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U.S. Election: It's Gonna Be a Huge Thread, It's Gonna Be the Best Thread!


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13 hours ago, Swordfish said:

That doesn't support your assertion that those are republican crossover voters though.  

Rather than Republicans interfering with the other party, they're people who are registered Democrats (or independents), but who vote Republican at the nationwide level. It's a sort of twenty-first century version of the Dixiecrats.

Or to put it another way, this isn't Trump supporters figuring that since their guy is guaranteed, they'll cause some chaos among the Democrats. This is people who think Obama is evil, and who think Clinton is too close to him, so vote for Sanders in the primary (as a way of venting), followed by voting Trump in November.    

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As I understand it, the evidence shows that about two-thirds of "independents" vote just like partisans, so in the end maybe 10% of voters are truly independent. Also, every respectable political scientist I've ever read says that the key to winning elections is not swaying indies but turning out your base, so I think in general the importance of "swing voters" is way overstated.

To follow up on what Mormont said, I find that the term "moderates" is often used interchangeably with "independent", but to me that's another term that is oddly defined. What makes a moderate? Oftentimes, poll respondents' answers to questions on various issues are plotted along a continuum, and those who end up in the middle are called moderates. By those lights, a guy who supports same sex marriage but who thinks women who have abortions should be stoned to death might qualify as moderate, but I don't think most people who consider him so. In fact, I'd call that guy incredibly extreme, but not in all ways. So I always hesitate when I hear anyone talk about moderates.

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Well, I actually have seen very few instances of the sort of "plotting on a continuum" you describe. In my experience what most pollsters do when they designate people as liberal, moderate, or conservative is simply to ask them for their self-identification! I think they are very rarely "averaging out" people's positions on issues to get a designation. So all these terms -- liberal, moderate, and conservative -- are going to mean very different things to different voters and people come to self-identify with them in different ways.

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1 hour ago, TrackerNeil said:

As I understand it, the evidence shows that about two-thirds of "independents" vote just like partisans, so in the end maybe 10% of voters are truly independent. Also, every respectable political scientist I've ever read says that the key to winning elections is not swaying indies but turning out your base, so I think in general the importance of "swing voters" is way overstated.

Basically. The ironic part is a lot of the GOTV efforts are targeting self professed Independents who vote for your party.

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@Ormond,

Have you seen or done any research on the psychological construct "Gender Role Threat"? I just listened to a NPR podcast and they were discussing it a bit and it's potential influence on this election. One pundit brought up an experiment where a political psychologist conducted a poll and the first thing he asked a subsection of the polled individuals was "There are an increasing number of households in which the woman makes more than the man. How about in your household?" and found that those individuals, regardless of how they answered the question, were roughly 20% more likely to say they support Trump. Do you think this result is replicable?

Here's the link to the podcast:

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510310/npr-politics-podcast

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11 hours ago, Ghjhero said:

This summarizes pretty well why i think Trump will win come November. That last part especially will be a big factor imo. Hillary is so out of touch compared to anyone and when she stands next to Trump, who has read the electorate better than anyone, that will be magnified even more so. Ive spoken to a fair amount of self described "moderate" republicans myself lately who, while they have no great love for Trump, would still rather vote for him over Hillary. Fascinating no matter how you look at it. I cant wait to see what voter turnout will be like this election.

Really?  Because to me, that whole video was theorizing and spin with no substance to back up anything.  I get why he has those opinions, but when he states them as facts with no analysis, he loses me.  Furthermore, that is a poll of "support"

Here is a better picture:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

It shows you trends and averages other polls in.

Here is Nate Silver's take on this:

https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/730039673465274369

 

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@Tywin et al.

Something seemingly trivial like the order of items in a questionaire can to some degree influence the responses. 

The point is, the items itself create a context. So early items (questions) can influence the responses of later items. A more trivial way of putting it, the first questions can set the tone for the questionaire.

And I think the wording of the item itself should also be paid attention to.

"There are an increasing number of households in which the woman makes more than the man. How about in your household?"

vs.

"There is still a majority of household in which the woman makes less than the man. How about in your household?"

vs.

