National polls were well within margin of error.
Trump being able to fire up people for himself vs Obama firing up people for someone else doesn’t seem like an equal comparison
What is this based on? I’m yet to see a single metric that shows a needle not moving.
I have a couple of thoughts on this. Models like 538 have been remarkably accurate in the past. Beans knows this as we discussed this in detail before the Romney Obama matchup when many thought Romney would win but Nate Silver had it as highly unlikely. That said these models are often based on individual polls which a lot were way off.
A takeaway is these things aren’t perfect. A 45% chance for Trump to carry a certain state isn’t that bad of odds. Since 2000 presidential elections have been pretty dang close when you look at swing state counts. 45% chance doesn’t mean a politician isn’t carrying that state. You look at a state like Michigan that went for Trump. The margin is razor thing here. 47.5% of the vote for Trump vs. 47.2 for Clinton. You had 126,202 less people vote for one of the major parties in Michigan than in 2012. That tells me voters in Michigan weren’t that excited about the election. That trend carried in many swing states.
I mean we view in hindsight the Obama victory in 2012 as not close and polls had it being closer. But when you look at individual states the story changes. Obama BARELY carried Florida in 2012 as someone who did well electorally. Is it that crazy for Republicans to flip that in 2016? Of course not.
The 2016 election was very unique. You had the two most unfavorable candidates of all time running against each other. Historically we don’t often elect a party back to the Presidency after an 8 year term (Reagan to Bush being the exception). How often did Republicans on this board say we ran the only person Hilary COULD beat. I think you have to keep that in mind with the analysis of the election. What the polls did is largely underestimate the excitability and turnout for Clinton. I think (of course we will never know) that they even did her a big disservice. With a lot of the polling showing her as the likely winner why go vote?
Your point on one side being unpopular doesn’t make the other side popular is spot on. We will never know but how much would Obama have crushed Trump? Looking favorability ratings it would have been historic. How much would Biden have done it? Who knows. The Democrats ran the worst possible person to win a third term with. Trump was very unpopular before the election but so was his opponent.
That’s a confusing statement, p…sorry.
I think you have to ask yourself what his base is. Every President has a floor. Using Gallup: Heck GWB was very unpopular in the second term of his presidency and his average was still 37%. Presidents (of course) tend to get less popular over time. GWB lost 25% percentage points in his average favorability from first term to second term. Obama dropped off as well (though not as much).
Trump starting off was hovering in that 45% favorable range (using RCP averages). He’s dropped off around 7% already in his averages and it hasn’t been a year. Of course his base (like any true) base isn’t going anywhere. Jesus Christ could come down and run as a Democrat and some die hards would say “I’ll never vote for a liberal!” We know that on both sides. I just don’t know what the evidence is that Trump’s base is big enough to win an election in four years against a decent opponent. We shouldn’t confuse excited for large.
It would be EXTREMELY hard to argue with any type of direct evidence that Trump can win in 2020 if he stays where he is now or continues to trend down. We don’t know what his floor is yet but we are starting to see trends in what his ceiling might be. Again this is assuming the Democrats run someone who isn’t equally hated which we know is not a guarantee.
538 had a politics chat about this in the last week or two.
Indeed it was!
Thanks for the insights!
(Wasn’t there a report that Trump was considering a run a year that Obama ran)?
CBS has done something interesting in their Political Polling (most likely as a result of this election)
While I can’t give you the specifics at this point; what they have done is tried to “fine-tune” their stratification of Voters when asking questions.
“Among a Poll of Likely Voters” or “A Poll Done among registered GOP/DEM” voters tended to give skewed results that simply were not helpful…(with the prime example being the WHOLE 2016 Presidential Election (including especially the GOP primary).
I left this out and meant not to. This is a highly important point. Also as was pointed out in post election recap Nate Silver talked about how the media largely ignored HRC’s electoral weaknesses. She still carried the popular vote by a significant margin.
This was shared on 538 in Sept. before the election.
"I don’t dispute its assessment that Hillary Clinton has a 63 or 64 percent chance of winning the election.
That said, in the event this race does tighten to a coin flip by Nov. 8, there is an unusually high chance Donald Trump could win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote — basically, Democrats’ version of the apocalypse.
Here’s why: Several of Trump’s worst demographic groups happen to be concentrated in states, such as California, New York, Texas and Utah, that are either not competitive or that aren’t on Trump’s must-win list. Conversely, whites without a college degree — one of Trump’s strongest groups — represent a huge bloc in three blue states he would need to turn red to have the best chance of winning 270 electoral votes: Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania."
