By the way, not sure how many of you have seen the new Borat film but it is really quite extraordinary, even to some of us who have studied America for a long time. It's well worth watching.
The Alt-Right of course hate it and are trying to diss it. It's so close to the bone and almost unwatchable but only in the way Borat 1 was.
I was laughing my head off I have to say. Apart from the synagogue moment which was rather beautiful and the subject of a whole side story which I won't go into here.
Sacha Baron Cohen is an incredibly brave fella.
I loathed every microsecond of it, and I absolutely don't see where "brave" comes in to it. A bullying liar with nothing to fear from any of his targets, cos that's how he picks them.
The trouble with ER is that despite the overall concern being in my opinion the biggest issue of our time by miles ER manages to make no-one entirely happy.
I think they had a very successful year in which they did indeed raise the profile of their concerns, very effectively increased brand recognition, but the loonier element are getting frustrated by the realities of things taking time, even in an emergency, and losing it.
Number three there is what separates the bright, but insecure, from the genuine clever folk in my opinion
It's also why science communicators who make programmes for public consumption are so important, even if they are not at the cutting edge of their individual fields.
By the way, not sure how many of you have seen the new Borat film but it is really quite extraordinary, even to some of us who have studied America for a long time. It's well worth watching.
The Alt-Right of course hate it and are trying to diss it. It's so close to the bone and almost unwatchable but only in the way Borat 1 was.
I was laughing my head off I have to say. Apart from the synagogue moment which was rather beautiful and the subject of a whole side story which I won't go into here.
Sacha Baron Cohen is an incredibly brave fella.
I literally could not watch parts of it. But it is extraordinary, and way more political than I remember Borat 1 being. As you say, that is one brave fella.
It is telling that the only two victims of the film that come off very well are a Jewish woman and a black woman. No editorializing there, of course. But given who the crusade is against, forgivable.
Presumably. But the commissioners of the poll are not exactly, erm, neutral.
I am getting very confused by all the positive polling for Trump, nationally and state polling that HYUFD keeps posting. If HYUFD is right my book is looking very sorry.
"all the positive polling for Trump" comes mostly from two outfits with a known bias - Rasmussen and Trafalgar. Susquehanna is the only surprise in my book.
Someone pointed out the other day that you need to look very closely at the commissioners of the polling as well, especially when the sample sizes are pretty low. If people want to show polls to suit their biases, then a long established approach is to commission several polls from a single company, all with low sample sizes. This has the double advantage that it is relatively cheap, and, given the large margins of error is bound to deliver at least one "outlier" close to your favoured outcome. And you can do this with otherwise respected polling outfits, if they are prepared to do it at a slight potential cost to their reputation.
The only published polls are those which the commissioner of the polls chooses to make public. It is why, all things being equal, you are better off looking at polls with larger sample sizes, conducted by organisations which either regularly publish polls which don't consistently show biases or who have no known agendas.
Thanks. So I take it from this that, if an outfit like CFAG commissions a bunch of small polls from Susuehanna, Insider Advantage, Quinnipiac etc..., it is CFAG's decision which ones get published, and the actual pollsters are not permitted to publish themselves the polls that don't tell the story CFAG wants to push and so does not publish. Is that it?
Pretty much. Of course a pollster is free to reject their commission on those terms, but most probably wouldn't i guess.
Never underestimate "Wisconsin Nice". They'll tell you want they think you want to hear.
Here's the thing, though. That's not why the pollsters got Wisconsin wrong.
Trump got fewer votes in the State than Romney did.
It was the Democrats did not turn out, rather that Trump did particularly well.
I don't think those things are as mutually exclusive as you seem to imagine, if people were saying they'll vote Democrat when they didn't, or more likely didn't bother to vote at all.
Latest Trafalgar polling good for Trump. Level in Pennslyvannia, ahead where he needs to defend further south. They got it right last time.The quiet reserved Rrepublican voters are being found. There could well be some very red faces next week.
There could be.
But here's the thing.
In the last fifty years, the biggest national polling miss was 3%. (As in difference between poll of polls and actual number at the national level.)
Let's assume that this year is 1% worse (i.e. 4%) *and* that polling error is towards the Republicans.
In that case, Trump is still 5% behind.
Now, could he win with a 5% deficit? Sure. But it's not very likely.
The question is not "could Trump win?" which is obviously answered in the affirmative. But what's the probability he wins?
And the chances of (a) the worst polling error in half a Century, (b) it being in the Republicans favour, and (c) Trump's voter efficiency being much better than in 2016 - well, they aren't more than one-in-eight, realisitically.
Rasmussen today has Trump just 2% behind and Rasmussen was spot on in 2016 with a 2% national Clinton lead
I'm guessing that this is Rasmussen's second to last poll - in 2016 their second to last poll had it tied. So as you are such a big fan of history repeating itself exactly (but only with one or 2 pollsters that fit your agenda), that points to Biden winning by 4%. I think he will win by more than that, but 4% should be enough to win the EC.
