USA elections 2020 - 2021

[Alastor]

Majority of articles do not state that Biden's victory is assured or that it is going to be a landslide. There's a full month left and majority of pundits are aware that there are plenty of scenarios where Trump wins.

Eh? By the most optimistic simulations I've seen, at this time Biden's victory is like 85%. More realistic IMO scenarios have Biden at 65%-70%.
So, nope a Biden victory is not assured.

1/5 is the one I usually see. That seems more like hedging your bets than actually thinking there is a real chance that Trump will win.

This article from the CNN for instance claims that Trump is as likely to win as Biden is to get 400 electoral votes, which is not just a landslide, it's the kind of victory that hasn't been seen in decades.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/20/p...ion/index.html
Of course I don't trust CNN as much as I used to, considering I can tell it's clearly partisan nowadays. But still.

[Gaidin]

1/5 is the one I usually see. That seems more like hedging your bets than actually thinking there is a real chance that Trump will win.

This article from the CNN for instance claims that Trump is as likely to win as Biden is to get 400 electoral votes, which is not just a landslide, it's the kind of victory that hasn't been seen in decades.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/20/p...ion/index.html
Of course I don't trust CNN as much as I used to, considering I can tell it's clearly partisan nowadays. But still.

CNN can editorialize as much as it wants. But the only time they have their own statisticians and people that know the ground game are on election night itself and those people are sealed off from the desk jockeys and the desk jockeys don't call the states until they do until certain precincts are in at certain percentages. The NYT Upshot can "hedge their bets" after getting it so wild on 2016 and that's fair. But the smart statisticians make their methodology public when it starts and say they don't tweak it until the next election. What it says it says. And by the methodologies, the rough average is 70% Biden.

[Heathen Hammer]

Polls aren't reliable.
Truth is, the propaganda momentum Democrats had in 2016 is gone. Everyone now knows that Trump isn't a fascist, he isn't going to round up minorities and other outlandish claims that were made against him in 2016 clearly did not come to relevance with reality. Mainstream media has very little credibility at this point. Trump's first term also was quite successful, pretty much any scandal that was started against him by Democrats just backfired in their face, be it Russia collusion narrative or attempt to remove him from office. Moderates, people that made Obama terms happen, are leaving to Republicans. Plenty of people in blue states will not vote for Democratic party that supported destruction of their cities, their properties and businesses as well. All Democrats have is "orange man bad" and some outlandish policies like providing free healthcare to illegal aliens and being generally associated with things like Epstein island and sketchy foreign policy decisions (Biden's corrupt adventures in Ukraine). Now just add how terrible Democratic candidates are, presidential candidate is senile and has history of sexual harassment and corruption, VP candidate is a former corrupt cop that literally embodies the whole "institutional racism" thing, showing that Democrats are just hypocrites.

[Alastor]

And by the methodologies, the rough average is 70% Biden.

That's still quite a significant advantage. Unless people somehow vote very differently than they say they will, or simply don't vote, it's all but a given. I suppose if the public isn't as polarized as I suspect it is, it's possible they simply won't bother. But I will be surprised if the turnout in this election isn't higher than usual.

[Heathen Hammer]

Joe Biden agrees with protester that he has no chance in the election, then promptly rushed away by the secret service.
First debates are in 8 days. I'm calling that Democrats and media will try and cook up some pseudo-moral reason on how to cop out of debates.

[Gaidin]

That's still quite a significant advantage. Unless people somehow vote very differently than they say they will, or simply don't vote, it's all but a given. I suppose if the public isn't as polarized as I suspect it is, it's possible they simply won't bother. But I will be surprised if the turnout in this election isn't higher than usual.

Less than you think. It’s not like they’re having ten official votes and whichever candidate wins more votes wins. They’re having one election and it can fall to Trump as much as fall to Biden.

[Ludicus]

From Bob Woodward new book, Rage.

Mattis: " even the people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says",

(...) Mattis saw that the Europeans in NATO, the Middle East, South Korea and Japan were essential. The relationships needed to be nurtured and protected (...)
What, Mattis wondered, made Trump think anyone could make it alone in the world? What reading of history, what intellectual thought could give a person any confidence in that? A country always needed allies, he was sure. A person always needed allies. And this was the tragedy of Trump’s leadership and the bottom line: “It was inexplicable to think otherwise. It was indefensible. It was jingoism. It was a misguided form of nationalism. It was not patriotism.”
(...)Trump’s impact on the country would be lasting. “This degradation of the American experiment is real. This is tangible. Truth is no longer governing the White House statements. Nobody believes—even the people who believe in him somehow believe in him without believing what he says.”

