For nervous Democrats, I'm here to talk you off the ledge!

[dramallama]

2 minutes ago, louisa05 said:

The electoral college system lends itself to having two candidates. 

And I know the next thing everyone will say is that it should be repealed. But I'm not sure that would be such a great thing. Majority vote would mean that only a few major population centers would really matter to the outcome. The electoral college system forces candidates to focus on many diverse areas around the country to get the required votes. 

Yeah, I think there are pros and cons to both sides of that argument.  As it stands now huge numbers of states get ignored anyway, because they always vote the same way.  Seen a presidential candidate campaign in Kansas lately?  Or Massachusetts?  Most presidential election years it seems like only Ohio and Florida matter.  And if you're a liberal in a red state or a conservative in a blue state, your vote means zilch.  So from that standpoint I can understand the argument for abolishing the EC; at least each individual vote would have equal weight.  However, you're right in that huge swaths of the country would still wind up being ignored just because it's easier and more efficient to campaign for votes in larger population centers.  I doubt that smaller states would be willing to give up what little power the EC gives them, as well.  All of the options have their drawbacks, and anyway, with the way our government works (read: DOESN'T) anymore, I don't think you could get the House to agree to a vote that breathing = good, nevermind the level of agreement and cooperation you'd need to change the way elections work.

[louisa05]

3 minutes ago, dramallama said:

Yeah, I think there are pros and cons to both sides of that argument.  As it stands now huge numbers of states get ignored anyway, because they always vote the same way.  Seen a presidential candidate campaign in Kansas lately?  Or Massachusetts?  Most presidential election years it seems like only Ohio and Florida matter.  And if you're a liberal in a red state or a conservative in a blue state, your vote means zilch.  So from that standpoint I can understand the argument for abolishing the EC; at least each individual vote would have equal weight.  However, you're right in that huge swaths of the country would still wind up being ignored just because it's easier and more efficient to campaign for votes in larger population centers.  I doubt that smaller states would be willing to give up what little power the EC gives them, as well.  All of the options have their drawbacks, and anyway, with the way our government works (read: DOESN'T) anymore, I don't think you could get the House to agree to a vote that breathing = good, nevermind the level of agreement and cooperation you'd need to change the way elections work.

It would require a Constitutional Amendment with approval of 3/4 of the states. 

[dramallama]

Just now, louisa05 said:

It would require a Constitutional Amendment with approval of 3/4 of the states. 

I know.  Not gonna happen.

[Bethella]

11 hours ago, AuntK said:

I don't understand how states that don't have early voting manage to get everyone's vote in one day! Florida does not have enough polling places or voting machines; it is logistically impossible for all of Florida's likely voters to vote in ONE day! We have now had early voting for just over a week, 4 MILLION PLUS have voted and there are five more early voting days to go. I really think voting in a presidential election should be standardized across the country, I think there's less room for error and higher voter turnout.  But, I'm not in charge. . .

First off, Florida is one of the largest states in terms of voters, along with California, New York and Texas: Michigan only has 7,525,533 registered voters compared to Florida's 12,655,286 and several states are well under a million registered voters. Michigan's system is helped by the fact that it is decentralized. 

Quote

Of the eight states that administer elections on the local level, Michigan is the largest state both in terms of its population and geography to do so. Involving 83 county clerks, 274 city clerks and 1,242 township clerks, Michigan's elections system is administered by 1,599 county and local election officials making it the most decentralized elections system in the nation.

Using the largest city near me (Marquette) as an example, there are 7 precincts (each operating separately, with its own designated space) in three polling locations. Each precinct has approximately 1500 registered voters. According to Michigan law, each precinct must not contain more than 2,999 active registered voters and at least one voting station must be provided for every 300 registered voters. Michigan doesn't use electronic voting machines, we use paper ballots and each precinct only has one tabulator which scans and counts the ballots for that precinct. 

[RoseWilder]

3 hours ago, QuiverDance said:

@RoseWilder Thank you for your peptalks on this thread.  I obsessively check fivethirtyeight and theupshot every morning as soon as I put my hands on my phone.  I am terrified.  

You're welcome. I strongly advise avoiding fivethirtyeight. I was a big fan of his at one time, and I even posted a lot of stuff from that site on here as recently as a few weeks ago. But then I read an article somewhere (I can't remember where) that was talking about how Nate Silver even admitted in several podcasts that he's skewing his predictions in Trump's favor because he was wrong about the primaries. 

