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[mo60]

Speaking of 538 and election models this one kinda seems to be following 538 but it shows hilary leading in florida right now.
http://www.cbc.ca/news2/interactives/uspolltracker/

 

[nature boy]

Interesting podcast with the director of the USC poll.

It's all about intensity.

 

[Boke1879]

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...lf-into-2016-race-hellbent-on-clinton-victory

During this time. You leverage Tim Kaine's strength. Cut ads focused at spanish speaking people, and have him do interviews with places like Univision.

 

[Dubbedinenglish]

David Fahrenthold
‏@Fahrenthold
Found it.

So one of the paintings that Trump's charity bought is hanging in one of his golf courses. That's very much illegal. Shocking, I know.

Oh my!

 

[Hopfrog]

I need to read about how pissed Nixon was that Eisenhower didn't will him to the presidency in 1960 through lots of campaigning.

And then there was this famous moment:

Eisenhower: It is just--you could take this body here, and say, "Look, we are going to do something about the streets down here, about parking around here for you people." All right. Now, everybody has got his say. But I have to handle, let's say, around the White House, and so who is going to decide--I am; not this body. So Mr. Nixon has taken a full part in every principal discussion.

Q. Mr. Mohr: We understand that the power of decision is entirely yours, Mr. President. I just wondered if you could give us an example of a major idea of his that you had adopted in that role, as the decider and final--

Eisenhower: If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don't remember.

Jack Bell, Associated Press: Thank you, Mr. President.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

This bomber bought the materials for the bomb on eBay under his real name and left fingerprints on the bomb.

This guy is literally the worst terrorist I've ever seen.

 

[Debirudog]

How does Kellyanne sleep at night? She's too smart to defend this shit without realizing the damage it causes.

she has no qualms working for Ted Cruz.

 

[sprsk]

I'm watching this movie "Ameriggedon" which I think was made by infowars because Alex Jones plays a senator.

It's hilarious.

 

[Shamrock7r]

David Fahrenthold
‏@Fahrenthold
Found it.

So one of the paintings that Trump's charity bought is hanging in one of his golf courses. That's very much illegal. Shocking, I know.

What's funny is that looks like a shitty paint by numbers vector image of a photograph. Essentially he payed however much for someone to hit a button in Adobe Illustrator that reduces the image into colors, and they copied that to a canvas or panel. Something I can do in 2-3 hours max. Sad!

 

[AntraxSuicide]

How does Kellyanne sleep at night? She's too smart to defend this shit without realizing the damage it causes.

You ever see that Boondocks episode with Ann Coulter? It's all about the job, man. There was a write-up months ago that was before Trump fired Manafort that was talking about how depressed he was surrounded by disassociated political workers instead of people on board. With Conway, he just found someone who could hide the apathy better.

No one around Trump is actually invested in the win here because they all know politics and know that this isn't really possible (Trump's very best map has him losing 273-265). The whole goal of anyone on his campaign, other than his own family, is to preserve as much of the GOP as possible through this shitstorm (that they caused, but that's not super relevant while you're in the shitstorm).

Remember that most, if not all, of Trump's surrogates are actually just (1) GOP establishment types trying to keep the party afloat in other races or (2) true alt-right believers who don't really care if Trump wins since his candidacy has already validated their movement. None of the people in the second group actually care if Trump sticks around or how well he holds up post-election; he's already gotten them enough to live on for awhile.

 

[Cybit]

I teach stats at a university, and I can say that there's enough guesswork involved that questioning polls isn't some brutal sin. That's like accepting a publication in a journal without reading it first; you're not really participating in the peer review as much as you're practicing a religion. The scientific method isn't built on faith in scientists, but on people looking over your shoulder constantly and having a lot to gain from your failure!

It's good to scrutinize polls based on logical reasons for doing so. If the polls are actually good, then it shouldn't matter. A good model should hold up (which is why I throw the most shade at any trash poll that's too volatile. Straight garbage).

