Here’s the title of Nate Cohn’s essay in the New York Times: “How One Polling Decision Is Leading to Two Distinct Stories of the Election: A methodological choice has created divergent paths of polling results. Is this election more like 2020 or 2022?”(That’s a gift link.)
Duh. The election isn’t “like” 2022 or 2020, and obviously so. If anything, the election is more like 2016, except that Trump has already been President for four mostly successful years, at least theoretically proving that he can do the job, and Hillary Clinton, as certifiably awful as she is, still was more qualified and substantive that the ridiculous Kamala Harris.
Apparently pollsters are relying heavily on so-called “recall vote” weighing, in which how a voter cast a ballot in the last election gives valid data about how he or she will vote in 2024. First, 2022 was a mid-term election, and the dynamics were completely different from a Presidential race. Indeed, everything is completely different from this Presidential election.
Using the last Presidential election as some kind of guide to figuring out this one using Trump 2020 as a comparison to Trump 2024 is also invalid. The election during the pandemic lockdown was sui generis. Trump was the incumbent stuck with miserable conditions thanks to events outside his control, but still: voters tend to blame incumbents. Trump is in 2020 Biden’s position now as the one offering a change from a rotten situation, and Harris, well, who knows what she is, or will be regarded as once enough voters get their heads out of anatomically impossible places and pay attention? That is, if they ever do.
Cohn writes at the end, “A near repeat of the last presidential election is certainly a plausible outcome. In today’s polarized era, who could possibly be surprised by a repeat in Mr. Trump’s third presidential run? If it’s a near repeat, the polls weighted by recall vote won’t just have an excellent night themselves, but they might also spare the entire industry another four years of misery.”
Wait, a repeat of what? A Trump loss to Biden? No, that can’t be it. Trump doing better than the polls? If that happens, Trump wins, and if Trump wins, how could 2024 be a repeat of an election that Trump lost? The election being close? Do we need polls to guess that?
I don’t see why pollsters would use the mid-terms as a factor in the Presidential polls, unless they are trying to misrepresent Trump’s support as weaker than it is (and they might be). Since that election, the Democrats have been revealed as having engaged in a cover-up of Biden’s dementia. Since that election, full scale lawfare has been wielded against Trump by Democratic prosecutors, the party and Biden. They have marked Trump as an existential threat to democracy, prompting two assassination attempts. Food and many commodities are still getting more expensive, just not as quickly as the Bidenomics-inflated inflation had them rising earlier. The party opposing Trump has become increasingly hostile to individual rights. The Middle East has blown up: Democrats are leading anti-Semitic demonstrations. The border situation hasn’t improved.
The 2016 election seems to me to be a much stronger analogy to this one, but with a stronger Trump, and a much, much weaker “historic” Democratic candidate running as a successor to a much weaker incumbent. Nate Cohn, however, works in the New York Times bubble, and that environment is biased, deluded, desperate, and whistling in the dark.
There is an opinion piece today, one of the monthly confabs between progressive propagandist pundit Gail Collins and Stockholm Syndrome Times conservative Bret Stephens. The headline: “How Could the Election Be This Close?” “Why isn’t Kamala Harris running away with the election?” asks Collins. Wow. Talk about 2016 redux: remember this, when Hillary plaintively asked how it could be that she wasn’t “50 points ahead”?
I was still planning on holding my nose, downing a bottle of Pepto and voting for her then, but I thought the lament was astounding. “Why? Because you’re a terrible candidate! You’re a liar, you should be prosecuted for mishandling classified material, and you’re running to continue the policies of a weak and largely unsuccessful Democratic President, that why!” I thought.
The question being asked by Collins and Stephens today demonstrates even more bubble-think: I am reminded of the late leftist New Yorker film reviewer Pauline Kael admitting that she was shocked when Nixon defeated McGovern in a landslide because she didn’t know anyone who supported Nixon. Looking at the state of the nation, Harris’s “guess what I believe” candidacy, and the frightening Democratic push to gain totalitarian control, the better question is, “Why isn’t Trump running away with the election?”
