Posted on 11/23/2015 5:47:10 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Lately, pundits and punters seem bullish on Donald Trump, whose chances of winning the Republican presidential nomination recently inched above 20 percent for the first time at the betting market Betfair. Perhaps the conventional wisdom assumes that the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in Paris will play into Trump’s hands, or that Republicans really might be in disarray. If so, I can see where the case for Trump is coming from, although I’d still say a 20 percent chance is substantially too high.
Quite often, however, the Trump’s-really-got-a-chance! case is rooted almost entirely in polls. If nothing Trump has said so far has harmed his standing with Republicans, the argument goes, why should we expect him to fade later on?
One problem with this is that it’s not enough for Trump to merely avoid fading. Right now, he has 25 to 30 percent of the vote in polls among the roughly 25 percent of Americans who identify as Republican. (That’s something like 6 to 8 percent of the electorate overall, or about the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked.) As the rest of the field consolidates around him, Trump will need to gain additional support to win the nomination. That might not be easy, since some Trump actions that appeal to a faction of the Republican electorate may alienate the rest of it. Trump’s favorability ratings are middling among Republicans (and awful among the broader electorate).
Trump will also have to get that 25 or 30 percent to go to the polls. For now, most surveys cover Republican-leaning adults or registered voters, rather than likely voters. Combine that with the poor response rates to polls and the fact that an increasing number of polls use nontraditional sampling methods.....
(Excerpt) Read more at fivethirtyeight.com ...
Nah, let them freak out. I want to see their weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I want to see them screaming. Maybe it will show the rest of the country what our main problem is.
Is this the same guy who is a democrat pol in NYS that is under trial or recently convicted of being a crook?
Little liberal Silver trying to soothe his puppet masters from the reality of it all. His little website ignores Trump as best they can hoping he goes away. LoL.
Does sound like that .
5.56mm
More Silver blech. He’s so off here on a number of things it’s a wonder how he stays in business.
BTW: In spell checking the previous post, my spell checker showed “I’s” as a correctly spelled word. I am so confused.
No.
U’s jus fiin.
According to Freakanomics, the better the polls are, the more it drives donations, demoralized the adversaries, energizes the base, and dries up the adversary’s support.
I do get tired of Polls-as-News, though.
Nate Silver is in for a big surprise this time around. The old methods of predicting outcomes hold no water. Trump is going to win. Nate may be the last one to figure this out, but figure it out one day he will. And that day can’t come soon enough. Trump 2016!
The piece points out what some of here have been saying, that Trump has as many people who dislike him as like him. If Rubio and Cruz fight over 60 percent that still leaves Trump as the victor, on the other hand if Cruz and Trump split up all of the conservative votes it could create a path for Rubio. The polls are just pre-season the first counting that counts is Iowa.
Yes I'm pulling for Cruz!
This guy doesn’t know his ass from page 538.
See my tagline.
And at some point it produces a "tipping point" and a "Preference cascade."
Yup. The whole thing has synergistic feedback working for it. It's very nonlinear.
I do get tired of Polls-as-News, though.
Me too. I personally think Cruz is doing pretty good behind the scenes, and I think he may end up pulling an upset.
At this point I could live with Trump, Carson, or Cruz, though my favorite is Cruz.
SC is the culling point.
It’s the first winner-take-all, and first in the south.
SC is a better predictor of super Tuesday, and therefore the nomination than either NH or IA.
Since 1980 the SC winner gets the nom, with only one exception, Newt in 2012. And Trump will not have that NY MA problems Newt had, he is polling as well in Big East country as he does in SEC states. If Trump can hold FL I don’t see how anyone presents a regional challenge. Cruz winning TX won’t be enough.
I am not bashing Cruz, I’m commenting on the delegate map. I’m hoping for a Trump 1, Cruz 2 or 3 delegate count. Cruz accepts VP and Trump rolls on the second ballot, maybe even the first. If those two capture enough delegates to create a majority then things look good.
Oh I like to watch them freaking out. It’s one Schadenfreude that I feel good about indulging in.
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