"The next question is about your household income. Does the woman in your household make more than the man?"

All three questions ask somewhat the same thing, yet my guess is they would to some degree also influence the Trump approval.

The original question implies that woman make more, sexism is over yay! (note the question does not provide a base rate, it simply says the number of households where the women make more than men is increasing. 10% to 15% is an increase, but so is from 60% to 70%). Put that item early in a questionaire, and it looks somewhat less surprising you get a more Trump favorable response. 

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2 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Ormond,

Have you seen or done any research on the psychological construct "Gender Role Threat"? I just listened to a NPR podcast and they were discussing it a bit and it's potential influence on this election. One pundit brought up an experiment where a political psychologist conducted a poll and the first thing he asked a subsection of the polled individuals was "There are an increasing number of households in which the woman makes more than the man. How about in your household?" and found that those individuals, regardless of how they answered the question, were roughly 20% more likely to say they support Trump. Do you think this result is replicable?

Here's the link to the podcast:

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510310/npr-politics-podcast

I listened to this on the way in to work this morning and I was completely baffled by that study - even more so when it turns out it was conducted in New Jersey. If it's true and can be replicated, it's completely frightening. But I just find the underlying theory of causation to be so alien to how I understand people to think and act that I almost can't bring myself to believe it's true. I feel like most people have a pretty good sense of who they are going to vote for, and it's hard for me to imagine a little gender role anxiety causing someone to switch their minds so quickly and profoundly from one end of the spectrum to another. 

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51 minutes ago, BloodRider said:

Really?  Because to me, that whole video was theorizing and spin with no substance to back up anything.  I get why he has those opinions, but when he states them as facts with no analysis, he loses me. 

This is his source: Exclusive: Trump surges in support, almost even with Clinton in national U.S. poll -Reuters.

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@Notone

I get that. I was a double major student in college and one of them was psychology. I was specifically asking the psych prof if he was familiar with the subject because I know it's not relative to his field of study and if he thought the results could be replicated. It's possible that the sample was too small to indicate anything, but if it was a large sample those results are rather shocking. A 20% deviation based solely on one primed question is a little unsettling given the subject at hand. It could mean that Trump's bloviating about how women have it better than men could cause a shift in the vote that would be rather unexpected.

@NestorMakhnosLovechild

I had a similar reaction. And while I agree that it won't cause men in mass to change who they will vote for, these types of comments could lead working class men who don't normally vote to turnout for Trump.

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I thought this was interesting, and heard it on NPR earlier. A lot of talk has been how Trump and Clinton are going to be perceived by our allies and our adversaries. Trump and allies are very nervous - the South Korea delegation has been talking to  the one congressman who backs Trump to figure out what's going on, and the answers weren't positive.

But Trump would like to portray himself as someone who can be feared by Russia and China. Apparently not; the most feared and hated person in China is Hillary Clinton, being described as 'the Iron Lady'. A lot of this has to do with two things - her address to the world saying 'women's rights are human rights' was seen as a direct attack on China (which it was meant to), and her comments as SecState about the South China seas were seen as deliberately antagonistic (again, on purpose). By comparison, a lot of people apparently see Trump as what they call a "big mouth" - which is to say he talks a lot of shit but ends up being able to be made deals with that are advantageous to the Chinese, and they've been doing business with people like him for 30 years. In particular, they figure Trump won't care about things like human rights and will be a lot easier to deal with. 

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28 minutes ago, Maester Drew said:

I know that.  That is not the opinions he is stating as fact however; which is what I took issue with.  For example (to pick one of many) how is that possibly a source for his statement; "Democrats need to win millennials to beat Trump".  Which, if you read the original post I replied to you should be able to use context clues to figure that out.

Quote

This summarizes pretty well why i think Trump will win come November. That last part especially will be a big factor imo. Hillary is so out of touch compared to anyone and when she stands next to Trump, who has read the electorate better than anyone, that will be magnified even more so. Ive spoken to a fair amount of self described "moderate" republicans myself lately who, while they have no great love for Trump, would still rather vote for him over Hillary. Fascinating no matter how you look at it. I cant wait to see what voter turnout will be like this election.

