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I'm curious why you seem so confident in a widespread democratic victory when the republicans did so well in 2016? EDIT: for those unaware, not only did the re

I'm curious why you seem so confident in a widespread democratic victory when the republicans did so well in 2016? EDIT: for those unaware, not only did the republican party take control of the House, Senate, and Presidency in 2016. They also made big gains in state elections. In fact, the republican party had a 'trifecta' (house, senate, and executive) in 25/50 states. It was a very significant shift in power: https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_elections,_2016 https://ballotpedia.org/State_legislative_elections,_2016

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Many polls are showing a Biden win is above 80% probability, the House is solidly Dem, and a possible sweep in the Senate. Make of that what you will. Its a fair point that polls missed in 2016. 2020 has kicked the hornet’s nest (rather, the last four years), voter turnout appears to be higher than previous years, and I’d bet an expensive bottle of bourbon current polls align close to what results will be (with modeling lessons learned from 2016). Tangentially, quite a few Trump voters have simply aged out over the last four years (roughly 1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die each year). Broadly speaking, much older voters skew conservative compared to younger cohorts (per Pew Research), hence the confidence in a shift towards the left across branches in government representation during this election cycle. GOP support is quite literally dying out. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/907433511/trumps-base-is-shrinking-as-whites-without-a-college-degree-continue-to-decline https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/907433511/trumps-base-is-shri... https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generati... https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-chance-taking-senate-forecast-clean-sweep-1538599 https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-chance-taking-senate-fore... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-tops-270-politico-election-forecast-428837 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-tops-270-poli...
- pyuser583 6y ago
  But isn’t American society becoming older, due to Boomers low birth rate? Doesn’t that mean older generations have more influence?
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/29/gen-z-millennials-and-gen-x-outvoted-older-generations-in-2018-midterms/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/29/gen-z-mille... (Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X outvoted older generations in 2018 midterms) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials... (Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation) Young voters outnumber older voters, but this is mutually exclusive from an aging populace and a declining birth rate. You can chalk it up to population momentum and previously higher levels of immigration. It does mean Millennials will hold on to their electorate influence longer though.
- rayiner 6y ago
  Except Millenials are becoming more conservative as they age, and Republicans have way more kids than Democrats: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-more-kids-democrats-lot-183722934.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-more-kids-democra...
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Rural conservatives who have kids will eventually have those kids leave for good paying jobs in urban areas, or those kids will likely not have a great life expectancy from lack of opportunity in their small community (dying small communities are well documented: https://www.google.com/search?q=dying+small+towns https://www.google.com/search?q=dying+small+towns) and deaths of despair (alcoholism, meth, opioids: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinekee/maps-despair-deaths-drugs-alcohol-homicide-suicide https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinekee/maps-despai...). As long as prospects for women continue to increase (education and earning potential), and the data shows well off educated women prefer a partner on equal footing, conservative birth rates will eventually converge with that of other ideologies (this can be inferred from the total fertility rate trend for religious vs non religious women of childbearing age). While your point about ideology drift over time has some merit, I don’t believe it to be significant enough to materially consider. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889?journalCode=jop https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889?jou... (https://doi.org/10.1086/706889 https://doi.org/10.1086/706889 if you want to grab the full paper from SciHub) “Consistent with previous research but contrary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.”
    - jb775 6y ago
      > Rural conservatives who have kids will eventually have those kids leave for good paying jobs in urban areas, or those kids will likely not have a great life expectancy from lack of opportunity in their small community (dying small communities are well documented) If only a worldwide event would take place where the entire business world deemed it acceptable to change policies so employees can work remotely, then realize they can save boatloads of money by not paying inner city office rents and reduce employee salary expenses by vastly increasing their applicant pool, coinciding with significant increases in inner-city violence sparked by rioting protestors demanding to get rid of the police or else they'll burn the entire city down......oh wait
- jb775 6y ago
  I'll take that bet on the expensive bottle of bourbon. No one who voted for Trump in 2016 would vote for Biden. A decent chunk of people who voted for Clinton would vote for Trump. 2020 events showed the true colors of political ideology and think it's safe to say the left lost just about all of their center-left leaning base. (see Portland, Cuomo, un-constitutional shutdowns, hyper-sensitive political correctness, etc as examples)
- nobody9999 6y ago
  >Many polls are showing a Biden win is above 80% probability, the House is solidly Dem, and a possible sweep in the Senate. Make of that what you will. I'd point out that it's not the polls that are predicting such things. Rather it's people who are interpreting those polls. Polls are just a snapshot of opinion in time. They are useful and can provide information about public opinion, but they certainly aren't predictive in the way you're stating. Making predictions like "Biden is 80% likely to win" is a guess. Possibly based on polling data, but are not a poll. A poll reporting[0] that the respondents of that poll prefer one candidate over another is not a prediction, rather it's data. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general...
- jungletime 6y ago
  The polls are way off because they oversample democrats, which can be seen when you start looking at results by counties. Some rural counties that are know to be republican strong holds by a huge margin are favouring Biden by ridiculous amounts. Its not going to happen. Its obviously an error, and the accumulation of these errors are the final polls. (Source https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDpqkYBOKV https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDpqkYBOKV) Its true that the democrats are winning the early mail in voting. But since republicans don't trust mail in voting, as Trump told them to vote in person. They will come out on election night, by a large margin.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/924182086/early-voting-analysis-historic-turnout-drives-long-lines-administrative-errors https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/924182086/early-voting-analys... “Early voting turnout continues to shatter records, as sky-high voter enthusiasm meets the realities of the United States' creaky machinery of democracy amid a pandemic. That means long lines in some places and administrative errors with some mail ballots, but a system that is working overall, according to experts. More than 26 million people had voted as of Saturday, according to the U.S. Elections Project, a turnout-tracking database run by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald. That's more than six times the number of votes cast by the same point in 2016.”
untog 6y ago
You could just as easily counter and ask why anyone would expect a Republican victory when Democrats did so well in the 2018 midterms. Previous result are only predictive to a point.
- remarkEon 6y ago
  They did well in the House, but lost seats in the Senate. Midterm elections are an imperfect signal, like you're suggesting, but it's not true that the democrats won a landslide or something in 2018.
  - sdenton4 6y ago
    The Senate map for a given year can tilt towards one party or another; 2018 was a structurally bad year for the Senate Dems. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-horrible-2018-senate-map-couldnt-have-come-at-a-better-time/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-horrible-2018...
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      Right, this is a good data point in favor of the argument that it's unwise to extrapolate too much from midterm races for the general.
      - UncleMeat 6y ago
        No. It is a good datapoint that one should consider the seats in play when making claims about the senate. The map this time is much less unfavorable for the Democrats.
- dahfizz 6y ago
  The party that is "behind" always does well in the mid terms, this is a very well documentes phenomenon. In fact, I think the Dems did much worse in 2018 than expected
  - 6y ago
ojbyrne 6y ago
The Dems had a trifecta in 2008. Very significant shifts in power during presidential elections are not uncommon.
yenwodyah 6y ago
fivethirtyeight gave the democrats a 63% chance of getting a federal trifecta a week ago : https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-forecast-thinks-democrats-will-keep-the-house-and-maybe-even-gain-seats/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-forecast-thinks-dem...
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> why you seem so confident in a widespread democratic victory I’m not. The above analysis only depends on a lack of confidence in a GOP trifecta. That’s the only case where pissing them off could result in unilateral action and thus consequences for these moves.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

