Tag: polls

85 percent certainty!

Nate Silver doubles down on Democrats taking the House.

6 in 7 Chance Democrats win control (85.2{6cb082148f66295d8bc7a216c205e5958effe7b4e5a4ecc88596c412762a8d3c})

1 in 7 Chance Republicans keep control (14.8{6cb082148f66295d8bc7a216c205e5958effe7b4e5a4ecc88596c412762a8d3c})

He’s on the verge of becoming a confirmed countersignal. The AP is already backing down on its predictions of a Blue Wave.

In the closing stretch of the 2018 campaign, the question is no longer the size of the Democratic wave. It’s whether there will be a wave at all.

Pro tip: there won’t be.

Shock poll in AL!

I think they left out the part where 100 percent of the likely voters were Democrats:

Democrat Doug Jones holds a 10-point lead over Republican Roy Moore among likely voters in deep red Alabama. Greater party loyalty plus higher interest in the election among Democrats combined with more enthusiasm among Jones supporters gives him the advantage in the race to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

That’s according to a Fox News Poll of Alabama voters conducted Thursday through Sunday using traditional polling techniques, including a list-based probability sample with both landlines and cellphones.

Jones receives 50 percent to Moore’s 40 percent, with 1-in-10 undecided (8 percent) or supporting another candidate (2 percent) — which could make a difference Tuesday. That’s even truer with such an unconventional election with unconventional candidates.

Color me skeptical. Very, very skeptical. Sounds like more futile media magic to me.

Moore will win

As long as Roy Moore doesn’t step down or apologize, he should have no trouble winning the Senate race in Alabama.

Tuesday, November 14
Alabama Senate Special Election – Moore vs. Jones FOX 10/Strategy Research
Moore 49, Jones 43 Moore +6

Translation: the full-press from the GOPe and the media dinged him a bit, but didn’t seriously hurt him. At this point, his best bet is to simply ignore any attempts to get him to address the manufactured Fake News, dismiss it as dirty tricks, and focus on running his campaign to MAGA.

The intriguing thing is that whereas a Moore win would have hurt the GOPe, a victory in the face of their open opposition has the potential to break them entirely.

UPDATE: Meanwhile, in the alternate reality where the GOPe still matters and conservativism conserved the ladies room, Moore  MUST DROP OUT NOW! BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!

Republican Roy Moore is trailing Democrat Doug Jones by 12 points in the Alabama special Senate election, according to a poll conducted by the National Republican Senatorial Committee after five women accused Moore of pursuing them as teenagers.

They asked 12 Republican senators, Paul Ryan, and a homeless guy who believes the fish killed JFK.

Build the Wall already

Steve Bannon addresses Trump’s low approval ratings. The president’s former chief strategist says once Trump builds the wall, his approval ratings will go up, and he’ll go on to a 2020 landslide.

Bannon is correct, but he is only stating the obvious. I have been saying this since before the Inauguration. To ensure reelection, Donald Trump needs to do one thing, and one thing only: BUILD THE WALL.

Everything else is irrelevant in comparison. Build the Wall and win handsomely, fail to build it and risk losing.

Bracing for impact

The Washington Post appears to suspect that Hillary is going to lose and is attempting to prepare Hillary’s supporters for post-election shock and awe:

If the polls closed right at this moment (which they won’t) and if the results in each state perfectly mirrored the current RealClearPolitics average of polls in each state (which they won’t), Hillary Clinton would be elected president by an electoral college margin of 8 votes.

From her high in the polls a week or two ago, Clinton’s leads in a number of critical battleground states have collapsed or evaporated entirely. The election could come down to one state with four electoral college votes that flips from Clinton to Donald Trump and, boom: A 269-269 electoral college tie, and a vote by the House of Representatives to decide on the next president — who, given the composition of the House, would almost certainly be Donald Trump.

On Thursday, that Clinton state with four electoral college votes raised its hand. Hi, New Hampshire! Two new polls, from Boston Globe-Suffolk University and WBUR-MassInc put the Granite State at a virtual tie, with the continuing trend in the state away from Clinton. That’s Trump’s 269th electoral college vote. Or, really, his 270th: Polling in Maine’s second congressional district (which allocates one electoral college vote separately) has Trump in the lead. He wins the states he holds now and that one in Maine? President Donald Trump.

The trend is stark for Team Clinton.

Now, here is what has provoked this sudden outbreak of pessimism amongst the biased media. If you look at the Post‘s map of Hillary’s theoretical path to Electoral College victory, the pitfalls are readily apparent.

Trump is not only leading in New Hampsire now, but is also threatening to take Pennsylvania, Michigan, Viriginia, Colorado, and even New Mexico. Consider the recent Drudge headlines:

COLORADO: TIED
MICHIGAN: TIED
NEW HAMPSHIRE: TIED
NEVADA: TIED
PENNSYLVANIA: TIED

What do you think “TIED” means in a world where the pollsters give 96 percent of their political donations to Hillary Clinton? Despite weighting their demographics in her favor, massaging their data in her favor, and attempting to create a narrative of Clintonian inevitability, they still can’t present a credible picture of her winning those states.

In fact, they know, as does the Washington Post, that she’s probably going to lose all those states. This “trend to Trump” is merely pre-election CYA meant to retain their credibility for the next national election. And, if you recall, it is exactly what I have been waiting to see in the case of a Trumpslide, they’ve merely left it a little later than expected.

Remember, Colorado, Virginia, Michigan, and even New Mexico were supposed to be in the bag for Hillary. She wasn’t even campaigning or advertising in Colorado because her advisers were foolish enough to buy their own narrative. But look at what RCP, which operates on two weeks delay due to its poll-averaging model, now has as “toss-up” states.

AZ (11)    CO (9)
FL (29)    GA (16)
IA (6)    ME (2)
MI (16)    NV (6)
NH (4)    NM (5)
NC (15)    OH (18)
PA (20)    MECD2 (1)

That’s 158 Electoral College votes. If Trump takes them all – and he now appears likely to take most of them – that’s a 322-216 victory.

Events will take their course. But it certainly appears that the path has been laid for the glorious ascension of the God-Emperor Trump and the crushing of both the Clinton machine and the global establishment.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton now leads Trump by an average of just 1.7 percentage points nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Less than three weeks ago, Clinton led by 7 points on the same model. FiveThirtyEight’s forecast model gives Trump a 34 percent chance of winning. On Oct. 17, the same model gave Trump a 12 percent chance.

Ilk: the exam

ProProfs has really mutilated their embedding functionality, so you’ll have to click on the link to take that very important quiz: Is You Ilk?  Take it to determine whether you are a regular reader, Ilk, or an old school member of The Dread Ilk. It is recommended that you take the test before reading the comments, as there is some discussion of the answers in them.

Keep in mind that Ilkhood isn’t a membership in a club. It’s neither a status thing nor a seniority chart. At its core, it is a state of mind. If you have what it takes, it is what you will naturally become here over time, whether you begin as a fan, a critic, a bemused observer, or a moderately alarmed passer-by.

Weekly Poll: Afghanistan and Iraq

In light of Mr. Farah’s recent conversion to the anti-war cause, I’m wondering how many readers here support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, how many oppose them, and how many, like Mr. Farah and me, have changed from supporting at least one of them to opposing them both at some point along the way. As for me, I never supported the Afghan war and began openly opposing the Iraqi war in 2004 when I learned that my support for it on the grounds of the broken ceasefire agreement was based on incorrect information; the agreement was between Iraq and the United Nations, not Iraq and the USA. Therefore I was forced to conclude that sans any declaration of war or casus belli, the Iraqi war and subsequent occupation was always wholly illegitimate as well as lacking in any national security interest.