That was not a snub. Perhaps a “perceived snub.”
Re the thread title question, I do not normally say — voter intimidation. But here it is:
Ohio sheriff suggests residents keep a list of homes with Harris yard signs
I think Simon Rosenberg’s take on this is gospel. I had had only a generally-unsupported level of distrust about social-media-era polling, but Rosenberg’s stock in trade is the receipts he’s collected over time:
… there have also been some post-debate polls in the battleground from Republican-aligned polling firms like Insider Advantage, Quantas and Trafalgar … In recent weeks we’ve seen an uptick in the tempo of polling from what I am calling these “red wave pollsters” - American Greatness, co/efficient, Insider Advantage, McLaughlin, Trafalgar, Wick - whose sole purpose appears to be to produce polls in the states 2-4 points to the right of the public independent polls to make the election look more Republican and favorable to Trump. That we’ve seen soon so much of this polling since the debate - one of these polls now in each of AZ, GA, MI, NV, PA, WI and 3 (!!!) in NC - suggests the Rs are worried about what happened at the debate, and are now working furiously to stem the damage …
Three additional notes about this red wave polling. First, if you spend time on 538 you will notice that these pollsters never poll the same state at the same time, suggesting that the effort is coordinated. Second, like 2022, the focus of this red wave polling is in the states and not national polling. Given how little polling there is in the states it is much easier to “flood the zone” and move the polling averages. Given how much national polling there is it is much harder to move the national polling averages. So they don’t try.
Third, “Simon,” you ask, “are you really saying that there is some pot of money out there for Republican pollsters who are willing to game the polling averages?” There clearly was in 2022. Many of these same pollsters are back, doing literally the same thing they did last time … we should not have any doubt that a movement which tried to overturn an American election in 2021, took tens of millions from the Russian government to advance pro-Russian narratives, bought Twitter to spread lies and invented stories about people eating dogs and cats is capable of a coordinated effort to game the polling averages. Here’s one of these firms on Twitter (image below - b) bragging about their poll tipping the 538 average in NC to Trump. The person they are responding to is a right-wing polling propagandist.
Interesting! Yeah, the fascist insurgency will do anything to win.
And then when they lose, they point to the polls and say, “But… but… all the polls said we were winning! Election interference!!”
Yeah, that was one of the arguments I heard in 2020: It’s statistically impossible that Biden won!
Right on. That’s yet another motivation for feeding gamed poll numbers into the overall system.
FWIW, the 538 forecast is up to 61 Harris, 38 Trump–the highest it’s been yet (I am ignoring Silver at this point and, besides, I do not pay for the august privilege of reading his Sucksack).
Zooming in a tad … today really is the highest Harris has been. Sunday night, it was 610/1,000 trials. As of this writing, it’s 614/1,000 – Still a Coin Flip!!!TM
Yep, to quote a famous line from a beloved film, “50 percent of the time, it works 50 percent of the time.”
Yep. An elected official in law enforcement has encouraged doxxing of Harris supporters. This is officially getting out of control.
I’m pretty far afield from Portage County, but where I reside is definitely deeper Red than that neck of the woods. I’ve been worried for a while, and the worry only grows deeper.
To answer the OP, after a fashion, I have to say that recently, making logical, coherent arguments on FaceBook (Always a silly exercise, though…) against the insane claims about immigrants and pets and the like has come down to “my team-your team” arguing. These people will not budge. I am astounded at the willful ineptitude of some people…
Pedant piping up again (sorry): “60% of the time, it works all the time.” Classic scene, though.
There has been a lot of talk about undecided “low information” voters. I watched…why???..Trump “town hall.” From the clapping and the stupid things (stop food imports to lower prices?) I conclude that the MAGA folk are all low information voters. Not one in there, including Trump, knows how tariffs work. But the undecided portion (in polls) somehow is not motivated enoug by Trump to bother to vote. Just the response from social media making fun of Trump will probably be enough. No new voters for Trump.
The key group are not the low information voters per se, it’s the low engagement voters. They are low information not because they have their minds made up and need no stinking information, but because they just don’t pay much attention, maybe a bit at the end, but otherwise not their interest.
Check that – 629/1,000 trials right this second.
Getting to be one heck of a warped coin. Thing probably looks like a little metal Pringle. But … Still a Coin Flip!!!TM
It is a federal offence to violate peoples constitutional rights. He should be arrested by the FBI.
A coin flip is 50/50. Not 60/40. No one would let you play with a coin that biased.
This! (Love the Pringle analogy. A hyperboloid. Exactly so.)
Dr. Deth – we know, not literally. But we don’t have a hundred 2024 US Presidential elections to tally up and look for who won how many of them. We have one. And, it matters who wins. We will (justifiably) be worried, unless Harris hits something like 85% confidence. I insist that “coin flip” is a reasonable, intellectually defensible phrase for this feeling (especially once you digest the several ways that polls can – nay, almost surely will – be off).
It’s a coin flip where we haven’t inspected the coin and 60/40 (or any other number) is a guess based on watching previous flips of entirely different coins.
I found another poll where the same Pennsylvania sample was asked about both Harris-Trump and Casey-McCormick, and the sane Republican is running three points behind the reactionary:
Quinnipiac University Poll, September 12-16,2024
Others may love this poll because Harris is ahead by six points, but that is an outlier. What isn’t an outlier is that Trump polls higher than the normie Republican (Senate candidate McCormick).
There is a partly similar dynamic in Arizona, with Trump running ahead of Kari Lake. To me, Trump and Lake are pretty similar, but voters refuse to treat Trump like an extremist. The only post-debate Arizona evidence there is from the kind of pollster who people here will jump on me for using, so I’ll wait until the same evidence shows up in a non-GOP Arizona poll. (or I will post that I was wrong).
I’m not saying Trump will win. But with voters liking him better than other Republicans, he certainly can.
“Sane republican”? “reactionary” Democrat? It is true, McCormick doesnt appear to be a MAGA nutcase, but he will still vote to keep any Democratic presidents choice out of SCOTUS and vote to support any nutso trump choice for the courts. He also has little political experience.
The most recent poll- from Quinnipiac University= shows Senator Casey ahead by 9 points.
trump is not running vs Kari Lake. Currently Harris and trump are even in the polls for AZ. Do you mean that Lake is not doing as well in the Polls as trump is in that state?