Presidential Debate 2020

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Originally Posted by Wraith

I'll be honest, I didn't know who the Proud Boys were until last night.

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Their founder has over 2 dozen appearances on Hannity's show. Facebook's security division linked the Proud Boy network to Howard Stone. Yeah, Trump pardoned a guy who flashes white power signs over beers at regular bars.



I think Trump's biggest screw up were his false claims around insulin prices. Given the correlation between low education, poor diet, diabetes and trump supporters I've seen more than one comment from people being annoyed that they still pay hundreds of dollars every month for their insulin.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Indeed. On the state polling South Carolina and Texas are now polling as more marginal than Wisconsin and Michigan are.

I don't think the boy from Scranton is going to lose PA and if he wins there it is hard to see Trump winning the Oval Office. Its possible that Trump wins fairly in November but its equally possible that Biden gets over 400 electoral college votes. I'd put those scenarios roughly equally likely.

If Biden carries the midwest, Arizona, Florida and possibly even Texas . . . and the cherry on the cake would be Lindsey Graham losing his senate seat too . . . then that should be a thorough enough repudiation of Trump surely wiggin?

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I have the same level of confidence in a free and fair election in Florida as I would in Hungary or Poland. If it's remotely close, Trump will win. Texas is probably a stretch as well. The realistic best case scenario would be Biden winning places like North Carolina, Arizona, and Iowa (in addition to the necessary states in the Midwest).

Biden needs to win by enough that Trump can't run to the Supreme Court to change the result.

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Originally Posted by Being

If this country wasn't so cowboyish it wouldn't be a close enough vote to come to that. If the vote is close enough, I can only say I am ashamed and we deserve what we get.

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Twitter Link

Biden polling in the lead in Georgia. Georgia not exactly what comes to mind as a blue state.

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10...exas-vote-mail

Case in point. Trump won't lose Texas or Florida because the GOP will refuse to allow an honest election. Harris County, TX has 4.7 million people. Now it will have one location to drop off absentee ballots.

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Originally Posted by Loki

Which states are those? He's up 6-7% in the Midwest (Penn, Michigan, Wisconsin). He doesn't need Florida or North Carolina to win. He's also up 4% in Arizona. Winning that would allow him to lose Wisconsin (where he's up 7%).

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Fivethirtyeight's polling averages as of today:


MI Biden +7.2
WI Biden +6.0
PA Biden +5.8
AZ Biden +3.6
FL Biden +2.3
OH Biden +1.4
NC Biden +1.3

Pennsylvania is most likely to be the tipping point state. With the polling error, Biden has a slight lead there but far from a comfortable one, especially from a state where he should be doing quite well but is actually underperforming the national picture.

I agree that current polling looks generally good for Biden, but a 6 point lead in the most critical state isn't exactly a lot of breathing room, especially with the predictability of polls potentially being so shitty in a Covid environment and the likely legal challenges to all sorts of mail in ballots.

In some scenarios, we could see places like Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and SC fall to Biden. That would be extraordinary and would be a massive repudiation of Trump (and likely a decent Senate majority for Biden) - I would absolutely love that scenario. But more likely we'll see a relatively tight election with critical states decided on small margins.

It just amazes me how much support Trump still has. He's right, he really could murder someone in plain view and he wouldn't lose any support. It's fucking scary.

I'd caution against putting too much faith in the polls for this election. They've been getting less reliable even before the virus, and we don't really have a good way to predict the impact covid will have on voter turnout and how it might shift the results. Don't get complacent.

What he means is don't jinx it you fucking jinxers

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Biden polling in the lead in Georgia. Georgia not exactly what comes to mind as a blue state.

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Debate bounce.

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Originally Posted by wiggin

Fivethirtyeight's polling averages as of today:


MI Biden +7.2
WI Biden +6.0
PA Biden +5.8
AZ Biden +3.6
FL Biden +2.3
OH Biden +1.4
NC Biden +1.3

Pennsylvania is most likely to be the tipping point state. With the polling error, Biden has a slight lead there but far from a comfortable one, especially from a state where he should be doing quite well but is actually underperforming the national picture.

