I was in total agreement with John this afternoon. Here are a couple of folks I follow that seem to understand that FTFNYT was basically clickbait:
Early vote shows improvement relative to both 2018 (last mid-term) and 2020 (presidential) for Democrats. https://t.co/S1G9XL5AkD pic.twitter.com/mJf9xRQ04W
— Prof Michael E. Mann (@MichaelEMann) October 20, 2022
Also, some good news from the effort to get young people engaged:
— Voters of Tomorrow (@VotersTomorrow) October 20, 2022
On June 24th, we said they pissed off the wrong generation.
On November 8th, we're gonna remind them of it.
— Voters of Tomorrow (@VotersTomorrow) October 19, 2022
This kid is amazing:
Like if a 17yo Mexican high school kid can build up political power, anyone can.
They’re just mad they didn’t put in the effort.
— Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer_) October 20, 2022
This is an open thread…
TaMara
Oh, and this:
Calouste
Close, but no cigar. They’re mad they would have had to put in any effort, it should have been handed to them on a silver plate.
tokyokie
In Georgia, where Stacey Abrams came very close to winning the governorship four years ago, first-day early voting was up 75% from 2018. And early voters skew heavily toward Democrats.
Cameron
I agree. That kid is amazing.
MattF
I’ve complained before about polling, the general misunderstanding about ‘random’, what sampling error looks like, etc., and I won’t repeat that. Statistics is a subtle science, though, and it’s always useful to think a bit more. Here is some insight into rare events from Persi Diaconis.
Baud
👍
Thanks, TaMara.
zhena gogolia
Fuck the goddamned NYT with their “Red October.” What tone-deafness at this historical moment. Fuck them.
Quiltingfool
Trae Crowder, folks! https://twitter.com/traecrowder/status/1583145054033498112?s=20&t=bmfQP7GIM6MAo1ChtIn7qA
New Deal democrat
Agreed in full.
The polls have tremendous sampling problems that can result in even the best efforts being way off (e.g., Nate Silver’s 2020 breakdown being off a full 6%), and it hasn’t gotten any better. The NY Times polling 5 voters per State and passing it off as anything other than a dart throw is preposterous.
And this year, *nobody* has the foggiest clue who the “likely voters” are.
Tony Jay
Having the armies of Dark Brandon occupying two of the three branches of US Government is clearly killing the 4th Estate.
Not enough conflict. Not enough drama. Not enough obstructive power held by the wacky guys and gals who guarantee the best (as in easiest) clickbait headlines.
Plus, of course, conventional wisdom tells them that the governing party always loses seats during midterms, that’s just how things normally are. And the GOP are a normal political party, aren’t they? Totally normal. Not at all a Far-Right terrorist organisation determined to end America’s democratic experiment, no sir.
Probably best just to point and laugh and vote the fuckers into oblivion.
SpaceUnit
Polling science can be used for good or ill. There’s nothing intrinsically pure about it. In this case I’m pretty sure they’re using it to produce the results they want to see.
Screw em.
kalakal
This is genius
https://twitter.com/Pandamoanimum/status/1583073197888798720?s=20&t=W9Iy9dbil0AQSuH2NE_ygQ
Dan B
@Quiltingfool: TRae is so cute when he’s on a rant. And, BTW, your new kitty is cute!
NorthLeft
It seems like the FTFNYT is trying to put their thumb on the scale again for Republicans.
Anyone remember something like this six years ago?
zhena gogolia
They put Let’s go Brandon on the cover of the Sunday magazine so draw your own conclusions
Dan B
@kalakal: It’s also a hopeful sign. Something at 10 Downing with life and not beholden to the wealthy!
kalakal
@SpaceUnit: Absolutely.
I’m basically ignoring the polls this year, I think they’re running on historical models that don’t accurately cover the current range of likely voters.
As for the FTFNYT, they can go forth and multiply
trollhattan
Coathanger!
Will never not say that.
Kay
If you’re tired of for-profit news orgs, The 19th is a newer nonprofit that has been doing good work covering the ramifications of banning abortion. “Gender, politics and policy”
Much higher quality work on this issue than either the NYTimes or WaPo.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: I think you are right about the general deficiencies of polls today. I think they still may have some value in measuring trend, in results from the same outfit month over month or week over week. But the actual numbers can only suggest the outcome on Election Day
kalakal
@Dan B: And the highest IQ of all the available contenders
Baud
@Kay:
At some point, there should be a thread so we can compile good alternative media to the mainstream outlets.
trollhattan
Summary of UK’s Very Big Not Good Day.
BoJo’s sending out his sister to handle BoJo questions. Typical.
