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Fox just colored a ton of states in. Clinton 97 Trump 134.

 d-usa wrote:
Looks like OH and NC are tightening a bit right now.

Thankfully still with some heavy pro-Clinton counties at very low reporting percentages. Charlotte (largest city) at only 5%, Durham/Orange (tech/university-heavy counties where the republican party barely exists) still below 50%. And, at the state level, that McCrory and his hate bill are starting to look like they're on their way out.

A lot of people seem to be optimistic about Hillary winning, I placed a bet on Trump to win at the weekend, and got 3:1 to odds, on what is looking very much like a coin flip. Optimism bias is a well known phenomenon. My observation of Trump is that he has had massive media coverage, for good or bad, everyone is talking about him. He has extremely loyal followers, while Clinton is actually quite unpopular. I feel like a lot of people voting for Clinton will be doing so because they don't want Trump, rather than because they do want her. That might not be good enough.

Perhaps I'm jaded, but I think people are idiots and will vote against their own interests. I hope I'm wrong, but my money is on Trump.

 djones520 wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Oklahoma went as expected for the national races.

I'm keeping an eye on the State Questions, and I'm hoping some of those results hold up.

What were they? Michigan had zero this year, threw me off.

The quick summary:

SQ 776: There is no such thing as a cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to the death penalty.
SQ 777: "Right to Farm", a new law in our Constitution that the state legislature cannot pass any laws regulating agriculture unless there is a compelling state interest,
SQ 779: 1% sales tax to fund education.
SQ 780/781: Both dealing with changing some drug offenses to misdemeanors and switching the funding form incarceration to drug treatment.
SQ 790: Repeal the section of our constitution prohibiting spending public money for religious purposes.
SQ 792: Update our alcohol laws, get rid of our status as a 3.2 state, and let grocery stores sell full strength beer and other alcohol.

 Smacks wrote:
A lot of people seem to be optimistic about Hillary winning, I placed a bet on Trump to win at the weekend, and got 3:1 to odds, on what is looking very much like a coin flip. Optimism bias is a well known phenomenon. My observation of Trump is that he has had massive media coverage, for good or bad, everyone is talking about him. He has extremely loyal followers, while Clinton is actually quite unpopular. I feel like a lot of people voting for Clinton will be doing so because they don't want Trump, rather than because they do want her. That might not be good enough.

I think the optimism is less wishful thinking and more understanding of how the US electoral system works. It doesn't matter who wins the national polls, what matters is who wins the few states that are actually contested. And, while each contested state might be a coin flip, the states that are guaranteed to vote D every year have more electoral votes than the states that are guaranteed to vote R. To win Clinton has to do average or better in states where the polls have her ahead. Trump pretty much has to win every single contested state to win the election. It's possible, much like it's possible to roll 10 3+ armor saves in a row to save a key model, but the odds are definitely in Clinton's favor.


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 d-usa wrote:
SQ 776: There is no such thing as a cruel and unusual punishment when it comes to the death penalty.
SQ 777: "Right to Farm", a new law in our Constitution that the state legislature cannot pass any laws regulating agriculture unless there is a compelling state interest

Well those are certainly some bad ideas...

SQ 790: Repeal the section of our constitution prohibiting spending public money for religious purposes.

Also known as "our budget has too much money in it, let's spend a bunch of it on lawyers to defend a hopeless cause in court".

Ohio has a big Trump lead right now. Michigan is a dead tie. North Carolina is very slightly in Trump's favor, at the moment.

This is just weird. Looks like it's gonna be a late night tonight.

If Trump wins Florida and VA it is over!

Plus, Nate Silver will be proven wrong big time!

I saw "US Politics" and "Peregrine" together in the same row and column of the Forum Index; I had to see what was happening.

Oh, and yeah, politics is nuts and crazy but that is how it has always been.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think the optimism is less wishful thinking and more understanding of how the US electoral system works. It doesn't matter who wins the national polls, what matters is who wins the few states that are actually contested. And, while each contested state might be a coin flip, the states that are guaranteed to vote D every year have more electoral votes than the states that are guaranteed to vote R. To win Clinton has to do average or better in states where the polls have her ahead. Trump pretty much has to win every single contested state to win the election. It's possible, much like it's possible to roll 10 3+ armor saves in a row to save a key model, but the odds are definitely in Clinton's favor.

