The 2016 US Presidential Election

[Peppino Impastato]

There's no i on the end

[banana]

Trump rushed off stage, dude allegedly had a gun. Surprised it's taken this long.

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

As Reptillary continues to fade, Trump has stabalised around the low to mid 30s for the last few days according to Nate Vegetable, now at 35.2% chance of winning. Now at Trump 48% v 42.6% in the LA Times daily poll.

LA Times polling is flawed for a number of reasons.

Unlike most other polls they use a fixed panel - Rand did this quite well in 2012 - unfortunately the LA Times have used a panel that was actually selected for an entirely different purpose so the weightings of voters is skewed.

There panel is also severely under-represented in terms of key groups such a black voters and young people - when they publish their results they then weight them to make them more proportionate to the actual electorate. Because of the smaller numbers of these key groups these are more open to being statistically unreliable.

In addition they are also weighting their sample on the basis of voter recall of how they voted last time. Such use of voter recall is flawed - voters will often say they voted for the winning candidate even when they didn't - in 2004 for example voter recall gave Bush more votes than Gore in 2000 even though that was not the case. When voter recall says they voted Obama last time (even if they did not) then it means when it comes to weighing that Republican voting is over-stated.

[welshbairn]

14 minutes ago, banana said:

Trump rushed off stage, dude allegedly had a gun. Surprised it's taken this long.

 

There was no gun, and Trump came straight back on and finished his speech. Why invent stuff?

[banana]

17 minutes ago, banana said:

Trump rushed off stage, dude allegedly had a gun.

 

Just now, welshbairn said:

There was no gun, and Trump came straight back on and finished his speech. Why invent stuff?

He did indeed come back on. Hillary earlier disappeared after 7 minutes because of rain

[welshbairn]

4 minutes ago, banana said:

 

He did indeed come back on. Hillary earlier disappeared after 7 minutes because of rain

I tried to delete the "why do you invent stuff" but you were too quick. Having a 500/1 bet on Pence being the next president made me a bit grumpy.

[banana]

1 hour ago, welshbairn said:

I tried to delete the "why do you invent stuff" but you were too quick. Having a 500/1 bet on Pence being the next president made me a bit grumpy.

Ah-ha, makes sense

EDIT: Confirmed that he was reaching for a poster. Millwall brick assassination attempt imo.

[Savage Henry]

5 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Not sure what you mean. There's been people wanting a Caliphate ruling over the Muslim world (whether they wanted it or not) since well before the collapse of the Ottoman empire, but I thought Daesh emerged from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia (Iraq) along with Baathist Sunnis in around 2006.

Most people recognise 2003 as the "official" formation of Islamic State out of the schism within AQ (largely related to whether Sunnis themselves should be targeted as well as AQ's internationalist aims), but these groups can both trace direct links to Qtub and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood  in the first half of the last century.  2006 would be the point at which they came to prominence in IR discourse as a fully functional non-state actor.  The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, having nothing to do with foreign policy, but being a reaction to Western decadence to which radical Islam would present a violent and ultimately atavistic response.  DeeTeEhDie is correct though, the concept of an IS existed long before Western Intervention in Iraq, even if the group was not up till then "formally" established. This is what leads to the incredibly naive, ivory tower argument that says that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein.

And Radical Islam, of course, has existed for millennia.

Incompetent (albeit well intentioned) mismanagement of the post-war handover resulted in the creation of a vacuum into which the IS movement took foothold.  They were not, most definitely, a direct response to Western foreign policy.  It's far more subtle than that, and to suggest that all rebels are bad and that by funding some rebels, the West funded IS into make a preconceived false equivalence. Syria is not, by any means, a two sided conflict between "a legitimate" Assad government and foreign backed rebels. That's horribly simplistic. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Iraq, Turkey and throughout the region.  They didn't flee foreign backed rebels; they fled from sectarian repercussions from the state. This isn't a matter of speculation, either.

John Pilger is a polemicist.  He's a polemicist who, I think, often is on the money, but he doesn't have a monopoly on truth. 

To get back from debunking the conspiracy theory nonsense, the LA Times polling has a significant in-house bias, but they are quite open about it.  It doesn't make their results any less valid because of it, as we can tell trends. It's not like it's a poll carried out of The Nation readers, or Rush Limbaugh listeners.  It basically echoes the more expansive polls which show a Clinton lead with a slight Trump tightening of the deficit, but not enough to take any of the firewall states.  Trump's lead getting bigger mirrors his closing of the gap elsewhere.

