US Politics: Stormy Weather Ahead

[Mexal]

55 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

About how the current makeup of the Senate, especially with McCain’s absence, allows one or two Republican senators to block anything they please, so if Susan Collins, Rand Paul and/or Jeff Flake find a nominee to be unacceptable, be it for a cabinet appointment or the SC, they can sink them.

Flake is one of the most conservative members. Paul hoots and hahs then votes the same way. Collins is a moderate but had no problem confirming Gorsuch, one of the most conservative justices on the bench now. There is no way that a qualified, conservative justice, would fail confirmation with the current Senate.

51 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Can we all agree to just retire the terms "Blue Wave" and "Blue Tsunami" until Nov. 7?  I don't know why Democrats are always so eager to count their victories before they happen.  The expectations game matters people, you have to act like the score is tied!  Confidently predicting victories a year out is just stupid.

That doesn't stop the media from writing about it. So yea, sure, retire it but it'll still be in every article when polls come out. So not sure it matters.

[Maithanet]

16 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Ginning up liberals' electoral expectations is a legitimate trade at this point.

It's true, and I get it.  Liberals are stressed about Trump.  Any article that says "Statistics show a Blue Wave is coming" make them feel better.  I totally fall for it too.  For websites like WaPo or Politico, it is guaranteed clicks, and that's why they keep writing them.

But forecasting elections a year out is somewhere between hard and impossible, and a lot of this "data" is just extrapolating from the midterm elections since 1994.  That's a sample size of six, and even then there are elections that you sort of need to throw out because they don't follow the fundamentals (2002 and to a lesser extent 1998). 

Really all of those articles can be summed up in a couple of sentences: The President is unpopular, and usually the president's party doesn't fare well in midterms unless the president is very popular.  Current evidence (special elections, generic ballot, voter enthusiasm) indicates this year is no exception.

That's really it, that's all those articles have to say.  You can build a super fancy model to forecast the November elections, but the sample size is always so small that you aren't really getting any more accurate, just more complicated. 

[Ivan Tsarevich]

Quote

Thus, Republicans have one less excuse for their string of really awful special election performances. It’s true that other measures aren’t as bad for Republicans as these special elections — for instance, they trail Democrats by “only” 8 or 9 percentage points on the generic congressional ballot, which suggests a close race for control of the House this year that only narrowly favors Democrats. By contrast, the 16- or 17-point⁵ average Democratic overperformance in special elections so far suggests a Democratic mega-tsunami.

But those special election results consist of actual people voting, whereas generic ballot polls are mostly conducted among registered voters — or sometimes all adults. (Very few pollsters will apply their likely voter models until later this year.) In midterm years, polls of likely voters sometimes show a substantial gap from those of registered voters — there was about a 6-point enthusiasm gap favoring Republicans in 2010, for instance, which took that year from being mildly problematic for Democrats into a massive Republican wave that saw them pick up 63 House seats.

I'd have a question about this, for someone willing to explain; what does 'registered voter' mean? Quick google search tells me that there are millions of citizens who are not registered: yet it seems these people are still eligible to vote at least in some instances. And US citizens, so how can they be unregistered, if they're accounted for?

For while I thought registered voters might mean registered members of parties, making all non-registered independents. But that can't be it, can it?

[DMC]

3 minutes ago, TsarGrey said:

I'd have a question about this, for someone willing to explain; what does 'registered voter' mean? Quick google search tells me that there are millions of citizens who are not registered: yet it seems these people are still eligible to vote at least in some instances. And US citizens, so how can they be unregistered, if they're accounted for?

For while I thought registered voters might mean registered members of parties, making all non-registered independents. But that can't be it, can it?

When pollsters contact a respondent, they will first ask if they are registered to vote.  And yes, in the US you have to register in order to be able to vote - as of 2014 about 21 percent of eligible citizens were not registered to vote.  What Silver is talking about in that quote is the difference between registered voters and "likely" voters.  As the election approaches, pollsters will switch their models to only include respondents that say they are likely to vote.  The reason they don't do so earlier is because when the election is so far out, many respondents don't know and using a likely voter model has been found to be less accurate.

