Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here Again?

Yeah, I thought yesterday was it for pre-election Senate Campaign Updates, and I was wrong. No apologies. There’s been both poll results and news.

What’s this about Iowa?

One of the better pollsters in the business, who mostly confines themselves to Iowa, is Selzer & Co. (2.8 out of 3 stars from FiveThirtyEight), who publish the Iowa Poll, usually via the Des Moines Register. Iowa was won by Mr Trump in both 2016 and 2020, and was considered a lock for 2024 by just about everyone.

Then came the release of Selzer’s poll results for October: Harris 47%, Trump 44%. Here’s Selzer herself:

The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.

“It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

Sure, the margin of error is ±3.4 points, but in a sense it’s irrelevant. The fact that Harris is this competitive, as measured by a widely respected pollster, in what was supposed to be a bastion of Trump support, really puts a spin on reality for pundits, foretellers, clairvoyants, psychics, and other cousins to woodland ticks: Trump may have reached the end of the line, politically speaking, and, as the flag carrier and inventor of MAGA, that may carry over to his endorsees, his allies, and his base.

Over the next few days, we may finally see the end point of a number of toxic cultural trends. First, there’s the meta-trend of unlimited competition, as leaders of these trends fight for dominance, to be #1. Not that this is unusual, but when this happens between the unlimited self-interested, meaning those who don’t understand the nature of the role of governance, then the collapse of supposed alliances occur, whether it’s politicians breaking alliances, or countries invading each other. Total victory is pursued with little regard for the well-being of those even on your side.

Then, among the cultural trends, we may see the MAGA-heads, libertarianism and their “rational” defense of being self-centered brats, evangelicalism, the militant groups such as Oath Keepers, and others that I forget, all of these shrinking, even collapsing, as intra-group leaders begin fighting with each other to replace failed leaders, and the disillusioned leave in droves.

And that may take down far-right Republicans who’ve allied with these groups. Oh, not all of them. A few will survive, especially those not up for election. That’ll give them time to disavow alliances that might prove fatal to them.

But how about that list of close races or open seats in my last post? Is it possible that every single Republican will lose their race? Oh, I expect Justice will win in West Virginia, so, no. But is it even possible that there are other Republicans that I think are secure that aren’t? Could Senator Cramer (R-ND) lose to Katrina Christiansen (D-ND), for example?

You’d think I’d stop here, but I’m reminded of something Professor Richardson wrote recently about an election about a century back. I very much regret to say I can’t find the entry, but its basics was about an election in which the Republicans, controlled and populated by businessmen, were convinced they would win an election in both branches, and their loss was so brutal that the party went through a reset. They hadn’t seen it coming because they were disconnected from society, only talking to themselves.

I see the same thing here: A Republican Party, notorious for living and talking in an epistemic bubble, meaning no outside ideas or thoughts ingested, analyzed, and respected, thinks it is going to win, ignoring polls (“Every cycle, there’s one idiotic survey“) and opposing arguments while clinging to their quasi-religious tenets of Taxes are bad! and Regulations are bad! and, critically, Abortion is bad!

That last one is the biggest blunder.

The funny thing is that they’ve had plenty of warning, and don’t seem to have picked up on it. I wrote about this here. Americans have had enough, and it may be shaping up into a blue tsunami that sweeps Republicans out of power and discredits all those groups I mentioned above. Trump and his minions may have, en masse, so sickened the voters, that even those that are normally willing to vote Republican so long as they don’t have to do research, have had enough of the negative, even nightmarish, messages.

We may be at a historical inflection point.

Or I could be wrong. But I’m expecting a very interesting Tuesday night and Wednesday.

Oh, You Do Natter On!

Thanks. On to the red meat.

I’m not planning to quote a bunch of polls here. Sure, The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) dropped another collection of polls, as did AtlasIntel (2.7). Tell ya what, I’ll list the surprises, and then move on to the news.

• Morning Consult (1.9) gives Ohio challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH) a one point lead over Senator Brown (D-OH), 47%-46%. This is a surprise because I take Morning Consult to be more liberal than the general run of pollsters.

Yeah, that’s it. There are plenty of polls, but no real surprises, so why burden you with numbers this late in the game? Here’s the news I’ve run across.

• Montana challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) had an interview:
  

  Tim Sheehy, the Montana Republican nominee for Senate, said in an interview with former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that there are no medical records that would prove he did not accidentally shoot himself in the arm in Glacier National Park in 2015. [WaPo]

  Kelly pronounced herself confused, and so might be Montana voters. Why did he do this interview, though?

I turned this post into a rant. No apologies.

Hypnagogia:

Hypnagogia is the transitional state from wakefulness to sleep, also defined as the waning state of consciousness during the onset of sleep. Its opposite state is described as hypnopompia – the transitional state from sleep into wakefulness. Mental phenomena that may occur during this “threshold consciousness” phase include hypnagogic hallucinations, lucid dreaming, and sleep paralysis. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “Fresh insights into how we doze off may help tackle sleep conditions,” Graham Lawton, NewScientist (26 October 2024, paywall):

Researchers – and most people – have long been aware that there is more to the transition into sleep than a simple on-off switch, says [cognitive neuroscientist Delphine Oudiette at Sorbonne University], in part because of a bizarre, semi-lucid state at the onset of sleep called hypnagogia, featuring hallucinatory, dream-like experiences.

Your brain shutting down is an inefficient and bio-soggy process.

NewScientist (26 October 2024, paywall) has an interesting article on how mathematical languages mimic English word frequencies under the title of “The laws of physics appear to follow a mysterious mathematical pattern,” by Alex Wilkins:

A strange pattern running through the equations of physics may reveal something fundamental about the universe or could be a sign that human brains are biased to ignore more complex explanations of reality – or both.

This insight comes from a physicist’s version of Zipf’s law, an observation by linguists that the most common word in a language appears twice as often as the second most common word, three times as often as the third, and so on. In English, for example, the word “the” tends to make up around 7 per cent of any large text, with the next most frequent word, “of”, occurring around 3.5 per cent of the time. What’s more, it turns out that Zipf’s law appears to hold in other situations, such as income distribution or the population of cities.

Now, Andrei Constantin at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have found that a similar law applies to the symbols used to construct the laws of physics. They looked at three sources of equations: those used in The Feynman Lectures on Physics; a list of equations named after people found on Wikipedia; and a set of proposed equations describing the inflation of the early universe. By treating each symbol and mathematical operator in the equations as a word and ranking their frequency, they could analyse the equations in a similar way to Zipf’s law.

Although the article is a little short on details, and I don’t really have time to track it down and try to make sense of it. What interests me is the categorization of the symbols. “The,” according to Merriam-Webster, belongs in the categories of definite articles, adverb, and preposition (there’s also an entry called combining form, but that appears to be inappropriate to the subject at hand). “Of” is classified into preposition and auxiliary verb.

Do the mathematical language symbols sort into similar categories? This, too, is interesting:

“You might expect that this [distribution] would differ quite significantly between the three different sets of equations because they come from different places,” says team member Deaglan Bartlett at Sorbonne University in France, but to their surprise, that wasn’t the case. Instead, all three sets seemed to fit the same pattern. That wasn’t true when applying the same analysis to randomly generated mathematical expressions.

Mathematical languages are used for specialized communications concerning both theoretical and natural constructs, so from that perspective, and Zipf’s Law, this is actually unsurprising. But as a reasoning, or logic manipulation and application tool, it may be more surprising.

Whether there’s some mystical or mysterious aspect to it seems doubtful to me, but I’m always interested in being wrong about such things.

Here we are on the Saturday before Election Day, 2024, and it appears the pollsters’ produce is near exhaustion. Yesterday was quite a cloudburst, but today it’s a poll from Cygnal (2.1), and three other pollsters of which I have no recent memory, and FiveThiryEight has no knowledge. Their results soothing to the conservatives’ turn of mind; whether they are also accurate will be discovered in a matter of days.