So keep that in mind. He's not being as scientific about this as people think. He's favoring Trump so he doesn't look bad if Trump wins. 

Huffington Post, Daily Kos and nearly ever other site have her chances at greater than 90%. 

[RoseWilder]

A Daily Kos writer discusses that there are a lot of problems with polling lately: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/2/1590310/-Turning-back-to-the-elections-if-I-may

Quote

As far as current polls and aggregators.  There are now a lot of bad polls out there, both nationally and in states.  Some are from totally unknown organizations.  I ignore them, positive or negative, if they are not consistent with the other polls in general, simply because they have no track record and often do not release demographics.

But even some major pollsters are having problems.

 

[QuiverDance]

20 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

You're welcome. I strongly advise avoiding fivethirtyeight. I was a big fan of his at one time, and I even posted a lot of stuff from that site on here as recently as a few weeks ago. But then I read an article somewhere (I can't remember where) that was talking about how Nate Silver even admitted in several podcasts that he's skewing his predictions in Trump's favor because he was wrong about the primaries. 

So keep that in mind. He's not being as scientific about this as people think. He's favoring Trump so he doesn't look bad if Trump wins. 

Huffington Post, Daily Kos and nearly ever other site have her chances at greater than 90%. 

 

Nate Silver has said that several times.  He is seriously spooked by his failure at predicting the primaries.  

[RoseWilder]

Good early voting news from North Carolina: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/2/1590349/-NC-Pres-Holy-effing-crap-My-state-may-have-put-Hillary-over-the-top-but-we-need-to-finish-this

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Some very good news from early voting in North Carolina. The New York Times’ Upshot has been running a real-time estimate of early voting results, and they look very encouraging for the blue team.

As I write this, just over two million people have voted, and Hillary is estimated to lead Donald Trump by just over 10 points, 52.9-42.7. If this holds, Upshot estimates that Hillary will carry the state by just under six points, 49.1-43.2. No doubt Fox News was watching this trend; it probably explains why it moved North Carolina to “lean Democratic” yesterday. 

Two things are worth noting. One, this comes with early voting hours being slashed. Two, almost half of the state’s likely voters have already voted. Including yours truly—I voted on the second day of early voting.

If these numbers hold, Trump is in yuuuuge trouble. If you add Virginia’s 13 votes to the 242 that have gone Democratic in every election since 1992 (since Trump has effectively ceded the state to Hillary), then Hillary would have 255 electoral votes in her column. Add North Carolina’s 15 votes to that total, and that would make 270. End of ballgame.

And an exciting new poll was just released: 

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-poll-idUSKBN12X2P6?feedType=RSS&feedName=politicsNews&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

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Hillary Clinton led Republican Donald Trump by 6 percentage points among likely voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Wednesday, the same advantage the Democratic presidential nominee held before an FBI announcement that reignited the controversy about her email practices.

 

[dramallama]

54 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

You're welcome. I strongly advise avoiding fivethirtyeight. I was a big fan of his at one time, and I even posted a lot of stuff from that site on here as recently as a few weeks ago. But then I read an article somewhere (I can't remember where) that was talking about how Nate Silver even admitted in several podcasts that he's skewing his predictions in Trump's favor because he was wrong about the primaries. 

So keep that in mind. He's not being as scientific about this as people think. He's favoring Trump so he doesn't look bad if Trump wins. 

Huffington Post, Daily Kos and nearly ever other site have her chances at greater than 90%. 

Fivethirtyeight was my BFF in 2012 and I hadn't bothered looking beyond its projections this year until I found this thread, and I want to thank you for preventing me from spending this week in one long, continuous panic attack. 

[outtheblue]

I am thankful for threads like these. I used to be against Hillary being President, but now I feel desperate for her to win. I think I will need a support group if she doesn't. I want to do what I can, but unfortunately, I have no doubt that Trump will win my state (GA). I can't believe this is real life. 

[Childless]

4 minutes ago, outtheblue said:

I am thankful for threads like these. I used to be against Hillary being President, but now I feel desperate for her to win. I think I will need a support group if she doesn't. I want to do what I can, but unfortunately, I have no doubt that Trump will win my state (GA). I can't believe this is real life. 

