The election is coming to a close, and it’s kind of depressing. So let’s talk about something nicer:
Syphilis is at a 30 year high in King County. But the good news is you can get tested if you’re in one of the high risk groups. And you can get treated.
Only a week to go! Let’s celebrate with an evening of politics, conversation and catharsis over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
https://youtu.be/tWXP6GbZXYM
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
I finally finished my ballot, and dropped it off. While I was filling it out, I was struck by the fact that the only Green Party person asking for my vote was for President (2 if you count VP). Now, I didn’t vote for her, and frankly anyone not running as a Democrat is one strike against them.
But there are some positions where if the Greens are serious about running, I’d give them a look. I live in the 36th District and none of my legislators had someone running against them. Now I think I’d have voted for either of the House members over some long-shot from a different party. I could see the Greens doing some good trying to push Gael Tarleton to the left with a campaign, but I wouldn’t be on board.
But Reuven Carlyle? I mean he’s been pushing charters for years. He’s now on team I-hate-the-homeless, and opposed to rail to Ballard. I’d rather see a challenge from a Democrat, but it seems like if the Greens insist on running candidates, those sorts of offices will do a lot more good than running for President.
My analysis last Tuesday showed control of the Senate going to the Democrats with a 63.5% probability and 50 seats. I’ve added a bunch of new Senate polls since then, and things look tied up.
Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Democrats have a Senate majority 15,370 times and there were 32,633 ties (which I presume would go to the Democrats), and Republicans control the Senate 51,997 times. So, in an election held today, Democrats would have a 48% probability of controlling the Senate and Republicans would have a 52% probability of controlling the Senate.
Essentially, the Senate is a toss-up. Here are the most important changes since Tuesday.
In the Democrats’ favor, Indiana has gained some clarity from a couple of new polls that favor Democrat Evan Bayh over Republican Todd Young. Bayh’s chances have gone from 56% to 89%.
Three new polls in Missouri move the race in favor of Republican Sen. Roy Blunt over Democrat Jason Kander. Blunt has gone from a a 35% chance last Tuesday to a 78% chance of taking the seat today.
In Nevada, we have a battle between Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto and Republican Joe Heck for Sen. Harry Reid’s (D) old seat. We have seven new polls and a couple of continuing polls since Tuesday, when Heck led in every poll. Today, Heck leads in 5 and Masto leads in 4 polls. Consequently, Heck’s chances have declined from 96% to 54%…pretty much a toss-up.
Today, we have eight new North Carolina polls and four carry-overs from last Tuesday, when the polls pretty evenly split between Democrat Deborah Ross and Republican Sen. Richard Burr. But the new polls have almost entirely gone against the Ross, and her chances have declined from 69% on Tuesday to 10% today.
In Pennsylvania, we have five new polls and five carry-over polls. The new polls have been a bit less favorable to Democrat Katie McGinty. Her chances against Republican Sen. Pat Toomey have declined a bit from 69% to 46%–basically the state is a toss-up.
Here is the distribution of Senate seats from the simulations:*
This graphs shows the probability of at least each number of seats controlled by the Democrats:*
Expected outcomes from the simulations:
This table shows the number of Senate seats controlled for different criteria for the probability of winning a state:* Safe>0.9999, Strong>90%, Leans>60%, Weak>50%
| Threshold | Safe | + Strong | + Leans | + Weak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Democrat | 46 | |||
| Strong Democrat | 1 | 47 | ||
| Leans Democrat | 1 | 1 | 48 | |
| Weak Democrat | 0 | 0 | 0 | 48 |
| Weak Republican | 2 | 2 | 2 | 52 |
| Leans Republican | 3 | 3 | 50 | |
| Strong Republican | 4 | 47 | ||
| Safe Republican | 43 |
This table summarizes the results by state. Click on the poll number to see the individual polls included for a state.
