Political Polls and Party Strategy 2021: Political Polling Somehow Still a Thing

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Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

Eeyo posted:

I think that's usually attributed to Virginia state representative Danica Roem, who campaigned on alleviating gridlock on a particular road in the Virginia suburbs. I'm curious if it works as well on the federal level, like would that tactic have worked as well if it was a house representative? Or would people just dismiss it since a house representative has probably no ability to actually get something local like that fixed.

Also the first openly trans person to be elected to a state legislature anywhere in the country, so she had the added hurdle of prejudice to overcome to get elected.

Re: house representatives getting local issues fixed at the federal level, you just need to bring back pork.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 18:23

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:32

Leon Sumbitches: Mar 27, 2010; Dr. Leon Adoso Sumbitches (prounounced soom-'beh-cheh) (born January 21, 1935) is heir to the legendary Adoso family oil fortune.

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Also the first openly trans person to be elected to a state legislature anywhere in the country, so she had the added hurdle of prejudice to overcome to get elected.

Re: house representatives getting local issues fixed at the federal level, you just need to bring back pork.

Reminds me that Leader Hoyer is talking like he'll bring back earmarks under the Biden administration, which could help peel off Republican votes.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 18:45

Bird in a Blender: Nov 17, 2005; It's amazing what they can do with computers these days.

Is there any evidence that the elimination of ear marks increased polarization in congress? Since it was an easy way to get cross-aisle votes before, I could see how legislators all of a sudden had way less incentive to work with the other party.

Bird in a Blender fucked around with this message at 21:47 on Dec 6, 2020

# ? Dec 6, 2020 19:10

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Bird in a Blender posted:

Is there any evidence that the elimination of war marks increased polarization in congress? Since it was an easy way to get cross-aisle votes before, I could see how legislators all of a sudden had way less incentive to work with the other party.

That's complicated. Polarization increased after they were eliminated, but it had already been decreasing for quite a while. So it's not clear the effect earmarks had, since other things were also going on.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 19:16

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

DarklyDreaming posted:

All he did was talk about himself and Hunter Biden

James Garfield posted:

Pretty much as expected, he said to vote for Republicans but the rally was all Trump.

And this https://twitter.com/bluestein/status/1335401538244595712

Belteshazzar posted:

He came out pretty strongly at the start praising Perdue and Loeffler and telling everyone to go vote for them as the last line of defense against Joe and Kamala taking away everything you love, but sort of weirdly juxtaposed with bragging that he won anyway. So our hopes aren't panning out so far. I didn't have the stomach to watch any further but judging by the above replies it sounds like he didn't stay on topic for long at least.

One of these is not like the others.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 20:39

Owlspiracy: Nov 4, 2020

Lead out in cuffs posted:

Also the first openly trans person to be elected to a state legislature anywhere in the country, so she had the added hurdle of prejudice to overcome to get elected.

Re: house representatives getting local issues fixed at the federal level, you just need to bring back pork.

Danica Roem is great, but she was elected to the Virginia House, not Congress, so we're talking a race that is generally hyper-focused on local issues - and she benefited both from demographic changes (NoVA going increasingly blue) and a larger blue wave - which was helped by the Virginia GOP increasingly nominating fringe candidates who focus exclusively on social issues.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 20:47

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009

Grouchio posted:

One of these is not like the others.

Eh, they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. If what people who watched more than the beginning of the speech took away from it was Trump praising himself and condemning Kemp, that's a good thing. Of course, that's a moderately-sized "if," and I'm sure plenty of people tuned in and out too.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 20:48

Belteshazzar: Oct 4, 2004; 我が生涯に
一片の悔い無し

Bashing Kemp is nice and all but he's not up for re-election until 2022, I'm more concerned about the Senate races at the moment.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 21:13

Majorian: Jul 1, 2009

Belteshazzar posted:

Bashing Kemp is nice and all but he's not up for re-election until 2022, I'm more concerned about the Senate races at the moment.

Sure, but Trump alienating state Republican elected officials probably doesn't help Perdue and Loeffler's chances. We'll see if it hurts their chances (I'm guessing less so than we'd like), though.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 21:48

paternity suitor: Aug 2, 2016

yronic heroism posted:

Yeah the issue is a hell of a lot of people like being chuds... it�s an identity more than a set of policy positions. So the market is there. And Republicans can�t win without that market now so it will always have institutional support.

It all makes sense when you look at Trump as a lifestyle brand rather than anything related to politics or policy.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 23:24

-Blackadder-: Jan 2, 2007; Game....Blouses.

yronic heroism posted:

Yeah the issue is a hell of a lot of people like being chuds... it�s an identity more than a set of policy positions. So the market is there. And Republicans can�t win without that market now so it will always have institutional support.

