US Election 2016: the fall of the American republic

[Mexal]

6 minutes ago, SerPaladin said:

That hispanic push is why I left Nevada in Hillary's column. People often forget that Florida is not Mexican Hispanic, it is more Cuban and Puerto Rican. Not sure if all the Wall rhetoric bothers them as much, which is why I left Florida in Trump's column. Pure guessing at this point.

Puerto Rican Latinos vote democrat, Cuban votes Republican but polls show that Trump is getting a lot less of the Cuban latino vote than usual.

[S John]

I say 

Clinton - 308

Trump - 230

Clinton takes NH, Florida, Nevada and keeps Michigan.  Trump wins North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona, Iowa but gonna fall short w/o Florida and flipping PA or Michigan.  

 

[Maithanet]

11 minutes ago, SerPaladin said:

That hispanic push is why I left Nevada in Hillary's column. People often forget that Florida is not Mexican Hispanic, it is more Cuban and Puerto Rican. Not sure if all the Wall rhetoric bothers them as much, which is why I left Florida in Trump's column. Pure guessing at this point.

This Politico article indicates that Puerto Ricans have been polling very well for Clinton this cycle.  Cubans are obviously not happy with Trump's rhetoric, but are still supporting him by a slim majority. On the whole, Clinton is winning Hispanics in Florida pretty significantly. 

[Boris the Blade]

13 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Looking at 538 the last few days, it's amazing how Trump's fortunes have seemingly changed in places like Nevada and Florida.

I guess Trump pissed off the wrong people.

IDK how you can stomach to look at 538 haha. I have completely ignored 538 the last week and a half. It has really just looked like clickbait polling bullshit at this point. I trust Sam Wang and Drew Linzer more than Silver. 

 

[Zorral]

11 hours ago, Ariadne23 said:

I guess not. Can I have a viable search term or two? I don't know if you're familiar with how these people talk but Ted Cruz Evangelical Christian Spiritual War will give me everything he has ever said ever.

I ran a search for belt of satanism & Ted Cruz though and got this awesome result: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/satanists-reject-ted-cruz-lucifer-comparison.html

How weird -- I thought I'd put links in my post to show what I was talking  about.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/24/139781021/the-evangelicals-engaged-in-spiritual-warfare

http://www.charismanews.com/opinion/45637-6-defenses-to-help-you-immediately-win-in-spiritual-warfare

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_warfare

http://religionnews.com/2016/02/04/ted-cruzs-campaign-fueled-dominionist-vision-america-commentary/

There's a great deal of information out there about the Dominionists' Spiritual Warfare Evangelicals.  Keep in mind their spiritual warfare armor is not a metaphor for them.  These breast plates, swords, shield, etc are material as well as spiritual, that they don every day in order to battle with Satan, who currently is most manifest on our plane here on earth as Islam.  There is a strong sense of video fantasy game, comix fantasy and Heavy Metal music imagery in a lot of this as well.  The more one knows about this and is informed the more one hears their dog whistles in their speech, which one certainly did with Cruz.

One of my amigas, who is a prof in Wesleyan's Comparative Religion dept. has been writing a book about their Haitian activities and their beliefs.  She has a great deal of video she's shot at spiritual warfare events and sermons and it's very scary.

 

[S John]

The good news is that even if Clinton loses Florida AND North Carolina AND New Hampshire, she still wins if no more rust belt states flip and she keeps Colorado and Nevada.  If Florida is called for Clinton some crazy stuff will have to happen for Trump to win.  

Clinton can find a way to get 270 without Florida, but if Trump loses in Florida he has to win NC, Nevada, NH, Michigan, and Pennsylvania to make up for it.  

[Zorral]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

This Politico article indicates that Puerto Ricans have been polling very well for Clinton this cycle.  Cubans are obviously not happy with Trump's rhetoric, but are still supporting him by a slim majority. On the whole, Clinton is winning Hispanics in Florida pretty significantly. 

All our Puerto Rican friends have long hated Trump.  They hate him even more now.  Like everyone who has the experience that led them to hate him in the first place, the longer he's known, the more he feeds the hate.  This hatred creation of his is what feeds his supporters since they all hate the people who have learned by his actions, behaviors and language to hate him.

