2024 US Presidential Election (Taylor's Version)

this is a very obtuse reply

I mean, it seems like 27% of that group makes sense to try to persuade right? I would think Obama has a lot more chance of making inroads with them than he does with other groups that contain more Trump voters.

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Thanks.

I think Iā€™ve put my finger on where I disagree with a lot of people. (I wonā€™t put words in your mouth and say that youā€™re making this argument, but it feels similar to what you and some others are saying.)

There seems to be a belief that the Harris campaign has a more or less binary choice:

  • try to turn out the base
  • try to persuade voters

and implied in that decision is the idea that messages that do one will come at the cost of doing the other. Itā€™s a single knob: If you dial up ā€œturn out the baseā€ one unit, the effect is to dial down ā€œpersuade votersā€ the same one unit.

But this seems very dependent on exactly what you mean by ā€œthe baseā€. I think the ā€œbinaryā€ perspective comes from viewing the population of potential/likely Dem voters like this (sick diagram incoming):

So thereā€™s a natural tension: every step you take towards appealing to the base will simultaneously make it more likely that the base votes and less likely to persuade voters to vote D. Itā€™s just shifting things left.

But I donā€™t have that perspective. I think itā€™s more like this:

That is, I think there are at-risk Dem voters at both ends of the liberal/conservative extreme in the party: ā€œthe baseā€ on the left and ā€œReluctant Demsā€ on the right. (Iā€™m not claiming theyā€™re equal in size, so ignore the relative ratios in the graph.) In this world, thereā€™s not a binary choice of getting out the D vote vs. trying to persuade voters. Instead, I believe there are some ā€œnormieā€ messages that are likely to both:

  • get out the (relatively conservative) reluctant D vote
  • potentially persuade reluctant R voters

and of course that might come at the cost of turning away some liberal/leftist D voters.

Maybe itā€™s still a good idea to tack left (or simply avoid tacking right); maybe the numbers end up supporting that decision. But I do think the ā€œif you tack right youā€™re going to push some likely D voters to stay home, all for the unlikely potential of persuading 4 reluctant R voters to vote Dā€ assumption isnā€™t right.

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Good post, I get what youā€™re saying. Iā€™m skeptical that there are many of those at this point but maybe there are.

Since weā€™re digging in a little deeper, I do want to note that it isnā€™t as simple as a left/right spectrum where moving in one direction always loses voters on the other side. This is an problem I have with Dems more broadly. I think there are ā€œleftā€ issues that can peel off Trump voters while also turning out the baseā€“things like universal healthcareā€“which makes approaches like the one theyā€™re taking even more frustrating.

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I saw a car on my walk today with a Thin Blue Line sticker on one side of the Bumper and a Kamala/Walz sticker on the other side. People are weird.

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Dropouts unite!

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https://x.com/ryanstruyk/status/1844736563936178676?s=46

Polls have seemed pretty bad the last few days.

That person gets it.

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Those are some sick diagrams!

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I currently think Trump is a favorite to win. Six months ago, I thought Biden was comfortably a favoriteā€“not a lock, but a solid favorite. This was probably because:

  1. I hadnā€™t seen him speak much (one of the benefits of having a sane person as president is that you donā€™t have to pay attention to the day to day stuff).
  2. ā€œLogicalā€ reasons. ā€œBiden beat him last time, and now Trump has these convictions etc., so itā€™s looking good.ā€

Of course the debate changed #1. I didnā€™t watch it, but my wife did and in the first five minutes she said from the other room ā€œhe looks TERRIBLEā€

#2, I guess I was just being naive.

So now my thinking is pretty simple. Trump over-performed the final polls in the last two elections by what: 3%? 4%? So heā€™ll probably do that again. I am not a religious poll-watcher (except for whatā€™s posted here), and I have no idea about the methodologies. Maybe they tried to un-skew the polls from last time. I of course have no way of knowing one way or the other. So the last two elections are what I have to go on.

So based on the previous election, and the current polling, yeah I think Trump will win. Sure, part of it could be emotional hedging, but as Bush said, fool me once, shame on you. Fool meā€”you canā€™t get fooled again

image

Not sure if yas heard but Interactive Brokers offers politics futures now. Anyone looking to bet Trump should consider that option because I havenā€™t seen better Trump prices elsewhere. A few days ago I bought Trump at 43c to hedge my $DJT put. IB also happens to be a good broker in general. DM me for a referral link lol

I didnā€™t read the terms, but adding liquidity appears to be free, while removing it costs a penny per contract (idk if that varies with price because that would be very steep for a contract trading at a nickel).

I donā€™t think ā€œTrump outperformed before therefore he is likely to outperform againā€ is good logic. Even if they were elections under the same conditions with the same opponent itā€™s a sample size of lol 2, and on top of that there are tons of moving parts. The most logical base case is to just take the polls as is imo

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My current status is that my head says that we really have absolutely no idea who will win. My heart is a combination of ā€œwomen and minority voters will save usā€ vs. ā€œthe racism and hate is too strongā€.

If we lose I will not be as upset as in the past. Trump isnā€™t fooling anybody anymore, they know exactly for whom they are voting. If this is who America really wants then itā€™s fight time. There is no convincing them. Only exception to this acceptance is if they successfully rig via voter disenfranchisement / legal and extra-legal shenanigans.

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I am pretty pessimistic by nature but the late turn towards Trump in the betting markets is providing me with more confidence in a Harris victory. I will just go ahead and predict that Harris will out perform the final Nate Silver election model by 1.5 percentage points.

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I hope you are correct. But while itā€™s true that the sample size of elections is low, the sample size of polls that were off is much larger. Something caused the polls to be off last time, right? Was it Trump voters embarrassed to admit it, polling methodology errors, late-breaking ratfucking (e,g, Comey NY Times stuff)?

If I take the polls as is this year, it feels like Iā€™m just saying ā€œyeah they fucked it last time, but I am just going to assume they fixed the issue, even though I donā€™t even know what the issue was, let alone whether they actually fixed itā€

Sorry, donā€™t mean to sound so pessimistic, I am arguing just as a form of mental health coping, I think

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If you do that, isnā€™t it also reasonable to expect some regression?

Putting it another way, if he always over-performs, heā€™s not really over-performing, thatā€™s just how it is.

This motherfucker just showed up at my house! Not angrily, was here to drop campaign materials - must not have received the content of my response. Iā€™m all fired up on the lookout for the porch pirate and told him to fuck off in person.

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https://x.com/tbonier/status/1844719883252117513

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You gonna have to help the Twitterless with some more info

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