Seriously, it's this. If the way Obamacare played out in Kentucky doesn't prove this to be true, I don't know what else would. The Dems could probably slap "MAGAcare" on their next healthcare bill, pay Trump his usual branding fee, and the country would have M4A inside of a month.

# ? Dec 6, 2020 23:58

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

I should not be the slightest bit pent-up about the GA Runoffs after surviving Election Week. All this concern is making me think is that we're slipping.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 00:11

Handsome Ralph: Sep 3, 2004; Oh boy, posting!
That's where I'm a Viking!

NYT put out an article about the Biden Campaigns digital strategy, nothing ground breaking here but couple of key points,

-They realized early on, Twitter isn't real life and didn't bother getting bogged down there.

-They picked their battles and didn't bother rebutting every attack thrown their way. When the Hunter laptop story first started breaking, they learned from focus groups most people didn't give a poo poo and even if they did, it made little sense to them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/technology/joe-biden-internet-election.html

quote:

Last April, when Rob Flaherty, the digital director for Joe Biden�s presidential campaign, told me that the former vice president�s team planned to use feel-good videos and inspirational memes to beat President Trump in a �battle for the soul of the internet,� my first thought was: Good luck with that.

After all, we were talking about the internet, which doesn�t seem to reward anything uplifting or nuanced these days. In addition, Mr. Trump is a digital powerhouse, with an enormous and passionate following, a coalition of popular right-wing media outlets boosting his signal, and a flair for saying the kinds of outrageous, attention-grabbing things that are catnip to the algorithms of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. And after I wrote about Mr. Biden�s comparatively tiny internet presence last spring, I heard from legions of nervous Democratic strategists who worried that using �heal the nation� messaging against the MAGA meme army was like bringing a pinwheel to a prizefight.

But in the end, the bed-wetters were wrong. Mr. Biden won, and despite having many fewer followers and much less engagement on social media than Mr. Trump, his campaign raised record amounts of money and ultimately neutralized Mr. Trump�s vaunted �Death Star� � the name his erstwhile campaign manager, Brad Parscale, gave to the campaign�s digital operation.

Figuring out whether any particular online strategy decisively moved the needle for Mr. Biden is probably impossible. Offline factors, such as Mr. Trump�s mishandling of the pandemic and the economic devastation it has caused, undoubtedly played a major role. But since successful campaigns breed imitators, it�s worth looking under the hood of the Biden digital strategy to see what future campaigns might learn from it.

After the election, I spoke with Mr. Flaherty, along with more than a dozen other people who worked on the Biden digital team. They told me that while the internet alone didn�t get Mr. Biden elected, a few key decisions helped his chances.

1. Lean On Influencers and Validators
In the early days of his campaign, Mr. Biden�s team envisioned setting up its own digital media empire. It posted videos to his official YouTube channel, conducted virtual forums and even set up a podcast hosted by Mr. Biden, �Here�s the Deal.� But those efforts were marred by technical glitches and lukewarm receptions, and they never came close to rivaling the reach of Mr. Trump�s social media machine.

So the campaign pivoted to a different strategy, which involved expanding Mr. Biden�s reach by working with social media influencers and �validators,� people who were trusted by the kinds of voters the campaign hoped to reach.

�We were not the biggest megaphone compared to Trump, so we had to help arm any who were,� said Andrew Bleeker, the president of Bully Pulpit Interactive, a Democratic strategy firm that worked with the Biden campaign.

One validator at the top of the team�s list was Bren� Brown, a research professor and popular author and podcast host who speaks and writes about topics like courage and vulnerability. Dr. Brown has a devoted following among suburban women � a critical demographic for Mr. Biden�s campaign � and when Mr. Biden appeared as a guest on her podcast to talk about his own stories of grief and empathy, the campaign viewed it as a coup.

Also high on the list was the actor Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, whose following skews center-right and male. Mr. Johnson�s endorsement this fall of Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, created a so-called permission structure for his followers � including some who may have voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 � to support Mr. Biden, members of the campaign staff told me.

Celebrity endorsements aren�t a new campaign strategy. But Mr. Biden�s team also worked with lesser-known influencers, including YouTubers like Liza Koshy, and struck a partnership with a group of creators known as TikTok for Biden, which the campaign paid to promote pro-Biden content on the teen-dominated video app TikTok.