 

 

[OldGimletEye]

23 minutes ago, Boris the Blade said:

IDK how you can stomach to look at 538 haha. I have completely ignored 538 the last week and a half. It has really just looked like clickbait polling bullshit at this point. I trust Sam Wang and Drew Linzer more than Silver. 

 

I look at all those sites. But, I'm a bit cautious by nature. So, I like to look at worse case scenarios.

 

27 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Puerto Rican Latinos vote democrat, Cuban votes Republican but polls show that Trump is getting a lot less of the Cuban latino vote than usual.

Yeah, I think you can't underestimate Trump's and the Republican Party's ability to piss people off.

And you're right about the demographics here.

[Maithanet]

So I compared the early voting in 2012 with 2016.  This is risky because laws about early voting have changed in four of the five states I was looking at (only Nevada was unchanged).  So it is hard to really make an apples to apples comparison.  

 

	2012 Votes (million)		2016 Votes (million)
	Early Votes	Total Votes	Early Votes
Nevada	0.71	1.01	0.77
Florida	4.79	8.47	6.51
North Carolina	2.77	4.49	3.1
Iowa	0.69	1.57	0.59
Colorado	2.09	2.57	1.97

 

That is a comparison of how many people voted early.  Then I compared the voter registration data that is available in 2012 and compared it to 2016.  This is dicey because voter registration changes.  For example in the south, lots of people are still registered as Democrats from the Dixiecrat days, but have been voting Republican since Reagan.  This is gradually going away, but the result is that in the south there are more registered Democrats that vote republican than visa versa.  For example, Obama lost North Carolina in spite of having significantly more North Carolina Democrats than Republicans vote in 2012.  

Anyways, so with that caveat that this is a flawed method, I am comparing Early Voting for Clinton vs Trump in 2016 with Early Voting for Obama vs Romney in 2012.  This is a comparison of Democratic Voters vs Republican Voters, obviously I don't know who voted for whom.  I am also ignoring Independents, make up between 20 and 31% of early voters in all five states.  

 

Colorado:  Clinton is doing better than Obama 2012 in comparing registrations.  In 2012, Romney had an advantage of 1.8% in Republicans vs Democrats.  Obama carried the state by 5.3%.  In 2016, Trump's advantage is 0.6%.  That is an improvement, and considering Obama won Colorado relatively comfortably, that seems pretty solid.  

 

Nevada:  Clinton is doing slightly worse than Obama 2012.  Her advantage over Trump is 6 points, where Obama's was 7.  However, considering that the Early vote represents 70-80% of all voters, and Obama won the state by 6.7%, this still looks really good for Clinton.  

 

Florida:  If you break down of Florida Early Voting by race, the picture looks generally favorable for Clinton.  The breakdown by Party Registration looks much better for Trump.  Obama was winning the early vote by 3.8% in 2012, and won the state by 0.9%.  Clinton's advantage is only 1.4%.  The early vote is a much larger share of total vote, but you would expect Clinton's advantage to be more like 2% or so, if she were going to win.  This decline is something that many right wing sites are taking a lot of stock in to indicate a Trump win in Florida.  We shall see, I remain optimistic about Florida.

 

North Carolina:  In terms of the party ID breakdown, this actually looks the worst for Clinton.  In 2012, Obama won party ID of Early Voters by 16%, and still lost the state.  This is because lots of North Carolina Democrats are really Republicans.  In Clinton's case, she is only ahead by 10%.  That would indicate a Clinton loss, considering 16% wasn't enough for Obama.  Polling is still better for Clinton than it was Obama in 2012, so I'm not at all giving up, but this metric doesn't look good for her.  

 

Iowa:  I should caveat this that polling looks pretty bad for Clinton in Iowa.  But in general the early voting trends I can see show Clinton ahead by 7%, which is less than the 10% Obama was ahead by.  However, since Obama won Iowa by 5.8%, that still indicates a Clinton win.  I do not expect this, but it's certainly possible.

[Jace, Extat]

3 hours ago, butterbumps! said:

i got to my place at 6:05 (opened at 6); the line was already snaked down almost 3 flights of stairs by that point.  Took me about 40 minutes, and the line had grown exponentially by the time I was done.   Some of that might be because we don't have early voting.  walking over I was hit with some unexpected sentimentality over voting for the first lady pres.

also, Scott, I continue to feel like you and I must be the only ones who don't find Trump even one iota personable/ entertaining/ funny/ charismatic etc.  I have the exact reaction you do whenever this comes up.  

