What makes the Texas battle intriguing is the historic polling understatement of the Democrats in th

System

What makes the Texas battle intriguing is the historic polling understatement of the Democrats in the state – politicalbetting.com

From @FiveThirtyEight the polling trend in the state with 38 Electoral College votes pic.twitter.com/bFtDzmEST6

Read the full story here

Alasdair_

First

nichomar

Second like trump?

ydoethur

There look set to be some quite bizarre results one way and another. It’s not looking quite out of the question that Biden could take North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and still lose Pennsylvania.

Alasdair_

So will Texas turn blue, but some of the other races remain TCTC?

rcs1000

Alasdair_ said:

So will Texas turn blue, but some of the other races remain TCTC?

Nobody knows anything.

But different states move in different directions. In 2008 Iowa was safely Blue, in 2016 it was well Red.

alex_

We’re there methodology changes between 2016 and 2018?

Do any pollsters (having changed methodology) do “benchmark polling” ie. retain record of what they would be showing on 2016 polling basis.

Foxy

Alasdair_ said:

So will Texas turn blue, but some of the other races remain TCTC?

If Texas goes blue, but no other result changes from 2016, Trump is on 268. It starts to depend then on faithless electors.

The reality though would be that if Texas flips, so would a number of other states, and it would be a landslide.

Rob_downunder

Texas is a fascinating example of the perils of gerrymandering.

Along with the presidential race, there's about half a dozen competitive house races going on there. Back a decade or so ago when the republicans drew the house district maps, they 'cracked' a number of democratic areas especially Austin, creating a heap of districts where the GOP would win 60/40. Since then the urban areas of Texas, especially Houston and Dallas have moved sharply to the left, so districts that were 60/40 are now 50/50 or worse for the GOP. Hence how Pete Sessions lost his once safe seat in 2018.

Watch the house races, and also the Texas legislature races. The Dems only need to pick up 9 seats in the Texas house of reps to take control, which would also give them a say in redistricting.

Mysticrose

It's so great to see a single state thread. There are so many many fascinating battlegrounds this time at both Presidential and Senate level.

I agree with Mike 100%: I think Texas is tight but I think Joe Biden is going to do it.

Texas is also likely to be anomalous in that I think Senator Cornyn will hold on despite the State flipping Democrat. He has recently been distancing himself from Trump - the surest sign to all you doubters out there that Trump is going to lose the presidential election.

Mysticrose

ydoethur said:

There look set to be some quite bizarre results one way and another. It’s not looking quite out of the question that Biden could take North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and still lose Pennsylvania.

Biden will take Pennsylvania. I no longer think it's in doubt.

There's a fantastic Senate race in Georgia.

Mysticrose

The list of Republican senators distancing themselves from Trump continues to grow: https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/20/politics/republican-senate-reaction-trump/index.html

This is one of the reasons I'm certain Joe Biden will win, and win big. When your own party turns on the leader less than two weeks out, and when the votes are already coming, you know you've lost.

It's the surefire sign I overlooked re. Corbyn last year. Labour top insiders knew they had lost. So do the GOP.

Nigelb

As I said last year, Beto should have run against Cornyn.
OTOH, he appears to have been doing sterling work on voter registration.

ydoethur

Mysticrose said:

ydoethur said:

There look set to be some quite bizarre results one way and another. It’s not looking quite out of the question that Biden could take North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and still lose Pennsylvania.

Biden will take Pennsylvania. I no longer think it's in doubt.

There's a fantastic Senate race in Georgia.

I look forward to tomorrow’s post where you say Trump will hold by a whisker.

Meanwhile, having stopped throwing up, back to work. Have a good morning.

Foxy

25 Russian and Ukranian fishermen test positive after flying in to NZ.

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/21/new-zealand-records-25-covid-cases-amid-arrival-of-foreign-fishing-crews?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter&__twitter_impression=true

This is despite them all isolating for 2/52 before and all being tested pre flight. They are all in quarantine.

Mysticrose

ydoethur said:

Mysticrose said:

ydoethur said:

There look set to be some quite bizarre results one way and another. It’s not looking quite out of the question that Biden could take North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and still lose Pennsylvania.

Biden will take Pennsylvania. I no longer think it's in doubt.

There's a fantastic Senate race in Georgia.

I look forward to tomorrow’s post where you say Trump will hold by a whisker.

I've been rock solid on Biden winning since the pandemic began and I've put my money where my assurance is, so I've no idea what you're bleating on about.

OldKingCole

Good morning everyone! The US, even allowing for the fact that it's a big country, is a real mixture. Probably a positive for the Electoral College.

Nigelb

Rob_downunder said:

Texas is a fascinating example of the perils of gerrymandering.

Along with the presidential race, there's about half a dozen competitive house races going on there. Back a decade or so ago when the republicans drew the house district maps, they 'cracked' a number of democratic areas especially Austin, creating a heap of districts where the GOP would win 60/40. Since then the urban areas of Texas, especially Houston and Dallas have moved sharply to the left, so districts that were 60/40 are now 50/50 or worse for the GOP. Hence how Pete Sessions lost his once safe seat in 2018.

Watch the house races, and also the Texas legislature races. The Dems only need to pick up 9 seats in the Texas house of reps to take control, which would also give them a say in redistricting.

Hence the desperate legal efforts to limit voting, or the counting of votes.
Which they might have a SC majority to help with, a few days before the election.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/supreme-court-pennsylvania-election-late-ballots.html

Foxy

Mysticrose said:

ydoethur said:

Mysticrose said:

ydoethur said:

There look set to be some quite bizarre results one way and another. It’s not looking quite out of the question that Biden could take North Carolina, Georgia and Texas and still lose Pennsylvania.

Biden will take Pennsylvania. I no longer think it's in doubt.

There's a fantastic Senate race in Georgia.

I look forward to tomorrow’s post where you say Trump will hold by a whisker.

I've been rock solid on Biden winning since the pandemic began and I've put my money where my assurance is, so I've no idea what you're bleating on about.