It's actually supposed to be close in Georgia.  Be thankful for that at least.  My state will go for Trump by a large margin.  God, I hate living here.

[RoseWilder]

According to Huffington Post, the chances of the Democrats getting control of the senate are 71%, 23% chance of a tie and only a 5% chance of the Republicans getting control: 

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/2016/forecast/senate

Hillary's chances of winning are still greater than 90% on every site except 538 (and that site's model is flawed in Trump's favor.) 

There's also early voting good news from Texas and Ohio but I don't have time to post it right now because I'm off to go babysit my niece and nephew for the entire day. I'll post more good news later if they end up napping at the same time, otherwise I'll be back tonight with the good news!

[outtheblue]

7 hours ago, Childless said:

It's actually supposed to be close in Georgia.  Be thankful for that at least.  My state will go for Trump by a large margin.  God, I hate living here.

Oh I sure hope GA would go blue, I just don't have much faith in the people here in north GA. Not sure about other parts. I'm from SC originally so I'm used to it...sigh.

[sawasdee]

I live in Thailand and I have contributed to Hillary (via a friend)! I am so shit scared of the alternative - the policies of the US affect the entire world, and I am very pissed off that I don't have a vote...Trump does not even realise the importance of NATO, let alone  the transpacific alliances. How the hell did you let this happen?

Yeah, I know - the media needed ratings - what a way to run the world....

 

 

[RoseWilder]

We're getting some really good news today. 

Hillary's chances of winning are looking fantastic: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/3/1590611/-Pollster-com-just-moved-election-for-Pres-and-Senate-strongly-out-of-GOP-chance-Wang-now-at-100

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Trump is dropping like a rock.  Now down to a 1.3% chance of winning, while Hillary Clinton has surged all the way to 98.6%.  Both of these measures are new highs and lows for Pollster.com Projections (for Hillary and Trump, respectively.)

And there's good senate news in that article as well: 

Quote

Note that in the above graph Democrats are given a 70% chance of winning the Senate with a 51 seat majority.  If we assume that Hillary wins the presidency (and at 98.6% that’s a very good bet) we are also looking at an additional 25% of a chance of getting at least 50 Senate seats with Tim Kaine holding the tie-breaker vote.  That’s a chance of 95% of us getting to at least 50 Senate seats.

 

There's also really good early voting news: 

Florida: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/3/1590691/-Florida-EV-Surpasses-2012-Schale-Tidbit-Is-Great-News-For-Democrats-Obama-in-Duval-County

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Florida is looking strong for Democrats.

And among very reliable African American voters, the surge continues. Share up to 12% and growing. Look for these numbers to increase.

And folks, realistically Trump needs a huge margin of victory out of Duval County to win Florida and at this point he’s not getting it. Guess who’s in Duval today to drive EV and fire up our base?

President Barack Obama

Nevada: 

http://www.ktnv.com/news/ralston/the-nevada-early-voting-blog

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On the presidential (and maybe applies to the U.S. Senate, too), some math still holds:

----Both candidates get 90 percent of base and split indies: Clinton by 4, 29,000 votes

----Both candidates get 90 percent of base, Trump wins indies by 10: Clinton by 2, 17,000 votes

----Both candidates get 90 percent of base, Trump wins indies by 20: Clinton by 3,000 votes

Note: Trump is not going to get 90 percent of the GOP base, and with all of those votes banked even before the Comey letter, it's almost impossible for him to win indies by 20. (Romney won indies by 7.) You see his challenge.

If Clinton holds her base here (data I have seen shows she is, and minority turnout is going up) and turnout patterns don't dramatically shift in the last two days of early voting, she can't lose Nevada. Solid lean Clinton right now.

And polls appear to have underestimated the Latino vote: 

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/3/1590674/-Latino-electorate-both-on-track-for-historic-turnout-and-routinely-undercounted-in-polls

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What's been interesting is how mainstream polling this year appears to have continually underestimated the Latino vote even as LD's weekly tracking poll consistently demonstrated far greater intensity to vote among the population this cycle. Latino Decisions has repeatedly raised this point, noting how it will affect overall outcomes.

This is fantastic news for the Democrats! Now let's get out there and vote!

[AuntK]

OK, the Cubs won the World Series this week; next week, the US elects its first woman president!!