Oh hell no, the man is repulsive in every sense.

3 hours ago, Roose Boltons Pet Leech said:

Updated prediction list:

• RBPL - Hillary 356 Trump 182
• Fez - Hillary 335 Trump 203
• Impmk2 - Hillary 307 Trump 231
• theguyfromtheVale - Hillary 303 Trump 229 McMullin 6
• SeanF - Hillary 278 Trump 260.

Come on people! We need more predictions!

 

2 hours ago, James Arryn said:

Please don't take avoiding Trump as a victory/sign the 'system works'. The only emotions possibly assosciation with this election ought to be shame and (hopefully) relief.

538 to Clinton or we need to stop asking about the future of the republic and shift focus to what form the inevitable despotic nation will have. 

Every republic has fallen, ours is no different. With the right measures it can be guided to an empire that at least allows its citizens to prosper.

[Paladin of Ice]

5 minutes ago, Boris the Blade said:

IDK how you can stomach to look at 538 haha. I have completely ignored 538 the last week and a half. It has really just looked like clickbait polling bullshit at this point. I trust Sam Wang and Drew Linzer more than Silver. 

 

Silver is overcompensating very hard after failing to call Trump winning the primary. He's basically pushing his model to always predict the best case for Trump/worst case for Clinton.

I gave my numbers prediction on a prior page, here's my 270 to win map, with my expectation of (roughly) the results I'm expecting.

The early voting data I'm seeing says Clinton is behind slightly in Penn, (keep in mind Penn does almost no early voting) ahead in Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, (indeed, Trump may have lost Nevada before election day) Ohio, and Iowa.

[The Monkey]

While I understand a dislike for Clinton, come the fuck on America. You guys went to the fucking moon, the universe won't make any sense if you elect that simian Trump 

[Maithanet]

8 minutes ago, Paladin of Ice said:

Silver is overcompensating very hard after failing to call Trump winning the primary. He's basically pushing his model to always predict the best case for Trump/worst case for Clinton.

I don't think this is really fair for Silver.  His model is emphasizing the uncertainty in this election much more strongly than other models.  His model was pretty definitive that Obama would beat Romney (91% on election day) because there were virtually no undecided/third party voters left.  In this election, there are still a LOT.  Which means that a 3-4% lead for Clinton is much less safe than it would have been for Obama in 2012.  He is also very clear that his model is pretty evenly split between Trump win (30% chance), Clinton win by less than 340 EVs (40%), Clinton blowout (30%).  While he is the only site giving Trump such a high chance, he is also the only site giving Clinton such a high chance for a blowout win. 

[The Wedge]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

He is also very clear that his model is pretty evenly split between Trump win 30%, Clinton win by less than 340 EVs 40%, Clinton blowout 30%.  While he is the only site giving Trump such a high chance, he is also the only site giving Clinton such a high chance for a blowout win. 

Sounds like hedging his bets while having his cake and eating it, too.

[SeanF]

11 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

So I compared the early voting in 2012 with 2016.  This is risky because laws about early voting have changed in four of the five states I was looking at (only Nevada was unchanged).  So it is hard to really make an apples to apples comparison.  

 

	2012 Votes (million)		2016 Votes (million)
	Early Votes	Total Votes	Early Votes
Nevada	0.71	1.01	0.77
Florida	4.79	8.47	6.51
North Carolina	2.77	4.49	3.1
Iowa	0.69	1.57	0.59
Colorado	2.09	2.57	1.97

 

That is a comparison of how many people voted early.  Then I compared the voter registration data that is available in 2012 and compared it to 2016.  This is dicey because voter registration changes.  For example in the south, lots of people are still registered as Democrats from the Dixiecrat days, but have been voting Republican since Reagan.  This is gradually going away, but the result is that in the south there are more registered Democrats that vote republican than visa versa.  For example, Obama lost North Carolina in spite of having significantly more North Carolina Democrats than Republicans vote in 2012.  

Anyways, so with that caveat that this is a flawed method, I am comparing Early Voting for Clinton vs Trump in 2016 with Early Voting for Obama vs Romney in 2012.  This is a comparison of Democratic Voters vs Republican Voters, obviously I don't know who voted for whom.  I am also ignoring Independents, make up between 20 and 31% of early voters in all five states.  

