US Elections 2020 (geopolitics, informed debate, no ad hominems)

Biden

14 (66.7%)

Trump

7 (33.3%)

Total Members Voted: 21

Voting closed: November 02, 2020, 06:25:59 pm

[BernardLanguillier]

Hillary has a 90 Something percent chance of winning on election night...remember that little ditty?   Something spooked Joe Hiden out of the basement early...his internal polling must look horrible.

True, but she had never:
- contributed to the death of 100,000+ extra covid casualties due to inaction and conflicting messages
- discussed in public the relevance of drinking bleach to kill the disease from inside
- taken action to discredit her chief scientist in charge of fighting the disease
- lied more than 20,000 times while in office including about obvious and undeniable facts such as the ranking of the US in terms of covid death per inhabitant
- called US veterans "suckers"
- trashed talked many 4 stars generals having devoted their life to the defense of the country
- used the White House as a TV show backdrop for her own reelection
- fired several times her closest collaborators and anyone disagreeing with her
- tried to prevent millions of people from voting in a US Presidential elections
- thrown repeatedly oil over the fire to further deepen the racial gap
- refused to condemn violence, including likely murder, perpetuated by her supporters
- collaborated with a foreign power against her main political opponent
- praised China for jailing political opponents
- displayed obvious disdain for any woman in a position of power
- motivated her own family to write books against her to warn the world about how dangerous she is
- closed immigration in US against the will of most high tech corporations who desperately need foreign talents
- ...

I could literally go on and on for pages.

Any of the items on this list would cause the resignation of any leader in the world. I am not talking about world leaders. I am talking about medium sized towns leaders.

Most of these are just Trump's accomplishments over the past few months. He keeps out doing himself to such an extend that incredible stuff he did last year, themselves cause of resignation, have already been forgotten.

And that's who YOU want in office...

Cheers,
Bernard

[Robert Roaldi]

The swamp is drained, long live the swamp, https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/515334-juan-williams-swamp-creature-at-the-white-house.

It's good to read about how Trump has cleaned up "politics as usual". 

[DP]

I could literally go on and on for pages.

just stick w/ Nikon...

[John Camp]

This post is sort of a "bump." Manoli's very first post in this thread links to a daily model by The Economist of the likely outcome of the American presidential election, and from my point of view, is the most valuable link in the thread. I also enjoy the analytical articles that accompany the model.


 

[BernardLanguillier]

just stick w/ Nikon...

Are you planning to vote for Trump?

Hilary lost on top of a well proven track record of competence but on a suspicion of being too much of a politician (politicians lie you know).

The Trump voters who intend to vote for him again (it appears nobody who Voted against him is changing their mind) will do it on top of proven incompetence (to a degree unheard of) but also on top of a very strong suspicion that the main way he is not a politician is that he doesn’t believe in democracy.

I understand that the presentation of a factual list of outrageous achievements must hurt but each of these is beyond doubt. He did every single one of these things. Incredible as it is. Any single one, acknowledged objectively for what it is, is material for resignation and should generate a huge concern for any candidate applying for a high office position, yet alone re-election.

The fact that someone having done any single of these things is a candidate for US President re-election is just insane. The facf that some intelligent people support this is just incredible.

Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to:
- review the facts using several information sources
- compare them with your values
- look in depth at Biden and consider objectively the odds that he may be worse than Trump (hint: anybody would be better than Trump, including yourself most probably)
- make an educated decision you can be proud of in front of your grand children without having to lie about any of it

Your call, assuming you are planning to vote for Trump. Sorry if you don’t plan to.

Cheers,
Bernard

[TechTalk]

2020 vs 2016 - Real Clear Politics National Polling Averages as of September 7, 2016/2020

Poll Average as of September 7, 2016 - Clinton vs Trump

Clinton +2.1% (Clinton won the popular vote on election day by 2.9 Million votes and by the same percentage of +2.1%.)

Final Election Day Result: Clinton 48.2% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 46.1% / 306 Electoral Votes

* Note: After electors voted, faithless electors, who voted for someone other than their pledged candidate, caused Clinton's final electoral count to be reduced to 227 and Trump's to 304.