Does he have a new girlfriend since leaving office?
Cameron
I haven’t read NYT or WaPo since I moved to Florida. I can find all the news I need in papers down here, thanks. ETA: Actually i didn’t read either of them very often when I lived in Philly; the Inquirer took care of any news interest I had.
misterpuff
@zhena gogolia: Fuck the Hunt for Red October.
We are heading to Roevember!
eclare
@Quiltingfool: He is so good!
Suzanne
I am in Philly. Let my office half an hour ago, and the streets are shutting down and there are police everywhere. Getting ready for Dark Brandon in the flesh! I am hiding in my hotel room.
scav
@trollhattan: Exactly. Pharaohs have their sisters. BoJo’s had to move beyond mere kingship.
Quiltingfool
@eclare: I think Trae Crowders’s car talks would make good ads for Democrats. I am fond of Tennessee accents…
eclare
@Quiltingfool: Good idea! Trae definitely has that twang…
CaseyL
My Mom asked, since I no longer have a TV, how I get my news. I realized that I have many, many more information sources now than I did when “TV news” and the daily paper were my major source of info. Some of those sources are, admittedly, the online websites of the same news channels. But I now also have (online) WaPo, the Guardian, BBC World News, and I follow reputable people on YouTube.
Plus the Jackalariat here, referring me to even more sources.
Plus my carefully curated Twitter feed – though I don’t know how much longer that’ll last, now that it looks like Musk really is going to take over and bulldoze the place.
I’m better informed now than ever, and don’t put my BP in danger by paying attention to the swill-for-ad- rates being peddled by the MSM.
kalakal
@Baud: That’s an excellent suggestion
Calouste
@trollhattan: Bojo is on vacation somewhere in the Caribbean, so not available for in person interviews at the moment.
Why is an MP on vacation when Parliament is in session, you ask? You don’t expect him to actually do work, do you? (Which I think is the main reason he won’t try to become PM again, too much work to do now after Truss’s fuckups.)
Suzanne
I have to tell you, it makes me crazy that it is so hard to find out basic deets about these events. Like, when? Where? How much? Arrrrgh.
piratedan
if… and naturally its a big IF, but IF we see a Roevember, I am curious how the media is going to handle it… will they claim that maybe there’s something to all of this rigged votes stuff since all of their models were worthless or will they cop to the fact that maybe in this day and age, that they have the same level of trust earned with liberals and regular Americans as the law enforcement does with minorities…..
Omnes Omnibus
@piratedan: They can say it was economic anxiety. It explains everything as far as they are concerned.
Baud
@piratedan:
They’ll say the GOP would have cleaned up if it weren’t for Trump.
TheTruffle
The one election that gives me the willies is the Arizona governor’s race, where newspaper editor Phil Boas (son-in-law of Joe Arpaio), is salivating at watching Kari Lake at work. I do think Katie Hobbs should debate Lake, but I can see why she isn’t, and she is taking her campaign straight to the people, which is smart.
What does the Times have to gain from these doomcasting articles?
Suzanne
@TheTruffle: I think Kari Lake is going to be Trump’s VP hopeful in 2024.
Alison Rose
@Quiltingfool: “Jack the price of cheese up, I feel like pissing Wisconsin off” sounds 100% like something TFG would’ve said :P
SpaceUnit
Received my Colorado ballot in the mail today. I sent another C-note to both the Warnock and Demmings campaigns, courtesy of the NYT.
Let slip the dogs of war. Red October my ass.
bbleh
Hey, if the MSM are making Dems nervous, then it’s reasonable to hypothesize that MORE will show up and vote (and the early data seem to suggest this may be the case). Complacency is not a good thing; I think it was a significant factor in 2016.
And as to trying to squeeze information out of polls that are within standard error, you might as well save the expense and just read tea leaves
@TheTruffle: @Suzanne: re Kari Lake, if she wins, I can easily see her being a VP possibility. The Republicans are increasingly all about dramatic performance, and she’s a performer.
Omnes Omnibus
@TheTruffle: Casting doom is an end in and of itself.
CarolPW
I just got a text for a poll about the Washington State election for US Senator. I started it figuring I would bail if it was a push poll, but it was unbiased (all questions asked the same way for both candidates, no bias in presentation of issues to be ranked according to concern).
During Obama’s reelection I answered my land line for a number identified as a polling organization. On the third question I identified it as a push poll, yelled at them, and stopped. Haven’t had a number ID showing up as a polling organization since that on the land line or my cell, and this is the first text poll I’ve had.
