(01-13-2021, 03:58 PM)mamabug Wrote:(01-13-2021, 03:25 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Either the system is wrong, the polling is wrong a week before the election, or the 2020 election is not normal.
Can I go with all of the above?
A) The system of polling is broken and has been for awhile. It has to do with failures of traditional polling models in a tight race to create an accurate representative model of the electorate and reach enough representative members of it to take an accurate survey. Also, the way the media uses polls to craft a narrative means that a pollster is less likely to get paid in future if it doesn't return results the people footing the bills want to see. Almost anyone working in polling was aware something was seriously off with the Biden landslide narrative from the start.
Polling is highly reliable in not-to-close races (let us say for a Presidential election in Maryland or Oklahoma)... but that is not where people have questions. Not including ME-02 and NE-02, 123 electoral votes were decided by 3.35% or less and those electoral votes decided the 2020 election. The usual margin of error for polling is 4% for most states. 38 electoral votes (Texas) were decided by 5.58% of a margin. Texas is an oddity because its margin of error (size and regional divides) is perhaps 6%.
Should the 2024 Presidential election be like the 2020 Presidential election (the case for such is that five of the last Presidential elections have been close or at least close-to-being close, with the near-landslide win of Obama in 2008 the exception, and then when people were scared of an economic meltdown), the states that were within 6% either way will be close in 2024. As for Texas -- Texas is becoming more like the USA as a whole, so it seems to be becoming a swing state. Political cultures seem to be very entrenched in most states, so that seems reasonable. On the other hand, we may be approaching the end of the Crisis of 2020, and the election of 2024 may be in a 1T. I would also be wary of the Skowronek cycle, as Donald Trump is a sick parody of Ronald Reagan. Political culture changes sharply from one Skowronek cycle to another, which itself likely reflects generational change.
Elections of 2020 are decided. Donald Trump may not have lost in a landslide, but whatever little credibility he had outside of his cult is gone.
Quote:B) The election of 2020 was not normal. Process changes were made in most states and one side was quick to take advantage of the new rules while the other kept playing the game the old way. A bit of the inverse of the 2016 election where Hilary went for an overwhelming majority popular vote and neglected to pay attention to the electoral wins she needed. The process changes meant that any previous models of the probable election were wildly off since voter turnout was insane.
A+B = C) the polling was bound to be wrong a week before the election.
Trump did succeed in paring down the D vote and increasing the R vote in most legitimate swing states -- except in Arizona and Georgia.
Unlike Biden, he did big campaign rallies, and he had hard-hitting ads perfectly made for hitting at the political viscera. Those were crude or dishonest, but they worked... just not well enough to win the election.
It is usually assumed that Democrats will canvass at the last minute... but they couldn't this time to seal the deal. It was just too risky for the people. who usually do so. Trump had last-week advantages that Biden did not have because he and his supporters were willing to take more risks with COVID-19.
....so, for 2024: assume that all the rules change. Watch the 2022 midterm elections because the GOP will try to win House and Senate majorities if at all possible, and GOP front groups will try to repeat what they did in 2010 and 2014, which is to spend lavishly on negative ads (the Democrat is really a Communist, Satanist, or pedophile -- truth irrelevant) while the Republican does a plain-folks campaign. People ant institutions repeat what works until it is no longer possible or until it no longer works.
So what will change?
1. We are in the transition from one Skowronek cycle to another. The plutocratic neocon cycle that began with Ronald Reagan ends with the calamity that is Donald Trump.
2. The Millennial Generation is starting to get into high political office. The first Millennial Senator, Jon Ossoff, was elected in 2021. We will be seeing more. Its secular and more egalitarian culture will increasingly supplant tired leadership by old pols.
3. COVID-19 will be gone in 2024, but its cultural impact (we have had days as deadly from COVID-19 as D-Day for the entire Allied side.
4. Trump is soiled as no previous President has been. I expect even people playing contract bridge (generally a high-intellect activity) to find some rhyme for "trump" (bump, clump, dump, hump, jump, lump, pump, rump, stump, thump) for a specific suit. Republicans will have to separate themselves from the personality at the least... and at least on COVID-19, policies... or lose.
5. The first President of the Skowronek cycle typically has advantages of a fresh agenda that works because it is fresh. All ideas and policies and investments offer diminishing returns. The returns on policy changes in the new phase of the new Skowronek cycle will be high.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.
