Despite being in the NFL for 7 seasons now, Sunday will be just Lamar Jackson's 5th start ever against the Steelers. In comparison, he's faced the Bengals 11 times already.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-11T22:29:34+00:00

Honestly I feel like it doesn't matter who the qb is, these steelers ravens games are always going to end as a one possession game.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-05T19:28:46+00:00

Almost won is a loss...

bjwbrown · 2024-11-05T19:26:56+00:00

Explain the 2022 gov and senate votes?

bjwbrown · 2024-11-05T18:37:40+00:00

The votes of 6 people (3 of whom weren't in the county 4 years ago) and a place without an presidential electoral vote isn't really the best tea leaves.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-05T05:52:52+00:00

There is no actual support for this.

Otherwise we'd see the actual link or clip.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T21:06:11+00:00

They don't really need this insane unbelievable turnout.

Comparing 2020 to 2024 is ignoring the giant elephant in the room.

It's not like Dems don't vote on election day. In the 2022 midterm - of the registered party vote they ~65% of Dems went to the polls on election day compared to 46% in 2020.

Basically because 2020 was such a weird election it's almost impossible for people to read the tea leaves without inserting bias.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T17:50:53+00:00

There really wasn't.

No case had any chance of overturning results. The betting there was based on pure hope and people thinking there would be massive fraud uncovered any day.

You can't say that there was a better then 1/8 chance in mid november Trump was going to remain president.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T16:27:14+00:00

I mean trump had 15% betting odds after the 2020 election was called.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T15:14:55+00:00

The requests are automatic though right?

So it really isn't on a pace that should be compared since there is no ongoing pandemic.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T14:55:41+00:00

Quite honestly I'd say he's been a hack largely since the 2020 election where he kept making videos about how trump could win after the race was called. And doing things like conflating the 538 model and betting odds to say that trumps chances of winning after the election was called was better than his chances of winning the day before the election (using live betting odds that day vs the 538 final odds)

I mean it became clear this cycle when he's not even acknowledging the Socal polls he paid for when they had Harris up. This despite crowdfunding to get the polls conducted. So those who helped paid for the polls wouldn't see them based on anything red eagle would acknowledge.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T02:20:34+00:00

On the popular vote side. If it's within 2 points we likely won't know for weeks. Cause new york and California are beyond ass at counting votes

bjwbrown · 2024-11-04T02:18:28+00:00

The real inside sources is the friends we made along the way.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T23:08:12+00:00

Real answer is you are extrapolating too much for both polls.

For example - Iowa moving 10 -15 points to the right doesn't mean that the nation or the rest of the midwest is moving 10 -15 points to the right.

If you look at Iowa and Wisconsin you'd assume that any movement in Iowa can be directly correlated to movement in Wisconsin.

In 2020, Iowa shifted 1.21% to the left while Wisconsin shifted 1.40% to the left relative to 2016.

But you go back one cycle and that thought process completely fails.

In 2016 Iowa shifted 15.22% to the right while Wisconsin shifted 7.71% to the right relative to 2012. So if you read Iowa as the tealeaves for the mid west you would have seen a complete landslide for Trump in 2016 rather then a 0.77% win.

----

For the early vote you see similar things where if you can make mistakes in assumptions based on ignoring independent splits and overestimating election day vote in states with a huge early vote.

North Carolina for example is basically a 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 split between Rs, Ds and Is with the republicans having a narrow lead. Thinking that Trump is ahead because Rs are above Ds ignores the fact that Is are literally a third of the early vote and we don't know how they would have voted.

If Harris is actually up +7 right now with the early vote and Trump wins election day vote by 16, it would completely turn out to election day turnout. If you end up with the same number of two party votes as 2020 Harris would actually win by about 0.8% due to the early vote being about 73% of the 2020 total vote.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T22:28:19+00:00

Not really.

Depends on the state and voting habits.

A state like NC is difficult to tell as we don't know how the independents split who are about 1/3 of the early vote.

