Poll of the Day > Even closer to the election, FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a 89% chance to win.

(+) Yeah! (+)

The data fivethirtyeight uses is available for download. Don't act like they're hiding something just because you're personally incredulous about it.

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YoukaiSlayer posted...

Why? Why is that concerning?

Because Republicans are so fucking terrible that even with the incumbency advantage, they put forth a candidate so horrific that he has no chance in hell of winning the popular vote, and instead they have to rely on stealing the election through some combination of the electoral college and voter intimidation/suppression?

I mean yeah, that is pretty concerning. It's bad enough having only two choices, now we only have one.

Well that Iowa senate senate seat they had been calling for democrats for quite some time just went red.

undefined posted...

The fact that any candidate could get an 89% without, say, being caught selling kids into slavery in Africa or having a sex tape of them and Putin released

Or say, letting 200k people die while pretending it wasn't a problem

Dude. Trump wanted to ban travel from China right from the get-go. It was people like Cuomo who did shit like sending sick patients into nursing homes. I'm not going to say Trump handled this perfectly, but if you can't understand the difference between '200k people die' and '300 million people live' then you are the problem. Not Trump. Let me ask you, what would YOU have done? Declared martial law and deployed the military? Shot people who broke quarantine? Welded people into their own homes? He listened to the experts but he has an entire NATION to run and think about. He can't just shut everything down without massive consequences. Meanwhile you got shit like Cuomo proclaiming that New York will remain on lockdown until there are NO new cases. That's not even a pipe dream; that's delusion. Trump has HAD the virus. He has survived it. If he still stands by his actions and deeds maybe you should listen. This isn't some zombie plague. That doesn't mean we shouldn't ignore it, but this is pure fearmongering that you're doing.

streamofthesky posted...

Because Republicans are so fucking terrible that even with the incumbency advantage, they put forth a candidate so horrific that he has no chance in hell of winning the popular vote, and instead they have to rely on stealing the election through some combination of the electoral college and voter intimidation/suppression?

I mean yeah, that is pretty concerning. It's bad enough having only two choices, now we only have one.

If anything the electoral college needs to be stronger. Pull up one of those election maps that let you experiment with states. Here.

https://www.270towin.com/

Even if Trump wins EVERY swing state according to the consensus he loses. In order to win he not only has to get every single one but flip THREE states that are blue. But let's do this again with the ONLY change being that California is removed. He then wins once you adjust the goal to account for Cali's removal IF he wins every single swing state. The fact is that California, be it by popular or electoral college, holds too much power and sway and is so firmly blue that it means every single Republican is going to be in an uphill battle at best if it's even possible. This means only the few coastal states will matter. It takes literally the entire mid-west to simply TIE cali (even then they're down 1). California, Washington, Oregon, and New York, all of which are Dem strong-holds, are enough to beat EVERY state west of the Mississippi if Texas stays out of it.

Democrats have a massive edge in elections thanks to places like California and New York. If anything the electoral college needs to be made stronger and these costal democrat strongholds removed.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Democrats have a massive edge in elections thanks to places like California and New York. If anything the electoral college needs to be made stronger and these costal democrat strongholds removed.

Cough Texas cough

The point of an electoral system should not be to ensure all parties are equally powerful. The republicans are not entitled to power if they do not represent the people.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Democrats have a massive edge in elections thanks to places like California and New York. If anything the electoral college needs to be made stronger and these costal democrat strongholds removed.

I mean holy shit imagine saying this and thinking it's ok? What the fuck does removing coastal strongholds mean? You wanna nuke cities or something? You think people you don't like don't deserve rights? That the people you like are so good they shouldn't have to earn votes they should just exterminate anyone who would vote against them?

BlackScythe0 posted...

I mean holy shit imagine saying this and thinking it's ok? What the fuck does removing coastal strongholds mean? You wanna nuke cities or something? You think people you don't like don't deserve rights? That the people you like are so good they shouldn't have to earn votes they should just exterminate anyone who would vote against them?

Victimhood mentality. They can't believe for even a minute that they have any kind of advantage. Everyone else needs to be brought down to make things "fair".

