Comments

2
Catholic reasoning
3
I have to wonder why Nate Silver is doing this when there are other poll aggregators in the game.

He lost his marbles at the end of September, too, insisting Trump had an even shot when all the other aggregators had him at 20% tops. Nate never explained his reasons for doubting other aggregation methodologies then, and he doesn't explain anything this time around, either.

Here are the electoral college based win probabilities from the three most popular aggregators as of Nov 2:

Princeton Election Consortium: Clinton 97%

NY Times Upshot: Clinton 87%, Trump 13%

Nate "Please somebody pay attention to m… Clinton 70%, Trump 30%
4
Bernie would be up by 10 points right now.
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Like it or not, the revulsion that America feels towards both Clinton and Trump favors Trump.

History has shown us that when there is low voter turnout, the GOP wins. Young people are willing to forgo voting because they are busy, do not think it matters, or due to general malaise with the system.

But older, especially white, people ALWAYS vote. They show up. And it appears they favor Trump.

The Republicans chose the only candidate who could lose to Clinton, and the Democrats chose the only candidate who could lose to Trump (and went out of their way to unethically nudge the primary in her direction). So here we are.
6
relax and enjoy it
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@3: There may be a problem with only accepting predictions that favor what you want to happen and ignoring those that do not.

Mitt "Unskewed Polls" Romney could tell you something about that.
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Silver's model is more volatile than the others by design - he says so himself. I assume he does it that way because its better for driving page views - guy's gotta earn a living.

Evidently, there is a block of voters who sway back and forth between Trump and Clinton at the bidding of the Emm Ess Em. So when they were harping on Trump's vulgarity, Clinton was up. Now CNN is going on about emails again and Clinton comes back down. These are the people who will select our next President.
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@5 Friend, we know who it is that doesn't show up to vote in mid-terms: minorities.

Young people don't bother to vote in any election.
12
The election is almost over so the media is going to try to push people into frenzy and milk it for the ratings. Quick, unload all your crazy conspiracy theories.
13
Two 3.5 to 1 shots can't happen in one week, can it? Right? Somebody please tell me I'm right.
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I think a Cubs win is actually a good omen if for no other reason than it would be a defeat against perpetrators and perpetuaters of cartoonish racism.
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I said it months ago. Trump is going to win. Not because Hillary is such a terrible candidate. Nope. But because, as our resident trolls demonstrate multiple times daily, our country is irredeemably stupid and tribal. Both left and right. And stupidity always flows to regression.
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@10 He bases his model off polls. Polls fluctuate for a variety of reasons, but one of the main reasons is people don't like to answer polls if their candidate is in a negative news cycle. So when the Trump tape comes out fewer Trump supporters actually answer the polls. Same with Hillary this week with the emails. Most people aren't actually changing their minds. Some of the unofficial leaks from campaigns internal polls have Hillary at a 5-6% lead. That is both internal democrat and republican polls. The internal polls are much more accurate than most of the hack media polls. Follow @jonfavs on twitter and listen to the Keepin it 1600 podcast for great insight on the race and polling. Full disclosure he is liberal and was a speechwriter for Obama.
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That 5-6% lead in internal polling has been pretty consistent the whole race. Through almost every controversy, because the majority of people have picked a side and will not switch.
19
My money is on the meteorite. If Trump were to win, I would be screaming for the meteorite. But he's not going to win, so there's that.
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@4 "Bernie would be up by 10 points right now."

Probably not. Hillary Clinton has the advantage that she's been dealing with the shit-throwers for most of her life. Bernie? Well, The Donald wouldn't be getting as much of the misogynist vote, but he'd be getting the vote of a lot of temporarily embarrassed millionaires who would be quaking under the bed at the thought of A SOCIALIST!!!11!! in the White House.

Bernie would still win (the awful field of Republicans would be hard to lose to) but I suspect the margin would be a lot tighter.
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@7, @9

You seem to have missed the point.

All three of the sources I cited are poll aggregators. It is "the math talking" for all of them, and has been all along. The differences between the probabilities they each produce come from their methodologies-- the particular math that each one uses to make predictions based on the same third-party poll results they all start with.

Nate's methodology is producing an outlier result when you do a meta aggregation-- an aggregate of aggregators. And Nate has given us no justification for that outlier result-- or conversely, no reason to doubt the methodology of his competitors.
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@22:

Nate has explained why his model is an outlier.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/elec…
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Um, yeah. Nate kind of needs to make the most of hyping his site every four years. I think ol' Gary Johnson might surge from Republicans who just can't vote for Trump. They'll call it the Utah effect.
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@17 You nitwits really should layoff your bongs every once in a while. I almost wish Sanders had prevailed so you could all get hit head on with the tractor trailer of reality. Sanders was not even remotely subjected to the right-wing meat-grinder that has been working on Clinton for 30 years. One week of Trump's surrogates going at him about paling around with Sandinistas and his plan to 'take away your health care' and raise middle class taxes at the same time and Trump would be up 15 points.