Evaluation of polls is the question paramount for folks like me and you, my reader, a reader who, if representative of the contemporary American electorate, is not knowledgeable of the dark undercurrents of the game of politics these days. I have no great or intimate knowledge myself, but I am taking the time to analyze polls and pollsters, based off the hard work of FiveThirtyEight and a few others, principally based on Daily Kos, constructing, as is my habit, stories based on my impression of the patterns associated with each pollster, flavored by the human motivations inevitable in human-driven enterprises: desires for prosperity, excellence, the quick buck. A pollster’s role will depend on the humans implementing it, and interpretation of their results, based in a domain where baselines are unknown but may possibly be inferred from more than one result, or not, makes the analysis a challenge.

For some, these results are for idle knowledge, such as the general, interested citizen curious as to the state of the race; for others, responsible for facets of a candidate’s race, interpretation becomes a key element in discovering a winning strategy.

It’s been a lot of work. Some nights, my gorge rose, as old-timers might say, not only from sheer volume, but the mendacity and deceit that seemed implicit in certain results. Other nights, it was a fascinating exercise.

Now, to the nitty-gritty.

Progressives are excited and confident, almost overly so. Still, the blunder of the Republicans implicit in Dobbs justifies the progressives’ confidence in my view; the special elections’ results since Dobbs, and the Republican candidates’ continual stumbles over the issue clarifies and confirms this conclusion.

Republicans and other conservative pundits have found themselves splitting their time between attacking Democrats (see here and here) and reproaching their fellows (see here and here). It’s not a good look, especially as it’s on topics that are not subtle conundrums, but are rather obvious. The fact that folks such as Erick Erickson have to spend time reproaching his allies is a pointer to how much trouble conservatives are in, even as Erickson crows that Harris has given up, and then six days later blithely says either candidate can win.

Me? I’m an independent whose political experience consists of watching how political campaigns play out. Never ran nor been involved. Just so’s we understand each other.

The Presidency

I expect VP Harris to win, and, while Mr Trump and his allies may bellow in outrage and claim they’ve been cheated, it won’t be close. Along with Dobbs, for which Trump has alternately plausibly claimed credit and implausibly sought to disassociate himself, Trump has revealed misogyny and patronization, mendacity and arrogance, and poor choices in associates, from employees to billionaires trying to protect their fortunes at the expense of environment and justice. Simultaneously, former associates, both private employees and public principal officers of the Trump Administration, have entreated the public to not vote for Mr. Trump: Chiefs of Staff, military leaders of various positions, and Cabinet ministers of various responsibilities.

I terminate the above lists not for want of material, but because my fingers tire.

The House of Representatives

I’ve been saying it since Dobbs was handed down, and there’s little reason to change now: I expect a forty seat pickup by Democrats. Some of it is the outrage over Dobbs, with some of it being redistricting added in. For example, Wisconsin’s Republican gerrymandered districts for House are going away with this election, and I expect the Republican advantage of 6-2 in representation to the House at the beginning of the current Congress (one Republican has since resigned and not been replaced) to become a 5-3 Democratic advantage, based on Dobbs distress and demographics.

Similar changes will hit other States as well.

The Senate

This is the subject of this thread. 34 seats in contention, including a special election Nebraska in which appointed Senator Ricketts (R-NE) defends against Prescott Love, Jr (D-NE). Which seats are likely to change hands or are being emptied due to death or retirement?

1. Senator Manchin’s (D, then I-WV) seat is open by retirement. While polling in West Virginia seems non-existent, it is widely agreed among the punditry that Governor Jim Justice (R, then D, then R -WV) will be the victor over former Mayor Glenn Elliott (D-WV).
2. Ohio’s Senator Brown (D-OH) has been in a close race with Bernie Moreno (R-OH). I think Brown will win, but this will be a close one.
3. In Nebraska, Senator Fischer’s (R-NE) travails in the polls have been the surprise story of the season. Fischer is a far-right extremist, while challenger Dan Osborn (I-NE) is a centrist. Nebraskans reportedly pride themselves on their independence, and the polls have been close, with the two candidates alternating in the lead position. The Dobbs issue clearly favors Osborn, so if there’s going to be a big upset this season, Nebraska is my candidate for that.
4. Montana’s Senator Tester (D-MT) may be the most vulnerable Democrat seeking reelection in the Senate this cycle, not because of weakness on his part, but because of the nature of Montana. Will Dobbs apply here? His opponent is Tim Sheehy (R-MT); will Sheehy’s peccadilloes appeal to Montanans, or will they repel them? Polling has suggested both lead, but the quality pollsters tend to favor Tester.
5. Texas Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) never wins big, principally because people don’t like him. He was last seen denying that Dobbs is an important issue, which will only convince undecided voters that the Senator is out of touch, and that is not a successful campaign tactic. His opponent, Rep Allred (D-TX), is pushing hard for a promotion to the Senate.
6. The Senate seat in Michigan is open due to the imminent retirement of Democrat Senator Stabenow (D-MI). So far, it appears Rep Slotkin (D-MI) leads former Rep Rogers (R-MI) in the race for that seat. I expect Slotkin to secure the seat again for the Democrats, but it may be close.
7. Florida Senator Scott (R-FL) continues to battle former Rep Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), but polls never get them closer than two points apart, with Scott in the lead. I think there’s a chance that the Democrat can pull the upset, but it’s not as likely as I’d like to see, given the Senator’s grasping, grating personality.
8. Wisconsin’s Senator Baldwin (D-WI) has been battling challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?) all season long, and not fallen behind. Recently, her lead seems increasing. That lead remains small, but I think it’s insurmountable.
9. Ditto with Nevada’s Senator Rosen (D-NV) and challenger Sam Brown (R-NV).
10. Ditto with Pennsylvania’s Senator Casey (D-PA) and challenger David McCormick (R-PA?).
11. Can Missouri’s Senator Hawley (R-MO) be upset? I hadn’t thought so, but then he stepped into a debate and reportedly was flattened. Maybe there’s a slight chance? That’d be the dark horse victory of the season.
12. Senator Sinema’s (D, then I -AZ) Arizona seat is open by retirement, but I expect Rep Gallego (D-AZ) to easily win it, as Lake is deeply unpopular in Arizona.
13. Senator Menendez’s (D, then I -NJ) New Jersey seat is open by retirement, forced by scandal, but I expect Rep Kim (D-NJ) to easily win it, because this is New Jersey.
14. Senator Cardin’s (D-MD) Maryland seat is open by retirement, but I expect Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) to easily beat former Governor Hogan (R-MD), because this is Maryland.
15. Senator Feinstein’s (D-CA) California seat is open due to her death, but Rep Schiff, who won the jungle primary, is poised to crush Republican and MLB great Steve Garvey (R-CA). Because this is California.
16. Senator Braun’s (R-IN) Indiana seat is open due to him seeking the Indiana governor’s position, and I expect Rep Banks (R-IN) to easily win it. And, yet, there have been virtually no polls; Banks, as an extremist in the era of Dobbs backlash, may sport unexpected weaknesses; and Braun himself, another extremist, has reportedly seen his lead shrink drastically in private polls. There’s just no information to work off of, so I don’t have any expectations of an upset. But might there be? That’d be another dark horse victory.

And that’s about it. Am I wrong? Right? If you don’t care to write and tell me, you can wait for Election night and see how the counts turn out.

Bloody mice, chewing up everything. And just because our cat thinks she needs to bring in live prey.

/disgruntled

ActiVote? What The Hell?

I’ve been excluding ActiVote results because of a perceived erratic rightward tilt, and because it’s not rated nor known to FiveThirtyEight. But today, I glanced at their first three new results, and, much to my shock, two of them were reasonable. Since I’ve been writing this series not only to keep readers up to date on the Senate campaign, but also as a learning experience, I thought I’d put them up as a lesson in … the power of money.

In our hypotheses, we’ll take a potential high rating on FiveThirtyEight’s Pollster Rating Page as a proxy for future earnings potential; the better the rating, the higher the earnings.

We can put together these hypotheses, and expected behaviors.