That one has uncomfortable answers for the Times. The main reason is that the Axis has been fearmongering and lying about Trump for almost a decade, and it has spread Trump Derangement like nerve gas. The second reason is that Trump is still Trump, and half the country (at least) find him personally repugnant. Third: he’s too old, and the Biden fiasco is still ongoing. Fourth, and this is disgusting: an astounding number of women rate being able to kill an unborn child right up to birth as their most important issue, and blame Trump for a Constitutionally necessary SCOTUS decision that should have been made 40 years ago. #5, and it could be #1, is that the mainstream media is the enemy of the people, and is trying to drag Harris to victory instead of doing its job.
I believe, as I have stated here before, that the most likely result in November is that Trump wins in the Electoral College. The second most likely: Trump wins decisively. Black Lives Matter-style progressive riots across the country will follow.
Mid-way through the musical “1776,” after the Congressional Congress has split over the issue of slavery and the delegates have left the hall, one of the Congressional staffers asks Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, which side he “stands with.” “I stand…with the General,” he replies, meaning George Washington, whose letters Tompson reads to Congress. I stand with the President, and by that I mean President Lincoln, who said, “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” Democrats, and Harris, and the New York Times Axis members, are all counting on Lincoln being wrong.
History tells us that where the United States is concerned, Abe is usually right.
Ethics Alarms 
Thanks for the link. I read most of that article and, on reflection, I still have no clue just why weighting by recall vote would give a worse result for the winner of the last election.
However, someone was wondering how people could not remember or misremember how they voted 4 years ago. That one I have no trouble believing.
Most of you will remember the third stimulus of $1400 paid starting in March, 2021 after Congress passed the American Rescue Act (what money trees still exist across the country are still cowering in fear).
Cut to 2022 and tax preparation. One thing we asked all our clients was “Did you get the third stimulus payment?” If they didn’t, they could claim it on their 2021 tax return. A lot of times the answer was “No, I’d remember if I got a check for $4200 ($2800 or whatever)”.
I would ask, did you get the first two stimulus payments? Yes (or I’d see it on their 2020 return). Well, my experience was that people who got the first two almost always got the third (the IRS got better with every round).
What I’d ask the client was to check their bank statements while I worked on the rest of the return. Just about every time, “Oh there it is. I guess I did get that check.”
Your experience may vary, but I’d think getting a bit check the year before would be more memorable than how I voted four years ago.
“How Could the Election Be This Close?”
That is a good question.
Remember this?
https://ethicsalarms.com/2024/09/19/the-teamsters-saving-democracy-by-being-undemocratic/
The September telephone poll showed 58% of Teamsters members supporting Republican candidate Donald Trump, and 31% said they support Harris.
, is that the mainstream media is the enemy of the people, and is trying to drag Harris to victory instead of doing its job.
I would argue that, while I dont Disagree that media outlets are biased, the NYTs isn’t running for President. Trump is.
Media outlets are private companies and can push whatever candidate they want to.
But Trump, to borrow your hyperbolic phrase, can also be viewed as an enemy of the people for trying to stay in power by using falsehoods while undermining the Constitution since he WAS an official representative for the American People.
DD
Journalism organizations may be a business—so is the law—but they have special professional duties and ethics requirements. They can support who they want, but they can’t ethically manipulate the news, facts and analysis to manipulate public opinion and elections. And that’s what the Times does.
A politician does not have the same function, duties, obligations or professional standards as journalists. It’s like comparing a doctors and hedge fund operators. BOY, am I sick of people making that invalid comparison…. and it’s been tried here before. Trump is not a journalist. He’s an advocate. Ethical journalists cannot be advocates.
But Trump, to borrow your hyperbolic phrase, can also be viewed as an enemy of the people for trying to stay in power by using falsehoods while undermining the Constitution since he WAS an official representative for the American People.
This is an allegation without substantiation. I cannot respond to the claim that falsehoods were made while undermining the Constitution without specifics.
It is not a falsehood that he believed that irregular election practices in certain states namely PA created an unfair election process. As president he has a duty and obligation to ensure that election rules are followed whether he benefits or not.
The fact that most of the courts dismissed his challenges based on standing did not rule that his assertions were invalid they simply said he was not entitled to be heard. Further, proving voter fraud is extremely difficult when the anonymous mail in ballots are separated from the validating envelopes. You cannot prove that he lied. Having an opinion based on an understanding of the issues is not a lie.