 

[LongTimeLurker]

9 hours ago, welshbairn said:

P.S. Nothing makes sense in the Middle East unless you put it in the context of a civil war by proxy between Saudi/Sunnis and Iran/Shia. The US v Russia thing is a sideline.

Agree on that, but think a little too much is made of the Shia thing in Syria. It can also be viewed as Nasserite Arab socialism's last stand and a lot of Sunnis from the larger cities are on Assad's side precisely because his regime is secular and they quite enjoy drinking alcohol and being able to have extramarital sex without Saudi-style Sharia law entering into the picture.

There was a huge rebellion against the Assad regime in 1982 by the Muslim Brotherhood that basically wanted an Islamic state more similar to Saudi Arabia. What the western media portrayed as an extension of the Arab Spring in 2012 was viewed by many in Damascus as seconds out round two on that, which is why the Syrian state didn't crumble and had a large segment of the population still backing it (pretty much all of the non-Sunni Arab minorities and the secularists among the Sunni Arab majority) even at points when it looked like Assad had only a few months left at best.

The western media outlets that are highlighting the plight of eastern Aleppo at the moment in a very one-sided manner had hee haw to say when the boot was on the other foot and it was pro-regime western Aleppo that was under siege back in 2013. The military operation that lifted that siege took a monumental effort and should have been a hint that Assad still had widespread backing and was not going to be easily shifted. The mistake I think is to always look for simplistic good vs evil narratives when there are deep shades of grey involved pretty much all around.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Most people recognise 2003 as the "official" formation of Islamic State out of the schism within AQ (largely related to whether Sunnis themselves should be targeted as well as AQ's internationalist aims), but these groups can both trace direct links to Qtub and the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood  in the first half of the last century.  2006 would be the point at which they came to prominence in IR discourse as a fully functional non-state actor.  The Muslim Brotherhood, of course, having nothing to do with foreign policy, but being a reaction to Western decadence to which radical Islam would present a violent and ultimately atavistic response.  DeeTeEhDie is correct though, the concept of an IS existed long before Western Intervention in Iraq, even if the group was not up till then "formally" established. This is what leads to the incredibly naive, ivory tower argument that says that Iraq was better off under Saddam Hussein.

And Radical Islam, of course, has existed for millennia.

Incompetent (albeit well intentioned) mismanagement of the post-war handover resulted in the creation of a vacuum into which the IS movement took foothold.  They were not, most definitely, a direct response to Western foreign policy.  It's far more subtle than that, and to suggest that all rebels are bad and that by funding some rebels, the West funded IS into make a preconceived false equivalence. Syria is not, by any means, a two sided conflict between "a legitimate" Assad government and foreign backed rebels. That's horribly simplistic. There are hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Iraq, Turkey and throughout the region.  They didn't flee foreign backed rebels; they fled from sectarian repercussions from the state. This isn't a matter of speculation, either.

John Pilger is a polemicist.  He's a polemicist who, I think, often is on the money, but he doesn't have a monopoly on truth. 

To get back from debunking the conspiracy theory nonsense, the LA Times polling has a significant in-house bias, but they are quite open about it.  It doesn't make their results any less valid because of it, as we can tell trends. It's not like it's a poll carried out of The Nation readers, or Rush Limbaugh listeners.  It basically echoes the more expansive polls which show a Clinton lead with a slight Trump tightening of the deficit, but not enough to take any of the firewall states.  Trump's lead getting bigger mirrors his closing of the gap elsewhere.

 

Trends are not so clear from LA Times because of the weightings given to certain groups that their panel has smaller numbers of. If a panelist from one of these groupings does not respond the weightings are even more biased and unreliable.

I know that the LA Times does average out its polls into a tracking poll so this does give more trend than single one-off polls. What has happened though is that Trump and his supporters consistently pounce on the favourable single polls instead of the trends. They also completely ignore the state-by-state polling which shows the mountain Trump is up against in the purple states.

It reminds of those Nationalists who kept pouncing on Survation's surveys as proof that they were going to win the referendum. Everyone was telling them that Survation were wrong - but you might as well have been speaking to a brick wall.

[Alan Stubbs]

Feeling pretty ashamed of myself for laughing at "Reptillary".

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

Trends are not so clear from LA Times because of the weightings given to certain groups that their panel has smaller numbers of. If a panelist from one of these groupings does not respond the weightings are even more biased and unreliable.

I know that the LA Times does average out its polls into a tracking poll so this does give more trend than single one-off polls. What has happened though is that Trump and his supporters consistently pounce on the favourable single polls instead of the trends. They also completely ignore the state-by-state polling which shows the mountain Trump is up against in the purple states.