Optimism bias isn't really wishful thinking, it's the idea that people perceive things that they don't want to happen as less likely than the reality. Your analogy of 10 armour saves might be an example, I think the reality might be more like 3-4 armour saves, which is perfectly doable. A lot of the analysis I've read (based on previous elections) has predicted a Republican swing this time... of course Trump is an unusual candidate, and that could mix things up. I think Hillary might have a slight edge, but it's very small IMO. I guess we're going to find out anyway...

 djones520 wrote:
North Carolina is very slightly in Trump's favor, at the moment.

Though, again, with Clinton-heavy counties at low reporting percentages. If trends hold Clinton is going to pick up a ~500,000 vote advantage from uncounted votes in Mecklenberg county (Charlotte, the largest city), and probably another ~200,000 vote advantage from Durham county (currently reporting its typical 90% D results).


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 Smacks wrote:
Optimism bias isn't really wishful thinking, it's the idea that people perceive things that they don't want to happen as less likely than the reality. Your analogy of 10 armour saves might be an example, I think the reality might be more like 3-4 armour saves, which is perfectly doable. A lot of the analysis I've read (based on previous elections) has predicted a Republican swing this time... of course Trump is an unusual candidate, and that could mix things up. I think Hillary might have a slight edge, but it's very small IMO. I guess we're going to find out anyway...

But this analysis is coming from non-partisan sources, not just Clinton supporters (or Trump haters). It's just a straightforward problem of statistics, whether or not it's equivalent to 10 armor saves or 3-4 armor saves the fact is that Clinton has a huge advantage in that she needs to win a lot fewer coin flips than Trump to win the election. It's just like the armor save analogy: if you fail just one of those saves (whether 10 or 3-4) your model is dead. So yes, it's possible that your model survives, but the odds are definitely in favor of it dying.

 Peregrine wrote:
But this analysis is coming from non-partisan sources, not just Clinton supporters (or Trump haters). It's just a straightforward problem of statistics, whether or not it's equivalent to 10 armor saves or 3-4 armor saves the fact is that Clinton has a huge advantage in that she needs to win a lot fewer coin flips than Trump to win the election. It's just like the armor save analogy: if you fail just one of those saves (whether 10 or 3-4) your model is dead. So yes, it's possible that your model survives, but the odds are definitely in favor of it dying.

But that assumes the coin flips really are coin flips, and I think there might be a lot of people coming out the woodwork to push them in Trump's favour.

Gary Johnson is looking a bit election spoilerish

Looks like NY Times is saying Trump will take Ohio.

They are also giving Trump a 54% chance to win.

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Gary Johnson is looking a bit election spoilerish

You'd think third party candidates and their voters would learn after a while...

I'm sort of scared to follow the new at this point, the idea of him winning makes me physically ill. People keep saying she's a guaranteed win, but it is far too close for comfort.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think the optimism is less wishful thinking and more understanding of how the US electoral system works. It doesn't matter who wins the national polls, what matters is who wins the few states that are actually contested. And, while each contested state might be a coin flip, the states that are guaranteed to vote D every year have more electoral votes than the states that are guaranteed to vote R. To win Clinton has to do average or better in states where the polls have her ahead. Trump pretty much has to win every single contested state to win the election. It's possible, much like it's possible to roll 10 3+ armor saves in a row to save a key model, but the odds are definitely in Clinton's favor.

As I was saying earlier, people have made the mistake of thinking each of those close states is independant of the others. They aren't. A good day for Trump in Florida is likely to also be a good day for Trump in other swing states. And now we're seeing it in some of Clinton's safer states, both Michigan and Pennslyvania are proiving more competitive than polls showed. Its indicative that Trump has gotten a much bigger turnout among white working class than anticipated, which bodes well for Trump in lots of swing states.

Their statsamajig thing is also giving Trump a 51% chance of taking the Electoral College.

Jesus Christ America, Jesus Christ.

 Easy E wrote:
Plus, Nate Silver will be proven wrong big time!

That's nonsense. Silver's been the guy saying Trump was a serious chance for a long time now. He's been hammering over and over again about the high level of uncertainty in this race.

He's been completely right.

You guys think that's bad?

We're looking at a GOP controlled Congress.

So that either means we have a Clinton presidency with a GOP Congress, which means we'll have more of the same for the next four years, unless we get a big swing in 2018. And it'll probably be worse. So get ready for another anti-government demagogue to come along in 2020.

