News of the Day III

[pete]

https://www.monmouth.edu/polling-ins...oll_pa_090220/

Down to 3 points in Pennsylvania.

538 average polling has Biden up 7.1%. Today’s “a” polls had him up nationally between 5 and 8 points.

Monmouth has Biden behind in Ohio. Morning Consult has Biden up 4.3% in Florida.

Before we shit ourselves in panic, a raft of polling finally came out today and it all points toward the fact Trump's bounce is a dead cat bounce.

National Polls
YouGov National: Biden +11
IBD/TIPP: Biden +8
Ipsos/Reuters: Biden +7
CNN/SRSS: Biden +8
USC Dornsife: Biden +9
Rasmussen (Garbage Pollster): Biden +4
HarrisX (Also a Garbage Pollster): Biden +6
Suffolk: Biden +7
Quinnipiac: Biden +10
Selzer & Co: Biden +8
Morning Consult: Biden +8
Opinium (?): Biden +14

Average: Biden +8.3

State Polls
Wisconsin - Fox News: Biden +8
North Carolina - Fox News: Biden +4
Arizona - Fox News: Biden +9
Pennsylvania - Monmouth: Biden +3
Wisconsin - Opinium (?): Biden +13
Florida - Opinium (?): Biden +7

Also, the Generic Ballot for Congress polling from today ranges from D+5 to D+13 and the Senate polling has Cunningham (D) +6 in North Carolina, Shaheen (D) +16 in New Hampshire, and Kelly (D) +17 in Arizona (which is a holy shit number, McSally is an anchor).

I really can't be troubled to panic if the week after the RNC when Trump's base should be completely whipped up this is the polling landscape. I mean, Jesus, Trump and the Republicans are getting taken to the woodshed all over the map, and this is arguably their high water for a little while.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

[Donnie D]

So you do not think that someone who just fought with 3 officers, had one in a head lock, is running to their car with a knife and who was getting into a car with that knife.....and with children in that car is not an eminent threat?

If not, if those were your children would you still think the same?

You say he allegedly fought with officers while holding a knife. So he never used it, right? So how much of a threat was he?

He became a threat when he turned his back to the police...right.

[pete]

We should all be so thankful that you never went into law enforcement as I see from this post you are ok if he had gotten in the vehicle and fled with the kids in the car.

I found it so pete like that you have failed to even mention he had a confirmed warrant for sexual battery. Wonder what happened to the #metoo movement.

OK champ. Whatever you say. DubDub thinks it's fine to execute a man for having a warrant for sexual battery (which is based on probable cause, not a conviction) or for possibly getting in a car and doing something with the car, maybe, sometime in the future (which isn't even based on probably cause, it's based on an officer's imagination).

With DubDub, it's due process, due process, due process for anyone with a (R) beside their name, but with a poor black guy it's justifiable to shoot him in the back seven times and kill/paralyze him without a lick of due process and/or for something he may or may not do in the future.

OK, makes sense, if you went to the Judge Dredd school of law enforcement, I guess. In case you don't get the reference:

The titular character in the franchise, Judge Dredd, is a law enforcement officer in the dystopian future city of Mega-City One, which covers most of the east coast of North America. He is a "street judge", empowered to summarily arrest, convict, sentence, and execute criminals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judge_Dredd

Which is basically the power DubDub wants police to have.

[Donnie D]

Trumps hand picked chairman of the Republican National Committee and head of his inauguration committee is negotiating a deal to plead guilty to using the Trump inauguration Fiends for a foreign influence scheme.

He would be the third person to plead guilty to using the Trump inauguration funds as a mechanism for foreign governments to buy influence in the Trump administration.

