5 ms·

If you look at the pictures of the number of people in attendance at their respective events one would conclude Trump is ahead.

by 2AF3 10y ago

jaredklewis 10y ago
Do we have any evidence that number of people at campaigning events correlates to more votes? If not, why would we conclude that? Is it not (in absence of any evidence) equally plausible that the type of voter that will vote for Trump is more predisposed to attend a campaign event than other voters?
mixologic 10y ago
Which is why thats an awful gauge of the electorate. The vast majority of voters do not attend political events, and "attendees at events" is really just an uncorrelated measure of "enthusiasm for a candidate amongst their base". If 40% of the country loved him so much that they all showed up at every single rally, yet the other 60% hate him, and will vote for HRC despite not really loving her, then you see a rally filled to the brim with Trump supporters, and nobody at hers, yet his chances are zip. Rally attendance is a meaningless metric.
- 2AF3 10y ago
  It might not be great, but I trust it more than these dishonest polls
  - ivv 10y ago
    Bernie is a good counter-example. Huge rallies, way behind in votes.
    - gallonofmilk 10y ago
      have you not read wikileaks? the DNC/Hillary rigged it against him from day one, he never stood a chance
      - acdha 10y ago
        Clearly you haven't read those emails: they show nothing of the sort, which is why you couldn't provide any evidence to back that claim. You can find signs that people in the establishment personally favored the establishment candidate – the least surprising revelation in political history – but there's no evidence that lead to any concrete action. That's why the only claims of rigging have been intentional misrepresentation based on the knowledge that some people like you would repeat those claims without checking the sources.
        _cbb1 10y ago
        When you have Donna Brazile feeding the Clinton campaign townhall questions so that she can prepare the answers. Threats for super delegates switching to Bernie and Debbie Wasserman Shultz stepping down. It's clear evidence of a rigged election. Who knows what was happening that is not in the emails.
        acdha 10y ago
        Try citing specific ptimsry sources for events which actually happened. There's plenty of hyperventilating and outright propaganda on right-wing blogs but there's a reason why nobody with credibility is claiming the primary was rigged. Hint: it's the same reason why the alleged victim is going around telling his supporters to vote for Hillary. If you trusted his judgement enough to think he should be president, why not trust his analysis now?
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        There's a reason why nobody with credibility is claiming the primary was rigged And that reason is elementary game theory. The only people with incentives to claim that the Democratic primaries were rigged are those who will be left with no political influence if the Democrats fare poorly. When the Republicans do well, it's because they value party unity over literally everything else. One of HRC's strengths is that she brings the same thinking to the Democrats. For anyone within the party, working against her carries no conceivable upside. And as we've seen in DWS's case, working for HRC means you'll be well taken care of, no matter what. Basically, if Sanders or anyone else on the left has beef with the DNC, they will be much better off if they wait to bring it up until after the election. And maybe not even then.
    - CamperBob2 10y ago
      Except Bernie's rallies were full of young people, who are always up for a rally but who can seldom be bothered to vote. Meanwhile, Trump's rallies are full of old people who have nothing else to do but vote.
  - rconti 10y ago
    I'm sorry, but offhandedly dismissing "these dishonest polls", when, frankly, 1. They're the best data we have 2. We have no reason to believe they're incorrect 3. There is REALLY no reason to believe they're dishonest Is 100% intellectually dishonest. This is exactly what happened 4 years ago, and apparently some people have not learned from their tremendous mistake. If you want to know why "turnout at a campaign event" is a crappier metric than "real actual scientific data", I don't know how else to help, other than to point to other instances in which it has failed: "Mitt drawing larger crowds" http://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/mitt-drawing-larger-crowds-082348 http://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/mitt-drawing-larger-cr... "Donald Trump continues to draw YUGE crowds. That matters less than he thinks." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/donald-trump-continues-to-draw-yuge-crowds-that-matters-less-than-he-thinks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/do... "Trump brags about crowd size but will it turn into votes?" http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d74fbd472f7a420a90737e55cfb20c28/trump-brags-about-crowd-size-will-it-turn-votes http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d74fbd472f7a420a90737e55cfb20... I do not know or care who you support in the Presidential election. However, I suggest you get realistic about your metrics, as you're way off in fantasyland at the moment, as far as I can tell. If you turn out to be incorrect, I hope you learn from this experience. I know I will, if the data turns out to be wrong.
    - 2AF3 10y ago
      I'm in fantasy land? If you think the polls aren't manipulated for political advantage you are in fantasy land. You're appeal to 'real scientific data' is childish, since the data can be easy manipulated.
      - fmihaila 10y ago
        And yet, Trump supporters never had any trouble believing the polls when they showed their candidate leading during the primaries. Every single time, Trump would open his rallies with "have you seen the latest polls?". When the polls show him to be ahead, it's evidence that the voters love him. When he's behind, it's evidence that the polling is rigged.
city41 10y ago
By that logic, Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic nominee.