Poll Average as of September 7, 2020 - Biden vs Trump

Biden +7.1% (Biden's current polling lead is the same as the popular vote margin with which Obama handily beat McCain in 2008.)

Biden currently has a 5% larger lead than Clinton had for the same time period in 2016, which is why you can expect Trump and his campaign to say or do practically anything between now and the election as the polling gap is clearly in the danger zone.

The graphs shown in the link below are fairly self-explanatory except for the top graph. The top graph shows a timeline with the blue portions showing the percentage increase that Biden has in polling compared to Clinton for the same point-in-time in 2016 and the red portion showing the percentage advantage of Trump over Biden compared to Clinton for the same point-in-time in 2016.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/trump-vs-biden-national-polls-2020-vs-2016

The Democratic candidate has won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote in two of the last five presidential elections. Due to the fact that electoral votes are not proportionally distributed between voters and states, voters in low population states have a disproportionate weight in electoral outcome. As an example, California gets 55 electoral votes for 37.3 million people (2010 Census), or one electoral vote for approximately each 678,000 people. Wyoming receives 3 electoral votes for its 568,000 population, or about one per 189,000. In other words, the popular vote in Wyoming has 3.5 times the electoral weight of the same number of votes in California.

As the Republican candidate will sweep up a large number of electoral votes in lower population States — specifically those with relatively low population densities — with an electoral vote disproportionate to the size of their popular vote; the Democratic candidate will have to over perform and will likely require a popular vote win greater than the +0.5 that Al Gore received in 2000 or even the +2.1% that Clinton received in 2016 to insure enough electoral votes.

Obviously, with the unique Presidential election system in the US, the national popular vote doesn't determine the final outcome. However, a comparison of national popular vote margins to electoral vote victories, in past elections, will show that significant popular vote margins are generally reflective of a broader national sentiment and conducive to moving close swing-states and their electoral votes into the popular vote winner's column.

As examples of what a very healthy win looks like for a Democratic Presidential candidate, the Obama victories provide insight...

2008 - Obama 52.8% / 365 Electoral Votes — McCain 45.7% / 175 Electoral Votes. Obama popular vote margin +7.1% / +9.5 Million votes

2012 - Obama 51.1% / 332 Electoral Votes — Romney 47.2% / 206 Electoral Votes. Obama popular vote margin +3.9% / +5 Million votes

[Alan Klein]

You conveniently left out the most important statistic.
Donald Trump 58%  Hillary Clinton 42% - electoral votes for president 2016. A president must have a majority percent to become president.  A substantial win percentage for Trump.    If you look at popular votes, neither Trump nor Hillary had majority percentages. Even in a parliamentary system you would need majority of votes to win.   So we would have minority presidents of it wasn't for the electoral system to satisfy the federal system of United States. Doing away with the electoral system, means we'd almost always have a minority president since the two party system would turn into a free for all multiparty parliamentary system.   It would destroy both democracy and Republican parties power. Something threw members on both sides don't want.

By the way,  Bill Clinton's popular vote in 1992 was 43% compared to Trump's of 46% in 2016. So Clinton became president with even more people opposed to him. 

Lies,  Damn lies and statistics.

[kers]

You conveniently left out the most important statistic.
Donald Trump 58%  Hillary Clinton 42% - electoral votes for president 2016. ...

Lies,  Damn lies and statistics.

if you respond, read first.
Lies,  Damn lies and statistics

Final Election Day Result: Clinton 48.2% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 46.1% / 306 Electoral Votes

* Note: After electors voted, faithless electors, who voted for someone other than their pledged candidate, caused Clinton's final electoral count to be reduced to 227 and Trump's to 304.

[Alan Klein]

Those percentages are the popular vote percentages conveniently put next to the electoral votes.  That's deceptive. You never listed the electoral percentage totals.

[Craig Lamson]

2020 vs 2016 - Real Clear Politics National Polling Averages as of September 7, 2016/2020

Poll Average as of September 7, 2016 - Clinton vs Trump

Clinton +2.1% (Clinton won the popular vote on election day by 2.9 Million votes and by the same percentage of +2.1%.)

