Also @HYUFD , I am genuinely curious about your reasoning, why do you think Biden is more likely to win Pennsylvania than Michigan or Wisconsin when the polling averages give the following approximate average lead for Biden:
Pennsylvania: 5.7% Wisconsin: 6.6% Michigan: 7.6%
As Pennsylvania has the Philadelphia suburbs and the suburban vote is seeing more movement to him than amongst the white working class and it is where he was born, plus with RCP Wisconsin has a smaller Biden lead than Pennsylvania now and Trafalgar has consistently had Biden ahead in PA unlike 2016 but Trump still ahead in Michigan and Wisconsin and based on 2016 Wisconsin had a slightly bigger Trump lead than PA and also the black vote is bigger percentage wise in Michigan and that has swung slightly to Trump since 2016
So your reasoning is:
Trafalgar says so.
Michigan has more black voters, which have swung slightly towards Trump (says who?).
That’s it?
That is my reasoning, we will see who is right on election night
Who are you competing against? I haven’t made any predictions on who’s going to win. I’m just questioning your undying loyalty to Trafalgar.
In 2016 I thought Hillary would win and said so, I was wrong, Trafalgar was right and I am not going to make the same mistake again and go against Trafalgar again this time especially with Trump again on the ballot.
Putting your faith in one source is terrible practice.
There's a lot of talk on here today of the feckless poor, always on the take, and neglecting their kids.
For a bit of balance, what about the feckless rich, always on the take, and neglecting their kids? Starting with the Prime Minister. And extending octopus-like to all the cronies with government contracts, and the tax-evading millionaires and billionaires that constantly fleece the rest of us. But of course their kids don't go hungry.
By comparison, Marcus Rashford is a paragon of virtuous citizenship.
Hear! Hear!
Some of the worst parenting that I have seen is from parents of kids in private schools. A friend is a school nurse at one, and does a lot of counselling. The stories are heartbreaking.
Unless you have a good reason, like foreign service, sending your kids to boarding school is basically child abuse. If you don't want to look after your own kids, don't have them.
I remember from my early school days being somewhat confused about the difference between boarding school and borstal....
I wouldn't go as far as saying that boarding is as bad as that. Not far from me is Uppingham School, where boarding is strongly encouraged. Even the day pupils have to stay for prep in the evenings, and Saturday has classes in the morning and compulsory sport in the afternoon. They believe that boarding is an essential part of the school experience. A bit archaic but seems to work for them.
The kids there are very posh, but a really nice bunch, and well adjusted. I think that school does excellent pastoral care. Other private schools not too far away however seem to churn out arrogant self entitled tossers or neurotic damaged youngsters. Maybe it is just the ones I encounter, but I don't think boarding school is inherently abusive.
Re header: TSE, I think you're trying to talk your position.
The 'starting to look' gives it away. Nothing has changed really.
(I'm very slightly with Biden, but very red overall)
Compare "Beginning to look a lot like Christmas." In both cases, nothing has changed really except the passage of time - but that is, we hope, enough.
Sure - there's a time element here. If Biden polls +10% ten years out it's much less important that ten days out. For observers polling error vs decay is a very interesting thing to watch - 'expected polling error' has to be judged to be zero until one takes into account that the market is telling you that its a big number. Decay (Trump magic), who knows what it might be.
It's not the polling error which decreses as you approach the election. It's that there is less opportunity for the underlying proportions to change by much. Candidate X can be leading by more than the polling margin of error with one month to go, but then the opinions of the population change and candidate Y wins by a whisker. You can't clain that the poll ne month out was wrong.
Yes - I may not have been clear, but that was my 'decay' point.
Meanwhile Trump did campaign stops in Ohio, Wisconsin and NC yesterday and is holding a rally in New Hampshire today, remember in 2000 Gore's non stop final campaigning compared to Bush almost win him the presidency and same with Trump compared to Hillary in 2016 when it actually did win him the presidency
Is an incumbent running around like a headless campaigning chicken a reassuring sign?
In 1948 President Truman did similar to Trump and did a 'whistle stop' tour first cross-country to California, for fifteen days; then a six-day tour of the Mid West; followed by a final, hard-hitting ten days in the big population centers of the Northeast and a return trip home to Missouri and hit the GOP candidate Dewey hard at every stop.
Everybody except Truman expected Dewey to win and the polls had Dewey ahead, most newspapers already had headlines prepared for Dewey's victory but on election night Truman won perhaps the biggest upset in US presidential history and the Democrats held the White House for 1 more term
Note that 1948 was Truman's FIRST (and only) election at the top of the ticket. By 1952, though he wanted to run for re-election, he had enough sense (after initial poor showing in early primaries) to skip a race that he would NOT have won.
Also re: 1948, that year Tom Dewey ran a campaign that was quite similar to Hillary Clinton's 68 years later. With similar results, except that he lost BOTH the EV and popular vote.
1952 though was after 20 years of a Democrat in the White House, a rather different proposition to only 4 years of a Republican in the White House as now and nobody would have beaten IKE that year either.
I think Biden will do better than Dewey and Hillary and will win the popular vote by maybe as much as 3-4% but I still think Trump can eke out an EC win again
And 1948 was after 16 years of a Democrat in the White House - already the longest spell of one-party WH control for the entire 20th century.