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Too many people that I dont like get to vote, something must be done to make it more fair and less democratic

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can you vote for Jen for be president instead?

she would do a better job

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Blightzkrieg posted...

Cough Texas cough

The point of an electoral system should not be to ensure all parties are equally powerful. The republicans are not entitled to power if they do not represent the people.

Not only is Texas only 38 votes, it's basically the ONLY thing the Republicans have close to a 'stronghold'. After Texas the closest thing the Republicans have is Tennessee with... 11. Meanwhile the Dems have California with 55, New York with 29, and Illinois with 20. Washington (12), New Jersey (14), Massachusetts (11), and Maryland/DC (12 combined) all tie or surpass Tennessee though it's much closer and are heavily Blue.

I'm not saying that the system SHOULD reflect it either. I'm saying both the popular and electoral heavily favor the Democrats despite them controlling relatively few states and land. Did you look at 2016 by county? It's a bloody SEA of Red with only a few Blue islands. But those Blue islands were almost enough to give Hilary the win. I doubt it will be much different this time around. The left has a massive advantage in both places and it is an uphill battle for Republicans, so acting like it's 'unfair' is less 'legitimate argument' and more 'bellyaching because you got beaten despite having the OPed boss character while your opponent had the joke character'.

In short. Shut up. Your argument is invalid.

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https://external-preview.redd.it/1kPjh4lSHozrnJqdVlsTqwE-ucwFUc1r4Nur11YWwRs.jpg?width=625&auto=webp&s=5fb85eab1d589a6c3713a9025eeebbc0d81f27fd

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Unbridled9 posted...

I'm not saying that the system SHOULD reflect it either. I'm saying both the popular and electoral heavily favor the Democrats despite them controlling relatively few states and land.

Imagine being this close to getting the point

Click my sig

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You're forgetting that Florida has a larger population than New York, and is a republican stronghold.

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papercup posted...

You're forgetting that Florida has a larger population than New York, and is a republican stronghold.

Florida is a swing state. It's gone blue as recently as 2012.

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"the electoral college is rigged in favour of the dems" is a hell of a take lol

I didn't think 2020 could get any crazier

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Unbridled9 posted...

I'm saying both the popular and electoral heavily favor the Democrats

the popular vote does not "favor" any party or any size state, it's just a straight up vote by population. What the hell are you trying to say? The only claim you might have is that democrats would benefit from a popular vote, which is a reflection of support from more people. Difficult concept, eh?

As for electoral college, you're just wrong there. Under current demographics, Republicans benefit from the winner take all format in the electoral college. Until Texas turns blue, at which point democrats will probably benefit from it.


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Lonestar2000 posted...

Real scientific method you got there.

And yet it's still better at predicting results than 538! Of course, if the mask shop is wrong even once, it goes away forever. However, 538 can keep calling election after election wrong and people will cite it while defending it's countless mistakes by pointing out that it only predicts odds (because when the motte falls, you retreat to the bailey!)

papercup posted...

The right is going to go fucking apeshit whether Trump wins or loses. Stay safe people.

lololol, that's some serious gaslighting.

BUMPED2002 posted...

Sadly American politics has become corrupted so we won't know who'll win until that's made official.

...what?

BUMPED2002 posted...

Trump has stated repeatedly that he won't go quietly if he loses so there's a chance he could end up winning even if he loses.

Trump has repeatedly stated that so long as the results aren't tampered with, he'll step down. Likewise Joe Biden wouldn't accept tampered results so this complaint is ridiculous.

Blightzkrieg posted...

Or say, letting 200k people die while pretending it wasn't a problem

Or, say, pretending that 200k people died simply because the president didn't talk about wearing masks despite the fact that the places with the initial outbreak were far-left enclaves that don't listen to the president anyway and almost all of those deaths would have happened even if Trump had made it illegal to go maskless (because liberals would say, "Fuck Trump and his fascist shit!" and go maskless to spite him)


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BUMPED2002 posted...

Trump has stated repeatedly that he won't go quietly if he loses so there's a chance he could end up winning even if he loses.

This is false.
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Revelation34 posted...

This is false.

Like the majority of your posts,

This is false.

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Mead posted...

Like the majority of your posts,

That doesn't even make sense. Find the post where I said something like that stating something that was never actually said.
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Revelation34 posted...