Except as it is blatantly obvious by the posts on this topic that repeatedly pop up in this thread, the reason a poll is scrutinized is if it does not show good things for Clinton. Even the Emerson landline poll that was scrutinized last week, that same poll showing good results for Kander, all of a sudden people wanted to believe. There is no rigorous scrutiny of polling or methodology here, it is purely "Does this make Clinton and her allies look good?" There's a reason that the polling power structure in GAF is directly correlated to "percent chance they give Clinton of winning".

Interesting podcast with the director of the USC poll.

It's all about intensity.

Turnout is going to be..interesting. Trump's betting his entire campaign on a gambit that he can push white turnout to unheard of levels.

 

[titiklabingapat]

With early indications showing Hillary recovering, it does lend more credence to how incredibly stable this race has been. It further reinforces the fundamentals that Hillary's ceiling are much higher than Trump's. They are playing this week right by laying low because 1) the debates are in six days and 2) the bomb thing in NYC is sucking up all the oxygen anyway.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

This bomb should get zero play.

The dude is fucking loser and the most incompetent terrorist the world has ever seen. He's a joke. The only play it should get is people pointing and laughing at him.

 

[aspiegamer]

The charity money isn't a big story. The "OPM" isn't a big story. They should be, but they won't. Media doesn't care enough to push it to the extend it should be, and the public is so numb to Trump scandals that nothing registers as notable anymore. People are too polarized. You either already care if Trump is a con artist or you don't. My body has been trained to not react to bad Trump news any longer. Upon seeing the two major headlines today I grinned for about half a second and immediately went back to being depressed about the campaign. Even freaking Deadspin's agrees with this.

So yeah, if he called Hillary a bitch to her face during these debates, they’d just keep going. And he wouldn’t pay for it. Why would he pay for anything at this point? Every time Trump does something abominable, the press points it out, and then what happens? His lunatic supporters bitch out the press for pointing it out. They don’t give a shit. They’re not gonna be swayed by some CNN talking head expressing surprise or disgust at yet another awful Trump thing. Horrifying people is his selling point. There’s a non-zero chance he’ll just punch Hillary in the face at one of these things.

There is literally no thing that Trump could say or do that would do actual harm to his campaign. Certain things might raise more flags and get people talking a whole lot, sure, but who is that going to dissuade anymore?

Would love to be wrong, of course! But Trump's floor of 42-44ish is people who would vote Republican no matter who the candidate was + some separate people who are 100% on board with and love Trump's bigoted bullshit. A generic and completely awful R candidate (like a Cruz, or, hell, Ben Carson) would actually be doing worse than Trump because the alt-right factor wouldn't be there. They're what's keeping him in this race. It's sickening.

 

[User1608]

If people think Trump responding to questions in the vein of the Rosie O'Donnell one from last year will help in the debates, they are in for quite the reminder when they find out a general election audience and debate format is not a like a Republican primary. This I am absolutely confident in.

I do think he will fall back to classic Donald because that's who he is.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

Except as it is blatantly obvious by the posts on this topic that repeatedly pop up in this thread, the reason a poll is scrutinized is if it does not show good things for Clinton. Even the Emerson landline poll that was scrutinized last week, that same poll showing good results for Kander, all of a sudden people wanted to believe. There is no rigorous scrutiny of polling or methodology here, it is purely "Does this make Clinton and her allies look good?" There's a reason that the polling power structure in GAF is directly correlated to "percent chance they give Clinton of winning".



Turnout is going to be..interesting. Trump's betting his entire campaign on a gambit that he can push white turnout to unheard of levels.

I'd be more inclined to listen to posts like this if they actually made an argument or practiced what's in them. Instead it's usually passive aggressive nonsense with a good "GAF is a hivemind" thrown in.

I didn't see such a poll last week, but landline only makes it garbage. That's true of any poll like that. However, I also don't see you posting about the problems with any other poll that has Clinton down, so much as I see you post passive aggressive nonsense aimed at no one in particular, since I'd hazard that you don't actually have posts to respond to.