PA looks safe for Biden IMO.

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1318574939696435201?s=19

alex_

Nigelb said:

Rob_downunder said:

Texas is a fascinating example of the perils of gerrymandering.

Along with the presidential race, there's about half a dozen competitive house races going on there. Back a decade or so ago when the republicans drew the house district maps, they 'cracked' a number of democratic areas especially Austin, creating a heap of districts where the GOP would win 60/40. Since then the urban areas of Texas, especially Houston and Dallas have moved sharply to the left, so districts that were 60/40 are now 50/50 or worse for the GOP. Hence how Pete Sessions lost his once safe seat in 2018.

Watch the house races, and also the Texas legislature races. The Dems only need to pick up 9 seats in the Texas house of reps to take control, which would also give them a say in redistricting.

Hence the desperate legal efforts to limit voting, or the counting of votes.
Which they might have a SC majority to help with, a few days before the election.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/supreme-court-pennsylvania-election-late-ballots.html

Gorsuch not quite so committed to “state rights” as he claims to be?

alex_

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Mysticrose

If you want to dig down to District level, here's a really good piece illustrating just how deep the Democrats are now mining:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/politics/election-2020-house-race-rankings-two-weeks/index.html

Peter_the_Punter

Anyone else having problems getting onto Betfair Exchange?

alex_

Interesting snippet on 538. I hadn’t realised that the processing of early mail in ballots actually allows voters to correct errors they’ve made when submitting.

Peter_the_Punter

Peter_the_Punter said:

Anyone else having problems getting onto Betfair Exchange?

edit: ok, it's a site problem. back later i expect

eristdoof

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

IanB2

rcs1000 said:

Alasdair_ said:

So will Texas turn blue, but some of the other races remain TCTC?

Nobody knows anything.

But different states move in different directions. In 2008 Iowa was safely Blue, in 2016 it was well Red.

http://www.iowalibrariesonline.org/

OldKingCole

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I suspect the second possibility is most likely. He'll go off into a massive sulk.

When do new Senators and Congress members take their seats? Is once the election is declared or Jan 20th?

edmundintokyo

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Foxy

Snouts in the trough...

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1318792649340571650?s=19

Stocky

FPT: Good post from @theProle . Deserves some comment:

" I work in a very working class world, with blokes doing the hard physical bits of heavy engineering. Every single one of them voted out in the EU ref, (one lad in his early 30s had never voted for anything before). They are pretty right-wing in opinion - they feel over-taxed, would be fine with the death penalty, use "homopobic" insults as a matter of course and (not that its a hot topic, but it's come up once or twice) regard giving pubity blockers to teenagers with gender disphoria as child abuse. On the other hand, they are generally in favour of bit of soaking the rich and government spending on what they see as worthy causes (the NHS scores well, diversity co-ordinators or HS2 badly).

There was a time when they mostly would have tribally voted Labour. They almost all voted Tory last time to get Brexit. Currently I think they are pretty disaffected - they think more lockdowns are madness (our firm is in tier 1, but a lot of them live in tier 2 areas), and worry about the potential cost of having to isolate for T&T. I think if there was a GE tomorrow, a lot of them wouldn't vote.

Probably their views would map best onto a sort of UKIPesque populist platform, but currently in lots of ways they are pretty disenfranchised.

I'd imagine that this is worlds away from the views of say teachers. Trying to treat the working age population as homogeneous doesn't really make a lot of sense - there are far too many distinct strands of people with wildly differing subcultures."

Reveals a very large cohort who are conservative but traditionally have voted for the Labour Party.

eristdoof

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

I think the second one, that he doesn't have the stomach to hand over and lets Pence do it is more likely than "vanishingly small". 5% rather than 0.5%

OldKingCole

Stocky said:

FPT: Good post from @theProle . Deserves some comment:

" I work in a very working class world, with blokes doing the hard physical bits of heavy engineering. Every single one of them voted out in the EU ref, (one lad in his early 30s had never voted for anything before). They are pretty right-wing in opinion - they feel over-taxed, would be fine with the death penalty, use "homopobic" insults as a matter of course and (not that its a hot topic, but it's come up once or twice) regard giving pubity blockers to teenagers with gender disphoria as child abuse. On the other hand, they are generally in favour of bit of soaking the rich and government spending on what they see as worthy causes (the NHS scores well, diversity co-ordinators or HS2 badly).

There was a time when they mostly would have tribally voted Labour. They almost all voted Tory last time to get Brexit. Currently I think they are pretty disaffected - they think more lockdowns are madness (our firm is in tier 1, but a lot of them live in tier 2 areas), and worry about the potential cost of having to isolate for T&T. I think if there was a GE tomorrow, a lot of them wouldn't vote.

Probably their views would map best onto a sort of UKIPesque populist platform, but currently in lots of ways they are pretty disenfranchised.

I'd imagine that this is worlds away from the views of say teachers. Trying to treat the working age population as homogeneous doesn't really make a lot of sense - there are far too many distinct strands of people with wildly differing subcultures."

Reveals a very large cohort who are conservative but traditionally have voted for the Labour Party.

And the newspaper most often read in breaks is......?

Mysticrose

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Stocky

Good header Mike - Biden has a chance in Texas for sure but I`d want a bit more than the 3.8 with BF (3/1 top price with bookies) to tempt me.

I`ve topped up on Pennsylvania, N Carolina and Wisconsin, respectively at 1.44, 1.95 and 1.44.

Stocky

OldKingCole said:

Stocky said:

FPT: Good post from @theProle . Deserves some comment:

" I work in a very working class world, with blokes doing the hard physical bits of heavy engineering. Every single one of them voted out in the EU ref, (one lad in his early 30s had never voted for anything before). They are pretty right-wing in opinion - they feel over-taxed, would be fine with the death penalty, use "homopobic" insults as a matter of course and (not that its a hot topic, but it's come up once or twice) regard giving pubity blockers to teenagers with gender disphoria as child abuse. On the other hand, they are generally in favour of bit of soaking the rich and government spending on what they see as worthy causes (the NHS scores well, diversity co-ordinators or HS2 badly).

