Voter intensity is what matters. In Monday, one of my disabled neighbors (male, white, 65+) talked about standing in line for 90+ minutes to vote. This was the first day of early voting in Texas. You don't get that level of commitment from people if they are voting for Trump, because everyone assumes he will win Texas.
The central voting location in town has had 75-90 minute wait since voting opened at 9 am Monday (16 voting machines). Seniors here can vote by mail so this is the 30-66 group. The campus has their own polling location .
I've lived in Texas for 28 years. This level of commitment to vote is unheard of. That does not bode well for Republicans.
Tom your X account is 2023. I know I don’t want to give Leon any more traffic to X. Heather Cox Richardson just mentioned you yesterday as a great source. Where can we check in outside of X. Substack? Is that current?
I still go to Twitter (refuse to call it X) and yes it's awful but it's where a lot of people I follow post. Threads just doesn't do it for me. I am glad I found Tom's sub stack. Will definitely read every day. I also subscribe to Hopium Chronicles.
one data point that seems positive in PA is that as of this morning (8:30am PT Oct 28), PA early vote by gender is 55.8% female, 43.2% male. These numbers are from Tom B's TargetEarly dashboard.
re: Ralston comments on NV: For VP Harris to win (as of numbers reported this morning), the independent/unaffiliated would need to break 60/40 in their favor. Of the 131K independent/unaffiliated votes reported so far (8am PT Oct 28), 88% are in Clark and Washoe (which Biden won). These numbers are based on Ralston reports and Tom B's TargetEarly dashboard.
In looking at the early voting data, is there a rough estimate of the percentage of GOP voters who are likely voting for Harris? Likewise, for unaffiliated?
No way to know. Only data we have is the number of Republicans that voted for Haley in the primary. Assumption is some % will cross over and vote for Harris. How many is the million dollar question.
Let's see if I understand this: if the GOP early vote in NC is bascially the same this year, when the Rs emphasized early voting, as compared to 2020, when they told people not to vote early, one of two things logically should be true:
Either Rs didn't follow their guidelines in 2020 or
See my Substack, https://sharonlawrence.substack.com/, for comprehensive voting guidance. I worked in the industry for about 8 years so I'm talking about details that no one else covers. I focus in particular on avoiding errors that invalidate your ballot.
All of the Dem PA voters I'm talking with today during my phone bank shift are saying they're voting on EDay - that spans all age ranges and both genders.
Thank you for helping me understand why Dems want to vote more frequently in person on E-Day instead of mail in ballots,
for example in NC and GA, in light of all the new R-“election protection” laws Rs passed. I also read that women outnumber men in already cast ballots by 700,000- which may defy the very positive numbers for Rs in early vote… I also believe that polls shift right, because which busy young person would want to pick up the phone for a poll after the 5th solicitation? I bet the pollsters reach way more ex urban and rural voters
Bullfinch Polling (doesn't matter whether you think they are right or wrong, good or bad) published a VERY transparent piece about poll methodology with their 3rdQ polls.
They revealed common polling industry methods, esp around weighting.
Get this: In a recent poll, the NYT/Siena poll weighted non-college educated males more heavily than other respondents - - they are terrified of missing them, as they apparently did in 2016.
Basically..... if I answer the poll as a 68 year old white woman with a masters' degree, I count as 1.0. ONE person. My neighbor, a 42 year old male who is a HS grad counts as 1.2. Like 120% of a person. I kid you not! And I'm not trying to be all elite about non-college, etc. I am just saying PERHAPS THE POLLSTERS are putting their thumb on the scale (and Bullfinch even uses that phrase.).
That practice has been going on for many decades. If you know some types of people are over or underrepresented in your data, you down/upweight their responses. Of course, that doesn't mean every pollster gets the numbers right. But failing to do something like that will make the poll useless. A big problem with 2016 polls was pollsters failing to downweight responses by college-educated people, who were vastly overrepresented among poll respondents.
SF. That’s very elucidating. I also heard Siena weighted Rs +8 in one of the last NYT battleground polls. They’re so scared to underestimate the “shy” Trump voters who are no longer shy.
I wrote a comment in the NYT deriding their claim that 2022 polls were super accurate in retrospect, when they spent months dooming Democrats’ chances citing the red-wave polls as evidence.
Voter intensity is what matters. In Monday, one of my disabled neighbors (male, white, 65+) talked about standing in line for 90+ minutes to vote. This was the first day of early voting in Texas. You don't get that level of commitment from people if they are voting for Trump, because everyone assumes he will win Texas.
The central voting location in town has had 75-90 minute wait since voting opened at 9 am Monday (16 voting machines). Seniors here can vote by mail so this is the 30-66 group. The campus has their own polling location .
I've lived in Texas for 28 years. This level of commitment to vote is unheard of. That does not bode well for Republicans.
She’s going to win PA.
YES.