1. ActiVote is a prolific, honest pollster. They are non-proficient, so results are erratic compared to other pollsters, and often diverge from top pollsters. Codename: Honest.
2. ActiVote is a prolific, honest pollster, and is excellent. Their divergence from top pollsters is simply the result of other pollster’s poorer results. Codename: Excellent.
3. ActiVote is a prostitute pollster, meaning it issues results favoring its sponsors at their request. The goal is to influence voters’ behavior at the polling booth or moral equivalent; accuracy is not a priority. Thus, their results may be much like item 1 results, only more so. While their goal is both dubious and probably impractical, being caught is of low probability, and punishment may be negligible. Codename: Prostitute.
4. ActiVote is a grifter of sponsors, meaning it issues results that pleases sponsors without a request to do so, nor without revealing their activities, and with no regard to accuracy. Their goal is to increase repeat sales through pleasing results, often via confirmation bias. Codename: Grifter.

Naturally, for the Prostitute and Grifter there is a tension between immediate profit and high ratings from 3rd parties such as FiveThirtyEight. Thus, for those who qualify in either category and are good pollsters, their last polls should converge with other known excellent pollsters. We may have seen that in today’s batch of polls, but I don’t know if this was the last for our prolific example.

As a practical matter, hypothesis Honest will be considered the most likely if ActiVote’s results prove to be a pseudo-random scatter. Prostitute and Grifter will be indistinguishable, since there is currently no access to ActiVote’s internal communications, and considered most likely if ActiVote’s results change from previous results, converging with Election results in most cases. Finally, Excellence will be the most likely if ActiVote does well in its final results for each region it polls without a shocking change compared to previous results.

I’ll try to remember to return to this topic once Election results are released.

How Is The Abortion Issue Playing Into The Election?

Thanks for asking, I just wrote a post on that.

Examine And Classify The Nitty-Grit … Grit … Grit …

• In Arizona, unknown ActiVote has thrown in the towel and claimed Rep Gallego (D-AZ) has a substantial lead over election-denier Kari Lake (R-AZ) of 54%-46%, or nine points after rounding and maybe a few other dance routines. Not only is it large, but it has Gallego well over 50%.
  

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  Data for Progress (2.6) gives Rep Gallego a 50%-45% edge, with a margin of error of ±3 points.

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  Finally, YouGov (3.0) has the smallest lead for Rep Gallego at 49%-45%, which seems a bit of a puzzle.

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  The only question in my mind for this contest is why are so many Arizonans voting for Lake?

• Nevada has generated a flood of polls from higher quality pollsters for the contest between Senator Rosen (D-NV) and challenger Sam Brown (R-NV), most of which give the lead to Senator Rosen: Emerson College (2.9) 49%-45%, YouGov (3.0) 51%-44%, Noble Predictive Insights (2.4) a close 48%-46%, and Data for Progress (2.6) with a more substantial 49%-42% lead. Only Susquehanna Polling & Research (2.3) gives Brown the advantage at 47%-46% on a smallish sample size of 400, the smallest of all the Nevada polls this time around, although not by a great deal, and a large margin of error of ±4.9 points.
  

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  I’ve been expecting a high single digit to a low double digit victory margin for the Senator; perhaps I’m a bit optimistic?

• There’s an even larger flood of polls in Pennsylvania, all showing Senator Casey (D-PA) ahead of challenger David McCormick (R-PA?): YouGov (3.0) has a very reasonable 50%-44%, Data for Progress (2.6) gives the Senator a reasonable 49%-45%, Suffolk University (2.9) takes 49%-46% and rounds it to a four point lead, Marist College (2.9) a very small lead of 50%-48%, WaPo (unrated) suggests a 49%-46% lead, and finally the problematic ActiVote (unrated) has the Senator leading 51%-50%, presumably through a surfeit of fingers used for counting. Or rounding, or rounding, yes, yes. Stop yelling. ActiVote’s summary? “McCormick Closing in on Casey in Pennsylvania.” Maybe. I kinda doubt it, though.
• Michigan is only getting a rain shower of polls, all finding Rep Slotkin (D-MI) leading hard-right extremist former Rep Rogers (R-MI) for the open Michigan Senate seat: YouGov (3.0) gives Rep Slotkin a big lead of 51%-42%, Marist College (2.9) has the Rep ahead by a smaller gap of 52%-46%, EPIC-MRA (1.9, which is a bit low but I have nothing else against them) is at 47%-42%, and finally the ever doubtful ActiVote, now functioning as a cautionary example, giving Rep Slotkin a minuscule lead of 51%-49%. I think an eight point victory is not out of reach, but we shall see.
• Wisconsin’s up here, where we finally received snow, and next to Lake Michigan, so they’re getting a lake-effect snow squall of polls, all showing Senator Baldwin (D-WI) leading Republican Eric Hovde (R-WI?): YouGov (3.0) shows a lead of 50%-45%, Marist College (2.9) has a measurement of 51%-48%, and ActiVote, oh ActiVote, measures a respectable lead of 54%-46%, which sounds right even if their sample size is a mere 400 voters, with a margin of error of ±4.9 points.
  

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  It appears Senator Baldwin is pulling away, if the polling is accurate, which many progressives will dispute. And this Daily Kos article is interesting: The pollsters say Wisconsin is a toss-up. But the polls aren’t matching 2024’s reality.

• But do debates matter for Senate races? I’ve never seen that question asked, much less answered. But Steve Benen claims that the debate between Missouri Senator Hawley (R-MO) and his challenger, Lucas Kunce (D-MO), was a disaster for the Senator, as does some dude named Brian Tyler Cohen. The latter link is to a short clip from the debate, and I hear Kunce saying, Josh Hawley is a selfish swamp creature… I kid you not.
  

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  It’s noteworthy that a debate has occurred at all. It may mean that the Senator’s private polls showed that he is in trouble, and perhaps he thought that he needed to win a debate to show he’s the dominant political personality in Missouri. It seems that this idea swirled down the toilet, if Cohen and Benen are to be believed. I haven’t the time to hunt down a recording of the event and watch.

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  But will it matter? Do Missourians watch debates, or is the state too polarized? There is very little public polling, and I’ve just assumed the Senator will win. But Missourians certainly have good reasons to kick the bum Senator out, from being just a showboating mouth to encouraging Jan 6th insurrectionists to supporting Christian Nationalists. I guess we’ll have to wait for results from Missouri on Tuesday.

Oh, Stop That!

Polls from the following pollsters, entirely or in part, have been shoveled into the bin, taken to the Pit, and placed on the Spike, who has been tied down and smothered in mushrooms: Torchlight Strategies (no rating, appears to be a lapdog for Senator Fischer) and OnMessage (1.1, which is awful).

Enjoy that visual. And, yes, I meant Spike from Buffy, The Vampire Slayer. Thanks for asking.

Having reviewed more than a few old movies over the last ten years, and attended Reverend Matt’s Fringe presentation on the Creature From The Black Lagoon, I found this quite fun.

It’s been obvious since the moment the Dobbs (2022) decision was handed down by SCOTUS that the loss of the Constitutional right created in Roe vs. Wade (1973), and overturned by Dobbs, would be the key issue in the 2024 campaigns. This assertion has been confirmed implicitly by a host of special election victories, many unexpected, by the Democrats since the decision, even losses have been far closer than expected, and, explicitly, by State Constitutional Amendments, meant to protect or strip protection abortion rights, depending on the sponsor, in which the result from the voters were to strongly favor abortion rights.

A rational group would take one of two actions:

1. Change their position. Yes, this carries dangers, but if a logical refutation of the current position can be provided, then this can work. I’ve provided a refutation which is probably not unique, but doesn’t appear to have wide spread coverage.
2. Figure out a defense. In a pluralistic society, positions are best defended with logical arguments, for that is the shared currency of intellectual thought.

