Board 8 > Who do you believe will win the election? trump or biden?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Four more years

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I'm hopeful.

I look at state polls, and give trump a 5-6% "I'm embarrassed to admit who I'm voting for" advantage.

With all of that in mind, biden would win the electoral college today.

But there's a long way to go, and a lot could happen between then and now. At the mundane end, the Vp pick could be a flop. At the extreme end, martial law could really screw things up

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MajinZidane posted...

imagine we had a Dem running who any living, breathing, actual person wanted to vote for

Enough people want to vote for Biden that they voted him in the primary as the nominee for president.

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BlAcK TuRtLe posted...

What does affect everyone's life negatively is watching cities burn to the ground, and all of these looters/rioters getting away with committing crime.

Looters getting away with theft is vastly preferable to sociopath cops getting away with murder

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Inviso posted...

Enough people want to vote for Biden that they voted him in the primary as the nominee for president.

Yup.

I agree the theme of the primary basically was "do we want any of these people more than Biden" and the answer was "no, actually"

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ninkendo posted...

Write in for The Rock

Will totally vote for him.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

This is totally wrong. Polls show

We really going to rely on the polls as evidence when "the polls" told us Hillary was going to win with relative ease in 2016?

pepper2012 posted...

We really going to rely on the polls as evidence when "the polls" told us Hillary was going to win with relative ease in 2016?

Not what happened. The nationwide polls showed Hilary winning by the same margin she then won the popular vote with. Looking at the statewide polls, the only states outside the margin of error were Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. So the statewide polls were effectively correct in 49/51 contests. Even if those two had gone for Hillary as projected, Trump still would have won. The polls were right in 2016, that's the point.

The issue is that people looked at the nationwide polls, thought "well I guess Trump has no chance" and didn't pay attention to the statewide polling. And Trump didn't have a chance, he lost nationwide. But that's not what decides who the president is. Right now the statewide polls are pretty clearly in Biden's favour. At the end of the day they only show the voting intention for right now, but polls do work and are usually accurate.

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biden ain't winning

dems screwed themselves over again

DeepsPraw posted...

Looters getting away with theft is vastly preferable to sociopath cops getting away with murder

Tell that to businesses and communities that had everything torched to the ground, vandalized, and their livelihoods destroyed.

A lot of people in those communities are going to end up not giving a shit about sociopath cops when their lives were completely ruined and people are saying "Oh but you have insurance" and "Yeah, but it was for a good cause."

And guess what? They can't even speak out and say "Hey it's fucked up that my fucking life was demolished by some assholes in the name of this movement" and the far left will dogpile on them with whatabouts. And then you have what we had before: those people stay silent, seethe, and then vote Republican when the time comes.

You guys are severely underestimating how these riots are going to turn a lot of people who had lives ruined or who know people who had lives ruined. They looked at Trump trying to stop it and then they look at dopey Joe Biden talking about how to fix this cops need to learn how to shoot people in the legs instead. It's a no brainer. And I say all this while supporting the protests.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Tell that to businesses and communities that had everything torched to the ground, vandalized, and their livelihoods destroyed.

A lot of people in those communities are going to end up not giving a shit about sociopath cops when their lives were completely ruined and people are saying "Oh but you have insurance" and "Yeah, but it was for a good cause."

And guess what? They can't even speak out and say "Hey it's fucked up that my fucking life was demolished by some assholes in the name of this movement" and the far left will dogpile on them with whatabouts. And then you have what we had before: those people stay silent, seethe, and then vote Republican when the time comes.

You guys are severely underestimating how these riots are going to turn a lot of people who had lives ruined or who know people who had lives ruined. They looked at Trump trying to stop it and then they look at dopey Joe Biden talking about how to fix this cops need to learn how to shoot people in the legs instead. It's a no brainer. And I say all this while supporting the protests.

See that's what bothers me about all this. We aren't free to point out the faults within something without being labeled as a traitor to that movement. If you criticize anything about these protests, whether it be the looting, arson, assaults on shopowners, people baiting/antagonize police trying to get them to do something wrong, etc., you are labeled as being against the cause, a racist, a right-wing nut, etc.

