VP debates are normally pointless, and the fact the discussion about this one is seeming to focus on the fly and Pence’s Zombie eye suggests that was the case last night. But fuck me, Pence just lives in an alternative universe. He is head of the Covid task force and the administration he was representing refuses to even contact trace for a significant outbreak within their own workplace, and he was running on his record on combatting the outbreak…while standing behind 2 layers of plexiglass in a debate that nearly didnt go ahead because of safety concerns. He then fell back to the tried and tested republican strategy of “you need to support the troops” by suggesting Kamala’s criticism of their record was a rebuke to the American people. The point at which he accused her of playing politics with people’s lives had me wanting to throw my tv out of the window though.
But I think if anything sums up the utterly bizarre worldview of the current GOP it was his comeback about Swine Flu. That was a potentially deadly variant that in the end turned out to be no worse than a regular flu season. But Fox and the right have decided that it was a failure of the Obama administration in ways that utterly impossible to piece together unless you live in the fox bubble. It seems the argument is that Obama is shit. He therefore must have fucked up the Swine flu response. The fact that a normal number of people died from it is then evidence that they fucked up and only got saved because it turned out not to be bad. And this was his response to criticisms about their covid response.
In relation to the Presidential debate, this was a civil and normal affair. I suppose rule number one is do no harm, and Harris followed that. I doubt anyone will be swayed either way by last night.
Pence is more polished than Trump - hard not to be, but tried to defend his master too much, which strained credulity.
Harris is much younger than Biden, and is on top of facts and arguments more readily than her boss, and looked every inch capable of stepping into the hot seat if need be.
Both bases would have seen enough to be heartened, but the overall race is slipping away from the Republicans, hence them setting the stage for an election heist on the back of spurious claims about postal voting.
I think one of the issues is this “politics as normal” sort of performance is precisely why Trump had an avenue. This was the sort of pernicious refuse to answer the question and then lie sort of performance that makes so many voters became disengaged with the process.
On his health, Mr Trump said: “I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen.”
He’s a specimen alright…
I personally like The Meth Queen Monologues.
As has been said repeatedly, that this was a scam is by far the least likely explanation given their attitude to the public health guidance. However, the fact so many people immediately turned to this as an explanation, and it cannot be reasonably laughed off is an incredibly stark indictment of the President.
No cure for arseholery in sight.
It would be good to see how this all translates to the electoral college vote, as that’s where the race will be won and lost. All the data from polls seems to talk about the popular vote, and last time Hillary got 3M more such votes, but still lost the electoral college.
That is really the point of Silver’s emphasizing the state level polls.
That is what the 538 model is projecting.
The really interesting thing about it is you get a lot of focus on places like texas that are supposedly in the process of turning blue, and so narratives pop up among the non-data people asking if Texas can be the swing state that can allow Trump to keep the rust belt and lose. What Nate’s models keep suggesting though is that these changes are not independent, and while there is a mathematical path for Biden to turn red states and win despite losing key rust belt states, the chances of that combination of things happening in reality is vanishingly small. It can be hard to get your head around, but essentially these purplish states will determine whether biden gets 300+ electoral college votes, not 270.
I get that… it would be good to have a rolling total of electoral college votes, so at a moment’s notice it would be possible to see what the actual race looks like.
So if Trump is winning in polls in Indiana, where I live, that’s 11 electoral college votes for him, 0 for Biden… even if there will be many Biden voters in Indiana. Trump might be 10% ahead of Biden in this state (I don’t know what it is) but Biden’s 45% of the vote here counts for a big fat 0 electoral college votes… so the polls need to talk the same language, otherwise it is an apples to oranges situation.
We should be able to have a running electoral college vote for the entire nation, so the cumulative affect of all the States is instantaneously gauged.
If the race is won and lost on electoral college votes, that’s what the polls should also reflect, rather than having many polls saying Biden is 8% ahead in the popular vote, or whatever. Translate that to electoral college votes, state by state, so we are comparing apples to apples.
That is exactly what 538 does, but because it is a probabilistic model, there is no single count. Indiana is easy, that is 11 votes for Trump. But as soon as you get to states like Wisconsin or Michigan, either you put them firmly in Biden’s column, which overstates his chances, or you drop them out, in which case there is no predicted winner yet.
The 538 assigns probabilities across a range based on state-level polls, and then essentially looks at the permutations (I believe a Monte Carlo style mode) and assigns Trump-Biden win probabilities based on that universe of possible outcomes. Biden is winning far more of those permutations, with a weighted average 8% lead.
Note that it cannot be just state level, because some states assign their votes by electoral district, albeit not large ones (ME and NE as I recall)
Thanks for the info, much appreciated. I just checked out the 538 site and looked around at the election stuff. It’s pretty clear Biden is way more likely to win the election, currently 85% something like that. I just tire of the way the news channels continually report the race, as the actual race is measured in electoral college votes, not popular vote, and the vast majority of polls are linked to popular vote… 538 site notwithstanding.
