This cat won Halloween. https://t.co/0pzzwr36Ni
— Trudy (@thetrudz) October 31, 2016
They'll never find me here… pic.twitter.com/SOcJn9Ku3l
— Dick King-Smith HQ (@DickKingSmith) October 29, 2016
The day I write that the race is so emotional that no minds will change, everyone writes me in hysterics. Awesome. https://t.co/bfcfw94fmm
— Sam Wang (@SamWangPhD) October 30, 2016
… This is actually a good thing. This is an opportunity to apply lessons from this season to predict what happens next.
First, the starting points:
– For twenty years, polarization has made voters increasingly emotional and less likely to change their views. Donald Trump represents the culmination of this trend.
– On time scales of a week, journalists get bored with a storyline, and look for ways that the trend is being violated. Until Friday, the developing story was “Clinton is coasting to victory.”
– Whichever major party you support, your optimal strategy as a citizen is to focus on knife-edge cases, i.e. cases where the outcome is in doubt.From these, I suggest the following consequences:
The national race will not change meaningfully. This is not a story that changes anyone’s mind. Maybe the margin (national or Meta) between the two candidates will move by 1 percentage point when aggregated…2 points max. It doesn’t change the high likelihood of a Clinton win.
Journalists and pundits will continue to feed hysterics by fussing over the Comey story. They may even attempt to use polling evidence to justify their coverage. However, note that national polls had already tightened by 1-2 percentage points, even before Comeygate.
Keep your eye on the ball, which is downticket….
Oh, I’ll go out on a limb on one last item: there is time for one more weird twist in the campaign. Considering the life cycle of journalists’ hidden thought processes, I’ll say it is Donald Trump’s turn for the next adverse story.
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Apart from waiting for that ‘one more weird twist’, what’s on the agenda as we start the last week before the election?
Monday Morning Open Thread: Happy HalloweenPost + Comments (253)