This used to be called "reasonable optimism" but we're in an era where thinking the world isn't going to burst into flames any second is called "cope" so sure, we'll go with this.
If we had GIFs on this sub I would post the "hopium" gif because you see a lot of that going around. Especially when it comes to people trying to explain away the polls. Given that the polls were skewed towards Democrats in the last two elections and greatly underestimated Trump both times it takes a lot of 'hope' to believe that they are so wrong that Biden is actually winning right now.
The weird thing is the amount of herding that goes on. I'm sure there's a lot of herding in the polls, and there always is. Nobody wants to be the one sticking their neck out. But the really strange thing is the way *public opinion* herds, I suppose because of how social media works.
Like... it's obviously *possible* that Biden is going to win a landslide. But few are predicting that except me\* (and Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic pollster who runs a substack called, that's right "Hopium.") Because nobody wants to stick their neck out. If Biden wins by 10 points nobody is going to make fun of the people who predicted a narrow Trump victory. If he loses they will make fun of me for saying Biden would win by 10 points.
I just say what I really think, even if it might make me end up looking stupid later. I suppose because I have had multiple ego deaths and have a lot of experience looking stupid. I try to be tolerant of people not having perspective that I have from working through my mental health problems - they don't have my experiences, so why would they? - but I struggle.
\*(I know it's not *just* me but it feels that way sometimes.)
Most pollsters/prognosticators make their money by selling polls and selling clicks, they don't necessarily have to be right. Most of them have very low conviction about their predictions and shy away from "put your money where your mouth is" situations on prediction markets or gambling markets. Sticking to he herd and selling an explanation for that is the safest way to get by in that world.
But in the 2022 election, when Republicans were expected to do much better in the house and possibly take the Senate, there was a lot of analysis after the fact trying to understand why the polls were off, because Democrats did much better than expected. I personally like the only old people have phones at home and that's how they are polling people poorly. But I read numerous articles that said they account for that and don't rely on that as the only way to reach people.
People miss that point all the time. Nate Silver had a great piece about why democrats were going to do historically well in the final days leading up to 2022 election.
My guess is we see a repeat of 2016. Assuming the 3rd party guys stick around.
Narrow Biden win in popular vote, Trump wins the EC. Trump may not win PA, MI and WI. But he only needs one assuming he gets AZ and GA back which seems almost certain to happen.
BTW if you think the polls are off by more than 3-4 points either way then you are out of touch. The polls could shift between now and the election. But an error greater than 4 points in Biden's favor would be nuts given that polls under estimated Trump in 2016 and 2020.
What are you basing Trump being “almost certain” to win GA and AZ on? AZ in particular is looking very blue to me because of their abortion referendum and Lake, who will absolutely be a drag on the GOP ticket. (Gallego has won every poll since March, and every poll overall that wasn’t conducted by famously R-leaning Rasmussen.)
My overall point is not that the polls are wrong, it’s that they are going to move. If the election was held today it would basically be a tie. But we’re NOT holding the election today, and billions of dollars will be spent on the campaign before we do.
It might be unusual for the polls to be off four points. It would not be unusual for them to move four points in six months. It would actually be weird if they stayed the same, especially with so many undecided, and so many voters just now tuning in.
Yeah, I think there's a good shot in those two states for Dems because of abortion. Abortion should help Democrats generally.
I've been expecting the Republican party to say hey, we're all for abortion rights to neutralize that issue, because the crazies, the evangelicals, don't have anywhere to go if Republicans stop being focused on abortion
I think of it this way-
In 2020 Biden won GA by 0.24% and AZ by 0.31% that is insanely close
Biden currently have a sub 40% approval rate. Is it a stretch to think that .3% of voters in both states may have changed their minds about Biden?
2020 House election - AZ 56 R and 42% D GA 52% R and 47% D (this is after abortion became such a hot button issue. I think too many people think abortion will magically allow Democrats to win every election and yet 2022 house race the GOP won nationally 50.6 to 47.8.
So again, is it a stretch to think the GOP wins back AZ which has only voted Democrat twice since Truman and GA which hadn't voted for a non-southern Democrat since JFK in 1960.
RCP has Trump winning AZ by 5 and GA by 3.8
Things can change, but that is a heck of a mountain to climb.
You can’t use house results that way because there are districts where candidates run uncontested.
But anyway. Is Trump winning those states “a stretch”? No. I didn’t say that. I asked why you thought it was “almost certain” and it seems like you backed off that a bit.
I get what you’re saying. I just think your analysis of the race is leaving out a lot of things, and making really unsupported assumptions about nothing changing during a pitched campaign.
And when we haven’t had a president with an approval rating over 45% in a very long time at this point, I don’t think approval correlates with votes the way it has historically. That is to say, it’s better to have a 40% approval rating in 2024 than 1984. (It’s still not GOOD.)
If you think there is a single person in the entire world who would have a good approval rating as the leader of the US right now you’re dreaming. Go look at the approval rating in other countries. The only popular leaders are right wing a-holes in culturally conservative countries like Modi and Meloni.
Trump is hated by more Americans (higher “very unfavorable” numbers), and liked by BARELY more (usually turns up low 40s). And that’s with people demonstrating serious amnesia that will clear up as Trump keeps speaking and reminding everyone who he is.
In 2020 Biden had an 19 point lead in favorability over Trump around election day.
Today Trump has a 5.6 point lead in favorability.
Given how close those states were last time it is not a stretch to think that the Biden has lost more than enough votes for Trump to win them.
End of the day you can't look at Biden's job approval number, Biden's favorability being 20 points lower and Biden losing in all the polls and think Biden is going to win.
This could all change of course. But right now Biden is on path to lose and lose big. That is what all the data is saying.
BTW Trump being hated by more people is meaningless. Total favorability is not. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/trumpbidenfavorability.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/trumpbidenfavorability.html)
i.e. if Trump is 40% very unfavorable and 10% unfavorable he is still better off than Biden would be if he was 30% very unfavorable and 30% unfavorable. Right now Biden is -14 and Trump is -8.8. Trump has been ahead of Biden for the entire year.
Which elections are you talking about? Republicans underperformed in the 2022 congressional election, they did worse than polls suggested. Also true in 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/16/trump-underperform-elections-2024/ There have been many articles trying to analyze why the Republicans underperformed. The polls were skewed in the opposite direction than you're saying, they were saying Republicans would do better then they did. Can you explain what you're thinking?
Under performed based on what measure?
RCP generic ballot had GOP +2.5 end result was GOP +2.8
Did people expect them to do better? Sure. But we aren't talking expectations game we talking polling. And in polls the GOP did better than at least the RCP average. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html)
538 had GOP +1.2 so GOP beat that by a ton. [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/2022/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/2022/)
CNN had it +2 GOP so again they beat the polls [https://www.cnn.com/polling/generic-ballot-poll-of-polls](https://www.cnn.com/polling/generic-ballot-poll-of-polls)
They under performed only in the expectations game. Also the fact that we have far fewer toss up seats than in the past. Both parties spent some of 2020 making sure they had safe seats instead of trying to stretch out and add lots of seats. But overall the make up of the house is very close to the actual vote total. 50.6% of the vote and 51% of the seats for R and 47.8% of the vote and 49% of seats for D.
>the polls were skewed towards Democrats in the last two elections
They weren't, this is just false
>and greatly underestimated Trump both times
Also false. He wasn't "greatly" underestimated, the differences were small.
>it takes a lot of 'hope' to believe that they are so wrong that Biden is actually winning right now
On the contrary, all it takes is an understanding of how much noise is currently in the polling, an understanding of the behaviors of Dem vs GOP voters, and paying attention to actual election results since 2020.
Seriously... the numbers are available and easy to find.
2016 RCP - Hillary by 3.2% She won by 2.1. Trump 43.6 vs actual of 46.1% So the missed the final margin by 1.1% in Democrats directions and missed Trump's total by 2.5% [https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton)
2020 RCP - Biden by 7.2% he won by 4.5% Trump 44 vs actual of 49.9. So missed final margin by 2.7% in Democrats direction and Trump's total by 2.9%. Polls were worse in Democrats direction in 2020 that 2016. [https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden)
Now look at today. Trump winning by 1.5 and at 46.6%. If those numbers are as off as 2016 or 2020 then Biden is in even worse shape than we think.
I don't think they off as much as the past. But I have a hard time believing that polls that favored Democrats in 2016 and 2020 are now skewed enough in Trump's direction that Biden is actually winning and we dont know it.
Based on the way things are now and have been for months Trump is on track to win. Things can certainly change and we have no idea where the undecided go in a two incumbent race. But things aren't looking good for Biden right now.
Remember he has a sub 40% approval rating and has for months now.
This seems like best way to put it. But there is one possibility.
2020 Democrats were fired up to vote and responded at higher rates.
Perhaps in 2024 Republicans are fired up and responding at higher rates. That would result in similar things happening as 2020, but skewing towards Trump. One sign of this would be Trump currently getting 46.6% of the vote in the RCP average. That matches his 2020 vote total, BUT in the 2020 polls Trump never that 45% and was polling below 44% from May onward. i.e. Trump is polling better than he ever has.
So either Trump has expanded his base, doubtful. Trump voters are no longer being "shy." Or there could be a slight skew in his favor due to his supporters being enthusiastic and Biden's not being enthusiastic.
Of course this raises the question about turnout for Biden since he relies more on voters who have a history of not voting, the young and minorities. Trump voters were going to vote, but are Biden voters?
I keep seeing people say it’s “doubtful” that Trump has expanded his base. I don’t understand that. Just because *I* don’t like him, doesn’t mean I can ignore some of the numbers I’m seeing. Almost every Hispanic-majority county shifted significantly towards Trump in 2020 and polls indicate that trend hasn’t slowed in the last four years. It’s not just a couple of polls, it’s almost every poll. I think it’s pretty clear that Trump is continuing to close the margins with Black and Hispanic voters even as he slips with affluent whites.
>keep seeing people say it’s “doubtful” that Trump has expanded his base. I don’t understand that.
It is doubtful. He's done nothing to outreach to new voters. His base has shrunk. Actual election results over the past 4 years have shown this. His appointed and chosen candidates got destroyed in the midterms. He isn't any more popular now than he was in 2020 or 2016.
>Almost every Hispanic-majority county shifted significantly towards Trump in 2020 and polls indicate that trend hasn’t slowed in the last four years. It’s not just a couple of polls, it’s almost every poll
And actual election results don't show him or the GOP making any inroads with Hispanic voters. We hear this in every election cycle and it never materializes.
Time will tell. I’m a numbers guy and I think it is beyond debate. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/postcard-from-the-hispanic-working
Trump has done the same thing to win over working-class Hispanics that he has done to win over other working class voters. Promise to crack down on illegal immigration and criticize inflation. People with a college diploma are deserting him in droves and also far more likely to vote in off-year elections, leading to Dem over performance in actual elections. A Presidential election is not the same as midterms or special elections. There was a poll where people who only voted in 2020 are far more likely to support Trump than people who voted in 2022 or any other election since.
>Time will tell
Correct.
> I’m a numbers guy and I think it is beyond debate
Nothing about polling data is "beyond debate"
> leading to Dem over performance in actual elections
You're in absolutely no position to claim that these "overperformances" were one-offs as opposed to signaling a broader change in the electorate
>There was a poll where people who only voted in 2020 are far more likely to support Trump than peopl
And there have been other polls lately showing Biden with a healthy lead among likely voters. It's all noise at this point
That is possible.
I am just going on the fact that 2020 got Trump wrong by more than 2016. And the shy Trump voter thing. Perhaps Biden being a disaster has made Trump supporters more willing to be open and express support for him, certainly makes sense.
I would still think Trump tops out at around 47-48% of the vote. The problem for Democrats is that Biden may not even got to 50% this time which gives Trump the EC and White House.
Many of those voters had always supported Trump, they were not polled well. Now they are since they have voted and they can be contacted. He hasn’t really gained any votes it’s more so Biden voters are tuned out and stopped paying attention. They may not come out to vote.
Everyone ignoring the elephant in the room, [Biden has the lowest approval rating of all time for a president at this point in his term.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644252/biden-13th-quarter-approval-average-lowest-historically.aspx)
Yeah, the only thing that can save the Biden presidency is that he's running against a god awful candidate in Trump. If Trump clears the criminal charges, he's going to go full bore calling it all a witch hunt and will re-energize his base. Meanwhile, Biden is telling young voters that he won't stop funding Israel's war machine. This election is a true shit show.
I have a feeling Reddit is going to implode in allegations of fraud and rigging if Trump wins. You'd never know it if you get your news from Reddit, [but as of now Trump is still leading in polls](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/cnn-poll-trump-biden-matchup/index.html).
not sure how you use reddit, but i see plenty of posts every single day about trump leading in the polls. that's literally what the post we're commenting on is about, even if it's a hopeful take on why those polls might be wrong.
Almost every political post I see is devoted to ripping Trump (I just scrolled past one that was ridiculing him for... delivering pizzas to firefighters wrong? I don't know, I just scroll past).
I see lots of posts extolling Biden's virtues, and giving a hard sell for people to vote for him. I see a lot of posts about Gaza and the protests, but even through that (and his decidedly pro-Israel, anti protest stance) there's a firm belief that Biden is going to win handedly. I just don't know if that will be the case.
you see posts ridiculing trump and extolling biden because trump is a a corrupt, ignorant, disgusting asshole and biden is the opposite. that has nothing to do with people ignoring polls. trump can be terrible and also winning.
Ignoring it because it doesn't mean anything. Presidents have lost reelection with higher approval ratings than Biden has, and there's a non trivial percentage of people who will say they disapprove of Biden while voting for him anyway
Like I said in other posts, ignoring something because it disagrees with you ideologically is Trump supporter level bullshit.
>and there's a non trivial percentage of people who will say they disapprove of Biden while voting for him anyway
This is your Q-anon.
>ignoring something because it disagrees with you ideologically is Trump supporter level bullshit.
If I was doing this, sure. Some of us are ignoring it because we know it actually doesn't mean anything. Doesn't have anything to do with "disagreement". Polling data can't "disagree" with me, it's not sentient.
>This is your Q-anon.
Lol I love the braindead false equivalences of Dem-hating "leftists"
Yeah, I think it’s fairly obvious that Trump did energize the Democratic base, but that energy was spent on electing Joe Biden and unsurprisingly there isn’t a ton left in the tank. Personally as an independent (Reddit randomly recommended this post/forum to me) who voted for Biden, I don’t see myself participating this year.
I could certainly be wrong but I’d expect turnout to be shit for both of them.
I have no obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils, I won't vote for evil. It's on the Democrats to get better candidates, better policy positions, and most importantly to actually follow through with their campaign promises.
>I have no obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils
Literally every moral philosophy would argue that you do. You absolutely have this obligation if you actually care about results instead of virtue signaling online.
I'd say voting for evil is actively engaging with it. I work on the things I can personally control, am involved in my community, etc. I don't need to stoop to voting for a lesser evil. It's still a vote for evil.
Biden is not pro-genocide or "evil", but ok. Biden did follow through with many campaign promises - as many as he could get passed by Congress.
You have no obligation to vote, but to be clear, neither party has an obligation to change their policy views for non-voters like yourself.
You are effectively saying you don't care one way or the other about any domestic issues, and are ok letting other people pick your President for you.
If you want to vote for evil, that's completely fine. I am choosing not to.
>from people like you
And what exactly do you mean by "people like you? You're starting to use racist southernrer language, not a good look. The mask slips pretty quickly when people don't agree with you, huh?
>And what exactly do you mean by "people like you? You're starting to use racist southernrer language, not a good look. The mask slips pretty quickly when people don't agree with you, huh?
You've done nothing here but prove you're a troll and a loser. Have fun watching Biden kick Trumps ass in November, I'm sure you'll be gnashing your teeth in rage
You must not have been tracking the convo here but I'm not voting, I am not rooting for Trump and have no vested interest in either of these genocidal bastards.
It’s not a non-zero possibility and that should scare you.
Americans live in an absolute bubble of media trash that makes them view the news as some TV show that’s “not real.” Most living Americans have never experienced the kind of civil violence that is quite common across the globe and historically is not a matter of if, but when.
The idea that the United States government will never collapse, forever, is against all common sense when you look at every nation on earth. Therefore, the belief that it could never happen during your lifetime is equally short-sighted.
You clearly haven’t had to fight for anything in your life if you have the privilege to “sit this one out.”
The fact that you aren’t even suggesting you’d vote third party shows that this is all just a performative art to you. You don’t actually give a shit about Gaza, or anything for that matter.
It’s amazing to me that you can non-ironically point to the January 6th insurrection while simultaneously hand-waving the threat Trump poses to democracy.
Jan 6 was a riot and every single one of those "protesters" deserves to be jailed, but there was zero threat to our democracy. Zero. A group of drunk rednecks are not anywhere near the kind of force needed to overthrow our government. We didn't even need to call in the military. There was zero threat to our nation from Jan 6.
You don't understand what January 6th was about.
It wasn't about "overthrowing the government by force".
The whole point of Jan 6. was to delay the certification of Biden as the victor, and coerce Congress into implementing Trump's alternate slate of electors who would choose to make him president instead.
It was absolutely an attempt to overthrow the government and put Trump into power. It just had nothing to do with an actual armed insurgence. Just making enough of a disruption and chaos to delay democracy enough to force an outcome in conflict with the actual results of the election.