Ted Cruz has robo-called me twice so far and left messages (I live in a red area) and I wanted to run the phone through the dishwasher.
mrmoshpotato
@tokyokie:
Stacey Abrams was fucked over by Brian Kemp. He was Secretary of State in that election, overseeing an election that he was running in.
She.
Got.
Screwed.
Sorry, still angry at the cheating bastard.
Sure Lurkalot
@Quiltingfool: Followed your link to the pictures of your new kitty and she is a lovely floof. Glad to hear that she’s out and about more and more.
mrmoshpotato
@CarolPW:
Disgusting. Burn your phone. Kill it with fire.
Mousebumples
Good news – confirmed my Dem-voting ballot was received and accepted today! Mailed on Tuesday (took to the post office) – don’t trust DeJoy, so I’ve been tracking it, but didn’t take long at all!
dww44
Herschel had a stop and greet here in my city earlier today and the local tv stations covered. They ran video from it on the 6 pm local news. And as has been usual with these events, this one was held adjacent to an entrance to the local golf course subdivision. Not many folks of color in that neighborhood. And as has been true with his events there are no people of color around him.
However, what happened this afternoon was a young white guy jumped on Herschel’s “stage” , they seemed to exchange pleasantries, but then the guy unfurls a roll of u in condoms and urges Herschel to use them. This was seen on tv by spouse, who laughed out loud.
TheTruffle
@Omnes Omnibus: Not sure how I feel about Hobbs’ refusal to debate Lake.
C Stars
@Suzanne: When we lived in SF Obama was president and he used to visit often (a lot of $$$ to be found I suppose). We lived a block from the hotel he stayed in and it would stop up street traffic for hours. There were some days when we weren’t allowed car access to the little alley our condo was on. We’d have to just have to park a few blocks away (which took an hour to get to) and then walk back. Sometimes we knew when he was coming and sometimes it was a surprise. The upside is that we once saw him in person (in his car), completely unexpectedly. We were out for a bite and suddenly everyone around us started cheering. His motorcade had rolled through right at Market and Taylor, middle of the Tenderloin, and he chose that moment to roll down the window and wave. We saw him very clearly. No one rushed his car, we all just stood there and cheered.
Splitting Image
@piratedan:
If the Democrats overperform the polls, the major news outlets will conclude that they are still too biased towards liberals and “woke culture”, and that the Republicans were therefore unable to get their populist message across to the average voter. They will then conclude they must be more inclusive of conservative voices in the future.
(On the other hand, if the Republicans overperform the polls, the major news outlets will conclude that the Republican message resonates more with the average voter than previously thought, and they must therefore be more inclusive of conservative voices in the future.)
CarolPW
@mrmoshpotato:
Taken care of, bought a new handset and threw old one in the trash (the buttons weren’t working right any more).
Thank heaven he does not know my cell number. Land-line handsets are a lot cheaper than cell phones.
On Act Blue, I use my land line number so I don’t get a wall of texts from recipients. And if their minions are calling my land line it is not identified as a campaign number so I don’t answer.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Woah! Trailer for the new season of “The Crown” was just released – (Video)
cheeky timing.
TheTruffle
One reason to ignore the polls: their track records.
Case in point: NY-19 had a special election in August to replace Antonio Delgado, who is now Lt. Governor. A poll reported four days before the election showed Democrat Pat Ryan 3 points behind Republican Marc Molinaro. The district seemed likely to flip. And then . . . Ryan won. Molinaro didn’t even carry his home county.
Not sure why polls have become news stories instead of just polls.
eclare
@Alison Rose: HA! So true.
brendancalling
Knocking on doors Saturday and Sunday, again. Reminding people to vote at my weekly gig.
Not reading doomsday polls. Prepared for the worst (as always, one has to these days) but not subjecting myself to a bunch of necromancers—many with an agenda—poring over entrails and making prognostications. I have more immediate worries.
mrmoshpotato
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Is it juicy as previously described?
eclare
@dww44: I saw that on Twitter! I can’t believe security let that guy stay on stage for so long.
brendancalling
@Suzanne: I just moved back to the Greene Countrye Towne. Highways were a mess today, in part because of Dark Brandon.
Tazj
This is good advice that I need to take myself. I became overwrought the other day over the hyping of a particular poll in the media. It was just one poll and there were a number of positive polls for Democrats but of course those ones weren’t talked about.
I really need to ignore the polls and The NY Times.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
Arsenal W.F.C. trounces Lyon 5-1 in Champions League tourney.
(photo)
Staggerin!
Maybe Charles is turning the country around.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch
@mrmoshpotato:
It centers on the turmoil of 90s including Diana’s death.
Subsole
@TheTruffle:
Because the 4th estate has spent so long peddling ‘optics’ that they literally do not know how to do anything else.