It's like you have to believe that the protesters are right in everything they do and it's all justified or else you're not on their side. Life is more complicated than that. These protests are a good cause, but some things done during them are not.

This reminds me of the immigration debate a few years back. Around the time the wall was being discussed. To the Left, the immigrants could do no wrong. Nothing was their fault. They were perfect. To the Right, the immigrants were all evil, and there was nothing good about them. It was so black and white. But the reality is, that some of them are good, and others maybe didn't have such good intentions. But if you called any of that out, you were disowned by the other side. Same thing is happening here.

It's OKAY to criticize certain protesters if you are on the Left, just like it is OKAY to criticize certain police if you are on the Right.

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banananor posted...

But there's a long way to go, and a lot could happen between then and now. At the mundane end, the Vp pick could be a flop. At the extreme end, martial law could really screw things up

I agree with this. Its far too soon for anyone to make any meaningful predictions, and the outcome will depend largely on turnout, which could depend on whether most people are staying at home in November. If 2020 has taught us anything, its that people dont have a clue whats going to happen even a week from now.

Mr Lasastryke posted...

yeah, you're delusional if you think the only thing moderates have been getting out of the protests and riots is "the looters/rioters suck." i'm sure plenty of them have been fucking terrified by the police brutality that has been going on.

Do you know any American moderates? Like, real ones. And I don't count - I am just anti-centrist, not moderate.

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undefined posted...

yeah, you're delusional if you think the only thing moderates have been getting out of the protests and riots is "the looters/rioters suck." i'm sure plenty of them have been fucking terrified by the police brutality that has been going on.

red sox 777 posted...

Do you know any American moderates? Like, real ones. And I don't count - I am just anti-centrist, not moderate.

As a moderate/centrist, I agree with Mr. Lasastryke. I share both opinions that "the looters suck" and "terrified of the police brutality". Before this, I have always sided more on the side of police, acknowledging a few bad apples. This was a wake up call that it's not just a few bad apples, there is systematic aggression that our police force defaults to that really needs to be addressed. There have always been defenses for this ("you don't know what they have to deal with every day", "their lives are on the line", etc.), but a lot of the videos that have surfaced have shown a lot of unnecessary and uncalled for uses of force that no argument can really justify.

The problem is the looting/arson/destruction. It is the only thing that is fueling the Right right now. It's something they can latch onto amidst all this as a weapon against the movement, and I believe it's ultimately what's going to hinder the effects these protests could have had on real, lasting change. Having people defend the looting or shame others for calling out the looting, just because they don't want to say anything bad about the protesters, isn't helping either.

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Jesse_Custer posted...

If 2020 has taught us anything, its that people dont have a clue whats going to happen even a week from now.

Or a day. Yesterday when I voted and posted in this topic, I was 100% sure Biden was going to win. Now I think it's a toss-up again.

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The thing is, I have been afraid of police brutality for many years. It's long been internalized here.

Now, maybe recent events are opening some eyes on this but I bet a lot of people already knew about our horribly overpowered and inefficient police and justice system. Rioting and looting on the other hand is new. This is not a problem most Americans have had to deal with before.

And Biden is one of the worst possible candidates to run against the status quo with the police and justice system. He wrote the bill that's been our status quo for the last 25 years! It's like Romney running against Obamacare when Obamacare was modeled on Romneycare.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Biden being old is a good thing. He wins, dies, and his much younger VP takes over.

This is true. Any remotely not-terrible VP pick can give him a 100% lock. Pence is a massive liability for Trump and it might even be optimal to pick a different VP this time.

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PrivateBiscuit1 posted...

Tell that to businesses and communities that had everything torched to the ground, vandalized, and their livelihoods destroyed.

100% of those business were destroyed by Trump's virus response. And in total maybe 0.0001% of all business in the US were damaged by a riot which lasted less.

So if these people are so ready to shift 99.9999% of the blame away from Trump and onto the protestors for their businesses being "destroyed", then news flash - they were going to vote for Trump anyway.

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guffguy89 posted...

If you criticize anything about these protests, whether it be the looting, arson, assaults on shopowners, people baiting/antagonize police trying to get them to do something wrong, etc., you are labeled as being against the cause, a racist, a right-wing nut, etc.

