US Elections - From Russia with Love

[Fez]

3 minutes ago, mormont said:

But why would they think that, is my question?

Because Wikileaks is some combination of Russian stooges, Clinton-haters, and bigots*. Mostly the first two.

*They deleted some tweets making fun of Twitter users that were doing the ((( ))) solidarity thing after there was tons of backlash.

[Dr. Pepper]

 

8 minutes ago, mormont said:

But why would they think that, is my question?

Why wouldn't they think that?  By now, most people have probably already made their decision on which candidate they will choose.  The real work is just convincing people to get to the polls.  If wikileaks drops more hacked stuff now, people have about 100 days to either forget about it or get used to the sting of it.  That's 100 days Clinton/Kaine have to convince people to show up.  Wikileaks drops something on November 1, that's not much time at all.  At that point, if the release is particularly damaging, or even if it only appears damaging with no smoking gun (much like the DNC leaks), It becomes a lot easier for would-be HRC voters to throw their hands up and just give up and stay home on November 8.  

So attack party unity first, then attack voter turn out next.  

[Mudguard]

59 minutes ago, mormont said:

But by this logic, surely the best tactic would have been to release everything in October? What's the point of releasing some of the less damaging stuff at the convention followed by the real meat later?

The DNC convention emails don't implicate Clinton, but instead reflect poorly on the Democratic National Committee.  I don't think the release of those emails would have much of any effect in October, besides pushing out Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a later time.  Releasing the emails right before the convention had the desired and predictable effect of causing some chaos during the convention. 

If they have more emails that are really damaging, those DNC emails would be inconsequential in comparison.  No one would really care about them if they were released at the same time.  I think the strategy is to constantly trickle out new emails so that the issue remains in the public eye until November, and then, if they have them, to release the big stuff near the end.  This way Wikileaks and Assange, who appears to be a attention whore, gets months and months worth of publicity.

[lokisnow]

7 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

The DNC convention emails don't implicate Clinton, but instead reflect poorly on the Democratic National Committee.  I don't think the release of those emails would have much of any effect in October, besides pushing out Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a later time.  Releasing the emails right before the convention had the desired and predictable effect of causing some chaos during the convention. 

If they have more emails that are really damaging, those DNC emails would be inconsequential in comparison.  No one would really care about them if they were released at the same time.  I think the strategy is to constantly trickle out new emails so that the issue remains in the public eye until November, and then, if they have them, to release the big stuff near the end.  This way Wikileaks and Assange, who appears to be a attention whore, gets months and months worth of publicity.

but now that we know the Russians are the source of the emails, what's to stop them from fabricating material they think wiki leaks or bernie or trump folk would want to believe and inserting it and "leaking" it?

 

everything of hacked emails is suspect now, particularly given how Clinton has always been found innocent and how badly certain audiences want to believe the worst.

 

The dnc emails could also be a front to establish credibility for the coming con. 

[Mudguard]

1 hour ago, lokisnow said:

Now that everyone knows the russians are feeding wiki leaks to try and control our election,  there's a strong possibility that releases will backfire or be immediately impugned as Russian fabrications for the purpose of controlling our elections.  Any additional releases will have the Clinton campaign immediately claim they are fake and created by the russians, Ultimately,  most of the electorate then will not lend the alleged fabrications credence. Classic he said she said.

 

But the upside is that republicans won't lose the faction of their voters who are Russian loyalists and sympathizers.

I thought about this before and I agree that it might be difficult to validate emails that Clinton deleted and were not recovered though other peoples email records, but they might be able to verify some.

However, it would be very, very easy for the government to confirm, if they wanted to, the release of unredacted work emails that were turned over.  The government might not want to confirm or deny the accuracy or validity of such emails though, although it might be difficult to keep government sources from validating such a release anonymously with the press.

[Jace, Extat]

Just saw Wolf Blitzer on a waiting room TV talking about a CNN poll that had HRC up 53 to 42 on Trump. Wasn't sure if it was a national or certain state. Anyone know the details of this particular one? I don't have time to really look into it right now and don't want to get too excited.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

2 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Just saw Wolf Blitzer on a waiting room TV talking about a CNN poll that had HRC up 53 to 42 on Trump. Wasn't sure if it was a national or certain state. Anyone know the details of this particular one? I don't have time to really look into it right now and don't want to get too excited.

Hillary's post convention bump seems to be larger than Trump's.

