Quarantine is just a fancy word for hiding. What a bunch of wussies.

They can play bridge with Biden while hiding in the basement.

But do they have their purses with them?

Which of these do you believe? I'm not going to further debate which one I think is correct at this point, but polls either mean something or they don't. Which proposition do you believe?

Biden is acting smart because he is weak. Trump is strong, so that's why he's acting stupid. Anyone who's grown up around Southern Men fully understands the Stupid=Strong and Smart=Weak dynamic that the White House likes to project. You either survived it or thrived within it.

According to the polling, it looks like when people see it in action, they realize how silly the whole thing is.

A lot of Trump/MAGA puts its tail between its legs and slinks away when exposed to the light. One of the good things Trump has inadvertently done is say all the quiet parts out loud. That 40% was always there. But a lot more of the 60% now get that these clowns really don't need all the disproportionate power we've been giving them for the last 100 years.

So no economic aid until Trump is re-elected now.

That should go over well.

Still think he'll win.

If this country does win by voting him out, he'll scorch Earth until election day.

Either way...I hate most Republicans for letting this happen.

"I told McConnell no deal" means "The GOP members of Congress didn't want a deal, and I'm so gullible and stupid that McConnell talked to me for five minutes and convinced me that tanking my own re-election was my idea."

Markets down only 1%.

They knew no deal was coming.

Trump is going to get his bitchy little ass whupped.

So now Pence is going back on the deal for a plexiglass divider. I think they are going full in on the "we're strong, they're scared" argument. You know Trump directed Pence to do this.

300 point drop as of now.

I'd tell him to fuck off. They need the debates more than Biden does.

Its almost like POTUS is daring voters to vote against him...

The scorched Earth tantrum begins...

Ah, I missed the part where he framed it as "just re-elect me, then you'll get your money."

A con-man until the end. He has one trick, and he'll keep using it.

This time, he's sure to keep his word.

Those grapes were really sour, you know . . .

We all knew the kid like this in high school. He wasn't smart enough to pass the test, so he made a big show of going out and getting drunk the night before. So when he failed, it was just because he was so awesome.

I guess Trump is what happens when that kid's dad happens to be a millionaire.

Well, they have limited options for reversing what appears to be a foregone conclusion, but I think they are trying to tap into that segment of the population that is tired of all the restrictions and looking for any reason to finally push back and say enough is enough, I don't know anyone who has gotten sick or died, fuck the new normal I want the old normal and I want it now. And if Biden is elected, we're likely going into national lockdown and there's no way I will go along with that.

I know I'm not the target of the comment, but I don't quite fully believe any of it after being so off in 2016, I don't really have confidence that we've got polling "correct" again yet in this dystopian MAGA world, but the huge gap that seems to be growing is hard not to get excited about.

Even if that's true though, every single day in October could feel like years as far as ridiculous news/bombshells real or fake, and they won't all be the kind that hurt Trump. Feels like there's a lifetime to go until the election.

I fully endorse as many of them dying as soon as possible; I know they feel the same about me.

How many people in that population segment haven't already bought into the propaganda that Biden winning means all our cities burn down, full socialism is instituted immediately, your guns get taken away, and a likely Civil War? aka, people already voting out of fear.


Like, isn't that just his base already?

Polls don't mean much if you don't let people vote. But he's so far down now that it's near impossible to suppress that many votes. Their shenanigans will save a couple Senate seats I'm sure but you aren't making up 10 points in Michigan.

I don't know how much of it overlaps with how people voted in 2016 and whether it will help them gain more votes now, but they don't have many options. I see people on my FB feed who might already be Trump supporters, but they are buying into the passive-aggressive "facts not fear" BS. I've had 2 or 3 people ask me if I know anyone who has tested positive. There's a pretty skeptical group of relatively intelligent people who are just done with this and looking for any excuse to go back to their old lives. Some of it is being pushed by personal choice narratives, or the arbitrariness of the lockdowns (this comes up quite often from the religious folks who are keenly aware of how churches are being treated versus other large gatherings). It's a hodge podge of different types of people.

Let's say he loses and concedes (he won't), the months leading up to the transition of power, he and his cohorts will dismantle, damage, and distort any sort of reconciliation (more so if they lose the Senate as well).

I can see massive pardons and massive rioting.

I can see him unleash the Proud Boys and order no legal or law force restrictions on them.

I can see him cut as much aid he can to any "offending" state or city; god help us if there are more disasters looming.

He won't care if businesses falter due to COVID, even mom and pops. It'll be to unleash full anger and blame on Democrats.

The remaining Republicans will obstruct (Turtle ain't going anywhere) and they pass more judges and get that nitwit on the Supreme court.

There will be mass violence and upheaval and the stock market will plunge just as Biden takes charge.

It'll be four years of damage and Fox news blaming Democrats as they try to provide recovery (much like the Bush years).

Trump will Twitter all the way and gloat.