Presumably. But the commissioners of the poll are not exactly, erm, neutral.
I am getting very confused by all the positive polling for Trump, nationally and state polling that HYUFD keeps posting. If HYUFD is right my book is looking very sorry.
"all the positive polling for Trump" comes mostly from two outfits with a known bias - Rasmussen and Trafalgar. Susquehanna is the only surprise in my book.
I think we've gone well beyond the point where we can take all polls at face value.
Rasmussen and Trafalgar not only have a known bias, but they are run by people with close links to Trump and the Republican Party. Coincidence?
As for that Florida poll with a sample of just 400, it's commissioned by the same extreme Trumpist organisation that commissioned yesterday's Pennysylvania poll with a sample of just 400 from a different polling company. They are under no obligation to publish any of the polls they commission, so you're not going to see any of them unless they want you to. And with a sample size of just 400, they're going to be very cheap as well, and lead to lots of random variation from the mean.
Look at their website, and ask yourself whether you really trust the Centre of American Greatness to publish all the polls they commission, or just the ones they and the Trump campaign want you to see.
At the moment, I'm taking notice only of polls from the likes of YouGov and Ipsos, that is organisations I trust not to collude with either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
Number three there is what separates the bright, but insecure, from the genuine clever folk in my opinion
It's also why science communicators who make programmes for public consumption are so important, even if they are not at the cutting edge of their individual fields.
And in public health communications the goal is even harder - it is not just to get the public to understand, but to change their behaviours.
Presumably. But the commissioners of the poll are not exactly, erm, neutral.
I am getting very confused by all the positive polling for Trump, nationally and state polling that HYUFD keeps posting. If HYUFD is right my book is looking very sorry.
"all the positive polling for Trump" comes mostly from two outfits with a known bias - Rasmussen and Trafalgar. Susquehanna is the only surprise in my book.
I think we've gone well beyond the point where we can take all polls at face value.
Rasmussen and Trafalgar not only have a known bias, but they are run by people with close links to Trump and the Republican Party. Coincidence?
As for that Florida poll with a sample of just 400, it's commissioned by the same extreme Trumpist organisation that commissioned yesterday's Pennysylvania poll with a sample of just 400 from a different polling company. They are under no obligation to publish any of the polls they commission, so you're not going to see any of them unless they want you to. And with a sample size of just 400, they're going to be very cheap as well, and lead to lots of random variation from the mean.
Look at their website, and ask yourself whether you really trust the Centre of American Greatness to publish all the polls they commission, or just the ones they and the Trump campaign want you to see.
At the moment, I'm taking notice only of polls from the likes of YouGov and Ipsos, that is organisations I trust not to collude with either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone is playing a disinformation game. Playbook looks like this: - Show polling that overestimates Trump - Biden wins handsomely - Propaganda campaign kicks into gear, says election was stolen by the deep state / dems / dominos pizza - Trouble, strife, shootings, chaos Disruptive innovation for job creators
By the way, not sure how many of you have seen the new Borat film but it is really quite extraordinary, even to some of us who have studied America for a long time. It's well worth watching.
The Alt-Right of course hate it and are trying to diss it. It's so close to the bone and almost unwatchable but only in the way Borat 1 was.
I was laughing my head off I have to say. Apart from the synagogue moment which was rather beautiful and the subject of a whole side story which I won't go into here.
Sacha Baron Cohen is an incredibly brave fella.
I literally could not watch parts of it. But it is extraordinary, and way more political than I remember Borat 1 being. As you say, that is one brave fella.
It is telling that the only two victims of the film that come off very well are a Jewish woman and a black woman. No editorializing there, of course. But given who the crusade is against, forgivable.
I'm shocked a Jewish person made a film that makes white people look bad and Jews look good.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Presumably. But the commissioners of the poll are not exactly, erm, neutral.
I am getting very confused by all the positive polling for Trump, nationally and state polling that HYUFD keeps posting. If HYUFD is right my book is looking very sorry.
"all the positive polling for Trump" comes mostly from two outfits with a known bias - Rasmussen and Trafalgar. Susquehanna is the only surprise in my book.
I think we've gone well beyond the point where we can take all polls at face value.
Rasmussen and Trafalgar not only have a known bias, but they are run by people with close links to Trump and the Republican Party. Coincidence?
As for that Florida poll with a sample of just 400, it's commissioned by the same extreme Trumpist organisation that commissioned yesterday's Pennysylvania poll with a sample of just 400 from a different polling company. They are under no obligation to publish any of the polls they commission, so you're not going to see any of them unless they want you to. And with a sample size of just 400, they're going to be very cheap as well, and lead to lots of random variation from the mean.
Look at their website, and ask yourself whether you really trust the Centre of American Greatness to publish all the polls they commission, or just the ones they and the Trump campaign want you to see.