That doesn't even make sense. Find the post where I said something like that stating something that was never actually said.

you find it

its your post Im not doing your job for you dude

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Unbridled9 posted...

Let me ask you, what would YOU have done?

Well, for starters, not tell everyone that the virus was a liberal hoax.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Did you look at 2016 by county? It's a bloody SEA of Red with only a few Blue islands. But those Blue islands were almost enough to give Hilary the win. I doubt it will be much different this time around. The left has a massive advantage in both places and it is an uphill battle for Republicans, so acting like it's 'unfair' is less 'legitimate argument' and more 'bellyaching because you got beaten despite having the OPed boss character while your opponent had the joke character'.

In short. Shut up. Your argument is invalid.

No your argument is invalid, since when does land get a vote? Like what the fuck are you even trying here. You've got a red district 10+ times the land area of a blue district and they should have the same amount of people in each one.

You're wrong. You are horribly and fundamentally wrong. You're asking for people to be denied representation because you only care about the red parts of the country. We had a revolution over representation. Fuck off.

Zareth posted...

Well, for starters, not tell everyone that the virus was a liberal hoax.

also, have ANY plan

we are so many months into this thing and they still havent laid out ANY detailed plan to manage the virus

theres money that congress allocated for contact tracing in metro areas that has just been sitting there for months, because trump isnt a leader and doesnt know how to actually get things done

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Mead posted...

also, have ANY plan

we are so many months into this thing and they still havent laid out ANY detailed plan to manage the virus

theres money that congress allocated for contact tracing in metro areas that has just been sitting there for months, because trump isnt a leader and doesnt know how to actually get things done

Well they said they don't plan to manage it.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/25/politics/mark-meadows-controlling-coronavirus-pandemic-cnntv/index.html

Mead posted...

you find it

its your post Im not doing your job for you dude

In other words you're saying it doesn't exist.

BlackScythe0 posted...

No your argument is invalid, since when does land get a vote? Like what the fuck are you even trying here. You've got a red district 10+ times the land area of a blue district and they should have the same amount of people in each one.

You're wrong. You are horribly and fundamentally wrong. You're asking for people to be denied representation because you only care about the red parts of the country. We had a revolution over representation. Fuck off.

Nobody is represented when the electoral college exists.
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Revelation34 posted...

In other words you're saying it doesn't exist.

I never claimed such a thing did, lol

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Mead posted...

I never claimed such a thing did, lol

You said most of my posts are false in relation to somebody posting something that was made up.
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Blightzkrieg posted...

Click my sig

Guess Unbridled couldn't be bothered.

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Revelation34 posted...

You said most of my posts are false

I sure did

Revelation34 posted...

in relation to somebody posting something that was made up.

dude, trump cant shut up about how much he wants to steal the election and have courts decide the outcome


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Mead posted...

I sure did

dude, trump cant shut up about how much he wants to steal the election and have courts decide the outcome

The last time somebody stated this Trump's actual quote was posted and it didn't actually say what you were claiming.
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Revelation34 posted...

The last time somebody stated this Trump's actual quote was posted and it didn't actually say what you were claiming.

well we arent responsible for the fact that youre uniquely incapable of inferring information beyond strictly literal text devoid of nuance

thats something you gotta work on yourself

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Revelation34 posted...

The last time somebody stated this Trump's actual quote was posted and it didn't actually say what you were claiming.

You're going to be talking about that common occurrence of Trumpsters "interpreting" what he says to mean something completely different than what he actually said and meant.

Lol at unbridled. Maybe it's parody? Like imagine arguing that both electoral college and popular vote favor one side without realizing that it means that side deserves to win under a democratic system.

And then again with pretending like trump didn't do literally worse than every single other world leader when it comes to covid by trying to ignore the science and say it was hoax and refuse to shut things down for so incredibly long. And the guy acts like cause trump wanted to shut down travel to china it's all ok after the virus was already here for months. That's hilarious. No one can actually believe the things that poster is saying so it must be trolling, right?

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Are some voters actually influenced by these polls, statistics, etc? Do some actually decide to not vote if they truly feel their candidate has no chance to win/guaranteed to win or the opposite, suddenly feel they have to vote to give their candidate a chance?

