theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Technically? Probably not enough to matter.
Poetically? Pretty much all of them, if you think about it.
2020 Democratic Candidates Tracker Part III
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Technically? Probably not enough to matter.
Poetically? Pretty much all of them, if you think about it.
The_Animus
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Sanders wins in national head to head matchups vs Trump
Sanders wins in head to head matchups vs Trump in states that won Trump the election in 2016 such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.
Sanders is preffered by independents over Trump and over every other democratic candidate.
Evidence for all of this has been provided in this thread.
You are the one who refuses to see reality.
Did polls in February of 2016 correctly predict the outcome of the 2016 general election?
Hush. We're not allowed to mentioned that.
Hillary losing didn't count because Trump cheated which is going to be totally different in 2020.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
Yes, there are polls that show Sanders beating Trump in head-to-head matchups.
However, there are also polls that show Biden, Bloomberg, Warren and Buttigieg also beating Trump. In fact, if you look at the aggregate, Biden actually does BETTER than Sanders, and Bloomberg does just as well.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...s/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-6250.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_biden-6247.html
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...general_election_trump_vs_bloomberg-6797.html
Personally, I think that any advantage that a Democrat has in the polls probably has more to do with Trump's unpopularity rather than the qualities of any of the Democratic challengers.
Now, of course at this point in time, polling should be viewed with some skepticism. There are a lot of things that can change between now and election day. I do have concerns that at least some of Sander's popularity is because the general electorate hasn't had the opportunity to fully evaluate his policies, and the Republicans have not started to engage in any widespread attack ads against him.
And here's something to consider:
In 2016, Sanders pulled in 150k votes in the New Hampshire primary. In 2020, he pulled in 76k. Now, granted, its a more diverse field this time around (rather than the largely 2-horse race that existed in 2016). But he did't hold on to his existing supporters. He's still the winner (and probably has the best chances of winning the Democratic primaries), but it doesn't really show a lot of hard-core dedication among the electorate.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
I don't think there is one.
Biden is gaff prone. Bloomberg has a questionable history behind him. Both are old. Buttigieg doesn't have the needed experience on the national stage. Klobuchar in theory could be a decent candidate but she doesn't seem to be getting that much traction. And Steyer has no political experience.
Sanders is the likely winner.
TragicMonkey
Poisoned Waffles
You left out Warren. It's perplexing to me, this erasure of Warren, when she's obviously the best of the bunch.
Agreed. Warren is the one I'm having the hardest time figuring out what is pushing people away and she doesn't seem to have a lot of overlap with the other candidates so I don't see who is siphoning away her support.
Ziggurat
Penultimate Amazing
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That's hilarious. And not because it's wrong, but because it might be right.
Cabbage
Banned
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Does that imply polls are always wrong? You are attacking the evidence while having no actual evidence of your own.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
The earlier poster talked about a search for a "great centrist unifier".
Warren may be seen as less of an idealist than Sanders, but I don't think a lot of people consider her a moderate/centrist. (She embraced Medicare for All and free college earlier on, for example.) Maybe she can pivot a little and take on the mantle of a moderate if she manages to survive the next few primaries, but as of now I think she is being seen as being on the left wing of the party.
Overall I would not be opposed to a Warren nomination/presidency. Intelligent, and seems like she can handle herself in a debate if she goes up against Trump. Younger than Sanders and Biden (although still pretty old.) Shows some pragmatism. Decent amount of experience in national politics. Can't think of any issues that would impact her appeal to various minorities. Her or Klobuchar would probably be my preferred candidates.
Warren committed the horrible sin of saying she was part Native American after getting a job at Harvard. She is clearly unsuitable for the job because women must be without sin to be elected President.
Men only have to be tall, rich and wear a blue suit with a red tie to be considered suitable for the office.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
Polls are sometimes right and sometimes wrong*.
Thus, the weakness of Appeal to Polls as an argument is that it's difficult to determine in advance if the polls you're appealing to are gonna be right or wrong in the event. This dilutes the strength of a poll-based argument. Often to the point where it's too weak to hold up its end of the debate, and should probably be discarded in favor of something more robust.
At the very least, if you appeal to polls, you should expect to have that appeal challenged, and be prepared to show that the specific polls you're appealing to are especially reliable. Unfortunately, the general miss by mainstream polling in 2016 is gonna make challenges to this argument extremely likely, and also difficult to rebut. IMO. YMMV. HTH. HAND. ETC.
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*In the sense of being reasonably accurate predictors of future events.
The_Animus
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Within the margin of error, yes they did. They gave Clinton like a 87% chance of winning. She got 3 million more votes but lost because of a relatively small number in key states. The polls were fine.
The_Animus
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Yep. I've stated this and posted that evidence myself previously. But it's not relevant to the point I was addressing with dudalb.
Distracted1
Philosopher
With Sanders sucking up all the air on the Progressive side, I think Warren is starting to look more like a "centrist" to many voters- even though she would be the furthest left of any candidate besides Sanders.
That might have her in a sweet spot of being an acceptable second choice for the moderates who does not agitate the Sanders fans too much.
I think it might happen for her over the next few days, as that sort of thinking settles in among the moderates who understand the there is a limited amount of time left to rally behind a "not Sanders" candidate.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
The way I see it:
- Too far left to be seen as a moderate
- She doesn't have the "cult of personality" that Sanders has, or the name recognition from a 2016 presidential run, so some of her far left polices won't get her much traction
Overall, I think she's seen as a lot of voter's "second choice", but since very few states use a ranked-choice ballot, her status as people's second pick doesn't really help her much.
Segnosaur
Penultimate Amazing
Keep in mind that the other poster specifically asked if the polls of February 2016 (i.e. early in the election process) predicted the results.
I don't think their point was so much "You can't trust polls in general" as much as "You can't trust polls this early in the election race".
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The polls that assured Hillary she had the popular vote and didn't need to put any effort into contesting certain key states were demonstrably not fine at all.
How many mainstream polls actually told us (paraphrased), "Hillary will likely win the popular vote nationwide, but to win the election she'll need to flip X number of voters in Y key states, and that isn't happening yet"?
Or even "Hillary will likely win the popular vote nationwide, but things are so close in these key states that any little thing could cost her the election, and to lock it in she'll need to move the needle a bit further her way in those states, and that isn't happening yet"?
I'd say that just as "but the popular vote!" is a silly argument after the fact, it's also a silly polling prediction before the fact. So no, I'd say that the mainstream polls were not fine.
theprestige
Penultimate Amazing
The Clinton campaign's predictive model for Florida (which I assume was built using polling data + mathemagic) was untrustworthy all the way into Election Night itself.
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