The best argument I can think of that might conserve some of that idea in a rational way is that by telling Trump voters they will lose so badly the self-fulfilling prophecy is that Trump voters will end up so despondent that they won’t even vote.
I don't know if this is a demographic/factor big enough to be worth "injecting into the algorithm" so to speak, but I do think that "I want to vote for the winning candidate" is a factor in there somewhere.
I don't buy that simply going "Hey the chart says Trump has X% chance of winning" is pro-Trump in anyway, but I also can't in honesty go "The general vibe of how much chance any candidate has no effect" either. People like backing a winner. There's a tiny shred of that in all of us. I can't honestly believe being told your candidate doesn't have a chance versus they have a chance versus they are the predicted winner doesn't change the landscape at all.
Like as a pure impossible thought experiment if you could ask a genie to make it so when you step into a voting booth all knowledge of how "popular" any of the candidates are just "poofs" vanishes from your mind and all the voters had to vote without that piece of information in their head... it could be interesting and surprising.
Or not. Part of me still thinks that huge, undemographiced, uncategorized, unpolled, off the radar "I honestly and truly couldn't tell you WHY I'm voting for Kang over Kodus, it's all an emotional gut feeling" voters really are the only ones that matter.
At times, not all the time but times, I sorta thinks of all... this, all the debate, all the polling, all the talking heads, all the analytics, all the arguing on the internet and social media, all the signs and bumperstickers and campaign ads.... just don't matter.
*Long sigh* I so ******* want to live in precedented times again.
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