Political Betting Thread

longway said:
I dont know who benefits from mail in voting more. Arguably, trump benefits as mail in voting would help more older voters vote, which was until recently skewed in trumps favour. So why are democrats pushing for it so forcefully? It's asking for trouble on many fronts. All i can think is they think they can cheat.
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Actually reading some more articles about it, I might be wrong here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/vote-by-mail-coronavirus.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...-voting-by-mail-gives-one-party-an-advantage/

Conventional wisdom says increased turnout = more votes for dems. There's just naturally more democrats in the country. Even some solid red states like Kentucky are majority dem by voter registration. So compulsory voting would likely ensure a big dem win. But mail-ins are a bit more complicated than that and doesn't necessarily increase voter participation, and there are so many factors going into this here, especially with the unprecedented nature of our current situation.

Maybe the party sees specific reasons to believe it will give them a boost. I just don't think cheating would be likely or even necessary, considering they have a pretty solid lead right now in the polling. One issue may be that Trump naturally has a more enthusiastic base, and may also have more people willing to take risks during covid. So pushing for a more in-person election and making mail-ins more difficult could leave a lot of dems staying home while republicans don't care and go to the polls.
 
rev0lver said:
Actually reading some more articles about it, I might be wrong here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/us/vote-by-mail-coronavirus.html
https://fivethirtyeight.com/feature...-voting-by-mail-gives-one-party-an-advantage/

Conventional wisdom says increased turnout = more votes for dems. There's just naturally more democrats in the country. Even some solid red states like Kentucky are majority dem by voter registration. So compulsory voting would likely ensure a big dem win. But mail-ins are a bit more complicated than that and doesn't necessarily increase voter participation, and there are so many factors going into this here, especially with the unprecedented nature of our current situation.

Maybe the party sees specific reasons to believe it will give them a boost. I just don't think cheating would be likely or even necessary, considering they have a pretty solid lead right now in the polling. One issue may be that Trump naturally has a more enthusiastic base, and may also have more people willing to take risks during covid. So pushing for a more in-person election and making mail-ins more difficult could leave a lot of dems staying home while republicans don't care and go to the polls.
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The advantages of mail-in voting to the dnc are just not that clear, which is why I am trying to make sense of their universal and sudden insistence to switch to it. There must be a clear advantage, but there doesn't seem to be any, unless the increased possibility of cheating is factored in. Its the only logical reason i can think of.

And it doesnt matter who wins, the losing side will be convinced of shady goings on from the switch and it will poison politics even beyond their currently insane levels of toxicity.
 
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that interview was so bizarre. very bad look for trump.
 
Roads55 said:
that interview was so bizarre. very bad look for trump.
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I saw the bit highlighted about covid deaths. Overall, I agree it was a negative for him, but not bizarre; it's not going to move the needle anyway imo.

His point about measuring deaths as a portion of tests is fair. Meaningful cross country comparisons are difficult as there are so many variables, esp. If you choose one of the Asian countries.

But if you are doing a lot of testing and you are seeing declining deaths as a portion of the tested population then you are headed in right direction.

Whether it's now or later, unless there is a vaccine, covid will infect 15-25%, at which point herd immunity seems to be achieved.
 
longway said:
I saw the bit highlighted about covid deaths. Overall, I agree it was a negative for him, but not bizarre; it's not going to move the needle anyway imo.

His point about measuring deaths as a portion of tests is fair. Meaningful cross country comparisons are difficult as there are so many variables, esp. If you choose one of the Asian countries.

But if you are doing a lot of testing and you are seeing declining deaths as a portion of the tested population then you are headed in right direction.

Whether it's now or later, unless there is a vaccine, covid will infect 15-25%, at which point herd immunity seems to be achieved.
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I'm baffled as to why Trump didn't simply roll out Hydroxychloroquine + Zinc to the masses & nip the Covid nonsense in the bud. Most of these deaths could have been prevented. The economy never needed to be shutdown. Trump is going to win the election & I fully support him but his handling of the "pandemic" was disappointing to say the least. I could go on about Dr. Fauci being a criminal & talk about his corruption going back to the HIV epidemic but I'll save that for another day.
 
longway said:
I saw the bit highlighted about covid deaths. Overall, I agree it was a negative for him, but not bizarre; it's not going to move the needle anyway imo.

His point about measuring deaths as a portion of tests is fair. Meaningful cross country comparisons are difficult as there are so many variables, esp. If you choose one of the Asian countries.

But if you are doing a lot of testing and you are seeing declining deaths as a portion of the tested population then you are headed in right direction.

Whether it's now or later, unless there is a vaccine, covid will infect 15-25%, at which point herd immunity seems to be achieved.
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idk it's been viewed a pretty staggering amount of times already, it could turn off some voters. with early voting happening atm big fuck ups like this are already swinging voters, whether or not they are key voters or a meaningful number is another question, also it shows how bad trump fares when asked easy questions with basic follow up questions. not sure he's the debate god many are presuming.
I'm not sure why deaths as a portion of tests is really that relevant though, surely deaths per population is a much more meaningful figure. and nationwide the deaths are not decreasing. they are in fact still in a small upswing, with big increases in florida/texas which is not good considering the polls in both and both being essential for trump to win. the death toll in theory could hit 200k in the US before election day, that is a pretty damning number for trump if it gets there imo.
 
