, and wheel-to-wheel racing from Norris and Max Verstappen.
In the past four races, quietly and consistently — hardly the usual characteristics of the most famous team in Formula 1 — Ferrari have closed in. Their three victories this season may help to determine which of their rivals claims the drivers’ title, but they have a chance of silverware themselves, being only 51 points behind leaders McLaren and 31 behind Red Bull.
https://www.thetimes.com/sport/formula-one/article/ferrari-formula-one-fred-vasseur-charles-leclerc-g986rr7ff
Two teir justice based on class. The rich avoid jail.
And to support him requires arguments so tortuous on subjects like sexual assault and truth telling and insurrection and being unwilling to accept defeat that 'crank and lunatic' could be regarded as convenient shorthand. And it is noteworthy how few of his supporters are prepared to make the difficult argument his case requires.
But Trump is going to win.
(We saw some of that here in 2016 and 2019, when Jaywick man and woman turned out for Brexit and Boris, and in 2024 when quite a lot of normally loyal Labour voters decided to stay at home.)
Close, polarised, elections are a feature of US politics after the Gingrich Republican revolution. It's not obvious when or how that will change in the future, but perhaps, if they make it there with a functioning democracy, the post-Trump era will see something different.
* You can go all the way back to 1900, and in 25 Presidential elections the popular vote margin was below 5% in only five of those elections. American politics is different now.
However yes when white working class Farage voters and Tommy Robinson backers get immediate jail terms for dodgy social media posts Huw’s suspended sentence does look like one rule for upper middle class liberals and another for the rest at this time
Trump is the same. Almost all on PB see him as an extremely dangerous threat to democracy and potentially the free world. No-one can understand the mentality of someone in the US would is a supporter.
Also he has a much better approval rating than the last two runs, and Harris is doing worse than both Biden and Clinton at this point. He will win PA, AZ and perhaps MI and GA atleast.
They are neck and neck in something like 15 states.
The plebs are lucky we no longer do the old hang, draw and quarter.
It's not a massive issue. I mean, of all the vices that there are, vanity/frivolousness/attention seeking is rather low on the list. But still - it strikes me as an odd change, and odd that it's so uncommented on.
It's a reasonable question whether it applies in my mind to both men and women - not least because the instinctive reaction to someone who, for example, spends £30 or more on a haircut is that doing so is a bit unmanly. But on reflection, yes, I'd say I do apply these 'hairshirt morals' to women as well, or at least something similar. There is no need to spend thousands on clothes, and drawing attention to doing so, just looks a bit like conspicuous consumption.
There's a quite low upper ceiling to how good anyone - male or female - can look, and expense and effort which goes beyond that is not only wasted but also looks a bit, well, crass.
As I say above - these aren't strongly held feelings. But I feel kind of sure this is how everyone used to feel, and I don't understand how and why the dial has shifted.
See also - tattoos.
(And its two tier, not two teir. Which makes 'Two Tier Keir' hard to spell)
Everything is relative. So what if people pay a lot for this or that? If they can afford it it doesn't make it extravagant or vain.
With Trump, he is dangerous and deranged. It is not at all difficult to see why people vote for him, and also that the same people are not all that good at giving a rational account of why.
Hence the contortions among his supporters to bridge the gap between the Symbolic Real Republican (TM) and the actuality of Trump.
I agree with you mostly, for the record. Wouldn't extend to women though.
https://nypost.com/2024/09/14/us-news/agencies-to-increase-enforcement-in-jamaica-bay-over-animal-sacrifices/
People can support Trump without sounding like a crank or a lunatic. Trump appeals to some moderate Americans for some good reasons; and the Democrats can repel some moderate Americans. There is no issue with discussing these.
What amuses/annoys some on here are:
*) people who claim to be anti-Trump and then do nothing but promote Trump.
*) people who promote some of Trumps more (ahem) insane rhetoric as if it is real.
https://x.com/courtnewsuk/status/1835646548593582340
Mr Goldspring said there was evidence Edwards' father behaved 'monstrously' within his family. The chief magistrate said Edwards went to Cardiff university rather than Oxford or Cambridge. This contributed to him being perceived as an 'outsider' at the BBC.
The Brexit analogy, though imprecise, isn't an awful one.
A large proportion go those who voted for it now regret their vote, as it didn't deliver what they confidently expected.
The self selected bubble seems to have been right.
And in answer to your rhetorical question, about £25.
I'm not necessarily against spending money. I've previously lamented my decision not to by a painting, which is clearly a frivolous purchase. Though if I spend money on clothing, I have to get a LOT of wear out of the item to justify it to myself. (And I don't think I've ever spent over £70 on a non-footwear clothing item; and the most I have ever spent on footwear was on a standard pair of Dr. Marten boots, which exemplify the sort of sartorial utilitarianism I favour.)
I just instinctively disapprove slightly of excess effort with one's own appearance, and of men who dress to draw attention to themselves. This is just the values of the world I grew up in. It was so ingrained it was hardly worthy of comment. And now it isn't. Do you not find this interesting?
However because people go to food banks and there is a cost of living crisis and some people can only afford a cheap meal at Spoons I am somehow a bad person for doing this.
Seriously, GTF.
Would he be "dangerous" in office? Not more or less than other POTUSs.
From a BBC report in a swing county in Michigan
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0nerwe8rro)
"On the streets of Saginaw, Kathleen Skelcy was knocking on doors, busy canvassing for Harris.
