4 ms·

It is 49.8% (people who voted Trump in 2024) of 64.1% (people who voted in 2024), or 31.9% or ~1/3 of the total eligible voting population, which is what your p

It is 49.8% (people who voted Trump in 2024) of 64.1% (people who voted in 2024), or 31.9% or ~1/3 of the total eligible voting population, which is what your parent states.

xienze 9mo ago
You understand how statistics work, don't you? When you have 64% of the population voting, that's a pretty big sample size, enough so that you can reasonably extrapolate that the 49.8% share _probably_ holds across the rest of the population, give or take. Put another way, if someone asked you to estimate what the split between the one third of the population that didn't vote was, what would you use as a reference point? Social media posts? Vibes? Or maybe polls leading up to the vote that showed the same roughly 50-50 split found in the actual results?
- larkost 9mo ago
  I don't think that you understand how that part of statistics works. You are said that we have sampled 64% of the population, so we can extrapolate to the rest. That works if the sampling is sufficiently random. But in this case the "sampling" is people who voted, so an entirely (self) selected population, and pretty much not random at all (i.e.: people who were mostly less decisive about their opinions/vote). So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all. So we really don't know whether it holds for the rest of the population at all.
  - xienze 9mo ago
    > So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all But the parent was — the implication being that if the other third had voted, surely they would have voted in greater proportion for Democrats than Republicans. That’s based on nothing but vibes and assumptions. I argue that the 64% share of people that actually did vote give you a lot more confidence in how the remaining third probably would have voted than whatever the parent suggested. It’s at least a starting point for extrapolation.
ninth_ant 9mo ago
The parent comment was edited after my reply.
- CamperBob2 9mo ago
  Yes, sorry; I added 'eligible' to emphasize how many people failed to vote at all. Unfortunately, my understanding based on reported surveys [1] is that if the non-voters had voted, Trump's margin of victory would have been even greater. If that's the case, then those who say that my 1/3 figure is too low are correct. 1: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turnout-trum-00426544?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turno...
  - andrewflnr 9mo ago
    Failing to vote still isn't an "active" attack, so I think you're technically vindicated. (But yes, the situation is dire either way.)
dh2022 9mo ago
That is the problem though - a third of the US population is basically lunatics... This will not go away. And one cannot keep a third of the population "down".

It is 49.8% (people who voted Trump in 2024) of 64.1% (people who voted in 2024), or 31.9% or ~1/3 of the total eligible voting population, which is what your parent states.

xienze 9mo ago

You understand how statistics work, don't you? When you have 64% of the population voting, that's a pretty big sample size, enough so that you can reasonably extrapolate that the 49.8% share _probably_ holds across the rest of the population, give or take. Put another way, if someone asked you to estimate what the split between the one third of the population that didn't vote was, what would you use as a reference point? Social media posts? Vibes? Or maybe polls leading up to the vote that showed the same roughly 50-50 split found in the actual results?

larkost 9mo ago
I don't think that you understand how that part of statistics works. You are said that we have sampled 64% of the population, so we can extrapolate to the rest. That works if the sampling is sufficiently random. But in this case the "sampling" is people who voted, so an entirely (self) selected population, and pretty much not random at all (i.e.: people who were mostly less decisive about their opinions/vote). So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all. So we really don't know whether it holds for the rest of the population at all.
- xienze 9mo ago
  > So I don't think we can extrapolate confidently at all But the parent was — the implication being that if the other third had voted, surely they would have voted in greater proportion for Democrats than Republicans. That’s based on nothing but vibes and assumptions. I argue that the 64% share of people that actually did vote give you a lot more confidence in how the remaining third probably would have voted than whatever the parent suggested. It’s at least a starting point for extrapolation.

ninth_ant 9mo ago

The parent comment was edited after my reply.

CamperBob2 9mo ago
Yes, sorry; I added 'eligible' to emphasize how many people failed to vote at all. Unfortunately, my understanding based on reported surveys [1] is that if the non-voters had voted, Trump's margin of victory would have been even greater. If that's the case, then those who say that my 1/3 figure is too low are correct. 1: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turnout-trum-00426544?utm_source=chatgpt.com https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/26/2024-election-turno...
- andrewflnr 9mo ago
  Failing to vote still isn't an "active" attack, so I think you're technically vindicated. (But yes, the situation is dire either way.)

dh2022 9mo ago

That is the problem though - a third of the US population is basically lunatics... This will not go away. And one cannot keep a third of the population "down".