Are either of these strategies been utilized by the Republicans, as it’s obvious that Dobbs is being used against them daily and effectively? Well, here’s Senator Cruz (R-TX) said:

Sen. Ted Cruz tells @edlavaCNN that he won't talk about abortion access because it's only "the press" that is "obsessed" with the issue. Not voters.
Meanwhile, Texan women are going into sepsis & dying because the TX abortion ban delayed their ability to receive emergency care🧵 pic.twitter.com/en3frJHcaU

— Catherine Rampell (@crampell) October 30, 2024

Sen. Ted Cruz tells @edlavaCNN that he won’t talk about abortion access because it’s only “the press” that is “obsessed” with the issue. Not voters.
Meanwhile, Texan women are going into sepsis & dying because the TX abortion ban delayed their ability to receive emergency care

The old “No! You’re wrong! You’re wrong!” approach. Or Mr Trump’s approach:

Trump argued women would be safer and more prosperous with him as president and would “no longer be thinking about abortion.” [Los Angeles Times]

He’s responsible for selecting SCOTUS Justices that overturned Roe vs. Wade, but they’ll no longer want to think about abortion if he’s President? This is a type of magical thinking, useful only in irrational religious contexts, and which is not surprising given his religious upbringing.

These two defenses meet my expectation of the response of fourth-raters to a potential death blow. They’re not prepared, and it may be because they can’t imagine their Divinity not protecting them after fulfilling what they think it commanded; and when trying to build a defense, they discover the defenses don’t really work.

This is the core of the Republicans’ weakness in 2024, and I think they’re in for a very big shock.

When the wrong size bomb is used, crockery can be broken.

When The Wind Blows (1986) is a strange mixture of cartoon, model, and live-action movie concerning an elderly English couple and their common-sense platitudes, going up against a Soviet bomb.

Is it good? Well, sometimes questions regarding whether a story is good or bad is very much dependent on the context in which it was dreamed up. This was based on the novel of the same name from 1982, and may have had great impact on the British society and government of the time. However, for me this story of the Bloggs, products of World War II sensibilities, is more of a curiosity, perhaps an early warning about how the abusive uses of energy can lead to the worst of outcomes.

And asks the question, How does our limited wisdom deal with nearly unlimited power and human shortcomings?

It can leave the audience wondering where it’s going, but necessarily requires some patience.

It’s a compulsion, toenails are falling out, hair tying itself in knots, and angels are turning up their noses. Wait, do they have noses? Here’s my theologically authoritative source.

Anyways, this report is palatable, I think.

What About AtlasIntel?

If pollster AtlasIntel didn’t hold a 2.7 rating, I’d stop citing them because the results they are producing are often at variance with top pollsters, which is significant in the light of the variance between the top pollsters in many cases.

No final conclusion concerning this pollster is yet possible, so choose from the following:

1. AtlasIntel has successfully modified their data collection and / or adjustment model for today’s citizenry and is about to cause an uproar in the pollster ranks.
2. AtlasIntel hasn’t changed with the times and is about to crash and burn.
3. AtlastIntel is a Republican-aligned organization that is employing all of its powers to get a demented, ineffective old man and his allies into power because he’s easily manipulated.

Any more ideas? Send them to me, contact information is in the upper right corner. But right at the moment, I suspect it’s number three.

I do wonder just what coin AtlastIntel is gathering in for this work.

And The Data Came Marching In, Oh So Slovenly!

• In Arizona, where I expect Rep Gallego (D-AZ) to beat election-denier Kari Lake (R-AZ) by double digits, AtlasIntel (2.7) wants you to believe Lake leads by one point, 49%-48%. A few updates back, AtlasIntel had Gallego up by one. It’s worth mentioning that this is strongly reminiscent of the 2022 Senator Hassan (D-NH) / Don Bolduc (R-NH) race in which conservative pollsters tried to convince voters, or perhaps their sponsors, bit by bit, that Bolduc was going to win. The Senator ended up thrashing Bolduc by ten. Perhaps those pollsters, or maybe grifters, are at it again. The only fly in the ointment for this conspiracy theory is AtlasIntel’s 2.7 rating.
  

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  Noble Predictive Insights (2.4) has Gallego leading by a slim 48%-44% margin, or four points, with a ±3.5 margin of error. The pollster observes:

  Despite Trump’s lead in the Presidential race, Gallego has a strong advantage attributed to slightly less Republican loyalty for Lake (82%) than Trump (87%), as well as a stronger margin among Independents for Gallego (+14) than Harris (+8).

  If that continues, Lake is sunk, and with a bigger margin than a mere four points.

• It’s just like it’s snowing, the way the polls come down in Michigan. And it actually snowed here in Minnesota today. Anyways. AtlasIntel (2.7) has a plausible result to report in Michigan of Rep Slotkin (D-MI) leading former Rep Rogers (R-MI) by the small margin of 50%-46%.
  

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  Echelon Insights (2.7), new to me but with respectable rating, has it even closer at 48%-46%, but no margin of error evident.

  ---

  Mitchell Research & Communications (2.4) actually has a lead for Republican Mike Rogers, 49%-47%. That is a result well-nigh unique in this race, which rings my bell to consider this in more depth. 2.4 as a rating is fairly good, but I could see this as a skew to the right. The sponsor of the poll is Michigan News Source, not a news source that has caught my attention. But looking it over, I see the masthead includes the slogan

  real, honest, news.

  It’s been my observation over the last few years that sites of a dubious nature will use appeals to patriotism and honesty to lure vulnerable readers into trusting them. For me, they’re red flags. The balance of the content of the report reads more like a campaign press release than a real news report. For these reasons, I’m not taking this poll too seriously.

  ---

  The Washington Post conducted a poll but didn’t name a partner, nor could I find one, which means no rating for them, as FiveThirtyEight only rates Washington Post polls in the context of a partner. The relevance of this poll is therefore difficult to estimate. In terms of data, they give Rep Slotkin a 48%-45% lead, which is within the poll’s margin of error of ±3.7 points. This seems plausible enough.

  ---

  Finally, the Michigan poll I take most seriously is University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Public Opinion/YouGov, two pollsters which individually have ratings of 2.9 and 3.0, respectively. They give Slotkin a big lead, 48%-39%.

• University of Texas at Tyler Center for Opinion Research (1.8) gives Texas Senator Cruz (R-TX) a lead over Rep Allred (D-TX) of 47%-45%. A two point lead is not overwhelming, even at this point in the race.
• The doubtful AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Nevada Senator Rosen (D-NV) a two point lead over challenger Sam Brown (R-NV), 47%-45%, in a race most other respected pollsters give to the Senator by roughly ten points.
• Pennsylvania has seen the most polling of any State in the Union, so here’s what happened today. AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Senator Casey (D-PA) a 49%-46% lead over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?), closer to four points, actually, which is a bit low, but nothing like its polling of Arizona and Nevada. Echelon Insights (2.7) actually gives McCormick a lead, 47%-44%, which would be stunning if I weren’t suspicious of the pollster as being askew already.
  

  ---

  This all comes in the context of a measurement from University of Massachusetts Lowell Center for Public Opinion/YouGov, two pollsters which individually have ratings of 2.9 and 3.0, respectively. They give the Senator a larger 48%-42% lead, suggesting Casey will be winning this race.

• In Wisconsin, AtlasIntel (2.7) believes Senator Baldwin (D-WI) and challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?) are tied at 49% apiece. Echelon Insights (2.7) gives the Senator a 49%-48% lead. Neither of these pollsters have had convincing numbers, and they’ve come out of hiding in what seems like the last week, so despite their high ratings, I’m dubious concerning these measurements.
• In Ohio, unknown pollster University of Akron Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics gives Senator Brown (D-OH) a lead over challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH) of 46%-44%. It’s an interesting result, noting that other poorer quality pollsters have found Moreno to be ahead. The margin of error is ±2.8 points, so it’s what they call a statistical dead heat, but I suspect Brown really does have the advantage. However, this poll hardly constitutes a snapshot in time, as the data gathering period is a monstrous Sept. 12-Oct. 24, what appears to be five weeks or so. That may invalidate this poll.

The Expungement List

Among pollsters removed from campus are ActiVote, Cygnal (2.1), TIPP Insights (1.8), and Change Research (1.4).

Tired?

Oh yeah.

I’d sort of forgotten about the pollster Gallup, but this is interesting:

Democrats can be encouraged. But how about Republicans? If this is accurate, I doubt Mr Trump, no matter how much he runs around with his hair on fire and screaming, is going win – or even be competitive.