Roads55 said:
idk it's been viewed a pretty staggering amount of times already, it could turn off some voters. with early voting happening atm big fuck ups like this are already swinging voters, whether or not they are key voters or a meaningful number is another question, also it shows how bad trump fares when asked easy questions with basic follow up questions. not sure he's the debate god many are presuming.
I'm not sure why deaths as a portion of tests is really that relevant though, surely deaths per population is a much more meaningful figure. and nationwide the deaths are not decreasing. they are in fact still in a small upswing, with big increases in florida/texas which is not good considering the polls in both and both being essential for trump to win. the death toll in theory could hit 200k in the US before election day, that is a pretty damning number for trump if it gets there imo.
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If you take a test its presumably bc there is reason to do so. So, if deaths as a percentage of tests are declining, that means that treatment protocols are getting better, and/or virus becoming milder. That's a good thing.

Deaths per million are only really comparable at the end point when herd immunity is reached. You can't know at which phase of the pandemic each country is in. To me, USA is at the late phase when it won't be long b4 herd immunity, and USA can forget about it and get back to getting the economy on track, if that is actually possible at this point.

I agree he handled it badly, but you can't communicate this kind nuance to a mass audience imo.

He is shrewder than he is given credit for. For example, recently he called for a cut from the sale of tik tok. The usual suspects run around becoming hysterical about it, not realising that he got them to argue against taxation. Its just fun to see.
 
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Is this guy really going be POTUS? C'mon man. God help us all if he does.



On the basis of this clip alone I bought 5u on Trump at +178, even though I promised myself I would wait for power struggle to end on his VP pick. I think that weird politico thing was a visible sign of a titanic power struggle taking place behind the scenes, which explains the delay.

Also starting to see Biden softening at polls. I hope this means he hit his peak.

I hope my calls are finally back on track, been misfiring badly for a while now.
 
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longway said:
To me, USA is at the late phase when it won't be long b4 herd immunity, and USA can forget about it and get back to getting the economy on track, if that is actually possible at this point.
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1.4 pct of the United States has tested positive for Coronavirus and you're talking about herd immunity. Think about that.
 
TrueAscension said:
1.4 pct of the United States has tested positive for Coronavirus and you're talking about herd immunity. Think about that.
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You only test positive for the duration you have it, and 80% dont even show symptoms. You just have to look at the graphs and you can already see daily new caes levelling off or declining, even while testing gets ramped up.
 
longway said:
You only test positive for the duration you have it, and 80% dont even show symptoms. You just have to look at the graphs and you can already see daily new caes levelling off or declining, even while testing gets ramped up.
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So which is it? The cases are falling off or we will develop herd immunity? Your arguments cancel each other out.
 
longway said:
If you take a test its presumably bc there is reason to do so. So, if deaths as a percentage of tests are declining, that means that treatment protocols are getting better, and/or virus becoming milder. That's a good thing.

Deaths per million are only really comparable at the end point when herd immunity is reached. You can't know at which phase of the pandemic each country is in. To me, USA is at the late phase when it won't be long b4 herd immunity, and USA can forget about it and get back to getting the economy on track, if that is actually possible at this point.

I agree he handled it badly, but you can't communicate this kind nuance to a mass audience imo.

He is shrewder than he is given credit for. For example, recently he called for a cut from the sale of tik tok. The usual suspects run around becoming hysterical about it, not realising that he got them to argue against taxation. Its just fun to see.
Click to expand...

Citing deaths as a percentage of tests is just a way to find a positive statistic to skew the narrative. It has way more variables than you're giving credit for and probably means less than you think. All it tells us here is that our hospitals are probably doing a good enough job where they can, which is certainly a good thing, but doesn't tell us much about the outlook of the virus in our country moving forward.

At the end of the day, we're still too high in deaths per million and are only recently catching up in tests per million. And we're clearly too high in cases per million, even while being behind some major countries in our testing rate. We aren't close to herd immunity and we're not even sure yet about the reinfection potential. These things could be easily communicated to a mass audience, Trump has just only been interested in picking&choosing what he thinks will make him look good, and most of they country seems to be catching on to that.

I don't know how much this specific interview will hurt him, but there's a reason he spent so long shying away from non-Fox News interviews. He looks like an idiot any time he's challenged on anything, much worse than Joe Biden and I don't think highly of Biden at all. And we're likely to get more of that as the campaign season heats up. We saw this in 2016 too, but Trump's mental acuity seems to have only gotten worse from then to now.

I'd bet most hardcore Trump supporters won't jump off the boat from these interviews, they seem to always find justifications and excuses and will just support him no matter what. The problem is Trump is already behind, and these kinds of events won't help him catch up.
 
I genuinely think if Trump did a halfway decent job at showing leadership during this pandemic, he could've won this election in a landslide. Should've been handed to him on a plate. Approval ratings almost always shoot up during a crisis, which is what's really ironic about some on the far right acting like the pandemic is fake and was pushed to hurt Trump's re-election. GWB's approval shot up by more than 30% after 9/11, and helped him maintain that positive approval for another 2+ years. Governors like Cuomo saw their approval shoot up 30% during this pandemic, and is still far ahead of where he started this year. Virtually any competent politician could've just done an acceptable job and send a message that we need their continued leadership to get us out of this crisis. But nope.

Trump shot up a few % and then steadily declined toward two-year lows because he fumbled it. Just like he fumbled the Puerto Rican hurricane response, but on a much wider scale. He's ridden the coattails of positive trends for so long, when it came to a real national crisis he blew it, then continued to blow another one with the BLM protests. That sends a very bad message on what could happen during another crisis, and voters realize that. Last year I thought Trump was going to lose anyway, but this whole situation is just the nail in the coffin.
 
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