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News on the TV just covered the senate... and things are worse than I realized. They seem to certain the senate will only go blue but we need to win 4 seats (alabama is a loss) Only 2 are basically "sure" flips and that Maine seat keeps looking worse every day.

Feeling kinda nervous.

InfestedAdam posted...

Are some voters actually influenced by these polls, statistics, etc? Do some actually decide to not vote if they truly feel their candidate has no chance to win/guaranteed to win or the opposite, suddenly feel they have to vote to give their candidate a chance?

all sorts of things influence some voters

some people only want to vote for the candidate that wins because it makes them feel like theyre part of a winning team

its weird but sometimes people think weird things

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Mead posted...

some people only want to vote for the candidate that wins because it makes them feel like theyre part of a winning team

I want to say I want to understand this mentality but at the same time do not think I will be capable of understanding it.

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Clench281 posted...

the popular vote does not "favor" any party or any size state, it's just a straight up vote by population. What the hell are you trying to say? The only claim you might have is that democrats would benefit from a popular vote, which is a reflection of support from more people. Difficult concept, eh?

As for electoral college, you're just wrong there. Under current demographics, Republicans benefit from the winner take all format in the electoral college. Until Texas turns blue, at which point democrats will probably benefit from it.

I just broke down how, Texas aside, the Dems have a massive advantage with multiple state being both heavily democrat and deep blue that hold more votes then their next-strongest state. The popular vote heavily favors democrats because of the major cities which have both high populations and lean blue.

YoukaiSlayer posted...

Lol at unbridled. Maybe it's parody? Like imagine arguing that both electoral college and popular vote favor one side without realizing that it means that side deserves to win under a democratic system.

And then again with pretending like trump didn't do literally worse than every single other world leader when it comes to covid by trying to ignore the science and say it was hoax and refuse to shut things down for so incredibly long. And the guy acts like cause trump wanted to shut down travel to china it's all ok after the virus was already here for months. That's hilarious. No one can actually believe the things that poster is saying so it must be trolling, right?

Let's say I made a system in which an entire nation was controlled by a single city at it's center. The rest don't matter. The farmlands, mountainous regions, coastal areas, and generally everything doesn't matter because they simply don't have enough voting power to compete against the city. Technically this would still be a democracy as everyone could vote. It could even be an electoral college. But the only location that would matter would be the city. This is why I pointed out the by-county map. The point is that, despite having both an edge in the popular and electoral college, they only represent basically a small amount of people living in densely-populated urban areas. Even if the left wins the people determining policy won't be the democrats out in places like Arizona or Kansas. It will be the city-dwellers in San-Fran and NYC. While someone out in Montana might have 'more power' they only represent a relatively tiny amount of the population. You can earn far more votes by appealing to people in, say, Miami than you ever could in a smaller state. After all, even if you win somewhere like Nebraska it's only 3 votes and you have to appeal to basically an entire massive state. You win Boston you basically win all of Mass. and it's 11 votes.

Let's remove Republican and Democrat. Let's say you have The Puppy Alliance and The Kitty Kollective running for presidency. Due to both parties being new and running on which pet you like more no state is leaning either way. If you wanted to win, which states would you try to claim and how would you try to win them? Plan it out and tell me how you'd try to win. Pet-based policies only.

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Holy shit, Unhinged9 is still trying to convince people that "Democracy has a liberal bias" because more people vote for Democrats...

Fucking YIKES!

streamofthesky posted...

Holy shit, Unhinged9 is still trying to convince people that "Democracy has a liberal bias" because more people vote for Democrats...

Fucking YIKES!

That's not what I said in the slightest.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Let's say I made a system in which an entire nation was controlled by a single city at it's center. The rest don't matter. The farmlands, mountainous regions, coastal areas, and generally everything doesn't matter because they simply don't have enough voting power to compete against the city. Technically this would still be a democracy as everyone could vote. It could even be an electoral college. But the only location that would matter would be the city.

It sounds to me like that's a country that could benefit from having a series of local governments to handle more local matters, leaving the federal government to handle matters that affect the country more universally and aren't particularly influenced by regional needs.