I agree that current polling looks generally good for Biden, but a 6 point lead in the most critical state isn't exactly a lot of breathing room, especially with the predictability of polls potentially being so shitty in a Covid environment and the likely legal challenges to all sorts of mail in ballots.

In some scenarios, we could see places like Georgia, Texas, Iowa, and SC fall to Biden. That would be extraordinary and would be a massive repudiation of Trump (and likely a decent Senate majority for Biden) - I would absolutely love that scenario. But more likely we'll see a relatively tight election with critical states decided on small margins.

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Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor. That's going to cut down on some of the stuff we'll likely see in Florida and Texas.

You shouldn't look at those polls as if they were independent of one another by the way. 2016 polls didn't account for education; the 2020 polls do. It's telling that Biden is up by very similar margins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It's highly unlikely that only one of those is wrong. Unless you think Trump has a real shot at all of those states...

Even if, for whatever reason, the polling is really off in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania alone, Biden still wins by taking Arizona (even if he loses Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina).

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Biden polling in the lead in Georgia. Georgia not exactly what comes to mind as a blue state.

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My default assumption is that the GOP will not allow Biden to win any close election in a state where the GOP controls all levers of power.

IIRC, only for this election cycle some restrictions were lifted that barred the GOP from influencing the elections too much, right? Given the amount of shenanigans they pull now, can those restrictions be put back in place for the next one?

Because honestly it's embarassing for the 'beacon of democracy' or 'leaders of the free world' to have this much shit happening which is blatantly designed to prevent people from voting. It boggles the mind. This is the USA we are talking about, not Belarus.

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Originally Posted by Flixy

IIRC, only for this election cycle some restrictions were lifted that barred the GOP from influencing the elections too much, right? Given the amount of shenanigans they pull now, can those restrictions be put back in place for the next one?

Because honestly it's embarassing for the 'beacon of democracy' or 'leaders of the free world' to have this much shit happening which is blatantly designed to prevent people from voting. It boggles the mind. This is the USA we are talking about, not Belarus.

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The Supreme Court struck down most of those previous limitations on GOP shenanigans as unconstitutional. With an even stronger GOP majority on the Court, it's only going to get worse.

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Originally Posted by Steely Glint

Debate bounce.

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Think there was also one that had Biden up before the debate. Senate candidates might have a chance, also. Ossoff and Warnock have both been advertising extensively, and both seem to have good phonebanking going on.

I've seen more Biden ads in Texas than I was in Georgia, though.

From memory are you in GA Lolli?

Does it feel to you like GA could be a swing state this year?

EDIT: Actually from re-reading your message are you now in Texas?

I've only been in Texas a couple of weeks, I haven't really moved here (yet). And yes, I think it's a possibility that Georgia could be a swing state this year. I do, however, expect to see the shenanigans we've come to expect with polling places being under-equipped and people mysteriously dropping off the voter registration lists after the deadline.

I know I am a new member but I think I have found my people. :D

That's a filthy lie, Mahiro. You're not new. You're just wayward and late in rejoining us.

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Originally Posted by mahiro

I know I am a new member but I think I have found my people. :D

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Sometimes you need to be away to find your base again. :-P

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Originally Posted by Loki

Pennsylvania has a Democratic governor. That's going to cut down on some of the stuff we'll likely see in Florida and Texas.

You shouldn't look at those polls as if they were independent of one another by the way. 2016 polls didn't account for education; the 2020 polls do. It's telling that Biden is up by very similar margins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. It's highly unlikely that only one of those is wrong. Unless you think Trump has a real shot at all of those states...

Even if, for whatever reason, the polling is really off in Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania alone, Biden still wins by taking Arizona (even if he loses Florida, Ohio, and North Carolina).

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I think the environment, overall, is definitely in Biden's favor. But I don't think it's anything close to guaranteed. The polling might have been corrected some since 2016, but the wild cards in 2020 are so numerous and complex that we can't possibly expect the polls to be a good measure of who will actually vote, how they will vote, and which of those votes will be counted.

