The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[LawBeefaroni]

Gotta love how some rumors about Hillary's email server was enough to torpedo her "sure thing" election victory at this point in the election in 2016, but exposure of Trump's numerous crimes in trying to overthrow democracy won't budge the polls at all.

Polls aren't great predictors anymore.

Was it really a sure thing in 2016? Is Trump really not losing any support in 2024? The vote count is what matters, not the polls.

[El Guapo]

Gotta love how some rumors about Hillary's email server was enough to torpedo her "sure thing" election victory at this point in the election in 2016, but exposure of Trump's numerous crimes in trying to overthrow democracy won't budge the polls at all.

Polls aren't great predictors anymore.

Was it really a sure thing in 2016? Is Trump really not losing any support in 2024? The vote count is what matters, not the polls.

Polls are still useful predictors, it's just that people need to understand how they work better. Polls are inherently a projection based upon a sample size, so the odds that the election result is going to be precisely on the average is low. But generally the result will be within a fairly standard range of the average.

So to take 2016 as an example, around the time of the election Clinton was up by ~ 3% in polling averages. She "won" (the popular vote) by ~ 1% or so, within a normal polling error. But of course our wise Electoral College System then turned that win into a loss. And she really wasn't ever a "sure thing" - she was mainly treated as such by those who couldn't imagine that the electorate would consider voting for Trump, and by those who couldn't or wouldn't understand what the polling was saying.

[Unagi]

It's not just the sample 'size', it's the samples themselves that are also squewed.


It's not just "1000 Potential Voters" who were polled. It's 1000 Potential Voters who will, (for example), pick up their land-line and participate in a survey

[YellowKing]

Pollsters such as the Huffington Post were giving Hillary a 98% chance of winning. Nate Silver's estimates of a 70%-ish chance was among the lowest. So the public perception was very much that she had it in the bag. Of course after the fact we found out pollsters had vastly underestimated low education voters.

That's largely been corrected for these days, but we still see issues such as polls inaccurately predicting a red wave that never materialized in 2022.

I suspect this election cycle that polls are accurately portraying a Harris lead, but inaccurately portraying the size of it. I think turnout is going to make her lead much higher than it appears right now. Polls have an extremely hard time predicting turnout.

[Unagi]

But also, as said by El Guapo - - sometimes the misleading is on us. They will tell us that Harris is leading in national polls, but it's not a 'national' contest, so it's almost irrelevant. Clearly, that's not the same with polls that are specific to swing state polling or electoral college projections. But we can sometime put too much (i.e.: any) weight into polls that show Harris leading general polls.

[EvilHomer3k]

Pollsters such as the Huffington Post were giving Hillary a 98% chance of winning. Nate Silver's estimates of a 70%-ish chance was among the lowest. So the public perception was very much that she had it in the bag. Of course after the fact we found out pollsters had vastly underestimated low education voters.

That's largely been corrected for these days, but we still see issues such as polls inaccurately predicting a red wave that never materialized in 2022.

I suspect this election cycle that polls are accurately portraying a Harris lead, but inaccurately portraying the size of it. I think turnout is going to make her lead much higher than it appears right now. Polls have an extremely hard time predicting turnout.

I don't know that these polls have been corrected. Sure, they will poll you in other ways, text, cell phone, etc. but it still requires you to answer. It also doesn't really get the casual voter. Prior to checking my voter registration I got 0 requests to complete a poll. Soon after I checked I got them daily. I didn't fill any of them out. The most likely people to fill out a voter poll are the ones staunchly on the left or right. I think they still miss a vast majority of voters who are less extreme.

[Pyperkub]

Gotta love how some rumors about Hillary's email server was enough to torpedo her "sure thing" election victory at this point in the election in 2016, but exposure of Trump's numerous crimes in trying to overthrow democracy won't budge the polls at all.

Polls aren't great predictors anymore.

Was it really a sure thing in 2016? Is Trump really not losing any support in 2024? The vote count is what matters, not the polls.

Polls are still useful predictors, it's just that people need to understand how they work better. Polls are inherently a projection based upon a sample size, so the odds that the election result is going to be precisely on the average is low. But generally the result will be within a fairly standard range of the average.