There was a time when they mostly would have tribally voted Labour. They almost all voted Tory last time to get Brexit. Currently I think they are pretty disaffected - they think more lockdowns are madness (our firm is in tier 1, but a lot of them live in tier 2 areas), and worry about the potential cost of having to isolate for T&T. I think if there was a GE tomorrow, a lot of them wouldn't vote.

Probably their views would map best onto a sort of UKIPesque populist platform, but currently in lots of ways they are pretty disenfranchised.

I'd imagine that this is worlds away from the views of say teachers. Trying to treat the working age population as homogeneous doesn't really make a lot of sense - there are far too many distinct strands of people with wildly differing subcultures."

Reveals a very large cohort who are conservative but traditionally have voted for the Labour Party.

And the newspaper most often read in breaks is......?

The Sun 75% and the Mail 25%?

Stocky

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Probably so, but not necessarily. I`d like to hear more from @theProle on this.

Mysticrose

I think one possibility is that Trump will tell us he has only ever been interested in his business and he will throw his energy into efforts like the latest Aberdeenshire golf complex.

So I think it's quite possible he will hardly be around Washington Nov to Jan.

I wouldn't be surprised if he disses the Presidency: saying it's not that important and what matters is business.

Stocky

Peter_the_Punter said:

Anyone else having problems getting onto Betfair Exchange?

No problem on my pc.

Mysticrose

Stocky said:

Good header Mike - Biden has a chance in Texas for sure but I`d want a bit more than the 3.8 with BF (3/1 top price with bookies) to tempt me.

I`ve topped up on Pennsylvania, N Carolina and Wisconsin, respectively at 1.44, 1.95 and 1.44.

Thing is, to state the obvious, you're rarely going to get super-attractive odds in a two-horse race.

Personally I think Texas is a better bet than North Carolina, which is tight.

felix

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

I suspect a whole heap of non-white workers of this type have very similar views although more would vote Labour.

not_on_fire

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

Mysticrose

not_on_fire said:

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

It's not about 'feel' though. This is about using your head, studying the polls, reading on the ground. The signs for Biden in Texas are there for anyone who studies them.

I am 75% + certain that Biden will take Texas at presidential level. Not the Senate though in this state.

eek

OldKingCole said:

Stocky said:

FPT: Good post from @theProle . Deserves some comment:

" I work in a very working class world, with blokes doing the hard physical bits of heavy engineering. Every single one of them voted out in the EU ref, (one lad in his early 30s had never voted for anything before). They are pretty right-wing in opinion - they feel over-taxed, would be fine with the death penalty, use "homopobic" insults as a matter of course and (not that its a hot topic, but it's come up once or twice) regard giving pubity blockers to teenagers with gender disphoria as child abuse. On the other hand, they are generally in favour of bit of soaking the rich and government spending on what they see as worthy causes (the NHS scores well, diversity co-ordinators or HS2 badly).

There was a time when they mostly would have tribally voted Labour. They almost all voted Tory last time to get Brexit. Currently I think they are pretty disaffected - they think more lockdowns are madness (our firm is in tier 1, but a lot of them live in tier 2 areas), and worry about the potential cost of having to isolate for T&T. I think if there was a GE tomorrow, a lot of them wouldn't vote.

Probably their views would map best onto a sort of UKIPesque populist platform, but currently in lots of ways they are pretty disenfranchised.

I'd imagine that this is worlds away from the views of say teachers. Trying to treat the working age population as homogeneous doesn't really make a lot of sense - there are far too many distinct strands of people with wildly differing subcultures."

Reveals a very large cohort who are conservative but traditionally have voted for the Labour Party.

And the newspaper most often read in breaks is......?

None - phones and facebook (or equivalent social media) will fill in the time.

Nigelb

alex_ said:

Nigelb said:

Rob_downunder said:

Texas is a fascinating example of the perils of gerrymandering.

Along with the presidential race, there's about half a dozen competitive house races going on there. Back a decade or so ago when the republicans drew the house district maps, they 'cracked' a number of democratic areas especially Austin, creating a heap of districts where the GOP would win 60/40. Since then the urban areas of Texas, especially Houston and Dallas have moved sharply to the left, so districts that were 60/40 are now 50/50 or worse for the GOP. Hence how Pete Sessions lost his once safe seat in 2018.

Watch the house races, and also the Texas legislature races. The Dems only need to pick up 9 seats in the Texas house of reps to take control, which would also give them a say in redistricting.

Hence the desperate legal efforts to limit voting, or the counting of votes.
Which they might have a SC majority to help with, a few days before the election.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/supreme-court-pennsylvania-election-late-ballots.html

Gorsuch not quite so committed to “state rights” as he claims to be?

Certainly as far as the state supreme courts got yes.
Pretty odd that a claimed libertarian would be so on board with a governing party attempting to entrench itself through electoral manipulation at the state level, and exclude the role of the state supreme court.

edmundintokyo

eristdoof said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

I think the second one, that he doesn't have the stomach to hand over and lets Pence do it is more likely than "vanishingly small". 5% rather than 0.5%

Nah, can't see it. He's a huge egomaniac, he has the house and the planes and all that stuff. He doesn't have to be personally involved with the transition, he can just tell his underlings to get on with it while he concentrates on being important.

alex_

Foxy said:

Snouts in the trough...

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1318792649340571650?s=19

It seems to me that one of the biggest problems/scandals (setting aside the financial aspects) about test and trace is that it has been given crude targets (which it is failing to meet) but no purpose. Like so much of the target based culture (and yes this dates back a long time) is that it never steps back and asks whether the meeting (or otherwise) of targets actually improves outcomes. This of course generates perverse incentives, but also leads to a lack of critical judgement about what the targets/system is actually trying to achieve. I think this helps to explain the lack of public health experts involved in the management of the system - since test and trace has no requirement to deliver improved public health outcomes, it therefore has no need for public health expertise.

