2020 Elections

[writingprof]

Anybody else thinking that Trump might win this thing?  The numbers seem to be tightening up, and I'm more convinced than ever that "shy Tories" are a growing constituency.  (Who would dare tell a pollster that one's Trump support is due to disgust at all the rioting?--and yet, I reckon there is disgust.)  The fact that Biden is coming out of his cave suggests that he has his own worries.

[RatGuy]

Anybody else thinking that Trump might win this thing? 

I do, but I live in an area in which many people -- and I say this without exaggeration -- think he's the Second Coming. That perhaps skews my view of the universe.

I will say that friends who work in politics are all saying things like "I can admit that I was arrogant and wrong in my thinking that Trump would lose last time, but all signs point to a Biden win this time around. There's a push by the AARP to show Trump as someone who will gut Medicare, and there's been lots of noise about the Lincoln Project. Maybe they see the big picture where I don't.

[downer]

After Brexit and the last Trump win, my readiness to believe any pundits or opinion polls is extremely low. If people were too embarrassed to admit to pollsters that they were voting for Trump in 2016, imagine how embarrassing it would be this year.

[Parasaurolophus]

I think he was very likely to win it against Biden before COVID. Now, I think it's up in the air, but I also think his chances are not as bad as they're sometimes made to sound. In particular, COVID has made vote suppression a lot easier, a lot more likely, and a lot more natural. And since Biden isn't a great motivator, that doesn't sound great to my ears.

I hope I'm wrong, though.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Anybody else thinking that Trump might win this thing?  The numbers seem to be tightening up, and I'm more convinced than ever that "shy Tories" are a growing constituency.  (Who would dare tell a pollster that one's Trump support is due to disgust at all the rioting?--and yet, I reckon there is disgust.)  The fact that Biden is coming out of his cave suggests that he has his own worries.

Are the numbers are really tightening up?  Look at the incredible consistency of Biden and (to a lesser extent) Trump's polls: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/

I think the media wants this to be a horse race and I think Democrats are nervous about riots, but there is really no evidence that things are getting close or that Trump is suddenly in a good position.

My opinion is, as it has been, that Trump may win, but the probability of a Trump win is pretty low at this point, and that polling consistency that I mentioned suggests that Trump will not be gaining the kind of ground he needs in the next couple of months to make this thing close.

[Anselm]

Well, we still have the October surprises around the corner to make current polls moot.

I can't see how young people can get excited about Biden in the same way that they had enthusiasm for Bill Clinton, Obama or JFK.    They likely made a mistake by giving AOC only one minute at the convention, an insult to their progressive wing.

I did hear one interesting election prediction method from a pundit.  If the S&P 500 is higher on election day than 90 days previously then the incumbent party wins the presidency.  I am not sure if anyone has fact checked that one.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Well, we still have the October surprises around the corner to make current polls moot.

I can't see how young people can get excited about Biden in the same way that they had enthusiasm for Bill Clinton, Obama or JFK.    They likely made a mistake by giving AOC only one minute at the convention, an insult to their progressive wing.

I did hear one interesting election prediction method from a pundit.  If the S&P 500 is higher on election day than 90 days previously then the incumbent party wins the presidency.  I am not sure if anyone has fact checked that one.

The enthusiasm gap is real, but it is offset by enthusiasm to oust Trump.

As for your point about October surprises: There could be something, e.g. a vaccine, but for the October surprise to make polling moot people have to have malleable attitudes, and the consistency of polling suggests that people have made up their minds about these candidates.  That said, we should have a healthy skepticism of polling (and certainly of predictions based on the S&P, for example) but we also shouldn't write off the data we have in favor of speculation based on tv pundits or a mood we feel when scrolling through facebook. 

[clean]

Trump CAN win (again). 

The virus shutdown is growing old. Biden's talk to shut down again (under certain conditions) may be the right thing to do, but not a good vote getting thing to do.

Trump has done some terrible things as president and I have every reason to vote AGAINST him, but Im not sure that I have many reasons to vote FOR Biden. 

The rabid Trump supporters are not silent or hidden. But there are plenty of closet supporters that are just not happy with the way that Trump is attacked in the media.

Maybe I simply grow to detest Chuck Todd, but the more that they attack Trump, the more others will find that a vote for Trump is a response to the ever more extreme press.

(Not to deviate too much, but Chuck Todd mentioned the teen shooter in IL in this weeks Meet the Press. He notes that "he crossed state lines".  Which is true, but the fact is he lived 15 miles away (though there is a state border between home and site)!  I drive farther than that to work!  Yes, he crossed an invisible border, but the press makes it sound like he drove for hours!!   Similarly, through Trump makes it EASY! they further escalate his nuttyness so that people dont believe that anyone can be THAT nutty!) 