Sidebar - as you likely know, in 1948 BOTH parties tried to recruit Eisenhower to run for President; on Democratic side effort was led by liberals (Americans for Democratic Action) who feared that Truman was toast BUT who also couldn't stomach Henry Wallace, who was plenty liberal BUT also backed by Communists (and was a flake to boot, as per his "Guru Letters")
With those numbers, I’d definitely prefer to have them banked. The yet to votes might either change their mind or be unable or unwilling to vote on the day. That might not be likely, but the likelihood is never going to be zero.
Not only that, but take North Carolina for a second. Let's assume turnout is 75%. (Which would be amazingly high.)
That means the first 51% of voters split 61:36, while the next 24% will split 41:58.
So that's... 61% * 51% + 41% * 24% = 40.95% (out of total turnout of 75%) vs 36% * 51% + 58% * 24% = 32.3%
Now, I have little doubt that the numbers won't be as stark as that. But the evidence from North Carolina, right now, is that Biden is ahead.
I think there's an error in your reasoning there, unfortunately. The 51% isn't of all voters, it's of Likely voters. We don't know exactly how many 'likely' voters will actually vote, but if the poll is right it should approximate to 75% of the registered voters. Therefore those who have already voted would be 51% * 75%, leaving 49% * 75% still to vote.
So (if we assume that the 'likely voters' are indeed those who end up voting), it's:
Already voted Dem: 61% * 51% = 31.1% Going to vote Dem: 41% of 49% = 20.1%
Net Dem vote: 51.2% of those who end up voting, which is in line with expectations.
Of course this all assumes that those who say they are going to vote actually do, and a vote in the bag is worth a bit more than a vote in the future, so it's still good news for Biden. Just not as good news as your calculation.
I thought the 51% was of those on the electoral rolls, so 51% of the eligible electorate, not LV. But I could be wrong.
Nope, I was wrong - 7.3 million RV in NC, of which 3.1 million have already voted.
TimT, what do you make of things in Georgia? How does it feel from your neck of the woods? AND which way do you think your fellow Crackers will go for POTUS and also for US Senate?
Drove to VA via WV yesterday via rural MD panhandle. Remarkably few political signs or posters given how much energy there clearly is in this election. I am not sure whether that signifies anything, or just that electronic media have taken over from hard copy.
I am picking up the same vibe as you - both sides see this as an end-of-the-world type election should the other side win. Trump's core is obdurate and energized. The Dems are using Trump very effectively to get their own base out and to bring in new voters (which I do not sense Trump is - he is rather retaining existing voters more effectively than I would have imagined).
As for GA, the only person I know there other than TimB is an avid Trump man. But I have got to believe that the demographic directions, historical under-voting in some demos, and the sheer numbers voting this time must be a very good sign for Biden and Dems the whole length of the ticket.
If you mean by Crackers natural conservatives who could not support Trump, I think most would want the GOP not just to lose the White House but to be given an thorough nut kicking in both Houses so that the party can be rid of the novel SARS-Trump-16 virus.
Wow, Edinburgh is having a better time than I expected. Guess that's to do with a lot of people working in the service sector and being able to work from home and the student population caseload stabilising.
Looks generally like most of the Scottish LAs are seeing reduction in R, but there are a few stubborn ones that are keeping the numbers high (Lanarkshire for example). Fingers crossed that R number can tip over the edge below one in those big population centres.
Onboard G1: This says my highly rural constituency has a higher R rate than Liverpool so I need to start giving my local council a hard time. But Imgur.com doesn't seem to explain where these numbers come from. Can you give a quick explanation or point me in the right direction?>
Comments
I wouldn't go as far as saying that boarding is as bad as that. Not far from me is Uppingham School, where boarding is strongly encouraged. Even the day pupils have to stay for prep in the evenings, and Saturday has classes in the morning and compulsory sport in the afternoon. They believe that boarding is an essential part of the school experience. A bit archaic but seems to work for them.
The kids there are very posh, but a really nice bunch, and well adjusted. I think that school does excellent pastoral care. Other private schools not too far away however seem to churn out arrogant self entitled tossers or neurotic damaged youngsters. Maybe it is just the ones I encounter, but I don't think boarding school is inherently abusive.
NEW THREAD
Sidebar - as you likely know, in 1948 BOTH parties tried to recruit Eisenhower to run for President; on Democratic side effort was led by liberals (Americans for Democratic Action) who feared that Truman was toast BUT who also couldn't stomach Henry Wallace, who was plenty liberal BUT also backed by Communists (and was a flake to boot, as per his "Guru Letters")
If you can find one I'll be quite surprised.
Just station will do.
I am picking up the same vibe as you - both sides see this as an end-of-the-world type election should the other side win. Trump's core is obdurate and energized. The Dems are using Trump very effectively to get their own base out and to bring in new voters (which I do not sense Trump is - he is rather retaining existing voters more effectively than I would have imagined).
As for GA, the only person I know there other than TimB is an avid Trump man. But I have got to believe that the demographic directions, historical under-voting in some demos, and the sheer numbers voting this time must be a very good sign for Biden and Dems the whole length of the ticket.
If you mean by Crackers natural conservatives who could not support Trump, I think most would want the GOP not just to lose the White House but to be given an thorough nut kicking in both Houses so that the party can be rid of the novel SARS-Trump-16 virus.
Looks generally like most of the Scottish LAs are seeing reduction in R, but there are a few stubborn ones that are keeping the numbers high (Lanarkshire for example). Fingers crossed that R number can tip over the edge below one in those big population centres.