Test and trace seems to start and end with an aim of contacting people and telling them they need to self isolate. If people then ignore the requirement to do so it makes no difference whether they contact 5% of potentially affected people, or 95%.

Nigelb

Peter_the_Punter said:

Anyone else having problems getting onto Betfair Exchange?

Earlier, yes.
Mike's big call to blame for crashing the site, obviously.
Now reopened with the odds off a touch.

I think it's a decent bet - the chances of the Biden winning are probably closer to 2/1.
I'm not sure it's screaming value, unless you're just comparing it to some of the other state odds.

Alistair

Andy_JS said:

I think people vote for Trump not because they like him or his policies, but as a protest vote against the fact that they feel their lives stopped improving about 15 years ago, in contrast to the period 1945 to about 2005 when things seemed to be getting better most of the time for the average person. Trump's opponents need to understand this IMO.

That explains about 7% of his vote. What about the rest who have voted Republican all their lives?

rkrkrk

Stocky said:

Good header Mike - Biden has a chance in Texas for sure but I`d want a bit more than the 3.8 with BF (3/1 top price with bookies) to tempt me.

I`ve topped up on Pennsylvania, N Carolina and Wisconsin, respectively at 1.44, 1.95 and 1.44.

Thanks for the tips. I think if Biden wins PA, he will win the whole thing, and there's better odds on that.

NC looks great value, I'm on, Biden ahead in polls and 68% on 538.com.

edmundintokyo

Mysticrose said:

not_on_fire said:

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

It's not about 'feel' though. This is about using your head, studying the polls, reading on the ground. The signs for Biden in Texas are there for anyone who studies them.

I am 75% + certain that Biden will take Texas at presidential level. Not the Senate though in this state.

Write it up and send it to Mike!

Mysticrose

Looking down the State betting odds again this morning I reckon people will look back at Mike's Texas tip as a classic. If you can still get 3/1 on the Democrats I think you should take it.

As I mentioned below, you're rarely going to get killer odds in a two-horse race but this looks like a good value bet to me.

I've also just added to my portfolio on Florida. The 8/11 might appear pretty rubbish but I am 80% + certain Biden will take Florida. In fact that's me being overly cautious as I think it's over there.

Peter_the_Punter

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

I think the second one, that he doesn't have the stomach to hand over and lets Pence do it is more likely than "vanishingly small". 5% rather than 0.5%

Nah, can't see it. He's a huge egomaniac, he has the house and the planes and all that stuff. He doesn't have to be personally involved with the transition, he can just tell his underlings to get on with it while he concentrates on being important.

I don't think he's likely to try and cling on and he's very unlikely to succeed if he tries. I am intrigued however as to what he does next because I suspect he is in deep shit once he loses the protection of the White House. Otoh I don't suppose the new administration will waste a lot of time pursuing him. They will have plenty else on their hands.

Maybe they will just leave him to the IRS. After all they got Al Capone.

Nigelb

Mysticrose said:

Stocky said:

Good header Mike - Biden has a chance in Texas for sure but I`d want a bit more than the 3.8 with BF (3/1 top price with bookies) to tempt me.

I`ve topped up on Pennsylvania, N Carolina and Wisconsin, respectively at 1.44, 1.95 and 1.44.

Thing is, to state the obvious, you're rarely going to get super-attractive odds in a two-horse race.

Personally I think Texas is a better bet than North Carolina, which is tight.

There's more scope for a big shift that in NC.
Whether it will happen is a different question (looking at early voting in the largest counties, the strongest Republican ones - Collin and Denton - had some of the biggest turnout in percentage terms).

Of course those two are a lot smaller than Harris or Dallas, and what will determine the election is what happens in the myriad smaller counties which are strongly Republican.
Anyone had a systematic look at these ?

TOPPING

Stocky said:

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Probably so, but not necessarily. I`d like to hear more from @theProle on this.

Agree it was great insight into a demographic that 75% of PB contributors have no association with on that level.

Peter_the_Punter

On topic, I can't get overexcited about Texas. The idea of it turning blue always appears to me a bit of tease. I expect it will be close, but no cigar. I'd certainly want better odds than are currently available to be tempted in, but I have decent ECV spread positins so if Texas flips it's a big win for me anyway.

not_on_fire

Mysticrose said:

not_on_fire said:

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

It's not about 'feel' though. This is about using your head, studying the polls, reading on the ground. The signs for Biden in Texas are there for anyone who studies them.

I am 75% + certain that Biden will take Texas at presidential level. Not the Senate though in this state.

Sorry - by “feel” I mean on the basis of the polling evidence. The polls are on a knife and edge and for Biden to win everything has to go perfectly both for turnout and persuading enough voters to switch sides. Given all the hurdles the GOP have been throwing in the Democrats way, I just don’t see it.

IanB2

The Triple Lock is going to deliver a 2.5% pension increase with September RPI at 0.5% and earnings flat on their back.

Roy_G_Biv

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Option six: Trump flees to Russia to avoid prosecution

Mysticrose

It's not just Trump who will be up a creek without a paddle from Nov 3rd to inauguration.

If Biden and the Dems sweep to power, as I am now certain of, then it leaves Boris, Cummings and Farage increasingly isolated. Neither allies to the west nor east. Perhaps we'll open a trade deal with Nigeria?

not_on_fire

New congress sits from 3rd Jan. But with the Christmas break, the old Congress effectively ends in mid-December

Foxy

Mysticrose said:

Looking down the State betting odds again this morning I reckon people will look back at Mike's Texas tip as a classic. If you can still get 3/1 on the Democrats I think you should take it.

As I mentioned below, you're rarely going to get killer odds in a two-horse race but this looks like a good value bet to me.

I've also just added to my portfolio on Florida. The 8/11 might appear pretty rubbish but I am 80% + certain Biden will take Florida. In fact that's me being overly cautious as I think it's over there.