[Ivan Tsarevich]

13 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

When pollsters contact a respondent, they will first ask if they are registered to vote.  And yes, in the US you have to register in order to be able to vote - as of 2014 about 21 percent of eligible citizens were not registered to vote.  What Silver is talking about in that quote is the difference between registered voters and "likely" voters.  As the election approaches, pollsters will switch their models to only include respondents that say they are likely to vote.  The reason they don't do so earlier is because when the election is so far out, many respondents don't know and using a likely voter model has been found to be less accurate.

Okay, makes sense now. Thanks.

ETA: lokisnow as well.

[lokisnow]

15 minutes ago, TsarGrey said:

I'd have a question about this, for someone willing to explain; what does 'registered voter' mean? Quick google search tells me that there are millions of citizens who are not registered: yet it seems these people are still eligible to vote at least in some instances. And US citizens, so how can they be unregistered, if they're accounted for?

For while I thought registered voters might mean registered members of parties, making all non-registered independents. But that can't be it, can it?

IIRC, Due to the racism of the Progressive movement in the United States a hundred years ago, voter registration was invented by them as a way to both stop election fraud and suppress the electoral influence of undesirable under-classes.  

It immediately became an additional voter suppression tool of the Apartheid American South, and voter registration was not struck down with other longstanding apartheid voter suppression policies that predated registration (such as grandfather clauses and poll taxes and poll tests,).

So we have the whole system of insane hoops to vote because of the racism of "do gooders" from a hundred years ago and because voting isn't a codified right, and because the political caste and the lackeys caste (from both parties) love the voter suppression of maintaining the registration system because the status quo works just fine for them even if it fucks over the rest of the population.

[DMC]

35 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Really all of those articles can be summed up in a couple of sentences: The President is unpopular, and usually the president's party doesn't fare well in midterms unless the president is very popular.  Current evidence (special elections, generic ballot, voter enthusiasm) indicates this year is no exception.

Yup.  Honestly, as a political junkie I've found I enjoy midterm cycles much more than presidential cycles.  The presidential election inevitably dominates most of my attention, I think that's just human nature, and devoting so much attention to only one race always grows stale.  But the midterms don't really get exciting until there's at least a good idea of who the two general election candidates are going to be - we're entering that period in the next couple of months as primary season heats up.  Before that, yeah, it's just looking at very little evidence over and over again.  Even the guys that have been doing this for decades like Cook and Sabato don't really know much.  And it's not like the new data-driven sites are looking at anything those guys weren't already, it's just they're trained in programs (stata, r, etc.) that allow them to play around with that data with regressions and maximum likelihoods.  But most of this stuff would not be accepted in any academic journal because, as you said, the sample is way too small and the questions just frankly aren't all that interesting (plus obviously there's the logistics of publishing delay).

Anyway, once there's a good idea of the two GE candidates in most races, that's when it gets really fun, because then more and more polls will be out.  From about May to November you could spend every waking hour looking at the different aspects of all the different races and always find something new.

[Maithanet]

10 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Anyway, once there's a good idea of the two GE candidates in most races, that's when it gets really fun, because then more and more polls will be out.  From about May to November you could spend every waking hour looking at the different aspects of all the different races and always find something new.

I'm also looking forward to that, and hoping for a few more Democratic wins in recruiting and retirements in the next couple weeks.  However, I must say, given my stress level last night for an almost totally symbolic House race, I am going to be a wreck in November. 

The stress of election returns are totally different from a big sporting event or presentation, where I have a real role.  In real life high pressure situations, you stay focused, trust your preparation and get it done.  On election night, there's nothing anybody can do, other than spectate and hope.  Intense passion plus complete powerlessness is a bad combination for mymental health. 

[Fez]

Just now, Maithanet said:

I'm also looking forward to that, and hoping for a few more Democratic wins in recruiting and retirements in the next couple weeks.  However, I must say, given my stress level last night for an almost totally symbolic House race, I am going to be a wreck in November. 

The stress of election returns are totally different from a big sporting event or presentation, where I have a real role.  In real life high pressure situations, you stay focused, trust your preparation and get it done.  On election night, there's nothing anybody can do, other than spectate and hope.  Intense passion plus complete powerlessness is a bad combination for mymental health. 

