The Trump Card...

skyraider

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we have a winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 

Turtle

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Wanna hear the really, REALLY big funny about this ACB confirmation hearing?

Dems are losing their minds saying that ACB will strike down Obamacare. The case (California v Texas) that comes before the Court one week after the election could do that, because it deals with severability. Meaning, if one part of the law gets struck down (individual mandate) does that mean the rest of the law also gets struck down as unconstitutional?

Yeah, it does mean that. And the Dems don't want her on the Court to cast a 5-4 vote to strike down Obamacare.

If she's not confirmed, you could have a 4-4 ruling. If that happens, the lower court ruling stands.

The lower court ruling? Non-severability, which means since the individual mandate was struck down, the rest of the law must be struck down. Bye, bye Obamacare.

So if she's on the court, there's at least a small chance she could vote to keep Obamacare. If she's not on the court, there is ZERO chance of saving Obamacare.

So that's pretty funny.
 
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ATeam

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... Below is a snapshot of the polls as they stand to date. It is from FiveThirtyEight, an entity that reports data from numerous polls. I share this not to argue about the accuracy or inaccuracy of today's polling, but to document what the polls say ... before the election. After the election, we can go back and see how valid or invalid the polls proved to be.

Update:

4 Weeks Out: Biden + 9.0
3 Weeks Out: Biden +10.4
2 Weeks Out:
1 Week Out:
1 Day Out:
 

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coalminer

Veteran Expediter
Retired Expediter
Wanna hear the really, REALLY big funny about this ACB confirmation hearing?

Dems are losing their minds saying that ACB will strike down Obamacare. The case (California v Texas) that comes before the Court one week after the election could do that, because it deals with severability. Meaning, if one part of the law gets struck down (individual mandate) does that mean the rest of the law also gets struck down as unconstitutional?

Yeah, it does mean that. And the Dems don't want her on the Court to cast a 5-4 vote to strike down Obamacare.

If she's not confirmed, you could have a 4-4 ruling. If that happens, the lower court ruling stands.

The lower court ruling? Non-severability, which means since the individual mandate was struck down, the rest of the law must be struck down. Bye, bye Obamacare.

So if she's on the court, there's at least a small chance she could vote to keep Obamacare. If she's not on the court, there is ZERO chance of saving Obamacare.

So that's pretty funny.


I for one say get rid of the ACA, I am tired off my tax money going straight into the pockets of the greedy insurance companies CEOs.
 
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ATeam

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Remember operation chaos? How many of those Trump supporters who get called are going to say they are voting for Biden?
I have not heard of Operation Chaos until you mentioned it. A Google search shows Operation Chaos was an effort to get Republicans to vote for Bernie Sanders in the open Democratic Primary in S.C. While the idea got a bit of press and was promoted by Trump and Limbaugh, Republicans did not respond. Operation Chaos was a bust.

Regarding your question, "How many of those Trump supporters who get called are going to say they are voting for Biden?" I don't know.

About that, I have a question of my own. If a pollster calls a Republican voter, in what way is it beneficial for that Republican to say he or she is voting for Biden, if in fact that voter plans to vote for Trump. Ignoring the ethical and Biblical prohibitions about lying, and presuming -- for the purpose of discussion -- that lying has become OK, what purpose does lying to a pollster serve?
 
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Turtle

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Ignoring the ethical and Biblical prohibitions about lying, and presuming -- for the purpose of discussion -- that lying has become OK, what purpose does lying to a pollster serve?
Several things. One, it's hilarious. Especially when Democrats lose their mind when they thought they were going to win and end up losing.

Two, lack of trust in phone polls as truly being anonymous. People don't want their phone numbers associated with the recorded responses. They don't want their responses to become public.

The biggest one, though, is if their information does become public, it's not safe to be a public Trump supporter. There's a fear of reprisal and related detrimental impact to their financial, social and family lives should their political opinions become publicly known. And there's that whole getting shot in the face thing.
 
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muttly

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I heard a pollster once say that there is the shy Trump supporter. It occurs more when the pollster is a live person talking to them instead of a recording. Roughly about 3 points or so, he said.
I live in southern Macomb County Mi. ( just north of Detroit)Previous elections, the county voted for Obama twice and Trump last time. It has a majority Democrats in the county v Republicans. The only evidence I have of the enthusiasm for the candidates are the yard signs I'm seeing while working in the area. I am seeing some Biden signs. Not a whole lot, but there are a few within the mile area that I work. I'm also seeing a decent amount of Trump signs. More than Biden. About 5 to 1 ratio. But It fluctuates upward with more Trump signs. Just today from a couple days this weekend there were 6 new Trump signs and one new Biden yard sign. Keep in mind, this is a Democrat area. So Trump appears primed for a good showing again here in Macomb County.
 
