The final result is Biden ~+29 in SC. Even the most optimistic polls I have seen did not predict this. How could that happen? What other state polls do we have to take with a grain of salt?
Jim Clyburn endorsed Biden 4 days before the polls. Clyburn was a civil rights leader and is an icon in the Democratic community there.
In the Edison [exit] poll, 61% said the endorsement from Clyburn, who has represented South Carolina for nearly three decades, was an important factor in their decision, including 27% who said it was âthe most important factor.â
No polls totally postdated this endorsement on the 26th. The two that were conducted 26th and 27th showed Biden +16 and Biden +21. Biden was clearly trending up in the days before the polls as well:
Also, Clinton outperformed polling by 20 points in SC in 2016, so a better than forecast result for Biden was somewhat predictable. All in all, it wasnât really that big a miss.
1 Like
Like state polling for primaries is always fairly unreliable, idk if you followed it in 2016 but in addition to the SC result I just mentioned, the final RCP average for Michigan was Clinton +21.4 and Sanders won the state. This is nothing.
This primary is a good example of why I just canât engage at all on a granular level. People are just too stupid. âHealthcare is my #1 issue. I think income inequality is out of control and Mitch McConnell is ruining America. I voted for Joe Biden because I like his hair.â GTFO
12 Likes
I guess in answer to your question though, I am fairly apprehensive that Biden is going to do very well across the board in the South in Super Tuesday states. Like PI has Sanders at 1 in 3 to win in states like VA and NC and Iâd be fairly stunned if he managed to win either of them. Hopefully the Hispanic population in Texas will save it from going the same way, but even there, where Sanders is +8, I wouldnât be surprised to see a Biden win. There can just never be enough lol the South.
I think one problem is that this isnât really true for most people. Like âhealthcareâ as an abstraction might be something they care about but theyâre not very ideological. In Gallupâs âMost Important Problemâ poll from July 2019, the only problems scoring in double digits were âThe government/Poor leadershipâ at 23%, which is just a cargo cult mentality of wanting to elect the right President to magically make things better, and âImmigrationâ at 27%. Healthcare tied with âRace relations/racismâ at 7% and nothing else made it over 5%.
One candidate cared enough to get arrested during the civil rights era, the other lied about marching with MLK. Who should a civil rights leader endorse?
I am sure Jim Clyburn has his reasons and considered more than this single piece of information. Still, it should count for something.
Lmao, Christ
Clyburnâs politics are OK but he just seems like one of those guys who is party above all else. Honestly I understand why people think that Biden is the guy to unify the party. They might not even be wrong assuming his brain holds together, which is a big assumption.
Yeah but they think that in the general the GOP will be like SOCIALISM! HEâS A SOCIALIST! and that low info voters will get scared. Itâs not an insane idea. Like I donât think it will happen but I donât think itâs out of the question either.
I donât consider that ratfucking. Ratfucking suggests Nixonian dirty tricks. Asking Klobuchar not to drop out until after Super Tuesday to prevent Bernie from winning Minnesota is no different than trying to find some sort of third party Mormon candidate to run in Utah for the sole purpose of trying to deny Trump those electoral votes. It just seems like good politics to me.
1 Like
All of them? This just feeds every other candidateâs hopes that the polls are wrong, that the early states arenât that important, and they will do better when votes are counted.
This is the biggest flaw of democracy.
1 Like
Itâs kind of hard to not be a party loyalist when youâve been the #3 Democrat in the House leadership for over a decade.
Without looking it up, can you guess who Clyburn initially endorsed in 2004? Your choices are John Kerry, John Edwards, Howard Dean, Wesley Clark, Dick Gephardt, Joe Lieberman, Dennis Kucinich, Al Sharpton, and Carol Mosely Braun.
I donât define ratfucking as anything that works against winning or bettering society.
Itâs hard to predict. One of my maxims of politics is that scandals matter to the extent people want them to matter. You could easily have said that Obama would be toast in the face of God DAMN America and his friendship with an ex-weatherman and âcling to guns and religionâ etc, but you would have been wrong because people just liked Obama and were willing to give him a pass on everything.
My gut says that people who are scared of socialism in America come in two flavors, 1) people who know what it is and are never ever voting Dem and 2) people who donât know what it is other than a vaguely scary thing. To them âsocialistâ is just an insult with vague connotations of being un-American and if they like Bernie and he gives a reasonable explanation, like Obama did with his speech after the âGod Damn Americaâ tape came out, theyâll be like âOK, coolâ. But thereâs uncertainty in this. I donât pretend to really know how swing voters âthinkâ, for want of a better word.
2 Likes
I decline to cooperate with your sloppy definitions which serve only to muddle discussion. You want to use âratfuckingâ to apply negative connotative interpretation to anything that works against your purposes in the same way that conservative slap the âterroristâ label on a host of things they dislike.
Well, fine, I decline to condemn ratfucking in principle and I am willing to encourage it and participate in it if it works towards my goals. And if you care about winning, you should feel the same way. We need more ratfucking and Dems should use the primaries to practice ratfucking so they can ratfuck Trump and defend against his attempts at ratfucking in the general election.
1 Like
Without looking it up, Lieberman?
OK, looked it up. Gephardt isnât surprising, surely? Theyâre fairly similar politically.
Youâre mistaken if you think I support the status quo. I donât think you understand me because I donât fit into your simplistic, Manichaean view of the world.