US Politics: Four Days and Counting

[IheartIheartTesla]

Maybe I should take a break from all this poll watching.....I did some GOTV yesterday, and I've helped in local races all I can.

But I am obsessively looking at the Ralston blog out of NV, as well as Schale's out of FL. I didnt realize that the R's had a registration advantage in the latter, but apparently it all comes down to crossovers and non-aligneds. The working theory right now is Gillum (and Nelson maybe) are winning more of those, so even if the early votes are leaning slightly Republican (~25-30K as of now) it still looks good for the Democrats.

[Fez]

48 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

If the Republicans win, with the kind of campaigns they have been running this year, there are going to be massive cuts to healthcare and perhaps more. They have been baldly lying about their healthcare stances and if they win on that the lesson they will take is that voters are stupid and they can do whatever they want then lie about it later. Zombie Ryancare/Obmacare repeal will return with a vengeance.

Also yes.

And if Republicans gain even one seat in the senate, Murkowski/Collins can't block zombie repeal (assuming they even want to again).

[Maithanet]

24 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

The working theory right now is Gillum (and Nelson maybe) are winning more of those, so even if the early votes are leaning slightly Republican (~25-30K as of now) it still looks good for the Democrats.

Huh?  His update from 9:30 (which I assume you've seen since you're obsessively reading) says that Democrats are up 24k votes or 0.5%.  Which is a lot better than they were in 2014 (down 3% in early voting) and is encouraging because Scott won so narrowly in 2014.  However, this number is also worse than where Democrats were in 2016, when they were up 1.3%, but still lost statewide by ~0.9%.  So just like in NV, there's the question of whether we should be comparing with 2016 or 2014/10 or some hybrid.  If 2014/10 is the comparison, then Dems look really good in both states.  If 2016 is the comparison, things look bad.  If you average them 50/50, then it's close in both cases.

[lokisnow]

One thing I’ve learned from obsessively reading Ralstons blog is how important margins are in small populations. “The rurals” in Nevada only account for 10% of the vote but a margin of 3-1 can give them a plus 25,000 (or more) vote advantage per hundred thousand votes. Whereas a Clark county urban that only splits like 53-48 is only getting like a 5000 vote advantage per hundred thousand votes. That means it takes half a million votes to match the advantage bestowed by the rural vote.

This also indicates how the black vote helps democrats in many states, a 90-10 vote share yields a 90000 vote advantage per hundred thousand. Or as the election of doug Jones demonstrated, there were millions of pro pedophile white voters from the party of evil, but not enough marginally over the anti pedophile white voters to beat the advantages conferred by that margin in a smaller population 

it also shows how awful the democrats are at pursuing winning strategies, if democrats had been investing in the Asian and Latino vote the past thirty years and had systemically focused on registering and empowering them, they could very easily have developed vote shares of 60-40 in Asian communities and 70-30 in Latino communities. Now in many states the overall populations are too small to swing more than a few thousand votes, but it would have been enough to forestall some of the electoral dominance the party of evil has demonstrated in investing in increasing their share of non college whites. 

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

33 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

Huh?  His update from 9:30 (which I assume you've seen since you're obsessively reading) says that Democrats are up 24k votes or 0.5%. 

No, I missed that post actually, it was the weekend numbers from his previous post where R's were still up by the numbers I quoted. This is where I got the crossover stuff from, one of his earlier posts.

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So lastly, the question I get on twitter all the time how does Gillum or Nelson win if more Republicans vote than Democrats?

Right now, I think a turnout model where the electorate is 2% more GOP than Democrat is a pretty fair place to peg it, given the number of GOP super voters left to vote.  If we have 7.25 million votes, that is 150,000 more Republicans than Democrats casting a ballot.

So, if you believe the polling, Gillum is winning a few more points of Republicans than Democrats, and winning NPAs.

Let’s assume the final electorate is 41 R – 39 D – 20 NPA (it may be higher than this), and Gillum wins just 2% more Republicans than DeSantis wins Democrats – and he wins the NPAs by 8.  I think both of these assumptions are conservative, and realistic.

What happens:  Gillum wins by about 1.5%. 

There is a long way to go, but if the polling is right, the electorate is molding into shape for Gillum to bring it home.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Relic said:

Fuck the polls, we won;t know anything till tomorrow evening. if you are worried do some canvasing. 

 

a good resource - https://votesaveamerica.com/dosomething

This. There’s no point in worrying. You’ll get no benefit from it. So instead if you’re not already involved with a campaign, volunteer to do some canvassing or phone banking. Or take tomorrow off and do some GOTV work.

[Mexal]

 

[Mexal]

I pray Abrams wins because Brian Kemp is the worst.

 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Maybe the internals show a much closer race than a +1.5-2 for Kemp, hence the desperation. Turnout is high in Georgia, I think young voters especially (apart from AA, which is to be expected)....

[lokisnow]

Fun with infographics! 

How republicans win with social media memes

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/11/04/technology/jobs-not-mobs.html?action=click&module=Top Stories&pgtype=Homepage

 

Animated info graphics breaking down voting demographics, fun!

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-voter-demographics/?srnd=premium

 

[Ormond]

4 hours ago, Fez said:

 

Again, could be nothing, there's a whole bunch of state and district polls that came out this morning that almost all look great. But I'd feel better if every indicator looked great instead of just most of them.

 

If there is ever any election where EVERY indicator "looks great", we have entered the Twilight Zone.

[Maithanet]

7 minutes ago, Ormond said:

If there is ever any election where EVERY indicator "looks great", we have entered the Twilight Zone.