[pete]

You know, it's fine to whine about the state of the police force in this country. Ok, some of you are really good at that. At some point though I'd like some actionable items suggested. Something that doesn't support anarchy and upholds the law fairly. We all agree that there is a problem, but if the extent of the discussion is to wait until the next black man is shot in the back and how officers need to be thrown in jail as the means to hold them and other officers accountable, than it's a pretty damn useless discussion. That is what is happening now. At least Zeyk when he was here brought up the idea of a communal-esque system of policing that was interesting enough to have a thought experiment about. Not sure if it would actually work, but it's a fundamental change that doesn't sabotage the goal of policing a community.

My doubling of salary suggestion was just a number I was throwing out there and not based on financial logic. My point is simply that efforts should be made to change the type and quality of person that enters the force. Increasing the salary is a simple way of increasing the size of the candidate pool, which will allow for the tougher standards that need to be implemented.

I believe part of the substance of the "Defund the Police" critique has merit, even though the slogan is dumb as fuck. Police are being asked to perform too wide an array of missions that they simply aren't trained to do and it's leaving the public in a situation where the people providing those missions are getting frustrated and overwhelmed.

Take mental health services outside of law enforcement's mission. That needs to be handled by mental health professionals. Take giving trips to the hospital to people in poor and underserved neighborhoods out of law enforcement's mission. Give that to peace officers or health care professionals. Give law enforcement a narrow, focused mission (crime prevention and investigation) and fund your other public services sufficiently so that you have trained professionals providing those services and not a cop whose only job should be to be a cop. Whether that comes out of law enforcements pot of money or another pot of money is up for discussion, but the rot in American law enforcement's culture is partly because we've tried to make law enforcement the spackle for all of society's ills and they don't have the bandwidth to do it.

In other countries like Great Britain, police aren't armed to the teeth paramilitary outfits and their crime rates are nothing like America's. Why? They've got a fully funded public health service. Fully functional social safety nets. Etc. Etc.

That's where the discussion was going after George Floyd and now that discussion has sadly dried up. How do we restructure the provision of social services in a way that actually addresses the problems of the affected communities instead of just allowing them to continue to fester?

[pete]

Before we shit ourselves in panic, a raft of polling finally came out today and it all points toward the fact Trump's bounce is a dead cat bounce.

National Polls
YouGov National: Biden +11
IBD/TIPP: Biden +8
Ipsos/Reuters: Biden +7
CNN/SRSS: Biden +8
USC Dornsife: Biden +9
Rasmussen (Garbage Pollster): Biden +4
HarrisX (Also a Garbage Pollster): Biden +6
Suffolk: Biden +7
Quinnipiac: Biden +10
Selzer & Co: Biden +8
Morning Consult: Biden +8
Opinium (?): Biden +14

Average: Biden +8.3

State Polls
Wisconsin - Fox News: Biden +8
North Carolina - Fox News: Biden +4
Arizona - Fox News: Biden +9
Pennsylvania - Monmouth: Biden +3
Wisconsin - Opinium (?): Biden +13
Florida - Opinium (?): Biden +7

Also, the Generic Ballot for Congress polling from today ranges from D+5 to D+13 and the Senate polling has Cunningham (D) +6 in North Carolina, Shaheen (D) +16 in New Hampshire, and Kelly (D) +17 in Arizona (which is a holy shit number, McSally is an anchor).

I really can't be troubled to panic if the week after the RNC when Trump's base should be completely whipped up this is the polling landscape. I mean, Jesus, Trump and the Republicans are getting taken to the woodshed all over the map, and this is arguably their high water for a little while.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/

As I was saying...

Trump May Have Gotten A Convention Bounce. But It’s Very Slight And May Already Be Fading.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-may-have-gotten-a-convention-bounce-but-its-very-slight-and-may-already-be-fading/

[pete]

As I was saying...



https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ady-be-fading/

As I was saying, NYT's Nate Cohn (poll geek)...

It's been a big day of polls, and Biden closes it out strong:
--Fox has Biden up by 8 and 9 in WI, AZ, up 4 in NC, all among LVs.
--CNN/SSRS has Biden up 8 among national RVs. Quinnipiac with Biden up 10 among LVs.
Other than Monmouth, not many signs of a big shift post-RNC.