 

Colorado:  Clinton is doing better than Obama 2012 in comparing registrations.  In 2012, Romney had an advantage of 1.8% in Republicans vs Democrats.  Obama carried the state by 5.3%.  In 2016, Trump's advantage is 0.6%.  That is an improvement, and considering Obama won Colorado relatively comfortably, that seems pretty solid.  

 

Nevada:  Clinton is doing slightly worse than Obama 2012.  Her advantage over Trump is 6 points, where Obama's was 7.  However, considering that the Early vote represents 70-80% of all voters, and Obama won the state by 6.7%, this still looks really good for Clinton.  

 

Florida:  If you break down of Florida Early Voting by race, the picture looks generally favorable for Clinton.  The breakdown by Party Registration looks much better for Trump.  Obama was winning the early vote by 3.8% in 2012, and won the state by 0.9%.  Clinton's advantage is only 1.4%.  The early vote is a much larger share of total vote, but you would expect Clinton's advantage to be more like 2% or so, if she were going to win.  This decline is something that many right wing sites are taking a lot of stock in to indicate a Trump win in Florida.  We shall see, I remain optimistic about Florida.

 

North Carolina:  In terms of the party ID breakdown, this actually looks the worst for Clinton.  In 2012, Obama won party ID of Early Voters by 16%, and still lost the state.  This is because lots of North Carolina Democrats are really Republicans.  In Clinton's case, she is only ahead by 10%.  That would indicate a Clinton loss, considering 16% wasn't enough for Obama.  Polling is still better for Clinton than it was Obama in 2012, so I'm not at all giving up, but this metric doesn't look good for her.  

 

Iowa:  I should caveat this that polling looks pretty bad for Clinton in Iowa.  But in general the early voting trends I can see show Clinton ahead by 7%, which is less than the 10% Obama was ahead by.  However, since Obama won Iowa by 5.8%, that still indicates a Clinton win.  I do not expect this, but it's certainly possible.

That's a very good summary, but I would caution that early voting trends aren't consistent across election cycles.  The Democrats in particular have made very great efforts to get their voters voting early.  It's excellent to get people voting early, but you may only be getting people who would have voted for you on polling day anyway.

[Maithanet]

3 minutes ago, The Wedge said:

Sounds like hedging his bets while having his cake and eating it, too.

If you want one estimate of exactly what the future will be, you should ask a pundit, not a statistician. 

If the final EVs are Clinton with somewhere between 290-340, and there aren't any real surprise states for either candidate (Clinton wins AK, GA or AZ, or Trump wins MI, WI or MN), then it is safe to say that Silver's model didn't do as good a job as the other models to forecast the election. 

[butterbumps!]

lol, ok, I'm reasonably more confident now that many more posters than I'd first thought find Trump about as charismatic as nails on a chalkboard.

I'm feeling pretty proud of my town that when the angry orange showed up to vote he was very loudly booed by the crowd.   

 

eta:  also, i really like these sidewalk tags that have been cropping up lately.  

[Boris the Blade]

6 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

lol, ok, I'm reasonably more confident now that many more posters than I'd first thought find Trump about as charismatic as nails on a chalkboard.

I'm feeling pretty proud of my town that when the angry orange showed up to vote he was very loudly booed by the crowd.   

He'd be booed in most places that do not have weekly klan meetings. 

 

 

[Mexal]

11 minutes ago, SeanF said:

That's a very good summary, but I would caution that early voting trends aren't consistent across election cycles.  The Democrats in particular have made very great efforts to get their voters voting early.  It's excellent to get people voting early, but you may only be getting people who would have voted for you on polling day anyway.

Yea but everything I've read, a lot of voters who wouldn't end up in likely voter rolls are voting during early vote (something like 20-30% of the Hispanics as an example) in places like Florida.

[Zorral]

7 minutes ago, butterbumps! said:

lol, ok, I'm reasonably more confident now that many more posters than I'd first thought find Trump about as charismatic as nails on a chalkboard.

I'm feeling pretty proud of my town that when the angry orange showed up to vote he was very loudly booed by the crowd.   

I just saw that!  Has that ever happened ever? That one of the candidates was booed at their own polling place?  We hate this guy, just the way New Jersey hates Chris Christie, the orange's transition team manage.