2008 maybe.  Really the only question there was "could the polls be off by some huge margin because people are too racist to admit they aren't voting for Obama?"  And in retrospect that seems pretty silly, since racist people usually don't have any problem telling pollsters the truth about who they're voting for. 

[Rippounet]

@Altherion

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Sure. Some people will almost certainly come out ahead, but on the whole it will be thoroughly unpleasant. I much prefer the first scenario which is why I'm willing to cut the people who are pushing it a great deal of slack.

I'm glad we can agree on that.

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The general idea of human rights is old, yes, but the 20th century implementation goes far, far beyond what what was ever done before in this respect. And the argument regarding them being safeguards ignores the fact that the modern implementation is not universal. Even if we consider only the nations which the weapons you mention, their ideas of human rights are very different: the US has one concept of human rights, Russia has another (incidentally, distinct from the Soviet Union which came before it) and China is quite different from both. It's not at all obvious that the Western version will prevail over the Chinese one.

Well, you have a point, but one way or the other I don't see how the idea of universal human rights could disappear. It's the strength of each and every right that is in doubt, since different regimes/cultures have different standards at different times. However, some rights not being much recognized anymore is slightly different from the entire framework not being viable. On the contrary so far human rights have proven surprisingly resilient.

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Oh, there's little doubt it's an ideology:

I stand corrected.

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As to failed... well yes, it hasn't failed yet (though it's showing quite a few cracks). That question was in the context of the second scenario which, if it comes to pass, implies the failure of this ideology.

I have to say I find it hard to imagine a failure of human rights as an ideology that wouldn't be temporary. Long-term failure would result in an apocalyptic scenario.
I do believe that is actually the story of Star Trek though. Humanity almost destroyed itself before coming together.

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I'm not sure where you get such a thing or how you can prove it.

In a nutshell, fascist countries (in the loose sense of the term) are not nice to live in. They tend to disregard things like separation of powers or individual liberties.

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Consider the history of the United States: for the vast majority of it, there was violence (or at least hostility) towards a variety of out-groups, but on the whole the in-group did pretty well for roughly a couple of centuries.

For all its flaws, the official US ideology has seldom been about hatred. The domestic consequences of hostility have thus been rather mild, though they do exist.
This may be changing though. I don't think the US has ever had a president as crass as Trump.

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Read the sentence about the strong and the weak you were responding to again; it has nothing to do with immigrants. The strong that I was speaking of are large, powerful nations such as the US or China which get to more or less ignore the rules.

Then it makes no sense to me.

 

[Mexal]

 

[lokisnow]

JSpeaking of politics, public infrastructure, something republicans hate:  here’s a look at civil engineering in the us with two California mega projects 

the latest update of the Fresno construction of high speed rail illustrates the gargantuan scale and expense involved in building track viaducts over (and under) recalcitrant freight rail  (BNSF) right of way. 

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/construction/road_closure/2018_November_Construction_Update.pdf

 

Not that journalists ever report it, but most of the cost overage involved in CA HSR to date  involve the HSR not being able to build rail where there is already rail and right of ways for rail because BNSf is enjoying fucking with HSR. Note for example the gigantic pergola constructed over a single track of BNSF rail, or the enormous trench they have to build to go under a single track BNSF rail spar. Because BNSF refused to realign or otherwise work out a reasonable solution resulting in gigantic projects to go over or under the problem.

 (and if ca doesn’t complete the HSR BNsf gets granted use of all the newly built infrastructure for free, so it’s a win win for them to fuck around forcing elaborate billions to be spent)...

And in more cheery infrastructure news, here’s a time lapse of the Herculean efforts involved in 2018 rebuilding of the damaged spillway of the oroville dam

 

 

[Galactus]

For all its flaws, the official US ideology has seldom been about hatred. The domestic consequences of hostility have thus been rather mild, though they do exist.

Eh, native americans might have some beef with that, considering the long and impressive amount of propaganda levied against them. 

[James Arryn]

11 minutes ago, Galactus said:

 

 

Eh, native americans might have some beef with that, considering the long and impressive amount of propaganda levied against them. 

Better dead than red has so many possible interpretations. 

[DMC]

1 hour ago, Maithanet said:

2008 maybe.  Really the only question there was "could the polls be off by some huge margin because people are too racist to admit they aren't voting for Obama?"  And in retrospect that seems pretty silly, since racist people usually don't have any problem telling pollsters the truth about who they're voting for. 

Yeah there was a lot of hand-wringing about the Bradley or Wilder effect in 2008.  Wonder if anyone that started paying attention post-2008 has even heard of those.

In terms of indicators/environment, I'd say this cycle looks most like 2006.

44 minutes ago, Mexal said:

[Cohn and Silver tweets]

This is what I always like to do right before the election - look at the trends in polling within each firm.  Found it usually gives a better idea than the aggregate number,  and perhaps even the aggregate trend when some outlier polls come in from a firm out of left field.

[Maithanet]

9 minutes ago, DMC said:

In terms of indicators/environment, I'd say this cycle looks most like 2006.

Most like 2006 is probably right, although I would say that Republican enthusiasm is much higher now than in 2006.  Enthusiasm amongst Democratic/Independent voters may be sufficient to counterbalance that, but that isn't for sure.  Which is why I have personally expected the House to have less of a Democratic lean than it did post-2006.  After that election, it was 233 Dems.  I think that Dems will take the House, but forecasts that they will surpass 233 votes seem unlikely, IMO.  And, for example, the AVERAGE on 538's model is for democrats to be at 234 seats.  I think a comparatively narrow margin in the 225-230 range is the most likely outcome. 

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Maithanet said:

although I would say that Republican enthusiasm is much higher now than in 2006.

That's certainly true.