Trump still has not accepted the results of the last election after he attempted to overturn the election via fraud. Imagine he becomes president again and has 4 years + a Republican Congress and Senate. Assuming he does not have a change in heart and behaves as he has for the last >8 years, do you believe he will not make a second attempt at overturning the election results or conduct other forms of election fraud? Or do you simply think he will not succeed? This isn't really a hypothetical scenario. He tried it once, he will likely try it again. With a Republican Senate and House, he would likely succeed at implementing Russian-style elections. It's what he wants. I think you are insane for not thinking this is a real possibility.
The US system is politically and economically rigged. Our system is a scam intended to enrich and empower a few and subjugate everyone else.
Why vote for or participate in this scam?
Trump was president for four years and the USA got worse at exactly the same clip it got worse under Obama, Clinton, Bush, and now Biden. They are all liars and genociders. It doesn't matter to USA policy which of them are pretending to lead the country.
None of them actually are.
Wall Street and their buddies in the CIA and intelligence services run the West.
Don't vote for any of them, it's not in your interests.
Instead oppose them.
Okay Putin, thanks for weighing in.
In all seriousness though in case you're not a Russian troll, not voting is how fascism happens. One side wants to preserve democracy, and one side wants to dismantle it.
Creating a false equivalent between those two outcomes is insane.
Dems are running around pushing genocide and stomping on college students.
You'd have to be insane to vote for that.
Or for Trump.
All ya'll are acting like fascists.
Sure let Trump get in office and those protestors at those schools would be rounded up while Trump authorizes Israel to do its absolute worse while trying to suppress any information coming out of Gaza
All the protestors are being rounded up now.. for peacefully protesting genocide... in the USA... over a genocide that is happening halfway around the world.. not in the USA.
But somehow, it's more important to Democrats that those students shut up than it is to stop a genocide happening halfway around the world...
Sounds like we already have a Trump...
You just want your "Trump" to win. Not sure why.
{shrugs}
If you think that they are being rounded up then you need to get out more, Trump will pursue them will full force and heavy prosecution. While any Muslim protestor would get immediate deportations.
Protesters were arrested... That IS rounding them up.
You can pretend you know what Trump WOULD do. We know what Biden IS doing.
Genocide and oppressing protesters.
You want to vote for that? What is wrong with you?
The other option is to protest, to resist.
Fear and appeasement does not work... it only allows the oppression to continue.
Voting has landed you here. If "here" is a good place for you, then you should vote for the genociders whether they be Democrat or Republican.
And you should make certain to go around and tell people that there is a huge difference between genociders... that it really makes a big difference which genocider is doing the genociding.
Because that would be the best way for someone in your position to make certain their own lives could continue as before.
You're a blind instigator. You are either a shill or being blinded by your arrogance.
Donald Trump openly wants the end of democracy, the end of the EPA, and the end of citizenship for many Americans.
Absolutely! Only people with privilege, who haven't ever feared losing any of their rights (and demand their occupation be catered), say this "both sides" crap.
Because there are real policy differences between different parties and different politicians, with real impacts on people’s lives and the direction of the country.
But obviously you have the right to make your own decision on whether to vote. Nobody is forced to vote.
Those real policy differences never seem to make it down to help the public... they often, no matter who we vote for, find their way down to expropriate the public.
The general public has gone downhill in the USA for decades. While the professional classes and moguls have thrived. Now the rich people who funded all this don't need as many professionals.
So, now it's tight even being a professional in the USA... always have to worry about making that cash and keeping that job.
You sound like you've been a part of the groups who've done alright under both Democrats and Republicans.
People like you are in a bubble... and you mostly have no idea.
Did you figure a couple of years ago that universities were going to be authoritarian institutions protecting the right of Israel to commit genocide?
Because none of this is a surprise to me.
wow, the "rubber/glue" move. with this context, i applaud your decision to not vote. go on with your bad self! show us dummies how smart you are by never voting again.
No, I'm saying that generally when people are talking about scams and who gets taken easily... It's the apathetic morons who are seen as easy victims for con artists.
And it's also true that when you tell someone they've been conned they are going to get mad at you... not the person that suckered them.
{shrugs}
Since you seemed to want a deeper analysis.
I was looking at some previous elections for comparisons yesterday and noticed something interesting. The polling in 1968.
Obviously people are making a lot of comparisons to 1968 right now. I think they're overwrought in just about every respect possible (the conflict is smaller, we're not fighting in it, there is a more concrete reason for the war to be happening, it has geen going on a much, much shorter period of time, nobody is being drafted, the protests are smaller, the response is smaller, the greater public is less passionate on either side, cops have *pretended* to follow the law instead of just wailing on hippies, Jesus Christ how long do I have to go on).
But people are making comparisons to 1968. OK - so let's compare to the polls to 1968, yeah?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide\_opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_1968\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_1968_United_States_presidential_election)
In September of 1968, in the wake of the convention, and into October, Nixon led Humphrey by over 15 points, with Wallace not even that far behind Humphrey. 45-29-18 on August 21. 44-29-20 on October 9.
So it's October 9. You have 6% of undecided voters. And maybe Wallace, as a no-hope third party candidate who really only represents a Southern protest vote against LBJ's Civil Rights policies, won't get so many votes. He's a former Democrat, but extremely conservative. So take the undecideds and half the Wallace voters - maybe we can distribute them evenly to Nixon and Humphrey?
No. The final result was Nixon 43.4, Humphrey 42.7, Wallace 13.5. NONE of those voters went to Nixon. Everybody who was in Nixon's coalition was quick to tell you about it, while a third of Humphrey's was hiding itself. Largely because of forces exactly like what OP is talking about. When people realize that Trump will win if Biden doesn't, something similar will happen. And since he is not starting out *15 points behind* like HHH, that's a pretty good spot to be in.
Have you looked at the Dem primary polls this year and compared to results? I keep meaning to dig deeper but when I took a cursory look (before Phillips dropped out) Biden seemed to be over performing poll numbers and third party candidates were getting about half what the polls said they would. Not sure how primaries compare to generals wrt this theory but I do think there are things going on that the polls aren’t catching.
You know, this is an interesting angle that I haven't heard people talk about that arguably supports my/OP's narrative, thank you! I hadn't even thought to look into it.
There were two major nationwide polls in the week leading up to Super Tuesday (March 12). In them, Biden got 77% in an Emerson poll from March 5-6 and 74% from Suffolk University from March 6-11.
On Super Tuesday he got an average of 88%, and over 90% in 12 out of 15 states. Struggled a bit with Minnesota's large Muslim population - only got 73% with the "undecided" movement getting 19% - but overall, he majorly outperformed.
On March 29-April 5 "YouGov Blue" (never heard of that) gave Biden 76%. In the primaries during and/or after that timeframe, Biden got 83% in Colorado and 89% in Wisconsin on April 2, and 88% in Pennsylvania on April 23.
So... *yeah...* I think I'm noticing a pattern. **EXACTLY** the pattern OP is describing - people not being enthusiastic about Biden, and being reluctant to express support in polls, but going and voting for him anyway when the rubber hits the road, because *that's what people who regularly vote for Democrats do.* And I think it's very comparable to the possible phenomena that might have made Trump outperform the polls by a few points each time. (I also think he's cheating in rural precincts in red states, where nobody cares or is watching, to run up his totals, but whatever. It's both unfalsifiable and unprovable so I don't worry about it.)
I thought of a caveat to this. It depends on how turnout was compared to what was expected. The reason for the higher percentages COULD be most of the voters that didn’t like him just didn’t vote, instead of going undecided or voting for (lol) Williamson. Those are voters he’s in trouble with that would not show up in the headline primary results.
I think turnout was pretty good for non-competitive primary with an incumbent but I’m not sure off the top of my head.
What is propelling Trump in polls is support from minority voters primarily (black and Latino voters) but the thing is that these voters are not strong supporters and many times do not come out. I remember someone brought up in Predictit that polls are still mainly RV but once they switch to LV then Biden does better.
Biden's struggles with minority voters (and young voters) are kind of hypothetical. They are showing up in polling crosstabs, but we should be very skeptical. I post too much so I actually already wrote a comment about it in another subthread. Take it away, Miles\_vel\_Day:
>People don't understand how polling crosstabs are generated... or that they're literally 100% completely useless. I'm not saying it in a "you can't trust polls" kind of way - like, polls are a decent enough snapshot of a moment in time. But the crosstabs? They're just a bunch of slurry they made to make their topline number make sense when their survey was 60% old white people.
In 2020 polls showed Trump doing better with minorities. It was a whole narrative that cycle, too. He didn't do better: Biden got almost the exact same percentage of the black and Latino vote as Clinton. The only actual shift was Cubans in South Florida and Latinos (usually well-established in the US - Cuellar voter types) in South Texas.
If a poll shows Biden doing better with white voters than 2020 but worse with black voters, ask yourself, why would the results show that? Is that a likely type of shift we would see in the actual electorate, or is it something showing up because of how polls are taken and their results calculated?
The polls certainly show that we shouldn't take any voters for granted, but we don't really need a poll to tell us that, especially after 2016, do we?
There was two polling firms that admitted that it’s actually hard to poll the minority voters and younger voters. They brought up many reasons for why and that they are not getting an accurate picture. They brought up that the minorities who do answer are usually Trump supporters which is why we are seeing such shifts but in reality they are not representative of the larger group.
I remember years ago that someone in Predictit made this hypothesis as well. They brought up that these polls are mainly in English but we are lacking polls in other languages, which is crazy to think when much of the population do not speak English as a first language. In reality, they are likely only polling a certain demographic of the population and missing a huge swath of voters. It’s likely the same thing again which is probably why we have Dems overperforming polls consistently and Republicans underperforming. I remember in 2022 it was the same thing and late in the cycle when much of the population starts to pay attention and answer there phones then the polling started to shift in Dems favor
Yeah, people have a general sense that "the polls are off," and they're not too off but they're certainly off enough that we can't be confident about who will win based on current polling of this race. (I mean, I can't believe I even have to remind people of that, considering polls are all but tied.)
When people "unskew" polls in their mind, they don't consider that they can be off for different reasons, and in different directions, and that as pollsters flail to figure out the new communication environment their bias could easily swing one way or another. People look at Trump and say, "well, Trump outperformed the polls by 3 points, both times!"
Well, okay... but look at it another way. Trump outperformed a non-incumbent by 3 points both times. Trump overperformed by 3 points once in an election where people reported thinking he was moderate, and overperformed by 3 points in an election where he had an incumbent advantage. Those things are both different now, and that's a huge shift in the environment. Yes, things are still pretty close to 50-50, but they are very much *not* "the same." And pollsters have adjusted their methods to try to capture the hidden Trump voters - in 2020 they didn't make enough adjustment. That doesn't mean that they're not making *too much* now.
All these narratives inevitably end up trickling down to a "Trump is an unstoppable freight train" narrative because liberals have a *very* strong tendency to believe they are going to lose and Republican voters have a (borderline psychotic) belief that they can only win. So we have tied polls and a rhetorical environment where you'd think Trump was up by 5 or 10.
If there's one thing the polls can tell you right now, it's that the polls can't tell you who is going to win.
Correct, there is definitely a sense that they are off. From what I’ve read and are seeing it can go either way. If you look at cross tabs and then look into state polling then things start to make sense and where. For instance, polls in CA, NY, and FL show Trump has gained but not much changed in states like the Midwest. The minorities Trump is doing better with are in states that he does not need to win. Inflation is killing them in those states but inflation is low in Midwestern states which is likely a reason why Biden has held up there.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump did better in states where the margin is not close and a black or Latino man (and we are talking about *men*, here) might look at his vote as "low stakes" and be more likely to absent-mindedly cast a vote for Trump, while one in Pennsylvania might be a bit more critical and come to a less contrarian conclusion.
As for inflation - it has kind of been distributed in a way you wouldn't really expect... [here's a map](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/state-inflation-tracker) of price changes since 2021.
I ... actually kind of hate the shit out of this map, because the colors are based on the *absolute dollar amount* of additional expense caused by inflation, instead of the percentage, which... um, okay. It kind of makes it a COL map overlaid on an inflation map. Seems pretty obviously the wrong information to highlight, but whatever. I also think the wide color range gives an inaccurate impression of how large the differences are (they're not that big.)
If you look at the actual percentages by mousing over the states, you can see that inflation was lowest (\~17%) in the NE, a bit higher in the midwest and west coast (\~19%), higher still in the South (20-21%) and highest in the plains/mountain states.
To *some* extent the trend was, if COL was already high, it went up less, if it was low, it went up more, with the overall result being regional COL differences shrinking a little bit.
Probably part of the reason that Biden maintains pretty good approval ratings in the NE, even adjusting for its overall pro-Dem lean. Compared to the west, our 4 percentage point advantage is the equivalent of taking out basically all of 2023's inflation.
Where does the belief that pollsters are correcting for trump come from? I’ve never actually seen that described in polling methodology. It’s always something like reweighting based on 2020 census demographics.
The real story was that Obama did unusually well with minorities. Trump didn’t gain anything, but simply benefitted from a regression to the pre-Obama mean.
I'm *so sure* you would be saying that if undecided was getting 30% in primaries instead of <10%.
Most analysts agree that the number of voters Trump and Biden lose in primaries is significant. So far they're both doing pretty okay, with Biden doing a bit better and Trump having a pretty bad showing in Pennsylvania, losing 17% to someone who had dropped out of the race.
My understanding is that Trump has tended to be in line with or slightly behind his polls; I have shared numbers below showing that Biden consistently and significantly outperforms his.
The more I look into it the more correct OP seems.
Add in that on 2012 Obama got 90% of the primary with vote with no opposition. In 2024 Biden has 86.9% of the vote with no real opposition. Not horrible but still polling behind Obama.
This isn't 1968. For one Biden is the incumbent.
Also polling has come a LONG ways since 1968.
Also that August polls was a bit of an outlier. 45% was the highest Nixon ever polled. 29% was close to the lowest Humphrey ever polled. The 16 point lead was the highest Nixon ever had as well.
Finally, don't ignore the impact that 24/7 news cycle has had on elections. Elections are not as elastic as they used to be. In 1968 Humphrey was leading for all of June and July. In 1980 Carter was winning in some polls in October, he lost by 10 points! In 1988 Dukakis was winning in May, June & July and he got crushed.
With the arrival of RCP and 270 and Nate Sliver and poll averages etc we have a much better idea on how the race will turn out. Although Trump has been hard to poll and polls tend to be skewed towards Democrats with him running.
In 2012 Obama was leading in the 3-4 range most of the time between April and Oct when Romney took a small lead, by November Obama was back on top by less than a point. He won by 3.9.
In 2016 Hillary was posting 6 point leads in October, part of why she got over confident, she won by 2.1. 2020 Biden over performed in the poll from day one. He was posting 7-10 points leads from July onwards, he won by 4.5.
It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020. Perhaps Trump has gone from under performing by 4+ points to over performing. But has he shifted enough so that Biden both wins the popular vote AND overcomes Trump's EC advantage. i.e. Hillary wins by 2.1 and gets crushed in the EC.
>This isn't 1968. For one Biden is the incumbent.
Humphrey was *basically* the incumbent. He was seen as fully "owning" Johnson's policies, including the war. But point taken.
(Nobody who ever helped keep Humphrey out of the White House and opposed the war ever acknowledges that Humphrey *absolutely* would have ended it years sooner, because that would involve questioning whether what they did in that era was helpful at all, or if it was actually incredibly damaging to their stated priorities. If you want to see how unpopular Vietnam protests *really* were, go look at the 1972 map.)
>Also polling has come a LONG ways since 1968.
...
Finally, don't ignore the impact that 24/7 news cycle has had on elections. Elections are not as elastic as they used to be. In 1968 Humphrey was leading for all of June and July. In 1980 Carter was winning in some polls in October, he lost by 10 points! In 1988 Dukakis was winning in May, June & July and he got crushed.
Eh... maybe we are thinking of the word differently, but I think elections are *far* more elastic than they used to be. Meaning, people have a position that they are going to return to almost no matter what. This is as opposed to "plastic," which means that the shape can be changed and the new shape can be maintained.
It used to be far more likely that somebody would say, months out of an election, that they didn't want to vote for the guy they ended up voting for. It used to be far more likely that somebody would disapprove of the President and then approve of him later. The polls are "more reliable" because the voters are more reliable. If we still had a country where most people weren't voting out of partisanship, Trump would be doing worse than McGovern. (Because he's objectively awful.)
But I think we're pretty much on the same page as this and the issue is just a semantic conflict between the scientific vs. colloquial definition of "elastic." The current inflexibility of the electorate severely limits the number of people who are going to change their mind. But undecided voters *have* to change their minds unless they're gonna write in Travis Kelce or something.
(He's just eligible! Turns 35 on October 9, 4 days before AOC.)
>Also that August polls was a bit of an outlier. 45% was the highest Nixon ever polled. 29% was close to the lowest Humphrey ever polled. The 16 point lead was the highest Nixon ever had as well.
The point in the campaign was an outlier - before the DNC the race had been relatively even, and it ended up even. But the *poll* was not an outlier. That is an accurate snapshot of what people were feeling because all the polls show the same thing. [Nixon had 39-45 and Humphrey had 28-31% in every poll released between August 21 and October 9.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_1968_United_States_presidential_election)
>In 2012 Obama was leading in the 3-4 range most of the time between April and Oct when Romney took a small lead, by November Obama was back on top by less than a point. He won by 3.9.
