Tag Archives: Nate Silver

Good Lord! Why Would Any of Us Ever Believe a Pollster Again?

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There is your basic “wrong”. Like last week, when all the sports guys predicted the Packers would beat the Vikings by two touchdowns. Ha! What a botch! But then there’s World Class, Never to be Forgiven-or-Forgotten-Etched-in-Granite-for-All-the-School-Children-to-See-Wrong … like, for example, America’s professional pollsters’ and pundits’ whiplash-inducing botch of last night’s election.

Holy Jesus, most of these boys and girls are going to need new identities and applications for the lunch shift at Chick-fil-A.

As someone who consumed waay too much pollster/pundit blather over the past year, I have no problem telling you that no one I heard — not your Nate Silvers, your David Plouffes, your David Axelrods, your Nate Cohns, your John Heilemans, your Rick Wilsons, your Steve Schmidts, your Amy Walters or your Dave Wassermans laid out a scenario remotely resembling what we’re looking at today. (All of them will be spinning the meaning of the word, “remotely” in the weeks, months and years to come.)

All along, the key ingredient for 2020 was what was described as your “shy Trump voter”, basically another, previously untapped layer of under-educated white males (and some females) that Trump could both find and fire up enough for them to show up and vote, maybe for the first time ever. And — what I kept hearing from “the experts” — was that that voter was a myth. They didn’t exist. Word was that the new, modern, far more sophisticated post-2016 polling, weighted to properly account for hard-to-get ahold of under-educated white males had their non-existence covered.

Well, obviously not, as those voters poured out of wherever they were hiding and voted in record numbers to reelect Donald Trump, the man who has ended the pandemic and got everybody back to work and drinking at their favorite bar.

My old “Same Rowdy Crowd” compadre, Jon Austin, (i.e. “The Great and Powerful”), has done lots of homework on the last pre-election polling data. Here I cut and paste from him unapologetically.

” … much of my thinking [says Austin] is driven by the assessments of the three election-prediction sites that use polling and other factors to assign a percentage probability of which way each state will vote. Again, those sites are:

• DecisionDesk (https://forecast.decisiondeskhq.com/president). As of October 30th, it gives Biden an 87 percent chance of winning the election.

• The Economist (https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president). As of October 30th, it gives Biden a 96 percent chance of winning.

• FiveThirtyEight (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/). As of October 29th, it gives Biden an 89 percent chance of winning.”

Now obviously, as of Wednesday afternoon Biden may still win, in which all of these particular sites will no doubt claim they “got it right”. But the picture they painted in their live cable TV interviews and in quotes to reporters was of something far different. And beyond them, in state polls, the product emits an even worse smell.

I eagerly await hearing from the professional pollster who had Lindsey Graham beating Jaime Harrison by 12%. Or Susan Collins over Sara Gideon by 9%. Or Joni Ernst over Theresa Greenfield in Iowa by 7% Or even Trump in Ohio by a fat 8%.

Conventional wisdom and pervasive chatter in veteran-operative liberal circles, after inhaling double secret probation “internal polling” and the junk above was that Biden had it comfortably in the bag, with a Democratic Senate “leaning” to “likely.” Hell, remember all that fantasizing about Texas? 5.5% may be better than the 9% Hillary lost by, but it’s nobody’s idea of “in the hunt.”

What we’re left with, while the pro pollsters scurry off to get emergency collagen injections for their reputations, is one very stark reality.

Far … far … from Donald Trump and the election of 2020 marking the death knell of the Republican party, supposedly destroyed by Trump’s malignant incompetence and vulgarity, the oppooisite is true. The astonishing, previously undetected number of votes Trump pulled out of the hills, hollers and exurbs of America, means that with or without him, Trumpism — grievance-driven, anti-science and fully isolated from reality by “alternative facts” — is now more powerful than ever. More powerful than any expert data geek or veteran pundit ever imagined.

To put a blunt point on it, that means no Republican candidate at any level, much less anyone running for national office, will dare step a rat’s whisker away from authoritarian/racist Trumpist messaging. Or in other words, things are looking good for Donny Jr. and Tucker Carlson in 2024.

Or hell, even my gal the QAnon Queen, freshly-elected Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Greene.

Can Paul Ryan Put Wisconsin Into Play For Romney?

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The political whiz kids at the New York Times’ FiveThirtyEight blog are reporting that Paul Ryan’s elevation to the national ticket has significantly improved Republicans’ chances of Romney winning in neighboring Wisconsin this November.  In fact, chances have almost doubled.