---
Just because it's easy (?) to believe, doesn't mean it's true,

On Monday, May 22, 2017, Trump was in Tel Aviv, meeting with Netanyahu at the King David Hotel. It was the second stop, after Saudi Arabia, on Trump’s first international trip as president.
Jared Kushner ran out to grab Tillerson. “You’ve got to go in there,” an aide said. “They’re showing the president this video. It’s awful. The president’s just exploding. You’ve got to go in there and calm the president down.”
By this point there was enough distrust between Tillerson and the White House that Tillerson didn’t know whether Kushner was playacting, or even setting him up.
But he went into the Trump-Netanyahu meeting. “Watch this,” Trump said. “This is unbelievable! You’ve got to see this.”
They played the video again for Tillerson. It showed a series of spliced-together comments from Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, who was supposed to be Israel’s partner in the peace deal that Kushner was trying to put together.
It sounded like Abbas was ordering the murder of children.
Tillerson believed it was faked or manipulated, taking words and sentences out of context and stringing them together.
“And that’s the guy you want to help?” Netanyahu said. Tillerson studied the video, a crude effort of short snippets that had no context.
After Netanyahu left, Tillerson said to Trump, “Mr. President, you realize that that whole thing was fabricated?” “Well,” Trump said, “it’s not fabricated. They got the guy on tape saying it.”
(...)It was Tillerson’s view that Netanyahu had manufactured the tape to counter any pro-Palestinian sentiments that were surfacing. The next morning Trump met privately with Abbas and his people in Bethlehem and unloaded in a tirade. “Murderer!” Trump said to Abbas. “Liar!” I thought you were this grandfatherly figure that I could trust. “Now, I realize you’re nothing but a murderer. You tricked me!”
(...)Trump eventually ordered the closure of the Palestinian Liberation Organization office in Washington, D.C. in September 2018 and canceled nearly all U.S. aid to the West Bank and Gaza, as well as $360 million in annual aid previously given to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees

[B. W.]

Bloomberg buys 32,000 votes in Florida for Biden! Considering Florida's history of close votes that could easily be enough to turn the state in November. If Trump loses Florida in November and consequently loses the election it will effectively mean that convicted felons were the deciding votes. That's not going to play well.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...-they-can-vote

[Heathen Hammer]

Bloomberg buys 32,000 votes in Florida for Biden! Considering Florida's history of close votes that could easily be enough to turn the state in November. If Trump loses Florida in November and consequently loses the election it will effectively mean that convicted felons were the deciding votes. That's not going to play well.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...-they-can-vote

Did he just give them cash? I don't think they are spending it on their fines bro...

[B. W.]

Did he just give them cash? I don't think they are spending it on their fines bro...

The money is going to an organization and they will pay the fines for black/Hispanic felons so they can vote (can you say ballot harvesting?). White felons aren't eligible. Here's a little more in-depth explanation from Breitbart:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...te-in-florida/

[Gaidin]

Last I checked Florida latinos are tilting away from Biden so that's an interesting windmill you're playing with.

[Heathen Hammer]

The money is going to an organization and they will pay the fines for black/Hispanic felons so they can vote (can you say ballot harvesting?). White felons aren't eligible. Here's a little more in-depth explanation from Breitbart:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...te-in-florida/

Wait, eligibility is determined by race? That's a textbook civil rights violation. And as Also as Gaidin said, Florida's Hispanic population are descendants of Cubans who fled from Castro's regime and are are as hardline Republicans as evangelicals in Deep South. Also his SCOTUS pick may be a Cuban-American woman. If that happens, Trump has Florida in the bag.

[alhoon]

That's still quite a significant advantage. Unless people somehow vote very differently than they say they will, or simply don't vote, it's all but a given. I suppose if the public isn't as polarized as I suspect it is, it's possible they simply won't bother. But I will be surprised if the turnout in this election isn't higher than usual.

? 70% vs 30% is "all but a given"? No, it's not! It's 30% Trump wins. 1 out of 3.3 times.

These are not comparative strengths, they don't have 7000 soldiers to your 3000. This is 70% to 30%.

The money is going to an organization and they will pay the fines for black/Hispanic felons so they can vote (can you say ballot harvesting?). White felons aren't eligible. Here's a little more in-depth explanation from Breitbart:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...te-in-florida/

Can someone provide a credible source for this? This is too heavy to fly. Unlike some posters here, I can't believe it would be legal to say "We will pay fines only for X race".