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1301281718343741440?s=20

CNN's Harry Enten (poll geek)...

Someone said it yesterday, but this data looks a lot more like 2018 than 2016 to me. A clear, but not ginormous split between the popular vote & majority of seats (or electoral college). And with the Democrat up nationally in the high single digits.

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1301198340038758402?s=20

Everytime Donnie gets like this, I feel like Donald Sutherland's character in Kelly's Heroes:

+ YouTube Video

[Puckhead]

The ultimate Yin and Yang. I think all of us feel both some trepidation and also satisfaction, at the state of our political affairs. You both both bring alot to the discussion.

[pete]

The ultimate Yin and Yang. I think all of us feel both some trepidation and also satisfaction, at the state of our political affairs. You both both bring alot to the discussion.

I totally get it. Democrats are naturally skittish creatures after getting their brains beat in during the 80's and it's worse now that the trauma of 2016 happened where Trump literally had every star and moon align for him to steal an election win by the very slimmest of margins. But, the last week has been amazing watching everyone panic when the poll data hasn't fundamentally moved more than a couple of points, which is a shit convention bounce by historical standards when Trump needed something a lot more sizable to vault into real contention. And you have all sorts of micro pieces of data like that Military Times poll or that FL-13 district poll that show Biden maintaining an incredibly strong position relative to Clinton's 2016 performance.

Here's another one of those micro data points that gestures towards things going very well for Biden:

Number of youth voters 'definitely' voting jumps to 77 percent: poll

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/514666-number-of-youth-voters-who-say-they-will-definitely-vote-jumps-to-77

Seventy-seven percent of registered voters aged 18 to 35 across 13 battleground states said they “definitely will vote” in the upcoming elections, according to results of an August survey exclusively shared with The Hill.

It’s a 7-point increase since July, when a similar poll found just 70 percent of registered youth voters across the battleground states said they will “definitely vote.”

“Young people were already more fired up to vote in the election than four years ago, or even eight years ago, but we’re reaching into heights never before seen with how motivated and likely these young people are to vote this November,” NextGen America Executive Director Ben Wessel told The Hill.

I'll believe it when I see it, of course, but increased youth turnout is obviously a giant advantage for Biden.

Overall, Biden leads Trump by 27 points in the poll of youth voters across the battleground states, at 56 percent support compared to Trump’s 29 percent.

“If young people are fired up to vote in these 13 states it’s game over for Donald Trump and game over for the Republican-held Senate, as well,” Wessel said.

Young people showing up for Biden in the GE after hanging Bernie out to dry in the primaries is just... well... someone check on Zeyk.

[pete]

Rachel Bitcofer with a much more official sounding framing of what my theory of the case is atm:

The fundamentals haven't changed, really can't change bc they are driven by large atmospheric advantages for Biden (neg partisanship + modest pandemic backlash for Trump due to his mismanagement of COVID19).

Bc of hyperpartisanship & polarization polling is much more inelastic
Quote Tweet

Polls will vary over the next two months, some will show wider gaps, some more narrower. But at the end of the day, there is not that much that polls can tell us at this point. Due to noise, methodology variance, sampling error, & the like, "change" is as likely to be due

To changes in the sample drawn, distributions of error, weighting, etc, ESECIALLY comparisons between surveys (so diff pollsters) than change in the race

https://twitter.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1301292882658242560?s=20

If the fundamentals of the race are negative partisanship (Democrats as the out party and in fear and sickness of Trump being willing to crawl over broken glass to vote against him) with a COVID-19 chaser (rising death tolls and high unemployment) and 98% of people have made up their mind who they're voting for, these smaller news stories like what's happening in Wisconsin aren't going to be enough to move the needle in any meaningful way. To that point, another poll that just came out in Wisconsin:

Wisconsin Tracking Poll:

Biden 52% (+10)
Trump 42%

@MorningConsult
LV, (8/23-9/1)

https://twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1301324429528625154?s=20

I tend to believe the race is closer than that in Wisconsin, such as in Marquette's recent poll (Biden +4), but either way you slice it you're not seeing non-partisan pollsters showing Trump winning Wisconsin where that local story would presumably have the greatest sway.