A Democratic blowout may be numbing for the Republicans. You really have to wonder: If Trump had dropped out and Haley had become the Republican nominee, would we looking at a different graph?

But the Republicans allowed a demented old man direct their destinies. There were reports of members of Congress receiving threats of violence if they didn’t back Mr. Trump, or so former Rep Cheney (R-WY) claimed. If a few of them had had the courage to take the risk, would this be happening to them? Or would they have booted Mr Trump, who’s never won the popular vote, and taken a chance on a better candidate?

Returning to the real world, a family member sent me this page from smart cremation:

Are you looking for a unique and long-lasting way to commemorate the life of your loved one? If so, getting a tattoo with your loved one’s cremated ashes may be the way to go. This relatively new method combines a small portion of cremated remains with traditional tattoo ink and allows you to then use the ink for tattooing purposes. This can be a truly personal way to remember your loved one and carry a piece of them around with you throughout your life. Here’s a little more information about the procedure to help you determine if getting a tattoo with your loved one’s cremated remains is the best option for you and your family.

At least it makes some sort of sense, although a bit too morbid for my tastes.

Just to note the not unexpected on this thread:

Yes, from $54 to $40 per share in one day. I’ll read that as one of two possibilities – the manipulators couldn’t, or just wouldn’t, keep the price elevated, or Mr Trump sold out, thus precipitating one big price drop. I think that interested parties can find out on Friday whether or not the sell out by Mr Trump has occurred.

And tomorrow? No guesses. Time will bring us that information soon enough.

My fingers may fall off after this. This what? That!

YouGov? Hey, What About YouGov!

YouGov (3.0) is more or less the epitome of respected pollsters, at least until FiveThirtyEight recalculates results and ratings after the election. Why, then, did you, the reader, notice that I didn’t relay a whole bunch of YouGov polls that were released today? Here’s why, from FiveThirtyEight’s list of poll results for the Senate, specifically its Dates column:

Oct. 7-17

Today is October 30th, and there have been significant events for both candidates that might invalidate these results. I don’t know why these results were not released in a timely manner, but they weren’t.

Not all of the polls dropped by YouGov today are that old, but those that are from that Age (just before the Mesozoic, I believe) will not be quoted. Unless I muff it.

Got Any Details On Doing Polls?

This guy does. Go for the expertise on this matter, since I don’t know any knowledgeable pollsters myself. That I know of.

Here’s The Grist!

• Quoted merely for the edification of certain readers: Rutgers University Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling (2.3) is giving New Jersey Democratic candidate Rep Kim (D-NJ) a thirty-two point lead over competitor Curtis Bashaw (R-NJ), 44%-12%. But there’s a trick here: The pollster didn’t provide Party affiliation. If it’s provided then the result improves for Mr Bashaw to 49%-26%, which is a 23 point deficit. These polls date from October 15-22.
  

  ---

  That’s certainly an interesting commentary on straight Party ticket voting in New Jersey.

  ---

  Since I’m here, Fairleigh Dickinson University (2.6) is giving Rep Kim a 57%-39% lead, making Mr Bashaw’s deficit 18 points. This poll dates from October 20-27. Did Bashaw pick up that much more support in that short amount of time, or are pollster models that divergent? Both contentions strike me as unlikely, as the leads accorded to Rep Kim seem high, and shrinking the deficit by that much in a week also seems of low probability. Fairleigh’s Executive Director has an interesting comment:

  “Bashaw’s strategy was to try and make Kim look unacceptably liberal to New Jersey voters, and it just hasn’t happened,” said Cassino. “To win, Bashaw needs to get a lot of crossover votes from moderates and Democratic leaners, and we’re just not seeing it in the data.”

  Republicans have to drop the divide and conquer strategy when the liberals are being successful; in fact, they need to reconsider certain facets of a political philosophy that is neither effective nor appealing to the typical citizen on the street. Right now the mendacity levels are high from the Republicans, and that’s because they’re unwilling to consider their failures as, well, failures; their tenets they treat as holy, rather than assertions contingent on results. That’s not going to work, especially among hard-headed Americans who can smell a steaming dump of failure when it shows up in front of them.

• As I said, YouGov gets a reference when their poll dates are not contemporary with Emperor Nero, and this poll is from October 21-28. They were in Nebraska and may have dashed Dan Osborn’s (I-NB) hopes, finding him trailing Senator Fischer (R-NB) 50%-43%. This is in stark contrast to the previous Nebraska update, in which The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) gave Mr Osborn a one point lead, and larger leads by other pollsters. It’s also worth noting that YouGov, a Brit firm, does seem to lean a trifle to the right, so this may be closer than it looks.
• Chronically polled Michigan gets a few more probes. SSRS (2.4), working for CNN, gives Rep Slotkin (D-MI) a six point lead, 48%-42%, over former Rep Rogers (R-MI), Suffolk University (2.9), working for USA Today, gives Rep Slotkin a much smaller lead of 47%-45%., and Beacon Research/Shaw & Company Research (2.8), working for Fox News, gives Rep Slotkin a lead of 51%-47%, right in the middle.
• OK, I’ll admit if we’re talking chronic polling syndrome, Pennsylvania’s in worse shape than Michigan. This time, YouGov (2.9) is the left-most of the bunch, giving Senator Casey (D-PA) a lead of 50%-42% over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?). BUT – this is the oldest poll of the group, and it’s only here because I forgot to filter it from the list based on date and am too lazy to delete all that typing.
  

  ---

  Susquehanna Polling & Research (2.3) gives the Senator a 49%-46% lead, SSRS (2.4), working for CNN, gives the Senator a 48%-45% lead, Quinnipiac University (2.8) has the Senator up by three also, 50%-47%, and Monmouth University Polling Institute has the gap at 45%-44%. Beacon Research/Shaw & Company Research (2.8), working for Fox News, gives the Senator a 50%-48% lead among likely voters, and a larger 51%-46% lead among registered voters. YouGov, YES, I KNOW I HAVE THEM ABOVE, THIS IS A LATER POLL, gives the Senator a 48%-42% lead, which is smaller than a week or two earlier and “within the margin of error“. I gotta wonder if that’s a typo!

  ---

  That makes for a gap range of 1 to 8 points. Doesn’t really leave the pollsters in a good smell, does it? Fox News has an observation from their poll that may be of interest:

  Republican candidate Dave McCormick has closed the gap in the Pennsylvania Senate race. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey is still ahead of McCormick but by just 2 points (50% to 48%), down from a 9-point lead in September (53-44%). This can be partly attributed to Casey losing ground with women – he’s up by 6 points today, down from a 21-point lead in September.

• In Wisconsin, highly respected Marquette University Law School (3.0)  has it a very tight race, with Senator Baldwin (D-WI) leading Eric Hovde (R-WI), 49%-47%. SSRS (2.4), working for CNN, gives the Senator a 49%-47% as well. Nice to see some accordance, if not consilience.

These Are Outta Here, Sad To Say. Here, Have A Tissue!

Pollsters omitted, in full or in part, for this report: YouGov (3.0), as explained above; RABA Research (1.3), even if they do give Rep Gallego (D-AZ) the more likely fifteen point lead, because of their awful rating; Cygnal (2.1); SoCal Strategies (unknown).

Surely I Have Thoughts

Yeah, the bullshit is flying and even the top pollsters seem to confused and baffled. Time to go rest.

Markov blanket:

In statistics and machine learning, when one wants to infer a random variable with a set of variables, usually a subset is enough, and other variables are useless. Such a subset that contains all the useful information is called a Markov blanket. If a Markov blanket is minimal, meaning that it cannot drop any variable without losing information, it is called a Markov boundary. Identifying a Markov blanket or a Markov boundary helps to extract useful features. The terms of Markov blanket and Markov boundary were coined by Judea Pearl in 1988. A Markov blanket can be constituted by a set of Markov chains. [Wikipedia]

Noted in “The free-energy principle: Can one idea explain why everything exists?” Elise Cutts, NewScientist (19 October 2024, paywall):

To divide the brain from the world it models, Friston implemented another mathematical tool: the Markov blanket. This acts as a sort of causal go-between, determining the relevant information that defines a particular brain state …. Depending on the scale you are interested in, a brain state could be something as granular as whether a particular neuron is firing or as enormous as depression.

