Lurker > red sox 777

Trump leading 91-28 in Palm Beach County LOL. Is that Mar a Lago voting?

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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I am like 90% sure the Florida numbers reported so far are almost entirely early votes. In which case I think it's probably looking good for Trump, but hard to predict. If these aren't almost entirely early votes we could probably call the election.

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Given that it jumped straight to a very large number of votes, I think probably it is the early votes/mail votes being counted first. In which case Trump may be okay. If those percentages stay that way he is doomed.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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Comparisons in Florida (very early):

Lake:

2016 - Trump +23
2020 - Trump +11

Pasco:

2016 - Trump +21
2020 - Trump +13

Brevard:

2016 - Trump +20
2020 - Trump +10

Lee:

2016 - Trump +20
2020 - Trump +14

Pinellas:

2016 - Trump +1
2020 - Biden +9

Not sure if the early voting or day of voting is being counted first.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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My prediction from last night has Trump +20 for Kentucky (vs. Trump +30) last time. So that'll be my benchmark to evaluate how he's doing. Someone Indiana got omitted from my list with the predicted margin of victories, so I don't have a pre-result benchmark to evaluate against. Must have gotten deleted while copy/pasting or something.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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Lead change looks imminent.

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This is the first time I can remember when Kentucky wasn't instant-called. Or is it that they can't call the state until the Central Time polls close?

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So important thing to note about Florida - there are apparently no or very few election day votes reported from 7 counties, all of which voted for Trump in 2016. Two of them are fairly large (Polk at 282k votes in 2016 and 222k votes in 2016). I would expect Trump to be able to put together +50k in party registration turnout numbers from those 2 counties, and maybe 10k across the other 5, which are small counties.

With that said, the AWV does not appear to be helping the Republican cause here. The NPA group is really crushing it with the AWV.

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Yesmar_ posted...

Trump appears to be running behind his 2016 numbers in some of the Indiana areas reporting. Early going though.

Based on the polling, he should massively underperform 2016 in both Indiana and Kentucky. The only state in the Midwest or Upper South he's polling well in compared to 2016 is..... Illinois. I guess Hillary had a home state bonus?

Nationally, the polling is showing that Trump's best state relative to 2016 is probably going to be..... California.

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Good work red sox dad!

Which party does he normally vote for?

I think he's a true swing voter - maybe slight blue lean.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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FWIW, my dad just told me he voted for Biden (in NH).

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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I am going to do something quite rare for me and praise a mainstream media outlet. Thank you to the New York Times for allowing access to your election result map without paying for it. I find their map to be by far the best, and I will consider buying a subscription out of goodwill.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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Are those with the early/mail votes counted, or just election day votes?

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I found an NYT poll that has independents breaking for Biden 47-37. But, the poll has 9% undecided. I would bet most of those are going to Trump. Also, the poll as a whole has Biden +3 which I seriously doubt is going to happen in FL, so it's probably too rosy for him.

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Corrik7 posted...

Most polls had independents at +20 for biden just about.

If those are accurate Trump had no chance whatsoever to begin with. But uh, I'll believe that when I see it.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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Okay, I feel like I'm being deceived by people. Trump won independents in Florida by 4 points in 2016. Yeah, it would be darn hard for him to do better than 2016 if he was at -10 instead of +4 with 25% of the electorate. Nate Silver says that the polling on NPA is all over the place, so unless someone has a good reason to project NPAs at +10 for Biden, I'm going to have to assume that there's no real reason to expect that.

If we give Biden +4 with NPAs (still 8 points better than 2016), the R turnout advantage should be large enough now already to win.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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So since that discussion in Ngamer's topic, we have some more data from Florida. In 3 hours from 12:30 to 2:30 the R turnout only gained 37k. That's much slower than the earlier pace and that may not be enough. The last hour was better than the previous two though, so hopefully it'll pick back up as people get off work.

If someone has polling on who independents are expected to vote for in FL, please post it.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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PredictIt numbers as of morning of election day:

Iowa - Trump 77%
Ohio - Trump 75%
Texas - Trump 75%
Georgia - Trump 65%
Florida - Trump 64%
North Carolina - Trump 57%
Arizona - Trump 53%
Pennsylvania - Biden 62%
Michigan - Biden 72%
Wisconsin - Biden 73%
Nevada - Biden 75%
Minnesota - Biden 77%
New Hampshire - Biden 79%

Big moves to Trump over the last 2 days in the Sunbelt swing states. Arizona looks like it flipped from Biden to Trump as the favorite overnight and is now showing Trump as the favorite for the first time in months. Georgia and Florida have gone from near 50/50 to about 65% for Trump. NC has gone from around 57% for Biden to the same for Trump.

