Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Consistently wrong since 2002

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Accountability, motherfuckers.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I really should read my own blog.

Bark louder, little dog.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

T R E 4 5 O N

If you are still in the GOP, you are an extremist.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: No Treats for YOU, Repubs!

Late Night Open Thread: No Treats for YOU, Repubs!

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127Comments

  1. 1.

    Kristine

    Still boggled by the behavior of way too many of my fellow Americans.

    I’ll get over it eventually, I suppose.

  2. 2.

    Origuy

    I dropped off my ballot on Friday at the Registrar of Voters office in San Jose. I got a text a little while ago that it was received and will be counted.

  3. 3.

    Achrachno

    I hope the present outburst of bigotry is a Pete Wilson moment for the whole country. One of those things that in retrospect is so awful that many minds are changed. Even though Gov. Wilson  was probably only 10-20% as bad as Trump he managed to turn CA from fairly red to brightest blue.

  4. 4.

    Calouste

    Yeah, about rebuilding the GOP if they get hammered as the polls predict.
    First, the shitgibbon needs to die and get buried. (Getting a stroke that disables won’t be enough, remember that most of the cultists literally believe that someone can rise from the dead.) Second, when that happens, Kushner is going to push either Don Jr. or Ivanka as the rightful heir, and they need to cut the legs out from under that. And then there will be a fight between outright fascists like Tom Cotton and some more moderate Republicans who actually stand a chance of winning. Oh, and they’ll have some Representatives who are full on QAnon.

  5. 5.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    The Barr protest, QAnon, and the Trumpistas in TX demonstrate that there are a lot of Americans who are nuttier than a sackful of pecans.

  6. 6.

    SFAW

    “Over the next four years, we will stop the radical indoctrination of our students, and restore PATRIOTIC EDUCATION to our schools. We will teach our children to love our Country  der Vaterland, honor our white history, and always respect our great American Aryan Flag. http://Vote.DerFuehrer.com”

    Fixed

  7. 7.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    Polls are moving toward GOP incumbents, especially in Senate races, and GOP voters are highly motivated.

    Folks, this ain’t over.

    Saw this reply in Charlie Pierce’s Twitter feed. Is this true? I know that Des Moines Register Iowa poll showed Biden down by 7 in Iowa; something like 26 point swing! It is one poll, but wtf is going on with it?

    Looking at electoral vote.com and 538, I’m not seeing it.

  8. 8.

    Benw

    Soooo you’re saying that over the last 4 years our children have been radically indoctrinated? Must be a shitty D of Ed then. Why didn’t Joe Biden stop this sooner?

  11. 11.

    West of the Rockies

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): 
    Dude, are you looking for shit to worry about? I’m worried, too, but you seem to be making yourself miserable.

    Anyway, I hope Trump’s reenactment of the famous Downfall scene is broadcast live. I think he will lose his shit on live TV. Wouldn’t that be glorious?

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    Out of the mouths of babes:

    There’s an 8 year old at this house that seemed disgusted I had a trump mask. I said “people dress as thanos why can’t I go as trump?”. He’s like “thanos isn’t real” and I feel forever shamed— Worst Beer Blog (@WorstBeerBlog) November 1, 2020

  13. 13.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Kristine: 

    There should be no confusion at this point about the motives of the GOP and I ain’t getting over these assholes.

    @Achrachno: 

    I hope the present outburst of bigotry is a Pete Wilson moment

    Yes.

  17. 17.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @West of the Rockies:

    I’m actually not and I’m not miserable. Based on what I’m seeing atm with 538 and EV.com, I’m not really seeing it aside from that Iowa poll, which is just one poll. I wanted other commenter’s opinions

  18. 18.

    Original Lee

    I was actually starting to feel pretty good until I saw the reporting on a GOP attempt to throw out 100,000 votes in a purple area of Texas. The judge is one of the most rabidly partisan in the bench (which is really saying something) and has scheduled the hearing for Monday morning without waiting for the response brief.

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):  What is more likely? That this poll has caught something that no other polls have caught and women in Iowa have started running screaming from Biden or that this poll is an outlier?

  21. 21.

    MisterForkbeard

    @West of the Rockies: There are supposedly a ton of GOP friendly polling outfits all releasing polls now that favor Republicans quite a bit, so you may see some weird narrowing.

