The Bigly 2016 US Presidential Election Thread, Part XV

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Undecideds went in large numbers AWAY from Trump in the Republican primary.

[gump]

Right. But the large number of undecideds at this point is a huge factor for volatility.

What I am trying to say is that the behavior of undecideds in battleground state A is very much correlated to the behavior of undecideds in battleground state B (particularly those with similar demographics, like Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, for example), so Trump winning in one of these states makes it more likely that he wins in other ones too.

[BigMacPhisto]

Black turnout is noticeably way down which is ironic since they're the group that effectively forced Clinton upon the general electorate.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/us...y-clinton.html

If the election were held today, Colorado or New Hampshire would be the only thing standing in front of a Trump victory according to the 538 now-cast. Same thing is showing that he now trails by only 2.9 points nationally.



I'm also in agreement with those that say early voting tells you nothing. As the above article indicates, early voting was very successful for Democrats in 2010 and 2014 and look how that turned out. All it really means is that somebody who made up their mind already decided to vote before Election Day. In effect, it tells you nothing.

[gump]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Black turnout is noticeably way down which is ironic since they're the group that effectively forced Clinton upon the general electorate.

I hope you realize how bad and inappropriate this sounds.

Also, African American turnout is down from the Obama elections, but still higher (or at a minimum equivalent) than for white or Latino voters.

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by gump

Also, African American turnout is down from the Obama elections, but still higher (or at a minimum equivalent) than for white or Latino voters.

That is not true at all. They are trailing latinos by a large margin and African American counties are mostly trailing the statewide averages by a wide margin.


Clinton’s Coalition: Hispanic Support Appears To Be Up, Black Turnout Down | FiveThirtyEight

[gump]

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/up...nton-lead.html

Black Voters Turn Out Like Everyone Else

In 2012 and 2008, black voters were much likelier than white voters to vote early.

That’s not true this year. The black share of early voters has dropped to 23 percent from 28 percent in 2008.


Interactive Feature: 2016 Senate Election Forecast
There’s no question, in my view, that this indicates that black voters are less enthusiastic than they were in 2012.

But it does not suggest that there will be a huge collapse in black turnout — say, falling from 23 percent to 19 percent of the electorate. Instead, it indicates that black voters are basically voting like nonblack voters.

There are many reliable black voters — midterm and primary voters — left to cast ballots. Indeed, more than half of black voters who turned out in the 2014 midterm are yet to vote. The fact that they didn’t rush to vote on the first day of voting this year doesn’t change that they remain extremely likely to turn out, whether now or on Election Day.

What would it mean if black voters turned out at the rate implied by their vote history, rather than the elevated level of turnout from 2012 or 2008? They might represent something around 21.5 percent of the electorate, rather than the 23 percent they did in 2012.

This is an important shift. But it’s not an unexpected one. None of the pre-election polls suggest that black voters will represent 23 percent of the electorate, so there is no reason to assume that the polls are biased toward Mrs. Clinton on that basis.

Instead, they suggest that she would win because of strength among well-educated white voters.

This is based on actual early votes.

[BigMacPhisto]

Trump is President if Michigan can ram this bill through that they tried a few years back. Is there still time?

Michigan would divide electoral votes in presidential elections under new Republican bill | MLive.com

I'm shocked that the electoral vote shenanigans didn't become a big part of this election cycle. A Trump victory would have been assured with a couple of states doing some splitting.

[LuckyNumber7]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Trump is President if Michigan can ram this bill through that they tried a few years back. Is there still time?

Michigan would divide electoral votes in presidential elections under new Republican bill | MLive.com

I'm shocked that the electoral vote shenanigans didn't become a big part of this election cycle. A Trump victory would have been assured with a couple of states doing some splitting.

I feel like you've managed to say "Trump will be president if..." with a lot of random what if statements, to a point where you think it's destined to happen.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by BigMacPhisto

Black turnout is noticeably way down which is ironic since they're the group that effectively forced Clinton upon the general electorate.

glorified hyperbole in america, folks.

[BigMacPhisto]

I believe in the polls and they are telling us that Clinton will be the victor but her odds are getting genuinely worse with each passing day.

