Donald Trump's 2016 General Election Campaign

Politics & Elections
2503

That article is in the category of keeping up spirits of the faithful, IMO. Quinnipiac ‘rigged’ the poll (it says)? Q is rated rated A- as a polling org by Nate Silver with avg 0.7% error in favor of GOP. And then the writer while factually pointing out that Q projects higher white turnout in 2016 than 2012 makes the wholly unsupported statement that 2016 turnout will be the same as 2012, the ‘real’ number. The fact is nobody knows for sure how much Trump’s different appeal will or won’t boost white turnout. And it’s entirely reasonable to question if Clinton can drive minority turnout as much as Obama when he is not actually on the ballot.

I wouldn’t bet the farm on any poll, but the recent topic IMO, what I’m commenting on, is some people’s unwillingness to either acknowledge the race is close enough for Clinton’s winning probability to be well under 100%, or inability to actually think in terms of probabilities.

And there is, a so far small, trend of bad state polls, not just Q’s today, following increased attention to Clinton’s perceived honestly problem via the email thing, though whether that’s actually the cause or actually a sustained trend is yet to be seen. Other examples are Monmouth (A+ rated by Silver. 0.6 avg error in favor of D’s) Trump +2 in IA*, and JMC’s Trump +5 in a four way race in FL. Speaking of which the linked article only mentions the Quinnipiac outcomes head to head, but Trump was ahead 5, 1 and 6 in four way races in FL, OH and PA per Q. It’s reasonable to assume that minor party support will decline as the election approaches, but might be optimistic for Clinton to just go on the basis of forced head to head choice. Her support seems to suffer more than Trumps at the margin allowing minor parties. A number of polls have shown that, but most conversation and headline RCP national avg exclude 4 way polls.

*though even if Trump were to win IA, and NH where he’s been consistently competitive, that doesn’t eliminate the need to win all three of FL, OH and PA plus hold all Romney states; states like VA would have to be added plus IA and NH to give up OH or PA, and to win without FL more still: IOW Trump has to win all or almost all the key states some recent polls show him leading, ie his winning prob is lower than hers, but it’s not plausible IMO to say it’s zero or essentially so.

2504

“What, indeed, was the effect of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685)? Historians have been pondering this question since the late 17th century, when the revocation was signed by Louis, King of France, 14th of that name. Indeed, what do we mean when we say “revoked”, outside of “nullified, countermanded, and quashed”? Let us approach the question from a semiotic and deconstructionist point of view…”

2505

Quinnipiac has been especially hard on Clinton in this cycle, so it’s possible they’ve got a skew. Or they could be seeing something other pollsters are not. We won’t know for sure till the voting happens.

But the reason I think Clinton’s deterioration is real is that Quinnipiac and McClatchy have both seen declines compared to the last time they polled the race.

One interesting number I read was that 57% of Sanders supporters are Clinton voters right now. Sounds great, right, as they come home Clinton’s lead will expand! Except that only 60% of supporters of other GOP candidates are voting for Trump right now. Trump has just as much ground to gain if the voters come around.

I think the VP selections might be a lot more significant this time around than in the past. Which is why I don’t understand how Trump can throw his chance away on Newt. Mike Pence at least brings a lot of conservatives around and a military guy can help with independents. Newt doesn’t help with anything.

2506

Well now I see the betting markets are swarming to Pence now, so maybe it will be Pence. Which is actually a great pick, because it will bring home a lot of conservative voters.

2507

He also has no need to consider the cost. But then again Trump does not care if he will bankrupt America, he will come ahead.

“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” - H. L. Mencken

2508

Who aren’t already there? And hold Pence in high esteem? Both of them?

2509

Pence has to withdraw his name from the Indiana ballot for governor by July 15, so we’ll all know if it’s Pence on Friday ( in Indiana, a candidate can’t run for state and federal office on one ballot).

2510

GIGO, cost is definitely an issue but we’re going to have to spend more money on veterans’ care regardless of how we do it. And i just don’t see much chance of getting vets the timely care they need using the existing system. I do believe Clinton can make things a lot better with her plan but I still don’t think it will be good enough and accountability is always going to be an issue and it’s one she’s avoiding.

Yes, it’s going to cost, but vets have to be able to get care, and I dare say they have a right to get care, and if that means going outside the system, then they go outside the system.

Or, we could just dismantle the VA and put all vets on Medicare.

2511

How many vets are eligible for Medicare but would prefer the VA? And what to do with all those VA hospitals? All those vets going to what used to be VA hospitals but now Medicare? I’m sure you have some good ideas every once in a while, addy. This isn’t one of them.

2512

Considering that you are ignoring here how averse to raise funds the Republicans are, you are indeed in favor of Trump and the Republicans bankrupting America.

