2020 Presidential Election

[River]

To be filed under "things no one needs" or "allies unlooked for...for a reason": Taliban supports Trump's re-election: A senior Taliban member told CBS News, "Trump might be ridiculous for the rest of the world, but he is sane and wise man for the Taliban."

Also, North Korea has an ICBM now. Totally de-nuked, as you can see.

[elengil]

To be filed under "things no one needs" or "allies unlooked for...for a reason": Taliban supports Trump's re-election: A senior Taliban member told CBS News, "Trump might be ridiculous for the rest of the world, but he is sane and wise man for the Taliban."

Also, North Korea has an ICBM now. Totally de-nuked, as you can see.

I don't have enough alcohol for this. And this is taking into account the several quarts of extracts I have in process.

[River]

The Taliban endorsement has been rejected. So there's that, at least. Now we just have to worry about NK's expanding nuclear capabilities.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

86-14

The surge for Biden since the beginning of September has been remarkably consistent.

[River]

Interesting. Maybe there won't be a reversion to the mean. Maybe we're heading to a new mean.

[RoseMorninStar]

I would be curious to know, though, what's front and centre on the mind of those who were planning to vote Trump up until a fortnight ago but switched since then.

It also may not be a switch from Trump to Biden, but a switch from not voting or undecided to Biden?

That's true as well (plus voting for Trump to not voting). But I'd be curious as to what the driver was in each case. For example, I saw one undecided voter write in a comment that it was Trump's refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power that pushed him into voting for Biden.

I was reading an article from Politico and this conversation came to mind. Trump has prized absolute personal loyalty over professionalism and expertise. Competent professionals who would have been hired by any previous administration are long gone and have been replaced by cronies and sycophants. The lack of professionalism, competence, etc.. is showing.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Interesting. Maybe there won't be a reversion to the mean. Maybe we're heading to a new mean.

Well, not so fast. We actually saw a similar spike for Clinton, reaching a peak on Oct. 18 of 87.4% (higher than Biden is now), and then it did revert to mean.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

On the other, other hand, comparing the two charts from 2016 and 2020, what jumps out (as others have observed) is how consistent Biden lead has been throughout, compared to the volatility of the race in 2016.

[River]

That consistent surge is why I don't think Biden's chances are going to dip hard anytime soon. This race hasn't had anything close to 2016's volatility and given the steady trend I'm not sure what mean we'd revert to even is. 80%?

ETA: Link to Nate Silver's Twitter feed. Interesting stuff.

[Túrin Turambar]

538 is now showing 86-13 - even before the President's rather interesting rally today where he excitedly said he wanted to kiss everyone in the audience. Funnily enough, though, they have a 28% of Trump winning a state he didn't win in 2016. Which could that be? New Hampshire and Minnesota are closest, but Biden's lead in both is pretty solid, above Trump's lead in (for example) South Carolina. It seems odd to me that this outcome is twice as likely as Trump winning enough of the states he did win in 2016 to get re-elected.

[Dave_LF]

I think it's the combination of Nevada and New Hampshire. If you scan through some of 538's simulated electoral maps, a number of Biden victories have Trump winning one of those states or the other.

[Frelga]

Mildly relevant

[River]

Human minds don't have a real intuitive sense for probability or statistics. That's why casinos make bank and why studying the stuff makes your brain hurt.

[elengil]

Mildly relevant

xkcd is the best.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

87-13. The progression is amazingly consistent. But I think the next week or so is key. It was after October 18 that Clinton had that steep drop in her lead four years ago. Remember what caused that? Comey's bogus announcement that the investigation into her emails was being reopened. The only possible similar events that I could see happening would be if Barr reverses course and announces results of Dunham's investigation that claim that there is criminal liability on the part of the Obama administration in the opening of the investigation of Trump's campaign, or some kind or reopening of the bogus claim that Biden engaged in misconduct with regard to his son's involvement in Ukraine. Neither of which are very likely, and neither of which would probably get much traction (I am convinced that the key word in the phrase "but her emails" was "her"). Plus, more people are already voting than there were at this point in 2016, so any "October surprise" will have less impact. So in my opinion the only real hope that Trump has is to successfully suppress the vote (which I don't think is going to happen because people are very motivated to get rid of him no matter what) or invalidate the results of the election through the courts and the newly installed super-majority of Trump-friendly Supreme Court justices.

[RoseMorninStar]

I wonder if GOP ballot boxes (or other such shenanigans) will have much of an affect? They sure seem to have been trying to chisel away at the election (and trust in the results) from many angles. Personally I think it's hurting the GOP more than helping.
California Republican Party Admits It Placed Misleading Ballot Boxes Around State
Government officials say the receptacles are illegal and could lead to voter fraud, but the party says it will continue the practice.

[Frelga]

https://twitter.com/PadmaLakshmi/status ... 27426?s=19

Republicans are working overtime on voter suppression:

-The California Republican Party installed 50 illegal, fake drop boxes for mail-in ballots in LA, Fresno & OC

- In Virgina someone cut a fiberoptic cable, shutting down govt voting websites on the last day to register

In Texas, @GregAbbott_TX reduced the number of ballot drop boxes to one per county, forcing people to drive hours to vote. https://t.co/KiO0knfXBH

https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/13 ... 11840?s=09

There is only 1 early voting location per county in Ohio (1 location for 880,000 registered voters in Columbus’s Franklin County) & 1 place to drop off your mail ballot because of Ohio GOP

[River]

I'm not sure what the CA GOP hopes to achieve. If you have to steal ballots you've pretty much conceded that you're losing the argument.

[elengil]

So the GOP was right when they said it mail-ballots would lead to voter fraud, they just failed to indicate THEY would be the ones perpetrating the fraud.

[River]

Actually when you steal ballots it's called election fraud.