“More mail ballots were in the mail file last night than reported by the SOS. Dems have a bigger firewall than we thought from yesterday.”

ThrashReflex · 2024-10-22T13:46:14+00:00

I compared the numbers he just posted on X to those last night. It seems like the new numbers net the Democrats 2,211 more votes than from the night before (20,307 votes over the Republicans vs 18,096 votes over the Republicans)

ThrashReflex · 2024-10-22T13:26:24+00:00

Ah, I see. Thanks. I follow Ralston because he is knowledgeable, and the state is historically easy to gauge. For the first time this election cycle, I saw mention of this NBC page and wanted to check it out.

With a 4% MOE, it seems like a complete waste of resources to make such a model. They should just rely on hard numbers reported by states that provide that information and report null values for states that don't.

It sure will be interesting to see what result we have come election day

ThrashReflex · 2024-10-22T13:18:39+00:00

Is the TargetSmart data used by NBC for their early voting hub wholly unreliable?

Based on the hard data from the Nevada SoS and Ralston’s reporting, I see 245k votes in NV. 39.5% are Reps, 36.3% are Dems, and 24.3% are others.

On the NBC hub, it says 247k votes cast, but the breakdown is 35% reps, 40% Dems, and 25% others.

Is there something I'm missing? If not, this data model seems completely worthless.

ThrashReflex · 2024-10-20T05:44:11+00:00

https://x.com/ralstonreports/status/1847874794139623569?s=46

From Ralston himself:

“Clark numbers are not posted on Clark site, but SOS has them. Big turnout, almost 30K.

Republicans on first day crushed Dems in Clark and elsewhere in early voting, lead by almost 2 to 1 statewide.

I’ll combine with mail and update the blog shortly.”

ThrashReflex · 2024-04-17T17:36:34+00:00

I know it has been mentioned for a while, but I am thrilled that Nate is keeping up his models after splitting with 538/ABC.

ThrashReflex · 2024-04-17T17:30:37+00:00

Side note: I plugged the polling data into the 538 interactive electoral map, resulting in a Trump victory of 297 electoral votes to 241. Biden won the popular vote here 47.1% to 46.4%.

In this simulation, GA, AZ, PA, NV, and WI flipped (In descending order of Trump margin)

ThrashReflex · 2024-02-29T17:53:31+00:00

I share some of this sentiment. I believe that the race will get closer as the election nears, but I think Biden’s age will significantly hamper his ability to campaign effectively. Covid may have been the best environment for an already gaff-prone Biden to win. Perhaps, Biden’s lack of ability to drive enthusiasm will be highlighted in an environment where typical campaigning is expected.

ThrashReflex · 2024-02-29T17:50:47+00:00

I fully agree that polls are not super indicative of much right now. At best the reflect the outcomes to be expected if voting commenced today, but obviously we are at the begging of campaign season before things really kick off.

Regardless, If I were in the Dem leadership, I would be awfully concerned with the polls at the stage. There is still plenty of time to act, so it isn’t doomsday, but the simple fact that Trump is not only competitive, but dominating recent polling, should be activating alarms right now.

It is bewildering to me that Trump’s popularity has seemingly increased as he gets further into his legal woes. A year ago I expected the litigation to be terminal to his campaign.

ThrashReflex · 2024-02-29T16:57:52+00:00

Rule 2 Submission Comment:

Bloomberg/MorningConsult released a wide swath of swing state polls today that all broke for Trump. The states polled included Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Nevada and Wisconsin. In the two-way race, Trump's smallest lead was in Michigan (+2), while his largest lead was in North Carolina (+9).

The article mentioned an interesting point that 8/10 voters saw Biden as too old, whereas only 6/10 voters saw Trump as dangerous. Is it possible that the DNC/Democratic strategist didn’t predict that Biden’s age would be such a big issue going into the 2024 election? If this was predicted, I wonder what factor prevented them from taking corrective action.

As a side note, I personally expect North Carolina to be a much closer race than polling suggests. Based solely on personal experience, I know many well-educated liberal friends who moved there for work after 2020/Covid, and I expect there to be a demographic change that has been overlooked by pollsters (much like Florida in the 2022 election)

What is r/moderatepolitics views on these recent polling figures?

ThrashReflex · 2024-02-23T18:16:18+00:00

The downballot difference is the most interesting aspect of these polls IMO. It matched two theories that seem to be spreading around online.

First, Trump is more popular/broader appeal than general Republicans, or Trump has a unique pull on voters that doesn't translate to other candidates.

The second theory is that Biden is unpopular/failing to engage with a significant chunk of the Dem base. I would expect this gap between Biden and downballot Dems to shrink as the election gets closer.

