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naraburns  nihil supernum  1d ago (text post)   13510 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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Regarding the Selzer poll, I had the following exchange:

It’s hard not to view this as just the latest in a long string of people lighting their credibility on fire for a tiny chance of stopping bad orange man. It seems to run contrary to every other piece of evidence: polls, registration, early voting, “vibes.”

A Trump blowout still seems like the most likely scenario to me. There is just too much going in Trump’s favor relative to the very close 2020 election.

We've only got a few days to wait so we'll see. But how willing are you to consider that rather than your ideological opponents willfully blinding themselves, it is perhaps you?

It looks like once again my judgment was infallible and the left was completely and utterly deluded. The entire online left was collectively deluded by the Selzer poll. "She's the gold standard!" It was beyond obvious the poll was rigged.

I ask myself constantly if it is I with the willful blinders. But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded. The great Selzer debate is just a microcosm. They worship "muh experts" who are bought and paid for, or who are simply lying to support their ideology, and then refused to be moved by facts or logic. I guarantee this will trigger no self-reflection. They will insist they were right to trust the "gold standard" Selzer against all logic.

It's possible Selzer just botched it accidentally, and it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier. But... it wouldn't be the first time to have a weird outlier, so it's at least not a strong look for the people certain it had to be correct.

Selzer looks to be living the Jesse Smollett media arc.

  1. Be a minor notable

  2. Trade integrity for brief media celebration

  3. Collapse

They could just have had a somewhat flawed process that happened to align with the final consensus last time. These things are such tiny sample sizes.

But no, when reality gets a vote in the past 8 years it's always the left who was deluded.

2022 midterms beg to disagree.

There is the theory that Ronna McDaniel and other GOP bureaucrats were purposefully sandbagging Trumpy candidates, starving them of campaign funds and promotion. Now that the Trump takeover of the GOP is complete with Lara Trump as chair, there is no longer internal sabotage.

This is by far a less convincing argument than some of those candidates just being loony.

All politicians are loony when put under any scrutiny what so ever. Even my favorites are kind of loony, but in a way that's endearing to me. All that matters is the information war that shapes public perception of them.

The surprise factor works to trump's advantage...the stuff not captured by polls by possibly picked up by savvy prediction market traders or investors of DJT stock. However, the cockiness by the left was nowhere near where it was in 2016.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

I don't claim that the poll was particularly good/accurate, but I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

In what way was it 'beyond obvious'?

Because it blatantly contradicted every other piece of evidence about the state of the race in a way that was wildly implausible.

I find it funny how easily people are willing to label a called shot on a probability 'obviously wrong' as soon the result doesn't agree with the slightly higher probability assigned.

I spent the past few days on X relentlessly making fun of anyone who believed the Selzer poll. And then bet some money on PredictIt for good measure.

If anyone's right, it's those who look at the record of the pollsters they follow and decide who to believe based on how many cumulative shots they've called correctly.

As predicted, zero self-reflection. I could explain to you where this logic goes wrong, but it's better if you figure it out yourself.

At this point, it seems Selzer will be off by 15 points. Wow.

For what it's worth, I'm thinking through where I went wrong.

I didn't think it was real either. Iowa D+3 would have meant a Democratic sweep of historic proportions uncaptured by any other pollsters. But experience has taught me to avoid a mental states which invite punishment for hubris: the night isn't over quite yet.

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