But before folks get too excited about that, they should look more closely at the prognostication.  Before the Ryan announcement, FiveThirtyEight put the odds of Romney winning Wisconsin at 12%.  Post-Ryan announcement, Romney’s chances rose to 20%. Here’s their reasoning:

Those improved odds are based on a two percentage point bonus that the model accounts for in the home state of each vice-presidential candidate — the average bump that a running mate has added since 1920, according to a previous FiveThirtyEight analysis.

But the effect a vice-presidential candidate has had on his or her home state has varied widely. Is there any inherent aspect to Wisconsin’s political geography that might provide clues as to whether Mr. Ryan will have a larger, or smaller, impact on the Nov. 6 vote in Wisconsin?

…

Mr. Ryan has not represented an overwhelmingly conservative district. It has leaned slightly to the right, but Mr. Obama was able to carry the First District in 2008, albeit, with just 51 percent of the vote. Winning a district doesn’t earn you any points if you lose the state, but Mr. Ryan’s ability to win easily in a not-so-easy area suggests that he has some skill in winning over a skeptical audience — at least in Wisconsin.

Both Gov. Scott Walker and Mr. Obama have net positive approval ratings in Wisconsin. That suggests that there is a group of true independent voters in the state, who can be influenced to vote for either Mr. Romney or Mr. Obama…

In other words, moving up to 20 percent is real improvement.  Wisconsin is no longer in the “snowball’s chance in Hell” category for Romney.  It’s now more like snowball’s chance in Packers Training Camp,” which merely feels like Hell to Minnesotans.

– Loveland

DFL Statewide Media Campaign Needed: “Replace The Worst Legislature Ever.”

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“All politics is local,” Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill famously proclaimed.   To question this proclamation in DFL activist circles is a bit like questioning the Gospel in church circles.

But, unusual times dictate that the DFL candidates for the State Legislature broaden their messaging beyond the predictable O’Neilian “I brought home the bacon” messaging.  After all, the reality of these fiscally austere times in St. Paul is that Minnesota legislators have been bringing home festering carcasses, not bacon, and that is not going over real well locally.

(Incidentally, at the congressional level, New York Times whiz kid Nate Silver makes a compelling case that “all politics is local” hasn’t been true for a long time.)

Therefore, in 2012 I’d argue “all politics is local” is a dumb strategy for for DFL legislative candidates.  This year, the Minnesota DFL should use more of a statewide messaging and media strategy than they typically do.

I nominate this theme for a statewide TV and radio campaign to serve as an overlay for individual candidacies:

“Replace the worst Legislature ever.”

Real subtle, right?  And I’m not kidding.  This rallying cry works because it is simple, provocative, sticky, and, most of all, true.

Just ask the people of Minnesota.  The current GOP-controlled legislature is the proud recipient of a 19 percent approval rating, which appears to be the lowest approval rating  anyone can find on record.

Ponder on that for a moment.  The worst approval rating ever.  This is a truly putrid moment in Minnesota political history.  Therefore, the minority party needs to make “worst Legislature in history” the rallying cry of a unified TV and radio campaign to unseat the majority party that gave this special gift to Minnesotans .

Such a campaign might sound something like this:

 Who says the Republican-controlled Legislature is the worst in Minnesota history?

Minnesotans.  In surveys, Minnesotans give this current Legislature the lowest approval ratings in the entire history of our state.

Not just lousy.   Not just terrible. The.  Worst.  Ever.

Why?

Their shameful use of our local school funding as their own personal ATMs.

Their bizarre obsession with policing Minnesotans’ personal lives.

Their stubborn refusal to take a balanced approach to the state budget.

Their reckless shutdown of our state parks and government.

For the past two years, Minnesotans have watched all of this in horror.

Now, it’s time to send a clear message:  It’s time to replace the worst Legislature in Minnesota history…and move forward with a new Legislature, and a fresh start.

Tying together legislative races into more of a statewide campaign would mean the DFL would need to focus much more than usual on statewide messaging and media, and much less on localized messaging and media.   That’s an extremely unpopular proposition with local candidates, who want the campaign to be more about them personally.  But in times like these, statewide political leaders need to have the courage to seize the historic political opportunity before them.

Many voters – particularly the much larger group of less active voters that turn out in presidential election years – don’t know much, or anything, about the candidates in down ballot races.  A memorable theme can guide them.  “Replace the worst Legislature ever” does that.  “Support good old Senator Bob because he brings home the bacon” does not.

So sorry, Tip, this campaign needs to focus on the smelly statewide whole, not the local parts.  This year, the DFL can, and should, run a unified statewide campaign against the the Republican Party’s Frankenstein — the Legislature that Minnesota citizens say is the worst ever.

– Loveland

 

Note:  This post was also featured as part of the “Best of the Blogs” feature in Politics in Minnesota’s Morning Report.