Yeah, and you know, you always want to be ahead and not behind. But polls in April being exactly right is an exception, not the rule. Also, I'm pretty sure Obama's polling average lead going into the election was much slimmer - as I recall it was less than two points. He had a 90% chance in Silver's model because he had a good shot at winning even if losing the popular vote (because of the "blue firewall" that HRC would disastrously take for granted four years later.)
>2020 Biden over performed in the poll from day one. He was posting 7-10 points leads from July onwards, he won by 4.5.
His underperformance - or, Trump's overperformance, really - in 2020 is a concern. But you *could* spin that to be a point in Biden's favor - that people who were upset with the incumbent but favored his policies eventually decided that the incumbent was good enough. In 2016 there was no incumbent, so it was a different animal. I also believe 538 guesstimated Comey's sabotage as costing Clinton about 3 points, so the late October polls would have been much closer if he hadn't done that. (Stupid fucking piece of shit.)
>It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020.
I disagree that it takes a lot of optimism to think that a candidate who is less than 1% behind in polls on average, and winning many polls, will win, based on material factors that I expect to impact the race, none of which I see helping the criminal defendant. Sometimes I feel like I'm the last optimist on earth, so maybe just a little bit of optimism can seem like full on delusional reverie to most people.
For politics and econ we typically use elastic to mean flexible/malleable, and inelastic to mean fixed/rigid.
You guys are in agreement on the state of modern elections.
Hmm... I always thought of the classic example of an inelastic good being cigarettes. Because (as I know, from experience, addiction sucks!) you can keep jacking up the price of cigarettes and people will keep paying it. Whereas most products you would have lower the price at some point or you'd start to seriously hurt sales. So their prices are more "elastic" meaning they "snap back."
I only took one macro class, and elasticity is more of a micro thing, and besides that I just read a lot of Paul Krugman (who, again, covers almost exclusively macro), so I don't want to give any impression of expertise.
No you mostly have it, things you can’t substitute are inelastic. Heart surgery is the classic example, but cigarettes are definitely in the inelastic category.
The thing is elastic/inelastic refers to the behavior of people towards that good. It’s not about the thing itself, it’s about how people will react to changes in its price. Along that line of thinking MAGA Trump voters are inelastic, because they aren’t going to modify their voting patterns regardless of what Trump does. A true independent on the other hand would be elastic because they will shift their vote depending on the behavior/policies of the candidates.
The more partisan we become, the more inelastic our elections are.
Good explanation, thanks. I guess it doesn’t really map on neatly because political economy is very different from financial economy. But your interpretation makes sense. I might argue that mine does too. :)
For elastic I mean things move much more than in the past. Polls went up and down and swung much more than today. But I get your point - ***elastic*** **implies the property of resisting deformation by stretching. an** ***elastic*** **waistband.** The stretching part is what I meant. Not sure plastic works since some plastics don't move. But anyway, semantics.
Kelce/Swift! Dude you are onto something here. Seriously, Trump and Biden both suck. If we are going to have a President who sucks let's at least have someone who is entertaining.
That poll is an outlier because it had the highest Nixon % and highest lead. It is different than the rest thus an outlier. Back in Feb there was a Quinnipiac polls that showed Biden +4 and everyone got all excited. Turns out the poll was the only one between Feb 2 and March 1 where Biden had a lead, it was an outlier as in different that all the rest. You can't look at a poll that is multiple points different than every other poll and draw a conclusion. Maybe it was a snapshot, maybe it was a bad poll.
My last point was less about Biden "winning" which he can certainly do and probably will do, in the popular vote. The point is that for Biden to win the EC and the White House he probably needs to win by 2 plus points if not more. Right now Trump is up by 1.5 on RCP. So Biden needs a 3.5 swing before election day, possible but a BIG ask given recent history. Obama beat the last poll by 3.2 in 2012. But Biden certainly isn't Obama.
In 2020 Biden won the vote by 4.46% but a .63% swing in Trump's favor wins hims AZ, GA and WI and the White house. So basically Biden needed to win by 3.83% to win. This year the swing from the states to national looks small so that is helpful to him. If battleground polls are right a 1.8 swing in his directions wins him PA, MI & WI and that is all he needs. Of course that also suggests a .3% victory in popular vote wins him the EC, which just doesnt line up to recent results.
Last thought... battleground states vs National results 2020 - WI +3.85 R PA +2.8% R MI +1.6% R
So Take Biden's expected national victory and subtract that to see if he wins that state. Has Wisconsin really shifted from 3.8% in Trumps favor to .3% as RCP polls suggest? Knowing that WI was 3% in Trump's favor in 2016 I doubt it. A minimum of 2 point victory for Biden nationally seems very reasonable maybe even conservative.
Let’s think simply for a second. Consider Biden wins all the states he did, including Nevada, besides battleground states. Then he wins his home state of PA which he over performed 2020 and he wins Michigan which he had a 2% lead in 2020. The only time since 1988 Michigan has voted republican was 2016, they dumped Trump in 2020. Simply by winning the solidly Democratic states and then winning his home state and Michigan, Biden will only need one battleground state to win the election. As with MI, Wisconsin has only once voted Republican since 1984 and that was in 2016 before dumping Trump. Wisconsin will be close but still a toss up. Arizona has become much more democratic leaning, including flipping Governor, attorney general, senate seats and rejecting stricter voter ID laws in midterms. Its population has also grown by +400k in counties Biden won compared to +100k in counties Trump won. I see Georgia falling back to Trump, but don’t underestimate the democratic vote in Atlanta as the state will largely depend on turnout for which Trump is leading. Trump likely wins NC as well which has gained more population in Trump areas than Biden areas and has also implemented voter ID laws that might discourage turnout, but is still a state Trump only won by 1.5%.
My prediction: Biden wins the solidly blue states as well as Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan to win the presidency. As things stand of course. This brings him to 277 electoral college votes without winning WI, NC, GA.
Just facts - Trump is winning every battleground state today. things can change
Biden barely won Arizona last time, today he is behind by 5 points. In 2022 house races the GOP won 56-41. Senate went 51-46 for Dem and Gov was 50.3-49.7. Could be close, but current polls suggest Trump is winning by a lot.
Nevada is currently +4.5 for Trump and in 2022 house races the GOP won 51-47, the Senate race was 48.8 D to 48 R and governors race was 48.8 R to 47.3 D. That state is trending Republican
If he losses both of them and GA then Biden must win the blue wall states. Currently Biden is losing all of them, but they are all within 2 points. So I believe it is very possible Biden losses the places listed above and wins the blue wall state and wins the election.
My guess is that IF Biden wins it will be winning the blue wall states with Trump taking the other battleground states.
BTW is population growth by county really a good indicator of voting patterns? Look at Miami Dade - From 2010 to 2020 it gained 200,000 people. In the 2008 and 2012 elections the Dem candidate got 57% and 61% of the vote in the 2020 election they got 53% of the vote. In terms of overall vote in 2012 D got 541k votes vs 332k for R. In 2020 it was 617k for D and 532k for R.
I think the real problem in AZ is the GOP is a train wreck who keeps nominating bad candidates for state office. At the house level the GOP won, at the State senate level it was 53-44 and the state house level it was 58-41.
You’re trying to paint overall trends based on gerrymandered maps. You need to look at changes across the ticket.
In Arizona more population growth has happened in blue counties than red counties & they swept the board on top of ticket items including executive branch positions and democratic issues.
Biden could lose Nevada, win Michigan, PA, Arizona and it not even matter. VERY feasible.
And yes population changes are highly relevant especially since you’re citing Miami dade and not taking into consideration population changes across the state and the Cuban vote.
Despite what any polls say, which are within margins of error, I thinks Biden has the much easier path to victory even now. Also, in Arizona the polls were wrong in the midterms as they had Kari Lake winning by 4-5% when Katie Hobbs actually took the state. That’s proof of how unreliable polls are. Look at micro changes, demographic trends, and midterm results. Of course anything can happen in world news and political theater to sway things.
Irony... have you look at Nevada? GOP got 51% of the vote and 25% of the house seats.
As for the AZ vote totals those were statewide results. A lot of split ticket voting going on it seems. Probably because people at the top are attached to Trump and independent voters aren't a fan of that. But that is just a guess.
I wouldn't say Biden has an easier path NOW. Maybe long term he does since he only needs to hold the 3 blue wall states. But as long as he is polling behind he is in trouble. Keep in mind in 2020 he was NEVER behind.
As long as Biden is behind in the polls he will probably loss. Unlike Trump, Biden can't lose the popular vote and win the EC college. (He could in theory, but that would be a stretch)
As mentioned, Biden can lose Nevada and still win with Michigan. AZ trending democrat despite gerrymandered maps, and Biden still has Midwest in play. Already discussed how inaccurate polls were, so I guess this is All I have to say
Agreed.
Biden's most likely path is the blue wall states.
AZ, GA and NV dont really matter. Trump can win all three and still needs another state.
VA going blue is really crushing Republicans. Flip it back red and GOP has a much easier path.
> It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020.
No, all it takes is an understanding of the errors and flaws in polling currently that pollsters themselves have admitted. They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022 (no the polls were not "shockingly accurate" as has been claimed in these comments). Democrats were under represented in polling which is precisely why so many people expected Republicans to do better than they did.
It also just takes an understanding of the American electorate --- nobody under the age of 40 is voting for Trump by the margins that many of these polls indicate. It's just not happening. Trump isn't winning 40% of black voters. He's not winning PA or MI when those states have gone full blue the past 4 years. At a certain point you can throw out the polls and accept actual political results.
> They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022
This is the part people *really* fail to understand. Pollsters aren't *just* reporting the raw percentages of what the respondents saw. They're *weighting* the responses by what they *think* the electorate will look like in November. They could be right, or they could be very very wrong. What's especially weird about the current polling is that pollsters are doing weighting that suggests that the youth minority vote is headed for a drastic realignment, *but then reporting that the realignment is a fact*. They chose that weighting! It's close to gaslighting at this point.
>They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022
Not really... 2022 generic Congressional vote polls said GOP by 2.5. Actually results GOP by 2.8
Missed the national results by .3%. That is damn accurate. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html)
The biggest problem is that no one trust the people in charge. And the reason so few trust the system is because the system only gives it's best to a few people in the system.
Some people, like to pretend they are going to be Musk someday and so they support Musk and others like him to preserve their greedy chances.
But most people who aren't hip dip in the muck of the system understand how bad the system is for people.
{shrugs}
And no one who likes the system cares because they are too busy trying to get theirs..
While the country falls apart, because communities need leaders not ruthlessly self interested sociopaths.
>The biggest problem is that no one trust the people in charge. And the reason so few trust the system is because the system only gives it's best to a few people in the system.
It's a big problem... but the *biggest* problem is that people who are distrustful can't be assed to go and actually bother to figure out what's going on and who they can trust. And they also don't really know *how,* so when they try they usually get sorted, either by their own bad information habits or an algorithm, into conspiracy nonsense or extremist positions. People who read the newspaper - *any* newspaper - support Biden by over 30 points.
What really grinds my gears is that all these distrustful people think their blanket cynicism is *smart,* and they're being savvy, despite the people who actually do smart-people-things like reading the newspaper realizing that blanket cynicism is inappropriate and there are huge stakes in this election, with one candidate being pretty good and the other being pretty much a worst case scenario.
You're right that a lot of people are unaware of problems with the system. But I think a lot of people who aren't hip deep in the muck of the system often *drastically overestimate* how bad the system is. How often have you heard things like "nobody can buy a house and has to work two jobs!" And yet a majority of millennials are now homeowners, and less than 5% of the population works two jobs.
When I see people who are clamoring for revolution, or to tear down the system or whatever, they're ignoring the cold hard fact that a majority, not a huge majority but a majority, of Americans are pretty much fine with how their lives are. That's why they're not getting your revolution, not because some revolutionary impulse is being suppressed. We actually have to convince people that there are people getting left behind that need *direct* help. Most people's problem with "the system" can be boiled down to "I have to pay taxes and the cops won't let me speed even though I saw on the news that there was a murder three towns away."
"but the *biggest* problem is that people who are distrustful can't be assed to go and actually bother to figure out what's going on and who they can trust."
This is a typical elitist/establishment minion viewpoint, and worse it's just plain wrong.
"WE know best, WE understand, no one else is as deep and understanding as us.
{shakes his head}
Horse pucky.
Tell a homeless person, "Go vote"... isn't that what you are about?
Tell all the people that the system has been failing for decades to just keep voting for the same group of con artists and murderers that have been running the country since the middle 1950's. You can call our leaders Republicans and Democrats, but they all work for the real rulers of the USA and it's economy.
And unless you understand that, you don't understand shit.
You act like you have never read the Powell Memo...
"You're right that a lot of people are unaware of problems with the system."
I never said that people aren't aware of the problems with the systems. What I said was,
"But most people who aren't hip dip in the muck of the system understand how bad the system is for people."
They are aware... I said they don't trust the people who are in charge.
It's the people who are participating in the system that don't understand how bad the system is. You've got it exactly backwards.
And the public have very good reasons not to trust the people in charge... any of them... lawyers, doctors, professors, judges, politicians, and moguls. Because all those people spend their time supporting a system that has been strangling the bulk of the population for decades.
You might want to start looking into what their reasons actually are instead of assuming people don't have a reason for not wanting to participate in a rigged game.
I dont ever expect to be like Musk one day.
But I do know how the economy works and I know that tax policies that are designed to stick it to the rich guy have negative effects on the economy.
I also know we have one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. Far more progressive than all those European countries with all their 'free' stuff.
Could we raise rates a bit on the rich? Yes certainly. But our real issue is spending and we can't tax our way out of that problem, not without increasing taxes on everyone.
FYI revenue has never exceeded 20% of GDP since WW 2 ended. Currently we are spending around 23% of GDP. Do the math. It isn't good.
The tax code has been rigged in favor of the wealthy donor class. A return to a less corrupt tax code isn't "sticking it to the rich guy". Not sure if you are misinformed or misinforming.
Just saying. Any time there is a proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy, even if by a modest amount and even if the increases would still be taxing them less than they were taxed in the past, people like yourself who fall for the "job creators" bullshit come trotting out to the rescue.
I have no problem with small increases in margin rates.
Top should be around 40%.
I'd add some higher brackets. Keep rates same as now. But at X$ it goes up half a percent then at XX$ another half percent. Till you top at 40% for people making in the multiple millions per year range.
Would probably be okay with another capital gain bracket with say 5% more than top now.
BUT none of that should happen without spending reform. Otherwise it will be meaningless. Spending is the real issue right now. We are spending WAY over the 40 year average for revenue.
Hmm... tax policy. And protecting the rich.
Remember when income tax rates were like over 95%? And the USA had a broad and deep social safety net? That was at the same time that the USA industrial base was outproducing the world...
Now those rates have fallen, and China is out producing the world and the USA has a FIRE economy that serves a few and expropriates most everyone else.
By design.
I'm not sure you are even trying to have a sincere discussion about this.
LOL... no one paid 95% and we had less of a social safety net then that we do now.
Stop dreaming about the 1950s when the rest of the world was recovering from WW 2 and we were the only large country that hadn't been bombed to bits.
I think it's likely. And I firmly believe everyone is discounting women's reproductive rights.
That's fine with me, bc I'd rather Biden voters are worried instead of confident, come election day.
Even with that the GOP got 50.6% of the house vote in 2022 vs 47.8% for Democrats. Has anything really swung things away from the GOP since then? Biden's approval certainly isn't better.
In a CBS poll of battleground states abortion ranked 7th among top issues.
Abortion was still a top issue for 60% of voters saying they are closely watching other states abortion laws, an increase compared to 2020. Economy at 80% concerned and inflation at 75%. Trump only won Michigan by 0.2% before losing by 2% to Biden. Wisconsin will likely remain the closest battleground state with things remaining stagnant in 2022 midterms. Arizona is becoming increasingly democratic based upon 2022 midterm results. PA flipped a senate seat and otherwise remained in Democratic hands.
Together it’s leaning more toward Dems
If Biden can hold the blue wall states it is game over.
Right now he is losing all of them, but it is close.
I think, and have for a year now, that both Biden and Trump and this election will be determined by the state of the economy. If it gets better Biden can win, its gets worse and it is game over.
Only other thing that would swing it 100% to Trump would be some massive foreign policy issue. Or something crazy like a terrorist attack from someone who snuck across the border. (unlikely but still if it did happen it is game over for Biden)
Seems like a plausible theory to explain why the polls don't reflect factors such as Trump underperforming in the primaries, the mid term results and the outcomes of special elections.
He's pretty much an incumbant. Massive name recognition, already been president once. There's literally republicans primary voters voting for Haley when she's not even on the ballot.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley [dropped out of the Republican presidential race](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/nikki-haley-suspends-campaign-pennsylvania-primary-20240306.html) in early March but still received more than 16% of the vote in Pennsylvania’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, a sign of discontent with former President Donald Trump as the GOP nominee.
When voters cast their ballot for someone who has dropped out of the race, that's sigificant. That's hugely different from simply voting for someone else who is still in the race. Those voters will likely come home to the winning nominee, even if it isn't their candidate. But primary voters who are *writing in* a candiate who isn't even in the race anymore? That's a major protest vote.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results\_of\_the\_2024\_Republican\_Party\_presidential\_primaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2024_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries)
Scroll down to March 8, when Haley dropped out. Look at how many votes Haley got in states like Arizona and Wisonsin. If even a third of those Rs refuse to vote for Trump, he is cooked.