Many polls are showing a Biden win is above 80% probability, the House is solidly Dem, and a possible sweep in the Senate. Make of that what you will. Its a fair point that polls missed in 2016. 2020 has kicked the hornet’s nest (rather, the last four years), voter turnout appears to be higher than previous years, and I’d bet an expensive bottle of bourbon current polls align close to what results will be (with modeling lessons learned from 2016). Tangentially, quite a few Trump voters have simply aged out over the last four years (roughly 1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die each year). Broadly speaking, much older voters skew conservative compared to younger cohorts (per Pew Research), hence the confidence in a shift towards the left across branches in government representation during this election cycle. GOP support is quite literally dying out. https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/907433511/trumps-base-is-shrinking-as-whites-without-a-college-degree-continue-to-decline https://www.npr.org/2020/09/03/907433511/trumps-base-is-shri... https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generation-gap-in-american-politics/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/the-generati... https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-chance-taking-senate-forecast-clean-sweep-1538599 https://www.newsweek.com/democrats-chance-taking-senate-fore... https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-tops-270-politico-election-forecast-428837 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/12/biden-tops-270-poli...

pyuser583 6y ago
But isn’t American society becoming older, due to Boomers low birth rate? Doesn’t that mean older generations have more influence?
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/29/gen-z-millennials-and-gen-x-outvoted-older-generations-in-2018-midterms/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/29/gen-z-mille... (Gen Z, Millennials and Gen X outvoted older generations in 2018 midterms) https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials-overtake-baby-boomers-as-americas-largest-generation/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/28/millennials... (Millennials overtake Baby Boomers as America’s largest generation) Young voters outnumber older voters, but this is mutually exclusive from an aging populace and a declining birth rate. You can chalk it up to population momentum and previously higher levels of immigration. It does mean Millennials will hold on to their electorate influence longer though.
rayiner 6y ago
Except Millenials are becoming more conservative as they age, and Republicans have way more kids than Democrats: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-more-kids-democrats-lot-183722934.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/republicans-more-kids-democra...
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Rural conservatives who have kids will eventually have those kids leave for good paying jobs in urban areas, or those kids will likely not have a great life expectancy from lack of opportunity in their small community (dying small communities are well documented: https://www.google.com/search?q=dying+small+towns https://www.google.com/search?q=dying+small+towns) and deaths of despair (alcoholism, meth, opioids: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinekee/maps-despair-deaths-drugs-alcohol-homicide-suicide https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinekee/maps-despai...). As long as prospects for women continue to increase (education and earning potential), and the data shows well off educated women prefer a partner on equal footing, conservative birth rates will eventually converge with that of other ideologies (this can be inferred from the total fertility rate trend for religious vs non religious women of childbearing age). While your point about ideology drift over time has some merit, I don’t believe it to be significant enough to materially consider. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889?journalCode=jop https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/706889?jou... (https://doi.org/10.1086/706889 https://doi.org/10.1086/706889 if you want to grab the full paper from SciHub) “Consistent with previous research but contrary to folk wisdom, our results indicate that political attitudes are remarkably stable over the long term. In contrast to previous research, however, we also find support for folk wisdom: on those occasions when political attitudes do shift across the life span, liberals are more likely to become conservatives than conservatives are to become liberals, suggesting that folk wisdom has some empirical basis even as it overstates the degree of change.”
  - jb775 6y ago
    > Rural conservatives who have kids will eventually have those kids leave for good paying jobs in urban areas, or those kids will likely not have a great life expectancy from lack of opportunity in their small community (dying small communities are well documented) If only a worldwide event would take place where the entire business world deemed it acceptable to change policies so employees can work remotely, then realize they can save boatloads of money by not paying inner city office rents and reduce employee salary expenses by vastly increasing their applicant pool, coinciding with significant increases in inner-city violence sparked by rioting protestors demanding to get rid of the police or else they'll burn the entire city down......oh wait
