Trump cheats at golf - the ONE and ONLY politics thread

I'm in the same boat. I read the WaPost's recap of the dinner last night, and it almost made me have a little empathy for Trump, who is so far out of his depth in this race it's ridiculous. It also seemed like a good stopping point for me.

 

From coverage entirely or just this thread?

Even when I check out of the outside coverage, I still check in here - mainly because I like all y'all in this little community within a community.

 

I can't believe Rasmussen, LA Times, IBD, etc., still have Trump leading this race. I mean, I understand these are Republican-leaning polls, but they are so far off I don't know how they maintain any credibility after Election Day, if it's a 10-12 point Clinton win.

 

I think she likely wins by 6-8 points, and maybe as many as 10. At 6, she wins the electoral vote by a wide margin. At 8-10, it's a landslide and will hurt down ballot races. (This is a change for me. I always figured he'd do about as well as Romney, which made the establishment freakout silly.)

But, fuck, one way or the other, some pollsters are going to look terrible.

And, even if he losses, if it's close, as Rasmussen, the LA Times, and IBD suggest, there will be hell to pay.

 

I do! Can I get chocolate?

 

Just how much FraudSeeking can you legally do anyway? A rough guide.

How Trump’s “Poll Watchers” Could End Up Breaking the Law

 

Remember the herding effect. IBD in both 2008 and 2012 had its numbers change drastically in their final poll. LA Times has resorted to unskewing its OWN poll to show about a 5 point Clinton lead, which I believe is right around the number we'll see Nov. 8

 

Also, the hack was conducted by Russia, which gets the hairs on the necks of Americans standing up, and the appearance that Assange (and by association Putin) is actively trying to influence the election by only going after one side. If he were as neutral as he claims to be, I'm sure Assange would have released something - anything - about Trump by now.

I think the first big dump by WikiLeaks was when the Manning stuff got released in 2010, and the motive seemed to be to expose war crimes, not to influence a U.S. Presidential election.

And lastly, saying he was a "hero to the Left" is probably inaccurate, given that people such as Joe Biden called him a terrorist.

 

Play with your kids, take the dog for a run or pick up a book every time you feel a compulsion to read or follow this trash election.
Works like a charm.
Mr. Trump is going to have to pay a little rent for once to reside in my head.

 

10-12 is optimistic and would require a combination of surprises. 5-7 is more realistic right now.

Is there precedent for a single poll or two to miss by 7 at this point? Sure. Romney had some +3 polls in the final weeks too and lost by 4, but without looking it up I would have no idea which pollsters those were. He was tied or +1 in half the final week polls and nobody had Obama up by as much as he actually won by.

The LA Times poll borked the methodology and they know it. Rasmussen has no desire to fix their's for political reasons but always manages to herd back to the pack at the last minute. Who knows what is up with IBD.

There is definitely the possibility that the polls are missing by some degree. The average undershot Obama 2012 by 3 points. Brexit was a four-point miss. Four points seems to be the outward boundary for modern polling whiffs on this scale. We are looking at Clinton by 5-6 right now, so it wouldn't be completely crazy to see Trump come relatively close on Election Day (or it could miss in the other direction and she threatens a 10 point win).

The problem is that close isn't winning, and campaign internals are telling both sides that Trump is functionally locked out of those last few points he would need even if does get the biggest polling error boost that is plausible. Independents and undecideds really, really hate him. He has no ground game, is way behind on ad buys and has less cash on hand. Early voting data is all bad for Republicans outside of the Midwest, where it is neutral-ish.

You can see it in their behavior. The RNC is telling people they can decouple from Trump if need be and pulling resources from him. Meanwhile Clinton is taking victory laps by doing ad buys in Texas and declaring states like Colorado and Virginia safe.

 

I think we will see a convergence in the final polls, but which way will they go?

Reuters, the Economist, and the Washington Post/ABC all have it at 4 points in their last poll. FOX and Quinnipiac have it a6 six points. So, not every poll has it at 10 or 11 points.

If NBC, CBS, Bloomberg, the Atlantic, and Monmouth drop down to 4 points in the final days, then I think it's fair to ask some questions about their current polling.

 

A journalist investigating Trump had a self-identified deplorable tweet a video to him meant to induce an epileptic seizure.

How Donald Trump supporters attack journalists