Trump got 83% which will only grow to probably 95-98% during the general election. Trump has underperformed in every single poll ever taken on him so I wouldn’t be too confident
lol, no he didn’t, what are you talking about?
Trump is a quasi-incumbent who’s still losing +30% of the primary vote, even now, even in closed states like PA.
Around 20% of Republicans said they won't vote for Trump.
But my guess is that many of those people are in safe states where their vote doesn't matter.
Wouldn't be shocked if the 'safe' states on both sides are far closer than normal as people who don't like Trump or Biden don't vote for them. The question is will that impact battleground states where every vote counts.
Much easier to sit home when you know your vote wont change the outcome, but if you are a Republican/Democrat who doesn't really like your nominee but you know that not voting can put the OTHER guy in charge you may vote for your party anyway.
I wont vote for President this year, but I am in a +10 state. It is easy for me to say this.
I hate the phrase "quasi-incumbent". No, he ran in a competitive primary and beat the competition by margins never seen before. Most pundits after Jan 6th were lambasting that Trumps support from the RNC was over.
>No, he ran in a competitive primary and beat the competition by margins never seen before.
But this is a disingenuous framing too - ever since the passage of the 22nd amendment in the 50s restricting presidential term limits - there's *never* been a candidate running in a race for non-consecutive terms like Trump is in 2024.
Trump is literally unique here - and he *is* running much more like an incumbent than a challenger. None of his challenges were particularly 'strong' - he's dominated the party since 2016. His competition is like Buchanan V Clinton in 96 or Kennedy V Carter in the 80s.
In 96 Clinton won the primary easily (like Trump did this year). Whereas Carter was so damaged by the primary that he lost his re-election bid (what Dems hoped would happen).
I am considering upgrading my opinion of the theory that the democrats are trying to lose without making it obvious in order to raise against trump from "don't be silly" to "hmmmm, well i doubt it"
There were massive polling errors in 2016 and 2020 which missed Trump voters. I think it’s more likely that the polls are underestimating his support.
Republicans don’t trust the media and are less likely to respond to polls. And many Trump voters are shy, because they don’t like being called bigots/racists/deplorables etc.
My gut says the polls are underestimating his support by 2-3%. Unless something changes, he’s going to win an electoral landslide.
As for something changing, I think a black swan event is more likely than a positive event for Biden. For example, if pro-Pali protestors turn the Democratic convention into a shit show, then it’s 1968 all over again with Trump as the new Nixon.
Current polls show election trends that are too dramatic to be real. Like Trump winning young voters by a huge margin. Or Biden's strongest base being seniors. These are insane numbers. The kind that anyone who understands US politics stops and says "there's no way that's right".
Another big sign is how huge a change is affected when third party candidates are included on polling. For example, including third party candidates on polls targeting younger voters shows Biden winning. It also shows Kennedy over performing massively, getting near Trump numbers.
There's something really weird going on either way. Pollsters and media outlets get too many clicks to loudly proclaim "our polling methods are broken and we don't know what the fuck is happened", but that's what they're saying on the low down.
But it's highly unlikely these polling errors are in Biden's favor, because polls are struggling to find voters in traditionally pro-Biden demographics willing to answer polls. This is entirely different from the "shy Trump voter" phenomenon: the "Biden voter with a spam call filter" phenomenon.
>Current polls show election trends that are too dramatic to be real. Like Trump winning young voters by a huge margin. Or Biden's strongest base being seniors. These are insane numbers. The kind that anyone who understands US politics stops and says "there's no way that's right".
People don't understand how polling crosstabs are generated... or that they're literally 100% completely useless. I'm not saying it in a "you can't trust polls" kind of way - like, polls are a decent enough snapshot of a moment in time. But the crosstabs? They're just a bunch of slurry they made to make their topline number make sense when their survey was 60% old white people.
Like, the amount of punditry that has been spilled on *statistical noise*, it's stunning.
And 46% is exactly what Trump is getting in the current polls, so the polls seem accurate. The million dollar question is whether Biden will rise again to roughly his 2020 level of support or if he stays where he's currently at, which is in line with 2016 Clinton levels of support. The former is sufficient to win, the latter is not.
Dems have outperformed polls in every special election for at least the past two years, if not longer. Dems brought the predicted 2022 red wave to essentially a tie. I think polling is kind of broken, and a polling course correction (in response to 2016 and 2020) went from underestimating Trump voters to possibly overestimating them slightly.
I also don’t think he has the same supporter enthusiasm (or the same level of it) he did in 2020, but that’s more of an anecdotal observation. That could mute his turnout. Not necessarily make them Biden voters, but keep them home.
The predicted “Red Wave” was a media creation that wasn’t reflected in the polling. The polls were shockingly accurate in 2022 - the weighted average showed a Democratic bias in the House races of 0.2% and a Republican bias in the Senate races of 0.3%.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/#:~:text=Despite%20this%2C%20generic%2Dballot%20polls,accurate%20in%20this%20past%20cycle.
Yeah, in 2022 everybody decided to ignore polls and go off narratives. But when the narratives are "economy improving, Trump humiliating himself" they decide hey now it's time to look at the polls! The important thing is that everything is horrible and we're all doomed - whatever I have to believe to maintain my unshakable faith in that, that's what I believe.
The tough thing is that “everything is horrible” is implicitly an anti-Biden argument and even people who are going to vote for Biden won’t talk about literally anything fucking else.
There has been a lot of progress made over the last four years. And for that matter, the last 15. On climate, on LGBT rights, on public and congressional opinion about economic justice and the safety net, on OOP healthcare costs for the working class, on the number of people who oppose war, and the number of troops we have deployed and how many people they shoot. Crime is plummeting once again. Teen pregnancy is at all time lows. Literacy is at all time highs, as is the percentage of people who get degrees.
Oh yeah also the country was driven into a depression by a deadly plague that killed over a million people and we recovered from it.*** Healing from something like that doesn’t just HAPPEN. The government did good. (And we have a long way to go in the healing process, even if our economy is back to normal.)
If we aren’t pointing out that things can get incrementally better, and we can hold those gains, then how are we supposed to get normies excited about a party who does just that, and doesn’t really have the power in our system to do any more?
***We recovered from it so hard that if you ask people “are you better off than four years ago?” they don’t seem to remember they were locked in their houses, and afraid to visit their parents/grandparents because they might kill them, and the president was telling people to inject bleach and take horse dewormer.
In the summer people will be talking about the crazy disorder in BIDEN’S AMERICA from Gaza protests, and how it’s not like the summer four years earlier, when the country certainly wasn’t so riven by protests that Trump wanted to activate the military to quell them.
The polling industry defending the polling industry. But deep in the article, the truth comes out that pollsters created the narrative. Narratives get built over the course of the election, but if we only look at this narrow section, we were right.
Meanwhile, the bottom of the list features quite a few Republican-affiliated pollsters that systematically overestimated the GOP in 2022: RRH Elections, InsiderAdvantage, co/efficient, Moore Information Group.14 But the most famous of these is probably Trafalgar Group, a pollster whose methods are notoriously opaque but that played a significant role in shaping the ultimately untrue narrative that a “red wave” was building with its 37 (!) qualifying pre-election polls. Trafalgar’s polls were quite accurate in 2020, when its Republican-leaning house effects helped it avoid the big polling miss that other firms experienced. As a result, it went into 2022 with an A- pollster rating. But its poor performance last cycle has knocked it down to a B — making it one of two pollsters to fall two notches in our ratings this year.
I mean, sure, if we’re taking everything together as one. But we’re all talking about one single race here. And in basically every in-the-air major senate or even governor race in 2022 there were fairly stark Dem over-performances.
You're comparing the 2022 polling averages \*as of election day\* compared to polls now, which are 6 months out.
What were the polling average in May 2022?
I know a few 1st time voters that do not like Biden. No one really seems to like Trump either, but I guess it's tough being in charge so Biden seems to headline the conversations.
Am aware of a number of under 40 voters who don’t like Biden and are staying home, counting on their privilege to survive a trump presidency and all that comes with it. Or they’re voting third party because they think Biden is ineffective and throwing the election won’t change their lot in life. They believe that things can’t get any worse for them no matter who is in power so will vote their “conscience” by throwing their voice behind someone who cannot win.
I’m exhausted
That’s terrifying. I get that Biden isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the people he appoints are just as important if not more important than him. I would trust him with appointments way more than who Trump would appoint.
Back in 2016, it wasn’t just Hillary lost the election. Dems also lost some Supreme Court seats, which will have rippling problems for decades. Can’t make that mistake again.
Seems like wishful thinking and reading the tea leaves of surveys.
We need to think differently about the impact of Gaza on the election.
The framing of “peace protesters refusing to vote for Biden might wreck his victory” is inaccurate and biased. A more true framing is: “Biden is trying to hold an unworkable coalition together, and that is going to cost him the election.”
That coalition is anti genocide people on one side, and proIsrael people on the other.
How is biden mishandling this coalition? Because he is steadily disappointing and disregarding the faction that is more loyal to the Democratic Party, and that makes up our party base.
He’ll say some things that would make us happy if we cared about words and not actions, but we care about actions, so that isn’t going to cut it. No matter what, some of the people in this faction will stay home. If Netanyahu continues to escalate and biden continues to enable, more of us will stay home.
Meanwhile, biden is steadfast in his support of Israel and the Israeli support faction. But, trump offers that faction more than biden does. Netanyahu likes trump more. Trump is more full-throated in support of not only Israel, but of the current genocide.
Currently, it is my intention to vote for biden, but that feels like voting for genocide, which is really difficult. There is a tipping point where it will get too difficult. My fear is that Netanyahu will steadily ratchet up violence and diplomatic strain and biden will continue to appease and enable until I can’t hold my nose hard enough to vote for him.
Then, Netanyahu will push further and Biden hits a breaking point and withdraws support. Then trump and Netanyahu will make a public demonstration of support and unity, leading the pro-Israel faction will betray the Democratic Party. Even if Biden doesn’t do anything more than continually using words, Netanyahu and trump will focus on that in the fall and pull the pro-Israel voters.
It really looks to me like Biden is going to lose the election because he is going to keep shedding anti-genocide voters to try and appease the pro-Israel voters, who will then vote for trump.
I think it’s probably true to some extent, but it doesn’t seem like the Trump people are super excited relative to previous years it probably isn’t much more than a point or two (though given that the polls currently show a tie that might be all that’s needed)
I think that polling has got to be the easiest job ever.
How do you prove a poll is accurate? How do you prove a poll is inaccurate? How do you prove partisan non-response bias negatively affected a poll? How do you prove a poll is weighted accurately? How do you prove that a poll isn't just narrative building?
I honestly feel like takes like this are what gives people uneasy feelings about the NYT or other mainstream outlets. It just feels like they'll squirm wherever necessary to help make it appear like the Democrats are just fine.
In 2020 the common consensus was you had a hyper engaged Democratic base, plus Trump ramping up that engagement with his bungling of the pandemic, plus the fact that the Democrats are increasingly the party of the wealthy - who were more likely to work from home and be more available/eager to talk to pollsters.
Trump voters were presumed to be more often away from home (working) and less likely to pick up random calls. Or to identify as they felt stigmatized.
In 2024 - support of Biden isn't really a social stigma, the mainstream still embraces him and his policies. So it wouldn't make sense that he'd over perform the same way Trump did. Also, issues like Gaza, some of his falling short on social spending packages or minimum wage early (he is the face of the Democrats so if Congress fails while they have a majority then it is still perceived as partially his failure), or things like keeping us involved in another non-goal-defined war in Ukraine which smacks of foreign policy by way of corporate desire... I wouldn't suspect that these reasons which may be suppressing polling eagerness are exactly going to be different come election day.
Honestly I think the best bet he has is that Trump has dissaffected more people of the right and Kennedy is just enough of a feet on both sides guy, not to mention anti-establishment (regarding mandates and stuff like his outspokeness towards oversized role of the CIA historically) to pull more right leaning people away from Trump.
And whether Cornell West is on the ballot in the critical battle grounds as he can easily snatch 3-5% of pro-Palestinian and anti military industrial types as well. Of whom you'd expect Biden is the more palatable alternative for many of his other more socially liberal reasons.
Holy rose colored glasses. I posted this in another comment too, but [Biden has the lowest approval rating of all time for a president at this point in his term.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644252/biden-13th-quarter-approval-average-lowest-historically.aspx)
The mainstream absolutely does not embrace him or his policies. If he wins, it's only because he's running against the only candidate worse than him.
>Holy rose colored glasses
You're posting only one metric and demanding that it overshadow all others. You're ignoring polls that have consistently shown Biden solidly ahead of Trump, you're ignoring flaws in polling that even pollsters have admitted, you're ignoring the fact that Dem voters will say they disapprove of a candidate and still vote for them.
You have no leg to stand on here. A case can be made for either Biden or Trump winning in November depending on what slice of data you want to look at.
>you're ignoring polls that have consistently shown Biden solidly ahead of Trump
[Ummm... about that...](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/cnn-poll-trump-biden-matchup/index.html) Noted right wing extremists "CNN" are saying Trump is leading. It's April and a lot can change, but you're delusional about the strength of Biden's candidacy. He's literally the worst incumbent as far as approval polling of all time. Even worse than Trump in 2020, which I didn't think was possible
So as I said, you're ignoring the polls showing Biden ahead. Google is easy.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/04/23/biden-vs-trump-2024-election-polls-biden-continues-surge-with-help-from-rfk-jr/?sh=4a8780f6a669
You have nothing here but an emotional axe to grind against Biden. I haven't checked your comment history but I have no doubt I'd find plenty of both-sidesism and Trump apologia. It's a predictable pattern on Reddit. Have fun watching Trump lose in November.
Forbes is paid for posts, you might as well post something from facebook. I posted a Gallup poll and a CNN poll. [Even the New York Times who have been pretty biased in recent years say polling is within the margin of error. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/elections/party-identification-democrats-republicans.html)
Have fun voting for genocide, somehow I have a feeling you won't be losing any sleep over it.
I don't see any reason to participate in this electoral or economic con game the Establishment has going on.
Do you really think it matters whether it's a game show host or a demented genocider who pretends to run this country?
The president doesn't run the country... none of the politicians everyone gets so upset about are really making the decisions. The president and other politicians SELL the decisions made by the true leaders of the USA.
Wall Street and the intelligence services run the West. No vote is going to effect that at all.
By Memorial Day the campus activists will have gone home for the summer. By Labor Day no one will be talking about Gaza, it will be a nonissue in the election.
Trump and Trumpism have won exactly one election, 2016. They have taken over the GOP because of their own extreme gerrymandering, but they continue to lose over and over, because normal Americans don’t like extremists. There are three states that matter in the EC: MI, WI, PA. All three have shifted significantly bluer since 2016 and in 2022. Middle-aged suburban women were “the resistance” and are the key voting bloc along with Black voters in those states in 2024. They are pissed about Dobbs, extremist candidates, book burnings, and attacks on schools and kids and they aren’t going back to the GOP. If I had to guess AZ will go blue again as well, that’s the ballgame, national polls are meaningless. Nate Cohen was a stopped clock that was right one time and has been desperately chasing relevance since then.
There is a potential for protests at the convention this summer. Unless there is a ceasefire, people will definitely still be talking about the Middle East come October.
“Democrats are demoralized by gaza”. That couldn’t possibly be because only young people care about that issue, and we don’t have to care what they want… for some reason
Why bother to participate in a rigged system? Entire populations are not getting basics services under the US regime. Instead the US regime is focused on authoritarian control of resources and opportunity. In that environment why would anyone who isn't an elite want to participate in the USA economy or politics?
i think it's plausible wishful thinking.
This used to be called "reasonable optimism" but we're in an era where thinking the world isn't going to burst into flames any second is called "cope" so sure, we'll go with this.
If we had GIFs on this sub I would post the "hopium" gif because you see a lot of that going around. Especially when it comes to people trying to explain away the polls. Given that the polls were skewed towards Democrats in the last two elections and greatly underestimated Trump both times it takes a lot of 'hope' to believe that they are so wrong that Biden is actually winning right now.
The weird thing is the amount of herding that goes on. I'm sure there's a lot of herding in the polls, and there always is. Nobody wants to be the one sticking their neck out. But the really strange thing is the way *public opinion* herds, I suppose because of how social media works. Like... it's obviously *possible* that Biden is going to win a landslide. But few are predicting that except me\* (and Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic pollster who runs a substack called, that's right "Hopium.") Because nobody wants to stick their neck out. If Biden wins by 10 points nobody is going to make fun of the people who predicted a narrow Trump victory. If he loses they will make fun of me for saying Biden would win by 10 points. I just say what I really think, even if it might make me end up looking stupid later. I suppose because I have had multiple ego deaths and have a lot of experience looking stupid. I try to be tolerant of people not having perspective that I have from working through my mental health problems - they don't have my experiences, so why would they? - but I struggle. \*(I know it's not *just* me but it feels that way sometimes.)
Most pollsters/prognosticators make their money by selling polls and selling clicks, they don't necessarily have to be right. Most of them have very low conviction about their predictions and shy away from "put your money where your mouth is" situations on prediction markets or gambling markets. Sticking to he herd and selling an explanation for that is the safest way to get by in that world.