Hmmmmmmm. I seem to remember something about Markov chains, which is part of this concept, when I was messing about on Kaggle. Don’t bother to ask, I wasn’t any good at it.

I’ve been a bit too busy to post about DJT, the stock of Mr Trump’s company. Last look had it little short of $30/sh. How about now?

Yes, it’s really jumped, especially as it was at about #13/sh not too long ago. To my eye, knowing it has little to sell, I strongly suspect someone is manipulating the price to benefit Mr Trump, assuming he’s still holding 60% of a $10 billion market cap. If President Putin can hold it that high long enough for Mr Trump to grift $6 billion, more or less, from the naive investors buying a stock for the first time because it’s associated with their idol, Mr Trump, then Mr Trump will owe President Putin, big time.

I wonder what happens if he grabs the cash and then fails to win the Presidency… does President Putin take umbrage? Or just write it off as a failed investment speculation, just like the thousands of other DJT investors?

Umbrage seems more likely…

That was a bloody blizzard, this was a flood of piranha.

The Wind Was At God’s Back, Even It Cannot Stop The Beans’ Vengeance

• In Missouri, candidate and challenger Lucas Kunce (D-MO) sponsored a poll that shows him only down by three, 49%-46%, to Senator Hawley (R-MO). The question mark, of course, is how strong of a pollster are we talking? The stronger, the less likely they’re catering to the sponsor – or at least so goes my theory. The pollster is GQR (2.0). and that 2.0 puts them kinda in the middle of the hierarchy, 89th out of 242 pollsters. OK, a bit better than middle, but nothing outstanding. Margin of error is given as ±4 points, although the document provided, not written by GQR, has that incorrectly stated. I don’t think that should be taken to mean GQR doesn’t know what it’s doing, since this is not on GQR letterhead, digital or otherwise.
  

  ---

  So is this an honest, accurate measurement? It may encourage more voters, sick and tired of Senator Hawley, to come out to the polls. And if it’s not? Then Kunce may be done.

  ---

  In other news, and merely as a comparison, right-leaning and unknown (to FiveThirtyEight) pollster ActiVote has the Senator up by thirteen, 56%-44%, as rounding occurs. Margin of error is stated to be ±4.9 points, and their sample size is only 400 voters, which makes their results certainly less plausible. Is it honest? Is it accurate? I have little reason to trust ActiVote – but that can change.

• Florida experienced a hometown poll from Florida Atlantic University PolCom Lab/Mainstreet Research, which is unknown to FiveThirtyEight both in parts and in whole. This pollster sees Senator Scott (R-FL) leading former Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) 50%-46%, regardless of whether it’s likely or registered voters.
  

  ---

  However, this poll mostly took place before the outrage generated by Mr Trump’s Madison Square Garden production had hit the Latino community, and Latinos are a significant portion of the Florida population. Might that invalidate this poll as Latinos abruptly change their minds? Stay tuned, folks. Senator Scott may become collateral damage.

• Michigan’s race is tight, if we’re to believe three pollsters. Emerson College (2.9), seemingly a whirlwind of activity, has Rep Slotkin (D-MI) ahead of former Rep Rogers (R-MI), 48%-46%, in a poll Emerson conducted for RealClearWorld, a probable right wing organization. Susquehanna Polling & Research (2.3) has it even tighter at 48%-47% for Rep Slotkin. AtlasIntel (2.7) also gives Slotkin a small lead of 49%-47%. All three are within their respective margin of error, I’m sure.
  

  ---

  Contrasting these measurements with the last Michigan update is interesting, as highly rated Quinnipiac University (2.8) gave Rep Slotkin a big eight point lead. The polling of Michigan has truly been confusing.

• In Arizona highly rated Data Orbital (2.9) is giving Kari Lake (R-AZ) the lead in the race for the open Senate seat over Rep Gallego (D-AZ), 45%-45%, rounding, donchaknow. And in another touch of surrealism, AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Gallego a meager lead of 48%-48%. I’m drowning in rounding here, guys, and that’s just the start of the madness of a race for a seat that came to an end when election denier Mz Lake won the Republican nomination – or should have ended right there.
  

  ---

  If these were run of the mill pollsters, I’d say to just ignore them, but their ratings are too good. Assuming these are accurate measurements, though, there’s still one factor unmeasured by them, and that’s the same as affecting Florida: these polls mostly took place before the outrage generated by Mr Trump’s Madison Square Garden production had hit the Latino community, which is large in Arizona.

  ---

  CNN/SSRS (2.4), on the other hand, gives Rep Gallego an eight point lead of 51%-43%. University of Arizona School of Government and Public Policy/Truedot, unknown to FiveThirtyEight in both part and whole, suggests Rep Gallego’s lead is a big 51%-36% margin, but it’s hard to evaluate an unrated pollster’s contribution. This is a bit of a battle of the pollsters, isn’t it?

  ---

  I still expect Rep Gallego to win, and win big, in Arizona.

  ---

  And I hope I don’t end up like this.

• In Nevada AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Senator Rosen (D-NV) a five point lead, 49%-44%, ahead of challenger Sam Brown (R-NV). Is it really even this close? More believably, CNN/SSRS, which I believe is SSRS (2.4), sponsored by CNN, has Rosen’s lead at nine points, 50%-41%.
  

  ---

  Mr Brown, no doubt feeling a little desperate, made this announcement:

  Standing beside a sitting Republican senator who sponsored a national abortion ban after 15 weeks of pregnancy, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sam Brown said if elected, he would vote against such a measure.

  Will that lure independents to his banner, or drive away zealous anti-abortion voters? It’s the same bet that former Governor Hogan (R-MD) has made, and it doesn’t appear to have been effective so far. And “so far” is coming to an end quickly.

• In Pennsylvania AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Senator Casey (D-PA) a two point lead, 49%-47%, ahead of challenger David McCormick (R-PA?). But here, as with Florida and Arizona, there is a substantial Puerto Rican population that is thought to be outraged and now ready to vote for Harris, as was also noted in the last update of yesterday.
• In Wisconsin AtlasIntel (2.7) gives Senator Baldwin (D-WI) a five point lead, 49%-48%, ahead of challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?). Is it really this close? It is roughly congruent with Suffolk University’s (2.9) poll from the last Wisconsin update, so maybe it’s accurate. Or perhaps we have two pollsters heading for a fall.
• In Montana Montana State University Billings (a mediocre 1.5 rating) has Senator Tester (D-MT) and challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) tied at 43%-43%. Given the pollster’s rating and lack of knowledge of any leaning, it’s hard to estimate the fidelity of this poll. But since most of the Montana polling is biased, it’s at least good to see a poll that isn’t waving its bias in the air.
• Tight-rope walking: Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R-MD) tries to persuade both groups of Republicans as well as independents & Democrats:
  

  Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said on Tuesday that he will not be voting in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, as he faces a tight Senate race in the state.

  “I’ve decided that neither one of them has earned my vote,” Hogan said, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump. [Newsweek]

  Does he have enough time to persuade enough voters that he’s independent of Mr Trump? I would have thought declaring to be against any sort of abortion ban would be enough, if anything could. This? Maybe. Not. Recent polling suggests Mr Hogan is down by ten and more points, so this is probably not good enough.

Down The Sump Pump

Polls from unrated, observed leaning right, pollster ActiVote, another leaner Cygnal (2.1), InsiderAdvantage (2.0), Republican-aligned Trafalgar Group (0.7), and Glengariff Group (1.5) have been discarded.

Final Thoughts?

I’ve never seen an election like this. Even the Minnesota Governor’s race of 1990 seems tame by comparison, and that featured scandals, big comebacks by scorned-by-their-own-parties candidates, and, I don’t know what else.

If Mr Trump loses, and I think he will, will he then claim credit for discrediting the Republican Party? It might be a way to restore face.

The Cliff’s In Sight! The Cliff’s In Sight! Don’t Let Them Catch Us! Faster!