| # | Sample | % | % | Dem | Rep | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| State | @ | polls | size | Dem | Rep | % wins | % wins |
| AL | 0 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||
| AK | 1 | 320 | 23.4 | 76.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| AZ | 3 | 1425 | 42.9 | 57.1 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| AR | 1 | 398 | 39.4 | 60.6 | 0.2 | 99.9 | |
| CA | 2 | 1137 | 66.3 | 33.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| CO | 4 | 2463 | 57.5 | 42.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| CT | 1& | 872 | 61.7 | 38.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| FL | 13 | 8100 | 47.4 | 52.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| GA | 4 | 3001 | 42.4 | 57.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| HI | 0 | 0 | (100) | (0) | |||
| ID | 2 | 1309 | 30.2 | 69.8 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| IL | 2 | 1780 | 57.1 | 42.9 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| IN | 3 | 1361 | 52.3 | 47.7 | 88.5 | 11.5 | |
| IA | 1 | 744 | 40.5 | 59.5 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| KS | 1 | 506 | 36.2 | 63.8 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| KY | 1& | 440 | 43.2 | 56.8 | 1.9 | 98.1 | |
| LA | 1& | 794 | 34.6 | 65.4 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| MD | 1& | 614 | 66.6 | 33.4 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| MO | 3 | 1450 | 48.6 | 51.4 | 22.2 | 77.8 | |
| NV | 9 | 6135 | 49.9 | 50.1 | 46.4 | 53.6 | |
| NH | 9 | 5573 | 49.6 | 50.4 | 32.6 | 67.4 | |
| NY | 1 | 568 | 71.0 | 29.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| NC | 14 | 8208 | 49.0 | 51.0 | 10.0 | 90.0 | |
| ND | 0 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||
| OH | 9 | 5050 | 41.5 | 58.5 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| OK | 0 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||
| OR | 2 | 1619 | 61.7 | 38.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| PA | 11 | 6155 | 49.9 | 50.1 | 45.8 | 54.2 | |
| SC | 1& | 941 | 38.4 | 61.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| SD | 0 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||
| UT | 2 | 983 | 31.8 | 68.2 | 0.0 | 100.0 | |
| VT | 2 | 1085 | 70.9 | 29.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| WA | 1 | 462 | 63.0 | 37.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | |
| WI | 6 | 3659 | 53.5 | 46.5 | 99.8 | 0.2 |
@ Current party in office
& An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
*Analysis assume that the two independent candidates will caucus with the Democrats.
Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.
Follow @hominidviews on Twitter for Senate and Presidential polling and analysis updates.
Job 9:23
When a good person dies a sudden death, God sits back and laughs.
Discuss.
Stephen with the WERD: Debt Offensive.
Funny or Die: Hey New Hampshire, let’s vote! with Ben Affleck.
Young Turks: Sheriff Joe Arpaio charged with criminal contempt.
Epic Rap Battle: Hillary v. Drumpf.
Sam Seder” Sen. Mark Kirk blurts out racist comment about opponent Tammy Duckworth during debate
Samantha Bee: UN Tour.
WaPo: Eleven women who broke barriers in Washington D.C..
Mental Floss: 25 life hacks for Halloween.
The 2016 Sexual Offender Clown Show:
Challenging, frustrating, fantastic: Life as a woman in the White House.
Roll Call: Election forecast with 2 weeks to go.
President Obama on VOTING.
Key of Awesome: (Hamilton Parody) Hillary Rodham Clinton!:
Clinton Makes History:
Kimmel: 500 weeks of Unnecessary Censorship.
Young Turks: Is FBI’s James Comey trying to manipulate the election?
John Oliver: Opioids.
Samantha Bee: First: Do No Harm. Second: Do No Pussy Stuff.:
How Hollywood views the women of Washington D.C.
Hillary Makes History:
Funny or Die: Hey America, let’s vote! with Judd Apatow.
Honest political ads: You’re fucked.
Farron Cousins: Ted Cruz proves that Republicans are whiny toddlers.
Trevor Noah: ObamaCare.
Newt “Cheating On My Wives For America” Gingrich:
Adam Conover joins Stephen to ruin things.
White House: West Wing Week.
2,000 Seattle teachers unite in solidarity with #BlackLivesMatter.
Obama and Kimmel: Waking up.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
I’ve never really understood why our increasingly Democratic state still has a Republican Sec of State. And has had one for ever. But at least with most of the previous ones, they never seemed to have their hand on the scale. Sure, sometimes they’d propose bad ideas like only counting ballots received by election day.
Now though, it seems every day there’s some new fuckery from Wyman’s office.
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About 40 new polls have been released since my previous analysis a week ago. Sec. Hillary Clinton was winning with near certainty and up 338 electoral votes to Donald Trump’s 200 electoral votes.
Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 99,925 times and Trump wins 75 times. Clinton received (on average) 333 to Trump’s 205 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a greater than 99.9% probability of winning and Trump would have a less than 0.01% probability of winning.
A few states have shown some interesting changes since last week.
The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 27 Oct 2015 to 27 Oct 2016, and including polls from the preceding 21 days (FAQ).
An animated sequence of maps and electoral vote distributions can be seen here
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]
I’m pretty much under the assumption that the NBA wants to punish Seattle for not caving to all of some random OKC millionaire’s demands. So I’m not sure Chris Hansen’s proposal to pay for all of a new stadium (video auto-loads) will do much to bring back the Sonics. And I this all still requires vacating Occidental, that was the sticking point for the City Council last time. Still, the city not being on the hook for any of the stadium sounds pretty good to me.
