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Saturday, October 10, 2020

UPDATED: Just A Bit About Polling

Well, not exactly about polling, but about electoral statistics and models for predicting results.

This is a topic I have absolutely no qualifications to discuss. But, yesterday I read a looong article by Sean Trende, who does have those qualifications: As Goes Washington, So Goes the Nation? I would never have dreamed of trying to summarize the article, but Don Surber has done it for us. Trende's point is basically that if you examine primary election voting patterns in Washington state over a period of years, those patterns tend to be pretty predictive for national elections.

So, this morning Surber digests the Trende article, and adds a bit that I wasn't aware of: that the "jungle primary" system was invented in the Dem Jim Crow South to disenfranchise Republicans in general and blacks in particular. Here's that summary, from his Highlights of the News:


ITEM 5: Sean Trende wrote, "As Goes Washington, So Goes the Nation? As early as 2010, I’d noticed that Washington state’s primary predicts November national outcomes fairly well. The idea is this: Washington has a primary where all the candidates run on a single ballot, with the top two advancing to the general election. The specifics have changed over time – in particular, the primary is held in August now rather than in September – but regardless, that unique format gives us a bit of a dry run as to how voting will go in the fall (California has a similar system, but its primary is held much earlier)."

This is the jungle primary that Democrats in the Confederate states created to disenfranchise Republicans and black people. Liberals have adopted it in recent decades.

He wrote, "The data for 2020 was genuinely surprising. I had expected that it would look like 2018, when Democrats won about 62% of the vote overall in the September primary. Instead, the Democrats’ performance this year was slightly worse than it was in 2016: They won about 55.2% of the vote in 2020 versus 56% in 2016."

Trende saw the 2010 Republican tsunami 6 months before it happened.


And as a bonus:


ITEM 6: A reader wrote, "Do you think it is just a coincidence that the number of people who believe that they are better off now than they were 4 years ago is the same percentage that think Trump will win? Hmmm."

That would be 56%. Double that Hmmm.


Finally, here's something to share with "woke" friends and relatives. It's an interesting insight into the liberal mindset. There's just gotta be more people thinking along this line. It's 47 minutes long. She gets to her "conversion story" beginning around the 25 minute mark:




UPDATE: John Hinderaker, in the first paragraphs of a longer blog, addresses the issues raised in ITEM 6, above, but at greater length:


When a president runs for re-election, a fundamental question is whether voters think their circumstances have gotten better during the past four years. Gallup asked this question a few days ago, and 56% of respondents say they and their families are better off today than they were four years ago.

That is a remarkable finding. Approaching the end of President Reagan’s first term, only 44% said they were better off. At the end of Obama’s first term, the figure was 45%. A president running in an environment where a solid majority have gotten better off during his first term should be cruising to an easy re-election, especially when Gallup also finds that voters are more likely to say they agree with Trump than with Biden on the issues.

And yet the polls tell us that Joe Biden is pulling away toward a possible landslide, while the Democrats may be poised to take control over the Senate. How can this be?


The answer could be that "this" doesn't be. That the mainstream polls really are biased, just like the ones that told that Hillary was, I forget exactly, 95% likely to win--right up to the last moment before the election was declared for Trump. Voter suppression gaslighting? Maybe.


9 comments:

  1. "Democratic ballots more than double Republican ballots during early voting"

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democratic-ballots-double-republican-early-voting

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  2. Mark,

    The Georgia H. from L.A. video is pretty spectacular. Thanks for posting.

    Talk about coming to grips, finally, with cognitive dissonance. I imagine many of us have been on similar journeys. Although, perhaps, many of us have not pulled it all together yet as cogently as Georgia.

    If I may say so, this is another reason to applaud Donald Trump. The genie is out of the bottle. Trump's not nearly as articulate as Georgia, but...without Trump, there is no Larry Elder, Dave Rubin, or Ben Shapiro...each of whom Georgia credits with helping her finally see straight. Or, perhaps, no Dan Bongino...or Mark Wauck.

    Even I might be sitting in my nice, neat suburban house back East wondering what to do about all these Deplorables... :-)

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    Replies
    1. I had your accounts of your own intra family encounters in mind.

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  3. Shouldn't MSM projections that Biden is cruising work against him? Lazy progressives take their foot off the gas because "Biden's going to win" while Deplorables, furious over the implications of a Dem win, head to the (election) polls?

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  4. Clinton +8% on 2016-Oct-10 (Reuters). 2359 Likely Voters.
    Poll detail:
    Did you vote for Obama or Romney?
    Obama: 1216 (52%) Romney: 723 (31%) Other: 420

    That's a 21% bias. Seems more like "propaganda" than "polling"

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  5. "56% of respondents say...."
    Even with the lockdowns? That's remarkable, all right.
    I hope that DJT doesn't bank on such numbers.
    He should seek to make this campaign a referendum on Biden's snort about “No, they don’t deserve to know”, like the Dems made the 1884 campaign a referendum on Blaine's snort on "rum, Romanism, & rebellion".

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    1. What is with all the so called conservative pundits and their sudden loose bowel syndrome viz the election? Why, suddenly, after months of phony Dem polls by the Dem Media that these conservatives have been scorching for months do these same, people go all wobbly and predict doom and doubt? Besides Hinderaker at PL, ive read several, others that do very little analysis of the polls, especially when we know a poll can be so easily manipulated with sampling, weighting, question framing and plain lying.

      If i was seeing a tide of Biden signs here in purple Loudoun county VA and enthusiastic rallies and hearing from friends and relatives who had soured on Trump, then I'd be a little more credulous about these polls. But i see and hear none of the signs of a Biden win let alone big win they're projecting. It disgusts me that these pundits learn nothing from 2016 as this is a carbon copy tactic Hillary used.

      What we conservatives should be planning and praying over is what to do when the Dems manufacture the post election votes to claim victory, refuse to let Trump take office, and whatever other schemes to ensure Democrat rule hereafter. We are a fervent bunch for liberty but poorly organized and predisposed to inaction.

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    2. @Tschifty

      Obviously I have no crystal ball, but I'm inclined to agree with you that 2020 is looking a lot like 2016 for Trump.

      Hillary was far more dislikeable than Biden, but Biden is disabled. Which is worse?

      Trump is Trump. Except perhaps a little less scary to some voters this time around.

      What I am reading is the pundits saying that this is shaping up to be a 'base' election and not a 'persuasion' election. If the pundits know what they're talking about, the developing game seems to be all about getting the respective bases out.

      Like you, I don't see huge enthusiasm for Biden based on rally attendance or lawn signs (outside true blue enclaves). I am very hopeful that the Trump base is energized and that this will translate to the same result as in 2016.

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  6. Cass, he must be much less scary, than he seemed in 2016, esp. compared to the Dems.
    How many wars has he started, and how many peace deals did he nail down?
    How many big riots did he or his pals gin-up, vs. those ginned-up by Dems/ MSM?
    How many assaults upon our Const. structure did he push, vs. those pushed by Dems?
    Biden is disabled, and his Veep would be a Hillary with less experience.

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