True, but at the same time, if I want to predict whether someone will go to a steakhouse next week, the person who went last week and the week before that and the week before that is more likely than the person who has never gone to a steakhouse. There’s obviously uncertainty there, which is why you try to get large samples and lots of polls so that your job becomes less about guessing whether Bigoldnit is going to Peter Lugers and more about knowing whether more Americans like steak or chicken.
[And to just completely destroy this analogy, this may be why unorthodox candidates like Trump scramble the polls. Previous elections modeled beef vs chicken and he was a circus peanut…]
ETA: I should also add that most good polls ask a question about how enthusiastic the voter is about the candidate they say they support, and that gets factored into the likely voter screen as well.
Thx 4 the reply. I wasn’t sure if it was mostly a straightline from 2016 which I think is highly uncertain at this point. It is weird because Bernie seems to be poling better in all the undecideds, close states but for whatever reason these results are favoring Biden more than him against Trump. I’ve not really ever heard any good explanation of this given that Sanders was beating HClint in the same numbers last election. People on this forum seem to accept the ‘Biden 8+’ figure generally but it does not seem logically consistent in my perspective. Given all of the asshattery in 2016 by the DNC establishment and related press organizations, I am pretty quick to question things I consider logically inconsistent, where they lead to a specific outcome that is favored by the establishment.
A couple short points for now that I can expand on later when I get home if you’d like.
Bernie supporters will probably get screened out by likely voter models more than Biden supporters b/c (amongst other reasons) young voters are less likely to vote than older voters. So, on one hand, you could argue that Bernie is the better choice b/c he will outperform likely voter polls. Otoh, you could argue that Bernie is risky b/c without a track record of actually voting, can we be sure that people who support him will actually go to the polls?
Modeling multicandidate races is exponentially harder than head to head matchups, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the polls are a little wonkier. Again, looking at averages of many polls and long run trends rather than individual polls is probably best.
I really fear that the Dems actually nominate a centrist and I dont see a problem this centrist winning against Trump. But the aftermath will be horrible. You wont get really progressive ideas enacted so 4 years later a lot of the progressive crowd will stay home and the Repubs get back to power. So all in all you might look at another 8-12 years where nothing really game changing gets done because centrists will only do the minimum and keep the status quo of wealth and power. Not to mention the midterms could end in desaster as well. Seems to me that is really like the last chance now. Who knows what measures would still be viable regarding climate change in 8-12 years.
She announced today that her plan is to implement a public option in her first term. Not m4a.
Fucking insulting. She lied for months, and like everybody on the left knew it. There was a reason her website didn’t mention m4a for so long, even though she pretended to be for it.
People have been pointing out that she has been very cagey about her support for m4a for a long time. Since early summer at least. It could be a coincidence that she had policy pages on her website for like everything except healthcare for a long time, and that she refused to explicitly say she was in favor of m4a for a long time, but it’s probably not.
And like, this kind of thing is infuriating because she still gets to try to purchase cred by saying “well my plan is to transition to m4a in a few years” but everyone knows there is not going to be the political appetite to have a long drawn out fight over a public option followed immediately by another long drawn out fight over single payer. The second bill will never come up for a vote.
It’s just like - tell me why I should believe that her stances on all of these other issues are genuine? Like is her wealth tax also going to first be a bill to incrementally raise marginal income tax rates and then revisit the wealth tax issue in term 2?
And Bernie has certainly been my number one to this point, except for possibly in the aftermath of his heart attack. But if Warren seemed more viable when the Maryland primary came around I likely would have voted for her. I also could have potentially been sold if she had adopted some strong positions on, say, gun confiscation that Bernie sucks on. In any case the point is likely moot now.
I think a public option is a reasonable fallback position. It’s a terrible starting point though, because the fallback will be to bupkis. Oh well she’ll be fine in the Senate I suppose.
I guess there is no acceptable candidate but Bernie at this point if you care about healthcare. I expect all other nurse unions to snap-endorse Bernie now.
(I say this without having time to read the plan, but if it’s like Pete’s plan and involves private insurance companies whatsoever, it sucks already)