At the moment, I'm taking notice only of polls from the likes of YouGov and Ipsos, that is organisations I trust not to collude with either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
I wouldn't be surprised if someone is playing a disinformation game. Playbook looks like this: - Show polling that overestimates Trump - Biden wins handsomely - Propaganda campaign kicks into gear, says election was stolen by the deep state / dems / dominos pizza - Trouble, strife, shootings, chaos Disruptive innovation for job creators
I'm not sure that's the purpose of the Trump favoured polling. More it's designed to create an underlying narrative to justify an unexpected Trump victory at the polls (on the back of targeted voting fraud - method undetermined) by pointing to a few select "outlier" polls/polling organisations which "showed" the race narrowing in the run up to polling day and/or were consistently picking up voters that other pollsters were missing.
The problem the Trump campaign has is that the number of independent Biden paths to 270 votes seem to be growing over time, and his leads so large in some of the states originally being targeted for the potential fraud, that this is looking increasingly unviable as a strategy. Which only leaves plan B - simply find ways to disqualify large numbers of votes allowing Republican controlled state legislatures to deliver their state electors to Trump backed up by the Supreme Court asserting their right to do so.
It looks like we've passed the 50% of 2016 total vote mark: 68,594,113 votes cast vs 136,669,276 in 2016
It's also worth noting *where* votes have already been cast.
Texas is at 87% of 2016 turnout. Georgia, Florida, Nevada and North Carolina are all around 70%.
The states with the lowest early voting - Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama - are all solidly red.
If you look at North Carolina, another 200k people voted yesterday - at this rate, they'll pass 2016 turnout on Sunday or Monday. The on the day vote in many of these states is going to be de minimis.
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I was going to run a similar analysis on North Carolina, looking at turnout by area.
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
He's not saying that though is he. He's pointing out the possibility that the voting could be over-ridden by foul means.
Actually happened it seems, although the tweet is a joke
If that actually happened then Sir Keir will surely have to resign:
If you have been involved in a motoring accident, the law requires you to stop at the scene and exchange correct personal details with any person who has reasonable grounds to request them. If details are not exchanged you must report to the police as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 24 hours. Failing to stop at the scene of an accident involving injury or damage is an offence which carries a maximum penalty of 6 months imprisonment.
He did exchange details with the injured party though, just left before the breathalysers arrived!
I can't believe he wouldn't have acted appropriately to be honest. Quite possible he contacted the police station as claimed, and they were contacting him at the same time
And with a BTP officer, just not with the Met.
Actually, upon reading it again, Stamer could have reported the matter to the police on their say so, so is not lying in saying he reported it, just not mentioning that he didnt until told to
"'Officers later attempted to contact the driver of the car and left a message advising him to report the matter to police."
Any injury RTC has to be reported to the police. However that can be at a police station within 24 hours ,as many slight injuries are done everyday.
A law mandating waiting for the police to turn up at the scene of an accident would be interesting as from experience they sometimes dont even show up at quite serious accidents and leave it to the highways agency and ambulance. Id imagine their appearance at car hits bike to be fairly inconsistent.
Yes what you say is true in that many injury RTC the police do not attend the scene. Some time ago the police change the naming of accidents from road traffic accidents to road traffic collisions. As in theory some one is at fault to cause a collision.
"But here’s the thing: Yes, Biden and Democrats should be nervous that he has only about a 5-point lead in Pennsylvania, the most likely tipping point state. Five points is more than a normal-sized polling error, but not that much more. And Biden does have some backup plans. A regional polling error in the Midwest or the Northeast wouldn’t necessarily doom his chances in states like Arizona, for instance. It wouldn’t be the blowout that Democrats hope for, but Biden would still retain an edge in the Electoral College even without winning his birth state."
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I was going to run a similar analysis on North Carolina, looking at turnout by area.
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
The “official” NC lead for the Democrats in EV has come down to 9pc but I estimate it is probably more like 5pc taking into account Democrat registered voters in rural areas actually voting Republican (go and see Old North State Politics, and their breakdown of the congressional districts). The lead is dropping by 1pc per day now.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I think change in turnout is the key here, because going from 45 to 60% is more significant to the overall result than going from 62 to 64%.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I was going to run a similar analysis on North Carolina, looking at turnout by area.
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
The “official” NC lead for the Democrats in EV has come down to 9pc but I estimate it is probably more like 5pc taking into account Democrat registered voters in rural areas actually voting Republican (go and see Old North State Politics, and their breakdown of the congressional districts). The lead is dropping by 1pc per day now.
I think it's a bit more complex than that, and I'll share my analysis later
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
Silver trying to protect his business and reputation. He got away with it in 2016 by significantly upping his percentage chance for Trump in the final days and thus being able to claim he was better than the rest. If he gets it wrong this time, he’s toast. Hence why the “it would be rigged” line.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Texas is an odd one. As many have pointed out, it is not so much a Red state as a non-voting state. That being the case, you'd expect greater turnout to benefit Biden, not Trump.
As for Denton County, Beto O'Rourke got 45.5% of the vote there, and Democrats at the state level had success there in 2018.