The Midwest states and Pennsylvania are not showing much movement - Biden remains the favorite. Overall odds remain at Biden 64% to Trump 42% (there's a significant vigorish, which is why the odds add up to more than 100%).

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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My Final Predictions:

DC - Biden +83
Hawaii - Biden +33
Massachusetts - Biden +29
Vermont - Biden +28
Maryland - Biden +26
California - Biden +26
New York - Biden +24
Delaware - Biden +21
Rhode Island - Biden +20
Connecticut - Biden +19
Washington - Biden +19
Maine-1 - Biden +17
New Jersey - Biden +16
Illinois - Biden +15
Oregon - Biden +14
Colorado - Biden +8
Virginia - Biden +8
Maine - Biden +8
New Mexico - Biden +6
Minnesota - Biden +5
Wisconsin - Biden +4
New Hampshire - Biden +3
Michigan - Biden +2
Pennsylvania - Trump +0
Nebraska-2 - Trump +0
Nevada - Trump +1
Maine-2 - Trump +1
North Carolina - Trump +2
Georgia - Trump +2
Florida - Trump +2
Arizona - Trump +2
Georgia - Trump +3
Ohio - Trump +4
Iowa - Trump +5
Texas - Trump +5
Alaska - Trump +12
South Carolina - Trump +12
Montana - Trump +13
Missouri - Trump +14
Nebraska-1 - Trump +17
Mississippi - Trump +17
Kansas - Trump +17
Utah - Trump +18
Tennessee - Trump +19
Nebraska - Trump +20
Kentucky - Trump +20
South Dakota - Trump +20
Louisiana - Trump +21
North Dakota - Trump +22
Alabama - Trump +24
Idaho - Trump +24
Arkansas - Trump +26
Oklahoma - Trump +28
West Virginia - Trump +33
Wyoming - Trump +36
Nebraska-3 - Trump +45

National Popular Vote - Biden +3

Electoral Votes:

Trump - 288
Biden - 250

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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Yes, in 1876 3 states submitted 2 sets of electors. The conflict raged on for months. Finally Congress appointed a 15-member commission composed of 10 members of Congress and 5 Supreme Court justices to decide which slate of electoral votes to accept. The commission voted 8-7, on party lines, to accept the entire slate of Republican electors for all 3 states. The Republican won the electoral college 185-184 and was elected as President. To cool tensions, he promised to serve only one term.

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

They would if they're pleasantly surprised by the incumbent's behavior and policies, which I doubt would be the case HERE, but upon deeper examination... who knows, sadly. I'm not a 55-year-old white person living in central Pennsylvania and have no idea if that person was questionable on Trump a few years ago and is now all on board his train.

The thing is, it should depend a lot on their expectations, and Trump had historically low expectations. When he was elected, he had the lowest favorability of any president since they started favorability questioning. Have the last 4 years been worse or better than you expected? I think before the virus, for most people the answer would have been better because they are doing well economically and we haven't plunged into World War III. Now....who knows.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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PredictIt seems to be moving toward Trump in the swing states. North Carolina swung hard in the last 24 hours and now has Trump as the favorite. Biden is down to 60% in Pennsylvania, which is about where PredictIt has his overall odds.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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The gist of my predictions: Biden's national margin against Trump is about 2 points higher than Hillary's. Trump does relatively better than (2016 result - 2 points) in states with a lot of minorities, and relatively worse in states with few minorities.

