Election Analysis Thread

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superrific

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I think we should have a different thread for talking *about* the polls and *about* the news. For one thing, having the discussion and the polls in the same place means that people have to look at the polls to follow the discussion as they are in the same place. Second, more concentrated discussion is useful, I think. I will offer my own take on what we are seeing. Obviously there will be some disagreement.

1. Don't look at national polls at all. They don't mean much, given that they aren't measuring anything of importance. National polls are used in forecasts in a specific way that can be helpful in the earlier stages of an election. The idea is that you can predict states by taking a national poll and then applying the state's partisan lean. So, for instance, Michigan has been +2 GOP, IIRC, for the past few cycles. So if the national poll is Harris +1, and Michigan is +2 Trump, then you'd expect Trump to be winning by 1 point in Michigan.

The flaw in this analysis is that the partisan lean of the state changes over time. So let's use that example but add some Michigan polling putting Kamala +1 in Michigan. Now, you might interpret that as a biased poll in favor of Kamala, since we know that Michigan is supposed to be +1 Trump based on national polling. I would interpret that as suggesting that Michigan isn't going to be +2 GOP this cycle. If it was just one poll, as in Arkansas or other states where very few polls are run, fine, use the national + partisan lean model. But we have tons of polling of Michigan and that polling is telling us that Michigan isn't +2 Trump. It's +0 Trump. That could be because Michigan changed, or it could be because other places have changed. If Missouri goes from Trump +8 to Trump +16, that's pushing the national average toward Trump; by extension, it means that every other state will see its partisan lean decrease.

So state polls >> national polls right now. I don't think the forecast models are even looking at national polls right now; if they are, they have little weight.

2. The early voting numbers don't cast much light. I had been thinking that the cross-referenced voting numbers are more informative -- i.e. comparing polls of people who have already voted to the early-voting-by-registration maps. For instance, if Kamala is winning in NC +9 and Pubs and Dems have returned ballots in the same proportions, that +9 means either that Kamala is winning indies big time, or there are more Rs who are voting for Kamala than Ds voting for Trump.

I still think that's directionally true; using the already-voted poll in conjunction with the state maps contains a little bit of information. But I don't think the magnitude is very large. There's no reason to think that independents are any less likely to self-select based on early voting. There are plenty of middle-aged educated people registered as independents. There are also plenty of low-propensity, low-engagement voters registered that way. If the former group is more likely to early vote, then you'd expect Kamala to be winning among them at this stage. I mean, I'd rather be up 9 in already-voted than down 9, but I don't know how much this is telling us. It's not nothing, but it's not a ton either.

3. The EC is not necessarily going to favor Trump. It did in 2016, but barely. He won the blue wall states by tiny, tiny margins -- margins that were nearly random, I'd say. If he had lost those states by tiny margins, we wouldn't be having this discussion. In 2020, it was more pronounced, but 2020 was weird. In 2012, the EC favored Obama. And it very well could favor Kamala. Remember: an EC advantage just means that your opponent is running up the score in safe states. And for Dems, that means California. I think I remember reading that the EC advantage for Trump (at least in 16) was almost entirely a California effect. For Pubs, it means the confederate states.

Well, the way the GOP has so heartily embraced Trump, I suspect that he will do better this cycle in AL, MS, LA, OK than in the past. That's not helping him in the election. It's eroding his EC advantage.

Remember what matters: the swing states. Whoever wins those states will have the EC advantage this cycle (in practical terms, if not fully in theory). We don't actually need to win nationally by X to have a chance. We just need to win MI, PA and WI. What is happening in AL or CA doesn't matter. If, as some data suggests, Florida has gone completely red because of conservative in-migration, that's a great result for us. It will tilt the EC toward us.

4. About polls. This is also making us nervous. Won't Trump outperform his polls again? Don't we need to be leading by 5, as in 2020, to make sure we win? Sure, he might outperform his polls, but there's no particularly strong reason, in my view, to think that's likely.

A. I read a very interesting article last week discussing this a little bit. It talked about the role that landlines played in the 2020 polling -- namely, that landline polls were way more favorable to Biden than to Trump. Why? Well, because Biden voters were cautious about the pandemic, and stayed at home a lot, meaning that they were available when the landline pollster calls and willing to talk because they haven't talked to anyone all day. Trump voters were out there going to rallies and doing stuff during the day and then dying in December and January (there should be at least a minor COVID adjustment from 2020, since most Covid deaths occurred after the election and those deaths were predominantly GOP). They weren't answering landlines.

Well, nobody is doing landline polls any more. I think Quinnipiac is doing random digit dialing, which would tend to capture a fair amount of landlines. Those polls have been good for Kamala, which suggests that the vast majority of polls not using landlines or random digit dialing are not going to be weighted in her favor.

