Board 8 > Politics Containment Topic 332: Pence Ignores Aide's Virus

(+) Yeah! (+)

If they havent already they should definitely use a dropbox

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I don't know what their issue is. They live just outside of Madison and their ballots were delivered weeks ago, but they can't seem to take the time to fill them out. I know neither of them have ever voted before, but it's not like the process is very complicated. I doubt they'll be willing to use a drop box if they can't even put them in their mailbox, but I'll let them know!

It was so easy for my wife and I. We got our ballots, and dropped them off at the collection box at city hall the next day.

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Just want to say, love the fact that the fate of the world depends on a handful of people in Pennsylvania and Florida. Very cool, very democratic.

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Mailing them is definitely better than not voting at all (they might show up in time)!, but yeah due to the SCOTUS ruling Wisconsin ballots need to be received by I think 8PM(?) on Election Day or they wont be counted, and USPS is saying that they cant guarantee that ballots arrive unless theyre sent at least a week in advance.

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That's the thing that really annoys me. They've had weeks to do this, but they couldn't take ten minutes, and now their votes probably won't get counted. Unless they're serving Bloody Mary's next to a drop box, there's not much of a chance that they use one.

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Jesus

https://twitter.com/bgrueskin/status/1321403371115499521?s=21

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Killing your own fanatics to own the libs

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That WI poll pushed Biden up to 89 on 538

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that wi poll is ridiculous

...but if true then the dream of 413 electoral votes might not be aiming high enough. (it's obviously an outlier but lmao)

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It's definitely an outlier, but if Biden wasn't up by a decent amount there such an outlier would be very unlikely

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538 has Wisconsin at 94% for Biden now. It's above Michigan and Nevada on the snake chart. I think the Biden +17 poll is stupid but we'll see, maybe the dam really is breaking.

Paratroopa1 posted...

538 has Wisconsin at 94% for Biden now. It's above Michigan and Nevada on the snake chart. I think the Biden +17 poll is stupid but we'll see, maybe the dam really is breaking.

While its definitely not actually +17, I wouldnt be surprised if undecideds are breaking more towards Biden there than elsewhere given that its currently one of biggest covid hotspots

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cool cool cool

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1321152558837174273?s=19

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https://twitter.com/Atul_Gawande/status/1321408834330677249

So much of this is preventable

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On a lighter note:

https://twitter.com/ne0liberal/status/1321444315256770572

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On the topic of potentially decisive states, I have a question for the Americans on here.

Why is Biden doing so much better in Iowa than Ohio? The two states seem pretty similar, with similar results in the last few elections. However, Biden is ahead or tied in 7 of the last 8 polls in Iowa according to fivethirtyeight and is a slight favourite to win, while Trump is the slight favourite in Ohio, being ahead in a majority of recent polls. Additionally, the two states are going in opposite directions with Iowa seeming to trend more towards Biden while Ohio seems to trend more towards Trump. So what gives?

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Lightning Strikes posted...

On the topic of potentially decisive states, I have a question for the Americans on here.

Why is Biden doing so much better in Iowa than Ohio? The two states seem pretty similar, with similar results in the last few elections. However, Biden is ahead or tied in 7 of the last 8 polls in Iowa according to fivethirtyeight and is a slight favourite to win, while Trump is the slight favourite in Ohio, being ahead in a majority of recent polls. Additionally, the two states are going in opposite directions with Iowa seeming to trend more towards Biden while Ohio seems to trend more towards Trump. So what gives?

I think both will go for Trump if it makes you feel better.

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Lightning Strikes posted...

On the topic of potentially decisive states, I have a question for the Americans on here.

Why is Biden doing so much better in Iowa than Ohio? The two states seem pretty similar, with similar results in the last few elections. However, Biden is ahead or tied in 7 of the last 8 polls in Iowa according to fivethirtyeight and is a slight favourite to win, while Trump is the slight favourite in Ohio, being ahead in a majority of recent polls. Additionally, the two states are going in opposite directions with Iowa seeming to trend more towards Biden while Ohio seems to trend more towards Trump. So what gives?

