My sense is the majority of members are grounded in reality.


Sure we have a handful of concerned folk, and I believe a growing contingent of pot-stirring concern trolls. But those represent a small minority of the DU community.

Again thanks for the article, and I agree: donate, volunteer, pushback!

... to an similar article I posted last week and over reacted to preclude a recurrence. My apologizes if I offended.

However, it bothers me when some people on DU prefer to live in a fantasy world which abhors any bad news. Complacency born of willful ignorance is a sure path to losing elections.

... seeing people can and will look at the details.

LV polls with 2004 voting models (seeing 2006 the voting demo shifted dem because of minority vote) and ignoring 08 and 12 voting years is beyond asinine.

It is a total unwillingness to look reality in the face. If you think you can depend unerringly on past election voting models in this totally atypical election cycle, my friend you are drinking too much Democratic cool aid.

Many an election has been lost due of to complacency. No election has ever been lost because a candidate's base was animated to vote fearing they might lose. In such cases no one sits at home and doesn't bother to vote and fewer vote for a third party candidates because they think that their vote is not needed.

You can sit on your butt if you choose to because you wrongfully believe that the election is in the bag. The realistic among us are going to contribute until it hurts and work our butts of to make sure it happens.

... look under the cover.

Under the cover a lot of the LV polling techniques are depending on a voting trend that's outdated by at least a decade.

2006 they should've updated the LV voting blocs and they haven't

QUESTION: Has there usually be such a large swing in LV vs RV polling results?

tia

Well let me bust your bubble - Nate Silver applies statistical techniques to current poll results correcting for bias and weighting the individual polls against each other based on their accuracy and timeliness. He then uses the results of those statistical analysis to predict which candidate will win each of the 50 states.

Now I don't care whether you believe that his techniques are valid or not, but here is what you need to know: In the 2008 when he first applied his statistical techniques to the Presidential election, he correctly predicted the winner in 49 of 50 states and the District of Columbia. He then did some fine tuning of his model and 2012 he correctly predicted the winner in every state.

When Silver's results shows that Hillary has already lost her leads in key battleground states and that her leads in other battleground states is dwindling to the point that hear led in electoral votes is in danger, only a fool would not pay attention. I can guarantee you that the Clinton campaign is paying close attention.

But by all means feel free to continue sitting pretty in your complacent shell, hiding from reality. Meanwhile we realist will do the heavy lifting to insure that Hillary wins. I for one have already wasted too much time on you. It should have been sufficient to warn you not to read this post if you don't like bad news.

any where near logical in these polls relative to the data for a decade ago.

I don't see how that's not communicating here.

I'll ask this question again; has there historically be such a swing in LV vs RV voting during the 2000's?

tia

....historical trends or the current situation? If you are realistic you look at the current situation.

Yes, historical trends support a Democratic victory in November - no doubt about it. If Hillary can effectively harness the Obama coalition, she will win. Again no doubt about it. But the real question can she effectively get out that vote? When you think about the main ingredients of the Obama coalition, that is not going to be as easy as it seems due to a number of factors. These are some of the factors which make 2016 much different from 2008 and 2012:

Factor 1: While Hillary has the support to the vast majority of the black population, can she possibly generated the enthusiasm the black community had for voting for the the man who would be come the first black President. No one can possibly do that. That is why a huge GOTV campaign is essential to winning.

Factor 2: Hillary just completed a bruising primary campaign with Bernie Sanders who convinced many of his biggest group of supporters, young people - another key voting block of the Obama coalition - that Hillary is not to be trusted. Right here on DU we experienced some of the hate that was exhibited towards Hillary. That hate doesn't dissipate quickly. Some of those young people will vote third party or refuse to vote on principle. Most are simply not as enthused to vote for Hillary as they were for Obama and that segment of the population historically has the lowest voting participation rates. Again only a massive GOTV effort will get enough of them to the polls.

Factor 3: Unlike Obama, Hillary has been on the political scene for many years and she has been the subject of Republican smear campaigns from the very beginning. This has understandably left its scars causing her to be less open. All of this has contributed to her low poll number in the trust category. This has in general made many people less enthusiastic about voting for her.

Factor 4: Trump. This despicable character is probably the most unusual major Party presidential candidate in our country's history. The media has yet to figured out how to deal with him effectively. He lies so often no one can possibly go behind him and dispute all of his falsehoods, so many of them stick in minds of the majority of the public which isn't paying a lot of attention. He changes positions on issues like a chameleon changes color. Worst of all he appeals strongly to a large portion of American society who are as despicable as he is, and they are very enthusiastic about voting for him.

Factor 5: The rise of third party candidates: With both major candidates with low approval ratings, some voters are looking for another alternatives and they have found them in third party candidates. I have tried to perform analysis as to whether Johnson and Stein together are hurting Hillary or Trump worse, but the results are far from clear. What is clear is that if either candidate were able to attract all people who currently say they are going to vote third party, that person would win by a landslide. Normally as elections grow closer, support of third party candidates grow weaker, but no one knows if those people will break for Hillary or Trump.

Factor 6: The debates; Trump's unusual debating style enabled him to dispatch many more qualified candidates. Will Hillary be able to handle him? We certainly hope so, but know one really knows for sure. This is a huge unknown.

So there are very important reasons why historical trends may not hold this election season. Given the reality of the recent polls, anyone who is counting on historical trends to save the day for Hillary either isn't aware of what is going on or is fooling him/herself.

Hard to read beyond the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

... until they believe the sky is falling. They are happy in their snug little world and don't like to hear bad news.

That said, I never once indicated anywhere in my post that "the sky is falling!". Go back and read it again and you will find it is one factual statement after another. Not once did I exaggerate on reality. If any reader concluded from those facts that the sky is falling, that is a perception they formed on their own.

Is the democrats lose, filibuster all of Trumps disastrous attempts at ruining this country, win HUGE in the midterms to retake the senate and with some luck the house, then in 4 years we see a landslide by a democratic candidate.

But, I'm grounded in reality. And the reality is that, while this race has tightened, trump showed again today why he can't be trusted to keep a lead.

I know you're all scared. But the debates will ease your pain. It's going to be a bloodbath and trump will be the one on the proverbial gurney.

But in my opinion it depends a great deal on how the moderators handle Trump. If we have a reenactment of the Commander and Chief forum, it won't go well. If the moderators push back hard every time Trump tries to tell a flat lie, and Hilary piles on, Hillary will win going away. If Hillary has to call out every lie herself, it will be much more difficult.