Another example of how he is stating an opinion as fact based on evidence that doesn't come close to supporting what he is saying is bolded in the quote of the original post I answered.

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In terms of GOTV: it's about registering voters and more importantly turninig out registered voters.

For instance on an earlier page we were talking about Hispanic demographics in Texas, I pointed out that around 8.6 million votes were cast in the 2012 Texas election but there are 9.95 million hispanics in Texas alone. Unfortunately for Hispanics in Texas only about 4.8 million Hispanics in Texas are both old enough to vote* and also legal citizens. Of those 4.8 million, 2.6 million hispanics in Texas are registered to vote and about 70% of those registered to vote voted, 1.8 million.

So this is why registration is important because as of 2012 there were 3 million eligibile Hispanic voters were not registered, this is a massive pool to work from. If we assume they break a third democrat a third republican and a third independent, there are at least a million additional votes in this pool for each party. but the sheer numbers are overwhelming. If you were able to register a thousand people a day across the state, you'd still need more than three years to register a million people out of that pool. This is why it will take multiple election cycles to flip texas, the gap is so massive that it will take years to fill, and it is a gap that is outpacing registration efforts and growing larger given the texas baby boom that has only just begun to come of age in the years after the 2012 election.

The above also illustrates why GOTV is crucial, because only 70% of registered voters, voted, leaving a pool of 800,000 available voters, you're already halfway there with registered voters, you just have to convince them to cast a ballot, and in terms of allocating resources, you're much more likely to succeed in getting additional registered voters to vote than to dedicate a long term stream of funding to shepherding people through the registration process in addition to convincing them to cast a ballot. So if you're looking for a million more votes, you're much more likely to earn them from the registered voters than in dedicating time to those not registered to vote.

 

*(the millions strong hispanic baby boom in texas comprising these millions of hispanic kids is partly why people think Texas swings purple in the future as the first few years of the baby boom are older than 18 for the first time in the 2016 election, by 2028, all of them are eligible to vote).

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4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Ormond,

Have you seen or done any research on the psychological construct "Gender Role Threat"? I just listened to a NPR podcast and they were discussing it a bit and it's potential influence on this election. One pundit brought up an experiment where a political psychologist conducted a poll and the first thing he asked a subsection of the polled individuals was "There are an increasing number of households in which the woman makes more than the man. How about in your household?" and found that those individuals, regardless of how they answered the question, were roughly 20% more likely to say they support Trump. Do you think this result is replicable?

Here's the link to the podcast:

http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510310/npr-politics-podcast

There is more than one podcast at that link and you will have to tell me which one since I don't have time to listen to them all. 

One never knows if something is replicable until it is replicated. The way you describe this, though, this may be a short term effect. Did the question supposedly have an equal effect on men and women voters? 

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1 hour ago, Notone said:

@Tywin et al.

Something seemingly trivial like the order of items in a questionaire can to some degree influence the responses. 

The point is, the items itself create a context. So early items (questions) can influence the responses of later items. A more trivial way of putting it, the first questions can set the tone for the questionaire.

And I think the wording of the item itself should also be paid attention to.

"There are an increasing number of households in which the woman makes more than the man. How about in your household?"

vs.

"There is still a majority of household in which the woman makes less than the man. How about in your household?"

vs.

"The next question is about your household income. Does the woman in your household make more than the man?"

All three questions ask somewhat the same thing, yet my guess is they would to some degree also influence the Trump approval.

The original question implies that woman make more, sexism is over yay! (note the question does not provide a base rate, it simply says the number of households where the women make more than men is increasing. 10% to 15% is an increase, but so is from 60% to 70%). Put that item early in a questionaire, and it looks somewhat less surprising you get a more Trump favorable response. 

Absolutely, the order of items influences responses.

I think that if the researcher was trying to measure something called "Gender Role Threat", though, he of course was deliberately using a wording that would arouse as much "threat" as possible. 