One difference: Iowa is a lot whiter than Ohio. Biden is polling a lot better than Clinton with white voters, but is actually underperforming her margins with minorities (especially hispanic voters, but also non-negligibly with black voters).

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LordoftheMorons posted...

Wowwww this WaPo/ABC WI poll (also weird use of narrowly for their MI poll):

https://twitter.com/postpolls/status/1321392073094942720?s=21

Biden leads narrowly in MI - panik
Lead is actually seven points - kalm
Pennsylvania is still the tipping point state - panik

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In 2018, three of the four congressional districts went democratic during the wave election. Meanwhile, Ohio saw no net change in representation and stayed at the the same split as before. Part of this has to do with how atrociously the state is gerrymandered, but it is worth noting Democrats lost the governorship there too.

I still agree Iowa probably leans republican and I would be surprised if the dems win there, but it is definitely more fertile ground than Ohio. I think rural Ohio voters have benefited more from Trumps trade policies than rural Iowa voters (farming had been hit particularly hard). And like LotM said, Biden is doing better with white voters (especially white women) than 2016 while not improving his margins with non-white voters. So the demographics of Ohio arent necessarily in his favor.

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To follow up on that here is the statewide split for votes for US house of reps votes in 2018:

Ohio - Republican 52.00% - Democratic 47.27%
Iowa - Republican 46.54% - Democratic 50.52%

So for Biden to win Ohio hed have to outpace the statewide democratic vote in Ohio significantly from the biggest wave election in recent memory. To win Iowa he could actually do a great deal worse than Democrats did in 2018.

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Relevant thread on my demographic point:

https://twitter.com/nate_cohn/status/1321401717972471809?s=21

I also cant for the life of me figure out a reasonable explanation for Trumps gains among minority voters (unless you were to somehow chalk it all up to Clintons strength with them).

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LordoftheMorons posted...

I also cant for the life of me figure out a reasonable explanation for Trumps gains among minority voters (unless you were to somehow chalk it all up to Clintons strength with them).

(Its probably Bidens entire political history outweighing the wildcard image of Trump.)

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National polls have been tightening quite a bit recently. Biden's lead on 538 is down to 8.4. Still a healthy lead, but there have been a lot of polls in the past couple days placing his lead in around the 4-5 point range, which would mean Pennsylvania would likely be within striking distance.

Happy Wednesday!

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IIRC Obama brought over a lot of minority voters in 2008 so it could just be simply that the population is still returning back to the mean.

Edit: I guess that twitter post agrees with me...

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Jesus, these test positivity rates:

https://twitter.com/erictopol/status/1321466255124033537?s=21

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That is a consequence of decreased testing. It looks like they are going after people with symptoms rather than testing people who have been potentially exposed...

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It's mostly a consequence of significant increase in spread, tbh.

There's no doubt that more people are getting it, the fact they are getting a higher total number of positives despite decreased testing is all you need to know, but those percentages don't mean much.

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charmander6000 posted...

There's no doubt that more people are getting it, the fact they are getting a higher total number of positives despite decreased testing is all you need to know, but those percentages don't mean much.

What the fuck.
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Btw 538 was projecting Biden a +8 so the polls tightening to about that makes sense.

Obviously being +10 would be better but I wouldn't worry unless it fell to +6 or lower.

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charmander6000 posted...

There's no doubt that more people are getting it, the fact they are getting a higher total number of positives despite decreased testing is all you need to know, but those percentages don't mean much.

There actually hasn't been a significant decrease in testing in any of those states recently.

The positive rate is a mere result of more people getting the virus and less a change in testing.

LordoftheMorons posted...

Relevant thread on my demographic point:

https://twitter.com/nate_cohn/status/1321401717972471809?s=21

I also cant for the life of me figure out a reasonable explanation for Trumps gains among minority voters (unless you were to somehow chalk it all up to Clintons strength with them).