Because you're not criticizing the protests here, you're directly opposing the protests and defending police brutality.

For example, why didn't you include police tear gassing or ramming cars into people in your list of "criticisms"? It's the most common criminal act that happened during the protests, and you don't even give it 1 word. It's because you blame the protestors for causing the looting, the damage, and indeed the police brutality. It's no question why people treat you as hostile. If you're doing this unintentionally then STOP, it's really easy.

Understand that the protests are caused by policy brutality, and so are the riots, looting, violent police reactions to the protest, etc. Then you can credibly criticize without accidentally bootlicking.


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red sox 777 posted...

Do you know any American moderates? Like, real ones. And I don't count - I am just anti-centrist, not moderate.

does LotM count?

anyway, my claim was mostly based on the fact that I'M terrified by the police brutality and given how many moderates exist, i took an educated guess that at least SOME of them feel the way i do. i certainly didn't think all american cops were saints before this, but the 24/7 stream of videos of police officers acting like absolute savages has been rather eye-opening to me. find it hard to believe that all moderates are like "oh yeah i already knew this it's totally par for the course."

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

does LotM count?

anyway, my claim was mostly based on the fact that I'M terrified by the police brutality and given how many moderates exist, i took an educated guess that at least SOME of them feel the way i do. i certainly didn't think all american cops were saints before this, but the 24/7 stream of videos of police officers acting like absolute savages has been rather eye-opening to me. find it hard to believe that all moderates are like "oh yeah i already knew this it's totally par for the course."

Yes, LOTM is like an archetypal left of center moderate.

I think my having been afraid of police brutality for years may have something to do with me (1) being a minority (not a particularly oppressed minority, but not white), (2) having worked briefly in a public defender's office, and (3) have issues with anxiety generally. I could see white moderates genuinely not being aware, although I do feel like it's been super obvious for many years.

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The DNC and their candidate somehow managed to lose the most winnable election in history four years ago, so I would say nothing is locked in stone.

I will say that a LOT of my right leaning friends who voted for Trump four years ago are saying they no longer can after the pandemic response and this situation.

I am planning to write in Bernie Sanders, but I have a counter going for how many times someone tells me that's just a vote for Trump, and if it gets high enough I may actually still vote for Trump.

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anyway, my claim was mostly based on the fact that I'M terrified by the police brutality

how racist of you

only black people are allowed to be terrified

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The correct answer is nobody.

Uglyface2 posted...

The correct answer is nobody.

like as in we don't have an election because the country burned down or what

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ExThaNemesis posted...

The DNC and their candidate somehow managed to lose the most winnable election in history four years ago, so I would say nothing is locked in stone.

I will say that a LOT of my right leaning friends who voted for Trump four years ago are saying they no longer can after the pandemic response and this situation.

I am planning to write in Bernie Sanders, but I have a counter going for how many times someone tells me that's just a vote for Trump, and if it gets high enough I may actually still vote for Trump.

Why dont you just skip ahead to what you actually want to do and just vote for Trump.

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If Hillary had a 99% chance and the 1% hits the polls were still right.

Leafeon13N posted...

If Hillary had a 99% chance and the 1% hits the polls were still right.

2016 was Fire Emblem confirmed

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Leafeon13N posted...

If Hillary had a 99% chance and the 1% hits the polls were still right.

This is probably in jest, but there's some incorrect math thinking behind this. The model is telling you its view of probabilities, but those probabilities don't necessarily reflect reality. You need to evaluate the accuracy of the model too. For example, if we roll a 6-sided die, we are very confident that each side has a 1/6 chance of hitting. We remain very confident about this even if say, after 50 rolls, it landed on "3" 25 times. While it seems like an anomalous result, we are so confident in our model (that each side has an equal chance of hitting) that we think it's just a run of luck for "3." But what if it lands on "3" all 50 times? What if it was 500 out of 500? At some point, we need to start questioning whether this die is fair or if it has been loaded to always land on 3.