I also don't think the trend towards Trump can really be stopped. There's no more debates to hurt him, there's the Clinton e-mail issue from this weekend that won't fully be reflected in polling until right before Election Day and he's doing a very large, last minute ad-buy in key states across the country. So, if Trump is leading on the now-cast in Nevada, Florida and North Carolina at this point, and the best is yet to come in polling, then I don't see how the trend doesn't lead to a comfortable victory in all of those states, thus putting the nation's entire eyes on states like Colorado and New Hampshire.

[DaveC]

Originally Posted by LuckyNumber7

I feel like you've managed to say "Trump will be president if..." with a lot of random what if statements, to a point where you think it's destined to happen.

he does. he quite obviously really wants trump to win so he can come barreling in here a week from today and tell us how stupid we all are. it's pretty clear that he's super insecure and his driving motivation in life is a desire to feel superior. that's why everything he says about black people is patronizing at best and outright racist at worst. he's "not racist", he just knows better than they all do and if they only lived like he does they wouldn't have so many problems.

he won't admit it and he lives in a state where it won't matter anyways but i guarantee you that bmp is hoping for a trump victory so he can come in here and rub our faces in it.

[Headache in a Suitcase]

It should have been Bernieeeeeeeee

[Hewson]

Originally Posted by Headache in a Suitcase

It should have been Bernieeeeeeeee

Can you feel it?

It Berns!!

[BEAL]

We could have been Denmark if we had just listened to him!!


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference

[LemonMelon]

Bernie wouldn't be under FBI investigation right now

[Irvine511]

Even with her email scandals, Hillary Clinton is the only alternative on election day

Almost six week ago we enthusiastically endorsed Hillary Clinton for president, calling her “an experienced, thoughtful and deeply knowledgeable public servant” while warning that Republican opponent Donald Trump was a “thin-skinned demagogue who is unqualified and unsuited to be president.”

Since then, we have been fortified in our opinion by Clinton’s commanding performances in three presidential debates and daily evidence that Trump utterly lacks the ability — or even the attention span — required by the high office he is seeking.

Yet with the election less than a week away, the race remains closer than it should be given the cavernous gap in qualifications between the two nominees. And Clinton has had to cope with not one but multiple “October surprises” that Trump has sought to exploit to his advantage. There has been a steady drip of revelations from emails stolen from a top Clinton aide — apparently by Russian hackers — and posted online by WikiLeaks. Trump, who once called on Russian hackers to dredge up missing Clinton files (he later insisted that he was joking), has said that the stolen emails proved that Clinton was “the vessel for a corrupt global establishment that is raiding our country and surrendering our sovereignty.”

More recently, FBI Director James B. Comey reported to Congress that the bureau had discovered emails “that appear to be pertinent” to its previous investigation of Clinton’s private email server. Comey went public with this information 11 days before the election even though he acknowledged that he couldn’t yet assess “whether or not this material may be significant.” That didn’t stop Trump from insisting that the discovery of additional emails was “bigger than Watergate.”

These “surprises” are better described as distractions, and Trump’s assertions to the contrary are self-serving, cynical and disingenuous.

Yes, the emails stolen from Clinton campaign chair John Podesta contain some legitimately embarrassing information, including evidence of an overlap between the Clinton Foundation and a firm that arranged speaking fees for former President Bill Clinton. But while the peek behind the Clinton campaign curtain may have titillated political junkies, the revelations don’t support Trump’s histrionic suggestion that the State Department under Hillary Clinton was ethically compromised, let alone that she was running the department as an outpost of a “corrupt global establishment.” (That said, as we have urged before, it would be wise for all members of the Clinton family to sever ties with the foundation if Hillary Clinton is elected president.)

As for the other October surprise, Comey rightly is being criticized — including by former U.S. attorneys general from both parties — for publicly announcing that the FBI would be examining emails that “appear to be pertinent” to an investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server. That investigation had ended this summer with Comey’s recommendation that no charges be filed. It was irresponsible for Comey to offer such a vague yet politically charged statement. Someone as wise in the ways of Washington as Comey, a former deputy attorney general, should have realized that his letter to Congress would be manipulated by Republicans for partisan advantage.

It’s also troubling that Comey reportedly ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials that he not inform Congress of the investigation (and baffling why his superiors didn’t order him not to do so unless and until the FBI knew the emails were consequential). As former Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. and many others have noted, Comey’s action violated two fundamental principles: that the Justice Department doesn’t comment about ongoing investigations and that it doesn’t take unnecessary action close to election day that might affect an election’s outcome.