She told me she finds it a struggle to see any rationale behind the political motivations of her opponents.
“That’s what’s scary, trying to understand these people and their thinking,” she said.
“I just think they’re not educated, or they fell asleep in school or something.”""
The UK oddity is that the 'populist' vote is so small compared with some other countries, and its leadership so thin (ie exactly one flamboyant figure head on the back benches).
Most PBers know a bit about Italy, France, Germany, Scandinavia, Hungary etc.
I have asked them if they intend to do the same for the Stockport riots and while admitting it is "complicated" have so far unreservedly condemned the latter phenomenon.
Reading the 2011 book, however, you could apply much of what was written then to the Stockport rioters more recently.
Yes, the race is close.
No, we don't know what the outcome is and anyone who thinks they "know" is either delusional or attention-seeking, possibly both.
I've remarked before on your "I'm above the fray/nothing really matters" stance.
Classic example,
I've half-heartedly tried on more expensive suits but they don't look any better on me than cheap ones from Slaters or M&S.
(I am also, remarkably, wearing a tie, because the collar on my shirt goes annoyingly wide without one. Quite enjoying it, as it happens.)
NV
AZ
MI
MN (just)
NC
FL
GA
PA
OH
NE-2
VA and OR would fall into that category under that criteria but I can't see Trump winning them. But it is not hard to imagine a scenario where Trump could do better than 2016 in the EC vote on fairly small gains.
I remember a friend who was an elected official bought himself a new BMW, and someone ranting on the facebook page that somehow it was his taxes that had paid for the car and it was disgusting.
Some people are reasonably comfortable and think nothing about spending a few hundred pounds on clothing.
My wife 'popped in' to Rigby and Peller whilst on a mini holiday to Harrogate. Apple pay has no upper limit, it seems.
In European terms, Reform is a bit sui generis.
But the gap has stayed pretty consistent:
https://cawp.rutgers.edu/facts/voters/gender-differences-voter-turnout#GGN
At some point it would have, by simple arithmetic, to narrow if turnout keeps going up. But there's no good evidence that it's likely to do so this year.
https://youtu.be/SKHJFHivO9g?si=0JtbWUXXDujUfTaD
Nothing bad ever happens in Stockport. It's like heaven, with a viaduct.
On the 2011 riots - it was a bit of a mixed picture, as I recall? In London it started out with an ostensibly political (i.e. racial) angle - in Manchester, it was largely scallies from Salford who were inspired by the opportunity for free stuff. (Admittedly in London there was a lot of the free stuff angle about it.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BrCvZmSnKA
I personally am not keen for Trump to win again, but the header is spot on: it is incredibly tight.
It may actually be that the late 70s/80s/early 90s were the nadir for male sartorial exuberance. I remember my friend's father - who was of a slightly older generation than my own - recollecting his youth of the early 60s, when the key to attracting girls was dressing to the nines and young men would happily wear expensively tailored suits for a night out.
Whereas when I was young: yes, secretly, you wanted to look good to advance your chances of meeting girls. But you very much didn't want to look like you were trying to look good.
That said, the weightings are never perfect. The pollsters will underweight some group this time around, it's just that we won't know for sure which groups are underweighted until after the election. It could be, for example, that young women are underweighted this time, because of Roe v Wade. Or it might be that it is rural voters who come out in much greater numbers.
If you bet - whether in the UK or in the US - on pollasters simply being wrong in the same direction as the last election, then you will lose a lot of money.
It is one of a number of trends and strands which means that the next few years in politics will not be dull; something we can say with certainty already about the next elections.
Interesting discussion, more generally, though there may be a social class/geographical difference. A Mod had a rather different approach - and that was in the 1950s - to looking smart, even more so than most. And 1968 depended on whether you were in Carnaby Street or Grainger Street, all other things being equal.
The new romantics of the early 80s were a sort of exception to this, but even they didn't look affluent - they looked like they'd indiscriminately raided a charity shop to try to stage a pantomime.
"In Manchester and Birmingham, but also in Liverpool and Salford, many rioters delighted in playing "cat and mouse"with the police. They moved rapidly in small (often organised) groups drawn from local estates, not only looting but also smashing shops and destroying cars. Once again the motivation seemed to be the assertion of power. The looting was in part motivated by grievances against the police - and perhaps also in wanting to assert a national reputation by confronting the police as successfully as those rioters from other cities had".
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mad-Mobs-Englishmen-Myths-realities-ebook/dp/B006654U9U
If you give me a five pound note I'll give it one more go.
@GoodwinMJ
Welcome to the UK. Write something offensive on Facebook in your own home and you get 15 months in jail. Make hundreds of indecent images of children and you don't go to jail.
2:32 pm · 16 Sep 2024"
https://x.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1835673062345175159
Now I'm a retired 57 year old, my style has changed (middle class surfer/hippy, still with a great head of stylishly rock star hair!) but I still spend money on good quality clothes and footwear. And I've got tattoos......and a nose ring...couldn't look like this in the Fire Service!
The highest turnout feature is being a graduate (80%).
And the lowest turnout group was young women (55%).
FWIW, turnout of young women in 2020 was not up more than turnout generally in 2020 or 2016, so I'm not sure where your contention that they were mobilized in the last two elections comes from.
Literal death.
(I write this sipping a half pint of Broadside in 'spoons, which cost £1. But I have spent £300 a head on dinner two or three times in my life.)