For Collin County, the GOP share of the vote has been falling - 70% for Bush, 62% McCain, 64% Romney, 55% Trump. And the demographics continue to shift against the GOP there. It will still end up voting GOP, but I doubt it is racking up the same margins as in previous elections.
I see 538 have now pushed Georgia into the Biden column.
Georgia has been back and forth a few times now with 538. It simply suggests that they think it is 50/50 and day-to-day simulation randomness could easily be the reason for the flip-flopping.
Actually happened it seems, although the tweet is a joke
If that actually happened then Sir Keir will surely have to resign:
If you have been involved in a motoring accident, the law requires you to stop at the scene and exchange correct personal details with any person who has reasonable grounds to request them. If details are not exchanged you must report to the police as soon as reasonably practicable and in any event within 24 hours. Failing to stop at the scene of an accident involving injury or damage is an offence which carries a maximum penalty of 6 months imprisonment.
He did exchange details with the injured party though, just left before the breathalysers arrived!
I can't believe he wouldn't have acted appropriately to be honest. Quite possible he contacted the police station as claimed, and they were contacting him at the same time
And with a BTP officer, just not with the Met.
Actually, upon reading it again, Stamer could have reported the matter to the police on their say so, so is not lying in saying he reported it, just not mentioning that he didnt until told to
"'Officers later attempted to contact the driver of the car and left a message advising him to report the matter to police."
Any injury RTC has to be reported to the police. However that can be at a police station within 24 hours ,as many slight injuries are done everyday.
A law mandating waiting for the police to turn up at the scene of an accident would be interesting as from experience they sometimes dont even show up at quite serious accidents and leave it to the highways agency and ambulance. Id imagine their appearance at car hits bike to be fairly inconsistent.
Yes what you say is true in that many injury RTC the police do not attend the scene. Some time ago the police change the naming of accidents from road traffic accidents to road traffic collisions. As in theory some one is at fault to cause a collision.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I was going to run a similar analysis on North Carolina, looking at turnout by area.
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
The “official” NC lead for the Democrats in EV has come down to 9pc but I estimate it is probably more like 5pc taking into account Democrat registered voters in rural areas actually voting Republican (go and see Old North State Politics, and their breakdown of the congressional districts). The lead is dropping by 1pc per day now.
I think it's a bit more complex than that, and I'll share my analysis later
Looking forward to it and critiquing your analysis
By the way, not sure how many of you have seen the new Borat film but it is really quite extraordinary, even to some of us who have studied America for a long time. It's well worth watching.
The Alt-Right of course hate it and are trying to diss it. It's so close to the bone and almost unwatchable but only in the way Borat 1 was.
I was laughing my head off I have to say. Apart from the synagogue moment which was rather beautiful and the subject of a whole side story which I won't go into here.
Sacha Baron Cohen is an incredibly brave fella.
I literally could not watch parts of it. But it is extraordinary, and way more political than I remember Borat 1 being. As you say, that is one brave fella.
It is telling that the only two victims of the film that come off very well are a Jewish woman and a black woman. No editorializing there, of course. But given who the crusade is against, forgivable.
The black woman felt she had been lied to and betrayed, and the (now deceased) Jewish woman's daughter sued him. Some people just can't take a joke.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Why is Texas reported to be at 87% yet top county is 57%??
Same with Florida at 67% but top County been at less than that and most are under 50%?
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Texas is an odd one. As many have pointed out, it is not so much a Red state as a non-voting state. That being the case, you'd expect greater turnout to benefit Biden, not Trump.
As for Denton County, Beto O'Rourke got 45.5% of the vote there, and Democrats at the state level had success there in 2018.
For Collin County, the GOP share of the vote has been falling - 70% for Bush, 62% McCain, 64% Romney, 55% Trump. And the demographics continue to shift against the GOP there. It will still end up voting GOP, but I doubt it is racking up the same margins as in previous elections.
I’m slightly sceptical of comparing vs 2018 because the voting numbers suggest it was more Trump backers not turning out rather than an ongoing structural change. Certainly the Democrats in TX seem concerned re the Denton scores.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I was going to run a similar analysis on North Carolina, looking at turnout by area.
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
Turnout is more in the Dem areas in NC. Well it was as of Friday.
Totalling up early vote on the county level gave Trump a smaller lead than his 2016 vote share assuming everyone was voting in proportion to 2016.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I think change in turnout is the key here, because going from 45 to 60% is more significant to the overall result than going from 62 to 64%.
True but, particularly in the more Hispanic parts of Texas, it doesn’t feel like there is a surge of interest in voting. One of the reasons I can’t see Biden taking Tx
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
Silver trying to protect his business and reputation. He got away with it in 2016 by significantly upping his percentage chance for Trump in the final days and thus being able to claim he was better than the rest. If he gets it wrong this time, he’s toast. Hence why the “it would be rigged” line.
You watch, this place will still believe in the cult of Poll Jesus come 2024 no matter what happens this year.
BBC News - Wales lockdown: Baby clothes listed as essential by ministers, but general principle stays, non-essential items can't be sold in supermarkets.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Why is Texas reported to be at 87% yet top county is 57%??