[Mudguard]

Just now, Pony Queen Jace said:

Just saw Wolf Blitzer on a waiting room TV talking about a CNN poll that had HRC up 53 to 42 on Trump. Wasn't sure if it was a national or certain state. Anyone know the details of this particular one? I don't have time to really look into it right now and don't want to get too excited.

I think that's a national CNN poll, and many other polls are showing a relatively big bump for Clinton after the convention.  I think Clinton's convention bump is in large part due to Trump being an idiot and criticizing the Khan family.  I think he's got to try walking back those comments or he's going to lose a significant portion of the Republican base.

[Slick Mongoose]

Last week they had Trump +3, now Clinton +9. Big swing from one convention to the next.

[SkynJay]

McCain went after Trump for his Khan comments.  Is the old Maverick going to come back?

[Boris the Blade]

30 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Just saw Wolf Blitzer on a waiting room TV talking about a CNN poll that had HRC up 53 to 42 on Trump. Wasn't sure if it was a national or certain state. Anyone know the details of this particular one? I don't have time to really look into it right now and don't want to get too excited.

 

27 minutes ago, White Walker Texas Ranger said:

Hillary's post convention bump seems to be larger than Trump's.

 

25 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

I think that's a national CNN poll, and many other polls are showing a relatively big bump for Clinton after the convention.  I think Clinton's convention bump is in large part due to Trump being an idiot and criticizing the Khan family.  I think he's got to try walking back those comments or he's going to lose a significant portion of the Republican base.

 

22 minutes ago, Slick Mongoose said:

Last week they had Trump +3, now Clinton +9. Big swing from one convention to the next.

The one I saw said Clinton 46% Trump 39%. She did get a big bump from the convention. Also, those comments that Trump made will probably do some damage as well, then again, idk if that was factored in and those comments could be blunted by another ridiculously ignorant comment made by him. John Oliver had a good comparison to the shit Trump says, a bed of nails. 

 

4 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

McCain went after Trump for his Khan comments.  Is the old Maverick going to come back?

Who knows with him. 

[The BlackBear]

7 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

McCain went after Trump for his Khan comments.  Is the old Maverick going to come back?

Didn't Trump call him a loser for being a PoW? If so he might just be pissed, and getting even.

[Dr. Pepper]

10 minutes ago, SkynJay said:

McCain went after Trump for his Khan comments.  Is the old Maverick going to come back?

He's still endorsing Trump, so probably not.

[Wethers]

Ok I got done with my work a bit early today and since I am apparently part of the neo-liberal Clinton-favoring elite that is allowed to occasionally do something like the following so long as it doesn't disrupt my work, I spent 5 mins (here at work) doing an exercise using an electoral vote simulator and am now spending another 5 writing this.

Warning, pointless exercise ahead...

My premise:  let's just suppose that Hilary only wins the states where she has at least a 3.0% lead or more *right now* according to fivethirtyeight.com, and that Trump wins everything else, with the exception of the "weird states" Nebraska and Maine which have separate districts (assumed Nebraska all red and Maine all blue, though some of that could be in doubt and one of the Maine districts is closer than 3.0%).

Pennsylvania is +3.0% for Clinton right now so I gave her that, along with Virginia (+4.6%), Colorado (+3.9%), and Wisconsin (+6.2%) and all the deep blue states.

But in this scenario, Trump takes Florida (Clinton +0.7%), Ohio (Clinton +0.6%), North Carolina (Trump +0.7%), Iowa (Clinton +0.9%), Nevada (Clinton +2.4%), Arizona (Trump +4.1%), New Hampshire (Clinton +0.8%), and of course all the pink and red states.

Per my simulator, that leads to a 269-269 tie (!!!).  Of course, the one contested Maine district (2nd district) is only +0.9% for Clinton, which is of course less than my +3.0% threshold, so if that goes Trump in this simulation, Trump would win 270-268.

I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.  At this point, I have this fear that Silver, despite all his good points, is, like many, just underestimating the sheer extent of the turnout of nativist, older, blue collar white, primarily male voters for Trump, hence my required +3.0% margin for a state to count as victory for Clinton.  And naturally, all this could change quickly as new polls came in.  Just kind of shocked that my somewhat randomly-picked +3.0% threshold happened to yield exactly 269-269 based on Silver's current data (or 270-268 Trump if Maine district 2 goes to him).

[Ormond]

I respect Nate Silver, but I think in some ways Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium is even a bit better at this than he is -- he was not swayed to discount the polling numbers for Trump nearly as much as Silver was earlier this year, IIRC.