Perhaps the campaign�s most unlikely validator was Fox News. Headlines from the outlet that reflected well on Mr. Biden were relatively rare, but the campaign�s tests showed that they were more persuasive to on-the-fence voters than headlines from other outlets. So when they appeared � as they did in October when Fox News covered an endorsement that Mr. Biden received from more than 120 Republican former national security and military officials � the campaign paid to promote them on Facebook and other platforms.

�The headlines from the sources that were the most surprising were the ones that had the most impact,� said Rebecca Rinkevich, Mr. Biden�s digital rapid response director. �When people saw a Fox News headline endorsing Joe Biden, it made them stop scrolling and think.�

2. Tune Out Twitter, and Focus on �Facebook Moms�
A frequent criticism of Hillary Clinton�s 2016 campaign was that it was too focused on appealing to the elite, high-information crowd on Twitter, instead of paying attention to the much larger group of voters who get their news and information on Facebook. In 2020, Mr. Biden�s digital team was committed to avoiding a repeat.

�The whole Biden campaign ethos was �Twitter isn�t real life,�� Mr. Flaherty said. �There are risks of running a campaign that is too hyper-aware of your own ideological corner.�

As it focused on Facebook, the Biden campaign paid extra attention to �Facebook moms� � women who spend a lot of time sharing cute and uplifting content, and who the campaign believed could be persuaded to vote for Mr. Biden with positive messages about his character. Its target audience, Mr. Flaherty said, was women �who would go out and share a video of troops coming home, or who would follow The Dodo,� a website known for heartwarming animal videos.

One successful clip aimed at this group showed Mr. Biden giving his American flag lapel pin to a young boy at a campaign stop. Another video showed Mr. Biden, who has talked about overcoming a stutter in his youth, meeting Brayden Harrington, a 13-year-old boy with one. Both were viewed millions of times.

Voters also responded positively to videos in which Mr. Biden showed his command of foreign policy. In January, after a U.S. drone strike killed the Iranian general Qassim Suleimani, the campaign posted a three-minute Facebook video of Mr. Biden explaining the situation. Despite the snoozy title � �Joe Biden Discusses Donald Trump�s Recent Actions in the Middle East� � the video became one of the campaign�s earliest viral successes.

The campaign also experimented with lighter fare, putting virtual Biden for President lawn signs in Animal Crossing, the hit Nintendo game, and setting up a custom �Build Back Better� map in Fortnite, the popular battle royale game, in hopes of reaching younger voters. Some of these efforts were more gimmicky than others. But they all reflected the campaign�s decision to take a pro-Biden message to as many corners of the internet as possible.

�Our goal was really to meet people where they were,� said Christian Tom, the head of Mr. Biden�s digital partnerships team.

3. Build a Facebook Brain Trust
One of the campaign�s goals, Biden staff members told me, was promoting content that increased �social trust� � in other words, avoiding the kind of energizing, divisive fare that Mr. Trump has used to great effect.

But Mr. Biden�s digital strategy wasn�t all puppies and rainbows. The campaign also joined ranks with a number of popular left-wing Facebook pages, many of which are known for putting out aggressive anti-Trump content.

They called this group the �Rebel Alliance,� a jokey nod to Mr. Parscale�s �Death Star,� and it eventually grew to include the proprietors of pages like Occupy Democrats, Call to Activism, The Other 98 Percent and Being Liberal. On the messaging app Signal, the page owners formed a group text that became a kind of rapid-response brain trust for the campaign.

�I had the freedom to go for the jugular,� said Rafael Rivero, a co-founder of Occupy Democrats and Ridin� With Biden, another big pro-Biden Facebook page.

Mr. Rivero, who was paid by the Biden campaign as a consultant, told me that in addition to cross-posting its content on Occupy Democrats, he often offered the campaign advice based on what was performing well on his pages.

During the Republican National Convention, for example, Mr. Rivero noticed that a meme posted by Ridin� With Biden about Mr. Trump�s comments on Medicare and Social Security was going viral. He notified the rest of the Rebel Alliance group, and recommended that the campaign borrow the message for Mr. Biden�s official Twitter account.

�It was sort of a big, distributed message test,� Mr. Flaherty said of the Rebel Alliance. �If it was popping through Occupy or any of our other partners, we knew there was heat there.�

These left-wing pages gave the campaign a bigger Facebook audience than it could have reached on its own. But they also allowed Mr. Biden to keep most of his messaging positive, while still tapping into the anger and outrage many Democratic voters felt.

4. Promote �Small-Batch Creators,� Not Just Slick Commercials
In its internal tests, the Biden campaign found that traditional political ads � professionally produced, slick-looking 30-second spots � were far less effective than impromptu, behind-the-scenes footage and ads that featured regular voters talking directly into their smartphones or webcams about why they were voting for Mr. Biden.