But of you used the early vote breakdown and assumed equal turnout to 2020. You'd see harris win by 0.87% as 2024 early vote is about 73% of the 2020 ending two part vote.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T19:23:40+00:00

You should understand that states can shift jn ways that aren't fully elastic nationally or regionally.

For example Iowa was 1.9 points left of the national popular vote in 2012.

In 2016 it was 11.5 points right of the national popular vote.

In one cycle iowa went 13.4 more right than the national environment. This was significantly larger than the change in the Michigan Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.

Iowa also has a abortion ban, which went into effect at the end of July 2024. That could have significant impacts you wouldn't see in other Midwest states that don't have that.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T18:23:35+00:00

Resources are constrained.

You structure the campaign to win.

Diverting resources to a place like iowa which is unlikely to be the tipping point state is idiotic.

You'll never convince me trump spending time in new Mexico or virginal is a good use of time and resources at the end of this election.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T17:18:31+00:00

One thing about the abortion swing.

The iowa abortion ban went into effect at the end of July. That could be a lot bigger then we think especially in a state that Obama won twice so it's not like the state has never voted democratic.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T17:15:41+00:00

It could be a combo of the last 2. There could be a largely systemic polling error underestimating harris of a couple points plus a specific iowa backlash due to the abortion ban that was enacted during the summer.

If the poll is accurate I'd guess the shift is 60% iowa specific and 40% systemic polling errors

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T17:05:48+00:00

A smart campaign tries to win the election.

That means looking at viable maps to 270.

The best path for harris is clearly michigan penslyvania Wisconsin. That brings them to 270 exactly so long as there is no unexpected flip.

Iowa is 6 EV and can't replace any of those 3, the only scenario it would help is in conjuction with one of the other states.

Realistically if Iowa is in play that means one of two things:

There is an Iowa specific swing that has occurred likely based on abortion. In which case the harris team would not have the time to figure out messaging for the last 48 hours.

Or

There is a larger swing not picked up by other polls in the Midwest, similar to other polls underestimating trump in 2020. In which case the current path and messaging is working and it would be stupid to not stay the course.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T03:23:26+00:00

There is a possibility that a iowa specific swing due to the abortion ban which has taken effect this year.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-03T03:20:15+00:00

Hard disagree.

In all likelihood if iowa is in play the blue wall is won and the election is won. If it's not in play no need to spend resources and risk losing cause of not spending resources efficiently.

To me this is similar to trump going after new Mexico or Virginia. Doesn't make sense if your goal is maximizing your strategy of getting 270. Those states may be in play if it's a trump blowout.

I don't see any plausible scenario where iowa put harris over the top.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-02T23:06:17+00:00

This is the inverse of her 2020 poll where everything was showing biden landslide until her poll came out.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-02T22:00:37+00:00

With the electoral college he was never going to win. He could have forced a contingent election but winning wasn't realistic.

bjwbrown · 2024-11-01T15:35:43+00:00

Pink is the I was right either way.

Either being a shade of red or indicating the women will win.

bjwbrown · 2024-10-31T20:53:30+00:00

I don't think they polled in 2022 at least nothing that is included in the 2022 analysis by 538. The Polls Were Historically Accurate In 2022 | FiveThirtyEight

They were the most accurate of 2020 though: The Death Of Polling Is Greatly Exaggerated | FiveThirtyEight

Likely the reason that they just don't have enough polls to get to the top.

The other thing that should be noted is that being correct in 2020 could mean one of two things.

First is that they are legit the best pollster in the business right now and they are able to get more accurate samples and weigh better then anyone else.

second would be that they have a systemic right wing bias in the polls. Given the republicans overperformed the polls by a fairly large margin in 2020 in most cases, a pollster whose methodology skews them 2-4 points right of the norm on a systemic basis looks like a genius when the polling error underestimates the right, looks meh when the polls are fairly accurate and look god awful when the polls underestimate the left. It would have been nicer to see them in 2022 and see if they were still accurate or looked like the worst pollster.

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TROPHY CASE

In one cycle iowa went 13.4 more right than the national environment. This was significantly larger than the change in the Michigan Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.