I think I've got this thing figured out. . . (God willing  and the creek don't rise. . .)

[Howl]

Have seen very few Trump ads here in Texas, and the Hillary ads just show Donald Trumps saying his own horrible words, or have Trumps voice saying his own horrible words, and showing the population affected by those horrible words.  

People are streaming to the early voting polling stations her in Austin, and have been since the first day of early voting.  I wouldn't be surprised if over half of all voters or more vote early in this town.  Early voting ends tomorrow (Friday).  Results of early voting are not available until Election Day at (I think) 7 pm. 

However, data on gender, age, demographic and party affiliation harvested from early voters is being used used as a proxy. 

I'm trying to tune out all of this and just wait until election night.   

[smittykins]

I've only seen two Trump ads(probably the same one twice), plus one from his supporters.

[HeathenBlondie]

While lurking here before joining, I came upon this thread & it's also helped me be less nervous with the state of the election. It's been very interesting to read all the information that I didn't see previously. After last Friday I was really worked up over the news on those damn emails. I've been checking my breaking news app, Daily Kos, and HuffPo probably a little too obsessively since.

I'll probably be spending election night eating popcorn and watching Impractical Jokers to keep my sanity until the results are in.

[AuntK]

Did Eic Trump REALLY say David Duke deserves a bullet? Not that I'm a DD fan, but geez, let's just shoot everyone who is a problem for us. . . the apple apparently doesn't fall far fom the tree. .

[Cartmann99]

1 hour ago, HeathenBlondie said:

While lurking here before joining, I came upon this thread & it's also helped me be less nervous with the state of the election. It's been very interesting to read all the information that I didn't see previously. After last Friday I was really worked up over the news on those damn emails. I've been checking my breaking news app, Daily Kos, and HuffPo probably a little too obsessively since.

I'll probably be spending election night eating popcorn and watching Impractical Jokers to keep my sanity until the results are in.

Glad you decided to join us! 

1 hour ago, AuntK said:

Did Eic Trump REALLY say David Duke deserves a bullet? Not that I'm a DD fan, but geez, let's just shoot everyone who is a problem for us. . . the apple apparently doesn't fall far fom the tree. .

He was agreeing with someone else who said it, but he did say it.  His stepmother needs to give him and Donald a copy of that speech she gave today.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/eric-trump-david-duke-bullet-230714

[AuntK]

@RoseWilder Thanks for your dedication in keeping this thread updated. This is the only thing keeping me from slipping over the edge. I am eating Tums by the handful and have been to the gym 4 times already this week, but this thread is more helpful than either in keeping me somewhat calm. A case of Tums for you. . .

[RoseWilder]

45 minutes ago, AuntK said:

@RoseWilder Thanks for your dedication in keeping this thread updated. This is the only thing keeping me from slipping over the edge. I am eating Tums by the handful and have been to the gym 4 times already this week, but this thread is more helpful than either in keeping me somewhat calm. A case of Tums for you. . .

You're welcome! I'm so glad to hear this thread is helping people. 

I don't remember if I post this new poll yet or not. This is a national poll where Hillary is ahead by 8 points!

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/3/1590892/-National-Reuters-Ipsos-Poll-10-29-11-2-Clinton-45-8-Trump-37-Johnson-5-Stein-2

 

[Childless]

10 hours ago, smittykins said:

I've only seen two Trump ads(probably the same one twice), plus one from his supporters.

I haven't seen any Trump adds.  Of course I live in a red hell hole, so what's the point.  He'd just be wasting money better spent elsewhere.

[turquoise]

12 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

13 hours ago, AuntK said:

Did Eic Trump REALLY say David Duke deserves a bullet? Not that I'm a DD fan, but geez, let's just shoot everyone who is a problem for us. . . the apple apparently doesn't fall far fom the tree. .

He was agreeing with someone else who said it, but he did say it.  His stepmother needs to give him and Donald a copy of that speech she gave today.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/eric-trump-david-duke-bullet-230714

As repulsive as David Duke's views are, I don't want to live in a country where he can be shot simply for his opinions. For all their ranting about "Make America Great Again," Trump and his supporters don't seem to understand what is truly great about this country.

Thanks for the positive links! I'm not usually a big drinker, but I may need alcohol on Tuesday night.