If you have a model that predicts a single election and says candidate A has a 99% chance of winning and they lose, the most likely thing is that the model has some flaws. While it's possible the model just got unlucky, it's unlikely. Now if your model has called 99% of previous elections correctly - then we say that the model probably just got unlucky this time. But if you have no track record? Then statistically probably the model is off.


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red sox 777 posted...

This is probably in jest, but there's some incorrect math thinking behind this. The model is telling you its view of probabilities, but those probabilities don't necessarily reflect reality. You need to evaluate the accuracy of the model too. For example, if we roll a 6-sided die, we are very confident that each side has a 1/6 chance of hitting. We remain very confident about this even if say, after 50 rolls, it landed on "3" 25 times. While it seems like an anomalous result, we are so confident in our model (that each side has an equal chance of hitting) that we think it's just a run of luck for "3." But what if it lands on "3" all 50 times? What if it was 500 out of 500? At some point, we need to start questioning whether this die is fair or if it has been loaded to always land on 3.

I knew I shouldn't have bought those Russian dice
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red sox 777 posted...

This is probably in jest, but there's some incorrect math thinking behind this. The model is telling you its view of probabilities, but those probabilities don't necessarily reflect reality. You need to evaluate the accuracy of the model too. For example, if we roll a 6-sided die, we are very confident that each side has a 1/6 chance of hitting. We remain very confident about this even if say, after 50 rolls, it landed on "3" 25 times. While it seems like an anomalous result, we are so confident in our model (that each side has an equal chance of hitting) that we think it's just a run of luck for "3." But what if it lands on "3" all 50 times? What if it was 500 out of 500? At some point, we need to start questioning whether this die is fair or if it has been loaded to always land on 3.

If you have a model that predicts a single election and says candidate A has a 99% chance of winning and they lose, the most likely thing is that the model has some flaws. While it's possible the model just got unlucky, it's unlikely. Now if your model has called 99% of previous elections correctly - then we say that the model probably just got unlucky this time. But if you have no track record? Then statistically probably the model is off.

in order to run true accuracy on the model you would need like hundreds if not thousands of iterations of the election.

As it stands, if the results fell within the range of the model, even if on an extreme end, it still fell within the model.

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BlackMageJawa posted...

I knew I shouldn't have bought those Russian dice

25 3's in 50 rolls is about a 40 in a billion chance; I'd still doubt those dice! (Actually probably fairer to say 240 in a billion and include scenarios for rolling 25 of any particular number, but still).

That said, 538 gave Trump a 30% chance, which isn't improbably by any measure

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red13n posted...

in order to run true accuracy on the model you would need like hundreds if not thousands of iterations of the election.

As it stands, if the results fell within the range of the model, even if on an extreme end, it still fell within the model.

With the limited data we have we can't get an extremely high confidence one way or the other on the model. Also, a model can easily be more "right" simply by lowering the confidence of its predictions. For example, a model that simply says the Republican candidates has a 50% chance of winning and the Democratic candidate has a 50% chance of winning in every election would rarely look too bad, but obviously adds no real predictive power.

I think we do have enough data to say that the 538 model (which had Hillary at 70%) was very very likely better than those models that had her at 99%.

Also, there is no actual luck in elections. What creates uncertainty is that our models are not perfect. A perfect model would call every election with 100% accuracy. By contrast, a perfect model cannot predict the results of a game of dice or coin flipping (assuming you keep within the rules of the game, that random events are supposed to be truly random, and don't get into the issue with mechanical determinism).


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There is luck in elections.

Weather would be a simple example.

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SmartMuffin posted...

how racist of you

only black people are allowed to be terrified

You need to bring your "posts that show intense white shame" rate to below 100%

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538 had literally the ONLY correct model for the election. It's not a coincidence that he also had dozens of other correct models for politics that others totally flubbed.

But besides that it's so dumb to look at a 99% model and be like "well guess it hit the 1%". Think about if you were playing poker with this model, you would go all in every time. And 538 would destroy you.


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Models are not polls.

Its not a lie as anybody can look at the data. The polls for swing states Trump won either favoured him or were statistical ties other than Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Of the 13 statistical ties Trump won 8 so its not like he dominated the tossups. People were not paying attention. The person who said 99% in articular was a fool and actively harmful, though the 538 model got it right like foolmo says.

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