I'm really surprised to read you saying this. It's been discussed to death around here, but almost all of the polls were correct in '16. A few of the state ones were off, mostly in states that don't get polled much to begin with (i.e., sample size), the national results were extremely close to what was predicted, etc.

Basically, I dream of some day being only as wrong as the polls were last cycle, because there's almost certainly nothing I ever have done, am doing, or will do that it is accurate as what they did there.

My daughter left college to school remotely; all her roommates have tested positive.

JFC, Trump tested positive and was hospitalized...they fucking dumb.

This may well be my ignorance then, I've never followed polls as more than a casual interest and probably didn't read enough about "what happened in 2016", so maybe I'm just spouting off the rhetoric that isn't actually true.

My memory is that 538 had Clinton as about a 66% favorite on election day, which is based on their analysis of polling, which may feed my ignorance? Hmmm, interesting.

He's such a fucking bitch.

He does realize that this is like a call to arms for any middle/lower class people on-the-fence democrats to make damned sure to show up to vote, no matter what ? Nothing they can do about anything if all 3 are democrat controlled.

538 was like bear-ish on HRC as the favorite. Other places had her at like 99.5% to win, i think NYT was one of them.

I think the poll misconception has a lot to do with people not understanding percentages well (ie assuming a 75% chance is a sure thing) and not understanding that you need to apply the margin of error to BOTH candidates' numbers. Example: a Biden 8 point lead with a 3.5 point margin of error indicates that anything between a 1 point Biden win and a 15 point Biden win is in the expected range.

Complicating things, these numbers are usually reported with a 95% confidence interval. Which means 1 out of 20 times the result should fall outside even THAT broad range of potential outcomes.

Edit: bad math, of course.

Is this like Quint destroying the radio in Jaws? You have no choice but to ride with me or die?

They also adjusted their formula to compensate for mistakes made in 2016 and Biden is up way more than Hillary was in it. 538 has Biden at 83% and I believe Hillary was only like 66%.

Yeah it's been mentioned on here many times, but polls adjusted after 2016 and some at 538 have mentioned they may have gone a touch overboard to overcorrect polling that wasn't far off from what we had seen the previous 20 years. Polling favored GOP by a couple of points for the 2018 midterms, for example.

If the election was held today 538 would have trump somewhere in the neighborhood of a 6-7% chance to win.

538 had her at 71% on election day:
Final Election Update: There’s A Wide Range Of Outcomes, And Most Of Them Come Up Clinton | FiveThirtyEight

I also could have sworn Silver laid out 3 factors as he did there and then did a thing about where if 1 or 2 went against her, she'd be ok but if all 3 did, then she's in trouble. But it's not in that story and I can't find it now - maybe it was a Tweet.

SI

So 538 had Hillary with an 88% chance to win in mid-October but that dropped to around 71% by election. It did drop all the way down to 64% a couple days prior but then started shifting back up for HRC.

The thing people fail to mention is both HRC and Trump were upside down in polls regarding likeability, and those people who didn't like either overwhelmingly broke for Trump. This time Biden is considerable higher than Trump, and has a positive likeability leaving a lot less undecideds.

He had a post about how they adjusted the formula. Seems like it gave more uncertainty the more undecideds were out there and skew more toward a tighter race as election comes up.

Biden is up to 67 cents now on PredictIt.

You know, two things happened--the debate and him getting COVID--that let the American people see him.

Not him-through-the-filter-of-the-bothsides-media. But the raw footage of him being him.

That might be the October surprise. When you see Trump as he is and not as the please-don't-take-away-our-White-House-access New York Times packages him, you get buyer's remorse.

Trump defeats COVID commemorative coins go on sale at gift shop

What the actual fuck?

Biden had a good speech at Gettysburg. Close with that unity message. I wonder if he could win 60-40. It seems to be trending that way.

I wonder how much will come out 25 years from now just how on the brink we were as a nation during the hopefully last months of this presidency. Other superpowers have to at least be discussing going for our jugular. This has to be the most vulnerable we have been as a nation in modern history.

Right moves but unfortunately, 3.5 years too late.

I think India is the key here. I know Indian government loves Trump, unsure about Biden.

Pompeo Rails Against China At 'Quad' Meeting With Foreign Ministers In Tokyo : NPR

I also think people in general have short memories and this period leading up to the election has turned into "can we deal with 4 more years of THIS"

Unilaterally withdrawing from stimulus negotiations is something the Dems need to beat the GOP over the head with, over and over again. Covid and failure of stimulus have a direct impact to voters and can help Dems win big in Congress.

That is, unless the Dems get distracted by the next shiny object and lose their focus.

Stephen Miller tests positive.

Or, as someone tweeted - Covid tests positive for Stephen Miller.

Ha! Sorry, that made me spit out my drink. First time I've felt sorry for Covid.

Guess we will learn if covid can kill someone who is already dead inside

Seeing a lot of polling out of safe Trump states that show a 15-25 point swing towards Biden. He won't win those states, but the popular vote may be a landslide.

Trump won KY by 30 points in 2016 and it's around or just under 20 points right now.