wheatrich - goofy is right and you are wrong and you should stop

538 doesn't just throw **** against the wall, they do this for a living, do it better than anyone else, and have put hundreds of hours into the model. you are spitballing on a message board based on individual polls.

No. DUCY?

Please. 538 has different forecasts including a polls-only one and you're still here crying about 4 R pickups being "in play" when the polls only forecast has it at...6%. Rs getting 4+ pickups has a lower chance, in polls-only, than Ds controlling the Senate.

Or, more briefly:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...ex_cid=rrpromo

By "Rs gain 4" did you happen to mean "Rs have 4 more than Dems"? As in, Rs lead 52-48 or better?

Because if not, you are wrong.

EDIT: I misread your post, you are actually saying you're smarter than 538, to which I say we should probably bet on this.

What happened to wheatrich? Didn't he used to be a quality poster? Seems like the last month every post he makes is a negative dig on dems or an attempt to squash dem enthusiasm.

I suspect the best turnout effort is to get 3-5 friends and family to vote (assuming they will vote for the right persons) if they might not otherwise do so. Probably easily worth 200 text messages or phone calls.

I really don't care if anyone cheerleads the Dems or trashes their chances, I just marvel at the arrogance it must take to think I, random internet guy, can predict elections better than Nate Silver.

The Venn diagram of people who think election projections are significantly off and people who think the Giants should have kicked the XP Monday night must have >90% overlap

This is my strategy. I'm solely focused on flipping my grandparents and 1 friend (all of whom will vote but probably Republican). I think every young person who cares should make the emotional plea to any older relatives who could conceivably flip and then convince any like-minded peers to actually vote.

Don't bother with the "it doesn't matter which way you vote, just vote" lines though. If someone is voting Republican it absolutely is better that they not vote so don't encourage them to do so. Obviously they still have the right to vote and can if they want to, but there is no sense in making an effort to get them to vote.

I've gotten 3 friends who don't vote to vote so far. I feel like I should have done better though. I have access to a bunch of liberal hippies who are very progressive but don't vote because they don't think it matters. I tried talking to some but couldn't convince them voting does matter

I've flipped a couple people (over a long haul - like years of discussions on issues), I've gotten one unregistered friend to register, two others to confirm they're registered and plan to vote (they usually wouldn't). Unfortunately, none of these are really in swing districts. Two in MD (so maybe if tons of people are doing this, Jealous is drawing slightly live) and one in NJ-02 (it'll be a flipped district for the Ds, but not a swing race).

I plan on volunteering in a swing district in PA with a friend on election day, and in a swing district in NY a few days prior to election day (it's very far away, but I've made it personal to me to do something to help defeat the scumbag there). I may or may not phone bank or text bank. I'm doing lots of reminding on Facebook, and also encouraging others to do the little things like getting friends to vote.

If even a million people are doing this nationwide, it could be the type of thing the polls totally miss. (But a model like 538 should incorporate the chance of that.)

The 538 odds for Dems on the Senate are down to about 17%, which is to be expected. As wheatrich keeps pointing out the polls look pretty bad for any gain. What he's missed, in part, is that the farther you are from election day the more uncertainty the model should build in. As a result, it should creep down a bit between now and then if the polling seems the same. Here are their odds on the key races:

Dems Defending
West Virginia - Manchin - 89%
Montana - Tester - 84%
Florida - Nelson - 68%
Indiana - Donnelly - 67%
Missouri - McCaskill - 58%
North Dakota - Heitkamp - 27%

GOP Defending
Texas - Cruz - 80%
Tennessee - Blackburn - 75%
Nevada - Heller - 55%
Arizona - McSally - 39%

So, the most likely outcome seems to be a push. Swap Heitkamp in ND for Sinema in AZ, which may be a net gain for Dems in terms of quality of Senator and likelihood of holding the seat long term. McCaskill is in a flip as-is Heller.

Most of the GOP's pickup equity seems to be in the fact that they are drawing live at four additional seats, while Dems are only drawing live at two. Most of Dems pickup equity would be in the fact that if there is a polling error, it's probably more likely to be underestimating a blue wave than anything else. Note that even though 538 has the net EV as R +.7 seats, the most likely outcome is still 51-49.

I'd still be slightly surprised and highly disappointed if Heller holds his seat. That's been maybe the most likely seat to pickup since Trump won, and he's just a haircut in a suit. He's such a ****ty politician, I don't know how you manage not to knock him off in this climate and in a state with shifting demographics.

Obviously on election night we'll all be hoping against hope that Beto or Bredesen can pull it out (but really especially Beto since he's not another Manchin type), but if we can hold our ground we shouldn't be too upset and if we can manage to gain one and tie it 50-50, we should be pretty happy... Even though it wont do much of anything in the interim, it SIGNIFICANTLY boosts our odds of controlling the Senate after 2020.

It also opens the door to getting Murkowski to flip parties to get control - although they could go after Manchin the same way.

Why do you say this? 538 would be wrong if the error is biased to one side.

Liked the rest of your post.

My 18 yr. old niece texted me.

any amount of work she can do to get you to vote Beto (I think youre in TX)?

No, I'm in florida now. I've already voted. Straight democratic. First time in my entire life (and I'm old).

Awesome! Thanks for keeping an open mind about politics.

LeonardoDiClapprio.gif

I read an article today that said Nevada Dems picked a generic boring candidate specifically to best challenge Heller. Sounds like they picked the HRC 2016 Primary strategy.

Can someone keyed into NV politics explain why primary voters thought a boring vanilla D candidate was the best choice to go up against a boring vanilla GOPer?

My gut is giving me a good fewl on the Nevada Senate race. State seems bluer than polling indicates.

Dunno, but she's a bad candidate in a different way from HRC. There's just not much there - she's been in the house of reps for a year, hasn't done much. As I've posted before, for the first few months her campaign was apparently being run by someone who had no idea what the **** they were doing, although it's gotten better recently. I'd assume that she got the nod from the state dem party on the basis of longtime loyal soldier, or something.

Heller has run a pretty smart campaign - sucked up enough to Trump to get his blessing but isn't running as a maniac Trumper. I think he's banking on the generic incumbent's advantage to get him thorough - given the mediocre dem candidate, it might be enough. He's managed not to poop himself in public, anyway....

MM MD

I’d trade Manchin for Murkowski in a NY minute. Murkowski is a better democrat than Manchin anyway.

Thank you.

Seriously.

538 moved Heller from tossup to lean R and McCaskill to tossup very recently.

There was a huge move for Nelson in the polls after my +4 posts--so at this point it certainly should be downgraded to +3 with the current info.

lol @ calling me a good poster, total fake news.

Simply stated--if it's 2016 margin of error, D's get completely wrecked and if it's the other way by a few points D's still probably don't take the senate. Need the wave.

I won't bet R+4 due to nelson's move up but I'm definitely gonna entertain some props here. It's 2p2 you either put up or shut up. (i'll shut up now barring something major movement wise or bet agreement)

That all said
I'M ROOTING FOR YOU IDIOTS FFS.

This post seems bad.

So I'm talking to my super Republican uncle that lives in texas on facebook and as a joke I asked him if he was voting for Beto. He said he's not sure, he's tired of Cruz crap.

What strategy should I use to try to get him to vote beto? Obviously he's not gonna be in love with his policies. Should I just talk about how Beto seems genuine and wants to actually do things for texas?