    That Iowa poll is just odd though. I’d ignore it for the time being and just see how Tuesday turns out.

  22. 22.

    SectionH

    @Achrachno: YES!

    Well, we were literally just talking about the evil Mayor Pete… not that anyone called him that…

    It won’t be that thorough, but that’s my hope. Like yes, “it’s my face the face-eating party (the leopards have all been fired) wants to eat” now.

  23. 23.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Oh, it’s probably an outlier. On the other hand, it is a high quality poll, according to 538, rated A+. Trafalgar, it is not

    I was just curious where the hell that person I quoted was seeing polls moving toward GOP incumbents in Senate races because I wasn’t really seeing it on any of the polling aggregators I follow

  25. 25.

    Captain C

    conservatives are actively trying to throw out votes, run the other party's candidate literally off the road and spread disinformation about the election so nah i really don't wanna hear shit about "both sides" anymore— first-mate prance (@bocxtop) November 1, 2020

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): Trump up 7 in Iowa would not be a 26 point swing; he was never that far down. Iowa has been a toss-up all season. Trump may be ahead there but that one looks like an outlier.

    Forget about it. Trump fans are having a fun Halloween jumping and yelling booga booga. Trump could either win or lose– Biden’s lead is not insurmountable and dirty election tricks abound– but I’ve been watching the polls and I don’t see any trend right now at all. Nothing like the movement you could see 4 years ago.

    I was looking at the final days in 2016 on electoral-vote.com’s archive. God, I’d forgotten that even after Comey in the final week there was another story that got major coverage about how Hillary was likely to get indicted over the Clinton Foundation. Completely bogus and I think Giuliani was pushing it.

  28. 28.

    mrmoshpotato

    Please, take it from someone who grew up in the Soviet Union. Never, ever, ever give your children over to someone who wants to “teach them how to love the Motherland.”

    And no one would know better when it comes to a Soviet shitpile mobster conman.

  32. 32.

    Redshift

    @MisterForkbeard: Yeah, Nate Silver posted a few days ago about how some pollsters with a Republican lean often put out a bunch of polls close to election day, and which can skew sites that just average everything equally with no filtering. No idea if there are enough to affect Senate race polling, but it wouldn’t surprise me, since they’re state-level polls.

  33. 33.

    Redshift

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    Oh, it’s probably an outlier. On the other hand, it is a high quality poll, according to 538, rated A+. Trafalgar, it is not 

    The first rule of 538 is do not pay much attention to any single poll, regardless of quality.

  36. 36.

    mrmoshpotato

    It’s common knowledge that bags of salted dicks exist, but David Simon has used Twitter to inform the world that bags of stale, unseasoned dicks also exist.

    What a time to be alive!

  37. 37.

    Wyatt Salamanca

    Rethuglican Party of Texas Chairman Allen West on Biden bus incident:

    “Three Trump supporters have been executed, one in Portland, one in Denver, and one Milwaukee. A leftist mob attempted to storm the house of the McCloskeys, threatened to burn their house down, rape Mrs. McCloskey, and then kill them both.

    Where is the liberal corporate media’s concern about that real violence? Additionally, none of what your question implies is accurate. It is more fake news and propaganda.

    Prepare to lose…stop bothering me. Maybe Soros can cut y’all another check in 2022.”

    Source: https://www.texasgop.org/statement-biden-bus-incident/

    FUCK Allen West and FUCK Trump and all the other Rethuglican scumbags. Trump not only needs to be beaten, he needs to be humiliated in this election and we need to beat as many Republican dirtbag politicians as humanly possible!

  38. 38.

    Freemark

    Here in PA we now have seven counties that don’t plan to begin counting mail-in/drop-off ballots until 9 am the day AFTER the election. Probably hoping the SC prevents them from being counted. Republicans will do anything to try and steal this election.

  41. 41.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Redshift: Right now they’re flooding the presidential approval polls with ridiculous 50+ % approval numbers. I don’t see the point since few people are paying attention to that now.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @Freemark

    My understanding is that

    1) Those 7 are R-heavy counties
    2) That’s the way they’ve historically handled counting absentee/mail-in and they do not have the personnel and means reliably in place to undertake otherwise

    Wouldn’t necessarily ascribe malice.

  45. 45.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Wyatt Salamanca: I’m not even sure where this comes from.