So to take 2016 as an example, around the time of the election Clinton was up by ~ 3% in polling averages. She "won" (the popular vote) by ~ 1% or so, within a normal polling error. But of course our wise Electoral College System then turned that win into a loss. And she really wasn't ever a "sure thing" - she was mainly treated as such by those who couldn't imagine that the electorate would consider voting for Trump, and by those who couldn't or wouldn't understand what the polling was saying.

Sampling methods have also become highly questionable. Not only have we seen the migration away from landline phones, but also, I'd wager that a lot of people just hang up or don't even answer, and internet polls are inherently garbage.

There are also those polls which introduce bias via their questions and question orders. One also needs to look at who they think they are polling - is 'registered voter' method well defined in this day of voter purges? How are they defining and getting responses from "likely voter"?, etc.

Determining how to get a sample which will be an accurate cross section and good predictor and then actually getting responses from that sample is really, really tricky.

[El Guapo]

Gotta love how some rumors about Hillary's email server was enough to torpedo her "sure thing" election victory at this point in the election in 2016, but exposure of Trump's numerous crimes in trying to overthrow democracy won't budge the polls at all.

Polls aren't great predictors anymore.

Was it really a sure thing in 2016? Is Trump really not losing any support in 2024? The vote count is what matters, not the polls.

Polls are still useful predictors, it's just that people need to understand how they work better. Polls are inherently a projection based upon a sample size, so the odds that the election result is going to be precisely on the average is low. But generally the result will be within a fairly standard range of the average.

So to take 2016 as an example, around the time of the election Clinton was up by ~ 3% in polling averages. She "won" (the popular vote) by ~ 1% or so, within a normal polling error. But of course our wise Electoral College System then turned that win into a loss. And she really wasn't ever a "sure thing" - she was mainly treated as such by those who couldn't imagine that the electorate would consider voting for Trump, and by those who couldn't or wouldn't understand what the polling was saying.

Sampling methods have also become highly questionable. Not only have we seen the migration away from landline phones, but also, I'd wager that a lot of people just hang up or don't even answer, and internet polls are inherently garbage.

There are also those polls which introduce bias via their questions and question orders. One also needs to look at who they think they are polling - is 'registered voter' method well defined in this day of voter purges? How are they defining and getting responses from "likely voter"?, etc.

Determining how to get a sample which will be an accurate cross section and good predictor and then actually getting responses from that sample is really, really tricky.

Yeah, it's hard. And the good pollsters are constantly trying new ways to improve their accuracy and get a better sample size (a pollster posted semi-recently about how they were now dividing Wisconsin into I think 90 regions instead of I think 3 or 4 before). But people go too far when they go from "there are challenges" to "polls are useless as predictors". If polls were useless you'd regularly see things like a result of Trump +8 when the polling average was Clinton +3, or vice versa. But electoral results, especially for highly polled things like the presidential race, are regularly within a standard polling error range.

It is worth noting that Trump beat polling averages in both 2016 and 2020, of course. So it's possible that Trump voters are particularly hard to reach and that he may beat his polling again. Although pollsters are also learning (I know one has switched from treating someone saying "I'M VOTING FOR TRUMP FUCK YOU!" and then hanging up immediately as a Trump vote rather than "incomplete response), so possible that that effect may not happen this year or may be smaller.

[Pyperkub]

It's also worth noting that some polling indicated a non-existent red-wave in 2022.

The Red Wave Is Real—Here are Eight Polls That Prove It



538 says the 2022 polls were the most accurate ever.

Despite a loud chorus of naysayers claiming that the polls were either underestimating Democratic support or biased yet again against Republicans, the polls were more accurate in 2022 than in any cycle since at least 1998, with almost no bias toward either party.

Of course, some pollsters were more accurate than others.

But...

And, of course, there are other issues:

“Republican pollsters made a real effort to influence the polling averages by releasing lots and lots of polls that showed an overly rosy picture for Republicans," said Jensen. "And that really ended up being the majority of polls that were out in public in the closing stretch of the campaign."

Jensen said good poll numbers tend to energize base voters.

“It's also something that helps with fundraising,” said Jensen. “People like to be part of a winning team. So maybe if you put out polls with a positive picture, that will make people want to give you money.”

[El Guapo]

Yeah, there's also a big difference between polls (and their accuracy) and media coverage of the polls.