B. Plus, the majority of polls are being weighted by recalled vote. These polls favor Trump more than Kamala; they are also methodologically suspect. There's a reason why nobody was using recalled vote weighting. It's basically being used in an attempt to amplify the disengaged Trump voters, like the pollsters who just added 5 to Trump's totals in 2020 because. But if it was bad methodology then, it's bad methodology now.

For one thing, recalled vote is inaccurate. Secondly, recalled vote weighting misses voter composition changes. If a poll reaches too few 2020 Trump voters, maybe it's because it didn't reach those voters for whatever reason. But it might also be because they don't exist anymore -- maybe they died or moved to a different state. The whole point of a poll is to find some answers to those questions. If you're weighting by recalled vote, you're missing those shifts.

Those shifts are almost certainly going to favor Kamala at least a little, because there's almost no room for those shifts to hurt her. People aren't moving to California. They are leaving California. All else being equal, that's shifting the electorates in other states. People are moving to Florida. They are probably moving there from NC, and the ones who are moving are likely to be conservative. People are also moving to NC; typically they are educated people who are more likely to vote for Kamala.

Anyone have other points? Or follow-up questions that I might be able to address?
 
Just a point that I made earlier that has been reinforced by more informed voices. If there is a hidden vote this year, I'd think it would more likely be for Harris in the purple and red areas. There are places that openly supporting a biracial woman won't make friends. Probably won't matter in the red states unless it helps the undercard but could matter elsewhere. Seems like Trump voters have lost all sense of shame.
 
Just a point that I made earlier that has been reinforced by more informed voices. If there is a hidden vote this year, I'd think it would more likely be for Harris in the purple and red areas. There are places that openly supporting a biracial woman won't make friends. Probably won't matter in the red states unless it helps the undercard but could matter elsewhere. Seems like Trump voters have lost all sense of shame.
Hope you are correct Of course a couple months ago I would have said orangeturds ceiling was 45%......
 
I don't see people that voted for Biden changing their vote for Trump over Harris. I don't see a whole wave of new voters voting for Trump more than Harris. And we have heard Pubs say they are voting for Harris. I think this all makes the outcome more positive for Harris.
 
I don't see people that voted for Biden changing their vote for Trump over Harris. I don't see a whole wave of new voters voting for Trump more than Harris. And we have heard Pubs say they are voting for Harris. I think this all makes the outcome more positive for Harris.
I still think there are people who vote the opposite party no matter what, just for change. These people that only pay attention to politics on 1 day every 4 years. I think there are definitely Trump -> Biden -> Trump voters, but also think (hope) there are more Trump -> Harris voters.
 
I still think there are people who vote the opposite party no matter what, just for change. These people that only pay attention to politics on 1 day every 4 years. I think there are definitely Trump -> Biden -> Trump voters, but also think (hope) there are more Trump -> Harris voters.
I don't see how anyone who didn't vote for Trump last time would vote for him now.
 
QUESTION: This may have to do with weighting and recalled voters you spoke of. Its my understanding that the Times poll does something different. Like maybe not weighting as much? The sample is the sample thing.......not sure how to phrase it. And Quinnipiac is different about their calling sample. Maybe old school on calling land lines and such?

Next natural QUESTION: which pollsters have best methodology of going about it?
 
I don't see how anyone who didn't vote for Trump last time would vote for him now.
Right it doesn't make sense, but these voters don't make sense. They just vote on a whim. It's like picking cool ranch or nacho cheese doritos. They're just picking one. They are choosing based on the last piece of entertainment news they saw on tik tok or facebook.
 
QUESTION: This may have to do with weighting and recalled voters you spoke of. Its my understanding that the Times poll does something different. Like maybe not weighting as much? The sample is the sample thing.......not sure how to phrase it. And Quinnipiac is different about their calling sample. Maybe old school on calling land lines and such?

Next natural QUESTION: which pollsters have best methodology of going about it?
There's no one best methodology. Different pollsters will do better in different elections. That said, some are much better than others. Here's what I consider to be the most informed, unbiased ranking --

 
I don't see people that voted for Biden changing their vote for Trump over Harris.
Oh, there will be some who will for sure. For a number of reasons. For one thing, people have some weird nostalgia for the economy under Trump which was worse in virtually all ways (even pre-pandemic) than now but people don't understand economics.
 
QUESTION: This may have to do with weighting and recalled voters you spoke of. Its my understanding that the Times poll does something different. Like maybe not weighting as much? The sample is the sample thing.......not sure how to phrase it. And Quinnipiac is different about their calling sample. Maybe old school on calling land lines and such?