    I can sort of see the “trump supporters have been executed!” scream. I mean, it’s a huge lie but three Trumpers did get killed IIRC.

    The McCloskey thing is just pure fucking craziness. The peaceful protestors were going past their house and they came out drunk, yelling and pointing loaded weapons. There’s no scenario where the McCloskeys are the good guys here. None.

  46. 46.

    Goku (Amerikan Baka)

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    I saw that. He’s a nutjob. He’s the face of the TX GOP. And where the fuck did he get that the protesters were going to rape Mrs. McClosky!? Also, it’s interesting he said “liberal corporate media”. Conservatives aren’t generally known for criticizing corporations

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Thanks. It’s probably just an outlier

    @Redshift:

    I know. I figured it was an outlier. Was just wondering where that person I quoted was even seeing polls shifting in GOP incumbents favor when I didn’t see it on polling aggregators

  48. 48.

    NotMax

    @guachi

    Oh, come on. No state – ever – has reported complete and full results on election night. It’s always a projected winner, with military, absentee, provisional, jammed in the scanner, etc. ballots to be added in before the results become certified.

    The SoS knows how many votes were cast in those counties. If 100% of that number is theoretically assigned to the losing candidate and do not change the projected outcome then there’s no reason to be tardy in making a announcement.

  50. 50.

    HumboldtBlue

    @NotMax:

    Bullpuckey

    Are you Colonel Potter?

    Elsewhere:

    I just realized that the penultimate scene in the Queen’s Gambit contains a chess move so blatantly wrong I cursed out loud and protested vigorously with a shake of the fist.

  51. 51.

    sdhays

    @Kay: Well, they couldn’t even find someone from Texas to be their Chair. I would have expected the Texas Republican Party would have a deep bench of native talent, considering its size and recent dominance of state politics. But they were so weak (or the position is so worthless) that they needed to import a reject from Florida.

    It reminds me of how the Illinois Republican Party was in such terrible shape that they needed to import Alan Keyes from Maryland (of all places – not even the mid-west!) to lose to Barack Obama in his Senate run. I still don’t understand what compelled them to do that. If they had put up just about anyone actually from Illinois – even a random Republican from off the street, they at least wouldn’t have embarrassed themselves.

  54. 54.

    Gravenstone

    @SFAW: I was going to note that his script probably sounded better in the original Russian when Vlad “suggested” it to him.

  55. 55.

    TS (the original)

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    Is this true?

    Absolutely. 100%  – if that’s what you are so desperate to get confirmed.

    Just keep repeating RW talking points. Everyone needs to know every last thing they put on twitter.

  57. 57.

    Calouste

    @guachi: That Selzer poll btw has Biden 41-48, and only 89% decided at this point in time seem rather low. Selzer’s last poll was in September and was 47-47. Iowa I think has no excuse early voting.

  59. 59.

    Gravenstone

    @Kay: Broken linkie.

    Not that I want to actually see Uday bawling, but maybe his dealer just stiffed him and he can’t get his fix of nose candy?

  60. 60.

    TS (the original)

    @Calouste:

    Iowa I think has no excuse early voting.

    In that poll 51% had already voted and the vote was 55-38 Biden with the rest obviously forgetting who they had voted for.

    There  is a massive % of the remainder having to vote trump if that poll is NOT an outlier.

  61. 61.

    frosty

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): You wanted other commenters’ opinions? I think you got them. Doesn’t seem as bad as the recent polls and the pundits have said (knock wood, spit over left shoulder). Hang in there.

  62. 62.

    Calouste

    @SFAW: Funny thing is that the shitgibbon has made quite a few statements about things he’s going to do in the next four years, not things he is going to continue doing in the next four years. Just like four years ago, he’s trying to run against the incumbent.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @Gravenstone:

    I think it’s absolutely devastating for the whole family because it’s the Trump Family Presidency, including the son in law and the various wives and girlfriends.

  66. 66.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Calouste:

    Just like four years ago, he’s trying to run against the incumbent. 

    Good!  The shitstain we’ve had for these 4 years needs to be thrown out of a window mysteriously office.

  69. 69.

    frosty

    @Kay: Gee. Tots and pears for the whole Trump family, in-laws, wives, girlfriends … and let’s add mistresses and pool boys ’cause why not.