As of today Wang has Clinton;s probability of winning the electoral college at 65% using a "random drift" statistical model and 80% using a Bayesian model. (Wang thinks Bayesian is better.)

http://election.princeton.edu/

Wang has also pointed out that in terms of predicting a state's presidential vote, consistency of whose winning in the polls is a much better predictor of the November result than the margin. A state which has consistently polled with one candidate 2% of the other is more likely to actually go for that candidate in the end than one where the polls have bounced around, even if the latest polling shows a 5% advantage for one candidate.  (Of course, the closer to the election one comes, the more accurate polls are as predictors.)

[LongRider]

11 hours ago, Maithanet said:

Trump is currently polling ahead in NV, IA and NH.  While I don't expect him to win those states, he certainly could, and they offer a lot more paths to victory than just the PA/OH/FL clean sweep. 

Nevada can be won but it takes a lot of boots on the ground to do it.  In 2012 many boots came from California and it's strong Demo party and unions, and even a few locals (like me at the time).  If Clinton will put the same effort in, and it will take a lot, she maybe able to pull it out.

Northern Nevada has been hit by an extended recession and it's terrible there, so I can see Trump having appeal.  Even I had to leave to find work, so it could be a tough haul, but doable. 

With Obama's help, and his ground game was great, and stir in a little Harry Reid, Nevada could be a bit blue in November. 

[TrackerNeil]

3 hours ago, Mudguard said:

I think that's a national CNN poll, and many other polls are showing a relatively big bump for Clinton after the convention.  I think Clinton's convention bump is in large part due to Trump being an idiot and criticizing the Khan family.  I think he's got to try walking back those comments or he's going to lose a significant portion of the Republican base.

I'd like to think that, but I suspect that most Republicans will vote for Trump unless he's actually discovered feasting upon the flesh of Christian babies. Leading Republicans (Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, John McCain) who have condemned Trump's various offenses have still not disavowed his candidacy, and if they haven't by now it's hard to imagine why they would later. After the Iraq invasion I didn't think I could have more contempt for that party, but the GOP always manages to surprise me.

[Fez]

2 hours ago, Ormond said:

I respect Nate Silver, but I think in some ways Sam Wang of the Princeton Election Consortium is even a bit better at this than he is -- he was not swayed to discount the polling numbers for Trump nearly as much as Silver was earlier this year, IIRC.

As of today Wang has Clinton;s probability of winning the electoral college at 65% using a "random drift" statistical model and 80% using a Bayesian model. (Wang thinks Bayesian is better.)

http://election.princeton.edu/

Wang has also pointed out that in terms of predicting a state's presidential vote, consistency of whose winning in the polls is a much better predictor of the November result than the margin. A state which has consistently polled with one candidate 2% of the other is more likely to actually go for that candidate in the end than one where the polls have bounced around, even if the latest polling shows a 5% advantage for one candidate.  (Of course, the closer to the election one comes, the more accurate polls are as predictors.)

The issue with Sam Wang is that he is entirely dependent on polls, and when the polls do have a systematic bias he gets stuff very wrong. For instance he badly screwed up the 2014 election, it wasn't his fault the polls were very biased in favor of Democrats that year (pollsters using models too close to 2012 even though it was a midterm), but it still made his model basically useless.

I still prefer Cook, Sabato, and those like them, who base their predictions almost entirely on leaked information from campaign and other election sources. This can screw them up when one campaign doesn't actually have a good sense of the race, like Romney's in 2012, but in general makes them pretty strong barometers for where the race stands. They might not predict all the states (in fact they won't, too many stay as 'toss-ups' until the end), but they give a very good sense of where the campaigns privately think the race is, and almost always (so, not Romney) the campaigns have far better and far more data than is publicly available. Plus they actually regularly talk about Senate and House races.

So, for instance, right now Cook has the swing states as:

Leaning Democratic: CO, FL, MI, NV, PA, VA, WI

Toss-up: IA, NE-2, NH, NC, OH

Leaning Republican: AZ, GA

[Altherion]

3 minutes ago, Fez said:

So, for instance, right now Cook has the swing states as:

Interesting, but it's not so much "right now" as it is "slightly over two months ago." They don't appear to have anything more recent than May.

[Fez]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

Interesting, but it's not so much "right now" as it is "slightly over two months ago." They don't appear to have anything more recent than May.

It takes a lot for Cook to change his ratings once he thinks he knows what the campaigns and political committees understand the fundamentals of the race to be. Its the same, although less pronounced, for Sabato, who hasn't updated his presidential ratings in two weeks.

They are both strong believers in the idea that presidential races usually don't change very much after its known who the candidates will be, what the current political climate is, etc.