Do you interact with minorities (or poorer people generally) much in real life? No one likes being treated as a statistic, and Trump, unlike Romney or McCain, actually asks minorities for their votes.

What's this I hear about Biden knowing about his son's foreign business ventures and lying he doesn't at the debate?

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Who gives a shit if it's true? Trump can't open his mouth without lying. Why should Biden be expected to be 100% honest?

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Fair enough. That could easily be taken as Biden just trying to protect his son.

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"Joe knew his son had some shady European job" isn't even the allegation.

The allegation is that "Hunter used his connections with Joe to get him (Joe) to illegally use his influence to benefit (someone?) by making (some kind of corrupt deal?)"

Which....didn't happen.

The only thing that did happen is a Prosecutor got fired because he (the prosecutor) was FAILING to prosecute corruption. So the only tangible act that occurred is just proof in the opposite direction.

.

It's not even a case of "if there's smoke, then there's a fire".

It's a case of "I know you haven't seen any smoke, an in fact you did see Joe running around with a fire extinguisher earlier. But trust us, there is a fire and Joe started it".

I'm bewildered that it's even still a thing. The people pushing that narrative need to be laughed out of the country.

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Also what's big for Biden is that he's polling consistently over 50%. If he's polling around the 51-52% heading into election day and there's less likely an uneven split for undecided voters like 2016, it means Biden likely finishes around 53-54% which makes it nearly impossible for Trump to win.

I understand the natural apprehension thanks to 2016 but keep in mind the polls weren't off by much then. A Trump win, even Pennsylvania, requires an abnormally high polling error.

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Forceful_Dragon posted...

It's a case of "I know you haven't seen any smoke, an in fact you did see Joe running around with a fire extinguisher earlier. But trust us, there is a fire and Joe started it".

That's... not as good of an analogy as you think.

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TheRock1525 posted...

I understand the natural apprehension thanks to 2016 but keep in mind the polls weren't off by much then.

I think the current numbers are accurate.

We're going to run into some real problems due to a lot of states counting early votes later for some-fucking-reason. Very possible that Biden is 'losing' on election night.

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So if Trump loses, what terrible things do you think he'll do during his lame duck period?

I'm thinking he'll pardon a bunch of awful people (Maybe Ghislaine Maxwell), fire a bunch of people, and generally refuse to govern (or basically business as usual I guess)

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Dancedreamer posted...

So if Trump loses, what terrible things do you think he'll do during his lame duck period?

He'll probably do the exact same terrible things he would do if he won, but maybe he'll try to be faster since he won't have as much time.
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I mean if that's all Trump does it could easily be the best 2 months of his presidency.
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What kind of brain scientist decided that someone gets to stay in charge for two months after they know they lost.

There is a zero percent chance Trump just pouts and refuses to govern. That would be an absolute dream scenario for us if he did so I cannot imagine that's what he'd do.

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Gonna be a bunch of pardons if he loses. No stimulus. Who knows what else.

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TheRock1525 posted...

That's... not as good of an analogy as you think.

With regard to Burisma and Ukraine it's more apt than "hunter set up meetings and joe maybe met people and something umm probably uhhh....corruption!".

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pyresword posted...

I mean if that's all Trump does it could easily be the best 2 months of his presidency.

Not if he makes a bunch of really bad pardons like Matt Bevin. (Bevin is exactly how I picture Trump to go out mostly)


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PerfectChaosZ posted...

What kind of brain scientist decided that someone gets to stay in charge for two months after they know they lost.

Back when the Constitution was written, it could take that long just to figure out who won and get them to the capital. (Longer, actually. Until the 20th Amendment passed the lame duck period went until March.) And since it's impossible to change the Constitution, we're stuck with it now.
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Then... don't tell them till the two months is up? If they want it to be the same as the infallible constitution.