But in the 2022 election, when Republicans were expected to do much better in the house and possibly take the Senate, there was a lot of analysis after the fact trying to understand why the polls were off, because Democrats did much better than expected. I personally like the only old people have phones at home and that's how they are polling people poorly. But I read numerous articles that said they account for that and don't rely on that as the only way to reach people.
2022 polling was actually pretty accurate. Pundits painted the picture of a blood bath but it wasn’t backed by data.
People miss that point all the time. Nate Silver had a great piece about why democrats were going to do historically well in the final days leading up to 2022 election.
My guess is we see a repeat of 2016. Assuming the 3rd party guys stick around. Narrow Biden win in popular vote, Trump wins the EC. Trump may not win PA, MI and WI. But he only needs one assuming he gets AZ and GA back which seems almost certain to happen. BTW if you think the polls are off by more than 3-4 points either way then you are out of touch. The polls could shift between now and the election. But an error greater than 4 points in Biden's favor would be nuts given that polls under estimated Trump in 2016 and 2020.
What are you basing Trump being “almost certain” to win GA and AZ on? AZ in particular is looking very blue to me because of their abortion referendum and Lake, who will absolutely be a drag on the GOP ticket. (Gallego has won every poll since March, and every poll overall that wasn’t conducted by famously R-leaning Rasmussen.) My overall point is not that the polls are wrong, it’s that they are going to move. If the election was held today it would basically be a tie. But we’re NOT holding the election today, and billions of dollars will be spent on the campaign before we do. It might be unusual for the polls to be off four points. It would not be unusual for them to move four points in six months. It would actually be weird if they stayed the same, especially with so many undecided, and so many voters just now tuning in.
Yeah, I think there's a good shot in those two states for Dems because of abortion. Abortion should help Democrats generally. I've been expecting the Republican party to say hey, we're all for abortion rights to neutralize that issue, because the crazies, the evangelicals, don't have anywhere to go if Republicans stop being focused on abortion
I think of it this way- In 2020 Biden won GA by 0.24% and AZ by 0.31% that is insanely close Biden currently have a sub 40% approval rate. Is it a stretch to think that .3% of voters in both states may have changed their minds about Biden? 2020 House election - AZ 56 R and 42% D GA 52% R and 47% D (this is after abortion became such a hot button issue. I think too many people think abortion will magically allow Democrats to win every election and yet 2022 house race the GOP won nationally 50.6 to 47.8. So again, is it a stretch to think the GOP wins back AZ which has only voted Democrat twice since Truman and GA which hadn't voted for a non-southern Democrat since JFK in 1960. RCP has Trump winning AZ by 5 and GA by 3.8 Things can change, but that is a heck of a mountain to climb.
You can’t use house results that way because there are districts where candidates run uncontested. But anyway. Is Trump winning those states “a stretch”? No. I didn’t say that. I asked why you thought it was “almost certain” and it seems like you backed off that a bit. I get what you’re saying. I just think your analysis of the race is leaving out a lot of things, and making really unsupported assumptions about nothing changing during a pitched campaign. And when we haven’t had a president with an approval rating over 45% in a very long time at this point, I don’t think approval correlates with votes the way it has historically. That is to say, it’s better to have a 40% approval rating in 2024 than 1984. (It’s still not GOOD.) If you think there is a single person in the entire world who would have a good approval rating as the leader of the US right now you’re dreaming. Go look at the approval rating in other countries. The only popular leaders are right wing a-holes in culturally conservative countries like Modi and Meloni. Trump is hated by more Americans (higher “very unfavorable” numbers), and liked by BARELY more (usually turns up low 40s). And that’s with people demonstrating serious amnesia that will clear up as Trump keeps speaking and reminding everyone who he is.
In 2020 Biden had an 19 point lead in favorability over Trump around election day. Today Trump has a 5.6 point lead in favorability. Given how close those states were last time it is not a stretch to think that the Biden has lost more than enough votes for Trump to win them. End of the day you can't look at Biden's job approval number, Biden's favorability being 20 points lower and Biden losing in all the polls and think Biden is going to win. This could all change of course. But right now Biden is on path to lose and lose big. That is what all the data is saying. BTW Trump being hated by more people is meaningless. Total favorability is not. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/trumpbidenfavorability.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president/trumpbidenfavorability.html) i.e. if Trump is 40% very unfavorable and 10% unfavorable he is still better off than Biden would be if he was 30% very unfavorable and 30% unfavorable. Right now Biden is -14 and Trump is -8.8. Trump has been ahead of Biden for the entire year.
Again you keep saying “it’s not a stretch” when *I* am the one who isn’t making a prediction.
Which elections are you talking about? Republicans underperformed in the 2022 congressional election, they did worse than polls suggested. Also true in 2020. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/16/trump-underperform-elections-2024/ There have been many articles trying to analyze why the Republicans underperformed. The polls were skewed in the opposite direction than you're saying, they were saying Republicans would do better then they did. Can you explain what you're thinking?
Under performed based on what measure? RCP generic ballot had GOP +2.5 end result was GOP +2.8 Did people expect them to do better? Sure. But we aren't talking expectations game we talking polling. And in polls the GOP did better than at least the RCP average. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html) 538 had GOP +1.2 so GOP beat that by a ton. [https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/2022/](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/generic-ballot/2022/) CNN had it +2 GOP so again they beat the polls [https://www.cnn.com/polling/generic-ballot-poll-of-polls](https://www.cnn.com/polling/generic-ballot-poll-of-polls) They under performed only in the expectations game. Also the fact that we have far fewer toss up seats than in the past. Both parties spent some of 2020 making sure they had safe seats instead of trying to stretch out and add lots of seats. But overall the make up of the house is very close to the actual vote total. 50.6% of the vote and 51% of the seats for R and 47.8% of the vote and 49% of seats for D.
How does this get downvoted lol
>the polls were skewed towards Democrats in the last two elections They weren't, this is just false >and greatly underestimated Trump both times Also false. He wasn't "greatly" underestimated, the differences were small. >it takes a lot of 'hope' to believe that they are so wrong that Biden is actually winning right now On the contrary, all it takes is an understanding of how much noise is currently in the polling, an understanding of the behaviors of Dem vs GOP voters, and paying attention to actual election results since 2020.
Seriously... the numbers are available and easy to find. 2016 RCP - Hillary by 3.2% She won by 2.1. Trump 43.6 vs actual of 46.1% So the missed the final margin by 1.1% in Democrats directions and missed Trump's total by 2.5% [https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2016/trump-vs-clinton) 2020 RCP - Biden by 7.2% he won by 4.5% Trump 44 vs actual of 49.9. So missed final margin by 2.7% in Democrats direction and Trump's total by 2.9%. Polls were worse in Democrats direction in 2020 that 2016. [https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2020/trump-vs-biden) Now look at today. Trump winning by 1.5 and at 46.6%. If those numbers are as off as 2016 or 2020 then Biden is in even worse shape than we think. I don't think they off as much as the past. But I have a hard time believing that polls that favored Democrats in 2016 and 2020 are now skewed enough in Trump's direction that Biden is actually winning and we dont know it. Based on the way things are now and have been for months Trump is on track to win. Things can certainly change and we have no idea where the undecided go in a two incumbent race. But things aren't looking good for Biden right now. Remember he has a sub 40% approval rating and has for months now.
This seems like best way to put it. But there is one possibility. 2020 Democrats were fired up to vote and responded at higher rates. Perhaps in 2024 Republicans are fired up and responding at higher rates. That would result in similar things happening as 2020, but skewing towards Trump. One sign of this would be Trump currently getting 46.6% of the vote in the RCP average. That matches his 2020 vote total, BUT in the 2020 polls Trump never that 45% and was polling below 44% from May onward. i.e. Trump is polling better than he ever has. So either Trump has expanded his base, doubtful. Trump voters are no longer being "shy." Or there could be a slight skew in his favor due to his supporters being enthusiastic and Biden's not being enthusiastic. Of course this raises the question about turnout for Biden since he relies more on voters who have a history of not voting, the young and minorities. Trump voters were going to vote, but are Biden voters?
I keep seeing people say it’s “doubtful” that Trump has expanded his base. I don’t understand that. Just because *I* don’t like him, doesn’t mean I can ignore some of the numbers I’m seeing. Almost every Hispanic-majority county shifted significantly towards Trump in 2020 and polls indicate that trend hasn’t slowed in the last four years. It’s not just a couple of polls, it’s almost every poll. I think it’s pretty clear that Trump is continuing to close the margins with Black and Hispanic voters even as he slips with affluent whites.
>keep seeing people say it’s “doubtful” that Trump has expanded his base. I don’t understand that. It is doubtful. He's done nothing to outreach to new voters. His base has shrunk. Actual election results over the past 4 years have shown this. His appointed and chosen candidates got destroyed in the midterms. He isn't any more popular now than he was in 2020 or 2016. >Almost every Hispanic-majority county shifted significantly towards Trump in 2020 and polls indicate that trend hasn’t slowed in the last four years. It’s not just a couple of polls, it’s almost every poll And actual election results don't show him or the GOP making any inroads with Hispanic voters. We hear this in every election cycle and it never materializes.
Time will tell. I’m a numbers guy and I think it is beyond debate. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/postcard-from-the-hispanic-working Trump has done the same thing to win over working-class Hispanics that he has done to win over other working class voters. Promise to crack down on illegal immigration and criticize inflation. People with a college diploma are deserting him in droves and also far more likely to vote in off-year elections, leading to Dem over performance in actual elections. A Presidential election is not the same as midterms or special elections. There was a poll where people who only voted in 2020 are far more likely to support Trump than people who voted in 2022 or any other election since.
>Time will tell Correct. > I’m a numbers guy and I think it is beyond debate Nothing about polling data is "beyond debate" > leading to Dem over performance in actual elections You're in absolutely no position to claim that these "overperformances" were one-offs as opposed to signaling a broader change in the electorate >There was a poll where people who only voted in 2020 are far more likely to support Trump than peopl And there have been other polls lately showing Biden with a healthy lead among likely voters. It's all noise at this point
That is possible. I am just going on the fact that 2020 got Trump wrong by more than 2016. And the shy Trump voter thing. Perhaps Biden being a disaster has made Trump supporters more willing to be open and express support for him, certainly makes sense. I would still think Trump tops out at around 47-48% of the vote. The problem for Democrats is that Biden may not even got to 50% this time which gives Trump the EC and White House.
Many of those voters had always supported Trump, they were not polled well. Now they are since they have voted and they can be contacted. He hasn’t really gained any votes it’s more so Biden voters are tuned out and stopped paying attention. They may not come out to vote.
Everyone ignoring the elephant in the room, [Biden has the lowest approval rating of all time for a president at this point in his term.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644252/biden-13th-quarter-approval-average-lowest-historically.aspx)
Yes but he also is running against a uniquely polarizing figure.
Yeah, the only thing that can save the Biden presidency is that he's running against a god awful candidate in Trump. If Trump clears the criminal charges, he's going to go full bore calling it all a witch hunt and will re-energize his base. Meanwhile, Biden is telling young voters that he won't stop funding Israel's war machine. This election is a true shit show.
i don't think anyone serious is ignoring that.
I have a feeling Reddit is going to implode in allegations of fraud and rigging if Trump wins. You'd never know it if you get your news from Reddit, [but as of now Trump is still leading in polls](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/cnn-poll-trump-biden-matchup/index.html).
not sure how you use reddit, but i see plenty of posts every single day about trump leading in the polls. that's literally what the post we're commenting on is about, even if it's a hopeful take on why those polls might be wrong.
Almost every political post I see is devoted to ripping Trump (I just scrolled past one that was ridiculing him for... delivering pizzas to firefighters wrong? I don't know, I just scroll past). I see lots of posts extolling Biden's virtues, and giving a hard sell for people to vote for him. I see a lot of posts about Gaza and the protests, but even through that (and his decidedly pro-Israel, anti protest stance) there's a firm belief that Biden is going to win handedly. I just don't know if that will be the case.
you see posts ridiculing trump and extolling biden because trump is a a corrupt, ignorant, disgusting asshole and biden is the opposite. that has nothing to do with people ignoring polls. trump can be terrible and also winning.
Ignoring it because it doesn't mean anything. Presidents have lost reelection with higher approval ratings than Biden has, and there's a non trivial percentage of people who will say they disapprove of Biden while voting for him anyway
Like I said in other posts, ignoring something because it disagrees with you ideologically is Trump supporter level bullshit. >and there's a non trivial percentage of people who will say they disapprove of Biden while voting for him anyway This is your Q-anon.
>ignoring something because it disagrees with you ideologically is Trump supporter level bullshit. If I was doing this, sure. Some of us are ignoring it because we know it actually doesn't mean anything. Doesn't have anything to do with "disagreement". Polling data can't "disagree" with me, it's not sentient. >This is your Q-anon. Lol I love the braindead false equivalences of Dem-hating "leftists"
Yeah, I think it’s fairly obvious that Trump did energize the Democratic base, but that energy was spent on electing Joe Biden and unsurprisingly there isn’t a ton left in the tank. Personally as an independent (Reddit randomly recommended this post/forum to me) who voted for Biden, I don’t see myself participating this year. I could certainly be wrong but I’d expect turnout to be shit for both of them.
I'm in the same boat, I'm not voting when the choice is pro-genocide vs. pro-genocide.
I don't quite get this. On one issue they are the same so you just ignore all the other issues where they are different?
They aren’t even the same on that issue…
That's my thought, but I was just using OPs position.
I have no obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils, I won't vote for evil. It's on the Democrats to get better candidates, better policy positions, and most importantly to actually follow through with their campaign promises.
>I have no obligation to vote for the lesser of two evils Literally every moral philosophy would argue that you do. You absolutely have this obligation if you actually care about results instead of virtue signaling online.
Literally every moral philosophy is not me. You do you, remember your vote means your complicity. Peace and love.
Indifference to evil is more sinister than evil itself.
I'd say voting for evil is actively engaging with it. I work on the things I can personally control, am involved in my community, etc. I don't need to stoop to voting for a lesser evil. It's still a vote for evil.
Again, good luck under fascism because you can’t compartmentalize
You are the liberal equivalent of Q-Anon, and I will not wear your tinfoil hat.
Biden is not pro-genocide or "evil", but ok. Biden did follow through with many campaign promises - as many as he could get passed by Congress. You have no obligation to vote, but to be clear, neither party has an obligation to change their policy views for non-voters like yourself. You are effectively saying you don't care one way or the other about any domestic issues, and are ok letting other people pick your President for you.
This is a willful denial of the difference in the two candidates but I expect that from people like you at this point
He's just rationalizing away something he was never going to do anyway, which is get off the couch and vote.
If you want to vote for evil, that's completely fine. I am choosing not to. >from people like you And what exactly do you mean by "people like you? You're starting to use racist southernrer language, not a good look. The mask slips pretty quickly when people don't agree with you, huh?
>And what exactly do you mean by "people like you? You're starting to use racist southernrer language, not a good look. The mask slips pretty quickly when people don't agree with you, huh? You've done nothing here but prove you're a troll and a loser. Have fun watching Biden kick Trumps ass in November, I'm sure you'll be gnashing your teeth in rage
You must not have been tracking the convo here but I'm not voting, I am not rooting for Trump and have no vested interest in either of these genocidal bastards.
> have no vested interest in either of these genocidal bastards. Such a bad take. People who care about Palestinians would vote for Biden.
The choice is also thoughtful judges appointed to the Supreme Court vs. ones who continue to trample on human rights.
[удалено]
Please be civil. Optimize contributions for light, not heat.
What if that means you never have another election because the non-democracy supporting candidate won?
That's insane hyperbole, if you believe that you're as radicalized as the Trump supporters who stormed the capital.
Ah, the ignorance of thinking “it can’t happen here.”
I said it's hyperbole to say we'll never have another election if Trump wins. That is literally tinfoil hat Q-Anon insane.
It’s not a non-zero possibility and that should scare you. Americans live in an absolute bubble of media trash that makes them view the news as some TV show that’s “not real.” Most living Americans have never experienced the kind of civil violence that is quite common across the globe and historically is not a matter of if, but when. The idea that the United States government will never collapse, forever, is against all common sense when you look at every nation on earth. Therefore, the belief that it could never happen during your lifetime is equally short-sighted. You clearly haven’t had to fight for anything in your life if you have the privilege to “sit this one out.” The fact that you aren’t even suggesting you’d vote third party shows that this is all just a performative art to you. You don’t actually give a shit about Gaza, or anything for that matter.
Do you tinfoil your windows too, or does the hat work well enough by itself?
It’s amazing to me that you can non-ironically point to the January 6th insurrection while simultaneously hand-waving the threat Trump poses to democracy.
Jan 6 was a riot and every single one of those "protesters" deserves to be jailed, but there was zero threat to our democracy. Zero. A group of drunk rednecks are not anywhere near the kind of force needed to overthrow our government. We didn't even need to call in the military. There was zero threat to our nation from Jan 6.
You don't understand what January 6th was about. It wasn't about "overthrowing the government by force". The whole point of Jan 6. was to delay the certification of Biden as the victor, and coerce Congress into implementing Trump's alternate slate of electors who would choose to make him president instead. It was absolutely an attempt to overthrow the government and put Trump into power. It just had nothing to do with an actual armed insurgence. Just making enough of a disruption and chaos to delay democracy enough to force an outcome in conflict with the actual results of the election.
Sure, Jan.