  71. 71.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Kay:

    Trump Crime Family Bastard Presidency

    Fixed.  No charge on All Saints Day.  ?Oh when the saints go over there…?

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @sanjeevs:

    PA might not matter. He can get there without them if they’re gonna count so slow.  With all the threats of violence and such we don’t have time for 7 PA counties deciding they need 4 days to count.

    If they want to be “the tipping point state” they’re going to have to try harder :)

  76. 76.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay: That’s what really came across watching the RNC, all Trump family and not all that many other people from the party.  We had 3 former Presidents speak at ours, state and local officials and candidates.  The RNC was a very odd convention.

  77. 77.

    Kay

    Texas Republicans should spend less time running people off the road and more time getting their voters out:

    Dave Wasserman
    @Redistrict
    ·1h
    In 2016, Clinton won the TX counties containing Houston, Dallas and Austin by 541k votes. In 2018, Beto won them by 682k. Biden’s likely on pace to win them by 1 million+.
    And that’s not even including San Antonio/El Paso.

    If you’re the head of the Republican Party in Texas you’re not doing a good job. That’s supposed to be going in the other direction.

  78. 78.

    frosty

    @mrmoshpotato:  Ah, no. That might be a deal breaker. I guess the voodoo dolls have to have at least a piece of hair or something, right? How about a screen shot of Chuck’s extremities, would that do in this digital age?

  81. 81.

    Anya

    @Kay: They chose a lunatic who’s even Florida Man disowned, as their party leader so I am assuming they won’t work on winning votes. They’ll put all of their energy on suppressing votes and then outright stealing the election if their suppression doesn’t work.

    I always find it weird the way republicans are possessive about certain states as though it’s hard for them to believe that they’ll over vote for democrats.

  83. 83.

    sdhays

    @NotMax: If they’re heavily Republican counties, any non-counting they do is going to hurt the cause of Republicans. You can’t assume that you’re locking away X thousand Democratic votes just because they’re mail-in ballots. If it was Philadelphia, sure. But not in Republican counties.

    If there is a nefarious motive, it’s pretty stupid.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    Bullpuckey. We have the time so long as we exercise the will to make the best use of that time. And that does not include retreat in the face of threats.

  86. 86.

    frosty

    A few days ago I saw a link from a professor of ancient history about democracies and how they failed. It made the point that there were far more democracies in Greek and Roman times than there are now and that they failed because of hyper factionalism and the elites seizing power. Does anyone here recall it or did I see it somewhere else?

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @Anya:

    They don’t do any normal campaign stuff anymore. They scream on cable tv and conduct “boat rallies” and these weird, threatening truck caravans and sue to try to stop voting. That’s their “campaigns”

    They stopped making any attempt to govern years ago and now they don’t campaign either. It’s all this over the top, insane performing, like they’re all reality tv show stars now. I mean, Jesus Christ, they’re suing to throw out 100k votes in Texas? They put all their effort into appointing crooked judges and suing instead of finding 100k of their own votes?

    The head of the Texas GOP isn’t just insane, he’s failing. He’s losing GOP votes. He’s bleeding votes, to the extent where Texas is competitive.

  90. 90.

    Kay

    @NotMax:

    When we win we have to do something about the Trump judges, or every election is going to be like this one. We can’t go thru this cycle after cycle. They’ve behaved outrageously and they’re only going to get worse. Unless you want to see this every two years when there’s a federal election something has to change to check these judges. They’re out of control. They can’t put the public thru this every two years.

  91. 91.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Wyatt Salamanca: You know, it’s really hard to get any indignation going for Borac punking GOP politicians when they reset to making up shit like this.

  92. 92.

    Kay

    @Wyatt Salamanca:

    Allen West has led the Republican Party of Texas to the point where Texas is a swing state.

    Allen West is not doing well- he’s not winning. He’s losing. If his job is to make more Republican voters in Texas, and that is his job, it’s not going well. Which may explain why he’s screaming incoherently about “Leftists”.

  93. 93.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sdhays:  The State Republican party would have had pay for some random local dude’s run and that’s a big no no in the GOP. They want self funding candidates.

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    @Kay

    I believe you’re assuming a static situation, which it ain’t.

    In two years attrition will have removed X number from active service on the bench.