If you look at the pictures of the number of people in attendance at their respective events one would conclude Trump is ahead.

by 2AF3 10y ago

If you look at the pictures of the number of people in attendance at their respective events one would conclude Trump is ahead.

jaredklewis 10y ago

Do we have any evidence that number of people at campaigning events correlates to more votes? If not, why would we conclude that? Is it not (in absence of any evidence) equally plausible that the type of voter that will vote for Trump is more predisposed to attend a campaign event than other voters?

mixologic 10y ago

Which is why thats an awful gauge of the electorate. The vast majority of voters do not attend political events, and "attendees at events" is really just an uncorrelated measure of "enthusiasm for a candidate amongst their base". If 40% of the country loved him so much that they all showed up at every single rally, yet the other 60% hate him, and will vote for HRC despite not really loving her, then you see a rally filled to the brim with Trump supporters, and nobody at hers, yet his chances are zip. Rally attendance is a meaningless metric.

2AF3 10y ago
It might not be great, but I trust it more than these dishonest polls
- ivv 10y ago
  Bernie is a good counter-example. Huge rallies, way behind in votes.
  - gallonofmilk 10y ago
    have you not read wikileaks? the DNC/Hillary rigged it against him from day one, he never stood a chance
    - acdha 10y ago
      Clearly you haven't read those emails: they show nothing of the sort, which is why you couldn't provide any evidence to back that claim. You can find signs that people in the establishment personally favored the establishment candidate – the least surprising revelation in political history – but there's no evidence that lead to any concrete action. That's why the only claims of rigging have been intentional misrepresentation based on the knowledge that some people like you would repeat those claims without checking the sources.
      - _cbb1 10y ago
        When you have Donna Brazile feeding the Clinton campaign townhall questions so that she can prepare the answers. Threats for super delegates switching to Bernie and Debbie Wasserman Shultz stepping down. It's clear evidence of a rigged election. Who knows what was happening that is not in the emails.
        acdha 10y ago
        Try citing specific ptimsry sources for events which actually happened. There's plenty of hyperventilating and outright propaganda on right-wing blogs but there's a reason why nobody with credibility is claiming the primary was rigged. Hint: it's the same reason why the alleged victim is going around telling his supporters to vote for Hillary. If you trusted his judgement enough to think he should be president, why not trust his analysis now?
        CamperBob2 10y ago
        There's a reason why nobody with credibility is claiming the primary was rigged And that reason is elementary game theory. The only people with incentives to claim that the Democratic primaries were rigged are those who will be left with no political influence if the Democrats fare poorly. When the Republicans do well, it's because they value party unity over literally everything else. One of HRC's strengths is that she brings the same thinking to the Democrats. For anyone within the party, working against her carries no conceivable upside. And as we've seen in DWS's case, working for HRC means you'll be well taken care of, no matter what. Basically, if Sanders or anyone else on the left has beef with the DNC, they will be much better off if they wait to bring it up until after the election. And maybe not even then.
  - CamperBob2 10y ago
    Except Bernie's rallies were full of young people, who are always up for a rally but who can seldom be bothered to vote. Meanwhile, Trump's rallies are full of old people who have nothing else to do but vote.
- rconti 10y ago
  I'm sorry, but offhandedly dismissing "these dishonest polls", when, frankly, 1. They're the best data we have 2. We have no reason to believe they're incorrect 3. There is REALLY no reason to believe they're dishonest Is 100% intellectually dishonest. This is exactly what happened 4 years ago, and apparently some people have not learned from their tremendous mistake. If you want to know why "turnout at a campaign event" is a crappier metric than "real actual scientific data", I don't know how else to help, other than to point to other instances in which it has failed: "Mitt drawing larger crowds" http://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/mitt-drawing-larger-crowds-082348 http://www.politico.com/story/2012/10/mitt-drawing-larger-cr... "Donald Trump continues to draw YUGE crowds. That matters less than he thinks." https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/donald-trump-continues-to-draw-yuge-crowds-that-matters-less-than-he-thinks/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/28/do... "Trump brags about crowd size but will it turn into votes?" http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d74fbd472f7a420a90737e55cfb20c28/trump-brags-about-crowd-size-will-it-turn-votes http://bigstory.ap.org/article/d74fbd472f7a420a90737e55cfb20... I do not know or care who you support in the Presidential election. However, I suggest you get realistic about your metrics, as you're way off in fantasyland at the moment, as far as I can tell. If you turn out to be incorrect, I hope you learn from this experience. I know I will, if the data turns out to be wrong.
  - 2AF3 10y ago
    I'm in fantasy land? If you think the polls aren't manipulated for political advantage you are in fantasy land. You're appeal to 'real scientific data' is childish, since the data can be easy manipulated.
    - fmihaila 10y ago
      And yet, Trump supporters never had any trouble believing the polls when they showed their candidate leading during the primaries. Every single time, Trump would open his rallies with "have you seen the latest polls?". When the polls show him to be ahead, it's evidence that the voters love him. When he's behind, it's evidence that the polling is rigged.

city41 10y ago

By that logic, Bernie Sanders would be the Democratic nominee.