Tom your X account is 2023. I know I don’t want to give Leon any more traffic to X. Heather Cox Richardson just mentioned you yesterday as a great source. Where can we check in outside of X. Substack? Is that current?
He's on Threads, also
Barely sadly. He's really still an X guy. And here.
I still go to Twitter (refuse to call it X) and yes it's awful but it's where a lot of people I follow post. Threads just doesn't do it for me. I am glad I found Tom's sub stack. Will definitely read every day. I also subscribe to Hopium Chronicles.
Yes, I am wondering about PA, too. Simon has talked about good signs for D's in MI, WI and Blue Dot. Is PA harder to get a read on?
one data point that seems positive in PA is that as of this morning (8:30am PT Oct 28), PA early vote by gender is 55.8% female, 43.2% male. These numbers are from Tom B's TargetEarly dashboard.
Tom if the Dem firewall in PA reaches 500K wouldn’t that be a significant advantage ? It’s already close to 350K….
Is Nevada becoming a lost cause? Ralston not making me sleep at night…
Ralston just loves the horse race. Tom's analysis shows that it is difficult to draw anything definitive at this point.
re: Ralston comments on NV: For VP Harris to win (as of numbers reported this morning), the independent/unaffiliated would need to break 60/40 in their favor. Of the 131K independent/unaffiliated votes reported so far (8am PT Oct 28), 88% are in Clark and Washoe (which Biden won). These numbers are based on Ralston reports and Tom B's TargetEarly dashboard.
I thought Ralston was the go to guy for Nevada? No?
Ralston wants clicks for his media company.
“As a matter of fact, across the battleground states, 92% of voters who have cast their ballot so far also voted in the 2020 election.”
Can you provide these numbers broken down by party and state?
In looking at the early voting data, is there a rough estimate of the percentage of GOP voters who are likely voting for Harris? Likewise, for unaffiliated?
No way to know. Only data we have is the number of Republicans that voted for Haley in the primary. Assumption is some % will cross over and vote for Harris. How many is the million dollar question.
Let's see if I understand this: if the GOP early vote in NC is bascially the same this year, when the Rs emphasized early voting, as compared to 2020, when they told people not to vote early, one of two things logically should be true:
Either Rs didn't follow their guidelines in 2020 or
This year is not a good year for them.
See my Substack, https://sharonlawrence.substack.com/, for comprehensive voting guidance. I worked in the industry for about 8 years so I'm talking about details that no one else covers. I focus in particular on avoiding errors that invalidate your ballot.
All of the Dem PA voters I'm talking with today during my phone bank shift are saying they're voting on EDay - that spans all age ranges and both genders.
I don’t want to use Twitter. Will u consider posting more frequently here?
What are we think after good ‘ole Nate Cohn’s latest analysis? 🥹🥹🥹🥹
Thank you for helping me understand why Dems want to vote more frequently in person on E-Day instead of mail in ballots,
for example in NC and GA, in light of all the new R-“election protection” laws Rs passed. I also read that women outnumber men in already cast ballots by 700,000- which may defy the very positive numbers for Rs in early vote… I also believe that polls shift right, because which busy young person would want to pick up the phone for a poll after the 5th solicitation? I bet the pollsters reach way more ex urban and rural voters
Bullfinch Polling (doesn't matter whether you think they are right or wrong, good or bad) published a VERY transparent piece about poll methodology with their 3rdQ polls.
They revealed common polling industry methods, esp around weighting.
Get this: In a recent poll, the NYT/Siena poll weighted non-college educated males more heavily than other respondents - - they are terrified of missing them, as they apparently did in 2016.
LINK TO BULLFINCH
https://www.thebullfinchgroup.com/post/public-release-of-bullfinch-q3-nationwide-survey-2
Basically..... if I answer the poll as a 68 year old white woman with a masters' degree, I count as 1.0. ONE person. My neighbor, a 42 year old male who is a HS grad counts as 1.2. Like 120% of a person. I kid you not! And I'm not trying to be all elite about non-college, etc. I am just saying PERHAPS THE POLLSTERS are putting their thumb on the scale (and Bullfinch even uses that phrase.).
That practice has been going on for many decades. If you know some types of people are over or underrepresented in your data, you down/upweight their responses. Of course, that doesn't mean every pollster gets the numbers right. But failing to do something like that will make the poll useless. A big problem with 2016 polls was pollsters failing to downweight responses by college-educated people, who were vastly overrepresented among poll respondents.
Thank you for that information,
SF. That’s very elucidating. I also heard Siena weighted Rs +8 in one of the last NYT battleground polls. They’re so scared to underestimate the “shy” Trump voters who are no longer shy.
I wrote a comment in the NYT deriding their claim that 2022 polls were super accurate in retrospect, when they spent months dooming Democrats’ chances citing the red-wave polls as evidence.
Of course it wasn’t published.