Same with Florida at 67% but top County been at less than that and most are under 50%?
Oh I get it now 87% of 2016 vs 57% of total registered
So... I looked at the counties that have had early voting so far in North Carolina, and I looked at the Clinton-Trump shares from 2016, and then I used that to impute (based on the 2016 vote share alone) what the results would be right now.
(To explain, take Moore County. In 2016 it votes for Trump over Clinton by 65% to 35%. I then multiply those shares by early voting numbers by county. So I divide the 36,427 into 65% for Trump and 35% for Biden.)
This results in a - to date - 51:49 to Trump - a two point difference, down from 3.6 percent in 2016.
Which means that right now, turnout is slightly better in Democrat areas than Republican. (And assumes, of course that nobody has changed their mind since last time.)
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
He's not saying that though is he. He's pointing out the possibility that the voting could be over-ridden by foul means.
Exactly, I also find the fact some are pointing the finger at Nate Silver for this comment, when Trump has basically been saying all along if he loses (which the probablilities suggest is far more likely than him winning) it would only be because of fraud!!! In fact if he loses by 100 EV and 10% he will most likely still be screaming FOUL,
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Why is Texas reported to be at 87% yet top county is 57%??
Same with Florida at 67% but top County been at less than that and most are under 50%?
The higher number is the % of the 2016 vote, the lower number is the % of all registered voters in 2020.
Love the brazenness of accusing polling favourable to Trump being all about accusing the other side of rigging the election when Democratic party hacks like Nate Silver are already effectively saying if he's wrong it's because of voter fraud. https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
Silver trying to protect his business and reputation. He got away with it in 2016 by significantly upping his percentage chance for Trump in the final days and thus being able to claim he was better than the rest. If he gets it wrong this time, he’s toast. Hence why the “it would be rigged” line.
You watch, this place will still believe in the cult of Poll Jesus come 2024 no matter what happens this year.
We're not cultists.
We just know that:
(a) poll errors tend to oscillate, both in the UK and the US and therefore you need to assume that there is another polling error towards the Republicans.
(b) that the polling error nationally is larger than at any time other than perhaps 1948
(c) Trump had the most efficient voter distribution possible in 2016, and he needs to be even more efficient in 2020. To reiterate my point from earlier - remember he underperformed loser Romney in actual votes recieved in Wisconsin.
If you put those together the odds of Trump winning aren't more than one-in-eight. This is probabilities, nothing more or less.
Pretty bog-standard othering there. English left-wing intellectualism is a part of the culture of the country. So is football, and Gothic fiction, and dogging, and caravan holidays, and all those other things that are done by some but not by others. If you can't get on with each other you have no hope as a country. That means accepting what's in your midst even if you don't like it, and not pretending that just because someone isn't like you they mustn't belong to the same land.
This was Orwell at his most superficial and odd, perhaps desperate to identify with what he understood as working-class people, as so many public schoolboys have been before and after him. Under these terms he no doubt would have dismissed the parliamentarians during the civil war as "self-hating", too. Contrary to the conservative mythology , often selectively quoting this part of Orwell, England, in particular, has an older radical tradition than many comparable countries.
His knowledge of "what he understood as working-class people" was probably pretty good what with that Paris and London and Wigan and Yorkshire stuff. What earthly difference does it make, where he went to school?
More importantly, he had the most politically acute literary brain of his time, indeed of maybe any time, which is why Animal Farm and 1984 are still very-much-referenced classics, the latter being, arguably, the most important novel of the 20th century - in any language.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
Why is Texas reported to be at 87% yet top county is 57%??
Same with Florida at 67% but top County been at less than that and most are under 50%?
The higher number is the % of the 2016 vote, the lower number is the % of all registered voters in 2020.
I think the 87% is the % of people who have early voted in person or by mail. The 57% is the in person early vote. Quite a lot of R supporters are quoting only the latter because it's more favourable to them.
FYI, of the ten biggest counties in Texas, the top two in terms of early voting turnout are both Republican strongholds - Collin County where Trump won by 16.7pc and where 57.4pc of the electorate has already voted, and Denton County (Trump +20pc in 2016) at 55.6pc. Denton also looks to have the biggest increase in early voting turnout so far (up 5pc over 2016 with several days to go)
I think change in turnout is the key here, because going from 45 to 60% is more significant to the overall result than going from 62 to 64%.
True but, particularly in the more Hispanic parts of Texas, it doesn’t feel like there is a surge of interest in voting. One of the reasons I can’t see Biden taking Tx
North Carolina's turnout is going to comfortably beat 2016, and I suspect Texas is too. All the evidence is that we're going to see turnout up across the board.
That being said... remember that High School educated voters are typically lower turnout. An increase in overall turnout probably increases their turnout disproportionately. And that presumably benefits Trump.
Against that... the male-female split in early voting *really* favours women. The gap is currently 11 or 12 points rather than the 10 in 2016, and that's not to the President's advantage.