Unbridled9 posted...

After all, even if you win somewhere like Nebraska it's only 3 votes and you have to appeal to basically an entire massive state.

Fortunately, the last century or so has seen the invention of several technologies that allow a candidate to appeal to people without actually travelling to meet them in person. Broadcasting a televised or online rally to the entirety of Nebraska takes exactly the same amount of effort (at least on the part of the candidate, since the telecom infrastructure is already in place) as broadcasting it to the entirety of Rhode Island.

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It sounds to me like that's a country that could benefit from having a series of local governments to handle more local matters, leaving the federal government to handle matters that affect the country more universally and aren't particularly influenced by regional needs.

Why would the federal government care? The city is where their power-base lies. All they need to do is ensure that the city votes their way and they could do stuff like pillage the countryside and stay in power. That's basically exactly how you get dictators who rule 'democracies'. Because it gets set up so that only the places that support the party matter in an election if they don't just outright manipulate the vote.

Fortunately, the last century or so has seen the invention of several technologies that allow a candidate to appeal to people without actually travelling to meet them in person. Broadcasting a televised or online rally to the entirety of Nebraska takes exactly the same amount of effort (at least on the part of the candidate, since the telecom infrastructure is already in place) as broadcasting it to the entirety of Rhode Island.

Not really. Someone in a rural location can easily have limited access to the internet and, despite everyone having access to radio and television, it's still a lot easier to campaign in the major cities (especially since you get tons of votes if successful) than it ever is to campaign in backwater country.

Edit: This would also mean social media couldn't censor political stuff at all as it would massively affect politics. That's not what we see.

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As we enter the final day before the election:



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Unbridled9 posted...

The Kitty Kollective

One more "K" and you have the Republican Party

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It, uhhh...might not have been a good idea to post that image, Judg.

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Unbridled9 posted...

Why would the federal government care? The city is where their power-base lies. All they need to do is ensure that the city votes their way and they could do stuff like pillage the countryside and stay in power.

Presuming, of course, that the cities want the countryside pillaged. In practice, that's very rarely the case, because pillaging the countryside accomplishes very little.

Unbridled9 posted...

Because it gets set up so that only the places that support the party matter in an election if they don't just outright manipulate the vote.

This is exactly what gerrymandering is, and it already happens all over the country, usually in favour of the party that struggles to sway popular opinion in most elections. The electoral college makes that easier, not harder, because the party doesn't have to appeal to as many people.

Unbridled9 posted...

Not really. Someone in a rural location can easily have limited access to the internet and, despite everyone having access to radio and television, it's still a lot easier to campaign in the major cities (especially since you get tons of votes if successful) than it ever is to campaign in backwater country.

And yet Biden has been able to campaign quite successfully despite limiting in-person events due to Covid concerns, relying instead on telecom technologies to communicate his platform. It's a paradigm shift from what people have come to expect, and conservatives in particular (by virtue of being conservative) tend not to like having to get used to new norms like that, but it is nonetheless very possible, especially if the current federal government makes a significant push to improve rural internet access (which no Republican president since the proliferation of the Internet has done).

Unbridled9 posted...

Edit: This would also mean social media couldn't censor political stuff at all as it would massively affect politics. That's not what we see.

Yes, that is a concern, one which needs some degree of legislative oversight to correct. In the mean time, though, there are more than enough right-leaning people in the tech world that could potentially put together a meaningful competitor to Facebook et al, if concerns over left-leaning censorship on other platforms are really that troubling. Perhaps they should consider doing so.

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Zeus posted...

Trump has repeatedly stated that so long as the results aren't tampered with, he'll step down

Trump has also made it patently obvious that any scenario where he loses is because "votes were 'tampered' with." The man's been raging about how the system is conspiring against him since March.

He's been laying the groundwork to fight a losing result for months.

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Sarcasthma posted...

It, uhhh...might not have been a good idea to post that image, Judg.

Probably not. I deleted it.

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DarkBuster22904 posted...

Trump has also made it patently obvious that any scenario where he loses is because "votes were 'tampered' with." The man's been raging about how the system is conspiring against him since 2016.

He's been laying the groundwork to fight a losing result for years.

Fixed.