Or we get a Trump presidency with a GOP Congress. And I'm freaking out thinking about that. If you're gay, or an immigrant, or anyone remotely brown, or a woman, or anyone who was Anti-Trump, get ready to have your rights curtailed in favor of an angry, shrinking group of people.

 sebster wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Plus, Nate Silver will be proven wrong big time!

That's nonsense. Silver's been the guy saying Trump was a serious chance for a long time now. He's been hammering over and over again about the high level of uncertainty in this race.

He's been completely right.

Well, he was wrong that time during the primaries.

But to be fair, he has been the first person to admit that and has been willing to adjust his predictions accordingly.

Well, good thing I have booze now, and Monster for tomorrow... it looks like it may be a long fething night.

 d-usa wrote:
Well, he was wrong that time during the primaries.

But to be fair, he has been the first person to admit that and has been willing to adjust his predictions accordingly.

Yeah, he's the guy who admitted he was wrong and analysed why. The rest of the pundits that failed to give Trump any real chance just went quiet for a while, then returned to claiming they knew what they were talking about.

 infinite_array wrote:
You guys think that's bad?

We're looking at a GOP controlled Congress.

So that either means we have a Clinton presidency with a GOP Congress, which means we'll have more of the same for the next four years, unless we get a big swing in 2018. And it'll probably be worse. So get ready for another anti-government demagogue to come along in 2020.

Or we get a Trump presidency with a GOP Congress. And I'm freaking out thinking about that. If you're gay, or an immigrant, or anyone remotely brown, or a woman, or anyone who was Anti-Trump, get ready to have your rights curtailed.

You do realize the GOP congress kinda hates Trump, right?

 djones520 wrote:


You do realize the GOP congress kinda hates Trump, right?

As long as he has a chance to lose to Clinton, sure.

If he wins, you can bet they'll be lapping at his feet like the good little party members that they are, telling everyone how they were behind Trump the whole time.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Well, good thing I have booze now, and Monster for tomorrow... it looks like it may be a long fething night.

I think I might have to go and dig out whatever regifted pish is sitting at the back of the otherwise empty drink cupboard, because I've gone from "This should be a bit of a larf" to:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 WrentheFaceless wrote:
Gary Johnson is looking a bit election spoilerish

You'd think third party candidates and their voters would learn after a while...

I'm sort of scared to follow the new at this point, the idea of him winning makes me physically ill. People keep saying she's a guaranteed win, but it is far too close for comfort.

For the people voting for 3rd party candidates, we have no way of knowing who'd they'd pick between the 2. Sure they could shift it to hillarys favor, or they could just increase trumps lead. I'm more curious about utah tonight and he'll show that Florida could have went for Joe Exotic if all those people who wasted their votes on trump had voted for him instead.

 djones520 wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
You guys think that's bad?

We're looking at a GOP controlled Congress.

So that either means we have a Clinton presidency with a GOP Congress, which means we'll have more of the same for the next four years, unless we get a big swing in 2018. And it'll probably be worse. So get ready for another anti-government demagogue to come along in 2020.

Or we get a Trump presidency with a GOP Congress. And I'm freaking out thinking about that. If you're gay, or an immigrant, or anyone remotely brown, or a woman, or anyone who was Anti-Trump, get ready to have your rights curtailed.

You do realize the GOP congress kinda hates Trump, right?

Does that matter? If Reps get the Whitehouse, Congress and Senate (completely possible right now) that completely flips the idea that the GOP is dead. The supreme court swings even further conservative and the deploreables are vindicated with their obstructionism.

Christ on a bike Americans, he's going to win, isn't he!

 sebster wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Plus, Nate Silver will be proven wrong big time!

That's nonsense. Silver's been the guy saying Trump was a serious chance for a long time now. He's been hammering over and over again about the high level of uncertainty in this race.

He's been completely right.

Did you look at the state forecast? How about the 28% he gave Trump yesterday?

I have spent 37 years of my life being a young optimist. I never thought I would turn into an old depressed cynic so quickly.

 infinite_array wrote:
And I'm freaking out thinking about that. If you're gay, or an immigrant, or anyone remotely brown, or a woman, or anyone who was Anti-Trump, get ready to have your rights curtailed in favor of an angry, shrinking group of people.

Aside from being a completely idiotic statement, how do you expect Trump to curtail civil rights? Seriously, explain to me exactly how it gets done.

Another Scalia on the bench.