�All our testing showed that higher production value was not better,� said Nathaniel Lubin, a Biden campaign consultant. �The things that were realer, more grainy and cheaper to produce were more credible.�

So the campaign commissioned a series of simple, lo-fi ads targeted at key groups of voters, like a series of self-recorded videos by Biden supporters who didn�t vote in 2016, talking about their regrets.

In addition to hiring traditional Democratic ad firms, the campaign also teamed up with what it called �small-batch creators� � lesser-known producers and digital creators, some of whom had little experience making political ads. Among the small-batch creators it hired: Scotty Wagner, a former art school professor from California, who produced a video about young people who supported Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary sharing things they didn�t know about Mr. Biden, and Jawanza Tucker, a TikTok creator, who made a video styled after a TikTok meme about why he was voting for Mr. Biden.

5. Fight Misinformation, but Pick Your Battles
One of the biggest obstacles the Biden campaign faced was a tsunami of misinformation, much of it amplified by the Trump campaign and its right-wing media allies. There were baseless rumors about Mr. Biden�s health, unfounded questions about the citizenship of Ms. Harris and spurious claims about the business dealings of Mr. Biden�s son Hunter.

The campaign formed an in-house effort to combat these rumors, known as the �Malarkey Factory.� But it picked its battles carefully, using data from voter testing to guide its responses.

When the Hunter Biden laptop story emerged, for example, some Democrats � worried that it would be 2020�s version of the Hillary Clinton email story � suggested that the Biden campaign should forcefully denounce it. But the campaign�s testing found that most voters in its key groups couldn�t follow the complexities of the allegations, and that it wasn�t changing their opinion of Mr. Biden.

�We had running surveys so we could see in real-time how people were responding,� said Caitlin Mitchell, a digital adviser for the Biden campaign. �The two big metrics were: Are you aware of this? And many people had heard of it. The secondary category was: Are you concerned by it? And the clear answer was no.�

The campaign still responded to the reports, and Mr. Biden defended his son on the debate stage. But it stopped short of mounting a full-throated counter-messaging campaign.

When it did respond to misinformation, the Biden team tried to address the root of the narrative. After right-wing influencers posted compilation videos of Mr. Biden stumbling over his words and appearing forgetful, the campaign surveyed voters to try to figure out whether the attempt to paint him as mentally unfit was resonating. It discovered that the real concern for many people wasn�t Mr. Biden�s age, or his health per se, but whether he was an easily manipulated tool of the radical left.

The Biden team identified the voters who were most likely to see those clips and ran a targeted digital ad campaign showing them videos of Mr. Biden speaking lucidly at debates and public events.

Mr. Flaherty, the campaign digital director, said the campaign�s focus on empathy had informed how it treated misinformation: not as a cynical Trump ploy that was swallowed by credulous dupes, but as something that required listening to voters to understand their concerns and worries before fighting back. Ultimately, he said, the campaign�s entire digital strategy � the Malarkey Factory, the TikTok creators and Facebook moms, the Fortnite signs and small-batch creators � was about trying to reach a kinder, gentler version of the internet that it still believed existed.

�It was about how do we throw the incentives of the internet for a bit of a loop?� he said. �We made a decision early that we were going to be authentically Joe Biden online, even when people were saying that was a trap.�

# ? Dec 7, 2020 00:43

DarklyDreaming: Apr 4, 2009; Fun scary

Handsome Ralph posted:

-They picked their battles and didn't bother rebutting every attack thrown their way. When the Hunter laptop story first started breaking, they learned from focus groups most people didn't give a poo poo and even if they did, it made little sense to them.

Now this right here fascinates me because I remember the scandal as "Some guy says he found something on Hunter's laptop" and the "something" changed every day. Good to know that was a universal experience

# ? Dec 7, 2020 01:45

Morrow: Oct 31, 2010

Handsome Ralph posted:

NYT put out an article about the Biden Campaigns digital strategy, nothing ground breaking here but couple of key points,

-They realized early on, Twitter isn't real life and didn't bother getting bogged down there.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/technology/joe-biden-internet-election.html

It's going to be so strange not having presidential Twitter feuds. I'm curious how people respond to just the different public image of the presidency.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 01:49

Oracle: Oct 9, 2004

Morrow posted:

It's going to be so strange not having presidential Twitter feuds. I'm curious how people respond to just the different public image of the presidency.