[Heathen Hammer]

Can someone provide a credible source for this? This is too heavy to fly. Unlike some posters here, I can't believe it would be legal to say "We will pay fines only for X race".

Yeah, that's definitely against civil rights, so I'm not sure if I want to trust the right-wing version of MSNBC on that one.
Then again, Bloomberg isn't a politically smart person, at least judging by his primaries campaign. The whole "poor people should have less purchasing power" thing was quite the take, even for a Democrat.

[Infidel144]

Can someone provide a credible source for this? This is too heavy to fly. Unlike some posters here, I can't believe it would be legal to say "We will pay fines only for X race".

If, instead of immediately adopting the Pillar of the Left #1 (Who is saying something is always more important than what is being said), you would click on the link, you might discover the article is quoting from the Washington Post. In part what is quoted is:
"Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his team have raised more than $16 million to pay the court fines and fees of nearly 32,000 Black and Hispanic Florida voters with felony convictions, an effort aimed at boosting turnout for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden."

Bloomberg is a private citizen, if he chooses to spend his money only for certain people I doubt it would run afoul of the law.

[Heathen Hammer]

If, instead of immediately adopting the Pillar of the Left #1 (Who is saying something is always more important than what is being said), you would click on the link, you might discover the article is quoting from the Washington Post. In part what is quoted is:
"Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his team have raised more than $16 million to pay the court fines and fees of nearly 32,000 Black and Hispanic Florida voters with felony convictions, an effort aimed at boosting turnout for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden."

Bloomberg is a private citizen, if he chooses to spend his money only for certain people I doubt it would run afoul of the law.

He is doing that through an non-profit organization, so picking race of people whose fines he wants to pay is a major civil rights violation - I don't remember either side doing that before, so it seems Democrats are getting quite desperate.

[Alastor]

? 70% vs 30% is "all but a given"? No, it's not! It's 30% Trump wins. 1 out of 3.3 times.

These are not comparative strengths, they don't have 7000 soldiers to your 3000. This is 70% to 30%.

Because 7000 soldiers will always beat 3000?

No matter, if those are the odds, I know the (far-far) safer bet. More importantly perhaps, so does everyone else. Which does make me wonder.

[alhoon]

Because 7000 soldiers will always beat 3000?

No matter, if those are the odds, I know the (far-far) safer bet. More importantly perhaps, so does everyone else. Which does make me wonder.

They will beat them way more than 7 times out of 10, unless you play ETW.

Biden is the safer bet, but not the "far safer" bet. You have also to account about people that would think like you do and don't go to vote, like it happened with Pennsylvania in 2016 I think.

70% is exactly the chances of this:
Trump rolls 1 dice, has a chance to get everything from 1 to 6.
Biden rolls 1 dice and adds 1. Has a chance to get everything from 2 to 7.

Sure in 1000 rolls, Biden would beat Trump 700 out 1000 times.
But is that +1 that huge an advantage?

[Gaidin]

You guys sound so damn weird when you talk about the election odds. There is no +1 advantage. You can say it's favored to lean one way over another. But again, there's not multiple votes for the election. There's just one. So what do the odds help you with? Go down to your bookie and place a bet. If your country is anything like America, you can find a bookie that will take bets on any damn thing in the world.

[Alastor]

They will beat them way more than 7 times out of 10, unless you play ETW.

Biden is the safer bet, but not the "far safer" bet. You have also to account about people that would think like you do and don't go to vote, like it happened with Pennsylvania in 2016 I think.

70% is exactly the chances of this:
Trump rolls 1 dice, has a chance to get everything from 1 to 6.
Biden rolls 1 dice and adds 1. Has a chance to get everything from 2 to 7.

Sure in 1000 rolls, Biden would beat Trump 700 out 1000 times.
But is that +1 that huge an advantage?

I have lost track of TW games, which one is ETW? Is that the one in China?

I did mention myself a few posts above that there is a possibility people simply won't bother voting. It's one of the reasons why I wonder about these odds. Certainly their coverage. On one hand it appears as if they are electrifying the Democratic base, increasing donations etc, which is why they are being touted by the Democrat supporting media. On the other hand the threat of apathy does loom. But then again polarization in the US has reached what seems to be historic levels, so maybe they don't need to worry about that.

Considering a +1 in your weapon can make all the difference between killing that evil alhoon standing at the end of this dungeon and it having your brain for breakfast... I'll say it is quite the advantage alright.

BTW betting houses seem to have it at -130 Biden/+110 Trump today.