The Polling Crisis Is a Catastrophe for American Democracy
theatlantic.com
theatlantic.com
I don't recall any major surprises in electoral college results. The only state results that differed from 538 predictions were Florida and maybe Georgia, but both of those were rated as toss-ups. Most states seem to be within a few points of the polling average.
The national popular vote currently has Biden a few points below the prediction, but I expect he will make up those points when California makes it through the 4 million votes that they still have left to count.
I feel like people saw the high probability of a Biden win and expected that would mean it would be called early on Election Day, but people analyzing the polls said that would only happen if Biden overperformed polls. For the most part, things went exactly as predicted. Yes, a lot of polls were off by a few points, but that is to be expected. Yes, the errors were correlated with other and were not independent, but that is also to be expected.
https://unherd.com/thepost/robert-cahaly-how-we-got-the-poll...
are we sure the votes are counted the right way? With all the electronic voting devices, what guarantees and checks are in place to assert that a vote cast for Trump is not counted towards Biden (or vise versa)?
Does anyone know?
https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2019/12/17/how-new-voting-mach...
https://whowhatwhy.org/2019/03/19/permission-to-cheat-audits...
https://whowhatwhy.org/2019/01/11/georgia-poised-to-pick-vul...
https://demwritepress.com/2018/11/04/democrats-must-be-prepa...
There are so many ways a pollster could go wrong. Sample Size, Push Polling, Shy Voters, Poor Question, Poorly Trained Survey Collectors, and on and on.
With voting it's basically did we count it right.
I guess the thinking is that if an election is within .5% there can be a recount. And then each polling station (county?) provides numbers separately, so to push the vote a huge amount you'd need multiple polling stations to lie to move the vote more than .5% (as I understand it, not an expert).
That said, I'd love if the full process was disclosed somewhere for public scrutiny. There should be numerous safeguards (e.g. two random people counting the same stack of ballots) in a good system.
Trump is accused of a lot of stuff, but so are the democrats, and all of it has some level of credibility.
That is why it is close.
Ironically I think it nets out to bring a lot more about policies and political beliefs than ‘who is accused of what’, since nobody looks that good.
Biden made some stupid unforced errors which I think confirm republican’s fears.
Trumpeting gun control at stupid moments is the biggest mistake - one which Clinton also made.
My sense is that it should be easier for Democrats to get on board with guns than for Republicans to get on board with pro-choice.
The reasoning is that gun deaths can be prevented by a lot of mechanisms that are not gun control but are consistent with democratic values, whereas pro-life tends to be more a product of religious or spiritual belief rather than pragmatism.
I know plenty of otherwise highly progressive people who changed their view of guns once they learned more about them.
I wouldn’t even begin to know how to change the opinion of someone who is Pro-life. I literally can’t make the case.
I.e. the fundamental issue is a question about what constitutes a person.
Resolving this always seems to have spiritual connotations and some kind of faith is involved.
If you have strong feelings about killing people and those apply to fetuses, it implies you have a strong belief that a fetus is a person.
This is like saying, "This tennis ball is large, but so is the moon, and both of them have some level of largeness."
The scale absolutely matters. There is no "both sides" this time. All the GOP fears (Biden is senile, a socialist, or a puppet) are based on lies. Everyone else's fears are based on Trump's actual policies: separating children from parents; ignoring and lying about Covid; attacking climate science; and tearing down democratic norms.
> Trumpeting gun control at stupid moments is the biggest mistake - one which Clinton also made
Gun control is very popular, even among gun owners[1].
Biden spent very, very little time talking about it. He mostly talked about expanding health-care access, managing Covid, and bringing back jobs. If you look at this talking points in the debates, he barely mentioned guns at all.
This fear, again, is false fear-mongering by GOP allies, just as it was when they claimed Obama would take away all the guns[2].
1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/16/share-of-am...
2. https://www.politico.com/blogs/ben-smith/2008/08/nra-obama-m...
Also, if the opinion is slanted and not factual, please explain exactly which opinions and how they're slanted. I didn't write anything that isn't an opinion of the majority of people who pay attention to US affairs.
However I do think the perceptions of the two sides of one another are more equated than you do. That’s in fact my point - policies matter more than attacking Trump’s character.
As for Guns, you’re just wrong.
Biden tweeted about banning assault weapons repeatedly, even at times when it was absurd - e.g. in response to two police officers being shot with a pistol. This has absolutely been echoed in conservative circles, and is an accurate reflection of his stated policies on his website. Kamala Harris is also one of the most fervently anti-gun politicians on record.
As to “Gun owners favor gun control” - if you believe that you are just misinformed.
The only gun control that gun owners (or the population as a whole) favor is background checks, and even this gets weaker when the actual implications of the schemes are explained.
It simply isn’t fear mongering.
All of the things that gun owners fear are in fact being demonstrated in California.
I think these are stupid policies that don’t save lives, and have definitely helped Trump both in 2016 and now.
I pick gun control because it is so ineffective, and it’s easily substituted with better polices if you want to save lives.
I.e. you can change this policy without betraying democratic values.
> policies matter more than attacking Trump’s character
Name any single policy that Trump and Biden are "basically" the same on. They are probably further apart than any two nominees in history.
> As for Guns, you’re just wrong.
I showed you data. Do you have any data?
> As to “Gun owners favor gun control” - if you believe that you are just misinformed.
The majority[1] of gun owners support the following gun-control measures:
- banning gun purchases by mentally ill people
- closing the gun-show loophole
- banning gun purchases by people on watch lists
- creating a federal database to track gun sales
> I think these are stupid policies that don’t save lives, and have definitely helped Trump both in 2016 and now.
Gun control saves many lives, mostly from suicide and accidents.
> I pick gun control because it is so ineffective, and it’s easily substituted with better polices if you want to save lives.
It's not that effective, but it's a top-of-mind issue for a large part of Biden's base (Black people).
1. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/22/key-takeawa...
2. https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/article/how-do-gun-laws-affec...
3. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/magazine/guns-and-suicide/
If you are unaware of any work that contradicts the view you are espousing, then I suggest digging deeper. A few years ago I’d have assumed those kinds of source were painting an accurate picture, but if you dig deeper you’ll discover they are misleading.
A few sources you might care to examine are Gun Culture 2.0, and Open source defense. Both are written by liberal leaning people.
Your list of what the majority of gun owners support is what I said people support - background checks. You have expanded it to 4 points.
But if you dig into the research, you’ll find that when the issue is explained, the support becomes more equivocal.
At least you agree that it’s not that effective.
You claim it’s top of mind for a large part of Biden’s base - black people. I’m quite skeptical about that. Black people are currently the fastest growing demographic of gun owners. They are also going to be the targets of new gun laws - not the beneficiaries.
Gun control means armed police taking guns from black people at gunpoint, and black people being criminalized.
Are you really saying that is top of mind for black people?
https://medium.com/handwaving-freakoutery/guns-guide-to-libe...
More importantly, even if you are right, you are making my point for me.
My point is that if Biden didn’t have a strong gun control agenda, he would be more palatable to rural Americans and conservatives who don’t actually like Trump.
Are you suggesting that Biden would lose black votes to Trump if he dialed back the gun control policy?
That sounds completely implausible.
It’s not effective policy, and it works to keep moderate Republicans and rural Americans away from Biden.