[marshwiggle]

Well, we still have the October surprises around the corner to make current polls moot.

I can't see how young people can get excited about Biden in the same way that they had enthusiasm for Bill Clinton, Obama or JFK.    They likely made a mistake by giving AOC only one minute at the convention, an insult to their progressive wing.

I did hear one interesting election prediction method from a pundit.  If the S&P 500 is higher on election day than 90 days previously then the incumbent party wins the presidency.  I am not sure if anyone has fact checked that one.

The enthusiasm gap is real, but it is offset by enthusiasm to oust Trump.

As for your point about October surprises: There could be something, e.g. a vaccine, but for the October surprise to make polling moot people have to have malleable attitudes, and the consistency of polling suggests that people have made up their minds about these candidates. 

If the riots keep going, they could swing things for Trump. The longer the "leadership" in those cities avoid dealing with the situation, the greater risk there is of Trump getting re-elected.

That said, we should have a healthy skepticism of polling (and certainly of predictions based on the S&P, for example) but we also shouldn't write off the data we have in favor of speculation based on tv pundits or a mood we feel when scrolling through facebook.

Any polling organizations and/or pundits who made incorrect predictions in 2016 and who get it wrong in 2020 should be fired and/or never called on for any sort of prediction in the future.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Well, we still have the October surprises around the corner to make current polls moot.

I can't see how young people can get excited about Biden in the same way that they had enthusiasm for Bill Clinton, Obama or JFK.    They likely made a mistake by giving AOC only one minute at the convention, an insult to their progressive wing.

I did hear one interesting election prediction method from a pundit.  If the S&P 500 is higher on election day than 90 days previously then the incumbent party wins the presidency.  I am not sure if anyone has fact checked that one.

The enthusiasm gap is real, but it is offset by enthusiasm to oust Trump.

As for your point about October surprises: There could be something, e.g. a vaccine, but for the October surprise to make polling moot people have to have malleable attitudes, and the consistency of polling suggests that people have made up their minds about these candidates. 

If the riots keep going, they could swing things for Trump. The longer the "leadership" in those cities avoid dealing with the situation, the greater risk there is of Trump getting re-elected.

That said, we should have a healthy skepticism of polling (and certainly of predictions based on the S&P, for example) but we also shouldn't write off the data we have in favor of speculation based on tv pundits or a mood we feel when scrolling through facebook.

Any polling organizations and/or pundits who made incorrect predictions in 2016 and who get it wrong in 2020 should be fired and/or never called on for any sort of prediction in the future.

The riots could help trump, but there is as good a chance that they could hurt him, both because he is the incumbent and because Trump's approval tends to dip when he wades into racial issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nMm2ByO7w8

[writingprof]

The riots could help trump, but there is as good a chance that they could hurt him, both because he is the incumbent and because Trump's approval tends to dip when he wades into racial issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nMm2ByO7w8

Since most of the rioters are spoiled, bored white people, it's not clear how denouncing them is "racial".

[Chris J]

You say "most of the rioters are spoiled, bored white people." Clearly, you must be referring to the white supremacists and QAnon types, rioting in support of cryypto-fascist Trump.

[Sun_Worshiper]

The riots could help trump, but there is as good a chance that they could hurt him, both because he is the incumbent and because Trump's approval tends to dip when he wades into racial issues: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nMm2ByO7w8

Since most of the rioters are spoiled, bored white people, it's not clear how denouncing them is "racial".

That may or may not be true of the rioters (please feel free to offer some data to support your assertion), but the riots are rooted in excessive force by police against black people, which makes them intertwined with racial issues.

If Trump simply denounced rioting he would perhaps become more popular, but his rhetoric instead tends to come off as insensitive, racist, and unhelpful. This has, in the past, hurt him in the polls.   

[dismalist]

As for the effect of riots on the election outcome, it seems that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :-)

I have no new polling data, nor secret knowledge, but there is an analogy: the 1968 election. There had been lots of rioting and the Law & Order guy, Tricky Dick, won, even though he lost the South to the segregationist Wallace. Moreover, there was a war to get out of, just like now, except that we have several to get out of.

[Sun_Worshiper]

As for the effect of riots on the election outcome, it seems that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :-)

I have no new polling data, nor secret knowledge, but there is an analogy: the 1968 election. There had been lots of rioting and the Law & Order guy, Tricky Dick, won, even though he lost the South to the segregationist Wallace. Moreover, there was a war to get out of, just like now, except that we have several to get out of.

Sure, but Nixon was not the incumbent, which made it easier for him to blame the sitting government.  Not to mention, the US is very different in 2020 than it was in 1968.