It depends. In 2014, I wasn't that stressed out. I had faint hopes about the Senate, but knew the House wasn't in play, and most importantly I knew that no matter, Obama was still going to be there to protect us from Congress.

Although, thinking back, that's the only even-year election I haven't been too stressed about in recent years. 

[Maithanet]

This WaPo article makes an interesting point:

Quote

Barack Obama and Donald Trump have at least one thing in common: They both built unique coalitions that are proving difficult to replicate when they aren’t on the ballot... As different as the two presidents are in ideology and temperament, Obama and Trump each has a special magnetism with a subset of the electorate. But that draw applies only to them, not to other candidates in their parties.

Part of what made Obama and Trump successful in Presidential elections was a certain cult of personality around them.  Obama tried over and over again to motivate Democrats his coalition of minorities and young people to vote and canvass for other candidates in the 2010 and 2014 midterms, but he was mostly unsuccessful.  In many cases, Democrats ran away from Obama, trying to establish their own brand (often with little success).  Obama had great coattails in 2008 and 2012, but he was a complete failure in protecting other Democrats in 2010 and 2014, and that failure imperiled his entire agenda. 

In many respects, Trump is just as vulnerable to this phenomenon.  His voter coalition was built around lower educated white voters in rural/suburban areas that felt left behind by the 2010-2016 economic recovery.  But white men with a high school degree or less are one of the groups with very low turnout in midterm elections.  And without Trump on the ballot, they may not show up.  Trump doesn't help himself with this - he isn't a policy guy, he's a cult of personality guy.  His appeals to "help ME by electing this guy you barely care about" did not work in PA-18, and it may not work in November either.  And if low education white voters only show up at normal levels, Trump's coalition lacks the juice to push back the very motivated opposition party.  Just like Obama in 2010.

[DMC]

26 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Intense passion plus complete powerlessness is a bad combination for mymental health. 

LOL, it does suck.  As Fez said, managing expectations helps, just like with sports teams (in October I continuously said "I'll just be happy if the Yanks win the wild card game; beat the Indians; don't get swept by the Astros...")  2008 with Obama was definitely my most emotional investment in an election, and the early primaries were the most uncertain.  It got to the point that on Super Tuesday I had Lord of the Rings playing while the results came in to keep me calm.  In 2016 I actually went out with friends.  I always prefer staying home to have immediate access to as much information as possible, but I figured the House and Senate weren't in play and either she was gonna win as expected or I'd really need to get drunk.  It was the right decision, and also helped me avoid the barrage of texts from almost every single non-political scientist friend and family member I have blaming me for the result.

[Maithanet]

5 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

It was the right decision, and also helped me avoid the barrage of texts from almost every single non-political scientist friend and family member I have blaming me for the result.

If it makes you feel any better, I blame you for the result too. 

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If it makes you feel any better, I blame you for the result too. 

I thought we were blaming the liberal agenda. I've been going after @Jaime L for like a year and a half.

I've said things I can't take back!

[Yukle]

So some things I've discovered about US elections that I didn't know... which are all things that if you live in the USA, you should immediately demand are changed.

• Some states, such as PA, don't use paper ballots. At all. Even to leave a paper trail.
• There is no recount of votes unless someone asks for one.
• There is no consistent typography for ballot papers, and they are not necessarily easy to read.
• There is no consistent method for voting (numbering candidates, hole punching, and so on) across the country.
• States do not necessarily provide disability support at all ballot boxes.

This all goes with the other issues that their voting methods have, such as:

• First-past-the-post voting is terrible.
• Voting isn't compulsory - which is fine - but there is no provision forcing the government to make voting easy to access for all who may want to vote.
• Votes don't happen on weekends or a holiday.
• Voter ID laws are selectively applied... and shouldn't exist in the first place.
• Gerrymandering.

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

If it makes you feel any better, I blame you for the result too. 

6 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I thought we were blaming the liberal agenda.

I am the liberal agenda.  Dun dun dun!

