A reader friend by the name of Sean Kelly, a scientist, seeing me flail about trying to deal with polling, offered this explanation and agreed to let me share it with you in case you are feeling the same way. It cleared a few things up for me: So. Political polling. It is basically experts making data informed guesses, and the reported margins of error are pretty much meaningless in context. Experts making informed guesses are a useful thing, and the best realistic option, but poll results are not scientifically rigorous things. Let me explain some of that context. The reality of political polling usually involves people that answer their phone when the call is from an unknown number. That skews the sample to older people, as many people avoid scammers and random sales people by not answering calls by unknown numbers. Older people grew up in a society where avoiding callers was impolite, so are more likely to pick up – not certain, but more likely. Alternatively, a small army of people can buttonhole people on the street, but that skews the poll to shoppers or business people that are out on the street.
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Some of it, at least That was last night. This is today: Special counsel Jack Smith has outlined new details of former President Donald Trump and his allies’ sweeping and “increasingly desperate” efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, in a blockbuster court filing Wednesday aimed at defending Smith’s prosecution of Trump following the Supreme Court’s July immunity ruling. Trump intentionally lied to the public, state election officials, and his own vice president in an effort to cling to power after losing the election, while privately describing some of the claims of election fraud as “crazy,” prosecutors alleged in the 165-page filing. “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” the filing said.
The elite media doesn’t like this sort of thing but it’s smart. Kamala Harris is doing outreach to Black males through alternative media, which is where many of them, like many Americans generally, get their news. I thought this was particularly well done: These influencers have a million subscribers on YouTube and more on other platforms. I had never watched their show but Harris had me at hello so there’s not much reason to target me. This is group of voters she needs and she’s going where they are. Now this feed has 4.1 million followers on Instagram, a million on Facebook and 9.2 million on twitter. Think it makes sense to do this? I do: I keep hearing that Walz and Harris aren’t doing enough campaigning. I think maybe the media just isn’t seeing it. And anyway, Harris did a barn burner of a rally in Vegas yesterday: They’re firing on all cylinders. Let’s hope it works.
A new ruling from Judge McBurney in Georgia overturning the abortion ban and allowing the procedure to continue is amazing. “While the State’s interest in protecting “unborn” life is compelling, until that life can be sustained by the State — and not solely by the woman compelled by the Act to do the State’s work — the balance of rights favors the woman.” “Women are not some piece of collectively owned community property the disposition of which is decided by majority vote. Forcing a woman to carry an unwanted, not-yet-viable fetus to term violates her constitutional rights to liberty and privacy, even taking into consideration whatever bundle of rights the not-yet-viable fetus may have.” “For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability.
The reflexive rationalization of the Trump voter: I don’t like everything he says but I just like his policies. What policies you say? They rarely have a specific answer. Here an example of one of his allegedly great policies they love so much: That’s Trump being asked a very specific question about a very specific policy and he answered with a long whine about how he was named Michigan Man of the Year (a lie) and how the fake news unfairly denied it. That’s Trump’s policy. Whining about being treated badly, complaining about immigrants and foreigners and bragging about how well he gets along with dictators. That’s pretty much it. What’s not to love?
What an amazing life.
Trump’s henchmen aren’t very good at this: Speaking with Fox Business on Monday, Republican Representative Greg Murphy claimed that attacks by the Democrats on the MAGA leader’s health care plans were futile, almost entirely because Trump and his vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, don’t actually have a “full, fleshed-out plan.” “The Harris campaign has just released this new report, it came out this morning, they’re calling it ‘The Trump-Vance Concept of Healthcare: A plan to rip away coverage from people with preexisting conditions and raise costs for millions,’” said guest host Cheryl Casone. “We’re now starting to have that conversation about health care, which is still a main issue for voters across this country. What do you make of the campaign doing this?” “Well, Kamala and her crew, it’s absolute nonsense. There’s not a full, fleshed-out plan by the president or J.D. Vance, and for them to come out with a book of fiction, they’re just a bunch of damn liars,” Murphy retorted. Lol. Right. They don’t have a plan.
Dan Rather also has a few words for his former employers at CBS: According to CBS News’ editorial standards, moderators Norah O’Donnell, anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” and Margaret Brennan, host of “Face the Nation,” are there to ask questions and enforce the rules. They are not fact-checkers. CBS says it is up to the candidates to fact-check, though “the moderators will facilitate those opportunities” during rebuttal time. While both fact-checking (ABC during the Harris-Trump debate) and not fact-checking (CNN during the Biden-Trump debate) have drawn criticism this year, for the most part, the criticism was unsurprisingly partisan. CBS is not abdicating completely. In a live blog and on social media, CBS News’ misinformation unit will provide real-time fact-checking. So, the audience is expected to watch the debate and simultaneously monitor a blog? Simply put, this “rule,” imposed by CBS, incentivizes lying. It invites the participants to bend the truth, since their opponent then has to spend his rebuttal time calling out the lie, rather than giving an opposing view.
As you wait for the debate tonight, watch this if you missed it: Rachel Maddow shows JD Vance explaining his lack of faith that democracy can deliver on his conservative ideals, and shows the influences behind Vance’s preference that the United States government be gutted and instead run by a dictator. This guy is so deeply creepy that I honestly don’t think I can live in a country led by him.
Tom Nichols has a typically tart piece in the Atlantic today about the state of the election. This part of it is one of the most depressing aspects of this whole thing. Harris will win the popular vote by millions of votes, you can bet money on that, but once again the electoral college could favor Trump. What kind of a democracy is this? I think it’s important to ask why this election, despite everything we now know, could tip to Trump. Perhaps the most surprising but disconcerting reality is that the election, as a national matter, isn’t really that close. If the United States took a poll and used that to select a president, Trump would lose by millions of votes—just as he would have lost in 2016. Federalism is a wonderful system of government but a lousy way of electing national leaders: The Electoral College system (which I long defended as a way to balance the interests of 50 very different states) is now lopsidedly tilted in favor of real estate over people.