I think Florida will be the exception, and stick with Trump. Historically quite unusual, as I think we have to go back to 1992 to have a year that Florida went for the losing candidate, and it looks a long way before that for a second incidence.

Nigelb

Foxy said:

Snouts in the trough...

https://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1318792649340571650?s=19

It's a surprisingly decent article from Monbiot.
If he could tone down the outrage by 50%, and increase the factual analysis by 10% or so, it would actually be very good indeed.

edmundintokyo

Peter_the_Punter said:

I don't think he's likely to try and cling on and he's very unlikely to succeed if he tries. I am intrigued however as to what he does next because I suspect he is in deep shit once he loses the protection of the White House. Otoh I don't suppose the new administration will waste a lot of time pursuing him. They will have plenty else on their hands.

Maybe they will just leave him to the IRS. After all they got Al Capone.

I definitely don't think the Biden administration will really want to burn up time and attention with prosecutions, but I expect they'll do what they say they'll do and leave it to the career DOJ. The non-political people will need an extremely strong case to go after him - they'll be terrified of bringing charges and losing - but I expect a lot of them are quite narked off at the way he interfered with their investigations.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump tries to get a commitment to leave him alone out of Biden as a condition for going quietly, not sure how Biden would respond though.

Foxy

IanB2 said:

The Triple Lock is going to deliver a 2.5% pension increase with September RPI at 0.5% and earnings flat on their back.

Surely Sunak will suspend it for this year at least. It would be insane not to do so.

rottenborough

Tier 3 for Sheffield coming this morning says BBC.

Cases falling of course.

Mysticrose

Final comment for the morning from me. I think the US election is a fantastic betting opportunity if you're prepared to take courage. The markets are skewed by normalcy bias. We saw something similar here last year: because Corbyn outperformed in 2015 punters thought the same would happen again. In other words, history outcompeted the polling evidence.

The same is happening. Normalcy bias means people are conditioned into thinking like 2016. They're ignoring the evidence, which is huge this time around.

That presents a fantastic betting opportunity. Take it.

IanB2

Foxy said:

IanB2 said:

The Triple Lock is going to deliver a 2.5% pension increase with September RPI at 0.5% and earnings flat on their back.

Surely Sunak will suspend it for this year at least. It would be insane not to do so.

You'd think the recent Centre for Policy Studies recommendation would give him cover.

IshmaelZ

Peter_the_Punter said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

I think the second one, that he doesn't have the stomach to hand over and lets Pence do it is more likely than "vanishingly small". 5% rather than 0.5%

Nah, can't see it. He's a huge egomaniac, he has the house and the planes and all that stuff. He doesn't have to be personally involved with the transition, he can just tell his underlings to get on with it while he concentrates on being important.

I don't think he's likely to try and cling on and he's very unlikely to succeed if he tries. I am intrigued however as to what he does next because I suspect he is in deep shit once he loses the protection of the White House. Otoh I don't suppose the new administration will waste a lot of time pursuing him. They will have plenty else on their hands.

Maybe they will just leave him to the IRS. After all they got Al Capone.

There's stuff he can do short of clinging on, though. Reduce potus salary to $-10m p.a. by executive order, and so on.

Foxy

Mysticrose said:

It's not just Trump who will be up a creek without a paddle from Nov 3rd to inauguration.

If Biden and the Dems sweep to power, as I am now certain of, then it leaves Boris, Cummings and Farage increasingly isolated. Neither allies to the west nor east. Perhaps we'll open a trade deal with Nigeria?

Nigeria has the biggest population and economy of Africa. With 21st century demographics it is going to be increasingly important on the world stage.

Having a bit of trouble with cops shooting people at the moment, during protests about police brutality.

alex_

The thing about privatisation in the public sector it’s a vicious circle. Many things ARE better run, or deliver better outcomes in the private sector. But generally where they exploit the strengths of the private sector - arising from free markets, and, importantly genuine competition or multiplicity of providers that means that success is rewarded BUT, importantly there are consequences of failure. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything has to be competition based - but it does require that when a company fails there are alternatives to take its place.

But the type of privatisation which infects much of the current public sector isn’t like that. There are no consequences for failure for the large outsourcing companies like SERCO and CAPITA. Because there are no alternatives. The existing public sector staffing base is hollowed out and lacks the confidence or expertise to take back large scale projects of the type which have been being outsourced for 20 years. And so the same companies get appointed time and time again through a lack of alternatives. They long since abandoned any pretence at any genuine expertise, or claims to “efficient private sector strengths). About the only thing which distinguishes many of them from the actual public sector is need to demonstrate a profit and willingness to take on any project where these profits are pretty much guaranteed.

To reverse that cannot be done overnight or on the back of a change of Govt focus in the short term. It will take decades to recreate capacity and investment in the public sector, or a genuine reappraisal of how genuine private sector advantages can be accessed.

rottenborough

"On Monday night, Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, suggested the North-East would not move into the top tier yet because there are "early signs" that cases are "starting to flatten", but warned further measures may be needed in Nottingham."

Telegraph.

And yet the graph in Nottingham is falling rapidly. A child of six could tell you the 7 day average is dropping.

edmundintokyo

Roy_G_Biv said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Option six: Trump flees to Russia to avoid prosecution

Right but he can leave that to his last day, there's no need to hand over any power before he has to.

Peter_the_Punter

edmundintokyo said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

I don't think he's likely to try and cling on and he's very unlikely to succeed if he tries. I am intrigued however as to what he does next because I suspect he is in deep shit once he loses the protection of the White House. Otoh I don't suppose the new administration will waste a lot of time pursuing him. They will have plenty else on their hands.

Maybe they will just leave him to the IRS. After all they got Al Capone.

I definitely don't think the Biden administration will really want to burn up time and attention with prosecutions, but I expect they'll do what they say they'll do and leave it to the career DOJ. The non-political people will need an extremely strong case to go after him - they'll be terrified of bringing charges and losing - but I expect a lot of them are quite narked off at the way he interfered with their investigations.

