I think your giving them too much credit - they probably would have recessed further into closed systems of thought.

Seems like there should have been more EXTREME VETTING when deciding which states to re-admit to the Union as states.

leading theory I've seen for most +ev move was to install northern leaders in these states, and helped more to rebuild. We pretty much let them keep their extremely racist leaders and oligarchs.

Maybe it's the purpose of the present simulation to determine which secession outcome is preferable.

This is some weird ****.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/sta...14460773400576

Fox is a solid pollster. Not partisan at all, maybe even slightly lean Dem.

I get fox is a solid pollster, but there is no way my brain can make sense of that. Republicans have had to of stopped doing polls because of the Roy Moore stuff, or are trolling or something.

Makes me a lot less hopeful about the doug jones 8 point lead numbers. Cuz there is no way alabamans actually favor Obama more than Trump. It's just not even remotely possible.

Typically Fox lean R, but they're a legit pollster. They're not Rasmussen.

I lived in Alabama for 2 years. Confirmed not possible.

I don't think it's that surprising. Trump got 62% in Alabama, so that's the absolute ceiling on his support there. 49% now means 13% have soured on him, seems reasonable.

It's easy to be favorable about Obama now he's not running for anything. If it were Trump v Obama, a big chunk of the people who said unfavorable for Trump and favorable for Obama would vote for Trump, because blah blah Supreme Court abortion meow chow or whatever.

Chris, that explanation does make it seem a lot more plausible, but still really hard for me to believe. Alabamans seem like the exact type that'd eat up all the lies and hate spewed by right wing media towards obama.

ok so I looked up his approval ratings by state at the end of his presidency, looks like he was 41% in alabama which is really surprising. Guess it is kinda believable.

WTF is wrong with them with Roy Moore then if 41% approved of Obama

There's going to be a little of that effect as well, not sure if it has a name, where Rs are not going to want to talk to pollsters atm, because their side are under siege.

in alabama, could it be his approval rating is at 49% in part due to Trump not being "alt right" enough? ie to the crypto facist segment of alabama he has governed to far to the left for their taste? I know this exists but not sure this effect can swing poll numbers but if it could alabama would be the place.

Trump has gone after Sessions a lot

Very weird. The prior poll they did, before the allegations, had the race tied. It seems unlikely to me the prior poll would be intentionally skewed. You could go conspiracy theory on this one pretty easily: Fox = Establishment GOP, they want Moore out, so do a push poll and try to get him to quit thinking he'll lose.

That said, that just doesn't make sense for the previous poll... So if that one was tied, a shift of eight points makes a lot of sense... Obama got 38% in both elections in Alabama, so I suppose 52% is feasible now that he's out of office. The poll also included people who weren't likely voters, which accounted for about 20% of the poll... and it doesn't get into why they disprove of Trump, so some of them could be angry he didn't build the wall yet, kick out all the brown people yet, MAGA yet, etc... Keep in mind that some of the people who disprove of a president also plan to vote for them again.

That said, the MOE is +/- 3.5%, so if we consider the possibility this was just at the extremes of the MOE, you could shift everything to:

Obama 48.5% approval
Trump 52.5% approval

Jones 46.5%
Moore 45.5%

That would make a lot more sense. The special election numbers are also based on likely voters, so depressed GOP turnout makes sense and those 50-42 numbers seem more feasible.

This. It's called response bias.

The obvious conclusion about that FNC poll is that Republicans are not responding to pollsters right now. That's both meant to be a little funny and glib but there is plenty of research about response bias demonstrates how partisan enthusiasm dampens after a scandal which is why we see what we think are big fluctuations in public sentiment and a "oh but people forget 10 minutes later!" which is actually just response bias.

Obama is not getting more popular in Alabama. GOP voters in Alabama are feeling ****ty right now and not responding to pollsters. Whether that will dampen their turnout on Election Day is the ultimate question, I guess.

FYP.

I don't think Trump is to a lesser extent at all, to me that's his defining feature and the one major takeaway from the his rise. Just sheer aggression will take you very far in life because most people are unable to deal with it and will back down rather than fight back. But it seems like that's been a staple of his entire life. In business, it seems like his go to move was to just screw everyone over because what the **** are you going to do about it? During the Republican debates, Little Marco and Low Energy Jeb! had no idea how to respond to being straight up called names and just sort of fumbled around with some mix of weak jabs back and awkward attempts to try and debate policies. And then of course grab her by the pussy, they just let you. Maybe it's because he's famous, or maybe it's just because that's how most people are wired. Most people want to avoid confrontation, even if it's someone else initiating it, so the easiest thing to do is go about your life once it's over.

So yeah, I would say Trump's go, go, go, it just manifests itself differently than a law school debate because his other defining characteristic is absolutely zero intellectual curiosity. But it doesn't matter if you know nothing about the military or know nothing about health care, all you have to do is bloviate about how you know more than the generals and Obamacare's a disaster but I'm the master dealmaker and anyone who wants to discuss details is spreading fake news. If you're comfortable picking fights, you have a huge advantage because almost everyone you pick a fight with wants nothing more than to end it as quickly as possible, even if that means they get the worst of the exchange.

It'll take you far in life if you're born into a position of power, or wait to start doing it when you're in a position of power. In many cases people who want to fight back cannot. A great example from my own life: I was doing contract website development/management work for a company, and when they decided to move on to a new person they stiffed me on the last month they owed me for. They refused to pay, so I told them I'd sue. They offered me a percentage of what they owed me - I forget if it was a quarter or half. I called two lawyers who both told me that I'd win, but I'd lose money on the whole thing because the legal fees would outweigh the win and I wasn't guaranteed to get all of that back. So I took the offer and I'm still bitter about it to this day.

The company had a lawyer on retainer... Basically, once you have a lawyer on retainer, you can blatantly screw over anyone who doesn't on a matter of up to a few thousand bucks.

Trump did that on a larger scale, but had a team of lawyers and could threaten to tangle someone up for years before they'd see their money... He was leveraging his legal team and their lack thereof.

If I tried to do that without a lawyer on retainer as, say, a small business owner, I'd find my ass in court and I'd either end up paying out the wazoo to hire a lawyer, or losing and paying what I owed and likely a penalty.

That sort of blatant aggression only works when you are playing from a position of power.

I don't know whether it was dumb luck on his part that the GOP voters didn't care, or whether he was smarter than everyone... But that stuff wouldn't fly in a Democratic primary and their responses would have worked. Maybe they just misread their own electorate - quite likely the real issue.

Very true, but it also has to do with his base having zero intellectual curiosity and a desire to over-simplify everything so that their common sense solutions (aka now his) are the best answer.

im not a politics gambling guy but what are the moore markets looking like right now?

Predictit has shares at 42c to the dollar.

People seem to forget that more than 1/4 of Alabama is black. That's 1/4 of the opulation with 95+% of them thinking Trump < Obama, so with just a bit more than 1/3 of the white voters preferring Obama it's even overall. That sounds about right.

Kayla Moore must be one of those good Christian bitches.

The pool of actual voters and the pool of respondents to a favorability pole are probably a lot different too, especially in the states that make it harder to vote.