Final Election Day Result: Clinton 48.2% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 46.1% / 306 Electoral Votes

* Note: After electors voted, faithless electors, who voted for someone other than their pledged candidate, caused Clinton's final electoral count to be reduced to 227 and Trump's to 304.

Poll Average as of September 7, 2020 - Biden vs Trump

Biden +7.1% (Biden's current polling lead is the same as the popular vote margin with which Obama handily beat McCain in 2008.)

Biden currently has a 5% larger lead than Clinton had for the same time period in 2016, which is why you can expect Trump and his campaign to say or do practically anything between now and the election as the polling gap is clearly in the danger zone.

The graphs shown in the link below are fairly self-explanatory except for the top graph. The top graph shows a timeline with the blue portions showing the percentage increase that Biden has in polling compared to Clinton for the same point-in-time in 2016 and the red portion showing the percentage advantage of Trump over Biden compared to Clinton for the same point-in-time in 2016.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/trump-vs-biden-national-polls-2020-vs-2016

The Democratic candidate has won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote in two of the last five presidential elections. Due to the fact that electoral votes are not proportionally distributed between voters and states, voters in low population states have a disproportionate weight in electoral outcome. As an example, California gets 55 electoral votes for 37.3 million people (2010 Census), or one electoral vote for approximately each 678,000 people. Wyoming receives 3 electoral votes for its 568,000 population, or about one per 189,000. In other words, the popular vote in Wyoming has 3.5 times the electoral weight of the same number of votes in California.

As the Republican candidate will sweep up a large number of electoral votes in lower population States — specifically those with relatively low population densities — with an electoral vote disproportionate to the size of their popular vote; the Democratic candidate will have to over perform and will likely require a popular vote win greater than the +0.5 that Al Gore received in 2000 or even the +2.1% that Clinton received in 2016 to insure enough electoral votes.

Obviously, with the unique Presidential election system in the US, the national popular vote doesn't determine the final outcome. However, a comparison of national popular vote margins to electoral vote victories, in past elections, will show that significant popular vote margins are generally reflective of a broader national sentiment and conducive to moving close swing-states and their electoral votes into the popular vote winner's column.

As examples of what a very healthy win looks like for a Democratic Presidential candidate, the Obama victories provide insight...

2008 - Obama 52.8% / 365 Electoral Votes — McCain 45.7% / 175 Electoral Votes. Obama popular vote margin +7.1% / +9.5 Million votes

2012 - Obama 51.1% / 332 Electoral Votes — Romney 47.2% / 206 Electoral Votes. Obama popular vote margin +3.9% / +5 Million votes

Mr. Talk,

Why all the time and effort to try and justify national polls which are meaningless in the election of the President?  Why not deal with the ones more pertinent to the problem at hand, State level polling in the swing states needed to win the Electorial Collage?  How are Joe Hidens percentages holding up there?  And BTW, perhaps Likely Voter polls with decent crosstabs on party makeup would also be helpful.  Just sayin...

[Alan Klein]

Those percentages are the popular vote percentages conveniently put next to the electoral votes.  That's deceptive. You never listed the electoral percentage totals.

This is the accurate way it should have been shown:

Final Election Day Result: Clinton 43% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 57% / 306 Electoral Votes

Final Electoral vote to Congress: Clinton 42% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 57% / 306 Electoral Votes -  Other 1% / 4 electoral votes

[Chris Kern]

Final Election Day Result: Clinton 43% / 232 Electoral Votes — Trump 57% / 306 Electoral Votes

For those of you who are not familiar with the U.S. "Electoral College" system, note that we don't describe presidential election results this way.  The popular vote for each candidate is expressed in raw numbers and as a percentage of the total votes cast, and the electoral vote is expressed exclusively as raw numbers. 

(Electoral votes are apportioned among the states based on the size of their respective congressional delegations and within each state according to state law.  The details may be found here, for those interested.)

The notation quoted above is not only unorthodox, it has no semantic value.