Relieved and happy they can go back to ignoring boring politics instead of waking up and opening their social media with that vague uneasy feeling of �what fresh hell has that idiot unleashed today.�

# ? Dec 7, 2020 05:53

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Oracle posted:

Relieved and happy they can go back to ignoring boring politics instead of waking up and opening their social media with that vague uneasy feeling of �what fresh hell has that idiot unleashed today.�

https://twitter.com/Lee__Drake/status/1332522334826229767?s=20

^ A screencap of this tweet is also currently viral on tumblr.

This is absolutely part of what the message was and what people voted for, and so far it is the tone being delivered.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 06:01

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Anyway, it's worth evaluating how much Biden's 2020 run changed from his 1988 run, which is well-detailed in the famous campaign book What It Takes.

Here is an excerpt:

quote:

There was (to be perfectly blunt, as Joe would say) a breathtaking element of balls. Joe Biden had balls. Lot of times, more balls than sense. This was from the jump�as a little kid. He was little, too, but you didn�t want to fight him�or dare him. There was nothing he wouldn�t do. Joe moved away from Scranton, Pennsylvania, in �53, when he was ten years old. But there are still guys in Scranton today who talk about the feats of Joey Biden. There was, for example, The Feat of the Culm Dump.

Culm is the stuff they pile up next to the mine after they�ve taken out the coal. Every mine shaft in Scranton had a mountain of culm, and in the fifties, when people weren�t so picky about the air, the stuff was always on fire. There was just enough coal carbon left in the soot to cause spontaneous combustion; pile would burn for twenty, thirty years. So what you had, for instance, at the Marvin Colliery, down the hill from Green Ridge, three or four blocks from Joey�s house, was a mountain on fire, lava-hot on the surface, except where it burned out underneath, and then there�d be a pocket of ash where you could fall right into the mountain, if you stepped on it ... but, of course, no one was going to step on it ... until Charlie Roth bet Biden five bucks that Joey couldn�t climb the culm dump.

Actually, Charlie bet two guys: Joey and his friend Tommy Bell. And they both started up the black mountain, but Tommy got to the first swath of fire, and the flames were a foot away from his feet, and he thought about the voids under ash above�it was maybe two hundred feet to the top, maybe twenty-five million tons of burning soot�and Tommy thinks: What the hell am I DOING? ... There is no way in hell, not a Chinaman�s chance in hell, that Charlie Roth is going to part with five dollars. Charlie did have a paper route. Maybe he had a couple of singles, but ... to this day, Joe Biden has never seen the five bucks. Of course, by the time he got to the top, the five bucks wasn�t the point anymore. It was more like ... immortality.

That was certainly the point in the horrifying incident of The Dump Truck. This was a feat of Joey Biden that is still talked about in hushed tones, with rueful shakes of the head. Regret weighs most heavily on Jimmy Kennedy, who is a parent now, and a judge, and an upstanding citizen in every regard ... but who was four or five years older than Joe, and the one who dared him to run under the wheels of the moving dump truck. Thing was, Kennedy never, never�NO CHANCE�thought the kid would do it ... but Joey did it. The dump truck was loaded to the gills and backing up�not too fast�and Joey was small, only eight or nine, and he ran under the truck from the side, between the front and back wheels ... then let the front axle pass over him. If it touched him, he was finished�marmalade�but Joey was quick. The front wheels missed him clean.

Joey was always quick, with a grace born of cocky self-possession. He didn�t�like some kids that age�doublethink himself, so his movements got jerky and he screwed up ... no. Once Joey set his mind, it was like he didn�t think at all�he just did. That�s why you didn�t want to fight him. Most guys who got into a fight, they�d square off, there�d be a minute or so of circling around, while they jockeyed for position. Joey didn�t do that. He decided to fight ... BANGO�he�d punch the guy in the face. Joe was kind of skinny, and he stuttered, and the kids called him Bye-Bye, for the way he sounded when he tried to say his name. But Joey would never back down, and he knew how to box, when no one else did. His father must have taught him�just the kind of thing Mr. Biden would know�manly art, and all that. So Joey got into fights, and BANG�it was over quick.

What he was, was tough from the neck up. He knew what he wanted to do and he did it. That�s why he was the center of the wheel with the guys in Green Ridge, even with the stutter�might have beaten another kid down ... not Joe. Even after he left, after Mr. Biden got the job selling cars in Wilmington and moved the family away, Charlie Roth would still (in moments of duress) tell guys that his friend Joey Biden would come back and beat them up, if they didn�t watch out. (When Joe did come back, Charlie always had a list.) But it wasn�t just fights: if you could run, Charlie, or Larry Orr, or someone, would say Joe Biden could run faster. If you had a dog, they�d say Joe�s dog, King, could murder your dog. Joe was the guy they turned to when the question arose: What are we gonna do? Joe always had an answer.

