**** Elections thread *****

[wufwugy]

Thing is Wuffy, your arguments keep starting with the conclusion that Trump is winning and then go backwards from there to find the evidence to support them. And a lot of that evidence is very subjective.

This is fine to do in your head, you're free to believe what you want to believe, but surely you can see how this way of arguing might irk people who are trying to look at things objectively.

My belief that Trump is ahead comes from the evidence. Concluding that Trump is ahead merely on feeling and then working backwards would be idiotic. If you would like, I can give you the rundown on the evidence for why Trump is likely ahead.

[Poopadoop]

If you would like, I can give you the rundown on the evidence for why Trump is likely ahead.

It's up to you if you want to do a rundown or not; it's your time. Can't promise I'll have time to read all of it, but maybe others will and are interested.

[wufwugy]

It's up to you if you want to do a rundown or not; it's your time. Can't promise I'll have time to read all of it, but maybe others will and are interested.

I'll keep it short.

The primary model by Helmut Norpoth is a strong model that predicts a Trump win a very high percentage of the time. Like all models, it's not perfect, but even if we discard the model, the primaries statistics suggest big lean towards Republican relative to 2012. This includes Trump winning more votes than Clinton did in 2008 and the Democrat primary dropping by 20% while the Republican primary increased by 60% (contrasting competitive years). This signifies a reduction in enthusiasm for Clinton and an increase in enthusiasm for Trump.

Other signs of enthusiasm are a blowout for Trump and devastating for Clinton. His rallies, signage, and merchandise are off the charts in popularity, while hers are in the dumps. In addition, Trump has broken the GOP record for quantity of small donors, while Hillary is way behind Obama.

Even if the polls are rigged, they can be evaluated endogenously for some value. They have consistently shown that the effective incumbent (Clinton) is way below what is considered good for any incumbent, and they have shown that as undecideds and third party votes finally decide, they favor Trump. This is consistent with the orthodox political wisdom we heard about in every election before the current one.

The demographic that the signs suggest Trump does the best with and that he is energizing to turnout is one with the most room for improvement and the one that has been staying home for the last few cycles. Contrast this to Clinton, where there are no signs that she will perform at Obama turnout levels. Just a small solid performance in Trump key demographic and a small underperformance in Clinton's key demographic, which is what signs are pointing towards, gives him the win.

Finally, just step back and take it all in. Nate Antimatter gave Trump a 2% chance to win the nomination and yet he won. This is the type of thing that, when viewed in retrospect, correlates with wins. In the future, we will look back and say the Trump win was pretty obvious, and we will give reasons that include how consistently he outperformed expectations at every turn.

[Poopadoop]

I'll keep it short.

The primary model by Helmut Norpoth is a strong model that predicts a Trump win a very high percentage of the time. Like all models, it's not perfect, but even if we discard the model, the primaries statistics suggest big lean towards Republican relative to 2012. This includes Trump winning more votes than Clinton did in 2008 and the Democrat primary dropping by 20% while the Republican primary increased by 60% (contrasting competitive years). This signifies a reduction in enthusiasm for Clinton and an increase in enthusiasm for Trump.

The primary model has some merit given its past success. One thing worth noting is that since the primaries, no-one in history has fallen out of favour with their own party like Trump has.

Other signs of enthusiasm are a blowout for Trump and devastating for Clinton. His rallies, signage, and merchandise are off the charts in popularity, while hers are in the dumps. In addition, Trump has broken the GOP record for quantity of small donors, while Hillary is way behind Obama.

He might draw bigger crowds, but how much of that is due to popularity and how much due to the novelty and entertainment value he brings is open to question.

As far as the merchandise and donors are concerned, Clinton has twice as much funding as Trump. She spends her money on big ticket things like TV ads, whereas Trump spends his on hats and t-shirts. It's a big leap to go from some supporters accepting a free Trump hat at a rally to half the country being wild about him.

Even if the polls are rigged, they can be evaluated endogenously for some value.

Doesn't work that way I'm afraid. You don't get to pick and choose which data from a poll to believe. Either the polls are sound and all of their data is more or less reasonable, or they're biased/rigged and all of their data should be discounted. And this should be done on an individual poll basis and be done objectively, not just cherry picking the data you like and discounting the rest.

They have consistently shown that the effective incumbent (Clinton) is way below what is considered good for any incumbent,

The latest ABC poll (the same one that finished in the top five in accuracy the last three elections) has Clinton at 50%. Other ones have her in the 45-50 % range. There's some that have her lower and obviously these are the only ones you're referring to here. Just want us to be clear on that.

and they have shown that as undecideds and third party votes finally decide, they favor Trump.

You're gonna have to show the evidence that this is true, since even the polls that have favored Trump have also been showing the trend of Clinton getting stronger and Trump getting weaker.

The demographic that the signs suggest Trump does the best with and that he is energizing to turnout is one with the most room for improvement and the one that has been staying home for the last few cycles. Contrast this to Clinton, where there are no signs that she will perform at Obama turnout levels. Just a small solid performance in Trump key demographic and a small underperformance in Clinton's key demographic, which is what signs are pointing towards, gives him the win.

Again, please elaborate. 1) Which demographic are you referring to and what signs are suggesting they're going to turn out and vote Trump? 2) What signs suggest Clinton is not going to get a large turnout?

Finally, just step back and take it all in. Nate Antimatter gave Trump a 2% chance to win the nomination

Six months before the first primary. On a scratchpad.

This is the type of thing that, when viewed in retrospect, correlates with wins.

It's also the kind of thing that correlates with someone who's not yet serious about making predictions.

In the future, we will look back and say the Trump win was pretty obvious, and we will give reasons that include how consistently he outperformed expectations at every turn.

IIRC, a lot of the reason people underestimated Trump early in the cycle was because he played coy about whether he really wanted the nomination or was just after some free advertising. It was him who set the expectations low, not others. I don't think anyone is not taking him seriously now.

[Poopadoop]

Here's the thing about this election: The polls are all over the place. You can't have one poll that's +12 and another -2 without somebody being way off. Even if you double the normal margin of error to around 7 points for each poll, they still don't overlap. So even though all the polls follow the same trends in the same directions, it's really hard to get a handle on who's winning by how much.

[Poopadoop]

Online hotel booking confirmed rigged:

https://www.hipmunk.com/tailwind/are.../#.WA5wIsn6N7Z