Do any of you have any fucking clue at all how politics works in this country?
27
Hillary was a shitty tainted candidate in 2008, well-beaten by an unknown little-experienced Black guy! Hello? She has not improved or become less-tainted as a candidate since then. Debbie Douchebag and the DNC installed her ("rigged!") and gave Cheeto-man his ideal opponent. She had/has huge negatives (some deserved, much not deserved) but that does not matter - she entered the election cycle despised by many and distrusted by even more. And as a result we are on the doorstep of a disaster.
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@26: Do you think it is ironic to ask if other people "have a fucking clue" when you are simply imagining a scenario that you have no way of knowing is true at all?

I mean, no one is saying you can not pontificate on all the things you imagine may be true if history was different, but to posit them as fact when you are just using your imagination is a bit much, don't you think?

Especially when you aggressively call out anyone who may disagree with your imaginings.
29
I was going to have a free week. No news from anywhere. Even from this distance this crazy story has just about got me feeling crazy as. Can't enjoy my life because of some dumb fuck con artist and a big mob of bigoted and scared voters.
These white men, they stop at nothing. And Hillary, being the warrior she is, just keeps knocking them back. I no longer see the Hillary of old, I see this mighty woman squaring off against the ugliest display of desperate patriarchal power play, and I can only pray to all the warrior women past and present, that she wins.
Go Hillary.
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@23/24 Seriously, this. Quit freaking the fuck out and if you can't stop being anxious then get off your ass and donate some time at your local campaign office. Knock on some doors. Make some calls.

Christ, this shit happens every time.
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@24

Thanks, I hadn't seen that.

So it looks like Nate's outlier prediction is about equally due to 1) when determining uncertainty, assigning a much greater weight to the proportion of undecided voters, and 2) when calibrating the model, refusing to throw out pre-2000 polling data that is known to be bad.

Good to know!
32
I'm holding out that Giant Meteor and it's running mate the delightful Borg Queen will still pull out an upset absolute victory next Tuesday. I hear it's gonna be a smash that you won't be able to resist!
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@Rhizome #26: I'd say you're right except that they tried it all with Obama - red-baiting, the health care thing, raising taxes, etc. - and it didn't work. That's literally the same shit the GOP tries every round. Sanders's advantage is that he leans into it, so he doesn't get tagged as being dishonest for denying things that are true (if perhaps only from a certain point of view), and that his full-throated advocacy for working-class interests can motivate working-class voters to show up (it worked unevenly across various demographic groups, but Sanders did manage to get a lot of younger people out to vote in the primaries).
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@4 I love the circular reasons that anyone who disagrees with your preferred narrative has lost their marbles. Remember when lefties were all "lol it's real data not Silver's opinion" at the GOP for not trusting Silver's data in '08 and '12 and ye verily has was super accurate? Man it's almost as if your average leftists is just as reactionary and uncritical as your GOP base.
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@3: yeah, Nate's gotten very click-baity of late. I don't entirely blame him—a boy's gotta eat and capitalism's the law of the land. But that's why I tend to trust Sam Wang at Princeton much more these days.
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@28 Yes I am 'using my imagination' based on a realistic understanding of how politics actually works in this country whereas the St. Bernie true believers are basing their certitude about his electibility on absolutely nothing except some meaningless polls regarding his alleged popularity. In fact as far as I can tell they are mostly so entirely clueless they don't even know what his actual proposals were.

@34 Obama did not have as a central, completely essential, part of his platform, a middle class tax increase. That is just simply a total non-starter in this country. No way no how. And I'd say the likelihood that Sanders would back down and rework or abandon the centerpiece of his campaign is just about equal to the likelihood he would suddenly start embracing the deregulation of the financial industry. The working class is interested in hearing that they can have their free lunch and eat it too. They are not interested in paying for squat. And they sure as hell are not interested in a 'government takeover of health care'.
38
Nate may be overly cautious but he is not a bullshitter. He is stating what he thinks will happen with what probability. A polling error would ljkely be systematic across many states. People forget there was a 3%polling error in Romney vs Obama.
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@37: I'm liking the cynical cut of your jib.

