Election 2020

[Hornsby]

Strange as it is for me to agree with anything Michael Moore says, he may have a point. Biden is shown up 11-13 points in Minnesota, yet he's going there. And it's not to campaign for the Senate race.

There's only two possibilities for this - either Biden's internal polling is telling them a whole different message about Minnesota than the polls fivethirtyeight are using, or his campaign staff are idiots wasting time and effort when they could be working Georgia, a state that's very possible to turn. Overall, his campaign staff has done reasonably well - certainly much better than Clinton's did in 2016 - so I suspect the former.

Biden is indeed doing CYA move here, but also doing a fairly strategic one as well. He gets both Minnesota and Western Wisconsin with this visit, since the border is less than 25 miles from where his rally is. Pretty sound move, IMO.

Trump OTOH, is doing his mini-rally in Rochester, smack in the middle of the southern part of the state and firmly in Trump country. My feeling is that it's Akin to a farewell tour for a person who craved the adulation of his people.

I think that the polling is pretty sound, but stick to the A and B polls, not the C and below.

[revo]

Biden up to 90% on 538.com.

On Politico, their scenario generator has Biden with 29,612 ways to win (90.8%) and Trump with 2,983 ways to win (9.2%).

[Kevin Seitzer]

Biden up to 90% on 538.com.

I still don't think that percentage means anything.

[DMT]

So Texas Republicans trying to get 100K votes tossed after they were legally dropped off...it's just so blatant. How anyone can still support this party is beyond me.

[MagSeven]

And now you have armed Trump lunatics surrounding the Biden bus carrying Kamala Harris to Austin, slowing it down and trying to force it off the road. Is this really America?

[Teenwolf]

And now you have armed Trump lunatics surrounding the Biden bus carrying Kamala Harris to Austin, slowing it down and trying to force it off the road. Is this really America?

American as apple pie at this point.

[Kevin Seitzer]

I still don't think that percentage means anything.

To elaborate on this a little:
1) The idea that these predictions are significant to two decimal places is ridiculous
2) Nate's conception of how odds change over time doesn't make sense to me. I get that there's less time for a significant event to change people's minds, or whatever. I question the idea that that matters nearly as much in this election as in a normal election. I also question that that is the most significant source of error.
3) Structural polling errors matter way more than random sampling error does. Nate tries to sorta kinda figure this out with his house effects and pollster ratings, but my trust in him to do that well is low given that I know how poorly he did modeling in the baseball space.
4) Turnout matters a lot in a normal election and probably even moreso in this one, and I don't think he's trying to model that at all. I don't think he's properly incorporating how that affects the chances of each candidate winning.
5) I don't buy that his understanding of how errors correlate between states is nearly as sophisticated as he likes to sell it.

Being able to predict something with a model and put a confidence on it requires having a situation that fits within previous expectations and assumptions. Polling maybe still kinda sorta fits within previous expectations. But I'm not sure much else about this election does, especially turnout.

I think anything higher than 75% chance of Biden winning is overselling it. Just too many unknowns.

[Kevin Seitzer]

To be clear, I don't know a better poll aggregation site than 538. I just take his forecast percentage with a large dose of skepticism.

[madducks]

And now you have armed Trump lunatics surrounding the Biden bus carrying Kamala Harris to Austin, slowing it down and trying to force it off the road. Is this really America?

They don't want to piss off Kamala.

[madducks]

And now you have armed Trump lunatics surrounding the Biden bus carrying Kamala Harris to Austin, slowing it down and trying to force it off the road. Is this really America?

[madducks]

[madducks]

[madducks]

It's getting uglier by the day. Tuesday is going to be a real shit show.

[Sour Masher]

I keep reflecting on how stark the contrast is between the two candidates' character. I've said it many times, Joe Biden is a truly good man and Trump is rotten to his core. Night and Day. I cannot imagine what Trump would have done in this case, but I do know that right after the Parkland shooting, he made it about him and blamed the FBI for focusing on Russia.

[Sour Masher]

Just going down the rabbit hole after we had some surprises trick or treaters (we played it safe keeping our boys home, but we ended up giving out tons of candy to everyone else anyway...at least they had fun). I never saw this ceremony. Again, such a contrast between Biden, who is so honored by the Medal of Freedom, and makes his speech about others--about his family, about Obama, about his country, about love and faith. Trump makes everything about him. On Nov 3rd we have a choice between the light and the dark, between hate/fear and love/compassion. It heartens me to believe that after the mistake of 2016, this country will choose the light.