It reminds of those Nationalists who kept pouncing on Survation's surveys as proof that they were going to win the referendum. Everyone was telling them that Survation were wrong - but you might as well have been speaking to a brick wall.

The worrying thing about the LA Times methodology is that they called it almost exactly right in 2012 when the average was 3 to 4 points off. The good news is there are a lot of first time Hispanic voters turning up for early voting which I don't think their method would spot. Apparently they're queuing up around the block in Nevada and Florida.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

The worrying thing about the LA Times methodology is that they called it almost exactly right in 2012 when the average was 3 to 4 points off. The good news is there are a lot of first time Hispanic voters turning up for early voting which I don't think their method would spot. Apparently they're queuing up around the block in Nevada and Florida.

If Trump loses Florida the game is well and truly up the poley.

Also not quite true regards LA Times predicting accurately - it was actually USC (who they carry out the polling for them). USC did Rand's panel last time round (the one I mentioned in a previous post) - the difference this time is that the panel was selected for an entirely different purpose and so is low in numbers in certain key groups.

What I also forgot to mention is that they also weight people by their enthusiasm for a candidate - on a scale of 0% to 100% - so someone who is 100% behind a candidate will have more weight than someone who is 70% behind a candidate. Given that a lot of Trump supporters are pretty hard core and that Clinton's support will be made up of a substantial "Anybody but Trump" element, it's not surprising that they are showing Trump leads. I think USC are not taking in to consideration that there will be a lot of people voting for Clinton because she is the least worst of the two candidates. USC do acknowledge that there is an issue with low numbers in their sub-samples, particularly younger voters and African-Americans. They also have said that the weightings given to 100%ers definitely gave Trump an edge early on but that Clinton now has similar levels of 100%ers - this still ignores the "Hold Your Nose & Vote Clinton" element.

One only has to look here - most of the Trump supporters are right behind their man whilst many who back Clinton do so very reluctantly.

[LongTimeLurker]

Think there are also plenty of Republicans that are less than keen on Trump but see him as the lesser evil. Both Clinton and Trump are terrible candidates that don't belong anywhere near the job. We'll find out how this will all pan out soon enough.

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Think there are also plenty of Republicans that are less than keen on Trump but see him as the lesser evil. Both Clinton and Trump are terrible candidates that don't belong anywhere near the job. We'll find out how this will all pan out soon enough.

Whatever happens it looks like it will be a one term presidency.

[Savage Henry]

Whatever happens it looks like it will be a one term presidency.

Indeed it does.

[Savage Henry]

Think there are also plenty of Republicans that are less than keen on Trump but see him as the lesser evil. Both Clinton and Trump are terrible candidates that don't belong anywhere near the job. We'll find out how this will all pan out soon enough.

Or perhaps not plan out.

[Savage Henry]

3 hours ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

If Trump loses Florida the game is well and truly up the poley.

Also not quite true regards LA Times predicting accurately - it was actually USC (who they carry out the polling for them). USC did Rand's panel last time round (the one I mentioned in a previous post) - the difference this time is that the panel was selected for an entirely different purpose and so is low in numbers in certain key groups.

What I also forgot to mention is that they also weight people by their enthusiasm for a candidate - on a scale of 0% to 100% - so someone who is 100% behind a candidate will have more weight than someone who is 70% behind a candidate. Given that a lot of Trump supporters are pretty hard core and that Clinton's support will be made up of a substantial "Anybody but Trump" element, it's not surprising that they are showing Trump leads. I think USC are not taking in to consideration that there will be a lot of people voting for Clinton because she is the least worst of the two candidates. USC do acknowledge that there is an issue with low numbers in their sub-samples, particularly younger voters and African-Americans. They also have said that the weightings given to 100%ers definitely gave Trump an edge early on but that Clinton now has similar levels of 100%ers - this still ignores the "Hold Your Nose & Vote Clinton" element.

One only has to look here - most of the Trump supporters are right behind their man whilst many who back Clinton do so very reluctantly.

Very valid point.  But at the same time, 30% of the US population is going to vote Republican even if they have a rotten, racist moron who offends half the population and alienates themselves from half the eligible voters.  30% of the US population is going vote Democrat even if they put a hawkish, humourless, morally dubious bore up for election.  Most of the discussion here is between the hardcore Trumpers and the reluctant Clintonites purely because, in British terms, that's all we can ever be.  Nobody in a serious frame of mind is going to be a reluctant Trumper.

[Zetterlund]

Clinton's communications director clearly not worried.

 

[welshbairn]