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^^^ That's interesting, the idea of Texas growing itself into a purple/blue state in coming years. A lot of people would draw the conclusion that by that point (w/out Texas) the R's would be completely out of cards for any future Gen. Election chances to win the Presidency. I doubt it will end up going that easy for the Dems to gain complete dominance though. There's also a chance that just as the Dems "new big tent swells", a sizeable portion of fed up souls may spill right out the left exit of said "big new tent". Most especially if this future Democratic party moves more and more towards a centrist, moderate, center/right blob of goo that future lefties could look at and decide "this is not what I want to support" ( the candidates perpetually running to the center, hawkish for. policy candidates, built to win but unwilling to be liberal enough to be a transformative leader). At such a point people will turn on the status quo, abandon the establishment and demand candidates outside a new Democratic party that is too far to the right for millions of people. We are close to this already, it wont surprize me if the trend increases towards full revolt by the time we see a purple/blue Texas.

They will have gained a blue Texas while losing a Green California.

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Let's meet John Miller, spokesman for Donald Trump back in 1991, who will tells you how awesome Trump is and how all the ladies want him.

Quote

 

In the phone call, the man who identifies himself as Miller calls the billionaire businessman “a good guy” while discussing Trump’s various relationships with his former wife Ivana, model Marla Maples, and former model Carla Bruni.

He also describes Trump as irresistible to women.

“He gets called by everybody in the book, in terms of women,” Miller said. “He’s got a whole open field, really.”

In the call with People magazine reporter Sue Carswell, who is now at Vanity Fair, the “spokesman” said “actresses just call to see if they can go out with him and things.”

He said Madonna “wanted to go out with him” and “came in a beautiful evening gown and combat boots” to hang out with Trump at the Plaza Hotel, which he owned. “He’s got zero interest that night,” said the man known as Miller, apparently meaning they did not have sex

 

.

But gee, Mr. Miller's voice sounds AWFULLY familiar.

Quote

 

On Friday, Trump denied being the voice on the phone, telling one morning news show, “I don’t know anything about it.”

But the Post reported he owned up to it at the time, describing the Miller call as a “joke gone awry.” Trump also testified in a 1990 court case that “I believe on occasion I used that name.” He also went by the name John Barron at times, the Post said.

 

:P

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Just asked my colleague whose dissertation was in political psychology about this. She said she heard the NPR report this morning and that usually the effects of "priming" as this study used it are short-lived. It also wasn't clear to her if the study was saying this was just the case for male voters or voters of all genders. 

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8 minutes ago, Ormond said:

Absolutely, the order of items influences responses.

I think that if the researcher was trying to measure something called "Gender Role Threat", though, he of course was deliberately using a wording that would arouse as much "threat" as possible. 

Since you have access to Ebsco, what on earth is "gender role threat". I find the term to be somewhat ambiguous, and I have never come across that concept. 

Do they want to describe some sort of uncertainity, with gender roles/gender identity slowly eroding? Or do they mean some depth psychological concept that men feel the threat of some sort of emasculation by losing their role as resource provider? 

 

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41 minutes ago, Ormond said:

There is more than one podcast at that link and you will have to tell me which one since I don't have time to listen to them all. 

One never knows if something is replicable until it is replicated. The way you describe this, though, this may be a short term effect. Did the question supposedly have an equal effect on men and women voters? 

Here's the study:

http://view2.fdu.edu/publicmind/2016/160323/

They did a poor job explaining it on the radio. Here is the key section:

Quote

Among men who did not receive the gender question, Clinton bests Trump by 16 points—49 percent to 33 percent. Among men who were asked the gender question, Trump has more support than Clinton by a margin of 50 points to 42 points. All told, reminding men about gender issues, leads to a 24-point swing in the match up, from a 16-point advantage for Clinton to an eight-point deficit.

Interestingly, women who were asked the gender question before being asked about their vote choice became more likely to vote for Clinton. Without the gender prime, Clinton had a 21-point edge over Trump among New Jersey women—57 percent to 36 percent. Asking about gender reduced Trump’s support among women by 10 points, giving Clinton a 33-point margin—59 percent to 26 percent.

So while there is a big swing towards Trump among men when the question is asked at the beginning, there is an even bigger swing among women towards Clinton.

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