IMO, barring just some outright widespread cheating/vote rigging shenanigans by the Republicans, it's difficult for me to see Trump winning and I think, in the end, the real drama is whether the Democrats get to the 51, 52, or 53 Senate seats they need to be more politically viable to knock down the filibuster.

[RSchmitz]

I believe part of the substance of the "Defund the Police" critique has merit, even though the slogan is dumb as fuck. Police are being asked to perform too wide an array of missions that they simply aren't trained to do and it's leaving the public in a situation where the people providing those missions are getting frustrated and overwhelmed.

Take mental health services outside of law enforcement's mission. That needs to be handled by mental health professionals. Take giving trips to the hospital to people in poor and underserved neighborhoods out of law enforcement's mission. Give that to peace officers or health care professionals. Give law enforcement a narrow, focused mission (crime prevention and investigation) and fund your other public services sufficiently so that you have trained professionals providing those services and not a cop whose only job should be to be a cop. Whether that comes out of law enforcements pot of money or another pot of money is up for discussion, but the rot in American law enforcement's culture is partly because we've tried to make law enforcement the spackle for all of society's ills and they don't have the bandwidth to do it.

In other countries like Great Britain, police aren't armed to the teeth paramilitary outfits and their crime rates are nothing like America's. Why? They've got a fully funded public health service. Fully functional social safety nets. Etc. Etc.

That's where the discussion was going after George Floyd and now that discussion has sadly dried up. How do we restructure the provision of social services in a way that actually addresses the problems of the affected communities instead of just allowing them to continue to fester?

I am open to having my mind swayed, but when confronted with counter arguments most of the ideas I have heard for alternatives to the current policing system have fallen apart.

[pete]

I am open to having my mind swayed, but when confronted with counter arguments most of the ideas I have heard for alternatives to the current policing system have fallen apart.

Honest question: why do you think the law enforcement system that they have in Great Britain, for instance, or Canada couldn't work here? Most officers in the UK don't even carry guns. In Canada, there are peace officers who don't carry firearms and then regular police who do. The models are out there, but they require changes outside of the box of "law enforcement" to make them work.

You cannot fix racial inequality in policing without addressing broader structural socio-economic issues. There is no one silver arrow that slays this beast. There's probably, easily, a dozen different areas we need to push to improve societally which will, in the process, fix racial inequality in policing.

Unfortunately, we're not having that broader discussion anymore like we were having in the weeks after George Floyd's murder. In part because the media got bored of it and in part because, as a political issue in a presidential year, it's way more effective as a political issue if you devolve it into a fight over whose trucker hat slogan is better.

[Donnie D]

It’s not just me

Americans believe by a 51% to 46% margin that Trump will defeat Biden in the election. (Among voters, it was a tighter 50% to 48% spread in favor of Trump.)
The poll indicates that voters either believe the race will shift back to Trump or that the polling is wrong.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/30/politics/trump-polling-analysis/index.html

[Donnie D]

I am open to having my mind swayed, but when confronted with counter arguments most of the ideas I have heard for alternatives to the current policing system have fallen apart.

It’s happening now. St. Petersburg’s chief proposed a reduction in the number of police and more social service workers. Both the city and county hired social service workers to work with the homeless.

[Bolthed]

It’s not just me

Americans believe by a 51% to 46% margin that Trump will defeat Biden in the election. (Among voters, it was a tighter 50% to 48% spread in favor of Trump.)
The poll indicates that voters either believe the race will shift back to Trump or that the polling is wrong.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/30/polit...sis/index.html

Breaking news: Americans have been conditioned by fear