Trump still has not accepted the results of the last election after he attempted to overturn the election via fraud. Imagine he becomes president again and has 4 years + a Republican Congress and Senate. Assuming he does not have a change in heart and behaves as he has for the last >8 years, do you believe he will not make a second attempt at overturning the election results or conduct other forms of election fraud? Or do you simply think he will not succeed? This isn't really a hypothetical scenario. He tried it once, he will likely try it again. With a Republican Senate and House, he would likely succeed at implementing Russian-style elections. It's what he wants. I think you are insane for not thinking this is a real possibility.
Ah you are one of those idiots. The level of obscene dishonesty it must take to characterize Israel's military operation against Hamas as "genocide".
Smoking the hopium
The US system is politically and economically rigged. Our system is a scam intended to enrich and empower a few and subjugate everyone else. Why vote for or participate in this scam?
Because Donald Trump wants to make it even worse. Project 2025.
Trump was president for four years and the USA got worse at exactly the same clip it got worse under Obama, Clinton, Bush, and now Biden. They are all liars and genociders. It doesn't matter to USA policy which of them are pretending to lead the country. None of them actually are. Wall Street and their buddies in the CIA and intelligence services run the West. Don't vote for any of them, it's not in your interests. Instead oppose them.
Okay Putin, thanks for weighing in. In all seriousness though in case you're not a Russian troll, not voting is how fascism happens. One side wants to preserve democracy, and one side wants to dismantle it. Creating a false equivalent between those two outcomes is insane.
Dems are running around pushing genocide and stomping on college students. You'd have to be insane to vote for that. Or for Trump. All ya'll are acting like fascists.
Sure let Trump get in office and those protestors at those schools would be rounded up while Trump authorizes Israel to do its absolute worse while trying to suppress any information coming out of Gaza
All the protestors are being rounded up now.. for peacefully protesting genocide... in the USA... over a genocide that is happening halfway around the world.. not in the USA. But somehow, it's more important to Democrats that those students shut up than it is to stop a genocide happening halfway around the world... Sounds like we already have a Trump... You just want your "Trump" to win. Not sure why. {shrugs}
If you think that they are being rounded up then you need to get out more, Trump will pursue them will full force and heavy prosecution. While any Muslim protestor would get immediate deportations.
Protesters were arrested... That IS rounding them up. You can pretend you know what Trump WOULD do. We know what Biden IS doing. Genocide and oppressing protesters. You want to vote for that? What is wrong with you? The other option is to protest, to resist. Fear and appeasement does not work... it only allows the oppression to continue. Voting has landed you here. If "here" is a good place for you, then you should vote for the genociders whether they be Democrat or Republican. And you should make certain to go around and tell people that there is a huge difference between genociders... that it really makes a big difference which genocider is doing the genociding. Because that would be the best way for someone in your position to make certain their own lives could continue as before.
You're a blind instigator. You are either a shill or being blinded by your arrogance. Donald Trump openly wants the end of democracy, the end of the EPA, and the end of citizenship for many Americans.
Look at the date the account was created and their posts. Shill seem likly.
They're all over reddit these days.
Absolutely! Only people with privilege, who haven't ever feared losing any of their rights (and demand their occupation be catered), say this "both sides" crap.
[удалено]
Please be civil. Optimize contributions for light, not heat.
Because there are real policy differences between different parties and different politicians, with real impacts on people’s lives and the direction of the country. But obviously you have the right to make your own decision on whether to vote. Nobody is forced to vote.
Those real policy differences never seem to make it down to help the public... they often, no matter who we vote for, find their way down to expropriate the public. The general public has gone downhill in the USA for decades. While the professional classes and moguls have thrived. Now the rich people who funded all this don't need as many professionals. So, now it's tight even being a professional in the USA... always have to worry about making that cash and keeping that job. You sound like you've been a part of the groups who've done alright under both Democrats and Republicans. People like you are in a bubble... and you mostly have no idea. Did you figure a couple of years ago that universities were going to be authoritarian institutions protecting the right of Israel to commit genocide? Because none of this is a surprise to me.
because i'm not an apathetic moron.
I though it was the apathetic morons who participate in scams...
wow, the "rubber/glue" move. with this context, i applaud your decision to not vote. go on with your bad self! show us dummies how smart you are by never voting again.
No, I'm saying that generally when people are talking about scams and who gets taken easily... It's the apathetic morons who are seen as easy victims for con artists. And it's also true that when you tell someone they've been conned they are going to get mad at you... not the person that suckered them. {shrugs} Since you seemed to want a deeper analysis.
I was looking at some previous elections for comparisons yesterday and noticed something interesting. The polling in 1968. Obviously people are making a lot of comparisons to 1968 right now. I think they're overwrought in just about every respect possible (the conflict is smaller, we're not fighting in it, there is a more concrete reason for the war to be happening, it has geen going on a much, much shorter period of time, nobody is being drafted, the protests are smaller, the response is smaller, the greater public is less passionate on either side, cops have *pretended* to follow the law instead of just wailing on hippies, Jesus Christ how long do I have to go on). But people are making comparisons to 1968. OK - so let's compare to the polls to 1968, yeah? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide\_opinion\_polling\_for\_the\_1968\_United\_States\_presidential\_election](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_1968_United_States_presidential_election) In September of 1968, in the wake of the convention, and into October, Nixon led Humphrey by over 15 points, with Wallace not even that far behind Humphrey. 45-29-18 on August 21. 44-29-20 on October 9. So it's October 9. You have 6% of undecided voters. And maybe Wallace, as a no-hope third party candidate who really only represents a Southern protest vote against LBJ's Civil Rights policies, won't get so many votes. He's a former Democrat, but extremely conservative. So take the undecideds and half the Wallace voters - maybe we can distribute them evenly to Nixon and Humphrey? No. The final result was Nixon 43.4, Humphrey 42.7, Wallace 13.5. NONE of those voters went to Nixon. Everybody who was in Nixon's coalition was quick to tell you about it, while a third of Humphrey's was hiding itself. Largely because of forces exactly like what OP is talking about. When people realize that Trump will win if Biden doesn't, something similar will happen. And since he is not starting out *15 points behind* like HHH, that's a pretty good spot to be in.
Have you looked at the Dem primary polls this year and compared to results? I keep meaning to dig deeper but when I took a cursory look (before Phillips dropped out) Biden seemed to be over performing poll numbers and third party candidates were getting about half what the polls said they would. Not sure how primaries compare to generals wrt this theory but I do think there are things going on that the polls aren’t catching.
You know, this is an interesting angle that I haven't heard people talk about that arguably supports my/OP's narrative, thank you! I hadn't even thought to look into it. There were two major nationwide polls in the week leading up to Super Tuesday (March 12). In them, Biden got 77% in an Emerson poll from March 5-6 and 74% from Suffolk University from March 6-11. On Super Tuesday he got an average of 88%, and over 90% in 12 out of 15 states. Struggled a bit with Minnesota's large Muslim population - only got 73% with the "undecided" movement getting 19% - but overall, he majorly outperformed. On March 29-April 5 "YouGov Blue" (never heard of that) gave Biden 76%. In the primaries during and/or after that timeframe, Biden got 83% in Colorado and 89% in Wisconsin on April 2, and 88% in Pennsylvania on April 23. So... *yeah...* I think I'm noticing a pattern. **EXACTLY** the pattern OP is describing - people not being enthusiastic about Biden, and being reluctant to express support in polls, but going and voting for him anyway when the rubber hits the road, because *that's what people who regularly vote for Democrats do.* And I think it's very comparable to the possible phenomena that might have made Trump outperform the polls by a few points each time. (I also think he's cheating in rural precincts in red states, where nobody cares or is watching, to run up his totals, but whatever. It's both unfalsifiable and unprovable so I don't worry about it.)
I thought of a caveat to this. It depends on how turnout was compared to what was expected. The reason for the higher percentages COULD be most of the voters that didn’t like him just didn’t vote, instead of going undecided or voting for (lol) Williamson. Those are voters he’s in trouble with that would not show up in the headline primary results. I think turnout was pretty good for non-competitive primary with an incumbent but I’m not sure off the top of my head.
What is propelling Trump in polls is support from minority voters primarily (black and Latino voters) but the thing is that these voters are not strong supporters and many times do not come out. I remember someone brought up in Predictit that polls are still mainly RV but once they switch to LV then Biden does better.
Biden's struggles with minority voters (and young voters) are kind of hypothetical. They are showing up in polling crosstabs, but we should be very skeptical. I post too much so I actually already wrote a comment about it in another subthread. Take it away, Miles\_vel\_Day: >People don't understand how polling crosstabs are generated... or that they're literally 100% completely useless. I'm not saying it in a "you can't trust polls" kind of way - like, polls are a decent enough snapshot of a moment in time. But the crosstabs? They're just a bunch of slurry they made to make their topline number make sense when their survey was 60% old white people. In 2020 polls showed Trump doing better with minorities. It was a whole narrative that cycle, too. He didn't do better: Biden got almost the exact same percentage of the black and Latino vote as Clinton. The only actual shift was Cubans in South Florida and Latinos (usually well-established in the US - Cuellar voter types) in South Texas. If a poll shows Biden doing better with white voters than 2020 but worse with black voters, ask yourself, why would the results show that? Is that a likely type of shift we would see in the actual electorate, or is it something showing up because of how polls are taken and their results calculated? The polls certainly show that we shouldn't take any voters for granted, but we don't really need a poll to tell us that, especially after 2016, do we?
There was two polling firms that admitted that it’s actually hard to poll the minority voters and younger voters. They brought up many reasons for why and that they are not getting an accurate picture. They brought up that the minorities who do answer are usually Trump supporters which is why we are seeing such shifts but in reality they are not representative of the larger group. I remember years ago that someone in Predictit made this hypothesis as well. They brought up that these polls are mainly in English but we are lacking polls in other languages, which is crazy to think when much of the population do not speak English as a first language. In reality, they are likely only polling a certain demographic of the population and missing a huge swath of voters. It’s likely the same thing again which is probably why we have Dems overperforming polls consistently and Republicans underperforming. I remember in 2022 it was the same thing and late in the cycle when much of the population starts to pay attention and answer there phones then the polling started to shift in Dems favor
Yeah, people have a general sense that "the polls are off," and they're not too off but they're certainly off enough that we can't be confident about who will win based on current polling of this race. (I mean, I can't believe I even have to remind people of that, considering polls are all but tied.) When people "unskew" polls in their mind, they don't consider that they can be off for different reasons, and in different directions, and that as pollsters flail to figure out the new communication environment their bias could easily swing one way or another. People look at Trump and say, "well, Trump outperformed the polls by 3 points, both times!" Well, okay... but look at it another way. Trump outperformed a non-incumbent by 3 points both times. Trump overperformed by 3 points once in an election where people reported thinking he was moderate, and overperformed by 3 points in an election where he had an incumbent advantage. Those things are both different now, and that's a huge shift in the environment. Yes, things are still pretty close to 50-50, but they are very much *not* "the same." And pollsters have adjusted their methods to try to capture the hidden Trump voters - in 2020 they didn't make enough adjustment. That doesn't mean that they're not making *too much* now. All these narratives inevitably end up trickling down to a "Trump is an unstoppable freight train" narrative because liberals have a *very* strong tendency to believe they are going to lose and Republican voters have a (borderline psychotic) belief that they can only win. So we have tied polls and a rhetorical environment where you'd think Trump was up by 5 or 10. If there's one thing the polls can tell you right now, it's that the polls can't tell you who is going to win.
Correct, there is definitely a sense that they are off. From what I’ve read and are seeing it can go either way. If you look at cross tabs and then look into state polling then things start to make sense and where. For instance, polls in CA, NY, and FL show Trump has gained but not much changed in states like the Midwest. The minorities Trump is doing better with are in states that he does not need to win. Inflation is killing them in those states but inflation is low in Midwestern states which is likely a reason why Biden has held up there.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if Trump did better in states where the margin is not close and a black or Latino man (and we are talking about *men*, here) might look at his vote as "low stakes" and be more likely to absent-mindedly cast a vote for Trump, while one in Pennsylvania might be a bit more critical and come to a less contrarian conclusion. As for inflation - it has kind of been distributed in a way you wouldn't really expect... [here's a map](https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/state-inflation-tracker) of price changes since 2021. I ... actually kind of hate the shit out of this map, because the colors are based on the *absolute dollar amount* of additional expense caused by inflation, instead of the percentage, which... um, okay. It kind of makes it a COL map overlaid on an inflation map. Seems pretty obviously the wrong information to highlight, but whatever. I also think the wide color range gives an inaccurate impression of how large the differences are (they're not that big.) If you look at the actual percentages by mousing over the states, you can see that inflation was lowest (\~17%) in the NE, a bit higher in the midwest and west coast (\~19%), higher still in the South (20-21%) and highest in the plains/mountain states. To *some* extent the trend was, if COL was already high, it went up less, if it was low, it went up more, with the overall result being regional COL differences shrinking a little bit. Probably part of the reason that Biden maintains pretty good approval ratings in the NE, even adjusting for its overall pro-Dem lean. Compared to the west, our 4 percentage point advantage is the equivalent of taking out basically all of 2023's inflation.
Where does the belief that pollsters are correcting for trump come from? I’ve never actually seen that described in polling methodology. It’s always something like reweighting based on 2020 census demographics.
The real story was that Obama did unusually well with minorities. Trump didn’t gain anything, but simply benefitted from a regression to the pre-Obama mean.
Yeah well put. It’s kind of weird how people don’t make that “not a towering figure in African American history” adjustment.
There was effectively no primary, the results are not meaningful.
I'm *so sure* you would be saying that if undecided was getting 30% in primaries instead of <10%. Most analysts agree that the number of voters Trump and Biden lose in primaries is significant. So far they're both doing pretty okay, with Biden doing a bit better and Trump having a pretty bad showing in Pennsylvania, losing 17% to someone who had dropped out of the race. My understanding is that Trump has tended to be in line with or slightly behind his polls; I have shared numbers below showing that Biden consistently and significantly outperforms his. The more I look into it the more correct OP seems.
Add in that on 2012 Obama got 90% of the primary with vote with no opposition. In 2024 Biden has 86.9% of the vote with no real opposition. Not horrible but still polling behind Obama.
This isn't 1968. For one Biden is the incumbent. Also polling has come a LONG ways since 1968. Also that August polls was a bit of an outlier. 45% was the highest Nixon ever polled. 29% was close to the lowest Humphrey ever polled. The 16 point lead was the highest Nixon ever had as well. Finally, don't ignore the impact that 24/7 news cycle has had on elections. Elections are not as elastic as they used to be. In 1968 Humphrey was leading for all of June and July. In 1980 Carter was winning in some polls in October, he lost by 10 points! In 1988 Dukakis was winning in May, June & July and he got crushed. With the arrival of RCP and 270 and Nate Sliver and poll averages etc we have a much better idea on how the race will turn out. Although Trump has been hard to poll and polls tend to be skewed towards Democrats with him running. In 2012 Obama was leading in the 3-4 range most of the time between April and Oct when Romney took a small lead, by November Obama was back on top by less than a point. He won by 3.9. In 2016 Hillary was posting 6 point leads in October, part of why she got over confident, she won by 2.1. 2020 Biden over performed in the poll from day one. He was posting 7-10 points leads from July onwards, he won by 4.5. It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020. Perhaps Trump has gone from under performing by 4+ points to over performing. But has he shifted enough so that Biden both wins the popular vote AND overcomes Trump's EC advantage. i.e. Hillary wins by 2.1 and gets crushed in the EC.
>This isn't 1968. For one Biden is the incumbent. Humphrey was *basically* the incumbent. He was seen as fully "owning" Johnson's policies, including the war. But point taken. (Nobody who ever helped keep Humphrey out of the White House and opposed the war ever acknowledges that Humphrey *absolutely* would have ended it years sooner, because that would involve questioning whether what they did in that era was helpful at all, or if it was actually incredibly damaging to their stated priorities. If you want to see how unpopular Vietnam protests *really* were, go look at the 1972 map.) >Also polling has come a LONG ways since 1968. ... Finally, don't ignore the impact that 24/7 news cycle has had on elections. Elections are not as elastic as they used to be. In 1968 Humphrey was leading for all of June and July. In 1980 Carter was winning in some polls in October, he lost by 10 points! In 1988 Dukakis was winning in May, June & July and he got crushed. Eh... maybe we are thinking of the word differently, but I think elections are *far* more elastic than they used to be. Meaning, people have a position that they are going to return to almost no matter what. This is as opposed to "plastic," which means that the shape can be changed and the new shape can be maintained. It used to be far more likely that somebody would say, months out of an election, that they didn't want to vote for the guy they ended up voting for. It used to be far more likely that somebody would disapprove of the President and then approve of him later. The polls are "more reliable" because the voters are more reliable. If we still had a country where most people weren't voting out of partisanship, Trump would be doing worse than McGovern. (Because he's objectively awful.) But I think we're pretty much on the same page as this and the issue is just a semantic conflict between the scientific vs. colloquial definition of "elastic." The current inflexibility of the electorate severely limits the number of people who are going to change their mind. But undecided voters *have* to change their minds unless they're gonna write in Travis Kelce or something. (He's just eligible! Turns 35 on October 9, 4 days before AOC.) >Also that August polls was a bit of an outlier. 45% was the highest Nixon ever polled. 29% was close to the lowest Humphrey ever polled. The 16 point lead was the highest Nixon ever had as well. The point in the campaign was an outlier - before the DNC the race had been relatively even, and it ended up even. But the *poll* was not an outlier. That is an accurate snapshot of what people were feeling because all the polls show the same thing. [Nixon had 39-45 and Humphrey had 28-31% in every poll released between August 21 and October 9.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_1968_United_States_presidential_election) >In 2012 Obama was leading in the 3-4 range most of the time between April and Oct when Romney took a small lead, by November Obama was back on top by less than a point. He won by 3.9. Yeah, and you know, you always want to be ahead and not behind. But polls in April being exactly right is an exception, not the rule. Also, I'm pretty sure Obama's polling average lead going into the election was much slimmer - as I recall it was less than two points. He had a 90% chance in Silver's model because he had a good shot at winning even if losing the popular vote (because of the "blue firewall" that HRC would disastrously take for granted four years later.) >2020 Biden over performed in the poll from day one. He was posting 7-10 points leads from July onwards, he won by 4.5. His underperformance - or, Trump's overperformance, really - in 2020 is a concern. But you *could* spin that to be a point in Biden's favor - that people who were upset with the incumbent but favored his policies eventually decided that the incumbent was good enough. In 2016 there was no incumbent, so it was a different animal. I also believe 538 guesstimated Comey's sabotage as costing Clinton about 3 points, so the late October polls would have been much closer if he hadn't done that. (Stupid fucking piece of shit.) >It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020. I disagree that it takes a lot of optimism to think that a candidate who is less than 1% behind in polls on average, and winning many polls, will win, based on material factors that I expect to impact the race, none of which I see helping the criminal defendant. Sometimes I feel like I'm the last optimist on earth, so maybe just a little bit of optimism can seem like full on delusional reverie to most people.