Refute the logic Cybit, or it's going to fall on deaf ears.

 

[PBY]

The charity money isn't a big story. The "OPM" isn't a big story. They should be, but they won't. Media doesn't care enough to push it to the extend it should be, and the public is so numb to Trump scandals that nothing registers as notable anymore. People are too polarized. You either already care if Trump is a con artist or you don't. My body has been trained to not react to bad Trump news any longer. Upon seeing the two major headlines today I grinned for about half a second and immediately went back to being depressed about the campaign. Even freaking Deadspin's agrees with this.

There is literally no thing that Trump could say or do that would do actual harm to his campaign. Certain things might raise more flags and get people talking a whole lot, sure, but who is that going to dissuade anymore?

Would love to be wrong, of course! But Trump's floor of 42-44ish is people who would vote Republican no matter who the candidate was + some separate people who are 100% on board with and love Trump's bigoted bullshit. A generic and completely awful R candidate (like a Cruz, or, hell, Ben Carson) would actually be doing worse than Trump because the alt-right factor wouldn't be there. They're what's keeping him in this race. It's sickening.

Im right there with you.

 

[Zukkoyaki]

The charity money isn't a big story. The "OPM" isn't a big story. They should be, but they won't. Media doesn't care enough to push it to the extend it should be, and the public is so numb to Trump scandals that nothing registers as notable anymore. People are too polarized. You either already care if Trump is a con artist or you don't. My body has been trained to not react to bad Trump news any longer. Upon seeing the two major headlines today I grinned for about half a second and immediately went back to being depressed about the campaign. Even freaking Deadspin's agrees with this.

There is literally no thing that Trump could say or do that would do actual harm to his campaign. Certain things might raise more flags and get people talking a whole lot, sure, but who is that going to dissuade anymore?

Would love to be wrong, of course! But Trump's floor of 42-44ish is people who would vote Republican no matter who the candidate was + some separate people who are 100% on board with and love Trump's bigoted bullshit. A generic and completely awful R candidate (like a Cruz, or, hell, Ben Carson) would actually be doing worse than Trump because the alt-right factor wouldn't be there. They're what's keeping him in this race. It's sickening.

If it makes you feel a little better, the charity story is the top story on both ABC and CBS right now.

 

[mo60]

Except as it is blatantly obvious by the posts on this topic that repeatedly pop up in this thread, the reason a poll is scrutinized is if it does not show good things for Clinton. Even the Emerson landline poll that was scrutinized last week, that same poll showing good results for Kander, all of a sudden people wanted to believe. There is no rigorous scrutiny of polling or methodology here, it is purely "Does this make Clinton and her allies look good?" There's a reason that the polling power structure in GAF is directly correlated to "percent chance they give Clinton of winning".



Turnout is going to be..interesting. Trump's betting his entire campaign on a gambit that he can push white turnout to unheard of levels.

The problem with that is he still little campaign structure to actually push whites to vote for him in insane margins.

 

[Grief.exe]

How does Kellyanne sleep at night? She's too smart to defend this shit without realizing the damage it causes.

Money and whiskey neat help her rest.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

"Saudi Arabia is going to pay for safe zones in Syria" is as insane of a plan as "Mexico will pay for the wall," good work, Donald.

 

[Aaron Strife]

Except as it is blatantly obvious by the posts on this topic that repeatedly pop up in this thread, the reason a poll is scrutinized is if it does not show good things for Clinton. Even the Emerson landline poll that was scrutinized last week, that same poll showing good results for Kander, all of a sudden people wanted to believe. There is no rigorous scrutiny of polling or methodology here, it is purely "Does this make Clinton and her allies look good?" There's a reason that the polling power structure in GAF is directly correlated to "percent chance they give Clinton of winning".



Turnout is going to be..interesting. Trump's betting his entire campaign on a gambit that he can push white turnout to unheard of levels.

Yo I just want to point out that plenty of people (well myself and whyamihere) had no problem discarding that Emerson poll showing Kander ahead because of their junk methodology. Same with the Elon NC poll that had an absurdly tight likely voter screen.

This "PoliGAF only likes polls with Clinton winning" attitude feels more like a meme at this point.

538's model is acting extremely volatile when other models are relatively stable. Clinton had a slew of good polls today but her numbers are dropping anyway because Nate is skewing them towards the overall trend. I think it's fine to question it even if I don't think it's ultimately that big of a deal.

 

[Teggy]

With the way Trump is ducking the press I'm still thinking he's going to try to pull off an Obama apology at the debate. I don't see how it cloud possibly work, but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

[ItWasMeantToBe19]

With the way Trump is ducking the press I'm still thinking he's going to try to pull off an Obama apology at the debate. I don't see how it cloud possibly work, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Trump has been ducking the press other than Hannity for months.

 

[Y2Kev]

With the way Trump is ducking the press I'm still thinking he's going to try to pull off an Obama apology at the debate. I don't see how it cloud possibly work, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Obama has said it's a personal insult to him if his supporters don't vote (and vote Democratic). Do you really think sucking up to people that respect Obama is the right path?

Also does anyone know if George HW lives in Florida? We could use the vote.

 

[mo60]

Obama has said it's a personal insult to him if his supporters don't vote (and vote Democratic). Do you really think sucking up to people that respect Obama is the right path?

Also does anyone know if George HW lives in Florida? We could use the vote.

He lives in Texas.

 

[aaaaa0]

How does Kellyanne sleep at night? She's too smart to defend this shit without realizing the damage it causes.

I assume this is how she wipes her tears every night:

 

[Aaron Strife]

Obama has said it's a personal insult to him if his supporters don't vote (and vote Democratic). Do you really think sucking up to people that respect Obama is the right path?

Also does anyone know if George HW lives in Florida? We could use the vote.

HW lives in Texas. It's ok, he'll make it a swing state.

 

[PBY]

Ima get roasted for this, but Warren's dressing down thing seemed out of line to me.

Dude was making sense to me, she didn't seem to fundamentally understand the role of the board here. I don't know, what was he supposed to say there.

Like... in principle, I get it. But what was the purpose of that?

 

[AntraxSuicide]

The charity money isn't a big story. The "OPM" isn't a big story. They should be, but they won't. Media doesn't care enough to push it to the extend it should be, and the public is so numb to Trump scandals that nothing registers as notable anymore. People are too polarized. You either already care if Trump is a con artist or you don't. My body has been trained to not react to bad Trump news any longer. Upon seeing the two major headlines today I grinned for about half a second and immediately went back to being depressed about the campaign. Even freaking Deadspin's agrees with this.

There is literally no thing that Trump could say or do that would do actual harm to his campaign. Certain things might raise more flags and get people talking a whole lot, sure, but who is that going to dissuade anymore?

Would love to be wrong, of course! But Trump's floor of 42-44ish is people who would vote Republican no matter who the candidate was + some separate people who are 100% on board with and love Trump's bigoted bullshit. A generic and completely awful R candidate (like a Cruz, or, hell, Ben Carson) would actually be doing worse than Trump because the alt-right factor wouldn't be there. They're what's keeping him in this race. It's sickening.

Trump will always vex me in the same way that ground game stuff used to. We always think a ground game matters, but you can't know unless you test it by running a campaign with a poor ground game (Trump will finally test this, but even this is hard to pin down since he's bad in other ways).

It could very well be that all these scandals have mattered in that every time they happen, Trump's ceiling is reinforced. Maybe if he shut his mouth and ran normally, he'd be gaining right now (not closing the gap at Clinton's expense, but actually gaining voters himself). We'll never know because it hasn't happened and probably won't happen in a way that matters.

Pretend this is a left-wing candidate running with tons of scandals and constant offensive gaffes. I think the main number we'd all be focusing on (and furious about) would be the ceiling of such a candidate. It's damn near made of steel at this point (the best polls of his campaign could only get him to 45%). He just can't stretch his support beyond that.

 

[UraMallas]

Wrong thread.

 

[Y2Kev]

Ima get roasted for this, but Warren's dressing down thing seemed out of line to me.

Dude was making sense to me, she didn't seem to fundamentally understand the role of the board here. I don't know, what was he supposed to say there.

Like... in principle, I get it. But what was the purpose of that?

She probably actually believes that the most senior manager of a firm that had obvious and blatant coordinated fraud should be held accountable.

 

[PBY]

She probably actually believes that the most senior manager of a firm that had obvious and blatant coordinated fraud should be held accountable.

Totally with you. But they're being investigated, and that will hopefully bear that out. I just mean that lighting the dude up when clearly the issues in question are the purview of the board... I don't know. Corporate governance, I'm not saying he bears no responsibility - bu the issue in question was with respect to oversight issues and compensation - the foundational documents Im guessing speak very clearly to procedures with respect to handling these issues.

I guess I'm okay with it, if only we acknowledge its nothing more than showmanship.

 

[johnsmith]

How is the CEO less responsible than the board? That makes no sense.

 

[DrForester]

With the way Trump is ducking the press I'm still thinking he's going to try to pull off an Obama apology at the debate. I don't see how it cloud possibly work, but it wouldn't surprise me.

The Birther story is pretty much dead now. Id be surprised if he's asked about it at the Debate.

 

[PBY]

How is the CEO less responsible than the board? That makes no sense.

Didn't say that. Said that there are procedural methods in place for handling various issues, and its clear to me that they were following that with the specific clawback issue that prompted the dressing down.

Of course he's responsible; her points with respect to the dressing down didn't really make sense to me in that context.

The CEO and board aren't interchangeable terms; there are defined roles here. Not even sure the chairman of the board of Wells actually has a vote tbh, but maybe.

 

[AntraxSuicide]

How is the CEO less responsible than the board? That makes no sense.

One of the best (worst?) features of a corporation is that it's not that difficult to just constantly pass around responsibility so that no single entity is ever responsible when something bad happens. This guy keeps passing it off to the board here, but I'm sure if pressed, each member would start fishing for other divisions and even send the blame right back to the CEO. It's nothing personal though, since they all know he'll just throw it back. Without an admission, you can stall out hearings for years.

 

[Y2Kev]

Totally with you. But they're being investigated, and that will hopefully bear that out. I just mean that lighting the dude up when clearly the issues in question are the purview of the board... I don't know. Corporate governance, I'm not saying he bears no responsibility - bu the issue in question was with respect to oversight issues and compensation - the foundational documents Im guessing speak very clearly to procedures with respect to handling these issues.

I guess I'm okay with it, if only we acknowledge its nothing more than showmanship.

First, the CEO of Wells Fargo is also Chairman of the Board, so he is there in both of his roles (as both the highest executive at the company and as chairman of the board that employs him). But, more importantly, I'm not sure the issues at hand are matters of corporate governance the board would be touching; this is not something I think an audit, compliance, or even corporate ethics committee is going to catch. This is being driven by targets set at the executive management level (not at the CEO level, but at the level of the CEO of the NA consumer division if I had to guess) and targets the CEO was aware of and proud of! Warren effectively links his boasting on quarterly earnings calls to his personal wealth, which I think is the real insinuation she's making: you're a douche, you made other people do your douchework, and you profited off it. There's a clear moral hazard.

What makes you think this is the board's responsibility? I think it's the board's responsibility actually to get rid of this loser.

 

[Nazgul_Hunter]

CNN is like a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode right now. Jeffrey Lord and whats-his-face trying to defend the "black communities are worse off than they've ever ever ever ever been."

 

[PBY]

First, the CEO of Wells Fargo is also Chairman of the Board, so he is there in both of his roles (as both the highest executive at the company and as chairman of the board that employs him). But, more importantly, I'm not sure the issues at hand are matters of corporate governance the board would be touching; this is not something I think an audit, compliance, or even corporate ethics committee is going to catch. This is being driven by targets set at the executive management level (not at the CEO level, but at the level of the CEO of the NA consumer division if I had to guess) and targets the CEO was aware of and proud of!

What makes you think this is the board's responsibility? I think it's the board's responsibility actually to get rid of this loser.

The Chairman of the Board is, in some cases, just a organizer/head man and doesn't actually have a vote; not sure what the case is at Wells.

I do think that the board should get rid of him, I do think he bears blame, and I do think that there were gross structural and oversight issues. My issue is Warren dressing him down for not seeking to clawback that woman's money, which seems like a clear cut procedure to be handled by the relevant board committee. I just didn't see her point, the woman deserves her due process as set forth in the corporate docs, not sure what the CEO is supposed to do.

THAT SAID I think that the board is fucked. They've moved super slowly on all this, and they're getting crushed (rightfully so).

 

[ctothej]

There is literally no thing that Trump could say or do that would do actual harm to his campaign. Certain things might raise more flags and get people talking a whole lot, sure, but who is that going to dissuade anymore?

This just isn't true though, as evidenced by the fairly volatile polls. There is a sizable number of swing voters who are indeed changing their minds (though I assume they aren't going back and forth between Clinton and Trump, but between voting for one or not voting at all).

Remember those couple weeks after the convention when Nytimes had a hit piece on Trump every day? Trump's numbers were definitely tanking then. That kind of press does real damage when applied consistently. On the other hand, he seemed to get a boost after his visit to Mexico, when the media began to prop him up as seeming presidential.

I do think you're correct that painting Trump as corrupt is ineffective. What does threaten Trump is when he seems incompetent or buffoonish. His worst polls this campaign came after weeks when he seems like a joke, when the viral narrative becomes "omg what flaming mess will he tweet next."

 

[titiklabingapat]

Wow, the CNN panel on Anderson are getting fed up of Jeff Lords and whats his face lol.

 

[RustyNails]

Where's my crazy LATimes/USC poll with 20% blacks supporting Trump

 

[Owzers]

Jeffrey Lord did his " speaking of slavery, do you know which party was responsible for it" in defense of Trump saying the african american communities are the worst they've ever ever ever been and the panel bringing up slavery/jim crow.

 

[Teggy]

Jeffrey Lord did his " speaking of slavery, do you know which party was responsible for it" in defense of Trump saying the african american communities are the worst they've ever ever ever been and the panel bringing up slavery/jim crow.

Oh, did he also bring out "the KKK is a leftist organization?" He loves that one.

 

[Plinko]

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/a...lf-into-2016-race-hellbent-on-clinton-victory

I love the strategy, actually. If they don't get Arizona/Georgia, oh well. No big deal. Those six in the list, though? Get three and it is over.

 

[whyamihere]

Except as it is blatantly obvious by the posts on this topic that repeatedly pop up in this thread, the reason a poll is scrutinized is if it does not show good things for Clinton. Even the Emerson landline poll that was scrutinized last week, that same poll showing good results for Kander, all of a sudden people wanted to believe. There is no rigorous scrutiny of polling or methodology here, it is purely "Does this make Clinton and her allies look good?" There's a reason that the polling power structure in GAF is directly correlated to "percent chance they give Clinton of winning".



Turnout is going to be..interesting. Trump's betting his entire campaign on a gambit that he can push white turnout to unheard of levels.

I didn't like that Emerson used a landline only poll and said something about it at the time ¯_(&#12484_/¯

 

[Cybit]

I'd be more inclined to listen to posts like this if they actually made an argument or practiced what's in them. Instead it's usually passive aggressive nonsense with a good "GAF is a hivemind" thrown in.

I didn't see such a poll last week, but landline only makes it garbage. That's true of any poll like that. However, I also don't see you posting about the problems with any other poll that has Clinton down, so much as I see you post passive aggressive nonsense aimed at no one in particular, since I'd hazard that you don't actually have posts to respond to.

Refute the logic Cybit, or it's going to fall on deaf ears.

But let's take a poll from last week, say, one from a very reputable source

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=216864805&highlight=selzer#post216864805

Start at post 15319 and about how the LV screen is off. You know, from the person who had this written about her

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/selzer/

and even points out an illustrative moment from 2014

Her sincerity makes the fact that she’s become a Washington in-crowd “it girl” all the more paradoxical, since her celebrity is based on something fundamentally disingenuous; Washington perversely inserts Selzer into the news cycle by calling into doubt her polls and then just as quickly embraces her again after she’s proved the political elite wrong.

That’s what happened during the 2014 midterm elections. It was a tough cycle for polls generally, but not for Selzer. “Once again it is Ann Selzer’s polling world in Iowa, we’re just lucky to live in it,” Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press,” tweeted after Republican Joni Ernst’s surprise defeat of Democrat Bruce Braley by more than 8 percentage points in the state’s Senate race. Three days earlier, Selzer had anticipated that outcome in a Register poll, while others were showing the race neck and neck.

You can continue reading how quickly armchair forum goers know more about the LV screen at this point in the campaign than Ann Selzer. (Also, 15549 is where I put my two cents in).

You can go back and look at previous OTs and see this phenomenon happen again and again.

The problem with that is he still little campaign structure to actually push whites to vote for him in insane margins.

I didn't say it was a good idea, I said it was his plan.

Yo I just want to point out that plenty of people (well myself and whyamihere) had no problem discarding that Emerson poll showing Kander ahead because of their junk methodology. Same with the Elon NC poll that had an absurdly tight likely voter screen.

This "PoliGAF only likes polls with Clinton winning" attitude feels more like a meme at this point.

538's model is acting extremely volatile when other models are relatively stable. Clinton had a slew of good polls today but her numbers are dropping anyway because Nate is skewing them towards the overall trend. I think it's fine to question it even if I don't think it's ultimately that big of a deal.

See the pollercoaster from last week and how everyone became an armchair analyst of LV screens. EDIT: Removed unnecessary snark

Fundamentally, the main line graph on the page below should explain why it's not a bad point to assume things are getting closer. It's been a month and a half since the conventions and things have gotten closer, as everyone from even the Clinton campaign had said would happen. It's trending towards Trump, but he does seem to have something of a ceiling at 40% recently. Hell, a really good debate from Clinton could see that giant bump post DNC happen again.

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/national-polls/

Stuff is getting closer, but in defense of Clinton; the parts of the campaign that are left are qualitative factors that appear to favor her heavily - the debates, the effect of the ground game, a popular president hitting the campaign trail. Those are things you can't build into these kind of predictive models. So no bedwetting yet; but to go off on 538 (again) because they rightfully point out that an election that goes from a 7.5% lead to a 1% lead in under two months and has fluctuated completely crazy amounts should probably be much more volatile seems kind of cherry picking at best.

I mean, it went from a 4 point lead to tied in two months, then roughly tied to a 7.5% lead in 9 days, then back down to a 1 point lead in under two months again. We have about a month and a half left and the race still hasn't really stabilized, and there's a giant pile of third party / undecided voters still. It should be crazy volatile from a polls & probability perspective.

 

[Aaron Strife]

I love the strategy, actually. If they don't get Arizona/Georgia, oh well. No big deal. Those six in the list, though? Get three and it is over.

I would like to see Clinton play for those two states, but that can be done by funding offices for GOTV efforts and commercials. Actual retail politicking should be focused on the main swing states.

 

[Boke1879]

I love the strategy, actually. If they don't get Arizona/Georgia, oh well. No big deal. Those six in the list, though? Get three and it is over.

I feel October is going to be a massive blitz. I feel Clinton should definitely appear with a Obama at a couple of these rallies in between doing her own thing.

I also think she should meet up with Michelle as well.