(New Minnesota Viking Slogan?)

Any Thoughts On The House?

Not really. Once, maybe twice I’ve mentioned I expect a Democratic pickup of roughly forty seats, despite brave Republican speculations on strengthening their current minuscule majority.

But now Fenris Hero on Daily Kos suggests that Mr Trump’s reference to a “little secret” that reassures Mr Trump may actually turn into an advantage for the Democrats standing for office:

NBC did some research on issues and how voters react to them.  One of the biggest losers is 2020 election denialism.  Democrats have been hammering away at this issue, and the GOP has loudly refused to exist within the bounds of reality.  While this was viewed as a side show to most voters, Trumps own words could draw this front and center.  Most voters rightly don’t want anything like the 2020 election chaos occurring again.  Trump has just not so subtly promised that he intends to rekindle that chaos with the help of a GOP House.  Every GOP House candidate is now potentially a vote to try and ignore the results of the 2024 presidential election.

It’s an interesting speculation, particularly if Mr Trump decides to try to use it to boost his campaign. A forty seat wave, if this is true, might be an underestimate.

And it may boost some Democratic candidates for Senate as well.

Viva Something!

• A high quality pollster, or so history suggests, polls Montana: Emerson College (2.9) gives challenger Tim Sheehy (R-MT) a three point lead over Senator Jon Tester (D-MT), 51%-48%. There are two questions appertaining to this poll: 1. Does Emerson College’s position on the spectrum of results from high quality pollsters for 2024 as being on the right end, at least my impression thereof, mean that Emerson College is underestimating those voters inclined to vote for the the Senator? 2. Does the general polling problem, observed over the last couple of years, of underestimating the Democrats’ final count by several to many points in special elections and abortion-amendments country-wide, apply to this election? I’d rate this election a toss-up.
• Wisconsin’s Senator Baldwin (D-WI) has only a 1+ point lead over challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?), 46%-44%, according to pollster Suffolk University (2.9), working for USA Today. Suffolk’s 2.9 rating is certainly impressive, which simply makes me wonder even more why their poll, beyond obvious practical reasons, has a sample size of only 500 likely voters, and thus a rather large margin of error of ±4.4 points. Is confidence in these results justified?
• The delightfully named St. Pete Polls (2.4), sponsored by Florida Politics, has Senator Scott (R-FL) up by three, 49%-46%, over former Rep Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) in Florida.
• Who’s ahead in Texas? Depends who you ask. GBAO Strategies (a miserable 1.2), and sponsored by candidate Rep Allred (D-TX), has the race as even at 46%, but a poorly rated pollster with a biased sponsor is obviously a dubious source of information. Why does Politico cite it without qualifiers, then? Bad organization! Go lay down by your dish!
  

  ---

  Meanwhile, The New York Times/Siena College (top of the heap 3.0) finds Senator Cruz (R-TX) with a four point lead over Rep Allred, 50%-46%. Besides the obvious clash with the Emerson College (2.9) finding of a single point lead in the previous Texas update, NYT/Siena has seemed to be on the conservative side of the high quality pollster spectrum throughout the 2024 campaign, much like Emerson College. Or is it just me and my delusions? We’ll find out in the 1+ weeks, depending on how fast votes are counted.

• 

  On The Issues: Senator Deb Fischer (R-NB).

  If you’re a registered voter in Nebraska, then The New York Times/Siena College (3.0) gives Dan Osborn (I-NB, Democratic Party-endorsed) a one point lead, 47%-46%, over Senator Fischer (R-NB). But for likely voters, the lead flips to Senator Fischer, 48%-46%. So it appears tight. The question for the hesitant Nebraska voter is whether you believe a hard right extremist like Senator Fischer (see right) will be abashed by a close race, or whether Nebraska simply needs to replace her as not representing Nebraska values.

• Next door in Missouri, Senator Hawley is damned (R-MO) by The New Republic:
  

  Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is treating his home state of Missouri like a flyover state, according to a new report that shows just how rarely the hawkish Republican lawmaker returns there.

  Records of Hawley’s taxpayer-funded travels reviewed by St. Louis Magazine revealed that the Missouri Republican has traveled between Washington, D.C., and the Show-Me State only 33 times between March 2019 and January 2024—an average of six times per year.

  Many of Hawley’s trips were short: Eight of them involved Hawley hightailing out of Missouri after less than 48 hours. More than half the time, Hawley was traveling home around the holidays, which tended to be longer stays. Hawley’s longest trip home was between April 1, 2020, and May 1, 2020, around the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.

  Someone remind me: When did The New Republic gain the power of damning? This seems like weak tea to me, but perhaps Missourians will disagree.

• In the allegedly tight Senate race in Pennsylvania, some folks at Politico think Mr Trump just shot himself in the foot with the Latino vote. It’s behind a paywall, but TonyDem4life on Daily Kos provides the meat of the matter here. Will there be a poll reflecting a change in judgment? There may not be enough time, excepting, of course, the only poll that matters.
  

  ---

  This may be the object lesson in why supporting a dementia patient in hopes of manipulating him after he wins is an unwise strategy. Of course, President Putin and other interfering foreign citizens are relatively safe from blowback. But how about Republican elected officials? How many will retain their positions and the respect of their constituents in the near future? Are we beginning to see the final exhaustion of the ideological weaponry that’s been keeping Republicans afloat all these years?

At The Bottom Of The Bin

Trafalgar Group (0.7), InsiderAdvantage (2.0), Patriot Polling (1.1), and North Star Opinion Research (1.1).

The Conclusion And Its Meal

We’re down to the last week, and it’s hard to say how many more worthwhile polls are going to show up. Add in the fact that the arthritis in my shoulder is bad enough to require surgery, and I can’t guarantee anything more in this thread, although I’ll try if material comes available.

Otherwise, stay —

The Washington Post’s owner, Amazon found Jeff Bezos, may have refused to permit it to endorse Vice President Harris for President in the upcoming election, but at least they’re not being completely muted. This overview article  presents it as news coverage, and I particularly appreciated Senator Sander’s (I-VT) comment:

This brought exclamations over both Jhayco’s music and his fashion sense from my Arts Editor:

Thobe:

A thawb is an Arab garment mainly worn by inhabitants of the Middle East and North Africa. The thawb is long-sleeved ankle-length traditional robe; it is worn by men and women with regional variations in name and style. Depending on local traditions, a thawb can be worn in formal or informal settings; in the Gulf states thobes are the main formal attire for men. It is also worn by Muslim men in the Indian subcontinent due to its modest appearance, and is believed to be a sunnah, and it is commonly referred to as a jubbah there. [Wikipedia]

“Redirected from Thobe”. Noted in this tweet.

Both Hitler and Mussolini featured traditional ethnic dress in their propaganda displays. The undertone isn’t comic, nor is it meant to be respectful. It’s a fascistic appeal to nostalgia and nativistic impulses. https://t.co/NaVf7cNE36

— Leah McElrath (@leahmcelrath) October 26, 2024

Oh, yes, there’s her! Her! And her evil … uncle? Yes, so innocently evil, she is. Or is it good? Gimme a drink!

The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) is a stop-action operetta classic. With nearly every word set to music, and visuals to delight the eyes, it’s only rarely overbearing, quite understandable, and full of memorable characters who tell the story of a bored Jack Skellington, the king of Halloween Town, and how that boredom leads to the kidnapping of Santa Claus, and, worse yet, the threatened ascendancy of Oogie Boogie. Oogie is dedicated to more than just being a bogeyman, you see, and thus threatens all who standing their way.

If you have a taste for the whimsical, for the story that comes out of left field, then this is Strongly Recommended.

Today? Why, today I saw a T. Rex with a dead body in its mouth. Or maybe it was using lingual luring.

What Of The Moral Cowardice of WaPo and The Los Angeles Times With Regards To Presidential Endorsements?

Yes, those are aggravating: billionaires playing at being publishers, protecting their own rather than providing the leadership that is the legacy of their predecessors.

That said, I don’t think endorsements from legacy media or their replacements has much effect on independent voters.

Hey, What’s OnMessage?