I wouldn't be surprised if Trump tries to get a commitment to leave him alone out of Biden as a condition for going quietly, not sure how Biden would respond though.

Oh I'm fairly sure I know how Biden would respond!

Nigelb

.

not_on_fire said:

Mysticrose said:

not_on_fire said:

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

It's not about 'feel' though. This is about using your head, studying the polls, reading on the ground. The signs for Biden in Texas are there for anyone who studies them.

I am 75% + certain that Biden will take Texas at presidential level. Not the Senate though in this state.

Sorry - by “feel” I mean on the basis of the polling evidence. The polls are on a knife and edge and for Biden to win everything has to go perfectly both for turnout and persuading enough voters to switch sides. Given all the hurdles the GOP have been throwing in the Democrats way, I just don’t see it.

How good is the state level polling going to be, though ?
It's a huge state, and demographic and electoral roll changes have been large.

Foxy

TOPPING said:

Stocky said:

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Probably so, but not necessarily. I`d like to hear more from @theProle on this.

Agree it was great insight into a demographic that 75% of PB contributors have no association with on that level.

Classic culture war target audience. @isam tends to cover it well.

Its going to be interesting to see how they enjoy their precious Brexit.

NickPalmer

Stocky said:

FPT: Good post from @theProle . Deserves some comment:

" I work in a very working class world, with blokes doing the hard physical bits of heavy engineering. Every single one of them voted out in the EU ref, (one lad in his early 30s had never voted for anything before). They are pretty right-wing in opinion - they feel over-taxed, would be fine with the death penalty, use "homopobic" insults as a matter of course and (not that its a hot topic, but it's come up once or twice) regard giving pubity blockers to teenagers with gender disphoria as child abuse. On the other hand, they are generally in favour of bit of soaking the rich and government spending on what they see as worthy causes (the NHS scores well, diversity co-ordinators or HS2 badly).

There was a time when they mostly would have tribally voted Labour. They almost all voted Tory last time to get Brexit. Currently I think they are pretty disaffected - they think more lockdowns are madness (our firm is in tier 1, but a lot of them live in tier 2 areas), and worry about the potential cost of having to isolate for T&T. I think if there was a GE tomorrow, a lot of them wouldn't vote.

Probably their views would map best onto a sort of UKIPesque populist platform, but currently in lots of ways they are pretty disenfranchised.

I'd imagine that this is worlds away from the views of say teachers. Trying to treat the working age population as homogeneous doesn't really make a lot of sense - there are far too many distinct strands of people with wildly differing subcultures."

Reveals a very large cohort who are conservative but traditionally have voted for the Labour Party.

Interesting, thanks. The only point I'd question is how recently they voted Labour - I found that type of voter hard to persuade from at least 2001 onwards.

Peter_the_Punter

Foxy said:

Mysticrose said:

Looking down the State betting odds again this morning I reckon people will look back at Mike's Texas tip as a classic. If you can still get 3/1 on the Democrats I think you should take it.

As I mentioned below, you're rarely going to get killer odds in a two-horse race but this looks like a good value bet to me.

I've also just added to my portfolio on Florida. The 8/11 might appear pretty rubbish but I am 80% + certain Biden will take Florida. In fact that's me being overly cautious as I think it's over there.

I think Florida will be the exception, and stick with Trump. Historically quite unusual, as I think we have to go back to 1992 to have a year that Florida went for the losing candidate, and it looks a long way before that for a second incidence.

Florida is quirky. I wouldn't be surprised if it cut against the trend and I certainly wouldn't invest much cash on it. Maybe I would be bolder if I knew how big the Cuban-American vote was. It is fanatically hostile to anything remotely 'left-wing'.

IanB2

edmundintokyo said:

Roy_G_Biv said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Option six: Trump flees to Russia to avoid prosecution

Right but he can leave that to his last day, there's no need to hand over any power before he has to.

Helicopter from the roof of the White House....

Nigelb

alex_ said:

The thing about privatisation in the public sector it’s a vicious circle. Many things ARE better run, or deliver better outcomes in the private sector. But generally where they exploit the strengths of the private sector - arising from free markets, and, importantly genuine competition or multiplicity of providers that means that success is rewarded BUT, importantly there are consequences of failure. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything has to be competition based - but it does require that when a company fails there are alternatives to take its place.

But the type of privatisation which infects much of the current public sector isn’t like that. There are no consequences for failure for the large outsourcing companies like SERCO and CAPITA. Because there are no alternatives. The existing public sector staffing base is hollowed out and lacks the confidence or expertise to take back large scale projects of the type which have been being outsourced for 20 years. And so the same companies get appointed time and time again through a lack of alternatives. They long since abandoned any pretence at any genuine expertise, or claims to “efficient private sector strengths). About the only thing which distinguishes many of them from the actual public sector is need to demonstrate a profit and willingness to take on any project where these profits are pretty much guaranteed.

To reverse that cannot be done overnight or on the back of a change of Govt focus in the short term. It will take decades to recreate capacity and investment in the public sector, or a genuine reappraisal of how genuine private sector advantages can be accessed.

Agreed. A very good post.

Foxy

alex_ said:

The thing about privatisation in the public sector it’s a vicious circle. Many things ARE better run, or deliver better outcomes in the private sector. But generally where they exploit the strengths of the private sector - arising from free markets, and, importantly genuine competition or multiplicity of providers that means that success is rewarded BUT, importantly there are consequences of failure. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything has to be competition based - but it does require that when a company fails there are alternatives to take its place.

But the type of privatisation which infects much of the current public sector isn’t like that. There are no consequences for failure for the large outsourcing companies like SERCO and CAPITA. Because there are no alternatives. The existing public sector staffing base is hollowed out and lacks the confidence or expertise to take back large scale projects of the type which have been being outsourced for 20 years. And so the same companies get appointed time and time again through a lack of alternatives. They long since abandoned any pretence at any genuine expertise, or claims to “efficient private sector strengths). About the only thing which distinguishes many of them from the actual public sector is need to demonstrate a profit and willingness to take on any project where these profits are pretty much guaranteed.