BINGO, H!
Statistics are always tricky. The type of wording used, sample size, etc times a million. They can provide evidence in attempting to tell a story but they can never tell a whole story. Hindsight is always 20/20. It makes sense to assume someone who has averaged 5 home runs in their first 7 seasons won’t have any power. Bam then the guy hits 25 dingers. Statistics say this is unlikely and he should regress to the mean next year. Doesn’t say it can’t or won’t happen though. That’s not how statistics work.
Political polling will always be imperfect especially when you realize how many people don’t actually vote. You have people right now in these polls saying they view Trump unfavorably (or favorably) who will not vote in 2020.
Ah I misread your statement. I thought you were comparing Obama lobbying for HRC vs Trump lobbying for himself. Mah bad.
Everything else I said stands though haha. Where are you seeing a non moving needle?
OH MY HOLY HELL!
Are you guys catching ANY of these Google/Facebook/Twitter Senate meetings?
I thought the “What-about-ism” and "…“but, but, but…this was occurring BEFORE 2016” bullshit was confined to Internet Trolling.
Oh, how wrong you are, my Enlightened Friends!
Enter exhibit #1…U.S. Politicians!
(…we don’t have a chance, folks…)
Pee tape will make America great again…
What about Clinton (and sometimes Obama) may as well be a campaign slogan for Trump right now.
Would be nice if both sides could give it a rest but it’s just so easy.
You have to admit that, as bad as the Obama administration was, the Clinton administration was (is?) even worse:
But Hillarys emails 
[quote=“ActivitiesGuy, post:2450, topic:226860”]
538 had a politics chat about this in the last week or two.[/quote]
I will say that if Trump gets tax reform done and the economy booms after it that changes everything. If the car was in the ditch (GWB and bailouts, economy losing jobs like mad) and Obama got it out and going in the right direction but not quite up to full speed then an opportunity exists to say the least.
Tax reform gets done and the economy booms he will be real tough to defeat no matter how loony everything else is about him. That is the type of positive that can erase almost all negatives
As you have noticed, H…I am a bit more cynical about all this.
I don’t think Trump has to do anything but give the impression that he is taking it to “them”…and keep up his dick-waving…and he wins.
I can definitely see that and you may be right but the difference is during the campaign Trump could run as a non politician. He was going to get things done and shake up the system.
Right now he has nothing to hang his hat on (any Republican winner would have got the Supreme Court justice) of real value. His biggest promises aren’t coming to fruition and he is not showing himself as the deal maker he said he was. Health care isn’t happening we know that. Hard to argue he has had any impact on the corruption in DC and depending on how this shakes out at least can be attacked on the corrupt people he is surrounding himself with.
He can’t pretend he’s not going to take a vacation and golf like he said. I just see most of his potential luster as already worn off. Right now your best argument is that he isn’t a typical politician when it comes to how he talks which is true. Most typical politicians watch what they say way more carefully than he does.
Who’s the them he will take it to? Dems? Out of power all the over the place. The opposition will be highly motivated this time around and I’m guessing they come out on Election Day this time. Again like we said assuming Democrats don’t run Hilary or someone too far left. If they run a safe consistent center-left candidate I think they will be hard to beat.
I think he needs tax reform and the economy to be roaring or else he will be incredibly vulnerable. I could be wrong I often am!
The “them” is any person or group of people that Trump feels comfortable attacking, and that will get a big “Hell YEAH!” (literally and metaphorically) from his base.
On another one of your points.
His promise to “Drain the Swamp” isn’t laughable any more…it’s pathetic.
And…also…much like you…I have a DISMAL record of being able to pick Presidential Candidates, for sure!
I don’t think he wanted to win or expected to win. I think it was a giant publicity stunt to gain more support so he could start a more right-wing cable news network. Then it actually took off…
He may have even been oblivious to his team playing with Russia. He wasn’t sorunded with experts in campaigning or politics and most all news had him as not chance. Even Vegas had him as a 3 to 1 dog on election day. I think they were grasping at straws and Russia gave them some help. The fact that Trump might have had some failing biz ventures bailed out by Russia banks and a possible Pee tape makes him a great ally to mother Russia. Let’s be honest he’s not said one bad word about them and he still hasn’t signed off on sanctions stuff. Russia wants sanctions lifted Trump needs help to win…Cmon he went on TV and said Russia if your listing hack Hillary’s e-mails then shortly after wikki releases them…coincidence? I think nyet