[LawBeefaroni]

But people go too far when they go from "there are challenges" to "polls are useless as predictors". If polls were useless you'd regularly see things like a result of Trump +8 when the polling average was Clinton +3, or vice versa. But electoral results, especially for highly polled things like the presidential race, are regularly within a standard polling error range.

I said they "aren't great predictors", not "useless." They indicate current sentiment among whoever is polled.

[El Guapo]

But people go too far when they go from "there are challenges" to "polls are useless as predictors". If polls were useless you'd regularly see things like a result of Trump +8 when the polling average was Clinton +3, or vice versa. But electoral results, especially for highly polled things like the presidential race, are regularly within a standard polling error range.

I said they "aren't great predictors", not "useless." They indicate current sentiment among whoever is polled.

Gotcha, although I would say that polls that aren't great predictors of election outcomes are pretty useless, since that's their whole purpose. I would say at least that polls are the best predictors that we have.

[LawBeefaroni]

But people go too far when they go from "there are challenges" to "polls are useless as predictors". If polls were useless you'd regularly see things like a result of Trump +8 when the polling average was Clinton +3, or vice versa. But electoral results, especially for highly polled things like the presidential race, are regularly within a standard polling error range.

I said they "aren't great predictors", not "useless." They indicate current sentiment among whoever is polled.

Gotcha, although I would say that polls that aren't great predictors of election outcomes are pretty useless, since that's their whole purpose. I would say at least that polls are the best predictors that we have.

I don't disagree but I would also say that a poll's usefulness isn't necessarily in its ability to predict election results. Their value can be in their ability to drive hundreds of millions (are we at $1B yet?) of dollars in ad spend and campaign resources to various media outlets and consultants.

[Isgrimnur]

More Trump sealed files released in Jack Smith Jan. 6 election case

A federal judge on Friday ordered the release of more than 1,800 pages of documents filed by special counsel Jack Smith in the criminal election interference case against former President Donald Trump.

The records were made public after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a request by Trump’s lawyers to keep them sealed until after the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Many of the individual files remain redacted, however.

Trump preemptively complained about the release of the records Friday morning, claiming it was “election interference” and calling Chutkan “evil.”
...
On Oct. 10, the judge allowed Smith to submit, with redactions, the reams of records backing up that filing. But that appendix was not initially made public on the case docket, in order to give Trump’s team time to consider its legal options.

The defense lawyers ultimately asked Chutkan to extend the pause on sharing that appendix until Nov. 14, nine days after the presidential election between Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.

As part of their request, the lawyers argued that releasing the records while early voting is underway in many states “creates a concerning appearance of election interference.”

Chutkan on Thursday rejected that argument, writing that it was actually Trump’s request for a delay that posed the bigger risk of impacting the election.

[LordMortis]

Maybe he should have let them be unsealed months before the election?

[Hyena]

At the risk of stating the obvious, this is more of an attempt for me to get my own thoughts on paper, so to speak. Consider this me trying to explain it to myself.

I think this has a double (possibly triple) effect. By giving the defense plenty of time to evaluate and look through them, it blocks any further attempts of the defense to delay/appeal the process any further. It also puts reminders back in the news cycle right before the election, but even that is the rump team's fault for delaying so long to begin with. And finally, it puts the rump team in their own heads and behind the 8-ball because now they have to scramble and spin anything that does come out. If they can't, they have GOT to know that they either aren't getting paid or they will be tossed under the bus by the petulant manchild. That one is a bit more of a stretch, but any little bit of extra pressure on them is a bonus as far as I'm concerend.

On a side note, I've just now really started paying attention to politics because for years I've just decided never to vote for the "lesser evil", and the first and only time I've ever voted was for Obama's first term because I thought he had the potential to enact real change. (I'm 50 for reference...) However, for this election I'm going to make a change and vote for Harris for multiple reasons. First, I want to be a part of history and vote in our first woman president. Secondly, I truly want to believe that their campaign of joy has shifted the landscape of politics in a way I've not seen in my life. Finally, I just really, REALLY hate the right's worship of the Ochre Ogre, and I want to be a part of his final defeat.

Please feel free to correct or adjust my perspective, I'm always willing to learn.

[Zarathud]

The only way to make change is to be change.

[Grifman]

If Trump loses the election, I bet within 6 months to a year he claims diminished intellectual capacity and is unable to assist in his defense.