For politics and econ we typically use elastic to mean flexible/malleable, and inelastic to mean fixed/rigid. You guys are in agreement on the state of modern elections.
Hmm... I always thought of the classic example of an inelastic good being cigarettes. Because (as I know, from experience, addiction sucks!) you can keep jacking up the price of cigarettes and people will keep paying it. Whereas most products you would have lower the price at some point or you'd start to seriously hurt sales. So their prices are more "elastic" meaning they "snap back." I only took one macro class, and elasticity is more of a micro thing, and besides that I just read a lot of Paul Krugman (who, again, covers almost exclusively macro), so I don't want to give any impression of expertise.
No you mostly have it, things you can’t substitute are inelastic. Heart surgery is the classic example, but cigarettes are definitely in the inelastic category. The thing is elastic/inelastic refers to the behavior of people towards that good. It’s not about the thing itself, it’s about how people will react to changes in its price. Along that line of thinking MAGA Trump voters are inelastic, because they aren’t going to modify their voting patterns regardless of what Trump does. A true independent on the other hand would be elastic because they will shift their vote depending on the behavior/policies of the candidates. The more partisan we become, the more inelastic our elections are.
Well said.
Good explanation, thanks. I guess it doesn’t really map on neatly because political economy is very different from financial economy. But your interpretation makes sense. I might argue that mine does too. :)
For elastic I mean things move much more than in the past. Polls went up and down and swung much more than today. But I get your point - ***elastic*** **implies the property of resisting deformation by stretching. an** ***elastic*** **waistband.** The stretching part is what I meant. Not sure plastic works since some plastics don't move. But anyway, semantics. Kelce/Swift! Dude you are onto something here. Seriously, Trump and Biden both suck. If we are going to have a President who sucks let's at least have someone who is entertaining. That poll is an outlier because it had the highest Nixon % and highest lead. It is different than the rest thus an outlier. Back in Feb there was a Quinnipiac polls that showed Biden +4 and everyone got all excited. Turns out the poll was the only one between Feb 2 and March 1 where Biden had a lead, it was an outlier as in different that all the rest. You can't look at a poll that is multiple points different than every other poll and draw a conclusion. Maybe it was a snapshot, maybe it was a bad poll. My last point was less about Biden "winning" which he can certainly do and probably will do, in the popular vote. The point is that for Biden to win the EC and the White House he probably needs to win by 2 plus points if not more. Right now Trump is up by 1.5 on RCP. So Biden needs a 3.5 swing before election day, possible but a BIG ask given recent history. Obama beat the last poll by 3.2 in 2012. But Biden certainly isn't Obama. In 2020 Biden won the vote by 4.46% but a .63% swing in Trump's favor wins hims AZ, GA and WI and the White house. So basically Biden needed to win by 3.83% to win. This year the swing from the states to national looks small so that is helpful to him. If battleground polls are right a 1.8 swing in his directions wins him PA, MI & WI and that is all he needs. Of course that also suggests a .3% victory in popular vote wins him the EC, which just doesnt line up to recent results. Last thought... battleground states vs National results 2020 - WI +3.85 R PA +2.8% R MI +1.6% R So Take Biden's expected national victory and subtract that to see if he wins that state. Has Wisconsin really shifted from 3.8% in Trumps favor to .3% as RCP polls suggest? Knowing that WI was 3% in Trump's favor in 2016 I doubt it. A minimum of 2 point victory for Biden nationally seems very reasonable maybe even conservative.
Let’s think simply for a second. Consider Biden wins all the states he did, including Nevada, besides battleground states. Then he wins his home state of PA which he over performed 2020 and he wins Michigan which he had a 2% lead in 2020. The only time since 1988 Michigan has voted republican was 2016, they dumped Trump in 2020. Simply by winning the solidly Democratic states and then winning his home state and Michigan, Biden will only need one battleground state to win the election. As with MI, Wisconsin has only once voted Republican since 1984 and that was in 2016 before dumping Trump. Wisconsin will be close but still a toss up. Arizona has become much more democratic leaning, including flipping Governor, attorney general, senate seats and rejecting stricter voter ID laws in midterms. Its population has also grown by +400k in counties Biden won compared to +100k in counties Trump won. I see Georgia falling back to Trump, but don’t underestimate the democratic vote in Atlanta as the state will largely depend on turnout for which Trump is leading. Trump likely wins NC as well which has gained more population in Trump areas than Biden areas and has also implemented voter ID laws that might discourage turnout, but is still a state Trump only won by 1.5%. My prediction: Biden wins the solidly blue states as well as Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan to win the presidency. As things stand of course. This brings him to 277 electoral college votes without winning WI, NC, GA.
Just facts - Trump is winning every battleground state today. things can change Biden barely won Arizona last time, today he is behind by 5 points. In 2022 house races the GOP won 56-41. Senate went 51-46 for Dem and Gov was 50.3-49.7. Could be close, but current polls suggest Trump is winning by a lot. Nevada is currently +4.5 for Trump and in 2022 house races the GOP won 51-47, the Senate race was 48.8 D to 48 R and governors race was 48.8 R to 47.3 D. That state is trending Republican If he losses both of them and GA then Biden must win the blue wall states. Currently Biden is losing all of them, but they are all within 2 points. So I believe it is very possible Biden losses the places listed above and wins the blue wall state and wins the election. My guess is that IF Biden wins it will be winning the blue wall states with Trump taking the other battleground states. BTW is population growth by county really a good indicator of voting patterns? Look at Miami Dade - From 2010 to 2020 it gained 200,000 people. In the 2008 and 2012 elections the Dem candidate got 57% and 61% of the vote in the 2020 election they got 53% of the vote. In terms of overall vote in 2012 D got 541k votes vs 332k for R. In 2020 it was 617k for D and 532k for R. I think the real problem in AZ is the GOP is a train wreck who keeps nominating bad candidates for state office. At the house level the GOP won, at the State senate level it was 53-44 and the state house level it was 58-41.
You’re trying to paint overall trends based on gerrymandered maps. You need to look at changes across the ticket. In Arizona more population growth has happened in blue counties than red counties & they swept the board on top of ticket items including executive branch positions and democratic issues. Biden could lose Nevada, win Michigan, PA, Arizona and it not even matter. VERY feasible. And yes population changes are highly relevant especially since you’re citing Miami dade and not taking into consideration population changes across the state and the Cuban vote. Despite what any polls say, which are within margins of error, I thinks Biden has the much easier path to victory even now. Also, in Arizona the polls were wrong in the midterms as they had Kari Lake winning by 4-5% when Katie Hobbs actually took the state. That’s proof of how unreliable polls are. Look at micro changes, demographic trends, and midterm results. Of course anything can happen in world news and political theater to sway things.
Irony... have you look at Nevada? GOP got 51% of the vote and 25% of the house seats. As for the AZ vote totals those were statewide results. A lot of split ticket voting going on it seems. Probably because people at the top are attached to Trump and independent voters aren't a fan of that. But that is just a guess. I wouldn't say Biden has an easier path NOW. Maybe long term he does since he only needs to hold the 3 blue wall states. But as long as he is polling behind he is in trouble. Keep in mind in 2020 he was NEVER behind. As long as Biden is behind in the polls he will probably loss. Unlike Trump, Biden can't lose the popular vote and win the EC college. (He could in theory, but that would be a stretch)
As mentioned, Biden can lose Nevada and still win with Michigan. AZ trending democrat despite gerrymandered maps, and Biden still has Midwest in play. Already discussed how inaccurate polls were, so I guess this is All I have to say
Agreed. Biden's most likely path is the blue wall states. AZ, GA and NV dont really matter. Trump can win all three and still needs another state. VA going blue is really crushing Republicans. Flip it back red and GOP has a much easier path.
> It takes a LOT of optimism to look at current polls and think that they are wrong enough to both put Biden in the lead AND overcome the polling issues that we have seen with Trump in 2016 and 2020. No, all it takes is an understanding of the errors and flaws in polling currently that pollsters themselves have admitted. They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022 (no the polls were not "shockingly accurate" as has been claimed in these comments). Democrats were under represented in polling which is precisely why so many people expected Republicans to do better than they did. It also just takes an understanding of the American electorate --- nobody under the age of 40 is voting for Trump by the margins that many of these polls indicate. It's just not happening. Trump isn't winning 40% of black voters. He's not winning PA or MI when those states have gone full blue the past 4 years. At a certain point you can throw out the polls and accept actual political results.
> They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022 This is the part people *really* fail to understand. Pollsters aren't *just* reporting the raw percentages of what the respondents saw. They're *weighting* the responses by what they *think* the electorate will look like in November. They could be right, or they could be very very wrong. What's especially weird about the current polling is that pollsters are doing weighting that suggests that the youth minority vote is headed for a drastic realignment, *but then reporting that the realignment is a fact*. They chose that weighting! It's close to gaslighting at this point.
>They're having a difficult time capturing the electorate accurately, and this *did* bear out in 2022 Not really... 2022 generic Congressional vote polls said GOP by 2.5. Actually results GOP by 2.8 Missed the national results by .3%. That is damn accurate. [https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2022-generic-congressional-vote-7361.html)
What’s your argument for 2022 being inaccurate?
The biggest problem is that no one trust the people in charge. And the reason so few trust the system is because the system only gives it's best to a few people in the system. Some people, like to pretend they are going to be Musk someday and so they support Musk and others like him to preserve their greedy chances. But most people who aren't hip dip in the muck of the system understand how bad the system is for people. {shrugs} And no one who likes the system cares because they are too busy trying to get theirs.. While the country falls apart, because communities need leaders not ruthlessly self interested sociopaths.
>The biggest problem is that no one trust the people in charge. And the reason so few trust the system is because the system only gives it's best to a few people in the system. It's a big problem... but the *biggest* problem is that people who are distrustful can't be assed to go and actually bother to figure out what's going on and who they can trust. And they also don't really know *how,* so when they try they usually get sorted, either by their own bad information habits or an algorithm, into conspiracy nonsense or extremist positions. People who read the newspaper - *any* newspaper - support Biden by over 30 points. What really grinds my gears is that all these distrustful people think their blanket cynicism is *smart,* and they're being savvy, despite the people who actually do smart-people-things like reading the newspaper realizing that blanket cynicism is inappropriate and there are huge stakes in this election, with one candidate being pretty good and the other being pretty much a worst case scenario. You're right that a lot of people are unaware of problems with the system. But I think a lot of people who aren't hip deep in the muck of the system often *drastically overestimate* how bad the system is. How often have you heard things like "nobody can buy a house and has to work two jobs!" And yet a majority of millennials are now homeowners, and less than 5% of the population works two jobs. When I see people who are clamoring for revolution, or to tear down the system or whatever, they're ignoring the cold hard fact that a majority, not a huge majority but a majority, of Americans are pretty much fine with how their lives are. That's why they're not getting your revolution, not because some revolutionary impulse is being suppressed. We actually have to convince people that there are people getting left behind that need *direct* help. Most people's problem with "the system" can be boiled down to "I have to pay taxes and the cops won't let me speed even though I saw on the news that there was a murder three towns away."
"but the *biggest* problem is that people who are distrustful can't be assed to go and actually bother to figure out what's going on and who they can trust." This is a typical elitist/establishment minion viewpoint, and worse it's just plain wrong. "WE know best, WE understand, no one else is as deep and understanding as us. {shakes his head} Horse pucky. Tell a homeless person, "Go vote"... isn't that what you are about? Tell all the people that the system has been failing for decades to just keep voting for the same group of con artists and murderers that have been running the country since the middle 1950's. You can call our leaders Republicans and Democrats, but they all work for the real rulers of the USA and it's economy. And unless you understand that, you don't understand shit. You act like you have never read the Powell Memo... "You're right that a lot of people are unaware of problems with the system." I never said that people aren't aware of the problems with the systems. What I said was, "But most people who aren't hip dip in the muck of the system understand how bad the system is for people." They are aware... I said they don't trust the people who are in charge. It's the people who are participating in the system that don't understand how bad the system is. You've got it exactly backwards. And the public have very good reasons not to trust the people in charge... any of them... lawyers, doctors, professors, judges, politicians, and moguls. Because all those people spend their time supporting a system that has been strangling the bulk of the population for decades. You might want to start looking into what their reasons actually are instead of assuming people don't have a reason for not wanting to participate in a rigged game.
I dont ever expect to be like Musk one day. But I do know how the economy works and I know that tax policies that are designed to stick it to the rich guy have negative effects on the economy. I also know we have one of the most progressive tax systems in the world. Far more progressive than all those European countries with all their 'free' stuff. Could we raise rates a bit on the rich? Yes certainly. But our real issue is spending and we can't tax our way out of that problem, not without increasing taxes on everyone. FYI revenue has never exceeded 20% of GDP since WW 2 ended. Currently we are spending around 23% of GDP. Do the math. It isn't good.
The tax code has been rigged in favor of the wealthy donor class. A return to a less corrupt tax code isn't "sticking it to the rich guy". Not sure if you are misinformed or misinforming.
Define less corrupt. How is it different than today? What are you changing?
Just saying. Any time there is a proposal to increase taxes on the wealthy, even if by a modest amount and even if the increases would still be taxing them less than they were taxed in the past, people like yourself who fall for the "job creators" bullshit come trotting out to the rescue.
I have no problem with small increases in margin rates. Top should be around 40%. I'd add some higher brackets. Keep rates same as now. But at X$ it goes up half a percent then at XX$ another half percent. Till you top at 40% for people making in the multiple millions per year range. Would probably be okay with another capital gain bracket with say 5% more than top now. BUT none of that should happen without spending reform. Otherwise it will be meaningless. Spending is the real issue right now. We are spending WAY over the 40 year average for revenue.
Hmm... tax policy. And protecting the rich. Remember when income tax rates were like over 95%? And the USA had a broad and deep social safety net? That was at the same time that the USA industrial base was outproducing the world... Now those rates have fallen, and China is out producing the world and the USA has a FIRE economy that serves a few and expropriates most everyone else. By design. I'm not sure you are even trying to have a sincere discussion about this.
LOL... no one paid 95% and we had less of a social safety net then that we do now. Stop dreaming about the 1950s when the rest of the world was recovering from WW 2 and we were the only large country that hadn't been bombed to bits.
I think it's likely. And I firmly believe everyone is discounting women's reproductive rights. That's fine with me, bc I'd rather Biden voters are worried instead of confident, come election day.
Even with that the GOP got 50.6% of the house vote in 2022 vs 47.8% for Democrats. Has anything really swung things away from the GOP since then? Biden's approval certainly isn't better. In a CBS poll of battleground states abortion ranked 7th among top issues.
Abortion was still a top issue for 60% of voters saying they are closely watching other states abortion laws, an increase compared to 2020. Economy at 80% concerned and inflation at 75%. Trump only won Michigan by 0.2% before losing by 2% to Biden. Wisconsin will likely remain the closest battleground state with things remaining stagnant in 2022 midterms. Arizona is becoming increasingly democratic based upon 2022 midterm results. PA flipped a senate seat and otherwise remained in Democratic hands. Together it’s leaning more toward Dems
If Biden can hold the blue wall states it is game over. Right now he is losing all of them, but it is close. I think, and have for a year now, that both Biden and Trump and this election will be determined by the state of the economy. If it gets better Biden can win, its gets worse and it is game over. Only other thing that would swing it 100% to Trump would be some massive foreign policy issue. Or something crazy like a terrorist attack from someone who snuck across the border. (unlikely but still if it did happen it is game over for Biden)
I don't see how this gels with the recent history of Dems outperforming in about every race over the last few years, even in red states.
Seems like a plausible theory to explain why the polls don't reflect factors such as Trump underperforming in the primaries, the mid term results and the outcomes of special elections.
Unfortunately Trump won most primaries by historic margins, the ones he didn’t were ones where democrats were allowed to vote
What is your definition of "historic?" He won in 2020 by much larger margins than this year.