I note that HRC has an upper-class tax increase as an essential (and probably impossible to enact) part of her platform, and that alone makes me nervous. The Joe the Plumbers of America all think they're about to win the lottery and shoot up into Trump's tax bracket.
40
Carpetbagger, that's what trump is. And the transformations of the sixties, didn't go far enough. Now a race war again. Along with the gender war. That's never ending, right.
The good of America will prevail.
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Anyone who believes that Bernie Sanders would be winning this election should be looking at the polling for the Colorado ballot proposition for Amendment 69, a citizen-initiated constitutional amendment that would establish a statewide program to provide universal healthcare coverage and finance healthcare services for Colorado residents. It would cost more than $30 billion and it would be paid for with a 6.6 percent increase in employers’ payroll taxes and a 3.3 percent increase in employees’ payroll taxes. To put that in perspective, the proposed budget for FY 2017-2018 in Colorado is $28.5 billion. The most recent polling shows this measure is currently expected to be defeated by two-thirds of voters in a state that is trending Democratic and is likely to vote for Hillary Clinton by 4 points.

If one of Bernie Sanders' main liberal policy objectives gets voted down a Democratic-leaning swing state, former Sanders supporters are dreaming if they believe that Sanders would be winning, let alone winning big, in the general election.
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@34 He is a troll for Hillary similar to what @6 is with Trump. The polls would be similar with Bernie to what they are now with Hillary. Most of the voting population is going to vote for whatever party they lean to no matter who the candidate. The odd thing about this election is that some top Republicans have said they won't vote for Trump, so he may lose a few percentage points because he is repulsive. Most Republicans will talk themselves into it and fall in line, but some right leaning independents and center right republicans won't. Most left leaning voters would vote for Hillary or Bernie because of Trump's repulsiveness. Trump's repulsiveness will drive turnout. Democrats will keep winning presidential elections until the Republicans change their hostility toward minorities and more specifically Hispanics. Republicans will keep winning mid terms because of lack of turnout. We will continue to have gridlock in Congress because of that.
43
@41,
Amendment 69 is faltering? Dammit.

/Coloradoan
//never checks polls
///voted in favor of Amendment 69
44
Here's what I do with this information: I get my paperwork in order and apply for a Dan Savage Foundation grant so that I can afford to move back to Vancouver.
45
42 shorter:
Democraps have no scruples and are able to vote for Hillary despite her repulsiveness.
46
Get really anxious; say "OMG, OMG, OMG' and shake your hands in front of yourself. That'll help. Do not root against the Cubs. Jesus.
47
@41 A lot of liberals disagree with some of Clinton's policies, but they will still vote for her. Voting no on a ballot initiative is a lot different than voting for an asshole like Trump. There are other factors to why ballot initiatives fail like how much is spent against it. I would be willing to bet the pro citizen initiated ballot initiative side is being outspent by the insurance companies and other large businesses who are against it by quite a bit. The Democratic nominee wouldn't have that disadvantage. Bernie's plan was not funded by a payroll tax increase either. I don't think college should be free, but I voted for Sanders in the primary. The truth is he wouldn't get most of what he wanted because the House is still going to be Republican. I could vote for him and not have to worry about a couple of his pie in the sky ideas. I think he would have gotten better compromises than Clinton, but that is irrelevant at this point.
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@45 Most of her repulsiveness is manufactured right wing garbage. I don't like a lot of things about her policies, but she is not a repulsive human being. I can vote for a candidate I don't agree with on some issues. I can't vote for a candidate that brags about sexually assaulting women, that thinks we should treat all Muslims like terrorists, is anti abortion, says women should be punished for having abortions, picks a VP that believes in conversion therapy, makes fun of handicap reporters, acts like a spoiled child when he doesn't get his way, the list could go on and on. My new test for a candidate is do the neo Nazis and kkk support them? If yes, I won't be voting for that person.
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@39 and @48: Yes.
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Well, with 55% unfavorable opinions, the election was always going to be relatively close. Comments here seem to indicate that clintonites are still in denial. This is what happens when people believe their own propaganda.

@37 regurgitating right wing tropes about taxes and the middle class as if they were true isn't supported by SS and Medicare (taxes) being a 3rd rail of American politics. Not only policians move gingerly when attacking SS but large majorities of Americans support increasing taxes on working Americans to sustain SS.
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@47: "A lot of liberals disagree with some of Clinton's policies, but they will still vote for her." The issue is that Sanders would likely have lost moderate voters, the kind of voters that are voting against Amendment 69, but are voting for Clinton, a left-center politician.

"Bernie's plan was not funded by a payroll tax increase either.." It would have required large tax increases across the middle class in order to be workable (a point Sanders conceded), and the exact form of the taxation isn't likely to have been a point on which voters would have differentiated between proposals.

"The Democratic nominee wouldn't have that [monetary] disadvantage." If it were only about money, Clinton would not be in a tight race. Clinton has raised more money than Trump.
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@50 You saw that part where I recommended taking a break from the bong, right?