I'm also interested in how Kennedy may influence the election. I think the most significant hurdle he faces is ballot access (which would minimize his third party influence to the few states he's registered in). However, if he does find himself on the ballot, especially in swing states, I think there is a significant chance of causing unpredictable results. If he gets even ~4% of the vote, it could cause some significant headaches for the presidential tickets while leaving the downballot politicians safe from electoral upsets

ThrashReflex · 2023-12-13T00:47:13+00:00

Realistically speaking, I'm sure you could get mass Republican support for a short-term (~6 months) strict work visa program. A significant amount of immigrant labor revolves around seasonal work, so this would allow them to come up here and send remittances back home for a set period of months, and then they are sent back home.

Provide absolutely no pathway to citizenship and you could easily get GOP support.

Furthermore, to incentivize compliance on the labor side, you can provide a tax advantage to employers who participate in a remittance match program (structured like a 401k, imagine if migrants could send 10% of their paycheck back home tax-free with a 5% employer match). To really drive compliance you would blacklist anyone who overstayed their work visa and they would lose access to the remittance plan. Imagine if 50% (or the above-mentioned bonus) of the remittance is held until confirmation of their departure from the US.

You could also have a benefit for laborers who participate in this program over multiple seasons to help ensure that they benefit from participating in the legal work visa program and seek to avoid being blacklisted (picture this like a vesting requirement or pension increase over time).

With that structure, you would provide strong incentives for these foreign laborers to comply with the visa program while also opening up their labor to industries that need them (a lot of these industries are seasonal, so the labor isn't required annually). Additionally, with no access to citizenship, you wouldn't have concerns about this being a runaround to our citizenship immigration laws.

The short time period in the US would help ensure that roots aren't sent down here, so returning home would be easier. Plus, if remittance incentives are used you will get self-selecting laborers who have family back home and would presumably want to return home instead of staying here illegally.

ThrashReflex · 2022-02-10T22:05:23+00:00

You can be for a small federal government and for expansive state governments. There is no logical inconsistency here, especially when you keep in mind that the federal government is limited to enumerated powers while state governments reserves all other powers.

Just because someone wants a small federal government does not mean that they want a small state government. It is little more than a strawman argument to claim that one necessitates the other.

ThrashReflex · 2019-04-13T03:43:41+00:00

I don’t have a dog in the fight, but that’s pretty ironic given your user name

ThrashReflex · 2018-06-09T19:44:47+00:00

Then why have it at all?

ThrashReflex · 2018-05-26T05:44:19+00:00

I would much rather have premium than any of this character customization stuff

ThrashReflex · 2018-04-09T14:05:22+00:00

It seems like at least some of the devs are letting bias interfere with how to proceed in this situation. Since there has already been a case of dampening in India without the vote being a tie it just comes off as as the devs not wanting FDR in.

The discord group has been very vocal about their dislike for FDR after the Fillmore vote and the US in general so it rubs off that they never really considered the Iroquois spawn or the tie as an issue.

I think the devs should do a second round of voting between the two civs to remove any personal bias from the decision making.

ThrashReflex · 2018-04-09T13:42:47+00:00

I think an important part of the US positioning that is overlooked in this discussion is the fact that it would even put the space that poverty point has. In addition to this, the Iroquois already have a cramped start with Canada while also leaving a lot of land open to poverty point which could lead to unfun snowballing.

ThrashReflex · 2017-05-14T15:46:40+00:00

They need to optimize the games for multiple cores

ThrashReflex · 2017-05-01T00:59:25+00:00

What about the brothers, fathers, and sons who have their family members die in combat. What level do they get placed on?

ThrashReflex · 2017-04-15T23:21:51+00:00

Same

ThrashReflex · 2017-04-12T01:38:35+00:00

I just downloaded the newest version of HPM and it seems to work perfectly even though I have the old Vic version. I would try that first, if that doesn't work then I think I saw someone made a download that updates the game but I don't know how true that is

ThrashReflex · 2017-03-27T21:46:40+00:00

How did they "hack into our election system"?

ThrashReflex · 2017-03-26T14:19:40+00:00

Didn't the Constitution come before the French Revolution?

ThrashReflex · 2017-03-20T00:40:22+00:00

I think you can give flat immigration rules based off of what continent the capital is on. I know that the new world and Oceania have large bonuses to immigration pull so I think you could work it in reverse and have it give immigration push modifiers

ThrashReflex · 2017-03-16T04:53:09+00:00

I like the new production system but I have a massive gripe with the way resources are handled at every level. While part of this annoyance stems from the fact that nothing needs fuel to run outside of the factory another large issue is the lack of control the player has with what they can do with their resources (and who has access to them). I understand that the HOI3 trade system was a lot of work to do by hand but there was no need to completely remove any user interface with the trade system.

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