2513

That’s a misreading IMO. There are plenty of conservatives skeptical of Trump who is not one, and doesn’t really make a big point of claiming he is (as in ‘I am a conservative but it doesn’t matter’, ie ‘I’m not actually’). That’s a part of his relative lack of solidity in GOP voter support, though it’s not all of it and not a large slice of the whole electorate. But his hopes for a win would tend toward a narrow win. Pence is a conservative up to now, and he’d be a basic ‘blocking and tackling’ choice to bring some conservatives out for Trump who might stay home concluding it’s really two Democrats this time (George Wallace v George McGovern perhaps but still). Plus it might help with some other less ideological people because it lowers the total flakiness quotient of the ticket (as opposed to say adding Gingrich).

The other side of the coin is hope for some kind of breakout in appeal by a more exciting choice, which Pence is definitely not, but I think that’s unlikely to actually be achieved. Flynn is making it 3-1/2 Democrats among the P/VP on each side, Newt overlaps a lot with Trump in weird bloviation and baggage (albeit he has thought about issues much more than Trump), and who likes Christie at this point, anywhere on the spectrum?

2514

538 has Trump’s probability up by 7 percentage points over the last few days; clearly they don’t think the Quinnipiac numbers are meaningless. The polls will probably be all over the place over the next few weeks with the conventions . We will have a good idea of the state of the race a few weeks after the Democratic convention. My guess is it will fall back to a 4-5 point race for Hillary with leads of 3-4 points in most of the key swing states…

There is no question she is a weak candidate who is not trusted by a majority of Americans. She has been unable to really take advantage of Trump’s staggeringly incompetent campaign over the last 6 weeks. But at the end of the day Trump is a weaker candidate who is even more disliked than she is, who will continue making mistakes over the next 4 months, who will struggle to raise money and build a ground game and who doesn’t have surrogates to match the firepower of Obama, Bill, Warren and Biden.

2515

Yeah, but Christie is a multi-tasker, he can fetch a burger, lick a boot and kiss an ass, all at the same time!

2516

He is probably going to lose. Not certainly. “Certainly” isn’t 25%. “Certainly” is 100%.

If a good baseball player comes to bat, would you say he’s “certainly not going to get a hit?” Would you bet anything you could not afford to lose on the ballplayer not getting a hit? Of course not. The probability is about the same, though.

For the record, I agree that 25% for Trump is too optimistic, but not ridiculously so. Personally, I would start betting money on him if offered ten to one odds. I think it’s nice you used to do predictions for DARPA, but Nate Silver and Sam Wang did predictions on this exact subject for the whole world and they absolutely nail it. Even more importantly, they explain how they draw their conclusions, and it makes perfect sense to me.

[QUOTE=Buck Godot]
No, totally wrong. As stated, if the election were held today Clinton would win by a landslide.
[/QUOTE]

That is absolutely, positively NOT what Nate Silver and 538 are saying. They very clearly say that if the election were held today, Clinton would have a 70% chance of winning. There is no certainly whatsoever that she would win in a landslide.

The 538 method, boiled down, is to simulate the election twenty thousand times. Election after election is played out, and the number of times Clinton beats Trump is about 14,000 times out of 20,000. Each possible result is individually counted, so Silver notes, for instance, that the most likely outcome is one where Clinton wins 348 electoral votes. However, there are instances where Trump wins 302, or Clinton wins 350, and there are instances where it’s 270-268 for one candidate or the other. In 5.6% of all simulated elections, Clinton wins the popular vote but loses the electoral college; this only happens for Trump 0.8% of the simulations, which makes sense if you think about it (Clinton has a larger opportunity to pick up votes in population-rich states where it won’t change anything anyway; winning California by another 500,000 votes doesn’t help.) All those things COULD happen, and saying this means Trump has no chance suggests a refusal to admit the plain truth.

This is not always the state of events. On the eve of the 2008 and 2012 elections, Silver had Barack Obama as a better than 90% shot to win, and IIRC Obama was well above 80% almost the whole race in 2012; 80% was his low point, after his poor performance in the first debate. If he’d been doing this in 1984, Ronald Reagan would have been about 99.8% likely pretty much the whole race.

2517

Wow. God is a dick.

2518

Is that Michelle or God?

2519

Anyone happen to catch this little tidbit?

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/07/trump-law-order-candidate-225372#ixzz4EJfemCO6

[QUOTE=The Donald]
Not only am I the law and order candidate, but I am also the candidate of compassion, believe it.
[/QUOTE]

That’s hilarious on multiple levels.

“So, Mr. Trump, how will you deal with crime?”

“Handle it, Roy, handle it.”

2520

“And the compassion, Mr. Trump?”

“Yeah, I got a guy for that.”

2521

Trump would never agree to it–his ego tells him he is a Perfect Debater just as he is. The danger is that one of his kids–who apparently really, really do want to acquire the White House for the family–might dose him without his knowledge. And, yeah, it could win him the debate; he would “seem Presidential” if he were calm instead of snippy/sarcastic/sneering.

2522

Have you seen Trump debate? It’s nothing like when he gives speeches. He looks like a fish out of water. He still manages to occasionally say really offensive things, but it’s not due to him being excitable. I don’t think he likes debating too much.