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Turtle

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The betting sites tend to be a lot more accurate than the published polls. They mostly show Trump tied or leading, depending on the criteria.

They won't ever be published, but a candidate's internal polling is going to be accurate. Internal polling is designed solely to be accurate, because major decisions are made based on internal polling data. If you're a pollster and your data is inaccurate, you'll never be a pollster for a candidate ever again.

Sometimes a campaign spokesperson will say, yeah, but our internal polling shows this or that, and you can get an idea of how accurate the published polls are. A campaign will move money around, from one state to another, and it might seem contradictory to the polling, but that's because their internal polling shows something different.

Biden didn't come out of the basement and start making public appearances because the public polls said he was winning handily. It was because his internal polling said he wasn't.

So watch where the money and the candidates are going.
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Several things. One, it's hilarious. Especially when Democrats lose their mind when they thought they were going to win and end up losing.

OK. I think I understand your point. Some people lie to the pollsters because they want to make the Democrats feel bad. But I remain confused about how the lying itself actually has that effect. How exactly does lying to a pollster produce this result?

A pollster calls a voter. The Trump voter lies and says he/she will vote for Biden. On Election Day, the voter votes for Trump. That's the behavior.

The pollster reports the pro-Biden result. If enough people do that, the poll will be falsely skewed to show Biden has a lead he does not really have. For example, the poll says Biden has a 10 point lead when in fact he has only a 5 point lead. Or in a more extreme hypothetical case, the poll reports Biden has a 7 point lead when in fact Trump has the 7 point lead. In these cases, false poll numbers are reported, but the number are reported. Breaking News: Poll shows Biden leads Trump by 10 points (or 7, depending on the example).

The immediate effect of lying to the pollster is you help produce the "Biden leads" headline. That's great news for the Biden camp as it helps them raise more funds and attract more support among undecided voters (some voters are influenced by their desire to pick the winner). The positive Biden polling headline clearly helps Biden.

The motivation to lie to make the Democrats feel bad, and then take joy in their pain, requires the liars to believe enough of them are doing this to render the poll false on Election Day. But in fact, they are producing a more immediate result of Biden support, are they not? The pole is wrong but the enthusiasm the report produces is real.

Also, on what basis do the liars believe there are more of them than truth tellers answering the pollsters? What data do they have? It seems to me the answer is none, and they are operating on pure emotion as you described above.


Two, lack of trust in phone polls as truly being anonymous. People don't want their phone numbers associated with the recorded responses. They don't want their responses to become public.

I'm with you there. I don't answer polls for that very reason. But I don't lie. I simply politely tell the caller I decline to participate.

The biggest one, though, is if their information does become public, it's not safe to be a public Trump supporter. There's a fear of reprisal and related detrimental impact to their financial, social and family lives should their political opinions become publicly known. And there's that whole getting shot in the face thing.

Maybe. But I see a whole lot of fearless Trump supporters in my neighborhood and county. Flags, signs and street corner rallies are common.

Finally, I invite readers to think deeply about this. If you tell an intentional lie for the conscious purpose of making a fellow citizen feel bad, what's going on in your heart and mind to make that happen?

Lying is wrong. Getting up in the morning thinking the thing to do is hurt someone else is unhealthy for you. It injects stress hormones into your bloodstream. It crowds other thoughts out of your mind that would be more likely to boost a sense of well beinand happiness. If you take joy in someone else's displeasure, it hurts you more than them.

There was a day when Diane and I caught ourselves doing that very thing. There was a negative headline about the personal failing of a political foe that we celebrated when we read it. When we caught ourselves doing that, we made the decision then and there to get out of politics. Politics will rot your soul if you stay in it too long, I said.

That was the day we decided to get out. At the time, Diane worked in the governors office three doors down from the governor. I had 10 years of intense political activism under my belt. A few months later, we were expediters hauling our very first load.
 
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Turtle

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Politics will rot your soul if you stay in it too long, I said.
Just like golf.

These fellow citizens that you're so concerned about have physically attacked children and seniors for wearing a MAGA hat. These are the same citizens who Tweeted utter joy when Trump contracted the virus, and wished for his death, and got genuinely mad when he didn't die. If lying to pollsters causes democrats to waste massive amounts of money on campaign contributions, so he it. If lying to pollsters causes overconfidence to the point where they don't bother to go vote because Biden has this in the bag, just like Clinton did, so be it. Any chance of civility in politics went out the window with the Russia Collusion Hoax coup attempt, and the Fine People Hoax. Lying to pollsters, by comparison, is a meager pushback to "by any means necessary."
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Here are poll results from 4 years ago:
View attachment 20270
This is good. It shows the poll results about 3 weeks out from Election Day, 2016 (Nov 8). The closer a poll is taken to Election Day, the more accurate it can be presumed to be as something that projects the outcome. The 2016 data posted above showed Clinton leading in most polls by zero to 14%. Above, I'm citing an all-polls average cited by FiveThirtyEight. Do you have 2016 polling data from two weeks, one week and one day out?