This week the Justice Department informed Congress that it would “continue to work closely with the FBI and together, dedicate all necessary resources and take appropriate steps as expeditiously as possible” to review the emails found on a computer belonging to former Rep. Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton aide Huma Abedin. But it seems unlikely that the work can be completed before next Tuesday’s election. So how should voters factor this development into their decision?

They shouldn’t. Contrary to what Trump suggested, there is no reason to assume that any official emails found on Weiner’s computer will contradict the FBI’s earlier finding that Clinton’s use of a private server, while careless, didn’t violate laws against the mishandling of classified information. But even if a voter harbored doubts on that score, they can’t justify a vote for Trump. There is no comparison between Clinton’s carelessness in corresponding with colleagues and the recklessness that Trump would bring to the conduct of actual foreign policy. And that is only one of a multitude of differences between the two nominees.

A victory for Trump on Tuesday wouldn’t just be a November surprise; it would be a national disaster.

it's very simple.

[Irvine511]

Originally Posted by LemonMelon

Bernie wouldn't be under FBI investigation right now

given how substance free and policy free this campaign has been, Bernie might have been well suited for it.

[BigMacPhisto]

Originally Posted by DaveC

he won't admit it and he lives in a state where it won't matter anyways but i guarantee you that bmp is hoping for a trump victory so he can come in here and rub our faces in it.

There is nothing, and I mean nothing, that could ever be worth suffering through another Republican Presidency and what that would entail, let alone the Armageddon brought about by a Trump victory.

Had she not slaughtered him in the first debate, I was actually planning to vote for her and make a point of it on my Facebook and the rest of the internet as to why it was important. Instead, she kicked his ass and I figured it was all over with and that everybody could just do what they wanted. I didn't even watch the later debates although I heard bits of the second one when my girlfriend was watching it.

Unexpectedly over the last couple weeks, I and everyone else has been proven wrong. I will be absolutely disgusted if Trump manages to eek out a victory in the final weeks.

I do think there is a told you so element to all this...just as Democrats nominated the worst possible candidate so did the Republicans. Hypothetically, if it were Bernie or Elisabeth or Joe or whomever, they sure as hell wouldn't suddenly have some stupid e-mail scandal popping up every five minutes and making the polls tighten. It would have been an outright landslide. It's not the policy ever harming Clinton in the polls, it's the person.

I still think she wins, but it's going to be awful fucking close in the polls the next few days as the full extent of the FBI stuff from the weekend starts creeping its way into them. Never will I have less respect for the American people if conjecture alone can be enough to scare them into voting for such an
awful human being. If she loses in part because of voter turnout being low on the left's side, I can guarantee you'll be seeing Cory Booker march into the White House four years from now...

[BigMacPhisto]

Polling update: Great polling for Trump later this morning out of Nevada but some decent news for Clinton in North Carolina. They basically swap now if the election were held today with Trump needing North Carolina + either Colorado or New Hampshire to win this thing.

This should be of interest since it covers similar ground:

Which Tipping-Point States Favor Trump? | FiveThirtyEight


BTW, just played around on this: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/...-the-election/

If you lower black turnout to like 50%, it actually doesn't really shift any of the states. If you do that and also increase the share of whites without a degree, it only moves Florida into the Trump column (again, the trailer trash vote I was referring to).

In other words, from the standpoint of turnout among various groups, it's very tough for Trump to suddenly win Colorado or New Hampshire. It's going to take a very depressed turnout from the nation as a whole to give him the sort of environment he needs to win one of those.

[deep]

total collusion, these people are 100% corrupt

A Justice Department official with close ties to Hillary Clinton Campaign Chairman John Podesta sent him a "heads up" last year to warn that lawmakers might question witnesses about the presidential candidate's private emails, messages released Wednesday by WikiLeaks show.

Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, the official now in charge of informing Congress about the revived Clinton email probe, gave a personal status update to the Clinton campaign in the email sent May 19, 2015.

The message from his Gmail account to Podesta was titled: “Heads up.”

“There is a [House Judiciary Committee] oversight hearing today where the head of our Civil Division will testify,” Kadzik wrote. “Likely to get questions on State Department emails.”

The warning came just two weeks after Kadzik’s son had written to Podesta asking for a job on Clinton’s presidential campaign. In the same May 19 message, Kadzik also gave an update about a separate filing in a related Freedom Of Information Act case.

PODESTA: