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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Graphics by Elena Mejia Lutz

Poll after poll showed a high level of enthusiasm for voting in the general election in 2020, and in the beginning of the year, voter registration surged to match that excitement. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. New registrations have fallen off a cliff.

The spring of a presidential election year is often a busy time for adding new voters to the rolls, and a recent report from the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve voter turnout and election security, shows registration numbers were even stronger in early 2020 than early 2016. But things changed dramatically in March, at least in the 12 places where FiveThirtyEight or CEIR were able to obtain data on new voters, a category that includes first-time voters, voters who recently moved to the state and, in some states (Texas, for example) even voters who moved between counties in the state.1

Consider Florida, for example, where 109,859 new voters registered in February of this year, compared to 87,351 registrants in February of 2016. But in April 2020, only 21,031 new voters registered, compared with 52,508 in 2016. The same pattern holds in 10 other states, plus Washington, D.C.: Each one registered fewer new voters in April 2020 than in April 2016, including in states where online voter registration is available.

Currently, 39 states plus Washington, D.C., offer the ability to register to vote online, and a 40th (Oklahoma) is expected to implement it this year.2 However, in the three places for which we have the relevant data (Florida, Maryland and Washington), online voter registration has not taken off during the pandemic — certainly not enough to make up for the lost in-person registrations. Even in Washington, where online registrations have ticked up since the beginning of the year, the pace is comparable to 2016: 2,956 people registered online in April and May 2020, similar to the 2,771 people who registered online in April and May 2016.

The fact that new voter registrations were outpacing the 2016 numbers in January and February was predictable, according to David Becker, the executive director and founder of CEIR. For one thing, population growth means that voter registration always climbs a bit, he said. The expansion of automatic voter registration makes getting on the rolls more convenient than ever in many states, too. Voters were also clearly interested in registering, Becker said.

“Every piece of data we had looked at with regard to enthusiasm about engaging in this presidential election cycle indicated that we had to be prepared for the highest-turnout presidential election that almost anyone living had ever seen,” Becker said, “which makes the decline in March and especially April all the more striking.”

Based on the timing, it seems safe to assume that COVID-19 had something to do with the drop-off, but there’s data to back that assumption up, too. In addition to how many new voters register, some states track how these new voters get their name on the books. In 2016 and in the pre-pandemic months of 2020, in-person registration at places like departments of motor vehicles made up a large plurality, or even a majority, of new registrants in the four places3 for which we have data on how new voters are registering. But after the pandemic caused most states to shutter many government offices, those registrations dwindled. By contrast, remote registrations (e.g., online or by mail) held relatively steady.4

“This is completely expected, but very concerning,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University’s School of Law. “The coronavirus shut down most of the primary avenues through which Americans register to vote: government offices, and all the malls, theaters and public places where voter registration drives operate.”

Indeed, the closing of schools and public events like festivals has hindered in-person voter registration drives run by third-party organizations. “We had planned to go to 850 high schools leading up to graduation, but as schools closed, that work was clearly disrupted,” said Jeanette Senecal, a senior director for the League of Women Voters who focuses on voter education.

For example, in Florida, third-party organizations registered 14,144 voters in January 2020 — a huge increase from the 1,196 they registered in January 2016. But in April 2020, they registered only 133 voters — down from 3,806 in April 2016.

States and third-party groups can still get around social distancing restrictions to get more voters on the poll books, though. Voto Latino, an organization that works to register and encourage Latino Americans to vote, has been operating digitally almost since its inception and was well prepared to continue its work during a pandemic. It uses digital campaigns to help voters register, which can even work in states like Texas, which does not have online voter registration — Voto Latino created an app that makes it easy to fill out the required form, which is then emailed to the voter to print off and mail in.

Danny Turkel, the communications manager for Voto Latino, said the group has actually seen a surge in voter registration, especially since protests in response to the killing of George Floyd began. “Our original goal entering 2020 was to register 500,000 voters,” said Turkel. “As the numbers have come in and surged, we are now thinking that we could surpass 500,000.”

So what kind of people might have registered if the coronavirus hadn’t struck? Well for one thing, they’re probably disproportionately young. “In any given year, far more young people register than older people, just because 18-year-olds age in [to being able to vote] and young people are more likely to move” and need to register at a new address, said Kevin Morris, a quantitative researcher focusing on voting rights and elections at the Brennan Center. According to Morris’s data, 57 percent of new registrants in Florida in the first four months of 2016 were under the age of 40, as were 65 percent of new registrants in Georgia. While the proportions were similar in the beginning of 2020, the total number was much lower than in the past, which means that lots of young people aren’t registering as usual in at least two key 2020 swing states.

Some of these delayed registrants may never end up registering at all. Though we don’t have data for how a pandemic has affected registration in the past (since the U.S. hasn’t faced a similar situation for a good century), Weiser cited another instance when voter registration dipped due to extenuating circumstances. In May of 2011, Florida passed a new bill that placed tough restrictions on third-party voter registration organizations, prompting many of them, such as the League of Women Voters, to stop operating in the state. The restrictions were suspended by a judge in May 20125 but the damage had been done; a subsequent study found that about 14 percent fewer voters registered in 2011 compared to the same period in 2007, with a notable drop following the introduction of the bill — and those registrations never completely caught up. In 2008, more than 1 million new voters registered in Florida. In 2012, fewer than 900,000 did, according to the state’s voter registration data.

Of course, one unusual law in Florida isn’t exactly analogous to a pandemic, and it’s possible that the high level of enthusiasm for this election will be enough to close the gap that COVID-19 created, especially as states begin to reopen and voters return to registration sites like the DMV. So it’s difficult to know whether this drop in registrations is permanent. But it is clear that despite voters’ intense interest in this election, the coronavirus has already made it harder for new voters to participate in it.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Kaleigh Rogers and Nathaniel Rakich

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djinnj · 4 years ago

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So, according to 538's politics podcast, new voter registration has nose dived since Covid19 happened. They think it has to do with the reduction of access to the places people usually register be it the DMV or county government offices, to places like high school graduations, fairs and festivals, etc where third party groups hold registration drives. When it becomes less convenient to register it's easy for it to get overlooked.

I really can't express how important it is for people to register so they can vote in November. Newly enfranchised? 18th birthday by election day? Want to have your opinion about federal, state, and local government literally counted? Register and then vote!

Not every state has online registration, but most of them do and the ones that don't will have mail registration. People can check their registration status or get registered at Vote411. This is a good time to make sure your registration is up to date, too, in case you've moved, changed your name, or there are any discrepancies that might impact your ability to vote in November.

#voter registration #us centric #be a voter #voting in the time of Covid19

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nodynasty4us · 4 years ago

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First reactions from the Five Thirty Eight crew:

Perry Bacon Jr.: Trump Interrupts Biden, Wallace And Americans�� Ability To Follow The Debate

Maggie Koerth: What If The Presidential Debate Was Like the Worst Fight Your Uncles Ever Had At Thanksgiving

Kaleigh Rogers: First Presidential Debate Hits A New Low, In A Year Of Nothing But Lows

Amelia Thomson-Deveaux: Everyone Lost The First Presidential Debate

Nathaniel Rakich: This Was The Worst Debate America Has Ever Had

Geoffrey Skelley: Maybe The Only Debate Takeaway Is That Trump Still Refuses To Say He Will Accept The Results Of The Election

Shom Mazumber: An Anticipated Debate Leaves Much To Be Desired

Micah: 2020 Is Perfectly Encapsulated In First Presidential Debate

Galen: Trump Uses Debate As Metaphor For His Governing Style: Chaos

Chris Jackson: Response On Twitter Suggests No One Wins Race-To-The-Bottom Debate

Meena Ganesan: There Are So Many More Days Left In 2020

#debates

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

All eyes are on the post office lately. (Yet another sentence we never thought we’d write in 2020.) In the past few weeks, Democrats have alleged that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major donor to the GOP and President Trump, is trying to slow down mail delivery and thus disrupt the election. And the U.S. Postal Service itself sent a letter (naturally) to 46 states and Washington, D.C., warning them that there could be delays in ballot deliveries.

Depending on your political worldview, one event seemed to be evidence of the other. But the letter isn’t part of a master plan to forestall democracy. It was instead about states assuming mail works differently than it does — regardless of who the postmaster is. And that could have a major effect on whether your mail-in vote is counted.

The post office has long-standing guidelines (which predate DeJoy) that recommend how much time voters and election officials should allow to apply for, send and receive mail-in ballots.

“We’ve been working on this for a while across the country to encourage states to update their laws to reflect the realities of how the post office actually works,” said Amber McReynolds, CEO for the National Vote At Home Institute, a nonprofit organization that lobbies for policies that make it easier for voters to cast absentee ballots.

In almost all states, even people who meet the deadline to request or mail back their ballot run the risk of their ballot not arriving on time simply because of how long the mail takes.

The USPS recommends voters allow one week between when they request their ballot and when they would like to receive it, and another week between when they put their completed ballot in the mail and the state’s deadline for receiving it. But many states allow mail ballots to be requested up until a few days before Election Day, which this year falls on Nov. 3, even if the deadline for returning the ballot is the day of the election. “The reality is that voters are going to fail if election officials are being asked to mail ballots out that late,” said McReynolds.

So if you’re among the 64 percent of voters who say they’re likely to cast a mail-in ballot this year, don’t wait until the last minute to request or return your ballot. When should you request or send it, then? We have a table for that:

Over 30 states have risky mail-in ballot deadlines

When voters should request and send back their mail ballots, according to USPS guidelines, and how different that is from each jurisdiction’s deadline

Recommended deadline How many days later jurisdiction deadlines are jurisdiction▲▼ Request by …▲▼ Send by …▲▼ Request▲▼ Postmark▲▼ Conn. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 days — Del. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — Mont. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — N.H. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — R.I. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — S.D. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — Wyo. 10/20/20 10/27/20 13 — La. 10/19/20 10/26/20 11 — Ga. 10/20/20 10/27/20 10 — Mich. 10/20/20 10/27/20 10 — S.C. 10/20/20 10/27/20 10 — Ala. 10/20/20 10/27/20 9 6 days Maine 10/20/20 10/27/20 9 — Wis. 10/20/20 10/27/20 9 — Ark. 10/20/20 10/27/20 7 — Okla. 10/20/20 10/27/20 7 — Pa. 10/20/20 10/27/20 7 — Tenn. 10/20/20 10/27/20 7 — Minn. 10/27/20 11/3/20 6 0 Mass. 10/23/20 10/30/20 5 4 Ohio 10/26/20 11/2/20 5 0 Kan. 10/23/20 10/30/20 4 4 Ky. 10/23/20 10/30/20 4 4 N.C. 10/23/20 10/30/20 4 4 Fla. 10/20/20 10/27/20 4 — Ariz. 10/20/20 10/27/20 3 — Idaho 10/20/20 10/27/20 3 — Neb. 10/20/20 10/27/20 3 — Texas 10/21/20 10/28/20 2 6 W.Va. 10/26/20 11/2/20 2 1 Ill. 10/27/20 11/3/20 2 0 Ind. 10/20/20 10/27/20 2 — Mo. 10/20/20 10/27/20 1 — Va. 10/23/20 10/30/20 0 4 Alaska 10/24/20 11/3/20 0 0 Iowa 10/24/20 11/2/20 0 0 Md. 10/20/20 11/3/20 0 0 N.Y. 10/27/20 11/3/20 0 0 N.M. 10/20/20 10/27/20 0 — Calif. — 11/3/20 — 0 D.C. — 11/3/20 — 0 Miss. 10/27/20 11/3/20 — 0 Nev. — 11/3/20 — 0 N.J. — 11/3/20 — 0 N.D. 10/26/20 11/2/20 — 0 Utah — 11/2/20 — 0 Wash. — 11/3/20 — 0 Colo. — 10/27/20 — — Hawaii — 10/27/20 — — Ore. — 10/27/20 — — Vt. — 10/27/20 — —

Show more rows

Mississippi and North Dakota have no statutory ballot-request deadline. California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Washington and Washington, D.C., are currently planning to automatically mail ballots to every voter, so they also do not have ballot-request deadlines.

Sources: State Election Officials, U.S. Postal Service

We calculated these dates by applying the USPS guidelines to each state’s deadline for receiving ballots.1 As you can see, 33 out of the 39 states that require would-be mail voters to request a ballot by a certain date2 have statutory deadlines later than the USPS recommends. Alaska, Iowa, Maryland, New Mexico, New York and Virginia are the only states whose deadlines comply with USPS guidelines. Similarly, in eight states3 that theoretically allow you to postmark your ballot by Nov. 2 or 3, you’ll want to put your ballot in the mail before that deadline to ensure it arrives in time to count.

But don’t worry if you don’t get your act together in time, or simply want to take more time to decide who to vote for. In most states, you can both request a “mail” ballot in person and drop off a completed ballot at your local election office or an official ballot drop box instead of mailing it. If you’re willing to do that, it’s fine to wait until the statutory deadlines to request and submit your ballot. It’s not a perfect solution, but you can also pay extra to send your ballot by priority or overnight mail, which are faster than standard mail service. So while we urge people to meet the recommended deadlines in the chart, it’s important to know you have options if you don’t.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Nathaniel Rakich and Kaleigh Rogers

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): This is it — the last presidential debate — and, as we’ve said in our presidential forecast for a while now, President Trump is running out of time. Joe Biden has a double-digit lead in national polls and has gotten a number of good state polls in the past few days.

We still expect the race to tighten here in the home stretch, and a debate is a great way for that to happen. But it’s also true that the last two weeks before an election don’t necessarily change the race all that much.

The final two weeks usually don’t change much

How much the national polling margin changed between 15 days before the presidential election and Election Day, since 1972

Leader in FiveThirtyEight national polling average Year 15 days before ELECTION Election Day Change 2016 Clinton +6.9 Clinton +3.8 3.1 2012 Romney +1.2 Obama +0.4 1.6 2008 Obama +6.8 Obama +7.1 0.3 2004 Bush +2.4 Bush +1.6 0.8 2000 Bush +2.7 Bush +3.5 0.8 1996 Clinton +14.9 Clinton +12.8 2.1 1992 Clinton +14.1 Clinton +7.1 7.0 1988 Bush +11.8 Bush +10.4 1.4 1984 Reagan +16.7 Reagan +18.0 1.3 1980 Reagan +2.3 Reagan +2.1 0.2 1976 Carter +2.0 Carter +0.8 1.2 1972 Nixon +25.5 Nixon +24.1 1.4

The averages listed are calculated retroactively based on FiveThirtyEight’s current polling average methodology.

So, let’s start there. How big are the stakes going into tonight?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): The stakes are kind of big but also kind of not?

On the one hand, it’s the last obvious opportunity for Trump to win voters over and for Biden to screw up. On the other hand, I think the writing is on the wall for Trump.

Granted, our presidential forecast still gives him a 13-in-100 chance of staging a comeback. But Trump just hasn’t shown any inclination to change his base-first strategy. He’s also been behind Biden for a while now in our forecast:

I guess I’m just not counting on seeing a different Trump tonight from the one who bombed in the first debate.

kaleigh (Kaleigh Rogers, tech and politics reporter): It’s rare for debates to have large, lasting impacts on the polls at the best of times, so it’s hard to imagine a scenario where this debate upends things in a dramatic way.

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): Given how rare live events are in the COVID-19 era, though, it’s not impossible that something could come out that reflects poorly on Biden. So, in that sense, it is a big deal.

At the same time, a national poll from The Economist/YouGov found this week that Biden led 52 percent to 43 percent among likely voters, and that only 4 percent of those voters said they might change their minds. So, unless Trump can win over the incredibly small number of voters who genuinely are unsure — there are a lot fewer undecided voters this year — it’s going to be tough to win the election. And I’m not sure much can happen that’s going to shift public opinion sharply.

kaleigh: Like Nathaniel, I’m curious to see whether Trump changes his strategy at all. Obviously, the muted mics will limit how much he can talk over Biden, but arguably, that tactic didn’t work so well. At least one poll found the majority of respondents disapproved of Trump’s behavior in the last debate, and even some Republicans said it made them support him less afterward.

nrakich: I’m not so sure the muted mics will make a big difference, Kaleigh. Maybe we won’t be able to hear Trump’s interruptions, but Biden will. And that could trip Biden up or stop him mid-answer.

sarah: Saying Trump bombed is a bit harsh, though, Nathaniel. After all, Clinton “won” the 2016 debates, and we saw how that turned out.

It’s easy to get obsessed with comparisons to 2016, and as we’ve written, you shouldn’t make too much of one election — after all, it’s a sample size of one. That said, there are some pretty big differences from 2016, yes?

kaleigh: Well, there’s the pandemic. That’s a pretty stark contrast. It has changed how we vote, how candidates campaign, how the economy is doing and so much more.

I wonder how different this election would be compared with 2016’s if COVID-19 hadn’t happened.

geoffrey.skelley: Well, as that Economist/YouGov survey and others have shown, this election has far fewer undecided or third-party voters, which makes it harder for the debates to move mountains.

In FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, Biden and Trump’s combined support adds up to about 94 percent. But at the same point in 2016, Trump and Clinton totaled just about 86 percent — a lot more voters were in play even in the late stages of the campaign. The same is true in state-level polls as well. For example, around 95 percent of voters in Wisconsin are backing Biden or Trump in our polling average, whereas 86 percent of voters there said they supported Trump or Clinton at this point in 2016.

nrakich: Not to mention, Biden’s lead is simply bigger than Clinton’s was at this stage of the 2016 campaign.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Biden led by 9.9 points in our national polling average; 13 days before Election Day in 2016, Clinton would have led by an average of 6.4 points, using the same methodology.

Something else that I think makes tonight’s debate less important: At least a quarter of voters have probably already cast their ballots. According to statistics collected by political scientist Michael McDonald, more than 41 million early or absentee votes have already been cast, or 30 percent of 2016 turnout (although 2020 turnout could be much higher if voter enthusiasm is any indication). So, even if something big happens tonight, a lot of people will have already voted.

geoffrey.skelley: That’s true, Nathaniel, but it could be that those early voters would have voted already anyway, as studies have shown that voters who vote early are more likely to be very partisan. Or, put another way, maybe those people weren’t going to change their minds anyway.

sarah: Those are all really good points — especially Kaleigh’s, about what this election would have looked like if COVID-19 hadn’t happened. What could we be missing, though? (And one big reason why comparisons to 2016 have their limitations!)

nrakich: Well, it’s always possible there will be a polling error.

So, if the debate budges the polls just enough — say, to where Biden has a 4-point national lead instead of a 10-point one — that makes it significantly more likely that Trump could win.

If Biden stays at +10 nationally, though, it would take a truly bonkers polling error to save Trump.

kaleigh: There are also more conventional differences. For example, this election has an incumbent candidate.

geoffrey.skelley: Speaking of polling error — and whether we could have a “Dewey Defeats Truman” on our hands — pollsters have tried to account for some of the things that led to problems with state polls in 2016. For example, some are weighting their samples by education, or even education and race, to avoid underrepresenting white voters without a college degree, voters who went so strongly for Trump in 2016.

So, some state polls could be better this time — although, of course, it’s impossible to predict the direction of a polling error before an election.

Polling bias is not very consistent from cycle to cycle

Weighted-average statistical bias of polls in final 21 days of the election, among polls in FiveThirtyEight’s Pollster Ratings database

Cycle Governor U.S. Senate U.S. House Pres. General Combined 1998 R+5.7 R+4.8 R+1.5 R+4.2 1999-2000 D+0.6 R+2.9 D+0.9 R+2.6 R+1.8 2001-2002 D+3.0 D+1.4 D+1.3 D+2.2 2003-2004 R+4.2 D+1.7 D+2.5 D+1.1 D+0.9 2005-2006 D+0.3 R+1.3 D+0.2 R+0.1 2007-2008 D+0.5 D+0.8 D+1.0 D+1.1 D+1.0 2009-2010 R+0.7 D+1.7 D+0.6 2011-2012 R+1.3 R+3.3 R+2.6 R+2.5 R+2.6 2013-2014 D+2.3 D+2.5 D+3.7 D+2.7 2015-2016 D+3.3 D+2.8 D+3.7 D+3.1 D+3.0 2017-2019 R+0.9 D+0.1 R+0.3 R+0.3 All years D+0.3 D+0.1 D+0.7 D+0.2 D+0.3

Bias is calculated only for elections where the top two finishers were a Republican and Democrat. Therefore, it is not calculated for presidential primaries. Averages are weighted by the square root of the number of polls that a particular pollster conducted for that particular type of election in that particular cycle. Polls that are banned by FiveThirtyEight because we know or suspect they faked data are excluded from the analysis.

sarah: OK, back to the debate. The rules have changed, as Kaleigh and Nathaniel were mentioning earlier, and now the moderator can mute the candidates if they speak out of turn. Here’s a snapshot of the six issues they are expected to stick to:

Fighting COVID-19

American families

Race in America

Climate change

National security

Leadership

What do we think might be covered by these issues? What plays to Biden’s strengths? And Trump’s?

geoffrey.skelley: Well, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that “fighting COVID-19” is not going to go well for Trump because Americans generally think he’s done a poor job handling the pandemic. That leaves Biden with a lot of material to work with.

nrakich: Yeah — according to our poll with Ipsos before the last debate, respondents said 78 percent to 20 percent that Biden was better on the issue of COVID-19. And that was before Trump announced he had tested positive for COVID-19.

More people trust Biden to handle COVID-19

Share of people who named each issue as the most important one facing the U.S., and whether they think Trump or Biden would handle that issue better, according to a FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos poll

Who’s better on the issue… issue share TRUMP biden COVID-19 31.9% 20.1%

–

78.0%

–

The economy 22.0 79.1

–

19.2

–

Health care 9.6 27.9

–

71.8

–

Racial inequality 7.4 6.0

–

90.9

–

Climate change 4.9 4.7

–

95.3

–

The Supreme Court 4.5 61.1

–

38.4

–

Violent crime 4.2 80.6

–

18.1

–

Economic inequality 2.9 14.3

–

85.7

–

Immigration 2.8 61.3

–

38.7

–

Abortion 2.8 93.5

–

6.5

–

Other 1.7 55.3

–

41.8

–

Education 1.5 44.7

–

44.1

–

Gun policy 1.4 69.6

–

30.4

–

Respondents who didn’t name a top issue are not shown.

Data comes from polling done by Ipsos for FiveThirtyEight, using Ipsos’s KnowledgePanel, a probability-based online panel that is recruited to be representative of the U.S. population. The poll was conducted Sept. 30 – Oct. 6 among a general population sample of adults, with 2,994 respondents and a margin of error of +/- 2.0 percentage points.

kaleigh: Trump has already been trying to positively spin his bout with the coronavirus — he’s been through it! He survived! But it will be pretty easy for Biden to point out that Trump didn’t take the virus seriously since he actually caught it. Not to mention, many Americans don’t think Trump took enough COVID-19 precautions, and there are signs that this hurt him electorally.

nrakich: I’m curious what the “American families” segment will touch on … does anyone have any inkling what that means?

geoffrey.skelley:

Perhaps it’s a roundabout way of saying the economy. Kitchen table issues. Of course, the economy touches almost every topic to some extent.

kaleigh: That’s my bet, Geoffrey, but it’s just vague enough to be uncertain.

sarah: My money is on the suburbs.

Or, at the very least, I can imagine suburban families being mentioned by both Biden and Trump. Trump won suburban voters in 2016, but he’s in real trouble here in 2020, as many white suburban women are continuing to move away from the Republican Party, as we saw in 2018.

But, yeah, given the economy ranked as voters’ first or second issue, according to our polling with Ipsos, I think that’s right, too, Geoffrey and Kaleigh.

The economy is one issue where Trump has always had an advantage.

nrakich: “Climate change” and “race in America” also seem like good issues for Biden. According to that Ipsos poll, more than 90 percent of Americans trust Biden more than Trump on both of those issues!

On the other hand, they also said they trust Trump more than Biden, about 81 percent to 18 percent, on “violent crime.” So Trump might try to reframe the segment on race in America into one about rioting and looting.

As for national security, I think it’s fair to say that segment will move the fewest votes. American elections generally aren’t decided on foreign-policy grounds.

kaleigh: Honestly, is there anything in that lineup that isn’t well-trodden territory at this point?

sarah: Yeah, it is hard to imagine that any of the issues discussed tonight will cover new ground in a way that sways voters. They do feel like well-trodden talking points at this stage, and the reality remains that Trump really does need the polls to tighten. Otherwise, his odds in our forecast will continue to fall. But, of course, even a 5 percent chance of something happening is something you should take seriously.

OK, the stakes are high. Trump needs some movement in the polls, and Biden isn’t a safe bet. What will you be watching for tonight, and in the last week of the election — knowing, of course, we’re all kind of flying blind?

nrakich: To me, the big question is, can Biden maintain his 10-point national lead after this debate? Or will tonight “reset” the race and bring the polling average down to Biden +7 or so, which is where it has been for most of the year?

Even if that were to happen, Biden would still have a good chance of winning, but the size of his margin could determine things like whether Democrats win the Senate or the number of state legislatures Democrats flip.

geoffrey.skelley: It’s true that incumbent presidents have had a habit of struggling in first debates, only to come back stronger in later ones. This was true of Barack Obama in 2012 and Ronald Reagan in 1984. So don’t count out a much better showing from Trump tonight.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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theliberaltony · 5 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): Let’s not bury the lede: Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is joining his first debate of the cycle tomorrow night in Nevada, even though he’s largely skipped competing in the first four states. He’ll be joined by five other candidates: former Vice President Joe Biden; former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; Sen. Amy Klobuchar; Sen. Bernie Sanders; and Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

And things are sure to get heated fast. Sanders is currently the polling leader in Nevada and favored to win the state, according to our forecast, but Bloomberg is catching up and is now at 16.1 percent in our national polling average, essentially tied with Biden.

So what should we expect tonight? Attacks on Sanders’s newly minted front-runner status? Or will the country’s first look at Bloomberg overshadow everything else?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): I’m glad that we finally have an opportunity to talk about Michael Bloomberg since no one else is paying attention to him.

sarahf: Haha, fair. There’s nothing the media loves more than making a non-story a story.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): The safest bet is that Bloomberg will bear the brunt of most attacks, right? That’s how it has played out in the media this week, between allegations he created a hostile workplace for women and renewed focus on the racial dimension of the stop-and-frisk policing strategy, which Bloomberg supported as mayor.

natesilver: It seems like a safe-ish bet, especially since NOBODY SEEMS TO HAVE NOTICED THAT BERNIE SANDERS IS IN FIRST PLACE IN NATIONAL POLLS AND IS IN PRETTY GOOD POSITION TO WIN THE NOMINATION.

nrakich: Yeah, it’s a pretty sweet deal for Sanders that he has largely been spared attacks even though he’s the primary front-runner after winning New Hampshire (and, arguably, Iowa). He looks on track to win Nevada, too! He’s a more imminent threat than Bloomberg is to the other candidates.

ameliatd (Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, senior writer): Honestly, I think Sanders is really lucky that Bloomberg made it into this debate — since it’s Bloomberg’s first debate, it seems like a safe bet that everyone is going to go after him.

sarahf: BUT at this point … shouldn’t we be paying attention to Bloomberg?

He’s tied with Biden in our national polling average!!

[Our Latest Forecast: Who Will Win The 2020 Democratic Primary?]

natesilver: Of course people should be paying attention to Bloomberg, Sarah! But these things are also self-fulfilling prophecies to some extent. The fact that he’s gotten so much more attention than, say, Buttigieg or Klobuchar or Warren is something that media critics should think about. If you take off that media critic hat, he’s obviously a real contender for the nomination now.

ameliatd: I wonder if the attention on Bloomberg will make it harder or easier for the other candidates to stand out. Warren, for instance, could really use a strong performance a la Klobuchar in New Hampshire. I could see it going a couple of ways — maybe being able to attack Bloomberg on stage gives her a little viral moment. Or maybe the fact that everyone will likely be going after Bloomberg makes it harder for her to steal the spotlight.

kaleigh (Kaleigh Rogers, FiveThirtyEight contributor): That’s true, especially when people are eager for the field to start winnowing. Adding a new face might feel like going backwards, and could certainly be distracting.

natesilver: It wouldn’t necessarily surprise me if Bloomberg goes after Sanders in a big way, by the way. His team has certainly been escalating conflict with Sanders. And it plays into his message that he’s the first train leaving the station if you want an alternative to Bernie.

What Bloomberg DOESN’T want is Buttigieg or Klobuchar to surge. He wants to keep things a bit muddled.

Nor does he want a Biden comeback narrative to start brewing. So if he can make news by attacking Sanders or otherwise giving a memorable performance, that probably works for him. It’s not unlike Trump in 2016.

sarahf: And maybe this is less likely, but Sanders could go after Bloomberg. It’s probably too good of an opportunity for him not to at least try and land something. There will literally be a billionaire on stage who has spent a lot of money to buy access for his bid for the presidency. (In fact, Bloomberg has probably spent the most on his campaign out of any other presidential candidate … ever?!?!)

But OK, wait wait. What’s the basis for the idea that we’re NOT paying enough attention to Sanders?

natesilver: That he’s first in national polls and that he’s actually, y’know, had people vote for him and won states, which is what these election things are supposed to be about.

Nobody in the mainstream media has the right to complain about paying too much attention to the polls now, though. Because so far, the Bloomberg thing is entirely based on the polls when there are other candidates who have demonstrated actual support.

kaleigh: But it’s not as if Sanders’s success hasn’t been covered. Certainly there’s room to talk about more than just the front-runners?

There’s also the fact that the vast majority of Democrats have not yet voted. There’s still a race here.

natesilver: I mean, in some narrow but valid sense, Buttigieg is the front-runner (he has the most pledged delegates) and yet, he isn’t getting a ton of coverage.

sarahf: Kaleigh makes a good point, though. Sanders’s successes have been covered. What’s difficult, though, is they haven’t been portrayed as decisive victories. But I kind of get that. Sanders and Buttigieg both “won” Iowa — we’ll see if the recanvassing efforts change that. And he didn’t win the New Hampshire primary by that large of a margin (1.3 points).

So there’s this other narrative emerging around the field being divided and no one candidate having a firm grasp on things — our own forecast puts Sanders’s chances of winning a majority of pledged delegates at roughly the same odds as no one winning a majority — so maybe this is the year every political journalist’s dream comes true … a cOnteSTEd convention … uh, the troll cap is too much work.

nrakich: Sarah, I think some Sanders skepticism is warranted. He has done well in the first two contests but hasn’t dominated, and as you point out, Sarah, our model doesn’t think he has a mortal lock on the nomination.

On the other hand, I think the tone of the coverage of Sanders’s win (covered as if it were a loss) and Klobuchar’s third-place finish (covered as if it were a win) was topsy-turvy.

sarahf: That’s fair, but Klobuchar did manage to double her support in New Hampshire, going from about 10 percent in our polling average to winning 20 percent of the vote. That��s pretty impressive.

natesilver: With Klobuchar, I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I’m just not sure that a fifth-place finish followed by a third-place finish should get you all that much attention. On the other hand, she fits the traditional credentials of a party nominee (not too old or too young, not “too” far to the left or too centrist, experienced) more so than most of the remaining candidates do. And people seem more inclined to chase shiny objects.

sarahf: But to step back for a moment, the New Hampshire debate was one of the more consequential debates of the cycle, yeah?

Probably means Nevada will be a nothingburger, but I am intrigued to see what happens there as Nevada is so weird to poll.

ameliatd: One big question for me is how many Nevadans will actually tune into the debate, too. In general, they tend to be less politically engaged than New Hampshire or Iowa voters. So that could dampen the impact.

natesilver: I guess I think that might make the debate more impactful, in some ways? If people are less tuned in, they may not be as far along in their decision-making process, which could make the debate more likely to sway their opinion.

ameliatd: It’s also worth noting that thousands of Nevadans will already have “caucused” by the time the debate starts. Early voting started on Saturday and ended on Tuesday.

kaleigh: More than 26,000 Nevadans voted in the first two days alone.

nrakich: I do think the debate will have more of an impact nationally than it will in Nevada, to Amelia’s points. Think about how the New Hampshire debate turned into a discussion of South Carolina issues!

And Bloomberg isn’t contesting Nevada, so obviously his debate performance will only affect his numbers in other states.

sarahf: So how confident are we about the situation in Nevada? Our Nevada forecast gives Sanders about a 7 in 10 chance of winning there. Biden is the second most likely winner with a 1 in 7 chance, but Warren is close on Biden’s coattails. Buttigieg and Klobuchar aren’t too far off either.

nrakich: Personally, I’m not confident. The Nevada polls are all over the place.

sarahf: Could a strong second-place finish by someone in Nevada overshadow a Sanders win? Similar to what we saw in Iowa and New Hampshire?

nrakich: Yes, I think if someone surprising finishes second (Warren? Steyer?), it will be New Hampshire all over again, where that person gets more favorable coverage than the outright winner (assuming it’s Sanders).

natesilver: I mean … it’s another state where media expectations (BERNIE CERTAIN TO WIN) seem a little out of line with the reality (probably Bernie, but high uncertainty). If I were a Sanders voter, I’d be annoyed at how Sanders always seems to be the victim of the expectations game.

ameliatd: We also haven’t talked about the fact that this is the first state with a significant population of voters of color. So it’s the first real chance to see if candidates like Buttigieg and Klobuchar can do well among Latino/black/Asian voters — if they do, that would obviously be a big deal.

sarahf: That’s right. And at this point, the crosstabs suggest that only Sanders and Biden have a lead there, right?

ameliatd: Well, like Nathaniel said, the polls are kind of all over the place — but yes, among Latinos at least, Sanders and Biden tend to do best.

natesilver: Keep in mind that the Latino population is pretty young, and that Sanders obviously does well with young voters.

nrakich: Yeah, I wonder if Buttigieg will bust out some Spanish during the debate. He recently released a Spanish-language TV ad that he himself narrated.

kaleigh: He’s been running a fair amount of Spanish-language Facebook ads, too.

nrakich: That said, when Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker and Julián Castro spoke Spanish in the first debate, some people saw it as a stunt. A YouGov poll in June found that 37 percent of Hispanic Americans found it respectful when a presidential candidate spoke Spanish in a debate, and 27 percent thought it was pandering. White Americans (who as of 2016 were still a majority of Nevada Democratic caucusgoers) thought it was pandering by a nearly two-to-one ratio. And Equis Labs, a polling firm that specializes in polling Hispanic Americans, told me that only 29 percent of Hispanic registered Democrats in Nevada say Spanish is their preferred language.

ameliatd: I know we’ve heard quite a bit about health care in these debates, but I bet it’ll come up again tonight, since Sanders is being attacked by the state’s biggest labor union over Medicare for All — and other candidates, like Klobuchar and Steyer, have been jumping on that bandwagon recently.

sarahf: OK, let’s talk candidate strategy for a moment. Bloomberg is a bit of a curve ball.

He isn’t contesting Nevada, so his strategy is to … stop a debate surge from happening and somehow make a plea for voters to consider him, not in South Carolina (which votes next), but hold out for Super Tuesday instead?

But what does this mean for the other moderate candidates, especially Biden? Biden at this point still leads Klobuchar and Buttigieg in national polls — does he need to nip Bloomberg’s momentum in the bud?

And then what does this mean for Sanders? Does he just hope that no one attacks him directly and let the moderates duke it out?

I guess what I’m really asking is … is Biden toast?

Or does this debate have the biggest stakes for him?

natesilver: Why would Biden be toast? He’s tied with Bloomberg in national polls. And he has an opportunity to get a boost with a win in South Carolina or, less likely, Nevada.

If he loses in South Carolina, he might be toast.

sarahf: What if he finishes in fourth or fifth in Nevada, though?

natesilver: Meh, who cares? South Carolina is coming in a week.

Biden’s media narrative is awful as can be now and it probably doesn’t get any worse if he finishes fourth or fifth in Nevada.

nrakich: It might be good for Biden that Steyer didn’t make today’s debate? Not that Steyer has turned in super compelling debate performances, but Steyer might be Biden’s most direct competition in South Carolina.

sarahf: There has to be some consolidation around a moderate alternative to Sanders, right? Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Bloomberg and Biden can’t all stay in and actually mount a credible campaign against Sanders, can they?

nrakich: They can if they all have visions of emerging as the nominee after a contested convention!

natesilver: Or candidates might think “Sanders v. Bloomberg could go very nuclear, so I need to stick around as the least radioactive option.”

That seems … quite plausible? We probably have to assume that Bloomberg will drop a lot of negative ads on Sanders at some point?

nrakich: He should probably do so sooner rather than later. There are lots of delegates up for grabs on Super Tuesday, and Sanders is currently riding high.

ameliatd: Biden has to be hoping that Bloomberg takes a beating in the debate, though, right?

natesilver: Sure, I think that’s right, Amelia.

But Biden also doesn’t want one of Buttigieg or Klobuchar to surge.

kaleigh: Sarah, if we’re assuming Sanders lands the role of the progressive candidate, does that mean you think Warren is DOA?

sarahf: That’s an interesting question, Kaleigh. She’s currently in third in our polling average in the state.

sarahf: And the labor union there didn’t criticize her health care plan as directly as it did Sanders’s.

nrakich: I think Warren needs to show a pulse in Nevada. She’s already basically conceded South Carolina, canceling a bunch of her TV ad reservations there.

sarahf: So I think there’s still room for a Warren comeback maybe? She definitely was pitching that after her disappointing finish in New Hampshire, but as Amelia mentioned earlier, at this point only Sanders and Biden have demonstrated that they can build more diverse bases.

ameliatd: Warren’s argument has basically been that she’s going to make a comeback on Super Tuesday. But if she has another disappointing finish in Nevada, that could definitely slow her down even further.

natesilver: I dunno. Warren is not THAT far behind since nobody is THAT far ahead. Obviously a win or a strong second-place finish in Nevada could reverse the narrative about her, though.

kaleigh: So who has the most to gain (or most to lose) in tonight’s debate? Biden? Warren?

natesilver: The debate is about Bloomberg, like it or not. It just is. The media is fucking obsessed with Bloomberg. And it’s his first debate. He’s 90 percent likely to be the headline, positive or negative.

sarahf: Yeah, he’s likely to be this chat’s headline.

natesilver: wE aRe PaRt Of ThE PrOBLeM.

nrakich: I mean, I think that is somewhat justified for this debate specifically.

We’ve heard Sanders, Warren, Biden, etc., say the same thing a zillion times. We have no idea how Bloomberg will hold up under pressure. So he is the one we will likely learn the most about tonight.

kaleigh: But Bloomberg kind of has nothing to lose at this point. He’s skipping Nevada, and negative or positive, the focus on him only further legitimizes him as a candidate.

sarahf: I actually think he has a lot to lose.

nrakich: Oh, he definitely has a lot to lose. He’s been pumping his message out to people totally unanswered thanks to his millions of dollars in TV spending!

sarahf: Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. At this point, he’s largely gotten to control his brand.

nrakich: Until this week’s bad headlines, people haven’t heard a bad word about him.

And a big known unknown for Bloomberg is how good of a debater he is. His team is already lowering expectations.

ameliatd: Yeah, I agree with Nathaniel. Whatever you think of the fact that Bloomberg hasn’t appeared in a debate so far, this is his introduction to a debate audience — and maybe more importantly, his rivals’ first chance to attack him in a debate setting. Which is crazy, since we’ve been covering these things for EIGHT MONTHS.

natesilver: I think he has a lot to lose but also expectations (there’s that term again!) seem to be fairly low, i.e., the media assumes he’ll be a mediocre debater.

nrakich: I think there’s room for him to be a decent debater but also for this debate to represent the first mass airing of anti-Bloomberg grievances to the American public.

Like, even if Bloomberg has answers for the criticisms levied against him, it’s the first time many Americans will hear those criticisms.

natesilver: Bloomberg is the one candidate that sort of unites all the others against him. He’s trying to elbow out the other candidates in the moderate lane. And he obviously has beef with Sanders, and the race could easily come down to those two.

kaleigh: That’s true. I just wonder if a debate-long attack from, say, Sanders will make it seem as if Bloomberg is the de facto moderate candidate.

ameliatd: That’s an interesting point, Kaleigh — maybe Biden does run the risk of seeming even weaker if the debate is largely between Bloomberg and Sanders.

natesilver: Also, Bloomberg has not been a longstanding and loyal member of the Democratic Party. He isn’t owed any particular favors or deference. So I’d expect a higher aggression level than we’ve seen in past debates.

nrakich: Oh, I disagree there, Nate.

He has been arguably Democrats’ most important donor in the last few election cycles.

He helped many members of Congress get elected, for instance.

I would argue that it could actually be tricky for someone like Klobuchar or Biden, who are establishment-aligned and came up through the big-donor system, to go after him directly.

natesilver: OK then they deserve to lose, to be honest.

nrakich: I mean, sure, maybe.

natesilver: They should also be going after Sanders directly.

nrakich: But I think only Sanders and Warren are capable of really taking the gloves off.

All the other candidates probably are hoping Bloomberg runs super PAC ads on their behalf in the general.

kaleigh:

sarahf: Meh, Klobuchar and Buttigieg have both proven they’re adept at landing attacks on their opponents/each other.

natesilver: All of the the candidates except Sanders aren’t very likely to be the nominee right now so they should probably worry about that first.

nrakich: I mean, I agree.

But that doesn’t mean they won’t worry about the other thing.

sarahf: OK, to wrap … The Nevada debate. Bloomberg’s first appearance. There seems to be some consensus that this debate will be about Bloomberg, whether he has a good night or bad night. Final thoughts, particularly about the stakes?

kaleigh: I think the stakes are highest for Biden right now, and to a certain extent Warren. Bloomberg’s presence is going to shake things up one way or another, though you’ve all convinced me there’s a chance it could be to his own detriment.

nrakich: This is a lame answer, but I think the stakes are very high for everyone tonight except Sanders.

He’s the only one who can really afford a “bad” debate — and he’s such a consistent debater that even his bad debates are still OK.

ameliatd: I’m also curious to see how Bloomberg handles the pressure of being on a debate stage, and how effectively the other candidates are able to attack him. This is their first chance to really land punches on him — better make it count!

natesilver: This is a lame answer, but I think the stakes are very high for everyone tonight including Sanders.

nrakich: That is an even lamer answer than my lame answer!

I’ll allow it.

natesilver: The line separating “Sanders as clear front-runner with huge momentum!” and “Sanders underperforming in his strongest states” is QUITE thin.

In New Hampshire, it was about 3,800 votes thin.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

On this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, we analyze data showing that the number of people registering to vote has fallen off a cliff during the coronavirus pandemic and discuss what that means for the November election.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Galen Druke #Kaleigh Rogers and Nathaniel Rakich

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theliberaltony · 4 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarah (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): On Thursday, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced that next week’s presidential debate would be held virtually. President Trump, however, has said that he isn’t going to waste his time with a virtual debate, promising instead to hold a rally.

Trump is down 9.8 points in national polls and is steadily losing ground each day in our forecast to Biden, as we inch ever closer to the election. Refusing then to participate in the debate when he could use it as an opportunity to mount a comeback against former vice president Joe Biden is a curious choice. Doesn’t Trump need the debates to mount a comeback?

Let’s talk Trump’s case for — and the case against — needing the debates.

OK, what’s the case for him needing them?

geoffrey.skelley (Geoffrey Skelley, elections analyst): He needs something. #analysis

But seriously, the debates are among the few, regularly scheduled major moments in the fall campaign, so they do present an opportunity to shake things up, even if they’re not certain to do so.

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): To a first approximation, I agree with that, although it’s overstated. Our research on primary debates suggested that a debate is equivalent to something like six to 10 days of normal campaigning and news, in terms of how much they move the polls. So it’s as if Trump is taking a week off the clock in an election in which he trails by 10 points.

With that said, maybe this ups the importance of the third debate — if there is one.

geoffrey.skelley: But we also can’t know given Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis whetherif Trump is really up for a two-hour debate right now, so perhaps he’s avoiding something that could be even more damaging.

sarah: One thing we talked about a lot going into the first presidential debate, is how much that first debate (more than the others) can really shake things up, but as former FiveThirtyEighter Harry Enten has also written, the second debate is not necessarily a game changer, and there’s no reason to believe that the person who didn’t do well in the first debate rebounds in the second.

Isn’t it possible then, that Trump, holding his own rally in which he doesn’t have to play by any moderator rules, isn’t necessarily a terrible move?

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, elections analyst): The problem is that he’s been holding campaign rallies all year long, and they haven’t helped him overtake Biden in the polls.

The days when cable news would air his rallies nationally are over. Maybe they get some nice local earned media, but that simply isn’t gonna measure up to a debate, as Nate mentioned.

geoffrey.skelley: It depends on the coverage. If it’s “Trump hasn’t recovered from COVID-19 and it’s irresponsible to be holding rallies,” I can’t imagine that helps him when 60 percent of the country said Trump was wrong to say we shouldn’t be afraid of COVID-19, and two-thirds said if he’d taken the coronavirus more seriously, he probably wouldn’t have gotten sick.

natesilver: Yeah, Trump is a fairly bad debater to begin with and it’s fairly likely that he would still be experiencing physical or mental ailments by next week thanks to his COVID-19 diagnosis. So the CPD gives him an excuse to pull out rather than him looking like a

geoffrey.skelley: And what if his rally is sparsely attended or looks that way in pictures? It’s his Tulsa rally all over again.

natesilver: Nobody will give a shit about the rally either way, I don’t think.

Unless, again, Trump appears sick or something.

sarah: OK, but from Biden’s POV, a skipped second debate is … fine by him? If anything, he would have more to lose than Trump in the second debate?

nrakich: Right. Traditionally, the front-runner wants fewer debates and the underdog wants more. That’s why you always see hopeless Senate candidates challenging their opponent to 10 Lincoln-Douglas-style debates or whatever.

natesilver: Unless Biden thinks Trump would be so bad that it would be worth debating him even if he’s being risk averse. Like if Biden’s up by 10 points now, and on average he’d gain 2 points by debating Trump, you might do that even if there’s a chance you’d decline instead. It depends on what the variance is.

geoffrey.skelley: A town-hall format would probably play better to Biden’s style, too, answering people directly, etc.

But the debate wouldn’t be in-person, so maybe that’s less relevant.

nrakich: That strikes me as overconfident, Nate. Biden could screw up too. I don’t think you can just assume he’d gain an average of 2 points by debating Trump.

natesilver: I’m not assuming he’d gain 2 points, I’m saying conditional on that assumption, it might be worth debating.

But also: Trump has lost every general election debate he’s conducted, per post-debate polling.

And he has COVID-19 and is on steroids and is acting erratically, even for him.

geoffrey.skelley: Who knows how a virtual town hall debate would go, but Trump was seen as the main cause of the disruption and chaos at the first debate, so it wouldn’t shock me if he did the same thing in that format — if the debate were held.

nrakich: That would be so awkward with the potential lag. Imagine all the stops and starts!

geoffrey.skelley: Yeah, you thought the interruptions were bad when they were in the same room!

sarah: Yeah, Trump really doesn’t seem to like debates, he skipped some in the primaries in 2016, too. But this brings us back to the original question: Trump is really far behind Biden in the polls, and Biden just got some of his best polls of the campaign this week. His margin over Trump is growing. What — if not a debate –- is going to shake things up for Trump?

nrakich: If Trump is going to shake up the race without the debates, he needs something external to happen — for example, a major Biden gaffe or crisis. There is some evidence that politicians in trouble try to stir up international conflict to create a rally-around-the-flag effect. Or there could be a Comey letter redux; the Department of Justice just changed its policies to allow prosecutors to continue their investigations even close to an election.

sarah: Nate, Trump is losing a little ground each day in our forecast if his standing in the polls doesn’t improve, right? Tell us more about that, and what that means for Trump’s ability to close the gap between him and Biden at this point.

natesilver: Trump’s chances are at 15 percent in our forecast now, but my guess is that he’d be at something like 5 percent if the election were held today.

He’d need a VERY large polling error to win if Biden is up 10 points nationally and 7 points or so in the tipping-point states. So most of his comeback chances still stem from being able to turn the race around somehow, and debates are one way to do that … maybe the best way at this stage.

geoffrey.skelley: Right, in terms of predictable events, things you know are coming, the debates are really it.

sarah: On that note, in the unpredictableness that is 2020, do we actually think Trump actually pulls out or is this just a publicity stunt? Something our colleague Perry Bacon Jr. had mentioned in our chat Wednesday before the VP debate, was how he was skeptical that the CPD could stop Trump from participating in a debate if he wanted to. Do you think Trump is just trying to negotiate the terms of the second debate?

nrakich: I think he’d actually pull out. Our colleague Kaleigh Rogers said something smart in our office Slack this morning, so I’ll just quote her: “Trump knows the last debate didn’t go well for him and this is a way for him to not participate while saving face with his base.”

geoffrey.skelley: Well, there is a little bit of precedent for presidents threatening to withdraw from a debate in order to change their terms.

President George H.W. Bush refused to debate under the commission’s plans in 1992. But he eventually agreed to some debates.

In September 1992, the first scheduled debate was canceled when President Bush rejected the commission’s plans. Hecklers dressed as chickens began showing up at his rallies, and Bush would occasionally engage them: pic.twitter.com/kAhK1Vj9DW

— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) October 8, 2020

And Jimmy Carter refused to participate in the first debate in 1980 because it included independent John Anderson. I would say, though, in both the 1980 and 1992 cases, neither incumbent was rewarded for their intransigence.

natesilver: How’d that go for Jimmy Carter?

geoffrey.skelley: Exactly.

nrakich: Either way, I don’t think we will get an in-person debate. I think if Trump successfully negotiates them back to an in-person debate, I think Biden will be the one to say he won’t attend.

geoffrey.skelley: The commission is in danger of losing face in any of these situations, but I’d think holding an in-person event with Trump fresh off of COVID-19 (or still suffering lingering effects) would be pretty terrible.

Now, in 1980, Ronald Reagan debated just Anderson at the first debate. Does Biden get to hold a solo “debate” with Trump not participating? I assume it would just be canceled.

nrakich: Interesting. The town-hall style does make that easier. …

sarah: What do Americans think about holding the debate next week? As we’ve said before, there just aren’t that many undecided voters this year, so is it possible that many Americans don’t need the debates to help them make their decision on how they’re going to vote?

nrakich: Two polls conducted before today’s announcement actually had contradictory findings about whether Americans think the rest of the debates should go forward. Reuters/Ipsos found that 59 percent of Americans thought that the debates should be postponed until Trump recovers. But Americans told CNN/SSRS, 59 percent to 36 percent, that the debates should be held.

But regardless of whether people want to see more debates, I agree that it’s unlikely to change their votes. Our polling with Ipsos has shown that most voters are either absolutely positive they’re going to vote for Trump or absolutely positive they’re going to vote for Biden.

geoffrey.skelley: What format the debate should take seemed to really affect how people responded, too. Pluralities have told pollsters that they wanted the next debate if it was virtual.

sarah: Yeah, and with a split screen … it wouldn’t necessarily feel all that different than if Biden and Trump were in the same room.

geoffrey.skelley: 100 percent. Look, a presidential debate has been held remotely before. John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon’s third debate in 1960 took place with the candidates in different studios. Kennedy was in New York City, Nixon was in Los Angeles.

natesilver: I don’t know about that. The conventions produced very little in the way of bounces this year, which could be evidence that virtual vs. in-person matters.

nrakich: How do we tease that out from polarization, though, Nate?

To be honest, I feel like if the conventions in, say, 1988 had been virtual, they’d have still produced pretty big bounces.

Maybe just not as big as they were.

natesilver: Well, we got a decent-sized bounce from the Democratic convention four years ago. McCain/Palin got a pretty big one in 2008. They can still happen.

nrakich: But there were also more undecided voters in 2016. Everyone already has an opinion of Trump and Biden this year.

natesilver: The virtual conventions were well-produced, but fairly boring and I’m not sure why people tried to pretend otherwise.

nrakich: “Well-produced but fairly boring” kind of applies to every political convention, though!

At least if you’re watching from home.

natesilver: More boring than usual.

natesilver: Ratings were down. The polls didn’t move. In person matters.

nrakich: Eh. I’m not convinced. (There are other reasons the ratings might have been down, like people switching their viewing habits from network TV to online streaming.)

natesilver: The thing, though, is that you like politics and I don’t, despite covering it for a living. So I’m more like a typical American in those ways.

nrakich:

sarah: OK, final thoughts — it sounds as if we all agree on this one — the case for Trump skipping the debate next week … doesn’t hold a lot of upside for him?

geoffrey.skelley: Skipping the debate isn’t likely to help Trump, although it’s unclear if it will hurt him. At the same time, not knowing Trump’s current health condition in the wake of his COVID-19 diagnosis, means it’s possible he’d have had a bad showing at the virtual debate and hurt his standing more. In other words, the move to a virtual debate may have given him the out he was seeking because of that — or he just doesn’t want to debate anymore.

But I do think if he skips the debate and holds a rally instead, it could end up damaging him, considering how many voters don’t think he’s taken the coronavirus seriously enough. Such an event would seem to play right into that narrative.

nrakich: Yeah, Sarah, I think skipping the debate would be the latest in a long line of poor political decisions by Trump. Although to Nate’s point, I’m not sure he would be able to take advantage of the debate to turn his numbers around anyway.

It’s just increasingly hard to find any political upside for Trump.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #A FiveThirtyEight Chat

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