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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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A few months after the initial need, this week the stimulus package finally got help to me. The stimulus check arrived. And, more important to me, the company I work for finally had its PPP loan approved. So that’s good.

It is still frustrating. These things should have happened sooner. I have enough savings and if worst came to worst, I could have moved in with family. So the delay wasn’t bad for me (except for the stress of not knowing about my job) but it really should have been faster for people who needed it right away.

Anyway, go wash your hands right now.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Lauren Mayer: It’s not nice to screw Mother Nature.

Stephen chats with Joe Biden, Part I.

Stephen chats with Joe Biden, Part II.

Hasan Minhaj: What happens if you can’t pay rent?

Roll Call: Doggy doo, rucksacks and Starbucks—Congressional hits and misses of the week.

ТрампPlague:

Bill Maher: New Rule—Prime boss.

Winlar: Strip mall zoo.

Jonathan Mann: Climb the rope! Thanks, China (Ben Sasse Commencment remix).

Trevor: President Obama speaks to the Class of 2020.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Open Thread (What Even Are Days?)

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Good for AG Ferguson for getting 2 gyms to close during the stay home order. Honestly, I couldn’t imagine a worse place to choose to be than at the gym right now. Can’t wait to share equipment with people who are heavily breathing, indoors, and depending on the layout maybe impossible to social distance. One of the gyms says that it’s taking precautions, but still ick.

Anyway, wash your hands right now.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Samantha Bee: RoboSam and the rise of telemedicine.

The Daily Show: A message for the graduation class of 2020.

John Oliver: USPS.

Jonathan Mann: You chose Alex Jones.

Vox: Why beef is the worst food for the climate.

TрампPlague:

Dulcé Sloan: Why should you fill out the 2020 census?

Barack and Michelle Obama crash a virtual town hall.

BuzzFeed: Everything you need to know about murder hornets in 6 minutes.

The Daily Show: Womansplained—The wage gap, female representation & the E.R.A.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Open Thread Open Thread Open Thread

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Now that Darryl is doing the polling analysis, I want to remind you that you are a participant in the system. and family. Seeing the polls can make the election seem like it’s a force of nature. But the good news is that you can make a difference. You can donate. You can make calls. You can write about the candidates online or a letter to the editor. Send a postcard to a voter. Talk to your friends.

You are also a participant in washing your hands so wash them right now.

Election analysis: Biden still leads

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Biden
Trump
> 99.9% probability of winning
< 0.01% probability of winning
Mean of 348 electoral votes
Mean of 190 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Biden is still leading in today’s analysis. Last week, the score was 359 to 179 electoral votes (on average). Today, after 10,000 simulated elections, Biden receives, on average 348 to Trump’s 190 electoral votes.

The difference largely arises from Ohio, where one poll has dropped out and one new poll has been released. Now the three current polls give Trump a 51.3% to 48.7% advantage over Biden, suggesting he would win the state now with an 82% probability. Here is the polling in Ohio to date:

That 4th Marist poll with Biden up +4 dropped out and a new Emerson University poll was released with Trump up +3. Biden won every poll taken in 2018 and 2019, but the candidates have led in two polls apiece in 2020.

Florida is another interesting case. The collection of 4 current polls gives Biden a 51.6% to 48.4% lead over Trump, suggesting Biden would win the state now with a 98.8% probability. The long-term polling shows somewhat mixed results, but Biden leads in the most recent 5 polls. So far, in Florida polling, Biden has led in 13, Trump in 6 and there is one tie.

Finally, let’s look at Wisconsin. You may recall that in 2016, Trump won Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes. With only one current poll in hand, Biden leads Trump 57.2% to 42.8%, suggesting Biden would win a Wisconsin election now with a probability greater than 99%. The large margin is misleading in the larger contest of the total polling for the state:

There have been 31 polls testing a Biden–Trump election, all taken since March of 2019. Biden has led in 25 of the polls and Trump in six. But most of the leads are well within the margin of error. Biden has led in the last 6 consecutive polls. The net result is that Wisconsin still feels like a swing state with an edge for Biden.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]

Open Thread Wednesday May 13

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King County’s directive for mask wearing goes into effect on May 18. But if you can, please start wearing masks before that. You can help make the community safer.

As a Downtown resident, I find it somewhat amusing that “outdoors where social distancing is difficult” is district from “outdoors.” There are a lot of people outside regardless.

Anyway, please wash your hands right now.