Think on it: all they ever do is sit around talking about “how things look to the people on the street”. No context. No analysis. No curiosity or nuance or even questioning of assumptions, really. Just appearance. Just “how it looks to the people on the street”.
Why? Seriously: for what purpose?
Folks, we ARE the people on the street. We don’t need them to tell us how things look to us. But that’s all they do.
It’s all just vibes and feels and style over substance. I think the likely cause is that these people are, at heart, too shallow to do their ostensible jobs.
cain
@Baud: The party of personal responsibility is blaming others eh?
MagdaInBlack
@Quiltingfool: If you have not done so already, do check out his youtube channel and watch his ” Evening Skews.”
Frankensteinbeck
@piratedan:
Okay, trying to answer seriously and without hyperbole: The news will not be monolithic, but I think the most dominant theme will be that Democrats barely survived, no matter what proportion of races they win. Every Savvy Pundit and official news channel will rush to give their own individual hot take within that ‘barely survived’ format. Only the most liberal sources will give any weight to Dobbs. Most sources will mention abortion as an issue, then move on with no further discussion.
thruppence
I’ve already voted and I have donated more than I can afford. I’ll try to do some GOTV stuff next week, but man, I’m beat.
ColoradoGuy
The NYT is famous for their thumb on the scales, always in the R’s favor. Endless hyping of the non-existent Whitewater scandal in the Nineties. Completely fictitious stories about the supposed “WMD’s” in Iraq in the Oughts. Legitimizing the far-right conspiracy-theory book “Clinton Cash” in 2016.
Investigation of a certain New York property mogul who’d been playing footsie with the Russian Mob for decades? Zero. Nada. Bupkis.
Elizabelle
@thruppence: Good for you. Rest up, and keep being effective!
Brachiator
@ColoradoGuy:
This is pretty much true of all the New York newspapers. I think that Maggie Haberman used to cover Trump for the NY Post.
bbleh
@TheTruffle: the costs to Hobbs of not debating are obvious and have been for some time, which strongly suggests to me that the Hobbs campaign thought that the costs — or properly, the net costs — to Hobbs of going through with a debate would have been higher.
Lake is a polished performer. She would have insulted, lied, Gish-galloped, and done it all with a mocking smile and not a single stumble over words, and this too is obvious. My guess would be the Hobbs campaign tried a few test runs with a stand-in for Lake, and that Hobbs, for all her smarts and competence, just couldn’t deal effectively with it from a performance point of view.
I don’t like it either, neither as a tactic nor as a sign of the times, but there we are.
TheTruffle
Another example of polls failing to predict accurately:
During the summer, Kansas voters rejected (59% to 41%) an amendment to the state constitution. This amendment would clarify that the state constitution does not protect the right to an abortion.
What did polling say before the election? Five Thirty Eight (who else?) declared that it was “tight.”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-abortion-vote-in-kansas-looks-like-its-going-to-be-close/
The final results were anything but tight.
UncleEbeneezer
If you like Santiago Mayer, also add Victor Shi to your list of young people to follow.
SpaceUnit
@bbleh:
Yeah, meaningful debate requires a certain amount of good faith from both participants. Republican politicians currently have none.
For them it’s just a performative mauling of the truth.
Madeleine
@Baud: YES!! I’ve bookmarked The 19th—thanks Kay—and I’m looking for more!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Twitter. Follow beat reporters and politicians/players themselves. Get the news directly at the source without the punditeriat filter. I keep on top of news from India too by this method.
Scott McFarlane has done a great job following the Jan 6 trials, for example.
bbleh
@SpaceUnit: yes, and an audience interested in substance — of character as well as policy — and not merely performance. But alas, you are not here.
UncleEbeneezer
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch: Damn, they are so good with their use of music! Looks great!
For a VERY different vibe, we also really enjoyed the movie Spencer which basically treated Diana’s royal years as a horror movie.
WaterGirl
@TheTruffle: “Tight” and “toss-up” are the safest options for them.
“I wasn’t wrong – I predicted that It could have gone either way!”
The Lodger
Liz Truss resigned as PM after 45 days in office
Thereby redeeming the number 45.
sab
@Kay: Thank you! Just what I had been looking for.
rikyrah
@TaMara:
They didn’t have standing, and even she couldn’t find it for them
rikyrah
@Quiltingfool: 😂😂😂😂
Truth
rikyrah
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:
Yesss👏🏾
TheTruffle
@bbleh: It almost looks as if Hobbs was damned if she did and damned if she didn’t. She has said she prefers to take the campaign to the people. It is a tough strategy. Hope it works.