To reverse that cannot be done overnight or on the back of a change of Govt focus in the short term. It will take decades to recreate capacity and investment in the public sector, or a genuine reappraisal of how genuine private sector advantages can be accessed.

I agree, converting a public sector monopoly into a privatised one protected from competition completely misses the supposed advantages of the private sector.

not_on_fire

Nigelb said:

.

not_on_fire said:

Mysticrose said:

not_on_fire said:

Biden winning Texas feels like a bit of a reach TBH. Georgia feels more realistic

It's not about 'feel' though. This is about using your head, studying the polls, reading on the ground. The signs for Biden in Texas are there for anyone who studies them.

I am 75% + certain that Biden will take Texas at presidential level. Not the Senate though in this state.

Sorry - by “feel” I mean on the basis of the polling evidence. The polls are on a knife and edge and for Biden to win everything has to go perfectly both for turnout and persuading enough voters to switch sides. Given all the hurdles the GOP have been throwing in the Democrats way, I just don’t see it.

How good is the state level polling going to be, though ?
It's a huge state, and demographic and electoral roll changes have been large.

Polling in Texas has historically been very accurate - though we are probably in a higher turnout environment than usual for there. In 2018 the polls were near spot on.

IanB2

alex_ said:

The thing about privatisation in the public sector it’s a vicious circle. Many things ARE better run, or deliver better outcomes in the private sector. But generally where they exploit the strengths of the private sector - arising from free markets, and, importantly genuine competition or multiplicity of providers that means that success is rewarded BUT, importantly there are consequences of failure. This doesn’t necessarily mean that everything has to be competition based - but it does require that when a company fails there are alternatives to take its place.

But the type of privatisation which infects much of the current public sector isn’t like that. There are no consequences for failure for the large outsourcing companies like SERCO and CAPITA. Because there are no alternatives. The existing public sector staffing base is hollowed out and lacks the confidence or expertise to take back large scale projects of the type which have been being outsourced for 20 years. And so the same companies get appointed time and time again through a lack of alternatives. They long since abandoned any pretence at any genuine expertise, or claims to “efficient private sector strengths). About the only thing which distinguishes many of them from the actual public sector is need to demonstrate a profit and willingness to take on any project where these profits are pretty much guaranteed.

To reverse that cannot be done overnight or on the back of a change of Govt focus in the short term. It will take decades to recreate capacity and investment in the public sector, or a genuine reappraisal of how genuine private sector advantages can be accessed.

Just nationalise SERCO and CAPITA!

not_on_fire

edmundintokyo said:

Roy_G_Biv said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Option six: Trump flees to Russia to avoid prosecution

Right but he can leave that to his last day, there's no need to hand over any power before he has to.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if a one-way flight from Washington to Brazil or Russia has been booked for the afternoon of 20th Jan

Selebian

Offtopic for this thread, but I haven't done a musical number for a while and given yesterday's Manchester news, this seemed apt (to the tune of Abba's Fernando)

Did you hear the news, Mayor Burnham?
I remember long ago another bitter day like this
You'd lost the leadership Mayor Burnham
You were softly cursing to yourself as you got in your car
I could hear the distant cheers
And sounds of the Internationale sung loudly from afar
You were a loser then Mayor Burnham
But after that you came and won big in Manchester City
And we all called you "Mayor Burnham"
You were moderate, electable, yet none of us were on the right
And I'm not ashamed to say
I laughed at the Corbynites and taunted them that night

But there was something in the air alright
SARS-CoV-2, Mayor Burnham
Boris said lockdown the city,
In tier three, Mayor Burnham
And I never thought that we could lose
Sixty Million
But if we had to do the same again
We should, my friend, Mayor Burnham
If we had to do the same again
We would, my friend, Mayor Burnham

Now the city is shafted, Mayor Burnham
We haven't got half the money that we wanted for the Manc
But do you hear the cries Mayor Burnham?
The sound of the red wall, once blue, now turning red again
I can see it in your eyes
How it has worked to turn this into "us and them"

Yes there was something in the air alright
SARS-CoV-2, Mayor Burnham
Boris said lockdown the city,
In tier three, Mayor Burnham
And I never thought that we could lose
Sixty Million
But if we had to do the same again
We should, my friend, Mayor Burnham
If we had to do the same again
We would, my friend, Mayor Burnham

Peter_the_Punter

Foxy said:

TOPPING said:

Stocky said:

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Probably so, but not necessarily. I`d like to hear more from @theProle on this.

Agree it was great insight into a demographic that 75% of PB contributors have no association with on that level.

Classic culture war target audience. @isam tends to cover it well.

Its going to be interesting to see how they enjoy their precious Brexit.

They will ignore it.

not_on_fire

Mysticrose said:

It's not just Trump who will be up a creek without a paddle from Nov 3rd to inauguration.

If Biden and the Dems sweep to power, as I am now certain of, then it leaves Boris, Cummings and Farage increasingly isolated. Neither allies to the west nor east. Perhaps we'll open a trade deal with Nigeria?

Our Cameroon-style deal with the EU will presumably help

not_on_fire

Peter_the_Punter said:

Foxy said:

TOPPING said:

Stocky said:

Mysticrose said:

Stocky: Largely white Brits I take it, rather than migrant workers?

Probably so, but not necessarily. I`d like to hear more from @theProle on this.

Agree it was great insight into a demographic that 75% of PB contributors have no association with on that level.

Classic culture war target audience. @isam tends to cover it well.

Its going to be interesting to see how they enjoy their precious Brexit.

They will ignore it.

Or if it goes really titsup, they will swallow some lies about "Remainer sabotage" or something.

Scott_xP

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1318805466995097600

Scott_xP

IanB2

CNN:

"There are three possible explanations for a campaign strategy that defies common sense:

First, Trump apparently thinks many Americans are frightened racists, scared of anyone who is different in any way, so he may believe that his appeals to xenophobia could win him a majority of the vote.