Open Thread Monday

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Are you tired? I am. For the last few days, my neighbor’s alarm has been going off at 10:00 PM the last few days. It’s loud enough to keep me up. I knocked on her door over the weekend, but nobody came to the door. I know that she has family in the area, so she’s probably fine. Should I ask the super to check on it?

Anyway, go wash your hands right now.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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The Daily Show: Tucker Carlson vs. Tucker Carlson, protest edition.

Jaboukie Young-White: Ending the ban on gay blood donors

Now This: Obama surprises teachers for national teacher appreciation week.

Jonathan Mann: Alex Jones will eat your leftist ass:

The Late Show: John Ratcliffe vs. Bear Inventor.

ТрампPlague:

Bill Maher: New Rule–Sex monster.

Joe Biden gives an address on the economy.

Jonathan Mann: Murder hornets.

Seth Meyers: Hey! Democrats praising George W. Bush.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Election analyses are back for 2020: Biden leads Trump

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Biden
Trump
> 99.9% probability of winning
< 0.01% probability of winning
Mean of 359 electoral votes
Mean of 179 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

It’s been some years since you’ve seen one of these election analyses here at HA. Given that Biden and Trump will almost certainly be the nominees of their parties, and given that there are more than 300 state head-to-head polls released, it is time to start these up again.

These analyses use state head-to-head polls and mimic the electoral college process as well as following the rules of each state on how electors are awarded in the state. Most states (and D.C.) use the rule “winner takes all,” but Maine and Nebraska allocates two electors to the state victor and the rest go by the vote of each congressional district.

There are a few states that have no polling yet. These are D.C. (not a state, but it gets three electors anyway), Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. Clearly, these are not swing states. I’ve simply averaged the result from the past 4 elections and always award electors from the state that way. The results are exactly what you would expect–Illinois goes to Biden, South Dakota goes to Trump, etc. Interestingly, Nebraska’s 2nd CD just barely went for Obama in 2008, but NE-2 will be assigned to Trump in these analyses until we get polling that allows the state to be rolled into the simulations.

New polls come out almost daily, so I’ll post new analyses when I have time to collect polls, conduct the analyses, and post results.

So, how do these analyses work? I am using a statistical method called Monte Carlo analysis to, essentially, conduct mock elections in each state. The outcome of each state election is a probabilistic outcome that reflects the number of people polled recently in the state and the fraction of polled individuals saying they would vote for each candidate. Currently, I consider the last two months of polling as “current”, but that window will shrink as the pace of polling picks up. I usually do 100,000 mock elections to simulate what would happen if the election was held now. The FAQ has the details, although I need to update the FAQ for this election cycle.

Note that I do not claim these analyses predict the election outcome. Rather they reflect what we would expect for an election held now. It serves as something like the score in a basketball game. The half-time score only tells you who is leading. A lopsided score may give you an inkling of who will win, but it is just the half-time score. Watching a basketball game is far more interesting when you are allowed to know the score. Likewise, knowing the “score” in an election contest is much more interesting. In developing these analyses, I have tried to be scrupulously unbiased. If all the polls were to be flipped, Trump’s results would look like Biden’s, and Biden’s Trump’s.

Okay, so what would the outcome be if the election was held today? After 100,000 simulated elections, Biden wins every simulated election. Biden received (on average) 359 electoral votes to Trump’s 179 electoral votes. In an election held now, Biden would have a greater than 99.9% probability of winning and Trump would have a less than 0.01% probability of winning.

The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 06-May-2019 to 06-May-2020, and including polls from the preceding two months. When the purple line is above the dashed line, it means Biden is expected to win. The red and green lines provide “confidence intervals”. For example, at each time point, there was a 95% chance that any simulated election fell between the green lines. If the lower green line dips down to touch the dashed line, it means Trump would have a 2.5% chance of winning.

Here is a plot showing the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] that resulted from the 100,000 simulated elections for the analysis done today (essentially, a vertical slice from the previous graph at today’s date):

[There is much more, including state-by-state analyses below the fold….]

[Read more…]

Open Thread Wednesday May 6

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I don’t get the people who are rushing to reopen. The economy is awful and nobody is happy staying in. But suing to infect more of your constituents is just garbage. Like more death is good for the economy, somehow. Like if your employees all get sick and some die it’s a goo day at work. Like going to a restaurant or a bowling alley now would even be reasonable. Ugh.

Anyway, please wash your hands right now.

Open Thread Monday

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92 people in Washington dead of COVID-19 stinks. And yet it marks our first week down to double digits. Social distancing and hand washing and mask wearing have made a difference. It’s tougher to quantify how many people are still around because we did those things. But they are because you did.

So keep it up. Go wash your hands right now.

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