    Not all challenges will be upheld and of those that are some are bound to be overturned. Both those results serve as precedent for not conducting the same two years hence.

    Of course I find Rs preemptively stacking the judicial deck odious, but then I would find any one faction preemptively stacking the deck to be the same.

  97. 97.

    sdhays

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t think a grifter like Alan Keyes paid for his own campaign. Maybe it was easier for him to raise money from evangelicals, but as I recall there had been millionaires running in the primary, so they could have just picked one and said “go fund yourself”. If they had done that, I expect Obama’s margin wouldn’t have been quite so high because a decent number of Republicans wouldn’t have just been so repulsed by their nominee.

  99. 99.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @frosty: Greek Cities were in a state of low level civil war at the best of times.  Athenian Democracy was an attempt to stop the elites from tearing the city apart with their infighting and just ended up turning the problem up to 11.

  100. 100.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @sdhays: Well there is; Keyes was just running his own grift threw find raising for his challenge against Obama. The main thing it’s about money and not winning elections.

  101. 101.

    James E Powell

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka):

    Your panicky posts reminded me of this passage from Hunter S Thompson

    October is the cruelest month of any election year, but by then, the pain is so great that even the strong are like jelly and time has lost all meaning for anybody still involved in a political campaign.  By that time, even candidates running unopposed have abandoned all hope of victory and live only for the day when they will finally be free to seek vengeance on all those treacherous bastards who once passed themselves off as loyal friends and allies and swore they were only in it because they all shared the same hopes and dreams….

    October in the politics business is like drowning in scum or trying to hang on through the final hour of a bastinado punishment….The flesh is dying and the heart is full of hate:  The winners are subpoenaed by divorce lawyers and the losers hole up in cheap hotel rooms on the outskirts of town with a briefcase full of hypodermic needles and the certain knowledge that the next time their name gets in the newspapers will be when they are found dead and naked in a puddle of blood in the trunk of some filthy stolen car in an abandoned parking lot.

    Others are not so lucky and are doomed, like Harold Stassen, to wallow for the rest of their lives in the backwaters of local politics, cheap crooks and relentless humiliating failure.  By the time Halloween rolls around, most campaigns are bogged down in despair and paralyzed by a frantic mix of greed and desperation that comes with knowing that everything you have done or thought or worked for or believed in for the past two years was wrong and stupid.

    There are never enough seats on the last train out of the station . . .

  102. 102.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    And as I predicted, Trump is already planning to rallies after the election. Watch, if this is over November the 3rd Trump will announcing his 2024 run November the 4th.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-plan-continue-holding-134835790.html

    Trump campaign surrogates have been told to keep their diaries clear after November 3, reported the outlet. It cited two campaign officials and a surrogate who said it was a real possibility that the president would continue to hold rallies in key states even as election officials tallied up ballots.

  103. 103.

    TriassicSands

    @Mary G:

    Democrats never need help in not voting. That’s just been a sad fact. If this election really does bring out record numbers of Democrats, including the young and minorities (which should always be the heart of the Democratic Party), my fervent hope is that it sticks, which it didn’t after Obama.

    Being enthusiastic about a candidate is great, but the level of enthusiasm for (or against) a candidate should not have a significant impact on turnout.

    If you are a citizen your job is to cast informed votes. Every election.

    E v e r y  e l e c t i o n !

    If the people who should be voting for Democrats, reliably showed up every election, we might find the Republicans to be an annoyance, rather than a threat to everything decent and responsible.

  105. 105.

    CaseyL

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Well, sure:  he’s not going to give up his 3-per-day doses of wild adulation. Being praised and fawned over is what it’s all about for him.

    If FSM is good to us, and Biden wins, the interregnum will also be Trump’s last chance to snag all the campaign and taxpayer dollars he can.

  106. 106.

    TriassicSands

    @CaseyL: 

    …the interregnum will also be Trump’s last chance to snag all the campaign and taxpayer dollars he can.

    Trump will probably be like the televangelist who never stops raising money. He’s found something he’s needed his entire life — a “job” where he can whine endlessly and tell people how fabulous he is, while they shower him with adoration…and pay him for the honor.

    If he somehow is deprived of his throne, he will have an entirely new set of grievances to add to his current, virtually endless list. Thus, the rallies will have to be longer.