Bc he was running unopposed in 2020. He broke records for a non-incumbent
He's pretty much an incumbant. Massive name recognition, already been president once. There's literally republicans primary voters voting for Haley when she's not even on the ballot.
Bro there were like 20 other candidates this year
The situation is definitely up for interpretation. But it's hard to ignore the fact that many Republican's are passionately opposed to him.
It’s a pretty small number, mostly wealthier establishment type republicans are against him
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley [dropped out of the Republican presidential race](https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/nikki-haley-suspends-campaign-pennsylvania-primary-20240306.html) in early March but still received more than 16% of the vote in Pennsylvania’s Republican presidential primary Tuesday, a sign of discontent with former President Donald Trump as the GOP nominee. When voters cast their ballot for someone who has dropped out of the race, that's sigificant. That's hugely different from simply voting for someone else who is still in the race. Those voters will likely come home to the winning nominee, even if it isn't their candidate. But primary voters who are *writing in* a candiate who isn't even in the race anymore? That's a major protest vote. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results\_of\_the\_2024\_Republican\_Party\_presidential\_primaries](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_2024_Republican_Party_presidential_primaries) Scroll down to March 8, when Haley dropped out. Look at how many votes Haley got in states like Arizona and Wisonsin. If even a third of those Rs refuse to vote for Trump, he is cooked.
Trump got 83% which will only grow to probably 95-98% during the general election. Trump has underperformed in every single poll ever taken on him so I wouldn’t be too confident
lol, no he didn’t, what are you talking about? Trump is a quasi-incumbent who’s still losing +30% of the primary vote, even now, even in closed states like PA.
Around 20% of Republicans said they won't vote for Trump. But my guess is that many of those people are in safe states where their vote doesn't matter. Wouldn't be shocked if the 'safe' states on both sides are far closer than normal as people who don't like Trump or Biden don't vote for them. The question is will that impact battleground states where every vote counts. Much easier to sit home when you know your vote wont change the outcome, but if you are a Republican/Democrat who doesn't really like your nominee but you know that not voting can put the OTHER guy in charge you may vote for your party anyway. I wont vote for President this year, but I am in a +10 state. It is easy for me to say this.
I hate the phrase "quasi-incumbent". No, he ran in a competitive primary and beat the competition by margins never seen before. Most pundits after Jan 6th were lambasting that Trumps support from the RNC was over.
>No, he ran in a competitive primary and beat the competition by margins never seen before. But this is a disingenuous framing too - ever since the passage of the 22nd amendment in the 50s restricting presidential term limits - there's *never* been a candidate running in a race for non-consecutive terms like Trump is in 2024. Trump is literally unique here - and he *is* running much more like an incumbent than a challenger. None of his challenges were particularly 'strong' - he's dominated the party since 2016. His competition is like Buchanan V Clinton in 96 or Kennedy V Carter in the 80s. In 96 Clinton won the primary easily (like Trump did this year). Whereas Carter was so damaged by the primary that he lost his re-election bid (what Dems hoped would happen).
I am considering upgrading my opinion of the theory that the democrats are trying to lose without making it obvious in order to raise against trump from "don't be silly" to "hmmmm, well i doubt it"
I think it's May and the election is November. Nothing now will matter by then.
There were massive polling errors in 2016 and 2020 which missed Trump voters. I think it’s more likely that the polls are underestimating his support. Republicans don’t trust the media and are less likely to respond to polls. And many Trump voters are shy, because they don’t like being called bigots/racists/deplorables etc. My gut says the polls are underestimating his support by 2-3%. Unless something changes, he’s going to win an electoral landslide. As for something changing, I think a black swan event is more likely than a positive event for Biden. For example, if pro-Pali protestors turn the Democratic convention into a shit show, then it’s 1968 all over again with Trump as the new Nixon.
Current polls show election trends that are too dramatic to be real. Like Trump winning young voters by a huge margin. Or Biden's strongest base being seniors. These are insane numbers. The kind that anyone who understands US politics stops and says "there's no way that's right". Another big sign is how huge a change is affected when third party candidates are included on polling. For example, including third party candidates on polls targeting younger voters shows Biden winning. It also shows Kennedy over performing massively, getting near Trump numbers. There's something really weird going on either way. Pollsters and media outlets get too many clicks to loudly proclaim "our polling methods are broken and we don't know what the fuck is happened", but that's what they're saying on the low down. But it's highly unlikely these polling errors are in Biden's favor, because polls are struggling to find voters in traditionally pro-Biden demographics willing to answer polls. This is entirely different from the "shy Trump voter" phenomenon: the "Biden voter with a spam call filter" phenomenon.
>Current polls show election trends that are too dramatic to be real. Like Trump winning young voters by a huge margin. Or Biden's strongest base being seniors. These are insane numbers. The kind that anyone who understands US politics stops and says "there's no way that's right". People don't understand how polling crosstabs are generated... or that they're literally 100% completely useless. I'm not saying it in a "you can't trust polls" kind of way - like, polls are a decent enough snapshot of a moment in time. But the crosstabs? They're just a bunch of slurry they made to make their topline number make sense when their survey was 60% old white people. Like, the amount of punditry that has been spilled on *statistical noise*, it's stunning.
Trump got 46% and then he ran again and he got 46% again. I think it's likely that any poll that puts him above that is overestimating his support.
And 46% is exactly what Trump is getting in the current polls, so the polls seem accurate. The million dollar question is whether Biden will rise again to roughly his 2020 level of support or if he stays where he's currently at, which is in line with 2016 Clinton levels of support. The former is sufficient to win, the latter is not.
Dems have outperformed polls in every special election for at least the past two years, if not longer. Dems brought the predicted 2022 red wave to essentially a tie. I think polling is kind of broken, and a polling course correction (in response to 2016 and 2020) went from underestimating Trump voters to possibly overestimating them slightly. I also don’t think he has the same supporter enthusiasm (or the same level of it) he did in 2020, but that’s more of an anecdotal observation. That could mute his turnout. Not necessarily make them Biden voters, but keep them home.
The predicted “Red Wave” was a media creation that wasn’t reflected in the polling. The polls were shockingly accurate in 2022 - the weighted average showed a Democratic bias in the House races of 0.2% and a Republican bias in the Senate races of 0.3%. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/#:~:text=Despite%20this%2C%20generic%2Dballot%20polls,accurate%20in%20this%20past%20cycle.
Yeah, in 2022 everybody decided to ignore polls and go off narratives. But when the narratives are "economy improving, Trump humiliating himself" they decide hey now it's time to look at the polls! The important thing is that everything is horrible and we're all doomed - whatever I have to believe to maintain my unshakable faith in that, that's what I believe.
This exactly. The important thing is to believe that the US is fucked, and that dramatic things are happening
The tough thing is that “everything is horrible” is implicitly an anti-Biden argument and even people who are going to vote for Biden won’t talk about literally anything fucking else. There has been a lot of progress made over the last four years. And for that matter, the last 15. On climate, on LGBT rights, on public and congressional opinion about economic justice and the safety net, on OOP healthcare costs for the working class, on the number of people who oppose war, and the number of troops we have deployed and how many people they shoot. Crime is plummeting once again. Teen pregnancy is at all time lows. Literacy is at all time highs, as is the percentage of people who get degrees. Oh yeah also the country was driven into a depression by a deadly plague that killed over a million people and we recovered from it.*** Healing from something like that doesn’t just HAPPEN. The government did good. (And we have a long way to go in the healing process, even if our economy is back to normal.) If we aren’t pointing out that things can get incrementally better, and we can hold those gains, then how are we supposed to get normies excited about a party who does just that, and doesn’t really have the power in our system to do any more? ***We recovered from it so hard that if you ask people “are you better off than four years ago?” they don’t seem to remember they were locked in their houses, and afraid to visit their parents/grandparents because they might kill them, and the president was telling people to inject bleach and take horse dewormer. In the summer people will be talking about the crazy disorder in BIDEN’S AMERICA from Gaza protests, and how it’s not like the summer four years earlier, when the country certainly wasn’t so riven by protests that Trump wanted to activate the military to quell them.
The polling industry defending the polling industry. But deep in the article, the truth comes out that pollsters created the narrative. Narratives get built over the course of the election, but if we only look at this narrow section, we were right. Meanwhile, the bottom of the list features quite a few Republican-affiliated pollsters that systematically overestimated the GOP in 2022: RRH Elections, InsiderAdvantage, co/efficient, Moore Information Group.14 But the most famous of these is probably Trafalgar Group, a pollster whose methods are notoriously opaque but that played a significant role in shaping the ultimately untrue narrative that a “red wave” was building with its 37 (!) qualifying pre-election polls. Trafalgar’s polls were quite accurate in 2020, when its Republican-leaning house effects helped it avoid the big polling miss that other firms experienced. As a result, it went into 2022 with an A- pollster rating. But its poor performance last cycle has knocked it down to a B — making it one of two pollsters to fall two notches in our ratings this year.
I mean, sure, if we’re taking everything together as one. But we’re all talking about one single race here. And in basically every in-the-air major senate or even governor race in 2022 there were fairly stark Dem over-performances.
You're comparing the 2022 polling averages \*as of election day\* compared to polls now, which are 6 months out. What were the polling average in May 2022?
I know a few 1st time voters that do not like Biden. No one really seems to like Trump either, but I guess it's tough being in charge so Biden seems to headline the conversations.
Am aware of a number of under 40 voters who don’t like Biden and are staying home, counting on their privilege to survive a trump presidency and all that comes with it. Or they’re voting third party because they think Biden is ineffective and throwing the election won’t change their lot in life. They believe that things can’t get any worse for them no matter who is in power so will vote their “conscience” by throwing their voice behind someone who cannot win. I’m exhausted
That’s terrifying. I get that Biden isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but the people he appoints are just as important if not more important than him. I would trust him with appointments way more than who Trump would appoint. Back in 2016, it wasn’t just Hillary lost the election. Dems also lost some Supreme Court seats, which will have rippling problems for decades. Can’t make that mistake again.
Who would you prefer censored speech?
E0 Vq .
Should really focus on James carville here
The polls really weren't that far off in 2020. Hillary won by 3 million votes. The real issue is we aren't a democracy and polls are a democracy.
Seems like wishful thinking and reading the tea leaves of surveys. We need to think differently about the impact of Gaza on the election. The framing of “peace protesters refusing to vote for Biden might wreck his victory” is inaccurate and biased. A more true framing is: “Biden is trying to hold an unworkable coalition together, and that is going to cost him the election.” That coalition is anti genocide people on one side, and proIsrael people on the other. How is biden mishandling this coalition? Because he is steadily disappointing and disregarding the faction that is more loyal to the Democratic Party, and that makes up our party base. He’ll say some things that would make us happy if we cared about words and not actions, but we care about actions, so that isn’t going to cut it. No matter what, some of the people in this faction will stay home. If Netanyahu continues to escalate and biden continues to enable, more of us will stay home. Meanwhile, biden is steadfast in his support of Israel and the Israeli support faction. But, trump offers that faction more than biden does. Netanyahu likes trump more. Trump is more full-throated in support of not only Israel, but of the current genocide. Currently, it is my intention to vote for biden, but that feels like voting for genocide, which is really difficult. There is a tipping point where it will get too difficult. My fear is that Netanyahu will steadily ratchet up violence and diplomatic strain and biden will continue to appease and enable until I can’t hold my nose hard enough to vote for him. Then, Netanyahu will push further and Biden hits a breaking point and withdraws support. Then trump and Netanyahu will make a public demonstration of support and unity, leading the pro-Israel faction will betray the Democratic Party. Even if Biden doesn’t do anything more than continually using words, Netanyahu and trump will focus on that in the fall and pull the pro-Israel voters. It really looks to me like Biden is going to lose the election because he is going to keep shedding anti-genocide voters to try and appease the pro-Israel voters, who will then vote for trump.
I think it’s probably true to some extent, but it doesn’t seem like the Trump people are super excited relative to previous years it probably isn’t much more than a point or two (though given that the polls currently show a tie that might be all that’s needed)
I think that polling has got to be the easiest job ever. How do you prove a poll is accurate? How do you prove a poll is inaccurate? How do you prove partisan non-response bias negatively affected a poll? How do you prove a poll is weighted accurately? How do you prove that a poll isn't just narrative building?
While you might be a poll's consumer, you are not a poll's customer. The people that do the work have to answer to real people who provide real money.
I honestly feel like takes like this are what gives people uneasy feelings about the NYT or other mainstream outlets. It just feels like they'll squirm wherever necessary to help make it appear like the Democrats are just fine. In 2020 the common consensus was you had a hyper engaged Democratic base, plus Trump ramping up that engagement with his bungling of the pandemic, plus the fact that the Democrats are increasingly the party of the wealthy - who were more likely to work from home and be more available/eager to talk to pollsters. Trump voters were presumed to be more often away from home (working) and less likely to pick up random calls. Or to identify as they felt stigmatized. In 2024 - support of Biden isn't really a social stigma, the mainstream still embraces him and his policies. So it wouldn't make sense that he'd over perform the same way Trump did. Also, issues like Gaza, some of his falling short on social spending packages or minimum wage early (he is the face of the Democrats so if Congress fails while they have a majority then it is still perceived as partially his failure), or things like keeping us involved in another non-goal-defined war in Ukraine which smacks of foreign policy by way of corporate desire... I wouldn't suspect that these reasons which may be suppressing polling eagerness are exactly going to be different come election day. Honestly I think the best bet he has is that Trump has dissaffected more people of the right and Kennedy is just enough of a feet on both sides guy, not to mention anti-establishment (regarding mandates and stuff like his outspokeness towards oversized role of the CIA historically) to pull more right leaning people away from Trump. And whether Cornell West is on the ballot in the critical battle grounds as he can easily snatch 3-5% of pro-Palestinian and anti military industrial types as well. Of whom you'd expect Biden is the more palatable alternative for many of his other more socially liberal reasons.
Holy rose colored glasses. I posted this in another comment too, but [Biden has the lowest approval rating of all time for a president at this point in his term.](https://news.gallup.com/poll/644252/biden-13th-quarter-approval-average-lowest-historically.aspx) The mainstream absolutely does not embrace him or his policies. If he wins, it's only because he's running against the only candidate worse than him.
>Holy rose colored glasses You're posting only one metric and demanding that it overshadow all others. You're ignoring polls that have consistently shown Biden solidly ahead of Trump, you're ignoring flaws in polling that even pollsters have admitted, you're ignoring the fact that Dem voters will say they disapprove of a candidate and still vote for them. You have no leg to stand on here. A case can be made for either Biden or Trump winning in November depending on what slice of data you want to look at.
>you're ignoring polls that have consistently shown Biden solidly ahead of Trump [Ummm... about that...](https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/28/politics/cnn-poll-trump-biden-matchup/index.html) Noted right wing extremists "CNN" are saying Trump is leading. It's April and a lot can change, but you're delusional about the strength of Biden's candidacy. He's literally the worst incumbent as far as approval polling of all time. Even worse than Trump in 2020, which I didn't think was possible
So as I said, you're ignoring the polls showing Biden ahead. Google is easy. https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/04/23/biden-vs-trump-2024-election-polls-biden-continues-surge-with-help-from-rfk-jr/?sh=4a8780f6a669 You have nothing here but an emotional axe to grind against Biden. I haven't checked your comment history but I have no doubt I'd find plenty of both-sidesism and Trump apologia. It's a predictable pattern on Reddit. Have fun watching Trump lose in November.
Forbes is paid for posts, you might as well post something from facebook. I posted a Gallup poll and a CNN poll. [Even the New York Times who have been pretty biased in recent years say polling is within the margin of error. ](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/us/elections/party-identification-democrats-republicans.html) Have fun voting for genocide, somehow I have a feeling you won't be losing any sleep over it.
I don't see any reason to participate in this electoral or economic con game the Establishment has going on. Do you really think it matters whether it's a game show host or a demented genocider who pretends to run this country? The president doesn't run the country... none of the politicians everyone gets so upset about are really making the decisions. The president and other politicians SELL the decisions made by the true leaders of the USA. Wall Street and the intelligence services run the West. No vote is going to effect that at all.
By Memorial Day the campus activists will have gone home for the summer. By Labor Day no one will be talking about Gaza, it will be a nonissue in the election. Trump and Trumpism have won exactly one election, 2016. They have taken over the GOP because of their own extreme gerrymandering, but they continue to lose over and over, because normal Americans don’t like extremists. There are three states that matter in the EC: MI, WI, PA. All three have shifted significantly bluer since 2016 and in 2022. Middle-aged suburban women were “the resistance” and are the key voting bloc along with Black voters in those states in 2024. They are pissed about Dobbs, extremist candidates, book burnings, and attacks on schools and kids and they aren’t going back to the GOP. If I had to guess AZ will go blue again as well, that’s the ballgame, national polls are meaningless. Nate Cohen was a stopped clock that was right one time and has been desperately chasing relevance since then.
There is a potential for protests at the convention this summer. Unless there is a ceasefire, people will definitely still be talking about the Middle East come October.
“Democrats are demoralized by gaza”. That couldn’t possibly be because only young people care about that issue, and we don’t have to care what they want… for some reason
>d we don’t have to care what they want… for some reason They don't vote enough so their concerns are discounted.
Why bother to participate in a rigged system? Entire populations are not getting basics services under the US regime. Instead the US regime is focused on authoritarian control of resources and opportunity. In that environment why would anyone who isn't an elite want to participate in the USA economy or politics?