jb775 6y ago
I'll take that bet on the expensive bottle of bourbon. No one who voted for Trump in 2016 would vote for Biden. A decent chunk of people who voted for Clinton would vote for Trump. 2020 events showed the true colors of political ideology and think it's safe to say the left lost just about all of their center-left leaning base. (see Portland, Cuomo, un-constitutional shutdowns, hyper-sensitive political correctness, etc as examples)
nobody9999 6y ago
>Many polls are showing a Biden win is above 80% probability, the House is solidly Dem, and a possible sweep in the Senate. Make of that what you will. I'd point out that it's not the polls that are predicting such things. Rather it's people who are interpreting those polls. Polls are just a snapshot of opinion in time. They are useful and can provide information about public opinion, but they certainly aren't predictive in the way you're stating. Making predictions like "Biden is 80% likely to win" is a guess. Possibly based on polling data, but are not a poll. A poll reporting[0] that the respondents of that poll prefer one candidate over another is not a prediction, rather it's data. [0] https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/ https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general...
jungletime 6y ago
The polls are way off because they oversample democrats, which can be seen when you start looking at results by counties. Some rural counties that are know to be republican strong holds by a huge margin are favouring Biden by ridiculous amounts. Its not going to happen. Its obviously an error, and the accumulation of these errors are the final polls. (Source https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDpqkYBOKV https://www.pscp.tv/w/1YqKDpqkYBOKV) Its true that the democrats are winning the early mail in voting. But since republicans don't trust mail in voting, as Trump told them to vote in person. They will come out on election night, by a large margin.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/924182086/early-voting-analysis-historic-turnout-drives-long-lines-administrative-errors https://www.npr.org/2020/10/18/924182086/early-voting-analys... “Early voting turnout continues to shatter records, as sky-high voter enthusiasm meets the realities of the United States' creaky machinery of democracy amid a pandemic. That means long lines in some places and administrative errors with some mail ballots, but a system that is working overall, according to experts. More than 26 million people had voted as of Saturday, according to the U.S. Elections Project, a turnout-tracking database run by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald. That's more than six times the number of votes cast by the same point in 2016.”

untog 6y ago

You could just as easily counter and ask why anyone would expect a Republican victory when Democrats did so well in the 2018 midterms. Previous result are only predictive to a point.

remarkEon 6y ago
They did well in the House, but lost seats in the Senate. Midterm elections are an imperfect signal, like you're suggesting, but it's not true that the democrats won a landslide or something in 2018.
- sdenton4 6y ago
  The Senate map for a given year can tilt towards one party or another; 2018 was a structurally bad year for the Senate Dems. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-horrible-2018-senate-map-couldnt-have-come-at-a-better-time/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-horrible-2018...
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    Right, this is a good data point in favor of the argument that it's unwise to extrapolate too much from midterm races for the general.
    - UncleMeat 6y ago
      No. It is a good datapoint that one should consider the seats in play when making claims about the senate. The map this time is much less unfavorable for the Democrats.
dahfizz 6y ago
The party that is "behind" always does well in the mid terms, this is a very well documentes phenomenon. In fact, I think the Dems did much worse in 2018 than expected
- 6y ago

ojbyrne 6y ago

The Dems had a trifecta in 2008. Very significant shifts in power during presidential elections are not uncommon.

yenwodyah 6y ago

fivethirtyeight gave the democrats a 63% chance of getting a federal trifecta a week ago : https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-forecast-thinks-democrats-will-keep-the-house-and-maybe-even-gain-seats/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/our-forecast-thinks-dem...

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> why you seem so confident in a widespread democratic victory I’m not. The above analysis only depends on a lack of confidence in a GOP trifecta. That’s the only case where pissing them off could result in unilateral action and thus consequences for these moves.