We’re in the final weeks of the 2016 General Elections and the ballots have dropped win Washington state. Isn’t this a good time for a drink? The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight. Please join us for an evening of politics over a pint.
We meet every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern beginning about 8pm.
https://youtu.be/XvgnOqcCYCM
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other 188 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.
I’ve largely neglected local and statewide races this election season. No particular reason, although I haven’t felt that the Republican candidates in the Senate and Gubernatorial races have run particularly strong campaigns.
I guess it isn’t too late though. And today’s Elway poll piqued my interest in the Gubernatorial race. The race matches up Gov. Jay Inslee (D) against challenger Bill Bryant (R).
The poll, conducted from 20 Oct. to 22 Oct on 502 likely voters has a margin of error of 4.5%. Of the 502 respondents, 452 are either for Inslee or Bryant. Inslee received 256 “votes” (51.0%) and Bryant received 196 “votes” (39.0%), with Other or Undecided at 50 “votes” (10.0%). When we normalize the results to just Inslee and Bryant “votes,” Inslee gets 56.6% and Bryant gets 43.4%
I did a Monte Carlo simulation of 1,000,000 simulated elections. The final tally gave Inslee 975,893 wins and Bryant 22,276 wins. In other words, if an election was held now, we would expect Inslee to win with a 97.8% probability, and Bryant with a 2.2% probability.
The probability distribution of electoral vote outcomes pretty much tells the story:
The previous poll, by Strategies 360 taken from 29 Sep to 3 Oct, gave similar results. The poll surveyed 500 individuals (4.4% MOE) and found Inslee at 50% to Bryant’s 40%, with 10% undecided.
With two weeks to go and ballots already being returned, it seems like Inslee is quite likely to serve a second term.
You probably should have your ballot by now if you’re living in Washington. Here are the locations to drop them off in King County. Otherwise, have them postmarked by the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
Damn, there’s a lot on my ballot. I hesitate to even call it downballot, since there are so many initiatives, charter amendments, and whatnot before President. And there are far too many non-partisan positions or people from the same party on my ballot. If it’s all too confusing, The Stranger, Seattlish, and Washington NARAL help sort through the confusion with their endorsements, voter guides, etc.
Genesis 6:1-4
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
Discuss.
Stephen helps Obama polish his résumé.
John Oliver: Third Parties.
Captain Khan:
Alternatino: An interview with Mussolini.
Colbert: Julian Assange cannot leak any more emails.
Minute Physics: How entropy powers the earth.
The 2016 Alt-Right Sexual Predator Show:
Mental Floss: 26 facts about the science of family.
A Woman’s Guide to the White House.
Kimmel’s week in unnecessary censorship.
Colbert: Pretty much everybody was on Hillary Clinton’s list of potential VPs.
Bill Maher: A bone to pick with undecided voters.
This is Your Debate on Drugs:
White House: West Wing Week.
Stephen considers fleeing America.
Undecided voters.
Ohio for President.
Kimmel: A message from Canada to America.
Trevor: Clinton’s leaked emails.
Robert Reich: How Democrats take back the Senate.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
I’ve been trying to articulate this, because it’s really not how debates are supposed to work. And in normal times, maybe a bar this low wouldn’t apply. But in all 3 of the debates, I’ve been very impressed with Hillary Clinton saying things I disagree with:
After the first debate, a lot of liberals complained about her position on NAFTA. Fair, enough, I thought she was wrong on the policy. But I also appreciated her defense of trade more generally and of what future trade policies should look like. You can, and should, argue the policy but she clearly knew what she was talking about, and I hope we can hold her to that in future trade negotiations.
In the second and third debates, Syria policy came up. In the second debate, there was discussion of arming the rebels. Those rebels are probably better people than the current regime, but honestly it’s not our place to arm them. There’s also considerable possibility of blowback and of those weapons ending up in the wrong hands (and that could include the hands we gave them to, 20 years on). That said, Trump was complaining about the policy and he said “She doesn’t even know who the rebels are” and after a lot of Trump nonsense, including a back and forth with one of the moderators, Clinton casually explained who she would arm and why, when I think most people would have just let it go.
In the third debate they discussed a no fly zone. From my perspective, this is a bad use of American military. It’s an act of war, and I think it makes things worse. But I also appreciated her discussion of what the goals of an no fly zone would be and the diplomacy would look like to put it in place.
This is running pretty long for an open thread, so I’ll stop it here: I don’t think I’ll ever have a candidate who I agree with on all the issues, but when I watch Hillary Clinton speak, I’m at least glad that it’s her, smart, competent, prepared, even when I disagree.
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