Sanders' healthcare plan relied on a roughly 2.5% income tax increase on the middle class. Aside from the fact that, as has been proven very clearly by the hysteria over Obamacare, a 'government takeover of your healthcare' is immensely unpopular among wide swaths of the electorate (who mostly have coverage through their employers), there is simply no way a majority in this country is going to vote themselves a sizeable tax increase, whatever hypothetical savings were supposed to materialize down the road.

Your dumbass popularity polls are precisely meaningless, and as I would assume that anyone who pays the slightest attention to politics would be well aware of this, my guess is you don't pay the slightest attention to politics.
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@52 "a 'government takeover of your healthcare' is immensely unpopular among wide swaths of the electorate"

You are spewing more right wing garbage. Most people want some form of medicare for all.

Of course, these scientific polls that show you wrong are popularity polls.
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@53 Wrong. Were you born yesterday? Have you been in a cryogenic chamber for the last 8 years? The mere mention that Sanders planned to 'take away' the sacrosanct employer provided health insurance that the majority of the middle class enjoys would have ensured his defeat.

Popularity polls are completely meaningless when measuring the popularity of someone that is almost completely unknown by those being polled. The right-wing attack machine has been going at Clinton for almost 30 years. They did not even begin to get started on Sanders.
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@55 there have been plenty of polls throughout the years showing that a majority of Americans are for "single payer healthcare".

@54 "The right-wing attack machine [...] did not even begin to get started on Sanders."

You must have been asleep during the primaries when clintonites gatekeepers in corporate media went all out after Sanders after which he was still beating Trump by significantly larger margins than Clinton according to polls that you denigrate because they show you wrong.
57
Cubs win.

You gotta believe in miracles.......
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@58 really, you can't find polls showing a majority of Americans wanting "single payer' over the years? That's rather not credible.

To be sure there are also polls showing a majority against single payer but most often the difference is a matter of a few points and given the overwhelming majorities willing to sign up for Medicare for all I really don't see how anyone could legitimately claim that single payer can't pass because of public opinion or because of an aversion to taxes. Are you sure you guys don't work for Republicans because I can't tell sometimes.
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@51 I doubt he would have lost independents that voted for Obama. Going from Obama to Trump because of single payer is a huge leap. On top of that Obama ran on single payer as part of his plan but had to drop it because of Senate opposition. So those voters didn't have a problem with it in '08 but now they would? Clinton is the 2nd most unlikeable candidate in history. She has an active FBI investigation against her. She is viewed as less honest than Trump even though Trump lies more than every other sentence. I think it is unfair that she is viewed that way but it doesn't change the fact that she is viewed that way. Anyways if the Moderates aren't going to Trump with all of that they aren't going to be moving in that direction over single payer.

You are correct most people wouldn't differentiate between a payroll and income tax hikes, but it is easier to attack a payroll tax. Income tax is harder to give a specific number on how much you will be taxed because everyone has different deductions. With a payroll tax you can roll out a commercial that says if you make x you will lose y amount of dollars.

Money plays a significant roll in ballot initiatives. I live in California and every other commercial is for a prop. Most of it is pure propaganda. San Francisco probably won't pass a soda tax because every commercial calls it a grocery tax. Most people think every item in the supermarket will be taxed because of these commercials. The spending by different industries for some of these ballot initiatives is astronomical compared to what is spent in favor of them. Especially when it comes to populist ideas. So money does matter when it comes to those initiatives passing. Which brings me back to my point that how Colorado votes on a ballot initiative probably does not correlate with how they would vote for a candidate. And voting against an initiative doesn't mean Donald Trump will be your President. Money isn't the only thing that matters but it helps a lot to be able to run counters to attack ads. If you can get your message out it gives the average person who doesn't pay close attention a justification for why they should vote for an initiative or candidate. If there is a $200 million ad campaign against Amendment 69 and $5 million for it you could see how people might only get one side of the story. Most of the electorate aren't going any deeper than what they see in ads or hear on the news.
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@51 I would agree with you about Sanders losing moderates if the Republicans had elected someone who isn't a complete scumbag and is a walking soundbite. A guy like Rubio would have given the Sanders or Clinton trouble because the Republicans that hated him would have fell in line and he would have pulled more moderates because he doesn't have Clinton's baggage and is more centered than Sanders. But thankfully they picked Trump. One can only hope he runs again in 2020.
63
Nope. Trump will win because America is filled to the gills with some of the dumbest most entitled people on earth. On the right these marching morons embrace their post-fact ignorance as a shield. On the left the stupidity comes in the form of passive aggressive petulance.

Now, I filter out most the trolls here now, but clearly they must be here in force judging by the dialog. And lord does that dialog prove my assertion. Unbelievable levels of cognitive dissonance and stupidity.

Anyone still arguing who is a better candidate at this point is just too stupid to exist. Because here in the reality based community on planet earth where facts still matter? Clinton is the only rational choice.

Please wait...

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