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September 1, 2003; November 4, 2007; September 2, 2013
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My Preliminary Predictions for Presidential Election (subject to readjustment until voting starts on election day):

DC - Biden +82
Hawaii - Biden +34
California - Biden +30
Massachusetts - Biden +28
Vermont - Biden +28
Maryland - Biden +27
New York - Biden +26
Illinois - Biden +21
Delaware - Biden +18
Rhode Island - Biden +17
New Jersey - Biden +17
Connecticut - Biden +17
Maine-1 - Biden +17
Washington - Biden +17
Oregon - Biden +13
Colorado - Biden +8
Virginia - Biden +8
Maine - Biden +6
New Mexico - Biden +5
Minnesota - Biden +5
Wisconsin - Biden +4
New Hampshire - Biden +4
Michigan - Biden +2
Pennsylvania - Biden/Trump +0
Nevada - Biden/Trump +0
North Carolina - Trump +1
Nebraska-2 - Trump +1
Florida - Trump +2
Arizona - Trump +2
Georgia - Trump +3
Ohio - Trump +4
Iowa - Trump +5
Maine-2 - Trump +5
Texas - Trump +6
Alaska - Trump +12
South Carolina - Trump +13
Missouri - Trump +16
Mississippi - Trump +17
Kansas - Trump +17
Montana - Trump +17
Nebraska-1 - Trump +17
Louisiana - Trump +18
Nebraska - Trump +21
Tennessee - Trump +22
Alabama - Trump +26
Arkansas - Trump +26
Kentucky - Trump +26
South Dakota - Trump +26
Idaho - Trump +30
Utah - Trump +30
North Dakota - Trump +31
Oklahoma - Trump +34
West Virginia - Trump +38
Wyoming - Trump +40
Nebraska-3 - Trump +48

National Popular Vote - Biden +4

Electoral Votes:

Trump - 262
Biden - 250
Unallocated - 26

Will be predicting a winner in PA and NV over the next couple days, but for now my prediction is +0.


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charmander6000 posted...

But wouldn't "the centrist" option still apply in other states. For example California may be 65/35 for Biden, but if you were to align people from the most Republican to the most Democrat then the people in the 35th percentile would be considered the center and in the end it's those votes that are being courted by both sides.

Yes, the centrists would always be well-represented. It's just the EC exaggerates their power. But what positions are centrist can change. The EC just generally operates to slow down the pace of change of laws. FPTP and single-member districts achieves the same in the other formerly British countries. It just isn't as visible there because there is no national election for a prime minister.

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charmander6000 posted...

It still gives the smaller states more power since they have more electoral votes than they should.

Does it though? Polarization among the non-swing states is increasing because they are being completely ignored by the other side, the swing states going slightly to one side opens the door for the far-right/left opinions to have a seat at the table.

I'm talking about over the 230 year history of the system. On average, the swing states are centrist. And the system is designed to let the far right and far left should have a seat at the table, but tries to keep power in the center.

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The electoral college provides stability by ensuring that power is always concentrated in the swing states, whichever states those may be at the time. Since the states holding power are always the ones most balanced between the two sides, it is hard for major change to occur. And change is always risky.

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I can't imagine how we would end up with that map. Maybe if the country is placed in a timewarp back to the 1870s.

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charmander6000 posted...

Whoever is running the meeting is likely from the party that won in that state so any faithless voter would hurt their own campaign and will be dealt with quickly.

This makes no sense it would be if a senator who lost an election (or is impeached) tried to place a vote, it obviously wouldn't count.

Yes, the next step in the chain of constitutional crisis is that the other party convenes their own Congress, which they declare to be the legitimate Congress. These are, well, cracks in the constitutional structure. Hopefully we won't have to see this road explored.

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Or, another scenario: the faithless elector is replaced under state law. Undeterred, he casts his vote anyway, and takes it to DC where he presents it to Congress. When Congress meets to count the votes, one of the parties wants to count that vote. Of course this could potentially devolve into the constitutional crisis of a party that won both houses of Congress but lost the presidential election simply submitting a complete set of electoral votes, and counting their own set, even though everyone knows those are not the real electoral votes. But if Congress says so, then their word is final.

I much prefer the constitutional crisis where the Queen fires her whole cabinet, dissolves Parliament, and rules from the throne though.

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charmander6000 posted...

That's what I mean, the SC has already said the states have the power to deselect/punish an elector. This was done in 2016 for three faithless electors where they were replaced or had their vote changed. The Washington faithless electors while fined still had their votes counted as that is the punishment in that state. It's not in the SC place to change the votes.

But there's a potential situation where, say, whoever is in charge of running the electoral college meeting in the state allows the faithless vote to go forward. The other campaign sues, and the state courts determine that the decision was incorrect, that the elector should have been replaced under state law. Meanwhile, the electoral vote has already been cast and submitted to Congress. In that situation, I don't think the state courts have the power to stop Congress from counting the vote that was cast, and SCOTUS would also likely refuse to step in. But there's some room for ambiguity.