Sometimes, Saturdays, they�d go to the Roosevelt Theater, where the matinee, a double feature with a serial adventure, cost twelve cents�but they�d try to sneak in, anyway. When the villain was creeping up in evil ambush on the rocks behind Hopalong Cassidy, Joe was the one who�d stand in the darkened theater to yell: �LOOKOUT HOPPIE! HERE HE COMES!� But the best part was coming back from the Roosie: with the route Joe led them on, it always took hours. If they�d managed to sneak in and still had their money, it could take an hour just to get to the corner: stops at the Grace Farms Dairy for milkshakes, and Mueller�s Drug Store for candy, and the Big Chief Market, just to raise hell. Then they�d head off, reenacting the movie on the way home, through the alleys, over lawns; they never used the streets, never touched a sidewalk. They climbed all the fences, cut through the backyards ... if it was a western, they were the posse ... up on garage roofs, along the top of the wall at Marywood College ... after war movies, they were up against the Nazis ... climbed a tree here, to get over the fence, or used the latch on a gate, or the garbage cans, for a boost (knocked one over back there, too), down past Joey�s house into the woods, and back across Maloney Field, where sometimes they played Little League ball ... and today, staged the final shootout: the bad guy dead in the dust on Main Street ... High Noon ... but actually, it was almost dark when they got home.

Here is another game Joey devised: the sisters at Marywood College were building a new arts building, with a big theater, and at one end, behind the stage, where the sets and scenery would hoist up out of sight, the building would rise to a height of six stories. The builders were raising the steel beams with thick hemp ropes that held them in place until the riveters could secure the steel. Joe�s game was to climb the superstructure to the top, where you could edge out on a girder eighteen inches wide, maybe fifty or sixty feet in the air, and then you�d grab the rope and swing out over the stones and cinderblock, out over where the seating would be, screaming through the air, to the end of the rope�s reach, after which you�d come flying back toward the steel beams. Of course, Biden was the first to do it. He was ten. But he�d seen a Tarzan movie ... anyway, Joey had imagination.

e: this is not a shitpost or a funny, this is the content of the real book, here to provide some interesting contrast between how this person was characterized in 1988 and how he eventually ran a successful campaign.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 07:42

Lead out in cuffs: Sep 18, 2012; "That's right. We've evolved."

"I can see that. Cool mutations."

Handsome Ralph posted:

NYT put out an article about the Biden Campaigns digital strategy, nothing ground breaking here but couple of key points,

-They realized early on, Twitter isn't real life and didn't bother getting bogged down there.

-They picked their battles and didn't bother rebutting every attack thrown their way. When the Hunter laptop story first started breaking, they learned from focus groups most people didn't give a poo poo and even if they did, it made little sense to them.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/06/technology/joe-biden-internet-election.html

For all that this level of manipulation of information never ceases to give me the creeps, this is surprisingly wholesome. It's microtargeting of positive and accurate information at voters who are uninformed, versus the Trump campaign's microtargeted voter suppression through misinformation. Honestly it's quite encouraging for both humanity and democracy that this pattern works after the dumpster fire that was 2016.

It also feels a lot like it's mirroring AOC's general online presence. She blasts out positive messaging about activism, organising and working towards larger goals to make people's lives better (MFA, prison reform, COVID relief, GND, etc). And then she sprinkles in witty, hyper-informed owns of Republicans on Twitter. If that can be the pattern for campaigns moving forward, I'd be pretty happy.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 08:13

Taiko: Jul 13, 2006

Glad to see 'What It Takes' referenced. That is a remarkable book.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 16:58

Sarcastr0: May 29, 2013; WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE BILLIONAIRES ?!?!?

I go back and forth about the national D/R momentum. This doesn't really address the specifics, but does make me less optimistic about blue Texas for a while:

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1335926360523542534

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:16

DynamicSloth: Jul 30, 2006; "Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

Grouchio posted:

I should not be the slightest bit pent-up about the GA Runoffs after surviving Election Week. All this concern is making me think is that we're slipping.

That you think we're in a position to slip tells me you were already way too overconfident in Democratic turnout during a special election. The only way Warnock and Ossof win is by pulling an inside straight. Hoping that Republican turnout will be depressed by Trump shenanigans will absolutely not be enough if there isn't anything pushing Democratic voters to the polls.