    The only possible cure to perpetual Trump rallies is for the media to ignore them completely…unless the attendees get so frustrated that they start fighting among themselves and end up shooting each other. Then, a simple death toll on page D-15 should suffice.

    Without his precious rallies*, he’ll have to go back to earning a living by declaring bankruptcy.

    *Or, more accurately, cult gatherings.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    party died back in 2016 from a terminal illness contracted long before.

    It’s a nice dream, but I’ll believe it when I see it.

  108. 108.

    David ?Booooooo!? Koch

    92 million people have voted

    7 million voted on Saturday

    In Texas, 9.7 million have voted, already exceeded the total 2016 vote of 9 million

    Act Blue raised $27 million dollars on Saturday

  110. 110.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @CaseyL: Actually I what I am praying to Noddly One is  the GOP is going to find Trump is just an Incubus that sucks the life out of them,

  111. 111.

    TS (the original)

    @TriassicSands:

    Being enthusiastic about a candidate is great, but the level of enthusiasm for (or against) a candidate should not have a significant impact on turnout.

    If voting was made easy – everyone would vote. My longest queue to vote was 20 minutes and  I got an apology from the local member. Next election they opened another polling place.

    When I see people queuing for 4,5,6,7 hours to vote – it is easy to see why they only vote when enthusiastic about the candidate. People were still queuing to vote after midnight in Florida when Obama was running.  You don’t do that for everyone.

  112. 112.

    Ken

    @CaseyL: Well, sure: he’s not going to give up his 3-per-day doses of wild adulation.

    At some point neither the campaign nor the US government will be picking up the tab, except for the Secret Service coverage.  I suppose the government is on the hook until mid-January, and I’d think the GOP would cut off his access to their funds by then too. I expect he’ll also find it more difficult to get venues, and it’s not like he’s going to invite the riff-raff to Mar-a-Lago.

  113. 113.

    Mousebumples

    @Goku and others – no idea if you’ll see this, but the Selzer poll looks like a bad sample. As discussed elsewhere (last thread, I think?), when you only pull 800 people, it happens.

    https://leantossup.ca/selzers-wrong/

    It’s one thing to get a weird result, but entirely another to do so in a way that makes no sense. Apparently Democrats are losing the battle for the 1st District by 15%, which is not happening, and Trump is winning young voters, which is also not happening. Nor, for the record, is the GOP winning the 2nd District.

     

    Amongst the things that are wrong about this poll is the fact that Selzer doesn’t weight by education, which I either knew and discarded because I trust Selzer or never learned, but either way, it’s bad. I suspect that this is a fairly leading cause of the error – an overly rural sample causes an error. Selzer missed in 2018 by overstating Democrats in the Governor’s race, and it is frequently the case that pollsters over adjust after a miss. The other main thing that causes alarm is that Selzer has basically given up on actual polling by letting 4% of the sample of her poll say they voted without saying who for. What fucking value is there to those people?

    And a Twitter thread from someone else –

    Poll Uncucker (@lib_crusher) tweeted at 6:35 PM on Sat, Oct 31, 2020:

    Lmao “51% of the electorate has voted. Biden leads those votes 55 to 32. No we have no explanation for the other 12% but are treating those likely Biden-leaning votes as if they dont exist.” https://t.co/Ul5vXXK8h9

    (https://twitter.com/lib_crusher/status/1322683734831828992?s=03)

    Some things are funky with the Selzer poll, but given her track record of polling, I’m more inclined to attribute it to a bad sample than bad methods.

    There was a PA poll last week that showed Biden +15. Also probably an outlier. But since it made us feel better we didn’t question it.

    Breathe. Relax. Follow @EScrimshaw and @LeanTossup.

    2 more days. We’re almost there.

  114. 114.

    Geminid

    @sdhays: Carpet bagger Allen West beat incumbent Texas GOP chairman James Dickey easily in the July election, something like 20 Congressional District committees to seven. Dickey is an insurance industry executive. Dickey himself  was not a native Texan, but moved there as a child (as did Democratic Senate candidate M.J. Hegar). West’s firebrand rhetoric is like catnip to the kind of hard-right activists who have shed the “tea party” label and have been assiduously taking over local, county, and congressional district commitees here in Virginia, and, it seems in Texas. I suspect they are in alliance with evangelical dominionist there, as they are in my 5th VA Congressional District.  They call themselves “grassroots” activists, but the real grassroots- the general voting population- does not seem to be buying their brand of bullshit. It’s a small-tent stategy for small minded people.