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charmander6000 posted...

Not quite, the faithless elector would have to switch their vote from Biden to Trump (or vice versa) for it to matter. Them switching to some other person wouldn't matter as none of the candidates would have the 270 electoral votes needed to win (e.g. 269-268-1 result will still go to the house). An elector switching between the two major nominees has never happened, though I imagine there would be a lot of pressure from all sides.

Though considering the top three candidates in the electoral college are considered by the house, I imagine there will definitely be some faithless electors to try to give their secret choice (Sanders, a non-Trump Republican) a chance to be President.

Assuming it was done in a state with no laws regarding faithless electors the SC should uphold the vote. The constitution is quite clear that these electors decide who wins an election.

It's complicated. The SC ruled recently (in a ruling that was very disappointing to me) that a state can deselect an elector if he attempts to vote contrary to the winner of that state. I think it's also clear that a state is allowed to punish a faithless elector with jailtime or fines. But that doesn't necessarily mean that an electoral vote actually cast by a faithless elector in a state with laws against it would not count. It's also not clear that the SC has the jurisdiction to decide the question of what votes count (as opposed to how states may select electors) - the Constitution appears to give that solely to the new Congress.

It's sort of like the question of what happens if an excommunicated bishop ordains a new priest. Is the ordination valid? Is the new priest able to perform sacraments? What about if someone posing as a bishop ordains a priest and no one finds out for decades - have all the baptisms performed by that priest for decades actually been invalid?

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LusterSoldier posted...

I plan on tracking poll updates for the election. I expect there will be a huge amount of random variation for individual updates, even more so than a typical election. It will depend a lot on the ratio of mail-in votes to in-person votes in each individual update, which is subject to extreme fluctuations. Each state also has its own rules for when their mail-in ballots can start being counted, but I likely expect Joe Biden to open up with a good lead, Trump making a comeback, and then maybe another surge from Biden from the states that start counting mail-in ballots on Election Day.

You're tracking state by state? Thank you so much for doing this!

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Stances for or against lockdown should already be factored into the polls, right? They've been going on for month now. Also backlash against lock down can also take the form of blaming Trump for letting COVID-19 get out of control in the first place or the country not getting it under control and having lockdown extend for months.

Yes, and the polls for Nevada are better for Trump than Michigan or Wisconsin. You would think he had no chance given Nevada is normally a fair bit more blue than Arizona, but this year they are closer than normal.

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I think Trump probably keeps Nebraska 2nd. Maine 2nd is tough but it could happen. Pennsylvania...... is really looking like the pivot point.

I think Nevada is an outside chance for Trump too. I don't think any state has had its business damaged as badly by the shutdowns. Lots of working class people who depend on the casino/tourism industry. Earlier in the year I was thinking New Hampshire was a good possibility for Trump but his polling there recently is pretty bad.

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Hmm, if we start with the 2016 map and give Biden Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, while everything else stays the same, we end up with a 269-269 tie. In which case the House delegations vote by state, with each state getting one vote, which should be a Trump win.

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masterplum posted...

I just don't see a nationwide change in a landscape where 95% of people are 100% set already.

Trump needs to

A: Hope Republican turnout is substantially better than Democrat turnout (Looking exceedingly unlikely based on early voting numbers)

Or

B: Hope for systematic polling error across the entire country

Trump had A last time, but he didn't have B. Polls actually underestimated Clinton support in deep blue states which led to the popular vote differential. What he did have is polling error in the rust belt.

He just needs the world this time. I don't think it's going to happen

But the polls from a week before the election in 2016 did have substantial polling error, even on a national level. They moved about 3 points in the last week, after which the national polling error was minimal, although the distribution was very favorable to Trump.

We've heard many people theorize over the last 4 years that Comey announcement that he was reopening the investigation of Hillary's emails caused that 3 point boost. Well, I've always been skeptical of that. I think it's more that many people didn't want to admit (to others or themselves) that they were going to vote for Trump. But during the last week, there was no more time to put off the decision by remaining uncommitted and they were forced to look at their options - and conclude that the Republican was better on policy.

We'll get a good idea soon of if my theory is correct. If it moves substantially toward Trump without an October surprise like a stash of Biden's emails being found - then I'm probably right.

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masterplum posted...