The runoff needs to be about stimulus checks, everyday its only about Trump's grievance theatre is a a day lost.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:23

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Sarcastr0 posted:

I go back and forth about the national D/R momentum. This doesn't really address the specifics, but does make me less optimistic about blue Texas for a while:

https://twitter.com/DKThomp/status/1335926360523542534

Yeah this tracks with the nationwide trends of hispanic voters shifting away from Biden in large numbers. Florida should also be considered solid red for the time being.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:24

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Again, as this thread has gone over repeatedly, the only area where there is a proven "shift away" was Florida. The rest he either did equal or better with Hispanic voters (such as in Nevada), with the additional new turnout in the above areas (Eg south Texas) being for Trump. There's a difference between D->R and null->R.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:36

plogo: Jan 20, 2009

Taiko posted:

Glad to see 'What It Takes' referenced. That is a remarkable book.

The part with Joe Biden's fevered descriptions of his remodeling plan probably scared me more than anything with the crime bill or whatever. I agree it's a cool (essential?) book, but I wish Jessie Jackson was one of the featured pols. I also still don't understand what the appeal of Gary Hart was.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:42

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

Pick posted:

Again, as this thread has gone over repeatedly, the only area where there is a proven "shift away" was Florida. The rest he either did equal or better with Hispanic voters (such as in Nevada), with the additional new turnout in the above areas (Eg south Texas) being for Trump. There's a difference between D->R and null->R.

The functional difference is small; heavily hispanic areas mobilizing in favor of Trump is a cause for serious concern regardless of their prior voting record and lack thereof.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:42

socialsecurity: Aug 30, 2003

fool of sound posted:

Yeah this tracks with the nationwide trends of hispanic voters shifting away from Biden in large numbers. Florida should also be considered solid red for the time being.

I'm not sure I would call them large numbers, he went from 28% to 32% of the Hispanic vote. Eligible Hispanic vote participation went from 50 to 60% there's not solid numbers yet but most I've seen assume Trump encouraged a large amount of typically non-voting Hispanics to vote for him not quite stealing them from Biden.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:42

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

fool of sound posted:

The functional difference is small; heavily hispanic areas mobilizing in favor of Trump is a cause for serious concern regardless of their prior voting record and lack thereof.

Any heavily Hispanic county doing so is cause for concern, but my point is that he did not "lose" them in absolute count anywhere (e: by a few hundred people in a couple TX counties actually iirc), and in other states such as Arizona, he outperformed Clinton with Hispanics while increasing turnout. Not all Hispanic persons are the same, and the shifts were not uniform. Hyperfocusing on small-population border counties also misses the big picture that what cost Biden the state of Texas was the same rural counties Democrats normally lose in, and in fact if he had done dramatically better in these border counties than Clinton, it would not have flipped Texas either.

But on the national level, Biden outperformed Clinton with Hispanics by 1%. Distribution of this vote matters.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:47

evilweasel: Aug 24, 2002

fool of sound posted:

The functional difference is small; heavily hispanic areas mobilizing in favor of Trump is a cause for serious concern regardless of their prior voting record and lack thereof.

The functional difference in "who won in 2020" may be small, but the distinction is very meaningful for future elections because you can't fix the problem if you misunderstand what the problem was in the first place. Trump finding previous non-voting hispanic voters willing to vote for him and turning them out is a different problem from previously democratic-voting hispanic voters flipping to Trump in how you go about solving it.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:53

freeasinbeer: Mar 26, 2015; by Fluffdaddy

I�m also on the Texas and Florida are solid red for the foreseeable future.

Yea there are massive influx�s from liberal states, but the people moving are often time either retiring from or fleeing from their perceived lack of money. Folks who have the ability to move vast distances are likely already well off enough to afford those moves.

Also while they may like gays, or nice they move to Florida or Texas I can see them regressing to whatever the local hive mind is, as they aren�t particularly affected.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 17:59

SimonChris: Apr 24, 2008; The Baron's daughter is missing, and you are the man to find her. No problem. With your inexhaustible arsenal of hard-boiled similes, there is nothing you can't handle.; Grimey Drawer

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/georgia-senate-polls/

The polling averages are up at 538! Now we can all spend the next few months refreshing these graphs.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:05

How are u: May 19, 2005; by Azathoth

fool of sound posted:

Yeah this tracks with the nationwide trends of hispanic voters shifting away from Biden in large numbers. Florida should also be considered solid red for the time being.

You may genuinely be unaware of this, but Colorado is packed to the gills with Hispanic voters.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:05

Grouchio: Aug 31, 2014

DynamicSloth posted:

That you think we're in a position to slip tells me you were already way too overconfident in Democratic turnout during a special election. The only way Warnock and Ossof win is by pulling an inside straight. Hoping that Republican turnout will be depressed by Trump shenanigans will absolutely not be enough if there isn't anything pushing Democratic voters to the polls.