You're right that the polls in different states are correlated, but that actually undermines your point. It's not likely that PA polls will be uniquely off - it's more likely that systematic factors mean that all of the purplish Midwestern states are shifted one direction or another due to the aforementioned wild cards.

If you asked me to put money down on the victor, I would definitely put it on Biden. But just because he's the most likely victor doesn't mean I have a great deal of confidence in the outcome - even assuming there aren't shenanigans wrt not counting mail in ballots.

You're forgetting that the margin of error goes in both directions. It's conceivable that there's some unexpected factor that will push the results closer in Trump's direction. But it's equally likely that the current polls underestimate Biden's election day support. That's to say there's a similar probability of Trump winning as there is of Biden winning by a blowout.

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Originally Posted by Loki

You're forgetting that the margin of error goes in both directions. It's conceivable that there's some unexpected factor that will push the results closer in Trump's direction. But it's equally likely that the current polls underestimate Biden's election day support. That's to say there's a similar probability of Trump winning as there is of Biden winning by a blowout.

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In theory, you're right assuming that the underlying assumptions wrt random sampling (and the many corrections therein) are correct. However it's also possible that most of the polls have a systematic bias in one direction due to unforeseen circumstances.

The kind of sampling they do and their subsequent analysis works best in a more predictable environment. In such an environment, any single good poll for Biden won't be meaningful, but lots of good polls will start to build a coherent picture. But with all of the wild cards, it's easily possible to imagine that there is a systematic bias that our models aren't taking into account (wrt e.g. the rate of accepted mail in ballots vs. demographics, or turnout in a pandemic, or whatever else). That bias may favor Biden or Trump, but it's likely that the bias is one-sided: that is, most polls are favoring either Biden or Trump, not a mixture of both. In such a circumstance the value of lots of polls showing broadly good news for Biden should be treated with more skepticism.

Pence has his head stuck up his ass and the moderator is asleep on the job. He hasn't come close to properly answering a single question, and he keeps going over his allotted time. Worst of all, everything he's saying is either super pathetic or super dumb—or both.

Pence did far better than Trump. The Supreme Court question is an absolute winner for team Trump, Biden/Harris refusing to answer it is a bit absurd.

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Originally Posted by Lewkowski

Pence did far better than Trump. The Supreme Court question is an absolute winner for team Trump, Biden/Harris refusing to answer it is a bit absurd.

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"Pence did better than the biggest dumbass in US politics" is what we call "damning with faint praise". What a hopelessly outmatched dope of a man. As if his stupidity wasn't bad enough, the imagery of him sitting there with a red eye and a fly on his head is just *chef's kiss*.

Aimless I'm curious as to what Presidential and Vice Presidential Debates were lost by Democrats in the last 8 or so years where you said as much at the time.

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Originally Posted by Aimless

"Pence did better than the biggest dumbass in US politics" is what we call "damning with faint praise". What a hopelessly outmatched dope of a man. As if his stupidity wasn't bad enough, the imagery of him sitting there with a red eye and a fly on his head is just *chef's kiss*.

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The fly tweeted: I'm going to sit here until he answers a question.

Flies are always attracted to shit.

Anyone who lives by the line "the eyes are windows to the soul" likely went running for their bible after seeing Pence's. No wonder he wouldn't look directly at anyone.

Trump has decided that the way to turn around being double-digit percentage points down in many polls now is to pull out of the second debate! :haha:

Bottler and coward.

Twitter Link

The way he is acting must be putting a severe strain on the Biden campaign's Champagne budget.

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Originally Posted by RandBlade

Trump has decided that the way to turn around being double-digit percentage points down in many polls now is to pull out of the second debate! :haha:

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TBF, after the last debate, I seriously doubt attending a second one would help his poll numbers.

Besides, other dictators never have to attend debates, so why should Trump?

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Originally Posted by Wraith

TBF, after the last debate, I seriously doubt attending a second one would help his poll numbers.

Besides, other dictators never have to attend debates, so why should Trump?

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But he won the debate, he said so on twitter. :haha: