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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I think part of the problem with confidence in polling is also the difference in polling versus probability. If Bob Politician has a 98% chance to win the election and then, on election day, he comes through with 52% of the vote, the polls aren't wrong. They said he would almost certainly win. And he did.
But they look wrong, because 52% is a much smaller number than 98%. A high probability of victory doesn't mean you won't be scraping by to reach that victory. It just means you'll probably get there. But there's a false expectation for the vote tally to look at least similar to the probability.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 25th 2020 at 9:15:31 AM
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.The problem is that, not matter how much you talk about “normal” polling error, if a ton of polls are having Biden up by +10 and he wins by +4, and they’re having him up by +8 in the Midwest and he barely scrapes wins, and they had errors of the same type in the same region last time, people will reasonably conclude there is a problem.
If polls can’t tell us anything meaningful about the questions we actually have, then they are simply not useful.
The polls that were closest to being right on this election (i.e., Biden a few points up, not double-digits) were the ones that all the commenters on the 538 Twitter were decrying as Republicans propaganda, not the supposedly high-quality NYT or Washington Post ones.
Edited by Galadriel on Nov 25th 2020 at 12:54:12 PM
Also, as much as the polls looked to be completely wrong in the days following election day, as the total votes are counted, Biden's advance is pretty much showing as being immensely ahead. It's all a problem with optics, Biden didn't look obviously the winner from the beginning and was instead steadily catching up to T****, so it seems like it's a razor-thin win.
Blame the Republicans for not allowing the mail-in ballots to be counted ahead of time, and remember that this was their goal, to make it look like the election was much closer than it was.
So I’m having a quick look at the 538 average and the results we have from states that are 100% done and certified.
- Florida was off by almost 6 points, the average head Biden up 2.5 points, but a couple pollsters had released polls with Trump ahead. Including an ABC/Washington Post poll from the 31st that had Trump up 2 points (his actual margin was a 3.36 point win).
- Georgia was off by 1 point, with the average having Biden ahead 1.2 points and him winning by 0.2 points.
- Michigan was a 5 point miss, average had Biden up by 7.9 and he won by 2.7.
- Minnesota was a 2 point miss, average had Biden up 9.2 and he won by 7.1.
- Nevada was a 3 point miss, average had Biden 5.3 and he won 2.3.
- New Mexico was a 1 point miss, average of 11.7, result of 10.7.
- Pennsylvania was 3 and a bit point miss, average of 4.7, result of 1.1.
- Texas was a 4 point miss, average of Trump up 1.1, actual result was him up 5.5.
We still don’t have final results for Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio or Arizona, so it’s really to early to measure the polls against the results.
Florida looks to be the only state that the polling average called wrong, with it, Texas and Michigan being the ones with the largest misses.
“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyranhttps://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/immigrant-children-guatemala-ice-flight
ICE deported 30 children who they'd been specifically ordered not to by judges. This is why the people involved need to be in jail.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
If I recall ICE was created to help monitor traffic between other countries and the U.S.; such a shame it has become what it is now.
The polls that had the election being closer were ones like IBD/TIPP (last poll Biden +4). Rasmussen underestimated Biden (at +1 in their last poll) but balanced out the numerous other polls that mainly had him between +7 and +11.
Insider Advantage had Biden +2 in Michigan, which was close to the actual result of +3, while most other pollsters had him up by 7 to 10 points there. Trafalgar had Biden down two, which is a miss of 5 points - as large as most of the other pollsters, but in the opposite direction.
Edited by Galadriel on Nov 25th 2020 at 1:58:56 PM
The Department of Homeland Security as a whole is a bad idea and it was filled from the beginning with die hard GOP stooges.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.ICE comes from the Homeland Security Act in 2002, as a response to the September Eleven attacks. Alongside the Patriot Act (one year before), and the whole you know, War on Iraq, it should clue you in as to its purpose.
Edited by Aszur on Nov 25th 2020 at 1:23:57 PM
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothesI'm with Charles, the Department of Homeland security is a mess
. Abolishing it would be a good idea.
Would Biden have to come up with a successor to that if this department were to be abolished?
The Department of Justice pursuing cases against ICE is probably the most we can hope for but massively defunding and re-arranging the organization is something I feel is absolutely necessary. It's filled to the brim with racist ideologues and people who loved Trump's racist policies and ex-Border Militia members from even before the Cheeto took office.
But yes, when the DOHS was created, it was considered a joke and the people it got from other agencies were its bottom performers because no one wanted to give up their best and brightest. A lot of what it does are just for show anyway.
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Nov 25th 2020 at 11:43:32 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
x3 Congress would be required to destroy an Executive Department and move anything of worth to a different Department. While I wouldn't doubt the House would try, I don't think even a 50-50 Senate would be willing to do so. Too many of them, including Democrats, are Defense Hawkish, especially since many of them were in office during or after 9/11.
x2 No; Congress is the one that creates and destroys Departments, the President only fills them in. If Congress and Biden vote to abolish the DHS, then its dead.
I see. So the best Biden could most likely do is defund the DHS and move it to more useful departments like Commerce and Energy.
The vast majority of democrats voted in favor of the Homeland Security act
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes

Yep.
Course, Canada's also got that other prob that went a bit screwball thanks to Harper and Trump, where, iirc, he basically made the Canadian dollar dependant on how much Canada could sell its oil for, and Trump doing the "America first" thing meant Oil sales to the US tanked, and thus our dollar got screwed, hence all that crap about the pipeline to the West Coast to open up Asian Markets. Said Oil stuff is also why Alberta's having all those rumblings about separating recently.
As much as some Americans like to think it, the US can't be Isolationist anymore. They made a lot of the world dependant on them.
Semper Fi. Semper Paratus. Vigilo Confido.