I was surprised how few paths trump has to winning. I remember in 2000 Gore needed the world and was shocked when I looked at the map and saw colorado went Republican that year. Funny how things change.

Seems like Trump needs Penn AND Florida AND every other state that usually goes red but are surprisingly competitive such as Georgia and Texas.

That means he needs a country wide polling error which is hugely different from 2016 when he won off a rust belt polling error. That seems tough

Florida, Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina will be fine if he gets that 3% last week surge. To the extent that that surge represents Republicans deciding that any Republican is still better than any Democrat, it could very plausibly happen again.

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Trump gained 3% in the last week last time. If he gets a similar boost he's one reasonably sized polling error away from getting to Biden +3 or +4 and an EC win.

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Haven't got them yet. Actually, I'd rather wait and see how the polls move over the next week.

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Trump is up to 41% on PredictIt. We finally got some polls that show a very close election (notably from Investor's Business Daily). I think they have Biden +4 which is right around the breakeven in the Electoral College.

Something I thought of - it's actually really hard to send mail from many residences in a city. You have to go out and find a post office box to drop off mail in. It's much easier from the suburbs or rural areas - you just leave outgoing mail in your own mailbox and lift up the flag. I bet there's going to be some substantial percentage of people who intend to vote by mail but just don't find the time to do it by election day, the same way people intend to vote in person and end up not finding the time for it. That would mostly hurt Biden.

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Team Rocket Elite posted...

Are mailed in ballots largely counted after the in-person ballots? I'm trying to get an idea of what the poll trends are going to look like. If in-person ballots tend to be counted first, Trump might have an L-Block style explosive early vote and then go into free fall hoping for the match to end early somehow.

I think it's going to vary by state. For the states that count mail ballots first, Biden will probably have a huge lead as soon as the polls close and Trump will make a big comeback all night. And totally the opposite trend for states that don't allow opening of mail ballots until election day.

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Corrik7 posted...

What polls? I have yet to see a poll of who you voted for in a mail in ballot yet.

Polls asking people if they intend to vote by mail or in person and who they plan to vote for.

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Corrik7 posted...

Why do you assume Biden is winning those voters with more than 70%?

That's what the polls are telling us. Trump is crushing it with in-person voters.

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Will need to do some research to make my predictions. Might not happen this week as I am pretty busy with other stuff.

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So, I do think Trump's coming down with coronavirus and recovery injects some chaos into the election, which Trump badly needed to overcome what became a large polling deficit after the debate. Not sure that it helps him rather than hurts him, but at this point he needs max chaos.

I don't get a lot of Trump's plays like fearmongering with suburban voters, going all-in on fracking, etc. I thought one of the smartest things he did in 2016 was say that Bernie's diagnosis of the state of the union is exactly right, and he only disagreed with the proposed remedy. Trump needs to find a message like that that resonates with swing voters.

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I thought Trump wrecked himself in this debate. As the candidate behind in the polls, he needed to win the debates to improve his standing. I don't think this performance is going to do it.

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I will say, Ulti and Corrik have both come out as saying that Biden is a virtual lock, which is a fairly strong indicator for me. I think them two are probably the most swingy voters we have on this board, and Ulti has a knack for knowing which way the wind is blowing, even if he can be incredibly far off on the magnitude (he called Trump winning in an electoral college landslide in 2016 and was further off the margin than people who picked Hillary to win a very narrow contest).

Since I live in a blue state now and it's now been 9 years since I've lived in a swing state, my ability to get a sense for the national mood based on personal interactions has diminished.

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Sure, Bernie lost again, but Bernie's been losing for decades and hasn't changed his platform. That means that he does not see winning as the highest or only end. It really is irrelevant though, as this topic is for discussing elections, and not the morals of either candidates or their supporters.

pezzicle posted...

Does that matter tho? National polling is kind of useless when you could win nationally and lose the election.

I'd suspect that polling numbers in the middle ~10 states would be more important? No?

It matters only because it's correlated with the swing states. Yes, the swing state polls are better correlated with swing state voting than the national polls, but these polls all have a significant margin of error so the national polling does add some information. There are a lot more national polls than individual state polls so the individual state polls sometimes are not that accurate, whereas the 538 national polling average is going to be very accurate barring a systemic bias in the polls that extends across all the pollsters.

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Trump finally gets below a 7 point deficit in the 538 polling average. Now down to a 6.7% gap today.

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