The second option is that he knows he won't win, but he is using the remaining days of the campaign to stoke the fires of hatred, anger and mistrust, hoping that their smoldering passions will lead his backers to reject the outcome of the election if Biden beats him. This aligns with another theme of the campaign, his continuous, unfounded claims that there is widespread voting fraud.

The final option is that Trump has no strategy. That what we're seeing is the continuation, perhaps the final chapter, of a presidency guided not by logic and thoughtful planning, but instead by Trump's gut, by his instinct, by his inability to curb the expression of his own emotions, now mostly anger, fear and frustration.

It's hard to decide which is worst. A President who thinks he governs a country of racists; one who is priming his backers to reject a democratic election or one who is utterly irrational? What a choice."

noneoftheabove

Foxy said:

IanB2 said:

The Triple Lock is going to deliver a 2.5% pension increase with September RPI at 0.5% and earnings flat on their back.

Surely Sunak will suspend it for this year at least. It would be insane not to do so.

Media view was that Treasury wanted to suspend it next year, when the expected rise is 10-20%, but No 10 overruled.

https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/number-10-claims-it-has-no-plans-to-end-pension-triple-lock-amid-reports-rishi-sunak-is-considering-scrapping-scheme

If they are pressing ahead, or trying to, with the double digit rise, then extremely unlikely to view the 2.5% as a problem at all. Nothing to do with which way pensioners vote of course.

Philip_Thompson

Foxy said:

Mysticrose said:

It's not just Trump who will be up a creek without a paddle from Nov 3rd to inauguration.

If Biden and the Dems sweep to power, as I am now certain of, then it leaves Boris, Cummings and Farage increasingly isolated. Neither allies to the west nor east. Perhaps we'll open a trade deal with Nigeria?

Nigeria has the biggest population and economy of Africa. With 21st century demographics it is going to be increasingly important on the world stage.

Having a bit of trouble with cops shooting people at the moment, during protests about police brutality.

So like America then?

nichomar

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1318805466995097600

But they are a bunch of c**** you can’t get away from the fact that there only interest is lining their and their mates pockets.

noneoftheabove

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1318805466995097600

I really do wonder if these types of quotes are real or just made up by the journalist. "Tory Official 2" - how does anyone know what they did or did not say?

Nigelb

Interesting article on the most impressive thing about the hot new AI.

https://twitter.com/AndrewMayne/status/1318684757958426624

Alistair

https://twitter.com/NumbersMuncher/status/1318717686281609219?s=19

rottenborough

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1318805466995097600

And Johnson doesn't even have his house paper to help anymore. Telegraph long gone for him over covid.

Here's one comment from this morning:

"I’d argue there is currently more chance of perishing in a sheep-related incident than of succumbing to Covid in West Wales."

Foxy

Peter_the_Punter said:

Foxy said:

Mysticrose said:

Looking down the State betting odds again this morning I reckon people will look back at Mike's Texas tip as a classic. If you can still get 3/1 on the Democrats I think you should take it.

As I mentioned below, you're rarely going to get killer odds in a two-horse race but this looks like a good value bet to me.

I've also just added to my portfolio on Florida. The 8/11 might appear pretty rubbish but I am 80% + certain Biden will take Florida. In fact that's me being overly cautious as I think it's over there.

I think Florida will be the exception, and stick with Trump. Historically quite unusual, as I think we have to go back to 1992 to have a year that Florida went for the losing candidate, and it looks a long way before that for a second incidence.

Florida is quirky. I wouldn't be surprised if it cut against the trend and I certainly wouldn't invest much cash on it. Maybe I would be bolder if I knew how big the Cuban-American vote was. It is fanatically hostile to anything remotely 'left-wing'.

Yes, it is a different Latino demographic to much of the US. Fanatically anti-communist Cuban refugees, and more recent Venezuelan ones.

On the other hand, large numbers of Puerto Ricans too (30% of FL Hispanics). I think few were enamoured with Trump's behaviour over Hurricane Maria. Not many have returned, and most settled in FL, PA and NY, and have the right to vote.

https://www.jacksonville.com/business/metro/2018-01-02/florida-has-handled-nearly-300000-puerto-rican-refugees-hurricane-maria

Mysticrose

IanB2 said:

edmundintokyo said:

Roy_G_Biv said:

edmundintokyo said:

eristdoof said:

alex_ said:

Nov 3rd to Jan 20th is going to be an “interesting” period. There must be a non trivial chance that Pence is President for a chunk of it.

Depends what you mean by non trivial, but yes I think you're right. There are two routes to this. The first is Trump refuses to accept an election defeat when the rest of the GOP in Washington do accept it, and to prevent a massive constitutional shitfest they invoke the 25th amendment. The second possibility is that Trump accept defeat but does not want to participate in the hand over phase, not being able to work with the enemy following a defeat. This second one has to be tempered, by what Executive Orders Trump wants to push through in that time.

There is a third option, that Trump genuinely loses it, is unable to govern and the 25th is used to remove him. I think though that this option is very unlikely.

I think those are all vanishingly unlikely, but there are two more: Bad health (physical, mental or both) and handing over to Pence for the last week or so because it's not totally clear that you can pardon yourself.

Option six: Trump flees to Russia to avoid prosecution

Right but he can leave that to his last day, there's no need to hand over any power before he has to.

Helicopter from the roof of the White House....

I said I wouldn't comment again but, oh wow, that brought back such a viscerally powerful memory. I'm just old enough to remember that evacuation from Saigon.

An incredible moment of history.

Big_G_NorthWales

rottenborough said:

Scott_xP said:

https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1318805466995097600

And Johnson doesn't even have his house paper to help anymore. Telegraph long gone for him over covid.

Here's one comment from this morning:

"I’d argue there is currently more chance of perishing in a sheep-related incident than of succumbing to Covid in West Wales."

Nothing to do with Boris

West Wales was closed down by Drakeford