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Yukle said:

• Some states, such as PA, don't use paper ballots. At all. Even to leave a paper trail.
• There is no recount of votes unless someone asks for one.
• There is no consistent typography for ballot papers, and they are not necessarily easy to read.
• There is no consistent method for voting (numbering candidates, hole punching, and so on) across the country.
• States do not necessarily provide disability support at all ballot boxes.

To Federalism!  And many states, including PA, do have automatic recounts, just only for statewide contests, and the trigger mechanism varies widely.

ETA:  Also, there are some precincts in PA that use paper ballots.  Otherwise, a recount would be impossible.

[Jace, Extat]

OH WOW! CNN is gonna go inside a U.S. Nuclear Sub in the arctic. I'm barring my office door to make sure I catch that!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, Shryke said:

Yeah dude, look at how the moderate Republicans have totally held to their word over time. They have certainly not caved over and over and over and over again.

 

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

I agree that a few Republican senators hold quite a bit of power. I disagree that this means they will suddenly be more moderate.

This doesn't mean that a more moderate candidate will be allowed; it means that candidates who do not appeal to those specific people won't be. For example, as we saw with the tax cut, all of the above would be fine with someone who is super economically lame and a hardcore supply sider for certain positions, provided they didn't torture anyone or have a sex tape. They've been fine with almost every judicial nomination so far, with only a couple exceptions being people who were literally unqualified to practice law in that way.

 

 

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

Flake is one of the most conservative members. Paul hoots and hahs then votes the same way. Collins is a moderate but had no problem confirming Gorsuch, one of the most conservative justices on the bench now. There is no way that a qualified, conservative justice, would fail confirmation with the current Senate.

 

I'll just address all three of these at once. I didn't necessarily mean moderate on the political spectrum, but in their behavior (at least at times). There are a handful of senators who would be willing to block Trump on certain policy out of principle. Citing the votes on tax cuts is kind of pointless. Cutting taxes is what the Republican party is about, and there's no way they weren't going to go along with it. And on the Gorsuch nomination, you claim that it was wrong of them to go along with the process it which it occurred, but by all account Gorsuch is a qualified candidate for the SC. This doesn't change my point that a handful of Republican senators can derail bad policy pushed by Trump. Just look at McCain and the skinny repeal. And while I can't give an example off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure there have been a few bad ideas the Paul has blocked. 

[Yukle]

29 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

To Federalism!  And many states, including PA, do have automatic recounts, just only for statewide contests, and the trigger mechanism varies widely.

ETA:  Also, there are some precincts in PA that use paper ballots.  Otherwise, a recount would be impossible.

Australia is a federalist nation, and we still have consistent voting methods, easy to follow typography, independent voting commissions, universal access, paper ballots and so on.  

My issue with paper ballots is that they are much harder to tamper with. Governments tend to give contracts to the lowest bidder. They will also use machines until they break, instead of until they are out of date. It is much easier to tamper with a few machines to rig voting than it is to tamper with a large collection of ballot papers distributed throughout a wide area.

It's not impossible, just harder.

[Mexal]

15 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I'll just address all three of these at once. I didn't necessarily mean moderate on the political spectrum, but in their behavior (at least at times). There are a handful of senators who would be willing to block Trump on certain policy out of principle. Citing the votes on tax cuts is kind of pointless. Cutting taxes is what the Republican party is about, and there's no way they weren't going to go along with it. And on the Gorsuch nomination, you claim that it was wrong of them to go along with the process it which it occurred, but by all account Gorsuch is a qualified candidate for the SC. This doesn't change my point that a handful of Republican senators can derail bad policy pushed by Trump. Just look at McCain and the skinny repeal. And while I can't give an example off the top of my head, I'm pretty sure there have been a few bad ideas the Paul has blocked. 

The point we're making is that there is absolutely zero guarantee or reason for a Republican to block a qualified conservative to the SCOTUS. Your point is fine, in that a handful of Republican senators can derail policy, but that does not make it anymore likely that a handful of Republican senators will derail a well qualified, supremely conservative, young justice. We have history to say they won't so you screaming that if Kennedy retired, they would go more moderate, makes no sense to me.