Suggests, with extraordinary sleight of hand, that one pollster, and one only, routinely polls samples of 1,000+ and all the rest stick in the 400-600 range.
Can anyone guess, without peeking, who that one pollster is?
Yes, you can abolish safe seats, and you can make forming Governments more challenging, but I see no evidence whatsoever it "stops" populism.
We'd have had a Tory-UKIP coalition with PR post GE2015.
I also doubt PR would have changed who became PM after any UK general election apart from maybe February 1974 when Heath might have stayed PM propped up by Thorpe, 1979 when Callaghan might have stayed PM for a bit longer propped up by Steel and 2019 when the LDs might have insisted they only support the Tories if they replaced Boris with Hunt and a stay in the SM soft Brexit
Are the Hampshire Police much worse than the rest?
They should really implement my idea to introduce the press gang. Then this lot would have woken up on an RN ship. There is good news and bad news.....
The working class in the hospitality sector are also being hit, probably the safest at the moment are workers in the public sector on average or only slightly above average incomes who can wfh
Suggests, with extraordinary sleight of hand, that one pollster, and one only, routinely polls samples of 1,000+ and all the rest stick in the 400-600 range.
Can anyone guess, without peeking, who that one pollster is?
I read the article and on first reading it sounds plausible then Mr Cahalys name popped up as the 'shining light' in polling correctly. Now thats not to say Trafalagar won't be right again but this article could just as easily have been headed, 'why Trafalgar are right and the rest are wrong'
One of the worst arguments against climate change is that Siberia might, unfortunately, become "nicer".
It is an upside. Large swathes of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, Mongolia, will become warmer, kinder, more cultivatable. Richer. Better. Sweeter.
This is no small thing. These are huge tracts of Planet Earth
There will be many many downsides to global warming, potentially calamitous in the medium term, but denying the advantages undermines the whole debate
The working class in the hospitality sector are also being hit, probably the safest at the moment are workers in the public sector on average or only slightly above average incomes who can wfh
The corporate world has not yet fully adjusted to the change from a production economy to a knowledge economy. It is bloated with management and needs to de-layered more massively than anything Neutron Jack every dreamt of in his wettest dreams.
Once again, COVID is speeding up what would have happened anyway. In this case the emptying of the middle management pyramid.
Where I work now, nearly no managers - in the sense of people who spend the whole day telling other people to do stuff.
Team leads are a team member who spends about half their time on managerial stuff in the team. A manager manages 5-10 teams. Then a head of dept. Then the board. A very flat, shallow pyramid.
I compare that to Citi - at one point they had levels where it was just managers aggregating information from the managers who reported to them. To the managers above them. Some people were 3+ reports away *both* from anyone who did the actual work, or ran the company.
Suggests, with extraordinary sleight of hand, that one pollster, and one only, routinely polls samples of 1,000+ and all the rest stick in the 400-600 range.
Can anyone guess, without peeking, who that one pollster is?
I read the article and on first reading it sounds plausible then Mr Cahalys name popped up as the 'shining light' in polling correctly. Now thats not to say Trafalagar won't be right again but this article could just as easily have been headed, 'why Trafalgar are right and the rest are wrong'
I was also amused by the idea that "all the other pollsters" could not be trusted both because they were biased in their questioning and methodology, but also that their small sample sizes gave them huge margins of error. Of course if all their polls had large margins of error then this would lead to potentially more favourable Trump polling than biased polls with smaller margins of error. For some reason the margins of error only seem to form in a pro-Biden direction.
The working class in the hospitality sector are also being hit, probably the safest at the moment are workers in the public sector on average or only slightly above average incomes who can wfh
Once again, COVID is speeding up what would have happened anyway. In this case the emptying of the middle management pyramid.
Where I work now, nearly no managers - in the sense of people who spend the whole day telling other people to do stuff.
Team leads are a team member who spends about half their time on managerial stuff in the team. A manager manages 5-10 teams. Then a head of dept. Then the board. A very flat, shallow pyramid.
I compare that to Citi - at one point they had levels where it was just managers aggregating information from the managers who reported to them. To the managers above them. Some people were 3+ reports away *both* from anyone who did the actual work, or ran the company.
It's also clearing out the executive assistant/admin level as well.
BBC News - Wales lockdown: Baby clothes listed as essential by ministers, but general principle stays, non-essential items can't be sold in supermarkets.
Yes WG largely retreated whilst trying to maintain face.
Pretty much everything now back as essential except, electrical goods and non baby clothes. My understanding is these can still be asked for by exception.
So bin bags, mops, saucepans, baby clothes now in the clear.
Toasters, footwear and underwear you still have to go to the shop assistant and have a conversation ( thereby interacting, remember this is supposed to be about keeping the virus in check ) and ask if you can have a pack of Y fronts or shoes. In theory they are supposed to check this is exceptional I guess, which is of course utterly absurd, unfair in shop workers and largely ain’t gonna happen folks.