As I look at the data you shared the polls accurately forecast the result but the numbers were of a bit. On Election Day, and after all the votes were counted, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points. The polls you cited do not forecast the Electoral College, which made Trump the winner. They forecast the national popular vote.

Because Clinton won the popular vote and Trump won the Electoral College vote, pundits and pollsters are paying much closer attention to the Electoral College this time around. My intent is to talk about the accuracy of the polls, not about the winner of the Electoral College. That said, it would be a relatively easy matter to dive deeper into the polling data state by state. I have not done this but my guess would be that such a dive would have accurately forecast Trump's Electoral College win.

Clinton supporters were not mindful of the Electoral College in 2016. They were content to take comfort in the national polling data that you cited above. Biden supporters are VERY aware of the Electoral College now
 
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ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Any chance of civility in politics went out the window with the Russia Collusion Hoax coup attempt, and the Fine People Hoax.

Perhaps for you, Turtle. I remain hopeful that civility will improve. I do not believe people like being at each other's throats. I like to believe that people get tired of fighting and eventually move on to better days. There are numerous Democrats who are bitter about the grievances they believe they have suffered from the other side. They have their list, just as you have yours. But as I said, I remain hopeful for a better day because people don't fight forever. They get tired of it. Or one side gets soundly defeated. Either way, they give up the fight. There will always be the embittered few who will carry their resentments and grievances to their dying day. But as a country, better days are ahead because people would rather get along than fight.
 
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muttly

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This is good. It shows the poll results about 3 weeks out from Election Day, 2016 (Nov 8). The closer a poll is taken to Election Day, the more accurate it can be presumed to be as something that projects the outcome. The 2016 data posted above showed Clinton leading in most polls by zero to 14%. Above, I'm citing an all-polls average cited by FiveThirtyEight. Do you have 2016 polling data from two weeks, one week and one day out?

As I look at the data you shared the polls accurately forecast the result but the numbers were of a bit. On Election Day, and after all the votes were counted, Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points. The polls you cited do not forecast the Electoral College, which made Trump the winner. They forecast the national popular vote.

Because Clinton won the popular vote and Trump won the Electoral College vote, pundits and pollsters are paying much closer attention to the Electoral College this time around. My intent is to talk about the accuracy of the polls, not about the winner of the Electoral College. That said, it would be a relatively easy matter to dive deeper into the polling data state by state. I have not done this but my guess would be that such a dive would have accurately forecast Trump's Electoral College win.

Clinton supporters were not mindful of the Electoral College in 2016. They were content to take comfort in the national polling data that you cited above. Biden supporters are VERY aware of the Electoral College now
Just from memory I believe the battleground state polls showed Clinton winning by at least a few points. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Michigan, where I live, had polls from Detroit News/WDIV that showed Clinton winning comfortably. Current polls from them again show Biden with a decent lead. I've kept this screenshot on my phone for a few years now. I think it is funny because it had two political analysts tweeting to each other about Trump's chances of winning Michigan. And basically gave him no chance. Yet he won the state and the polls did not capture the entire amount of Trump voters.
IMG_20190208_214552.jpg
 

muttly

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Retired Expediter
Regarding Michigan, a few more things. Four years ago I notice quite a few Trump signs and almost no Clinton yard signs in Macomb County. This time around, a bit more Biden signs than Clinton. A bit more Trump signs at least than last time. Maybe a lot more. I asked my sister who lives a few miles farther north in Macomb County and travels around the county for her job. She said mostly Trumps signs, even in remote areas.
Four years ago all I had to go on was the Trump yard sign enthusiasm. I noticed it back then, but wasn't sure Trump could still win the state. Had doubts. He was outspent in advertising on tv and had some brutal ads against him similar to this time. Not too many pro Trump ads either this time.
Imo, should be a very tight race regardless of what the current polls show. And another razor thin decision, but could go either way.
 

ATeam

Senior Member
Retired Expediter
Here are the final polls running up to election day.

Thank you. I see at the top of the chart, the final summary of the polls shows Clinton up by 2.1%, which is EXACTLY the margin she won the popular vote by. As I said above, the national polls do not account for the Electoral College. They measure the popular vote. By this measure, the 2016 final-week polls, taken as a whole, were spot-on accurate.
 
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