Every Democrat losing presidential candidate since Gore has had their supporting Congressional representatives challenge electors. Hillary Clinton continues to deny Trump was a legitimate president. That is her opinion and based on what? It is not undermining the Constitution to do so.
What would undermine the Constitution is the use of federal law enforcement and intelligence resources to undermine the Presidency.
Or promising to warn China if the U.S. was about to attack.
As I understand it, weighting by recall vote means you ask people how they voted in the last presidential election and adjust your sample so that the recalled vote choice of respondents is consistent with that of the overall vote in the last election. It’s a way of detecting how many voters are switching their votes this time around. It seems like a sensible method to me. Rasmussen does it and they say that votes are switching mostly to Trump, but they’re strong Trump supporters, so who knows?
Jack – you’ve said very little about the possibility of the election being decided for Harris by widespread fraud. Is that something that worries you?
Nope. Last time, the GOP was caught flatfooted. There will be scrutiny this time. The Democrats can’t take the chance.
If they were smart, they wouldn’t take that chance. But then again, if they were smart, we wouldn’t be in any of these messes right now. I’m not only expecting all of the usual questionable goings-on, I’m expecting a lot more. Which will then be followed up with the same “what? Where did you even come up with this nonsense?” Response that the allegations of FEMA malpractice are getting. It’s pure gaslighting, and we’re going to see a lot more of it.
Typical Democrat voter on contested issues (in italics):
Since that election, the Democrats have been revealed as having engaged in a cover-up of Biden’s dementia. That’s okay. He’s not Trump and the smart people run the country anyway, and presidents are just figurehead. Since that election, full scale lawfare has been wielded against Trump by Democratic prosecutors, the party and Biden. But Trump’s guilty of everything they’ve charged him with, and more! They have marked Trump as an existential threat to democracy, Because he is! prompting two assassination attempts. Too bad they both failed. Food and many commodities are still getting more expensive, just not as quickly as the Bidenomics-inflated inflation had them rising earlier. It ain’t so bad. It would be worse under Trump, and Harris will stop big corporations from price gouging, whatever that is. The party opposing Trump has become increasingly hostile to individual rights. They only want to keep me safe, from Republicans. The Middle East has blown up: Because of the crazy Israelis annoying those nice, poor Muslims. Democrats are leading anti-Semitic demonstrations. You like Jews? The border situation hasn’t improved. But what about all those poor migrants and that stuff on the Statue of Liberty? And who’s going to clean my house and mow my lawn?
I really fear Harris will prevail. The Dems have very effectively inoculated the citizenry. Look at Denver Dave. He’s like Teflon. Any criticism bounces off him faster than it hits him, defying common sense, and physics, but spouting the party line as if he’s reading out of his little red book, which he is. There’s great comfort to be had in being with the crowd. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dems gain control of Congress as well.
There is one thing I have started looking at on RCP — the RCP betting average. It has been moving in Trump’s favor, today at 51-48. Don’t actually know what it represents, but it is another barometer.
Well, and I also just looked at the final betting average for 2020 — it was Biden 64 – 30s for Trump. Just a bit off there in favor of Biden. Or was it? Biden did win, after all, it was just a lot closer than the polls had indicated.
That said, who the heck knows? Eight years ago, we were bracing ourselves for another Clinton election. That didn’t happen, did it? Five years ago, we were wondering if Trump would get an even bigger win in 2020. That didn’t happen either.
I remember reading a couple articles when Harris was first coronated, that she more or less thought the rust belt was the past and she would win by concentrating on the Sun belt, the future. That strategy’s not looking too good now either.
I think Trump has always known that he had to win in the Rust belt. With current trends, he just has to win one state, if he sweeps it he’s over 300.
As far as 2020 goes — I believe that it was rigged in the Democrat’s favor, but I don’t think there was much actual cheating.
However, the fantastical claims by some of Trump’s attorneys helped to poison the well. I don’t know what they were smoking, but it sure was potent. As well, it was obvious that the Trump/GOP legal team was woefully underprepared. They say they’ve fixed that and we’ll see.
They also say they’ve gotten improved their get out the vote efforts, where they’ve been beaten by the Democrats this century. We’ll see about that too.
The betting sites represent “The Wisdom of Crowds,” the phenomenon of collective wisdom in which large groups are more astuste in aggregates than their individual members. Democracy relies on the principle.