I’m guessing supermarkets will quietly unrope huge sections and put some token notices up about not being frivolous about buying shoes or children’s coats and everyone will quietly pray for Nov 9 to come round without further embarrassment or hassle all round.
The working class in the hospitality sector are also being hit, probably the safest at the moment are workers in the public sector on average or only slightly above average incomes who can wfh
Safest in which sense? I’m a worker in the public sector with a slightly above average income but I’m not sure how safe teaching is at the moment. OTOH I don’t expect to be made redundant any time soon...
Once again, COVID is speeding up what would have happened anyway. In this case the emptying of the middle management pyramid.
Where I work now, nearly no managers - in the sense of people who spend the whole day telling other people to do stuff.
Team leads are a team member who spends about half their time on managerial stuff in the team. A manager manages 5-10 teams. Then a head of dept. Then the board. A very flat, shallow pyramid.
I compare that to Citi - at one point they had levels where it was just managers aggregating information from the managers who reported to them. To the managers above them. Some people were 3+ reports away *both* from anyone who did the actual work, or ran the company.
On the other hand it creates every enormous gaps between the "elite" managerial levels and the rest of the workforce. Which creates a circle of ever higher paid people in senior management devoid of knowledge of what happens on the ground (because traditional routes of working your way up via the shop floor are basically extinct) and a merry go round between companies of people whose main qualification is that they have worked at a senior level elsewhere, regardless of their level of actual performance. (You see a similar thing with Chief Executives and the like in local government).
Good for him that he is taking the virus seriously and not having superspeader rallies.
The circles make the event look oddly fun.
Speaking of which - a piece of cheery good sense in the local park.
A lady runs a Tai Chi class - took it out doors when COVID came along. She came along the other day, to find the that the chap who paints the markings for schools sports days had done circles like that for her class. Apparently the parks management had seen the class - and thought it was sensible to do the circles.
The Swedes have been completely vindicated. This is a grim marathon, not a sweaty "exciting" sprint. They prepared accordingly.
They will have a tough time, because marathons are a bitch. But eager sprints where you collapse in exhaustion and elation at the end, only to realise you have to spring sixty eight thousand times in a row, are considerably worse.
Yes, you can abolish safe seats, and you can make forming Governments more challenging, but I see no evidence whatsoever it "stops" populism.
We'd have had a Tory-UKIP coalition with PR post GE2015.
I also doubt PR would have changed who became PM after any UK general election apart from maybe February 1974 when Heath might have stayed PM propped up by Thorpe, 1979 when Callaghan might have stayed PM for a bit longer propped up by Steel and 2019 when the LDs might have insisted they only support the Tories if they replaced Boris with Hunt and a stay in the SM soft Brexit
That’s the third (and fourth) plus point for PR you’ve come up with this evening. Sterling work!
Comments
"Government by decree: Covid-19 and the Constitution
Lord Sumption
Cambridge Freshfields Annual Law Lecture
27 October 2020, 6pm"
https://resources.law.cam.ac.uk/privatelaw/Freshfields_Lecture_2020_Government_by_Decree.pdf
Trump got fewer votes in the State than Romney did.
It was the Democrats did not turn out, rather that Trump did particularly well.
It is telling that the only two victims of the film that come off very well are a Jewish woman and a black woman. No editorializing there, of course. But given who the crusade is against, forgivable.
Rasmussen and Trafalgar not only have a known bias, but they are run by people with close links to Trump and the Republican Party. Coincidence?
As for that Florida poll with a sample of just 400, it's commissioned by the same extreme Trumpist organisation that commissioned yesterday's Pennysylvania poll with a sample of just 400 from a different polling company. They are under no obligation to publish any of the polls they commission, so you're not going to see any of them unless they want you to. And with a sample size of just 400, they're going to be very cheap as well, and lead to lots of random variation from the mean.
Look at their website, and ask yourself whether you really trust the Centre of American Greatness to publish all the polls they commission, or just the ones they and the Trump campaign want you to see.
https://amgreatness.com/
At the moment, I'm taking notice only of polls from the likes of YouGov and Ipsos, that is organisations I trust not to collude with either the Trump or Biden campaigns.
- Show polling that overestimates Trump
- Biden wins handsomely
- Propaganda campaign kicks into gear, says election was stolen by the deep state / dems / dominos pizza
- Trouble, strife, shootings, chaos Disruptive innovation for job creators
The circles make the event look oddly fun.
I'm not really involved any more, but still great to see.
The problem the Trump campaign has is that the number of independent Biden paths to 270 votes seem to be growing over time, and his leads so large in some of the states originally being targeted for the potential fraud, that this is looking increasingly unviable as a strategy. Which only leaves plan B - simply find ways to disqualify large numbers of votes allowing Republican controlled state legislatures to deliver their state electors to Trump backed up by the Supreme Court asserting their right to do so.
Texas is at 87% of 2016 turnout. Georgia, Florida, Nevada and North Carolina are all around 70%.
The states with the lowest early voting - Idaho, Oklahoma, Mississippi and Alabama - are all solidly red.