  115. 115.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Calouste: come sit six feet from me. Seriously I want a Trump to go away I want his entire family to become an answer on a third rate game show.  The younger ones need to go find real jobs or end up in jail.

  117. 117.

    suezboo

    oh god. education under the apartheid regime was called Christian National Education and the flashbacks and echoes are blowing my mind.

  118. 118.

    Woodrow/asim

    @Ken: I’d think the GOP would cut off his access to their funds by then too

    I doubt it, sadly. I think it’ll be months after Inauguration (assuming we’re blessed to win, and win as big/bigger than polling indicates!) before the GOP could even dream of cutting Trump off. They just caved into him too much, too much of their staffing and “grassroots”support is tied into Trump, both his financials and his cult.

    Trump’s the vampire on the GOP body politic, the kind that drains blood while pumping endorphins so the bite “feels good”. You don’t go cold turkey on that shit with an ease.

    That said — I hope Barack is whispering in Joe’s ear “don’t screw up like I did with OFA.” I want Biden and Harris to get out here and do rallies and keep pushing the idea that local races matter, and pouring time and energy and directing money to them.

    They need to be active Party leaders, not passive like Barack was for much of his 1st term — a decision that stood with past examples, yet cost Democrats dearly in terms of momentum.

  119. 119.

    Wag

    @NotMax:

    Of course I find Rs preemptively stacking the judicial deck odious, but then I would find any one faction preemptively stacking the deck to be the same.

    Fine.  How do you feel about the restoration of balance and respect for alternative views?

  120. 120.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Ken: At some point neither the campaign nor the US government will be picking up the tab

    Trump controls the GOP and came make them pay for it. Down ticket Republicans running in 2022 will have to show Trump some love money if they don’t want the MAGA hats to primary them. Like I said he is going to suck the life from the Republicans like a vampire.

  121. 121.

    artem1soo

    @Redshift:

    pollsters with a Republican lean often put out a bunch of polls close to election day

    I imagine there is a lot on ingrained habit around what campaigns typically do the last couple of days. This looks like an attempt to keep their base interested in same day voting in a tight race. I’m expecting to hear the same kind of messaging from Dems about NC, AZ, TX, and maybe OH?  I’ve seen some pretty sketchy numbers from internal polls in emails and texts in the last few days of past elections from both sides. 2012 was pretty hilarious.  RMoney’s campaign had their heads so far up their own asses he didn’t think he could lose and Rove had a very public meltdown on MSNBC over Ohio not going the way they thought it was polling.  Of course it’s harder to pull off ballot ratfucking in a state that hasn’t shown any signs of flipping your way.  So with the GOP I’d assuming they are looking at messing with Iowa vote counts now, as well as WI, PA, and FL. Or in other words, the R leaning pollsters and the state party is worried about IA now.

  122. 122.

    artem1soo

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    I want a Trump to go away I want his entire family to become an answer on a third rate game show

    a year from now, while I’m checking out in a grocery line, I want to see their faces on the front page of some tabloid rag featuring a Palin-style family drunk-brawl, and say to myself, “are those people still alive?”

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    @Goku (Amerikan Baka): 
    Can I recommend that you learn to read your comment for a moment before you post? Just a quick run through. Because often you seem to hit post comment and have to clarify what you’ve written because 5 or 6 people comment back completely at odds with your original statement. Clarify first, post second. Learn to read what you wrote objectively. That doesn’t mean everything you write will be stunning, but that you will at least catch some of the obvious. I always read my comments before I post them, as sometimes my spelling is atrocious, sometimes my logic has gone bye bye, and sometimes it is just shit. We are not alone in this, most people have this to some degree and I don’t always catch my crap either. But at least I try.

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Completely bogus and I think Giuliani was pushing it.

    Rudy? America’s mayor? The dipshit of NY? The raving loon of the northeast? The racist enabler? The loon gone round the bend?

    Say it isn’t so!

  127. 127.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @artem1soo:  Oh think Mittens knew he was going to lose in the back of his mind even if he wasn’t admitting it publicly. That video his friend did of him you could see the “What the heck am I a doing… ? ”  and how quickly Romney accepted it when they told he lost.

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