OnMessage is a pollster with a 1.1 rating, that’s not a typo, from FiveThirtyEight. Surveying UMB, I see OnMessage has been cited once before, working for a Republican-aligned sponsor, and, now, it’s working for a different Republican-aligned sponsor, Senate Opportunity Fund.

If you’ve been reading these campaign updates & commentary for a while, you are aware there are pollsters out there who are the Horse behind the carriage. That is, by publishing results suggesting their preferred candidate is winning, and to hell with honesty and reality, they hope to influence voters into voting for their preferred candidate, rather than another.

Remember the wisdom of Governor Ventura (I-MN): This isn’t a horse race, folks! You get no points for voting for the winning candidate, and if you do “get points,” you have a legal exposure that you won’t like, because that’s selling your vote. No, remember your duty as a citizen: pick the candidate who will best represent your State in the Senate, one that understands the importance of the various rules of society, from debate to laws, who puts Country above Party.

As to these dishonest pollsters, there’s little punishment, fiscal or legal, likely for them, so they exist on both sides of the aisle, and continue to try to grift the sponsors.

As an example of the ridiculousness of OnMessage, I’ll cite them once, below. But they are definitely static, not signal.

The Fish Are Schooling Thataway

• In Pennsylvania, Emerson College (2.9) is giving Senator Casey (D-PA) an insignificant lead of 47%-46%. over challenger David McCormick (R-PA?). Emerson College is working for RealClearPennsylvania, which is reputed to lean right. I know I’ve said that highly rated pollsters shouldn’t, for good reasons, skew their results to please their sponsors, but Emerson College does seem to skew right in general, this time around. Or the other top-rated pollsters don’t know their business. Which is certainly possible, as the polling landscape is shifting, from data collection to modeling, and inevitably some pollsters with good reputations will be caught up in the grinder and left a little flat, a bit down the pollster community hierarchy.
  

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  Franklin & Marshall College Center for Opinion Research (2.4), aka F&M, also has a tight race in the cards, with Senator Casey leading 49%-48% for likely voters (LV), and 49%-42% for registered voters (RV). These disparate measurements from the same pollster would seem to imply that those who might vote for the Senator lack the enthusiasm of those who’d vote for the inexperienced Mr McCormick. That seems quite odd and makes me wonder about this poll; also, I have seen very little output from this pollster. A Day Later: Darrell Lucus on Daily Kos casts a shadow over this pollster in Pennsylvania in a larger analysis:

  With this in mind, it’s rather telling that no NRCC or “red wave” polling has come out from this district [PA-07] either. Maybe they know Muhlenberg [College] has long been among the best pollsters in the business, ranking 11th [which is a 2.8 rating] at FiveThirtyEight. Indeed, the only internal poll for this district was in July, right around the time Biden was facing pressure to pull out. After all, in the event of a red tsunami, [Representative] Wild [(D-PA) of PA-07] would be among the first Dems to go.

  All of this is why I took Franklin & Marshall’s poll of Pennsylvania with a huge grain of salt. While Harris led registered voters 48-44, Trump led likely voters 50-49. Pennsylvania elections analyst Joshua Smithley noticed that Franklin & Marshall all but admitted they changed their methodology to keep from underestimating Trump.

  There’s an explanation of F&M’s change in methodology as seen from the outside at the link if you’re willing to search for it, and it may explain the oddball difference between their RV and LV results for the Senate race.

• In Wisconsin, Emerson College (2.9) has Senator Baldwin (D-WI) and challenger Eric Hovde (R-WI?) tied at 48%, and are sponsored by maybe right-leaning RealClearWorld.
• In Maryland, Emerson College (2.9) appears to be putting a stake into former Governor Hogan’s (R-MD) campaign for the open Senate seat, according Democrat Angela Alsobrooks (D-MN) a 57%-43% lead. The Washington Post/University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement (2.5) is also giving Alsobrooks a substantial lead, 52%-40%.
• Ohio has been surveyed by a new pairing: Bowling Green State University Democracy and Public Policy Research Network/YouGov. The latter’s rating is 2.9, while the former is not listed by FiveThirtyEight, so take their combined rating for what you will; or it may be reasonable to consider the former the sponsor and the latter the pollster. In any case, they give Senator Brown (D-OH) a two point lead of 47%-45% over challenger Bernie Moreno (R-OH). While the rightward leaning pollsters have been trying to hint that Mr Moreno holds a slight lead, the respectable pollsters continue to have Senator Brown leading with a week and a half left, albeit within their margins of error.
• As Promised Above: In Nevada, Senator Rosen (D-NV), widely expected to beat challenger Sam Brown (R-NV) in a landslide, is tied with him at 48% – if you believe Republican-aligned OnMessage (1.1). See the intro for more on OnMessage. And don’t take this result too seriously unless it repeats on Election Night.
• The Florida Senate Democratic candidate has picked up an endorsement of possible significance:
  

  Democratic Senate candidate Debbie Mucarsel-Powell has lost some ground to Republican Senator Rick Scott in their Florida race, as the latest polls show the incumbent has a lead in the mid-single digits, a better performance than previous surveys.

  Nevertheless, the Democrat is making her final push with less than two weeks to go before election day. And she just got a new endorsement from the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the country’s oldest Latino civil rights organization and a group that until 2024 had refused to endorse candidates. [Latin Times]

  The problem? The Latino community has displayed a limited interest in identitarian politics, as the punditry terms it, finding more of interest in questions of illegal immigrants getting a leg up that legal immigrants didn’t get – and they resent it. Not that this plays into this question, but just simply that an endorsement of a Latino organization might have a limited impact.

• Missouri gets another rare poll as Emerson College (2.9) gives Senator Hawley (R-MO) a ten point lead over challenger Lucas Kunce (D-MO), 50%-40%. No upset here unless Emerson College is severely undercounting the young woman vote, as asserted here.

Ignorance Is Bliss

Not cited except as object examples: OnMessage (1.1) and Cherry Communications (1.0).

Feeling Uncertain?

Hey. Erick Erickson is convinced the Harris Campaign has given up. The progressives are certain of a Harris victory.

You are probably in a large club. They offer warm milk and chocolate chip cookies. Until next time, eat healthy.

Republican backbiting, which is inevitable even in the best of times – this is not the best of times – nevertheless can yield truths, as unpleasant as they may be. Consider this remark by Senator Scott (R-FL):

Scott and McConnell have repeatedly found themselves at odds: The Floridian unsuccessfully challenged McConnell for the top GOP leadership spot in 2022 and is running again, this time against GOP Whip John Thune (S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), a former whip. Scott’s bid is viewed on the Hill as the most unlikely of the three to succeed, though he has some supporters, including Lee.

Scott, in a statement on Thursday, said that he was “shocked that [McConnell] would attack a fellow Republican senator and the Republican nominee for president just two weeks out from an election.” [Politico]

Maybe you’ve already heard this in a bar, but it bears repetition. Senator Scott is right – this should have come out, but a month ago, two months ago, even three.

Then it would be practical to remove Mr Trump from the position of Presidential nominee, replacing him with the only Republican with any metaphorical balls, namely former Governor Haley (R-SC). Yes, yes, given her behavior since retiring from the fray, her balls are very, very small, but at least she stuck around for a while and actually beat Mr Trump in a couple of primaries.

And she’d have behaved with general honor and maturity.

But now it’s too late. It’s Trump or, if he retires from the field, no one. And that’s what makes Senator Scott right, just not quite in the way he means.

I found this AL Monitor article on the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar quite interesting:

The killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip has drawn flurry of reactions in the region. While no governments have officially commented on the news, Iranian proxies mourned Friday Sinwar’s death.

Sinwar, who is seen as the mastermind of the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, was killed during a firefight with Israeli forces in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Wednesday. The Israeli army confirmed his death on Thursday.

The fact that Gulf region governments are, by and large, not commenting suggests they’ve run out of patience with Hamas and Hezbollah. Will we be seeing a shift in the region now that the two organizations are essentially headless? I do understand that one of the reasons Hamas engaged in the October 7th incident was that Saudi Arabia was rumored to be coming to an agreement with Israel.