If you look at North Carolina, another 200k people voted yesterday - at this rate, they'll pass 2016 turnout on Sunday or Monday. The on the day vote in many of these states is going to be de minimis.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1320843000575152131
That said... large rural counties where there nearest ballot box in 20 miles away might also be the ones where early voting is most prevalent (for obvious reasons), so we need to be a little careful.
Potentially the worst thing to happen this year. Covid and Trump's reelection are mere footnotes.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-joe-biden-toast-if-he-loses-pennsylvania/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8884877/Hampshire-Police-time-quiz-tanker-hijackers.html
As for Denton County, Beto O'Rourke got 45.5% of the vote there, and Democrats at the state level had success there in 2018.
For Collin County, the GOP share of the vote has been falling - 70% for Bush, 62% McCain, 64% Romney, 55% Trump. And the demographics continue to shift against the GOP there. It will still end up voting GOP, but I doubt it is racking up the same margins as in previous elections.
Same with Florida at 67% but top County been at less than that and most are under 50%?
Totalling up early vote on the county level gave Trump a smaller lead than his 2016 vote share assuming everyone was voting in proportion to 2016.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-54705627
Duurrr
(To explain, take Moore County. In 2016 it votes for Trump over Clinton by 65% to 35%. I then multiply those shares by early voting numbers by county. So I divide the 36,427 into 65% for Trump and 35% for Biden.)
This results in a - to date - 51:49 to Trump - a two point difference, down from 3.6 percent in 2016.
Which means that right now, turnout is slightly better in Democrat areas than Republican. (And assumes, of course that nobody has changed their mind since last time.)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/522957-dont-believe-the-polls-trump-is-winning-bigly
We just know that:
(a) poll errors tend to oscillate, both in the UK and the US and therefore you need to assume that there is another polling error towards the Republicans.
(b) that the polling error nationally is larger than at any time other than perhaps 1948
(c) Trump had the most efficient voter distribution possible in 2016, and he needs to be even more efficient in 2020. To reiterate my point from earlier - remember he underperformed loser Romney in actual votes recieved in Wisconsin.
If you put those together the odds of Trump winning aren't more than one-in-eight. This is probabilities, nothing more or less.
Oh, goody.
That being said... remember that High School educated voters are typically lower turnout. An increase in overall turnout probably increases their turnout disproportionately. And that presumably benefits Trump.
Against that... the male-female split in early voting *really* favours women. The gap is currently 11 or 12 points rather than the 10 in 2016, and that's not to the President's advantage.
Sod the Presidential election.
Yes, you can abolish safe seats, and you can make forming Governments more challenging, but I see no evidence whatsoever it "stops" populism.
We'd have had a Tory-UKIP coalition with PR post GE2015.
Total Early Votes: 69,257,810 • Mail Ballots: 46,195,743 • In-Person Votes: 23,062,067
If this was the working class being affected like this, you'd have so much support for them.
https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1321002732443095041
Can anyone guess, without peeking, who that one pollster is?
The rest is just deciding how best to cut the cake.
It is an upside. Large swathes of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, Russia, Mongolia, will become warmer, kinder, more cultivatable. Richer. Better. Sweeter.
This is no small thing. These are huge tracts of Planet Earth
There will be many many downsides to global warming, potentially calamitous in the medium term, but denying the advantages undermines the whole debate
Methane is much worse than CO2 for climate change.
Where I work now, nearly no managers - in the sense of people who spend the whole day telling other people to do stuff.
Team leads are a team member who spends about half their time on managerial stuff in the team. A manager manages 5-10 teams. Then a head of dept. Then the board. A very flat, shallow pyramid.
I compare that to Citi - at one point they had levels where it was just managers aggregating information from the managers who reported to them. To the managers above them. Some people were 3+ reports away *both* from anyone who did the actual work, or ran the company.
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1321189920338288643
Pretty much everything now back as essential except, electrical goods and non baby clothes. My understanding is these can still be asked for by exception.
So bin bags, mops, saucepans, baby clothes now in the clear.
Toasters, footwear and underwear you still have to go to the shop assistant and have a conversation ( thereby interacting, remember this is supposed to be about keeping the virus in check ) and ask if you can have a pack of Y fronts or shoes. In theory they are supposed to check this is exceptional I guess, which is of course utterly absurd, unfair in shop workers and largely ain’t gonna happen folks.
I’m guessing supermarkets will quietly unrope huge sections and put some token notices up about not being frivolous about buying shoes or children’s coats and everyone will quietly pray for Nov 9 to come round without further embarrassment or hassle all round.
Welsh Govt: nul points.
A lady runs a Tai Chi class - took it out doors when COVID came along. She came along the other day, to find the that the chap who paints the markings for schools sports days had done circles like that for her class. Apparently the parks management had seen the class - and thought it was sensible to do the circles.
They will have a tough time, because marathons are a bitch. But eager sprints where you collapse in exhaustion and elation at the end, only to realise you have to spring sixty eight thousand times in a row, are considerably worse.