[Alan Klein]

For those of you who are not familiar with the U.S. "Electoral College" system, note that we don't describe presidential election results this way.  The popular vote for each candidate is expressed in raw numbers and as a percentage of the total votes cast, and the electoral vote is expressed exclusively as raw numbers. 

(Electoral votes are apportioned among the states based on the size of their respective congressional delegations and within each state according to state law.  The details may be found here, for those interested.)

The notation quoted above is not only unorthodox, it has no semantic value.

It's only unorthodox if you want to demean the electoral system.

[BernardLanguillier]

Mr. Talk,

Why all the time and effort to try and justify national polls which are meaningless in the election of the President?  Why not deal with the ones more pertinent to the problem at hand, State level polling in the swing states needed to win the Electorial Collage?  How are Joe Hidens percentages holding up there?  And BTW, perhaps Likely Voter polls with decent crosstabs on party makeup would also be helpful.  Just sayin...

Craig,

The one thing your absolute confidence in the victory of Trump reminds me of is the absolute confidence of Hilary’s supporters in 2016.

Call it arrogance if you will.

I am sure you would agree that simplicity is best. Trump has nothing to hide from us. He trumps the implicit Western belief that what’s hidden is more true than what we see. That’s the ultimate truth of the Trumpism, there is nothing behind the lies. The list I shared above is everything there is to it.

There is nothing more to expect from another term.

The real question, for which I am yet to get a clear answer from you or anybody else supporting Trump, is what you are afraid of in case Biden gets elected. Would you mind share your views on this?

Regards,
Bernard

[TechTalk]

As I pointed out earlier, one Presidential electoral vote in California proportionally represents approximately 678,000 people while in Wyoming one electoral vote represents about 189,000 people. The lower the population of your State, the greater the proportional electoral impact of its popular vote. And as I alluded to before, this unequal and disproportionate allocation of electoral votes has contributed to Republican Presidential candidates being able to win without the need for a plurality or majority of the national vote. No one disputes the fact that Democratic or Republican Presidential candidates win by obtaining the majority of electoral votes from individual State elections. However, it would require burying one's head pretty deep in the sand to pretend that there is no correlation between shifts in national political sentiment, the national popular vote, and winning enough electoral votes in enough states to win an election.

Clearly, Republican candidates can win enough electoral votes when they lack the national support to win even a plurality of votes of the nation as a whole, as long as the difference is within a few percentage points. It's also clear, that when the national political climate is favorable enough for a Democrat to win a sizable enough percentage of the national popular vote, that the electoral votes needed to win will follow that national trend.

It doesn't require a degree in political science or statistical analysis to understand why a Democratic Presidential candidate succeeds if they can over perform in the national popular vote, just some common sense. In every state, there are voters that will only vote for the candidates of one party, and then there are independent voters that might vote for a candidate of either party. Independent voters, unlike some partisans, do not exist in a bubble that is impervious to exterior reality, or the national political climate for that matter. It is reasonable to expect, and corroborated by recent history, that the same momentum that moves vote margins nationally also effects independent voters locally and above a certain threshold will shift enough votes in enough states to accumulate the electoral votes required to win. In the current political alignment of States and their electoral votes, the threshold and the momentum required to jump that hurdle is higher for Democrats than Republicans.

In the case of Clinton in 2016, the momentum that produced a margin of +2.1% in the national vote didn't produce quite enough shift to the extremely close margins in the three closest States (0.24% Michigan, 0.72% Pennsylvania, 0.77% Wisconsin) which provided the needed electoral votes to put Trump over the threshold. In contrast, the momentum that produced a margin of +3.9% in the national vote for Obama in 2012 also moved enough independent voters in enough States to give him 332 electoral votes.

No one knows what the 2020 vote margins will be nationally or in the various states nor the electoral votes they will produce for each candidate. I'm sure that there will be widespread and vigorous discussion comparing both national and state popular vote margins to electoral vote results, as usual.

For those unable to see any linkage between national popular vote margins and where, how much, and in what direction local votes shift in determining overall State election results, it may be time to consider political cataract surgery.

[JoeKitchen]

My alarm clock this morning was the sounds of leftist heads exploding! 

Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian official, citing Israel-UAE peace deal

“I’m not a big Trump supporter,” [Tybring-Gjedde] said. “The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts – not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”

Peace out.   

[BernardLanguillier]

My alarm clock this morning was the sounds of leftist heads exploding! 

Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian official, citing Israel-UAE peace deal

“I’m not a big Trump supporter,” [Tybring-Gjedde] said. “The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts – not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”

Peace out.   

We really need to look into the person who issued this proposal...

Right winged populist.. yeah.. thah seems to be a match...

Cheers,
Bernard

[Craig Lamson]

As I pointed out earlier, one Presidential electoral vote in California proportionally represents approximately 678,000 people while in Wyoming one electoral vote represents about 189,000 people. The lower the population of your State, the greater the proportional electoral impact of its popular vote. And as I alluded to before, this unequal and disproportionate allocation of electoral votes has contributed to Republican Presidential candidates being able to win without the need for a plurality or majority of the national vote. No one disputes the fact that Democratic or Republican Presidential candidates win by obtaining the majority of electoral votes from individual State elections. However, it would require burying one's head pretty deep in the sand to pretend that there is no correlation between shifts in national political sentiment, the national popular vote, and winning enough electoral votes in enough states to win an election.

Clearly, Republican candidates can win enough electoral votes when they lack the national support to win even a plurality of votes of the nation as a whole, as long as the difference is within a few percentage points. It's also clear, that when the national political climate is favorable enough for a Democrat to win a sizable enough percentage of the national popular vote, that the electoral votes needed to win will follow that national trend.

It doesn't require a degree in political science or statistical analysis to understand why a Democratic Presidential candidate succeeds if they can over perform in the national popular vote, just some common sense. In every state, there are voters that will only vote for the candidates of one party, and then there are independent voters that might vote for a candidate of either party. Independent voters, unlike some partisans, do not exist in a bubble that is impervious to exterior reality, or the national political climate for that matter. It is reasonable to expect, and corroborated by recent history, that the same momentum that moves vote margins nationally also effects independent voters locally and above a certain threshold will shift enough votes in enough states to accumulate the electoral votes required to win. In the current political alignment of States and their electoral votes, the threshold and the momentum required to jump that hurdle is higher for Democrats than Republicans.

In the case of Clinton in 2016, the momentum that produced a margin of +2.1% in the national vote didn't produce quite enough shift to the extremely close margins in the three closest States (0.24% Michigan, 0.72% Pennsylvania, 0.77% Wisconsin) which provided the needed electoral votes to put Trump over the threshold. In contrast, the momentum that produced a margin of +3.9% in the national vote for Obama in 2012 also moved enough independent voters in enough States to give him 332 electoral votes.

No one knows what the 2020 vote margins will be nationally or in the various states nor the electoral votes they will produce for each candidate. I'm sure that there will be widespread and vigorous discussion comparing both national and state popular vote margins to electoral vote results, as usual.

For those unable to see any linkage between national popular vote margins and where, how much, and in what direction local votes shift in determining overall State election results, it may be time to consider political cataract surgery.

Mr Talk,

Despite your windy rant, the popular vote is meaningless in US Presidential elections.  Period. Full stop. Spending time trying to justify silly popular vote polls is a fools errand.  Take that as you will.

[JoeKitchen]

We really need to look into the person who issued this proposal...

Right winged populist.. yeah.. thah seems to be a match...

Cheers,
Bernard

Nice to see your M. O. has not changed, attack the person instead of the argument. 

I believe there is a Latin phrase for that.

As i’ve pointed out before, if you go by the standards used in 2009, it’s impossible to argue against this without serious TDS. 

[Robert Roaldi]

My alarm clock this morning was the sounds of leftist heads exploding! 

Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Norwegian official, citing Israel-UAE peace deal

“I’m not a big Trump supporter,” [Tybring-Gjedde] said. “The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts – not on the way he behaves sometimes. The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”

Peace out.   

Well, that is a howler alright.  OTOH, it's only a nomination, not a done deal yet.

If the Peace one doesn't work out, are there any others he'd quality for, Medicine, Physics, or something?