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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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NYT: Trump Leads in 5 Critical States as Voters Blast Biden, Times/Siena Poll Finds

Across the six battlegrounds — all of which Mr. Biden carried in 2020 — the president trails by an average of 48 to 44 percent.

Add it all together, and Mr. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan and four in Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden held a 2-point edge in Wisconsin.

This is a bit of a surprise to me, considering PredictIt has Biden up 42 vs Trump 37 (the rest are Newsom, DeSantis, etc), and Biden is at 53% on Manifold. ElectionBettingOdds.com has had Trump up for weeks now, though, so make of that as you will.

But the real reason I wanted to share the NYT article is just how delusional I thought the comments are. I'll post the top five, by number of reader recommends (i.e. upvotes).


Stats about the polling:

The polls of 3,662 registered voters were conducted by telephone using live operators Oct. 22-Nov. 3. The margin of sampling error for each state is from 4.4 to 4.8 percentage points. ...by telephone using live operators. Again with the voice call polling. So in other words people answering a phone call from unknown caller. This is anecdotal but I don't know anyone under 50 who answers a call from numbers they don't recognize or don't hang up when it sounds like a telemarketer.

41 Replies 1254 Recommend


What were the demographics of those who gave their views? And these individuals contacted, were they only speaking on land line phones? Very important considerations in determining the validity of such a survey.

21 Replies 634 Recommend


Regarding the folks who voted for Biden last time, yet will be supporting Trump in 2024 that were mentioned in the article, what I can't understand is if they voted for Biden solely because Trump's behavior turned them off, how is it that they are suddenly okay with it now? I'm especially baffled by this given that Trump's worst action was the Jan. 6 insurrection in my opinion, and that occurred after the 2020 Election.

7 Replies 591 Recommend


More than anything, these polls remind me that the Republicans are vastly superior at controlling the narrative and perceptions. Terrible at actually governing, but brilliant at marketing - especially fear-based marketing.

3 Replies 551 Recommend


The actual numbers on the economy don't translate to relief for working families. 6 years ago I could buy lunch from a food cart near work for $6. Now it's $11. Rent has increased by nearly 50 percent in that time, too. My income sure has not.

The people buying lunch are feeling it. So are the food cart owners.

The unfortunate part of this is Trump (or any other Republican running) won't do a thing to curb inflation or reorient the economy in favor of normal people. He's going to give more handouts to rich friends and billionaires.

Worse yet, he's going to head an anti-labor administration whose NLRB made it almost impossible to unionize. Biden still isn't the strong labor backer we need, as we saw with the rail workers strike, but it is at least much easier to organize under a Biden NLRB.

That's the only way working people are going to fix our economic situation: a president won't do it. We have to organize and demand a fair share of what we do.

14 Replies 510 Recommend


OK let me just share the next three because they're short:


These poll results defy common sense.

7 Replies 467 Recommend


never mind just the under 50. I'm over 70 and don't answer unknown callers. All this proves is the type of personality that answers unknown calls is more likely to vote for Trump.

In Reply to Darrell J 431 Recommend


How is this even possible? What a horrible headline to wake up to on a Sunday morning.

6 Replies 404 Recommend


I don't think the reader bias will surprise anyone, but what surprised me was just how emotionally skewed it seemed to be. It's like a mass mourning, with people trying to shoot the messenger (i.e. poll methodology) rather than accepting the message. The only comment that made sense to me, highlighting the perniciousness of inflation, still had to incorporate pot shots at Trump or the GOP. Anything for that upvote, I guess.

At any rate, I don't think this means all that much when we're a year out. No one knows where the economy will go in this time, or if Haley magically nabs the GOP nom, or if the Dems pull a 5D move and get Biden to withdraw after Trump gets the GOP nomination and have Newsom step in.

The betting sites do not seem to be factoring in current polling/general vibes i get. I’d say if we had a snap election in 2 weeks Trump would win big.

I’ve been extremely confused by betting markets. Either they think something will break for the Dems to get a coin flip (which Trump is less than a coin flip) or it seems like they are pricing in wide spread fraud. But I 100% agree with you noting the betting markets I’ve checked them lately and they don’t feel like they moved nearly enough.

Mean reversion probably will happen but Trump feels like a 90-95% win probability if we held elections now.

I think that the prediction markets might be pricing in things like 3rd parties, which a Trump vs Biden poll doesn't account for.