Next natural QUESTION: which pollsters have best methodology of going about it?
According to Nate Cohn at the Times, about 1/3 of pollsters (including the Times) are not weighting on recalled vote. That's the most methodologically sound choice. About 2/3 are. They might be more accurate, but the recalled vote weighting is basically a fudge factor.

Quinnipiac -- I don't know. Random digit dialing just doesn't seem like it should work any more.

As for the "sample is the sample thing," I think you're referring to Bullfinch and to my knowledge, only Bullfinch is doing that. Its poll was about +3, +4 for Kamala in the blue wall states. Technically it was MI +8, WI +1 or +2, and PA even, but I think it's fair to average those together given that they used the same methods and those states are similar. I don't know where they got the money for it. I suspect that the reason people aren't doing it more is that it's expensive.
 
Question: do married conservative voters tend to vote together at the same time? And do the men try to influence their wives' votes with badgering or other strats?

I ask because I just read an article about how there's a pronounced gender gap so far even with much more Republican turnout. That is, normally early voting stats skew female (probably because women disproportionately have to deal with school on election day), but also blue. This year, the Republican turnout is strong and still there's a gender gap.

One way of interpreting this is that, now that abortion is on the ballot, some traditional GOP voting married women want to vote for Kamala. And they are afraid if they vote with their husbands, it will be harder for them to do that for whatever reason. So they are going early. IDK, just a random thought. It seems plausible.
 
Trump voters were out there going to rallies and doing stuff during the day and then dying in December and January (there should be at least a minor COVID adjustment from 2020, since most Covid deaths occurred after the election and those deaths were predominantly GOP).
I'd think most of those dead Covid GOPers from 2020 would, actuarially speaking, most likely to be dead by now anyway. I think the number of physically fit Republicans that voted in 2020 that will not be able to vote in 2024 due to COVID, especially when focusing on just the net difference and just the seven swing states, is negligible.
 
I'd think most of those dead Covid GOPers from 2020 would, actuarially speaking, most likely to be dead by now anyway. I think the number of physically fit Republicans that voted in 2020 that will not be able to vote in 2024 due to COVID, especially when focusing on just the net difference and just the seven swing states, is negligible.
Nah, the vast majority would still be alive. Even at age 90, life expectancy is about 4 years. Also, it's unclear what difference that makes. I don't know of any pollsters who try to model deaths into their analyses. The reason that the effect is small is just that not that many people died from Covid.

Anyway, my point was more about the telephone polls than the Covid deaths.
 
Nah, the vast majority would still be alive. Even at age 90, life expectancy is about 4 years. Also, it's unclear what difference that makes. I don't know of any pollsters who try to model deaths into their analyses. The reason that the effect is small is just that not that many people died from Covid.

Anyway, my point was more about the telephone polls than the Covid deaths.
As a whole, yes. But the excess Covid death population is not average. It is heavier, more diabetic, less likely to see doctors, and more prone to comorbidities.

In any event, I agree with you that the Covid impact on this election is not statistically relevant.
 
As a whole, yes. But the excess Covid death population is not average. It is heavier, more diabetic, less likely to see doctors, and more prone to comorbidities.

In any event, I agree with you that the Covid impact on this election is not statistically relevant.
I didn't say it wasn't statistically relevant. Its statistical relevance will depend on the ultimate vote margins. If Kamala wins WI by 10,000 votes, Covid could very well be of statistical relevance.
 
The gender gap is the one that should only be able to be explained by enthusiasm. There's no reason women should be coming out more than men at this point vs waiting. Maybe that would have been the case in Trumps glory days of 1932, when many women didnt work, but now? Nah. I can think of nothing else.

GOP coming out more now is because they are pushing it. But no one is pushing one gender over the other to vote early vs on Eday. So it's very very very curious. And if logic holds it would make sense Kamala has a big advantage coming.
 
Right it doesn't make sense, but these voters don't make sense. They just vote on a whim. It's like picking cool ranch or nacho cheese doritos. They're just picking one. They are choosing based on the last piece of entertainment news they saw on tik tok or facebook.
Well, hopefully there aren't that many that are that stupid.
 
The gender gap is the one that should only be able to be explained by enthusiasm. There's no reason women should be coming out more than men at this point vs waiting. Maybe that would have been the case in Trumps glory days of 1932, when many women didnt work, but now? Nah. I can think of nothing else.

GOP coming out more now is because they are pushing it. But no one is pushing one gender over the other to vote early vs on Eday. So it's very very very curious. And if logic holds it would make sense Kamala has a big advantage coming.
According to Josh Marshall, there's usually a gender gap in early voting.

Women often have to take care of kids, especially single moms (of which there are a lot). The flexibility in schedule afforded by early voting is likely of special benefit to moms.
 
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