The runoff needs to be about stimulus checks, everyday its only about Trump's grievance theatre is a a day lost.

It's just that I saw everyone here being skeptical about our runoff chances as if Abrams and Obama's work wasn't gonna cut it. I was really excited about chuds wanting to boycott GA

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:11

fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

How are u posted:

You may genuinely be unaware of this, but Colorado is packed to the gills with Hispanic voters.

While this is true my understanding is the demographic shifts are predominantly driven by immigration from California, at least into the major cities listed in the chart.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:14

Gucci Loafers: May 20, 2006; Ask yourself, do you really want to talk to pair of really nice gaudy shoes?

Does anyone have historical Hispanic voter history data? What I want to know is what does this look like from the 1960 onwards? Is this just noise or the start of a trend?

Google is failing me.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:16

Pick: Jul 19, 2009; Nap Ghost

Gabriel S. posted:

Does anyone have historical Hispanic voter history data? What I want to know is what does this look like from the 1960 onwards? Is this just noise or the start of a trend?

Google is failing me.

Yes, and its recent peak for Republicans was actually 2004. I'll link it once I'm home from work and have it in my bookmarks.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:20

Elotana: Dec 12, 2003; and i'm putting it all on the goddamn expense account

Discussions about the RGV aren't helped at all by pettifogging over the term "lost." It might not be a mathematical certainty like in Miami-Dade but in practice a ton of Hispanic voters definitely switched from Clinton to Trump, it was not realistically 100% new R turnout.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 18:28

vyelkin: Jan 2, 2011

Gabriel S. posted:

Does anyone have historical Hispanic voter history data? What I want to know is what does this look like from the 1960 onwards? Is this just noise or the start of a trend?

Google is failing me.

2020 (13%): 65/32 Biden
2016 (11%): 65/29 Clinton
2012 (10%): 71/27 Obama
2008 (9%): 67/31 Obama
2004 (8%): 54/44 Kerry
2000 (7%): 62/35 Gore
1996 (5%): 72/21/6 Clinton
1992 (5%): 61/25/14 Clinton
1988 (3%): 70/30 Dukakis
1984 (3%): 66/34 Mondale
1980 (2%): 56/37 Carter
1976 (2%): 75/24 Carter

As Pick said, the closest a modern Republican has come to winning the Hispanic vote overall was Bush in 2004. There are many more Hispanic Trump voters this year because it's the highest turnout election since 1900 and Hispanic voters increased their voter share by 2% from last time, but the overall vote pattern doesn't look that different from historical norms. But, as has also been pointed out, Hispanic voters are not monolithic and so the distribution of who votes how and where is just as important as looking at national trends.

vyelkin fucked around with this message at 19:20 on Dec 7, 2020

# ? Dec 7, 2020 19:11

Name Change: Oct 9, 2005

vyelkin posted:

2020 (13%): 65/32 Biden
2016 (11%): 65/29 Clinton
2012 (10%): 71/27 Obama
2008 (9%): 67/31 Obama
2004 (8%): 54/44 Kerry
2000 (7%): 62/35 Gore
1996 (5%): 72/21/6 Clinton
1992 (5%): 61/25/14 Clinton
1988 (3%): 70/30 Dukakis
1984 (3%): 66/34 Mondale
1980 (2%): 56/37 Carter
1976 (2%): 75/24 Carter

As Pick said, the closest a modern Republican has come to winning the Hispanic vote overall was Bush in 2004. There are many more Hispanic Trump voters this year because it's the highest turnout election since 1908 and Hispanic voters increased their voter share by 2% from last time, but the overall vote pattern doesn't look that different from historical norms. But, as has also been pointed out, Hispanic voters are not monolithic and so the distribution of who votes how and where is just as important as looking at national trends.

This is good context when we have people constantly screaming that Democrats have abandoned Hispanics (as a take-home prize when they can't say "we told you so"). We know conservative Cubans love Trump, but I don't think Democrats are going to go back to "Castro must be destroyed" as a party plank.

# ? Dec 7, 2020 19:22

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# ? Jun 8, 2024 23:32

Raenir Salazar: Nov 5, 2010; College Slice

Elotana posted:

Discussions about the RGV aren't helped at all by pettifogging over the term "lost." It might not be a mathematical certainty like in Miami-Dade but in practice a ton of Hispanic voters definitely switched from Clinton to Trump, it was not realistically 100% new R turnout.

This doesn't seem to be backed up by the data though?

# ? Dec 7, 2020 19:22

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Political Polls and Party Strategy 2021: Political Polling Somehow Still a Thing

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